SIR JAMES GRIGG'S STATEMENT

HC Deb 25 February 1943 vol 387 cc321-403

The Secretary of State for War (Sir James Grigg)

I beg to move, "That Mr. Deputy-Speaker do now leave the Chair."

This time last year our fortunes were at a low ebb, perhaps lower than at any time since the summer of 1940. Singapore had fallen a few days before, British troops were falling back all too rapidly in Burma, and the threat to India was growing daily. In the Middle East the Eighth Army had been pushed back again to the Gazala line, after having reached El Agheila only a short time before. On the Russian front the Germans were surviving the persistent Russian attacks throughout the winter without losing their grip on any of the key points they had captured and fortified the year before. Indeed, it was known that they were building up a formidable new striking force for the summer campaign. The U-boat war continued with unabated intensity—but there is no need for me to prolong this dismal catalogue.

Nor had we seen the end of retreats and disasters. Helped by his shorter supply line, Rommel was able on 26th May to launch his attack on the Gazala position, and just over a month later he was at the gates of Cairo and Alexandria. The issue of the Gazala battle had hung in the balance for many days, but in the end, in spite of the heavy losses inflicted on the enemy, our armoured Forces were definitely worsted, and the Eighth Army was swept back along the old familiar road. On the way back occurred the terrible incident of Tobruk, which bit very deeply into the heart and conscience of us all, and the torrent was not finally stemmed until Rommel's eyes could almost see the rich Promised Land—the literally promised land—of the Nile Delta.

All the time these events were in process Malta was undergoing intense attacks from the air. Once the Eighth Army had retreated beyond Martuba the possibility of running in convoys under fighter cover had disappeared, and to the ordeal of air bombardment there was added the threat of starvation. How she survived is a story well known to all the world, and the feats of the Island and its garrison have rivalled in heroism and glory the earlier defence of the Knights of St. John 400 years before. No praise can be too high for the share taken in the succour and defence of the Island by the Navy, the Merchant Navy and the Royal Air Force. But I should not like, in renewing our tribute to these Services, to overlook what was done by the soldiers, both British and Maltese, during those dark days. The anti-aircraft gunners, for example, destroyed more than 100 Axis aircraft in the month of April alone. Equally valuable, if less spectacular, was the work of thousands of other soldiers, who, besides manning the defences of the Island, were called upon to maintain airfields and build new ones, fill in craters, remove wreckage and incidentally to unload the all too rare ships while bombs fell around them. Bomb disposal, rescue work and fire fighting were the daily tasks of the Army in Malta and all this on a diet which was very little more than enough to support existence.

In the Far East until well into the summer the Japanese continued to stretch out, Westwards towards India and Southwards towards Australia. After the disasters of Singapore and deprived of the assistance of the U.S. fleet, there was little we could do to stop them, and they quickly completed their conquest of the Malayan barrier and advanced deeply into Burma. Here, however, they were slowed up by General Alexander's masterly withdrawal. By keeping his force undivided and by imposing the greatest possible delay, he prevented the enemy from reaching the Assam border before the rains came in May, and vital time was gained which enabled Field Marshal Wavell to organise the defences of India. It was undoubtedly a great feat of arms, this Burma campaign; it was fought under great disadvantages, but largely due to their fine fighting spirit and good leadership our men survived this most gruelling of retreats through what is perhaps the most difficult country in the world. It is foolish to try to anticipate the judgments of history, but it is quite conceivable that this campaign may prove to have been the crucial point in deciding the fate of the Japanese hegemony.

To add to our discomfiture, there were what seemed to us then the heavy misfortunes of our Soviet Allies. After holding the early Russian attacks near Kharkov, the Germans broke through to the heart of Stalingrad and the Northern foothills of the Caucasus. In retrospect we can see that these retreats were less disastrous than they looked, and it is possible, of course, that Stalin had decided to repeat Kutusoff's strategy against Napoleon. Space is the easiest thing for Russia to give up, and the Germans certainly gained lots of space, but they gained very little else—certainly not oil, nor the vital passes of the Caucasus, and certainly not the destruction of the Russian Armies. On the other hand, they suffered immense losses in that for them most precious of all commodities—manpower—and once they had failed to consolidate themselves on the Volga they were in a very vulnerable position. However, it did not look at all like this six or eight months ago. But all this time there were powerful factors developing in our favour, and the immense resources, the reserve power and the spirit of the United Nations were bound to tell in the long run. In the latter part of the summer these factors began to assert themselves and the enemy's apparently irresistible progress was definitely halted, and finally, in recent months, we have seen it put into reverse.

The magnificent defence of Stalingrad and the Caucasus meant the end of all German dreams of a Russian collapse. It meant more than that, for once the Germans failed to break up the Soviet Forces and to get the oil of Caucasia the winter was bound to be a terrible ordeal for them. To-day the Sixth Army, which had so nearly taken Stalingrad, has been obliterated, Rostov has gone, and only a few minor footholds remain in the Kuban. Moreover, the Russians have, further North, captured Kharkov and made deep penetrations into the defences to which the Germans clung so fiercely throughout last winter. There will clearly have to be a considerable shortening of the line, though where it will be has not yet been revealed to us.

British Armies, too, have turned to the offensive and have inflicted a heavy defeat on the Axis. After a period of recuperation and preparation, which included the defeat of Rommel's final desperate bid for Alexandria, on 23rd October the great Battle of Alamein was begun, heralded by an intense bombardment by 800 guns, with over a thousand tanks waiting to exploit any break-through by the infantry. Ten days later, the Battle of Egypt and Libya, which had been rolling to and fro ever since June, 1940, was at last and indisputably won. Three months more and the Eighth Army entered Tripoli, 1,500 miles further on, and the new Roman Empire had ceased to exist. Apart from being a glorious feat of arms, this advance was an almost incredible triumph of organisation. After the initial battle, the problem was, primarily, one of maintenance and supplies, for Rommel abandoned one prepared position after another, as soon as General Montgomery arrived in front of it in strength. I do not repeat here the tributes to General Lindsell's work which the Prime Minister and I myself have already publicly expressed. But that is only because the work speaks so clearly for itself.

Fifteen days after the attack at Alamein began, the Allied offensive was launched at the other end of the Mediterranean. This met with great initial success, for the French turned almost immediately from resistance to willing co-operation, and we were able, therefore, to start the race for Tunis much sooner than we expected. We only missed taking the prize by a narrow margin. Our chief enemy has been the weather, for two months of heavy and continual rain turned the ground into quagmires, which meant that our forces became practically roadbound. Nevertheless, these two operations between them have resulted in the clearance of the enemy from North Africa, except for the comparatively small area of Tunisia, and, although hard battles will be necessary before the process is complete, as the recent setbacks in the centre have warned us, very clearly great possibilities are open. Besides these major victories, a successful campaign has been fought by British troops in Madagascar; in the Far East the Japanese have been stopped and the operations in New Guinea and the Solomons have relieved if not removed the threat to Australia. Another sign of the turning of the tide is the preparatory advance into Burma which has brought us within sight of Akyab, 70 miles from the starting-point.

So then, the year which has passed has seen disaster turn into the beginnings of victory. It has given fresh proof of the resilience and will to conquer of our great Russian Ally. It has revealed the enormous resources available to the United Nations. It has produced, in the Eighth Army, the finest instrument of war which has, so far, been fashioned in the history of the British Empire; and it has renewed on the field of battle that great union of American, British and French troops which saw its first expression in 1918. I do not wish to give the impression that we have already won the war. I do mean to say that the black darkness of the night is over and that we can see the dawn approaching. But there is still some time yet to high noon and still more to the calm of evening.

Against this operational background, the great task of administering and organising the Army has had to be carried out. This has not been an easy undertaking, and that is why I want now to describe what has been going on behind the scenes to enable the Army to play the part it has done and to shape it for the work which it will have to do in the future. I spoke just now about the administrative triumph of the advance from Alamein to Tripoli and beyond, but I am not sure that the immense preparations required for the successful launching of the North African expedition are not equally worthy of praise.

The preparations were begun as long ago as last March. They included the provision, collection, packing, marking and despatch from depots to ports, of hundreds of thousands of tons of stores, as well as many thousands of vehicles. Numerous troop transports and cargo ships had to be collected, berthed in selected embarkation ports, and the men and materials brought to these ports from all over Great Britain. As an indication of the magnitude of what we had to do, the House may be interested to know that 185,000 men, 20,000 vehicles and 220,000 tons of stores had all to be moved in a period of about three weeks from billets and depots to ports. This meant running 440 special troop trains, 680 special freight trains and 15,000 railway wagons by ordinary goods services, and the subsequent embarkation of this mass of men and stores in transports and cargo ships.

Moreover, this was an operation of war. For all we knew, the landings might be bitterly contested. Cargo could not then just be stowed anyhow. Success or failure 1,200 miles away in North Africa, might depend very largely on the speedy discharge of equipment, vehicles and stores in the order required for operations on shore. The cargo for each ship had, therefore, to be chosen in meticulous detail before ever stores were sent from the depots and moved to ports.

All this involved weeks and months of preliminary work, which was made more anxious by the inevitable insistence on the utmost secrecy and the consequent restriction to the absolute minimum of those who were fully or even partially in the secret. The almost complete surprise achieved in an operation of this magnitude in unbelievable and reflects the greatest credit on all concerned, among whom, incidentally, I may mention the representatives of the Press, because the great newspapers were asked to nominate their representatives to be war correspondents in that area and therefore must have known what was going on. And, further, this operation was a joint Anglo-American one, which meant continuous and wholehearted co-operation between the two Armies as well as with the other services. For example, the supply systems had to be sufficiently integrated to prevent any overlap or confusion. At the same time, steps had to be taken to ensure that the known and tried systems of each nation—to which they had grown accustomed over long years—were not thrown out of gear by the introduction of a new and untried scheme. Yet all the time that these vast armadas were being prepared and despatched—and the convoy containing the assault force was the largest that ever sailed from this country—shipping continued to arrive here bringing the country's civil and military requirements from overseas, and convoys for the maintenance of our Armies in all the other theatres of war abroad continued to load and leave for their varying destinations. I have already referred to one of the natural difficulties which confronted our troops on their arrival in North Africa, namely, mud. But this was really only a super-imposition on the other natural difficulties, and these had all to be taken in the day's work by the Royal Engineers works and transportation units, the Royal Army Service Corps, the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers. It would be invidious to pick out any of these for praise above the others, and so I select for special mention a different Corps altogether, namely, the Pioneers, those men-of-all-work of the Army. The Pioneers have done and are doing quite excellent work in North Africa, and I am glad to be able to remedy to some slight degree the lack of appreciation which I know their Colonel Commandant, Lord Milne, has sometimes felt that they have endured.

Another of the major administrative achievements of the Army is the building up of the Forces in Iraq and Persia and the development of communications between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. Events in Egypt, Libya and Tripolitania have been more spectacular, but if the Germans had broken through the Caucasus, there would have been plenty of excitement in and over Persia and Iraq, where lie the vast oil-fields so vital to the war effort of the Empire. In September, 1942, Persia and Iraq, which had previously formed part of the Middle East Command, became a separate Command. This decision was reached not only on operational grounds, but also in order to effect a greater concentration on the development of aid to Russia through the Persian Gulf ports. All the same, it was no easy matter to split up one Command into two, and ceaseless problems have arisen, for one example, over the allocation of resources between the new Command and the Middle East Command.

Of their work in these countries, where the terrain is even more difficult than the Western Desert, British and Indian engineers may well be proud. Ports have been developed or enlarged, roads and railways have been constructed or increased in capacity to take supplies to Russia as well as the maintenance load for our own forces. We are still working on the problem of increasing the volume of aid to Russia. There have been many difficulties to be overcome; disappointments and setbacks have occurred, but a great work is being carried on. All the material, locomotives, rolling stock, cranes and transport vehicles required to develop the routes have been carried by sea from this country and America. Similarly, every ton of stores and munitions sent by these routes to Russia—and the total is very large—has also been transported over vast distances by sea and sent forward through the Persian Gulf ports. In recent months a greater and growing share of this work is being carried out by our American Allies, including the actual operation of the Iranian railways.

At home we have had the problem of the movement to, and accommodation in, Great Britain of United States troops. This has involved rehousing a considerable part of our own Army in order to hand over to the Americans hutments, billets, hospitals and storage space. In addition, a large programme of new building has been necessary, and though this has been kept down as much as possible by reducing scales of accommodation, it has thrown a heavy burden on our Works Services. It is a burden we have been glad to accept, and we shall be glad even to see it increased as the flood of American troops pours across the Atlantic.

This movement has also meant a great strain on shipping, and we have therefore tried to do everything possible to economise in shipping space. Arrangements have been made to furnish on demand for the United States Forces in Great Britain everything that we can hand over without seriously impeding the supplies of our own Armies. Equipment, warlike stores, machinery of all sorts have been provided and huge numbers of more prosaic but bulky items, such as socks, underclothing and blankets. I saw the other day some calculations as to the ratio which these reverse Lend-Lease transactions bear to what we have had so generously from the United States. I do not quote them here, because I do not want to stir the embers of a controversy which has almost burnt itself out, but I can assure the House that we have no reason whatsoever to be ashamed of them. Moreover, between Allies there is no room for a nice reckoning of our respective contributions. It is sufficient to say that in this matter of accommodation and equipment, as in the more exciting matters connected with the North African preparations, there has been, and is, the most admirable Anglo-American co-operation.

I have more than once referred to the strain on shipping of special operations and projects. But we must not forget that the day-to-day maintenance of our Forces all over the world makes continuous demands on our not over large resources. As an example of what this maintenance means in the way of British and American shipping, I may tell the House that 1,000,000 tons of stores have been sent round the Cape to various destinations during the past year, together with 500,000 men, and 50,000 tanks, guns or vehicles. It has naturally been one of our paramount preoccupations to save shipping in every possible way. Vehicles are broken down and packed in boxes of the most convenient form for stowage. This applies not to vehicles only. I give two examples of saving from many that I could quote. An improved form of pack has been devised for the 6-pounder which has reduced the amount of shipping space required by nearly three-fifths.

Mr. Belleoger (Bassetlaw)

Are these the 6-pounders fixed to the A.22 tanks, which I thought went out long ago, or are they other 6-pounders?

Sir J. Grigg

They are anti-tank 6-pounders, of which no doubt the hon. Member has heard. Among the unwarlike stores boneless meat is now being used with a consequent economy of 60,000 tons of refrigerated space. Experiments are constantly going on to ensure that no space is wasted, and measures to reduce the consumption of petrol and rubber make an important contribution towards the solution of the shipping problem. Petrol consumption by the Army at home has actually been reduced, in spite of an increase in the number of vehicles on charge, and by various means the Army has effected a saving of 5,000 tons of rubber a year.

I now come to some of the developments in this country during the past year as a result of the change from a primarily defensive role to one of active preparations for the offensive. This has, in fact, meant a very considerable re-organisation of the Forces in Great Britain. The whole re-organisation has been carried out against a background of man-power shortage. No more than any other service or branch of the war effort has the Army been allotted all the men it believes it needs. In the earlier part of the war it was equipment that was short. Now that equipment is available in vast quantities we cannot get all the men we want. The demand for men is insatiable. Apart from the complete formations we have sent overseas to India, to the Middle East, to North Africa, we have to send reinforcements to keep them up to strength. We have had also to provide British cadres for the enormous expansion of the Indian Army. At the same time we have had to build up the Field Army in Great Britain.

The House will remember that in the months immediately after Dunkirk, when the defence of the coast line and vulnerable points all over the country was the primary necessity, new intakes into the Army were predominantly disposed as infantry and a large number of new infantry units were formed. As the immediate crisis grew less acute, the first preparations were undertaken for the ultimate return to the offensive. Some of the infantry was converted to armour, some of it to artillery and some of it was used to provide the ever growing signal requirements. But so long as its role was primarily defensive the Army could rely to a considerable extent on the civilian resourres of the country for its rearward services. For example, the civil railway system met most of our rail transport needs, and the Ministry of Supply undertook a good deal of the repair and maintenance of equipment which in the field we should have to do for ourselves. But when the Army goes abroad it is certain to have to operate in what I may call an administrative desert, and it must therefore be provided with everything necessary to make it a self-contained entity. The enemy is not going to leave us ready-made railway systems, waterways, docks and harbours, petrol installations, telegraph systems, and the whole paraphernalia of civil organisation upon which we depend, quite properly, in this country. So all kinds of technical units, are needed and must be formed. The strength of existing units must be increased.

It follows that we have two conflicting tasks to perform. The first has been to ensure that the greatest possible number of fighting men are produced from the resources available and, secondly, to ensure that the Field Army is provided with all the technical units and skill in the absence of which the fighting man is helpless. I should expect to find that from time to time one of the tasks has been allowed to dominate the other and that we have not invariably achieved the right balance between them. Certainly external criticism of the Army has swung from side to side, with one exception. At one time we have been accused of wasting the skill of the tradesmen now in the Army. At another we are told that far too many young men are employed in jobs behind the line when they ought to be fighting.

The first of these charges was contained, as the House knows, in an earlier Beveridge Report. As a result of that Report the recruitment of skilled men from outside was practically shut down while we investigated, with the assistance of the Ministry of Labour, something like 12,000 cases of alleged misuse of skilled tradesmen furnished by employers and trade unions. I think they were predominantly in the engineering and allied, trades. In the end it turned out that only 1 in 8 of these named cases was substantiated, and that means no more than 1 in 100 of the soldiers engaged in this particular field.

The truth is that there are two kinds of comb-out going on all the time. The Army is being combed to discover unused technical skill. It is being combed so as to ensure that young and fit men are taken from sedentary and static employment for more active, mobile duties. As regards the second of these, the younger men are, of course, replaced where necessary by older men and men of lower medical category or by women. But we have also to be very careful to see that no more than is absolutely necessary of these younger men are replaced at all. Incidentally, something like 100,000 men of high medical category were released for more active employment in 1942.

Of course, with new intakes all this sorting out is now done in the first few weeks of service. A recruit is posted to the General Service Corps so that he can be scientifically tested and graded by specially trained officers at a Primary Training Centre before being posted to any particular Corps. A subsequent posting can then be made in the light of the capacity and aptitudes of the soldier and, therefore, as far as possible square pegs can be sent to square holes and found pegs to round holes from the start. But in this connection we must remember two things. It is not by any means always possible to use a man at the trade he has carried on in civil life, for the primary purpose of the Army is fighting and somebody has got to do that. Secondly, the modern infantryman's is a very skilled calling so that any idea that the infantry should get only the residue after every other arm has had its pick is a pernicious error. At this primary training stage potential officers can be marked down so that no time need be wasted in posting them to an O.C.T.U. when they have proved their worth during a reasonable period in the ranks. Finally, I may mention that one of the factors taken into account in posting men is the locality from which they come. This should help to ensure that regiments obtain so far as possible men from their own areas, although I do not want to exaggerate the degree of possibility.

The House will have gathered from the changes which I have described as taking place at home that units of the Field Army have been subjected to a great many variations of personnel. This has been a sore grievance with commanding officers, especially bearing in mind that the drafts for overseas have sp far had to be found from these same units. I hope that we have largely removed this grievance by the creation of a special organisation for providing reinforcements for all our overseas Forces This consists of a number of reserve divisions not forming part of the Field Force. It is from this source that the great bulk of the drafts can be drawn, and in them additional training can be given so as to fit the men for operations in the field overseas. Meanwhile, the Field Army can be left practically undisturbed; it can be trained as a whole and built up into a powerful striking force to play its part in offensive operations. Units are given time to settle down and acquire a corporate entity and a regimental spirit, instead of being constantly upset, as in the past, by the withdrawal of men either for drafts or for training as tradesmen, and by constant changes in their officers. The old system was perhaps inevitable in the days when it was necessary to deploy the maximum possible defensive Forces in this country, but now that we can turn our attention to the offensive the new system clearly has everything to recommend it.

I have told the House something of the changes that have been taking place in the organisation of the Army as a whole, and I would now like to say a little about the centre of that organisation, the War Office. First, let me pay a well deserved tribute to the unflagging zeal and efficiency displayed by the staff of the Office, both military and civil, not only during nearly 3½ years of war, but also for a considerable period before that, without which the successful creation of our great modern Army out of a small but efficient nucleus would have been impossible.

I should like next to bring the House up to date as regards the reorganisation of the General Staff which I announced on 10th June last. I described the dichotomy of the General Staff below the C.I.G.S. into the departments of the V.C.I.G.S. and of a new post of D.C.I.G.S.—the former to be in charge of Operations, Intelligence and Training, and the latter of what I may call compendiously the structure of the Army plus the vitally important work of Weapon Development. The work allotted to the V.C.I.G.S. represented no strikingly new departure and I want to talk, therefore, mainly about that of the D.C.I.G.S. His job really amounts to discovering what kind of Army we need and the kind of weapons it requires. For both purposes some body of tactical doctrine is essential. For the second there is the additional task of formulating our needs to the Ministry of Supply and seeing that they are fulfilled. Needless to say, the constant revolutions in what is demanded of the Army has effected policy in both directions. One obvious and very important result has teen to induce pre-occupation with short rather than long views. The danger of short as against long views is, of course, that we are apt to be one step behind the enemy and not a jump in front. However, I hope that we have now put ourselves into a position to take sensible views—both short and long. We have set up in D.C.I.G.S.'s Department a General Staff Research Directorate to examine continuously the lessons to be derived from our own or enemy operations and to produce a properly digested body of doctrine—whether tactical, organisational or relating to weapons. The aim is to ensure that the Army will go into action organised, equipped and trained in accordance with a doctrine in advance of the enemy's.

As the House knows, an essential adjunct to this General Staff re-organisation was the appointment of a Scientific Adviser to the Army Council. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Ministry of Supply, and has complete freedom of access in the War Office and in the Ministry. I am sorry to say that we shall shortly be losing the assistance of Sir Charles Darwin, who has held this post since its inception and has given most valuable service; he must, however, return to the National Physical Laboratory. We are lucky in having his present deputy. Professor Ellis, to succeed him. Operational Research Groups have been set up both at home and in the theatres of war abroad. These groups study current events in the field to find out how improvements can be made in equipment, in the technique of its use and in the tactical employment of troops. They provide the vital link between the users of equipment in the field on the one hand and the designers and producers on the other. The sections, who are in close touch with the users, report both to the War Office and the Ministry of Supply how weapons and equipment behave under battle conditions, and by this means the lessons learnt in the field can be speedily and effectively applied to future production. They are staffed by highly qualified scientists and technicians as well as by soldiers. The Scientific Adviser is closely linked with the General Staff Research Directorate and with a new Committee which has been set up in D.C.I.G.S.'s Department on Weapons and Equipment—its object being to formulate and keep under constant review—I might almost say continuous review—the Army's weapon policy.

When the War Office policy on weapons has been formulated it has got to be worked up in conjunction with the Ministry of Supply, and there must be the closest possible bonds between the two Departments. Apart from there being day-to-day contacts of individuals at all levels, the D.C.I.G.S. is a member of the Supply Council and he is also the Chairman of a Weapon Development Committee on which—if I may be permitted to use the phrase—the high-ups of both the War Office and the Ministry of Supply sit. This Committee does not formulate policy. It is the essential link between policy and research, development and production, and one of its cardinal functions is to press forward weapon development in correct priority. Finally, I mention the periodical meetings to co-ordinate weapon policy between the D.C.I.G.S's staff and representatives of the Dominions and between the War Office, the Admiralty and the Air Ministry.

I am afraid that under pressure of time I may have telescoped my description of this organisation unduly. Its broad aim is to ensure that the War Office knows what the Army wants and sees that it gets what it wants as quickly as possible. Personally, I feel sure that its beneficial results will in time, and no very long time at that, be obvious to all. Already the Select Committee on National Expenditure in its 18th Report has commented favourably on what we have done, and I am confident that its verdict will be justified. Incidentally, this improvement of machinery in the War Office has been accompanied by parallel improvements in the Ministry of Supply. It would be out of place for me to speak of these in detail, but I can say that the relations between the two Departments are now about as frank and co-operative as it is possible for them to be and that I have no doubts whatever of the willingness of the Ministry to do everything they can to meet our needs.

The process of decentralising administration from the War Office to Commands and from Commands downwards has continued steadily. Progress cannot, however, be spectacular, for it involves the meticulous examination of a mass of detail in every sphere of military administration. The objects of this policy, to which I personally attach the utmost importance, are to speed up decision and action, to encourage initiative, to avoid unnecessary reference to higher authority and to reduce paper work. On this last point one of the main difficulties is to find out exactly what are the causes of excessive "paper." One method which is being employed with success is to take a census of correspondence at various key points in the Army machine. This shows us more or less at a glance what are the most frequent topics dealt with in all these troublesome letters from on high and enables us to ask in appropriate cases "Is your letter really necessary?" These reviews of correspondence have been carried out in the War Office and also at certain Commands, districts and corps districts and recommendations to save work have been made ranging from important improvements of organisation to the proper mode of typing letters in order to save paper.

The multiplicity of statistical returns is, as the House very well knows, particularly the serving Members of it, one of the standing grievances of the regimental officer. Statistical work is therefore being concentrated in a few expert sections in the War Office and in the Commands. Every Command at home now has a statistical section whose first aim is to ensure that while a body of statistics, essential for good administration, is available, the minimum number of returns from units and lower formations is called for. Similar steps have been taken in the War Office. The results are encouraging. For example, by about a month from now we shall have succeeded in abolishing some 50 per cent. of the returns hitherto made by most of the Field Force units in this country, and I do not suppose that there will be any noticeable loss of efficiency in consequence.

I turn to the vitally important subject of the training of the Army at home. After Dunkirk, as I said just now, the Army was preoccupied with defence, and defence of a predominantly infantry character. Now, as I have also said to-day, we can take on a primarily offensive outlook but it is not only from to-day that our training takes the offensive. This has been the case for at least a year past and great strides have been made in this direction under the inspiring leadership of General Paget.

The most notable innovation has been the introduction of realistic battle training on a large scale, in the course of which the conditions of a modern battlefield are reproduced as nearly as possible—including the firing of live ammunition. This is the best prelude we can devise to the actual contact in battle with the highly trained German troops, nearly all of whom have had ample first-hand fighting experience. Formations trained in these battle schools at home have proved in battle overseas the value of their training, and I hope that more will do so in the coming months. I have visited one of these schools, and to me the training seems admirably designed to promote toughness, initiative and at the same time discipline.

Then we have exercises—again with live ammunition—on a sufficiently large scale to enable formations of all arms to operate together and with air support. I am afraid that in connection with this realistic training we have had to avail ourselves of very large areas—as much as an additional 7,000,000 acres in the last year, although the great bulk of this has fortunately been used without dispossessing the owners or occupiers. This has naturally involved some interference with food production, but we have done our best to do as little injury as we possibly can. I am glad to say that in this matter we have had the utmost help and collaboration from the Ministry of Agriculture and indeed from the whole agricultural population.

So much for collective training. As regards individual training, I spoke just now of the recruit's first weeks at the primary training centre at the end of which he is posted to whatever arm of the Service is considered most suitable. He goes to the appropriate corps training centre, where he gets from 8 to 20 weeks of the more specialised training required for his own arm. Only then is-he posted to a Field Force unit or to a unit in a reserve division, and I repeat that we try wherever possible to post him to a regiment associated with his own part of the country. Incidentally, the Army now uses films very largely as an aid to training, and I fancy that this provides a useful variant to the sergeant-major's voice. I may also perhaps mention in passing the good work done by the much expanded Army Cadet Force in giving pre-service training to some 180,000 boys.

The individual training of officers, as well as men, has been substantially altered and, I trust, improved in recent months. In the first place, the selection procedure by War Office selection boards has been made more comprehensive and thorough. The essential feature of the new system is that potential officers spend two or three days living with the board. During this time they are given a series of mental and physical tests designed to bring out whether a man has the qualities necessary for an officer. These tests are not primarily of the examination variety but are designed to give an opportunity for seeing how a man behaves under the stress of circumstances. To take a very elementary example, the candidates may be told, with a party of five or six men, to improvise a bridge over a stream by means of a few bits of tree and lengths of rope. The tests are carried out by specially trained regimental officers and officers of the War office Personnel Selection staff, assisted, where necessary, by a psychiatrist who, I am told, is called something quite different by the troops. Once past the board very few of the candidates are turned back at the O.C.T.U. stage, and thus our new plan involves the absolute minimum of misuse of training resources. Personally, I believe that this innovation has proved a great success, and I think that those hon. Members who recently visited one of the selection boards will agree with me.

Another innovation is the institution of pre-O.C.T.U. training. The object of this is to remedy any gaps that may exist in the efficiency of the candidate as a private soldier. This means that very much less time need be spent at the O.C.T.U. in the teaching of elementary military subjects at O.C.T.Us. and that more emphasis can be laid on teaching the cadet to be a self-reliant leader with a full sense of responsibility towards his men.

And now a few words about air co-operation. The Army Co-operation Command is still the background of our training organisation, and it has been largely expanded. It has, moreover, gained valuable experience in the course of numerous operational flights. In addition, training on a greatly increased scale has been carried out in conjunction with the R.A.F. Commands, and in this connection I should like especially to mention Fighter Command and to thank them for all they have done to help. In the Middle East campaign we have learnt much from actual experience in what has, I think, been the most successful example of close Army/Air support and co-operation this war has witnessed, and we are ready to apply the lessons to other possible theatres of operations. We now have a number of air observation post squadrons manned by artillery officers, some of which have been in action. Finally there are our airborne Forces. In spite of the mishaps which attended a certain recent expedition, I think that hon. Members will agree with me that we have a great deal to show for our labours in this respect. Already our parachutists have participated on quite a considerable scale in the North African operations, and I have no doubt that other fields of endeavour are opening up.

There are two or three topics more on which I must touch briefly before I come to my conclusion. I should like to have dealt with them at greater length, but I have already trespassed too long on the patience of the House. The first concerns the Home Guard. The improved training and equipment of the Home Guard have made it possible to rely upon it for the local defence of this country to a greater extent than ever before. The effective protection of the home base is an integral part of the plans for offensive action elsewhere, and the Home Guard can well be proud of the contribution it is making, both directly, by readiness for actual operational duty, and indirectly, by releasing numbers of Regular troops on whom, in the earlier days, the responsibility for home defence had fallen. Compulsory enrolment, and compulsory training and duty, which were introduced with the approval of this House just over a year ago, have, I think, been amply justified by the higher standard of training now achieved; and I am assured that the keenness which was so wonderful a feature of the old volunteer Home Guard is no less marked in those who are known as the "directed men". There have been two other notable developments in the Home Guard during 1942. A large number of anti-aircraft batteries have been formed and are directly replacing Regular units. Those in the London area took part in their first major engagement on the night of 24th January to the full satisfaction of their commanders and, I think, of the public also. At any fate they were very well heard on that occasion. The link between the Home Guard and Civil Defence has become closer. Plans for co-operation have been greatly improved and in some cases tested in air raids. These ensure that, economically used, the requisite man-power will be available, whether for blitz or battle. Furthermore, as these plans are completed and the training of the individual improves, the hours of Home Guard training and duty are being adjusted to the urgent demands of industry and agriculture.

The second is the A.T.S. To-day we have 10 times the number of A.T.S. we had in 1939, and, if they were available, we could do with 20. In 1939 there were five employments for women. Now there are 60. In all of these they are releasing men and doing great service. The high spot is, of course, the anti-aircraft Command, where by June we hope that more than 40 per cent. of the total personnel will be women. The event of the year for the A.T.S. was Miss Markham's Report, which killed stone dead the ill-natured, and indeed slanderous, criticisms which had been bandied about previously. Of the Committee's recommendations a number were already in operation by the time the Report was published, and we were interested to see that the other Women's Services were in some matters exhorted to follow the good example of the A.T.S. We are deeply grateful to Miss Markham and her colleagues, not only for good advice but also for putting this magnificent corps in its right place in public estimation.

And, thirdly, I should wish to refer to our Canadian comrades. They have been for a long time in this country helping to guard the citadel of the anti-Axis forces. We have been more than glad to have them, and I hope and believe that they have been glad to be here. They have made many friends among us. But they have been irked at the fact that their chance of engaging themselves in bulk against the enemy has been so long in coming. We trust that they will not have to wait much longer and, when their chance does come, we know that they will acquit themselves doughtily and that the Mother Country, as well as the cause of civilisation generally, will have abundant reason to be grateful to them.

I cannot hope to cover in the time at my disposal the whole field of the operations, administration and training of the Army, but I have tried to pick out the more important developments in so far as they can be talked about without giving information to the enemy. I have said nothing about the military administration of territories occupied, and to be occupied, nor have I added anything to what the Minister without Portfolio told the House recently about our demobilisation plans, but a great deal of work is going on under both heads. I have not mentioned the health of the troops, for the simple reason that in this matter the Army's history for the past year has mercifully been a blank, to the immense credit of the Army medical and nursing services in general and in particular. I have left out of my account the entertainment, welfare and education of the troops, but these we are to discuss on the Amendment to my Motion. I should, however, be failing in my duty if I did not express publicly our deep sense of loss at the death of General Willans, the Director-General of Welfare and Education. His work for the soldiers was selfless, unremitting and most competent, and it will be a matter of the utmost difficulty to fill his place.

Important as are many of these subjects, and vitally interested in them as the soldier must be, I regard them as secondary to the actual business of training for battle. The soldier's duty is, first and foremost, to fight and, to make him into a first-class fighting man, or an Army into a first-class instrument of war, two of the prime necessities are toughness and discipline. Discipline is absolutely essential for a modern army, just as it has been throughout history, and we cannot afford to pass it by as something out-moded or undemocratic. When it is combined with good leadership there is nothing degrading about discipline, nor need it involve any undue uniformity or loss of self-reliance. Discipline means unquestioning obedience to those set in authority over us and is vital for the efficient and harmonious working of an Army. It is the force which helps the good soldier to round the tightest corner and to go on beyond even what seems to be the limit of human endurance. Discipline is, then, essential in a fighting Army. So, too, is confidence. A great deal has happened and a great deal has been said that might have shaken the soldier's confidence—inactivity at home and humiliating defeats abroad; attacks on the quality of his equipment and on the capacity of his leaders—but the British soldier has come through all these, and the Prime Minister's description of the proud and confident bearing of the Eighth Army in Tripoli, besides being, to me, profoundly moving, is a happy augury for the other Armies who will, in their turn, tread the path of struggle and victory.

I have tried to-day to blow the trumpet of the Army for once in a way. But I have not done so in any spirit of complacency, still less to induce in others any such spirit. The Army has done much in the past year, despite the initial disasters. But there is much more left for it and for all of us to do. Napoleon survived for some years after Moscow and fought many bloody battles. We cannot afford to relax or to sit back watching the exploits of our friends. Every ounce of our strength will be required before the evil things against which we are fighting are finally vanquished. But vanquished they will be, and we shall see the nation in arms "kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam."

Mr. Lawson (Chester-le-Street)

It falls to me to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on what I shall call his maiden speech as far as Estimates are concerned. I think the House will agree that he gave us a speech on the Estimates equal to the best we have ever heard from a Secretary of State for War. It was packed with good things, and it has given us much information, concerning inside War Office organisation particularly, which we much needed. I think the House will be particularly pleased that the right hon. Gentleman gave full praise to the men who have done such wonderful things in North Africa. He rightly described what the position was last year, and to those of us who sat here then and have vivid recollections of what the position was in the country, as well as in North Africa, the change is welcome indeed. I said a few weeks ago that the world had been startled by the great victory then and that it had had an electrical effect upon world opinion.

I had the privilege with some of my friends of covering a good part of the battlefield during the past few weeks and of seeing some of the men and their officers up as far as Benghazi, and I can endorse what the right hon. Gentleman has said about the splendid spirit that prevails among the men, the warm relationship between them and their officers, and the fine spirit of discipline. I had the pleasure of staying two nights among the troops, and the thing that rather stirred me was the warm and free relations between the officers and the men. As an instance, I asked that certain names of men and units should be given to me. It involved a certain amount of work, but I was surprised at the quickness with which the information was supplied. The right hon. Gentleman would have been surprised, too, at the great interest of the men in outside questions. It was a sign of the modern-minded officer that I was supplied in advance with a whole list of questions which the men wanted to ask me. I cannot remember them at the moment, but I can remember that beer rivalled Beveridge in those questions. The Army are vitally interested in questions that affect them immediately and also in questions that will affect them after the war. We are pleased that the right hon. Gentleman has underlined the change of atmosphere for which the troops have been responsible in that great victory in Africa.

We were pleased, too, to have the right hon. Gentleman's account of the new organisation that has been set up to ensure that the War Office knows what the Army wants and sees that it gets what it wants. I had assumed, however, that the War Office already had an organisation of that kind, and I should say that there has been considerable delay in setting it up. Everybody knows that modern war is totally unlike anything the world has seen before. Nobody knows that better than we do. The training is hard now, and it requires men to be tough either in this country or out of it. Another striking thing about the training is that the men like it. They are very proud of the fact that they have to go through the kind of grilling training that the soldier of the last war did not know about, particularly if he is getting a Commando training. The real training, however, can only be got on the battlefield, and that is truer in this war than it was ever before. Nobody knows that better than we do, for we have suffered considerably because our enemies had had long tests in Spain and in other parts of the world long before we thought about the kind of weapons we were to use or the kind of conditions we were to face. It is only on the battlefield that real training can be obtained. New conditions develop, and I should have thought that those new conditions and their lessons were so striking that the War Office would have had this kind of organisation long ago. I want to underline what the right hon. Gentleman said of the difficulties of getting troops and stores to the points where they are needed. In the last war we got so many million men over the Channel, with guns and stores, and we used to think it was a wonderful feat. If that was a wonderful feat, what shall we say about bringing modern weapons, tanks, guns and all the supplies and equipment needed to-day to the Mediterranean and even round by the Cape to the shores of Africa in sufficient strength to meet the conditions of modern warfare? It is a great tribute to the Navy that this kind of thing can be done.

The soldier has not any grumbles, but among the many questions that he asks if he is married are questions about his wife's allowance. I was one of those who in the last war lived on a comparative trifle. We had a copper or two for a cup of tea after we had paid the allotment for the wife's allowance. The soldier does not bother too much about himself. I have never been much concerned about large pay as long as the soldier has a margin for himself. We ought to see, however, that his wife and children lack nothing and have something like equality with people among whom they live. The soldiers feel strongly on this matter, and the right hon. Gentleman would earn considerable gratitude from them if he would give serious consideration to raising the allowances for wives and children so that the soldiers would have no fears while they are fighting their country's battles.

The right hon. Gentleman told us that we had now at least 10 times the number of A.T.S. that we had when the war broke out and that we needed many more. Has the right hon. Gentleman noticed that on the Estimates we do not vote women at all; we just vote men? I am wondering how we stand legally about that. At least we ought to give the women the honour of being mentioned. They have rendered such service as entitles them to be mentioned. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman dealt with the fact that the committee that inquired into criticisms of the A.T.S. had given an encouraging report. Those complaints were much resented by the women in the A.T.S. They were no more entitled to be criticised than the women in either of the other Services, and it passes understanding why there should have been criticism of the A.T.S. None of the other women's Forces do work equal—I say "equal" advisedly—to the work that the A.T.S. do, particularly upon the guns. They are doing an amazing class of work. I have a daughter who talks to me about these matters. I was a gunner in the last war, but my daughter talks to me as though I were in the infants' class in view of the complicated guns and the high class of work they have to do in these days. I am not sure that we have done ourselves justice abroad in publicity concerning the wonderful work that these girls of ours do in the various Forces, not least in the A.T.S.

There is much room for criticism, and I have many points I would like to raise, but I do not wish to take up time. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, our position has considerably improved. There were countries which a year ago thought we were certain of defeat. Some of them waited to see what they were likely to do in given circumstances, but we had many good friends, even among the neutrals, who stood by us in the worst days. Of that, I have had undoubted evidence in recent times.

In conclusion, I should like to say that it is clear that there are people who are beginning already to manoeuvre to bring about a compromise peace if necessary. The Government attitude on that matter is very definite. I am pleased the Government have been so definite, but it is not for the House to let the Government and the members of the Government remain alone in expressing their determination to pursue this war to an end without compromise. It is for the Members of this House to accept their responsibility. While we realise that the tide has turned, though I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we are still a long way off full noontide, and that there is a very great price yet to be paid—we are under no illusions about that—we say that the country supports the Government in its determination to pursue this war to an end which will destroy the Nazis, and that the House is behind it. If anybody is manoeuvring in the other direction, and I think I see signs of it already, let him understand that the country is determined to put an end to this sort of thing once and for all. There has been suffering; great masses of people have paid the price, and great masses of people will pay the price in future. The work of the men who have fought with such determination and courage in North Africa and elsewhere, including the men who on occasions have had to retreat—and it takes, sometimes, greater fortitude to retreat than to go forward—is not going to be undone, is not going to be brought to nought. This country set out to war reluctantly, it was the last country in the world desiring to go to war; but those who would try to bring matters to a compromise can understand that we will finish what we started.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore (Ayr Burghs)

I should like to join with great sincerity in the words of appreciation spoken by my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) of the speech of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War. I have listened to many speeches of this kind by many Ministers of War, and I do not think I ever heard such a masterly and informed, even dramatic, survey of the change that has taken place in the British Army in the last year or two. We recall what we started with; the material, so slender; the training so short; the weapons so meagre; we remember that at Dunkirk all that was lost, and only the spirit and the bodies remained to us; and now to-day we see these armies erect in every part of the world, defending, attacking, never giving way—except in the face of such superior numbers that no ammunition could resist them. I do not know who is responsible for the change, whether my right hon. Friend or his predecessors, whether the Staff at the War Office, or the leaders of the various Commands, or the training officers or our leaders abroad, but whoever it is I think the House and the country ought to express admiration and gratitude for what has already been achieved. We should also bear in mind—as my right hon. Friend has said—that this war is still largely in front of us and the great testing time may come, from what the Prime Minister has said, this year. Therefore, the more support we can give to our Army and the greater the faith and the confidence that they feel we have in them, the more likely are the results to justify our hopes.

I shall not endeavour to deal with the broad field which my right hon. Friend has covered. Other speakers will, no doubt, take up different points, and I shall only try to direct the attention of the House—such of it as remains—and the Minister to the most democratic, the least expensive and the most efficient force of its kind that this country has ever seen. In view of the fact that practically every Member of the House either belongs to it or is closely associated with it, I do not think I need plead for forgiveness for talking for a few minutes about the Home Guard, that name which the Prime Minister devised in one of his many happy flashes of genius. In connection with the Home Guard, I must again ask the House to join with me in a tribute to my right hon. Friend—though I must warn him that my remarks will not be all tributes—for the way he and the Financial Secretary have dealt with Home Guard matters. They have taken a deep and knowledgeable interest in all matters brought before them by the Home Guard Joint Parliamentary Committee and for the intimate contact they have maintained with that committee. In their very busy lives they have found time to listen to all our suggestions and complaints, and although they have not been able to rectify all our grievances they have always accepted cur point of view with sympathy and, where possible, have met our case. But there are one or two points on which the House ought to have further information and about which neither members of the Home Guard outside this House nor the Home Guard Committee itself are satisfied. There is on the Order Paper a Motion by the members of the Home Guard Joint Parliamentary Committee which may cause the House—at least those who are more ignorant of the matter than others—some concern. No doubt they will wonder why it was necessary to put down this Motion. The Motion reads: That this House urges the Government to grant the same travelling, medical and other facilities to officers of the Home Guard as are enjoyed by officers of the other fighting Services, arrangements which, while costing little or nothing, will aid discipline, promote comradeship with the Regular Forces, prevent unreasonable anomalies and eliminate the present appearance and sense of discrimination against the least expensive branch of the combatant Services. The House might well think that because reference is made to officers this is a social matter. It is not. The man who to-day is an officer in the Home Guard may be in the ranks to-morrow, or vice versa. If an officer finds that he is not in a position or has not the time to carry out his duties, he reverts to the ranks. There is no question of social implications in this Motion. It merely raises an issue which is causing a certain amount of misunderstanding and resentment and a lessening, perhaps, of the control and authority which all Home Guard officers should have. As far as we can ascertain, no one except the Secretary of State and the Army Council know exactly why the present discrimination exists. A few diffident justifications of it have been put forward, without, however, carrying much conviction to the listeners. A good deal of talk has centred on the word "voluntary," but that word "voluntary" was dropped, as soon as conscription was brought in, for "equality." The word "equality" means nothing as an excuse, because we are all equal in the sight of God and man, but some are chosen to lead and others are chosen to follow. That is the position in the Regular Forces, too, and it also applies in the democratic armed forces of Russia. We cannot eliminate that difference, because it is through fine leadership and the loyalty of the followers that we get the truly disciplined and the best fighting troops.

It is difficult to follow the argument of the War Office that because we started as volunteers in the Home Guard, because we started uncommissioned, because we started unpaid, and all equal, matters should be allowed to remain as they are in this best of all worlds. So many changes have taken place since those early days that that argument does not now have any force. The Government have selected certain of our ranks to hold His Majesty's Commission. The House has decided that those who did not wish to answer the call voluntarily shall be conscripted. The War Office has shown, by the training it has prescribed for us, by the weapons it has given us, and by the organisation and administration it has imposed on us, that we are more and more drifting towards or becoming akin to the Regular Army. The Secretary of State himself, following what the Prime Minister and other leading members of the Government have said previously, assured us that the Home Guard will inevitably become the defenders of this Island, and very stout defenders they will be, and yet for some unexplained reason we are denied a certain status, if I may put it like that, certain powers and position which prevent the enforcement of discipline, even to the extent of not enforcing saluting in the Home Guard.

The denial of these powers and this position is weakening the authority of the officers and, in my opinion, lessening the value and efficiency of the Home Guard. Hitherto the efficiency and the discipline of the Home Guard have relied solely on two factors—the character and personality of the officers and the patriotism and devotion of the men. We ask for something more than that. We ask for sanctions in order to enable Home Guard officers to award summary punishments to recalcitrant or lazy conscripts. At present there are only two methods by which Home Guard officers can exercise sanctions. They can take a man to the civil court in the case, say, of failure to turn up at drill or parades or training exercise, or a general court-martial can be held if there has been an act of sheer insubordination. Those processes take time; days, even weeks, pass while the necessary preparations are being made, and time is wasted by officers having to attend courts. The result is that by the time a decision has been reached and punishment has been awarded the whole thing has been forgotten, and all the good which such action should have achieved has been lost. Therefore, I plead with the War Office that power should be given to inflict a summary punishment, no matter how slight, because if given immediately it is of far more value than a punishment which only follows months after the offence has been committed.

Here is another matter. This may not be known to the House, but a Home Guard officer is not allowed to recover from injuries incurred on Home Guard service in the company of his brother officers of the Regular Army. I do not know whether the House quite appreciates that the Home Guard officer is turned out of officers' convalescent hospitals. Why, I do not know. One Home Guard officer wrote to me and said that it was treating Home Guard officers like lepers, in case they might infect men with whom they might one day have to fight side by side or might even have to command. I have the very document here from the War Office. It is dated 13th October last year, and it was issued to D.D.M.S. of commands. It starts in the following way—and hon. Members can follow the implications of horror and shock which are conveyed: Five officers of the Home Guard were recently transferred from a military hospital to an officers' convalescent hospital. The writer of the letter goes on to say that that must never occur again. Home Guard officers must be treated as private soldiers and relegated to the nearest ordinary hospital. We do not mind that. But we mind the effect that it has upon the Regular soldier, who sees also that Home Guard officers are not allowed to travel first class Take, for example, the case of a Commanding Officer, and his adjutant whom probably he himself has appointed. They travel together in the same motor car to the railway station, after which the Commanding Officer, being a Home Guard officer, must travel third class, while his own adjutant, being, by virtue of his appointment, a Regular officer, travels first class. Regular troops see this, and ask what kind of treatment that is for officers, and wonder how it is possible to respect them. These are the men the Regular troops may have to serve under in the defence of this Island.

The Secretary of State for War and his Financial Secretary have tried time after time to explain this intolerable discrimination, which would be ludicrous if it were not so humiliating. I can tell them that the Home Guard throughout the country have not accepted the decision. While, being a loyal and disciplined force, the Home Guard do not wish to make any trouble for the Department, for which they have a soldier's regard, they point out that these are small matters, rectification of which need cost nothing to the State. The Treasury cannot come in with its deadening hand. If only the Ministers concerned dug their toes in and said that these alterations must be made because they were only right, just and fair, all the difficulties and obstacles that are at present being put up to these very reasonable requests would be overwhelmed.

There is only one further point I would like to make, and it is a point that we have already raised and which no doubt my hon. Friend has considered with his advisers. Our argument has now been reinforced by the Trades Union Congress. The Secretary of State made reference to it to-day. It is the question of relieving some of the more highly trained Home Guard soldiers of some, at any rate, of their parades, drilling and training. You get to a state which the Regular Army describes as browned-off. We have been hard at it for several nights a week and during week-ends as well, for over two years. I would again put before the War Office the advisability, not of relaxing the parades, drilling and training, because that might create a feeling of injustice between one man and another, but of creating a Home Guard reserve, so that the more highly trained men of two years' or 2½ years' service can be passed on to the reserve and men can be selected who are perhaps not quite up to the highly active functions which Home Guard training now prescribes or whose civilian occupation is of such importance that they find it difficult to comply fully with the demands of national production and their Home Guard duties. Let those men pass into the reserve, as a definite body, and come back for a refresher course, say, once a month for a couple of hours to keep them in touch with their weapons. It would make vacancies for the younger men whom we badly want, and at present cannot have without interfering with our ceiling strength. I hope that that suggestion will sink in.

I have one final request, which will balance the other, and it is that the present age for cadets should be lowered to 16½ years. As we know, cadets can stay in their cadet units until the age of 18, which means that it practically overlaps with the calling-up age for the Regular Army, so that those cadets are pushed into the Regular Army without any knowledge of arms or how to handle them. If the cadet age could be brought down to 16½, and the cadets were then automatically passed in to the Home Guard we would have them at their best and most impressionable time. We could train them in the use of arms and various other kinds of weapons. We would have the use of their services while they were with us, and would pass on something worth having when the time came for their call-up to the Regular forces.

I have said my say and have kept strictly to the one subject with which I set out to deal, the Home Guard. I would not like Ministers to think that I do not appreciate the magnificent job of work the War Office have done in the creation of this new and magnificent Army. The Secretary of State said that we probably had in the Eighth Army the finest fighting instrument that the world possessed to-day; let us make sure that the rest of the Army are on the same standard as the Eighth Army, and then we need not have any doubt about the future of this country or of our final victory.

Mr. Horabin (Cornwall, Northern)

My hon. and gallant Friend will perhaps forgive me if I do not follow him in the argument he has put to the House, but I would like to join him in his tribute to the very clear and able statement made by the Secretary of State for War. The right hon. Gentleman started by repainting that gloomy picture which we discussed on the Army Estimates 12 months ago, when Singapore had just fallen. The Secretary of State, the War Office and the Army are to be congratulated upon and should have full credit for the way in which they have learned the lessons of their defeats and made the Army to-day a first-class, efficient fighting machine. The right hon. Gentleman ascribed that change, in part, to the immense resources of the United Kingdom and the United States being more fully mobilised than they were 12 months ago. It is also due to the change which has taken place in the war and the Army. Twelve months ago there was no certainty whatsoever of ultimate victory, but to-day ultimate victory has become certain. It may be delayed, but it is ultimately certain, and that is due in a large measure to what has been done with the British Army in the last 12 months. It is also due to the tremendous and magnificent work which the Russian Armies have done.

We expect a great deal from the British Army during the next 12 months, and that expectation should be governed by what I call the stark arithmetic of total war. It is clear from what the Secretary of State said that population has a bearing on it and also the width of the industrial basis. In this country we have a population of only something like 45,000,000 people. It is true that we have the Empire behind us. If you take the resources of the Empire, they are to some extent cancelled out by items of debit. We have to use a tremendous part of our manpower and a very large part of our industrial capacity to provide the means of guarding the communications of this great Empire, which sprawls all over the world. As against our 45,000,000 of population, Japan has something like 90,000,000, the United. States 130,000,000 and Germany 80,000,000 or 90,000,000, or, with the occupied territories, something like 300,000,000. The Russians have somewhere about 190,000,000. We, with the smallest population of all the major combatants, are setting out to do something which none of the other belligerent nations has attempted, not only to maintain a tremendous Navy and Air Force, but an Army of Continental size. Japan, with a population almost twice the size of ours, has made no attempt to build a strong air force, but has confined her main efforts to a strong army and navy. Germany and Russia have large armies and air forces but almost negligible navies. The United States is still building up her army. To build up and maintain a large Army as well as an enormous Air Force and Navy places us under a colossal strain. That colossal strain is no alibi for making mistakes and we cannot afford the luxury of complacency. Criticism should be all the sharper because of the great strain imposed upon this nation as the result of trying to maintain a large Navy, Army and Air Force.

We have certain compensations. As regards our assets, I suggest we are, potentially, the strongest military machine in the world, because we are the most compact and also the most highly industrialised of all combatants, even including America. Japan is mainly agricultural, and her industrial basis is very narrow, and that is a very serious thing from her point of view. Russia is still mainly agricultural, although during the last 20 years she has done a tremendous lot to build up a large industry. Here are we, the most highly industrialised and compact nation in the world. We have a greater reservoir of highly-skilled industrial workers, and yet, in spite of all this, is it not shameful that we cannot provide our troops during the fourth year of war with the best tanks in the world? We are all justly proud of the work of the Eighth Army which has proved clearly that the British soldier is as good as any other soldier in the world. He is as good as the Russian or the German soldier. It proves another thing, about which I have been critical in the past, which is that British officers, given the chance, are thoroughly competent on the field of battle. Experience in battle has made the Army really efficient. Even the Russians found that out. It took them three campaigns before they were able to forge the Red Army into the highly efficient weapon it is. What were the instructions the Prime Minister sent to General Alexander? He said: Your prime and main duty will be to take or destroy at the earliest opportunity the German-Italian Army commanded by Field-Marshal Rommel together with all its supplies and establishments in Egypt and Libya. We are all justly proud of the exploits of the Eighth Army. But it failed to carry out the directive sent to its leader by the Prime Minister. We have taken the supplies, we have taken the establishments, but we certainly have not taken or destroyed Rommel's army, which is fighting at the present moment in Tunisia. Why then was this magnificent Eighth Army, one of the finest Armies in the world, unable to carry out the directive of the Prime Minister in full? I think in considering this we have to go back to the Debate on the Vote of Censure, and the speech made by the horn Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan), who dealt at some length with the failure of the central direction of the war to provide dive-bombers and transport planes. I am not going to repeat the arguments about this matter which were used then, but I would say there is also a lack of gliders for our airborne troops, and I hope that that matter will be discussed when we come to the Vote for the Ministry of Aircraft Production. I think that is as much of a scandal as the tank scandal. What we have failed to do is to use our tremendous potential industrial capacity in order to give our troops the right weapons at the right time. If these fine soldiers are to achieve decisive victories they must have the right weapons at the right time.

Surely, having driven Rommel out of El Alamein, the only way to destroy him before he got to Tunisia was to move faster than he could by throwing troops ahead of him to hold him up for our main forces to catch. That meant gliders and air transport. Then his tanks and transport should have been destroyed from the air. That meant dive-bombers. What is the real reason for this failure to have the right weapons at the right time? Surely it is that those responsible for the central direction of the war have not got a clear strategical conception of how they are going to win the war, of how to enable our Army to achieve decisive victory. Because they have not got that conception they have not been able to plan so as to have the right weapons at the right time in the hands of our soldiers. When the Prime Minister spoke in the Debate on the Vote of Censure, his words showed the deep conflict of technical advice at the centre. The Army wanted dive-bombers, but the Air Marshals were against them. Apparently that situation has not yet been resolved.

I turn to another aspect of this failure to reach a clear-cut strategical conception. I think this failure is well illustrated by the Battle of El Alamein. Why on earth did we attack at El Alamein when we intended—I think the Secretary of State said to-day that the preparations for the North African campaign were begun in March—to attack Tunisia from the West? Surely that was a major strategical blunder. Surely we should have left Rommel in Egypt until we had taken Tunis. Then we should have been across his lines of communication, and the destruction of his forces would have been a certainty. As it is, we have shortened Rommel's lines of communication for him and increased our own. I think we have done more than that. We have driven into Tunisia for the use of the Germans the flower of the whole German army—Rommel's forces.

Mr. Bartle Bull (Enfield)

Surely the first principle of warfare is that you must destroy the enemy's armour and troops?

Mr. Horabin

I think I have dealt with that point. I think the whole point is that Rommel got away with an immensely powerful striking force of something like 60,000 men. They should have been destroyed, had the Prime Minister's directive been fulfilled. What was the result of this—I hesitate to call it strategy? The whole object of this North African campaign was to do one thing, to enable us to strike swiftly at "the soft under-belly of the Axis." To-day that soft under-belly of the Axis is armour-plated. I think this House must face the fact that this war can only be won on land. After three and a half years of war, we are engaging something less than 10 German divisions. The Russians are engaging something over 240 divisions. Having regard to the size of our industrial base, I think that measures the extent of our failure to mobilise ourselves effectively, and measures the extent of the failure of our central direction of the war. In proportion to our relative strength, we should be engaging 40 to 60 German divisions. If we were doing that at the present time, I submit that the bells would be ringing for final victory and the war would, in fact, be over.

Mr. Bull

I will not make a long speech. I will say what I wish to say and sit down. There are so many long speeches that it is difficult to get an opportunity to speak. The Secretary of State said, I think, that the soldier's duty first and foremost is to fight. Obviously that is perfectly correct. Everyone knows that in order that the soldier may fight efficiently in a war such as the one we are engaged in now he must be really properly equipped. He must have the guns and the general equipment in order to do it. I imagine this point has been flogged to the bone before, but the fact that our tanks in the desert had been out-ranged for a year and a half by 1,000 yards is quite inexcusable. There is no reason why it should be mentioned again provided it does not occur again. The troops are all right, but they cannot do the job without the proper equipment. I was in America a few months ago on my way back to England, and our troops had then fallen back to the Alamein line. I was asked what the morale of our troops in Libya was like. I replied that the only thing that the troops there had had for the first year and a half of the war was morale and that that was the only reason they were there still.

I have heard something said about the health of the troops. The man is more important than the machine, I agree, but I think their health on the whole is good. I have heard a few comments in this Debate on discipline. Anyone who knows anything about the Army—and I am only a war-time soldier—knows the extreme value of discipline and knows what discipline means in battle. If the old soldier could salute with both hands, I think the young soldier can salute an officer when he sees him. If the officer is no good, let us change the officer, promote the private soldier who did not want to salute and let the officer salute him. But you must have discipline if you are to have a good Army, and good discipline is invaluable, particularly in the field. If you do not have good discipline in training, you will not get it in the field. I have the greatest respect for the Regular soldier, both in this country and in America, who has given up his life to serve in the Army, Navy or Air Force. They know their job. If they did not, we should not be debating quietly here today.

There are one or two small points I would like to mention. It might be of some service if for a year, say, before any man is called up to join the Forces, particularly the Army, he should be able to drive a truck and maintain a vehicle. A lot of time is wasted in the Army on that kind of training which could well be done beforehand—knowing about driving and maintaining a vehicle, which would be much better at the moment than studying Greek. I agree that this war is not over yet. The Germans are good soldiers, and they have not yet been conclusively beaten in the field. On the question of a compromise peace, I agree entirely that most certainly there will not be any such peace. I do not think that occurs to anybody. A compromise peace would mean that we have all wasted our time and would have the job to do again another day.

Regarding the troops in the desert, there are some points which should be mentioned, for example the cigarette issue, I think it is 50 a week. It does not always get forward to them for reasons of transport which they understand perfectly well, but my experience was that sometimes the cigarettes of well-known brands which are those which the soldiers and, I think, most other people like did not get forward to them. They got things which they called "Spitfires"—they had little or no taste and burnt out quickly. They have the impression, and I think they are right, that the decent cigarettes were pinched by the men on the lines of communication. I quite understand that if the forward troops had been back on the lines of communication, they too might have taken he good cigarettes. But the matter should be seen to, so that the good cigarettes get to the troops right forward. It depends on whoever the officer may be who is keeping an eye on the matter. You need a heavier guard for cigarettes than you ever do for any amount of ammunition.

Another point—I understand it is a little better now—was about the delivery of letters, etc. When I was there, deliveries were extremely bad, and an Under-Minister came out there. I think this matter could bear improvement. They do bear on the outlook of the soldier, and in view of what they will say to some hon. Members of this House when they get back, I advise those hon. Members to attend to the matter a little now while there is still time. Another question I wish to mention is that of leave. They used to get leave in the desert of five clear days every two months. Leave in the Army is a privilege, not a right, and this was supposed to be given every two months. Last autumn a regiment I know had not had any for six months. I do not say any particular one; it applied to others. I think it would be better to have 10 clear days every three, or four months. Five days is not enough to get the atmosphere of the desert out of the system. You have a bath, a hair cut, and it is time to go back. As hon. Members know, some regiments have been in North Africa for four, five or six years, some of them in the front line for nearly two and a half years. I suggest that it would be reasonable, on the grounds of good service—having done well—that on the recommendation of their commanding officers, particularly as a number of officers have returned from the Middle East for various reasons, and I think it must be feasible and could certainly be done—that a certain number of N.C.Os. and men as a reward for good service should be brought from each battalion to England every year. It really should be possible now. I am not referring to men shot up, etc., but as a reward for good service—any number you like per battalion, six or a dozen.

I have heard a lot of talk since I got back about the civilian population, but I have not heard very much about the soldier. I think the pay of the private soldier and junior officers most certainly ought to be raised. Another small point is that there were—it is a little better now—too many young men and young officers on headquarters staffs. I do not say they were just sitting back, but it makes a very bad impression on troops coming back from the field. No one should be on headquarters staffs, without some special reason, unless he has fought either in this war or in the last. More attention should be paid to the question of wounded soldiers and their dependants. The returned soldier, or the dependants of the soldier who is unfortunate enough not to get back, should be the first charge on the nation. After that, let us think of some of our other charges. I hope that after the war we shall still have a measure of unity between the parties, and in particular on foreign affairs. There are plenty of other things left for us to fight about. I think we ought to be united on remaining strong after the war, so that we shall not allow this nonsense to happen again. I do not think anybody can justly accuse this nation of adopting a bullying attitude. The stronger we are, the less chance there will be of another war. But if we are to have another war, which God forbid, and if our sons are to fight in it, let us remain strong and allow our sons to be on the winning side from the beginning and not three-quarters of the way through the war.

Major Sir Ronald Ross (Londonderry)

I admit that I am startled by these strategical views of the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Horabin), who has argued that Rommel should have been prevented from escaping to Tunisia. The Battle of El Alamein was a tactical triumph by a new technique. We did it the hard way, and our troops wrecked their army, which had been refitted to some extent. The proposition that if the German Army had been left alone in Libya it would have been static is fantastic. When our troops landed in Algeria Rommel would have left strong rearguard at El Alamein and retired to the Halfaya position and fortified that and we should have had to try to advance over many hundreds of miles of waterless desert.

On the question of the use of dive-bombers over land, I happen to have been employed with the Air Force and to have had an opportunity of discussing these matters with many air officers of considerable practical flying experience, some of whom had been in Libya. These are not my views I am giving, but theirs. They all seemed to be in favour of the low-flying fighter-bomber rather than the dive-bomber, because the dive-bomber is extremely vulnerable to fighter attack. If you see what happened to the Ju 87 or to our "Fairey battles," it will be appreciated that the dive-bomber has a very bad chance when there happen to be fighters about.

I really wish to address myself to one subject only. I am not a Member who takes a particular delight in unearthing what appears to be a scandal, but I have been very startled at the way the War Office treats officers and men who become sick in the course of their military service. This has a bearing on pension cases later on, but it is not a matter connected with the Ministry of Pensions; it is connected entirely with the War Office and with War Office practice and administration. We are fortunate in that the Financial Secretary to the War Office, who, I hope, is listening to these few remarks for a moment or so, is a lawyer. He has no doubt been often engaged in cases of workmen's compensation. This House is very jealous, and properly so, that a workman who is disabled or who becomes sick is given a square deal. On what grounds is an officer or a soldier treated far worse than a workman in an ordinary compensation case? I could not have believed the way things are done if it had not happened to me. If I rely on my own experiences in presenting this case, it must not be thought that I have the slightest desire to have the case reopened. That would be improper. But personal experience teaches as nothing else can. What happens in the case of someone who becomes ill or who has an accident is that the decision is reached by the War Office as to whether this disability is or is not due to military service. There is a ruling, I believe, that only when there are special circumstances which make it clear that the disability could not have happened to the man if he had been a civilian can the War Office take responsibility for looking after the case. Otherwise, the individual may be obliged, as I was, to pay his medical expenses, or a large portion of them; he may be put, as I was, on the unemployed list until he can manage to pass, a medical board, and deprived of all pay; he may be thrown right out of the Army and his chance of a successful approach to the Ministry of Pensions entirely ruined by having it held that the disability was not due to military service.

This decision is not reached at once and is not reached on medical evidence. It is reached upon the consideration of a number of precedents. The officer or soldier who is ill has no opportunity of presenting his case or of presenting medical evidence. The case is decided against him without his being heard, on a series of authorities. Those authorities are the precedents for cases of that type. He has no access to those authorities and cannot tell why the case has gone against him. In my own case, I was, I admit, surprised. The first winter of the war was very wet; we were sent to low-lying lake country, where we were in barracks which had been condemned as barracks in, I think, 1886, and nothing had been done to them since. I, a comparatively elderly soldier, went down with double pneumonia and rheumatic fever, a thing I had never had before. Four months later I was told by the doctors that they regretted that it was not due to my military service. I had seen no medical report. This is a grave scandal, not to me personally, because I can take the rap, but it is quite untrue to say that military officers have gone into the Army to spend their time in an agreeable way and are not dependent on their pay. They are dependent on their pay. A man's case is decided against him on authorities which he cannot see, and apparently without consultation with any doctors except military doctors, who are under Army discipline. That is a gross injustice, although, so far as I can see, it has never been seriously ventilated. Why should not officers and men have an opportunity of putting their own case, and why should not the matter be decided by an impartial body of some sort, on the analogy of the workmen's compensation law, in respect of which the Financial Secretary is, I know, a very formidable exponent of the workmen's rights?

Earl Winterton (Horsham and Worthing)

My hon. and gallant Friend is inaccurate in thinking that this matter has not been ventilated. An absolute barrage of questions has been directed to the Minister of Pensions on the subject, and we have had no satisfaction at all.

Sir R. Ross

I am very much obliged for my noble Friend's interruption. I am aware of that as regards the Minister of Pensions, and I have the fullest sympathy with hon. Members who have put those questions. But I would not be in Order if I said anything now on the Ministry of Pensions Vote. I must confine myself to the War Office Vote. The case of the officer or soldier is hopelessly prejudiced before it gets to the Ministry of Pensions, by some caucus—and I do not know who they are—sitting behind closed doors, who are judge, jury and highest authority on discipline and who do not give the grounds for their decision. My case is completely finished, but if I can do anythng to get soldiers and officers a square deal when they, in their country's service, get sick, my time will not have been wasted. Why, because you are serving your country, should you be treated worse in this matter of disability than you would be if you were a civilian?

Mr. Stokes (Ipswich)

I would like to add my support on the treatment meted out to sick and disabled Service people. It is astonishing that after the regular tornado of questions which, as the noble Lord has said, have been put on this matter, we are still without any satisfactory reply. I want to bring the Debate back to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War. Probably this is the only agreeable thing I am going to say about him—I do not know that anything else will be agreeable to him. I would join with others in congratulating him on the precise lecture which he read to us. The rest of what I say will be entirely disagreeable. It was made abundantly clear by him to-day and by the Minister of Defence on nth February that the situation is still dependent on shipping, and that until we get topsides of the submarine warfare and increase our shipbuilding generally we are not going to be able to do overseas anything substantially more than we have done already. That is so, but on one point I hear rumours constantly from people who are supposed to know about these matters, that although ships go from this country heavily laden, carrying troops and supplies overseas round the Cape, they often come back empty. Is that true? Is care taken to see that the maximum supplies are brought back to this country?

The right hon. Gentleman said that external criticism of the Army has swung from side to side, with one exception; and he smiled genially at me, as if to suggest that I was always trying to drag the Army down. Nothing that I have ever said has been in criticism of the Army. Everything I have said has been said in an effort to stimulate efficiency among the Whitehall panjandrums, who do not in many cases know so much about their jobs as they ought to. Everything that I have said has always been in defence and support of the fighting soldier. I was not here at the beginning when the right hon. Gentleman talked about El Alamein, but I am told that he said that at the time that attack took place there were 1,000 tanks waiting to go into action. That really forms the gravamen of what I want to talk about, and while it may be very nice to get up and say that there were 1,000 tanks, it all depends entirely upon what sort of tanks they were. It is no use sending a swarm of gnats to swat an elephant, because it does not work. The elephant wins. I want, as far as I can within the ambit of this Debate, to talk about the tank situation and to raise the whole question of the tank policy in the Army, especially after all the wrongful, incorrect and sometimes, in my opinion, untruthful, statements made from time to time both inside this House and elsewhere by Ministers.

I would emphasise at the outset that I am not making any criticism of the training of the Army or of the gallantry of the men in action who use the weapons. However lacking some of these weapons may be it does not make the slightest difference what kind of speech we make in this House. It does not alter the weapons in the field. It does not depress the troops, for if indeed they have had wrong weapons and things were not what they should be, they do their best anyway but especially if they know that someone is ventilating their grievance. I will quote a short statement made by Major-General Fuller in one of the weekly papers shortly after the exchange of words that I had with the Prime Minister just before Christmas, when I was accused by him of things which, if he had said them outside this House, would have been actionable. What General Fuller said on this very point was: Give him a reliable weapon, and no criticism will shake his confidence in it until a better is produced. Give him an unreliable one, and, as he is gagged by King's Regulations unless others speak for him, he is dumb—yet angry. It is from that point of view that I speak again on this subject. I have talked with all sorts of eminent people on this question. I appreciate that, naturally, criticism that weapons are not what they ought to be has a most depressing effect on production. What can be more disturbing to a large body of workpeople than to be told, when they have sweated in producing the maximum quantity of a weapon in the shortest possible time, that the thing is no use? I have seen tanks of all kinds in production, and I take off my hat to the quality of the workmanship shown in these machines. It is absolutely magnificent. The craftsmanship is splendid, and there is nothing whatever wrong with the production side or the material that goes into them. My criticism is of the people at the top, whom I would describe as the sixth columnist, far more dangerous than the fifth columnist. A sixth columnist is the fellow who holds a responsible position and who really is not capable of holding down his job and yet hangs on, and is allowed to hang on by people who ought to know better. My criticism is entirely of the people at the top.

I know that the Secretary of State for War is not responsible for the Tank Board, and if I started analysing the Tank Board or pulling it to pieces, I should be told that that came on another Vote. But he is responsible for a number of the people who sit on the Tank Board, and I want to know whether he really is satisfied with the representation that he has there. So that the House may be informed on the subject, I will refer briefly to what has happened to this Board. This Board has always had representatives from the War Office. Since the year 1940, when it was formed, there have been 25 different members, 20 of whom had no previous experience of design, production or use of the weapon in the field prior to their appointment to the Board. Two only had had field experience, one of whom has unfortunately since been killed in action and the other is now seconded for service in America; and three only had previous knowledge of designs or production. At present, as far as I know, the position is not very much more satisfactory. The point that I want to press on the right hon. Gentleman is, Why is there still nobody who has had any close-up field experience seconded for duty by the War Office with the Tank Board?

Anybody who really knows anything about the production of mechanical equipment knows two things: first, that you should never leave it entirely to the engineers, as that would be disastrous, and, secondly, if you are to have a preponderance of production elements, of the people interested in production on the Board and a minority of people who are not competent to criticise what the production engineers' representative may say, as often as not that preponderance of people will get away with the wrong design to the disadvantage of the man in the field. I shall not rest satisfied, and I hope that the House will not, until we hear from the Secretary of State for War that he has appointed somebody from the War Office who has had close-up experience in the field. I am not making any criticism of the present personnel as far as their capabilities and experience are concerned. They are splendid persons, but there is no one who has had first-hand experience in the field or understands from his own tribulations the trials and difficulties with which the fighting soldier is confronted when using these weapons.

May I remind the House and the Secretary of State that on the great occasion in June, 1940, when, apparently, the Army Council, or what is called the Committee of Imperial Defence, decided upon the production of the tank which is now known as the A.22 there was no civilian on the Tank Board who had had any experience even of the production of tanks, and yet a decision was reached? It really is an absolute outrage. As I have said before, it is time that we insisted in this House that there should be a full and proper inquiry into what has taken place and have the culprits dealt with, or, at least, moved out of harm's way, so that the same sort of thing cannot happen again. I am not going into details of the personnel of the Tank Board, but there is an American liaison officer, who, I suppose, is appointed with the approval of the Secretary of State for War, and there at least our cousins across the Atlantic have shown greater sense. They have at least appointed somebody who had experience of tanks in the last war. I realise the difficulty at the commencement of the war in getting enough people of experience of tanks in action; it was impossible. Though in this case they have found it hard to find men of experience of the machine in the field and elsewhere during the last war, I am wondering why somebody of the capacity of Major-General Hobart has not been taken on and used in this direction. He may have personal difficulties—I do not know—but his is one name that comes to my mind.

I would ask the Secretary of State another particular question on the A.22 tank which never ought to have been called the Churchill and which was only so christened by Lord Beaverbrook. I protested more than a year ago against the stupidity of so naming it. The design of this tank never had anything to do with the Prime Minister. It was started long before he became Prime Minister and it actually became known as the A.22. I asked the Secretary of State whether he is satisfied that the A.22 tank is adequate. Some of us who have been critics of the Government have had it drummed into us that troops have been equipped with weapons that are ample and adequate and we know that the A.22 has been produced by the thousand. As far as I know it was only designed to carry a 2-pounder gun but the War Office is responsible for saying what size of gun should be used. Were they satisfied with only a 2-pounder gun? It is an astonishing thing to me that they let it go at that. We shall be told that the A.22 is now mechanically all right but that is only because the top gear is now really the third, and the fourth and fifth have been cut out because they cannot be engaged with the engine power available. But that was not what was intended. As far as I also know, the machine gun fires in one direction only, and the wretched driver—and I have been inside the tank—feels that he is driving with blinkers on. You cannot see on either side, half right or left in front, and you want a man with a red flag to guide you onward. I do not believe the author or designer of that tank is known. I am surprised that with the responsibility of the Secretary of State for War and his staff, they should put up with a tank of this kind. I would like to know who really was responsible for putting it into production. Was it the War Office? In this House on 2nd July, 1942, when trying to explain how good the A.22 was, the Prime Minister said: In June, 1940…I called a meeting of all authorities to design and make a new tank, capable of speedy mass production and adopted to the war conditions to be foreseen in 1942. In 1942—that was the test…All the highest: expert authorities were brought together several times and made to hammer out a strong and heavy tank, adapted primarily for the defence of this Island against invasion, but capable of other employment in various theatres. This tank, the A.22, was ordered off the drawing board."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, July 2, 1942; col. 599, Vol. 381.] Every engineer knows that that statement was at least incorrect, and the tank cannot have been designed for this purpose if further statements made by the Minister are correct. In his statement of 15th December, after trying to explain, not how good it was, but how limited its scope, he said: the problem…was to produce the maximum number of tanks of sufficiently powerful action for home defence. He went on to say: This tank was never intended for the fast-moving long-range warfare of the desert."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, December 15, 1942; cols. 1772 and 1774, Vol. 385.] But in July he had said the whole question was to produce a machine capable of dealing with war conditions in 1942. That was the test, and not home defence. How can he reconcile those two statements? What were the conditions to be foreseen in 1942? Surely in 1940 we were all hoping that the war would be over by 1942, and certainly no one then thought of producing weapons merely capable of defending these shores. I would be interested to know who were the highest authorities consulted at that time and to whom the Prime Minister referred in his speech on that occasion. We have heard a lot lately both from the Secretary of State for War and more particularly from the Minister of Production, who makes rather wilder statements on this subject, that the A.22 tanks at El Alamein were really satisfactory. I ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is in a position really to tell the House the truth. I understand that only a handful went into action and that 80 per cent. broke down. Is that true or not?

Sir J. Grigg

It is untrue.

Mr. Stokes

Well, I hope it will be categorically denied because I understand that six went in and five broke down. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will stand up at that Box and deny it. I would like to ask whether it is true or not true that the German report on the A.22 was to this effect: that after close and careful study of this vehicle we are satisfied that we have nothing to learn and still less to fear. Is that true? Lately we have had some phoney stories put over the wireless of how our 6-pounder and 2-pounder guns have been knocking out German tanks at 2,000 to 3,000 yards' range. I will not attempt to bore people with figures of ballistics and all the rest of it, but as an ex-gunner I say that if a 2-pounder gun succeeded in knocking out a German tank at 2,000 yards' range the shells must have gone in through the window! It is disastrous that the Minister of Information, or whoever is responsible for these broadcasts, should put that sort of thing over the wireless—it only misleads the public. It seems to me to be a horrible thing that the same sort of thing that happened in the last war is happening this time—I mean the inadequacy of supplies and weapons. Anybody who has been at the fighting end and who knows what a miserable business fighting is, knows what a great responsibility rests on us here at home to stir up the Government and prod them into getting the right weapons. Is it true that the A.22 was tested at Farnborough in September, 1941, and was declared to be unbattle-worthy? Is it true that the officers responsible for carrying out these tests—both well-known colonels—were kicked out of their jobs and sent away to the East? An eminent American came here to help us, but he was returned to America for his trouble in saying the machine was useless.

Sir Granville Gibson (Pudsey and Otley)

The hon. Gentleman referred to the fourth and fifth gears being taken out of this tank, leaving only three. Has he any information to give to the House as to the effect of that on the speed of the vehicle?

Mr. Stokes

Certainly, I can give some information. It is not nearly as good information as the Secretary of State for War would give if he could, or could give if he would, but the A.22 was designed for a speed of 20 miles per hour in top gear and now does only 10 miles an hour. Of course, my information is, naturally, secondhand. Another question I want to ask about this tank is this—and I gave the Secretary of State notice of this, indeed, of nearly all my other questions. Did those with experience of the tank protest at the time at its being put into quantitative production? I understand they did. On 15th December the Prime Minister went for me, and I tried to deal with this the next day. Unfortunately Mr. Speaker ruled me out of Order. I have seen a letter written in May, 1940, by the Chairman of the Special Vehicles Development Committee, which reads as follows: In the meantime, I most urgently ask you not to allow the new model infantry tank, Mark IV, to be put into production until this has been re-considered by an impartial tribunal, any neutral mechanical engineers of standing, before whom I am prepared to put forward my reasons in detail. A vital one is that it has a petrol motor, with terrible danger of fire to members of the crew who are completely huddled up in this tank. The designer of this tank in these critical days has, I understand, never before designed a tank. In our opinion, this tank is a bad machine and is clogging, or will clog, the factories and machine tools of the utmost importance. Since then several thousands have been produced with the unsatisfactory results to which I have already referred. I would remind the House of what the Prime Minister said about this matter on 15th December: I am glad to have this opportunity of informing the House of the history of this tank and publishing the names of those who took the bold decision to introduce it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th December, 1042; col. 1774, Vol. 385.] It seems to me that it was a gambler's decision. Again, I must quote the words of General Fuller on this subject. Referring to this statement by the Prime Minister, he said: I should prefer to call it a dice-box transaction for the chances of reliability in an entirely new model are those of being dealt a royal flush in a game of cards, that is 64,000 to I against. I believe that if a Select Committee report on this subject were put into the hands of Members of this House, the Government would be in a pretty mess to justify what has happened. On the subject of how long it takes to make a tank, I do not propose to dwell, but anybody who says that a tank can be built off the drawing board and produced in six months does not know what he is talking about, and if a Minister says this, then he, too, does not know what he is talking about—and both the Prime Minister and Minister of Production have said so.

Now I come to the future, which is much more important. It is against the background of the miserable happenings in connection with the A.22 tank that one looks forward with the hope that things will be put right. I want to quote what the Minister of Production said on 14th July: The tanks which are actually coming out of the production line now"— presumably with the full approval of the War Office— —"will have the necessary fire power for today's battle and the new types which are designed to be made in the United States and this country give us a reasonable assurance of that superiority which is required for victory."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th July, 1942; col. 1107, Vol. 381.] Let us examine the position in Tunisia. The Germans turned up with a tank called the Tiger, which "The Times" stated recently was a weapon of 55-tons weight and carried an 88 mm gun and fired a shell of about 30 pounds weight. What have we got in reply? The A.22—with a 6-pounder—though this was never designed for a 6-pounder. In a few moments I will quote to the House extracts and reports from the field as to how this 6-pounder fared against this big enemy tank. The Americans have their Grant, which we know has its limitations, and they have something much better in the Sherman, with its 76 mm. high velocity gun. We also have, I believe, a tank which the Secretary of State for War told the country about in a veiled way recently, but about which I will not talk in a detailed way, as much of the material concerned with it is confidential and cannot be mentioned in public. On 20th September the Secretary of State for War said: We have new tanks coming into production better than our Forces had before. I have seen them, and they are better than anything produced by the Germans, Italians or Japanese—better than any tank in the world. The effect of this tank on the war is incalculable. Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to say that in his considered judgment that tank is capable of taking on the German Tiger?

Sir J. Grigg indicated assent.

Mr. Stokes

I want to get it on record; I do not want to get it by a nodding of the head. I want the right hon. Gentleman to stand up at the Box there and say so. If he does say so, I shall disagree with him because it is not. I want to ask him, can be tell the House whether the A.27 has been delivered to troops either here or abroad. I would like to ask him is he in a position to say whether we have anything coming into production or even on the drawing board which is capable of carrying our 3.7 A.A.-gun as a tank weapon. Finally, I want to make one or two remarks about what has happened in Tunisia. I feel hot under the collar about sending men into action with inadequate weapons. It is easy enough to stand up in this House and make vain and glorious speeches about the marvellous way in which the war is going. I would like to put the Prime Minister, the Minister of Production and the Secretary of State for War into an inadequate tank and put them into the front line.

Sir J. Grigg

And the hon. Member.

Mr. Stokes

Certainly, I would go like a shot. I spent three years as a fighting soldier in the last war.

Sir J. Grigg

So did I.

Mr. Stokes

I object to people standing up and saying that our soldiers have adequate weapons when they have not. What are the reports from Tunisia? Here is a report by Mr. William Stone-man, special correspondent of that reputable newspaper, the "Daily Telegraph"—less reputable since it merged with the "Morning Post." It was written on 6th February at American Headquarters in North Africa, and says: Our best medium tanks (American) have been equal to the German Mark IV tanks. What they would do if they ever ran into the 52-ton tank armed with an 88 mm gun, anybody can guess for himself. The British have been using a lot of Crusaders and Valentines, which are thinner shelled and more lightly armed than the American mediums, and have been no match for the German mediums. What does the Secretary of State for War say to that? Only two days ago, in the "Daily Mail," Mr. Ward Price, their correspondent there, described what happened.

Captain Duncan (Kensington, North)

What sort of paper is that?

Mr. Stokes

Well, in my youth, as far as I can remember, it was called the "Daily Liar," but as they all lie now, I do not see that it makes much difference. As I was saying, Mr. Ward Price described what happened in Tunis. He wrote: As the German armoured column began to debouch from the mouth of the Faid Pass, 20 American Sherman tanks posted opposite the exit charged forward to attack. The German Mark IVs. fanned out right and left, revealing the heavily armed Mark VIs at the apex of the angle. The 20 Shermans were quickly under fire from ahead and both flanks. Not one returned. What has the Secretary of State to say to that? Let us have production which is better and more advanced than any German design.

I have about half a dozen further questions to ask of the Secretary of State for War. I gave him notice of about 20. I want to ask him one or two things as to the history of our policy. After all, it is strategy which decides upon and controls your weapons. You do not decide what your strategy should be from day to day, or, if you do, you should be locked up as lunatics. In 1942, there was a visit by General Richardson to the Libyan Desert. Was the report which General Richardson made on his return made available by the War Office for the information of the Tank Board?

Secondly, is there any declared policy that we in this country will not go in for tanks over approximately 40 tons? Thirdly, have the War Office or High Command seriously considered the importance of dual-purpose guns in tanks? As far as my information goes they seem to go in for solid shot entirely. From my own recollection, there is nothing more pleasant on land than being shot at by a naval gun, because when the shell goes into the ground, it goes in so far that it does not hurt you, and if it hits you, you do not know because it comes, so fast! Surely, what we want now, with tank guns and with anti-tank guns, is a dual-purpose gun which can fire not only a high velocity armour-piercing shell but a shell with high explosive in it. It is no use trying to make that out of a 6-pounder gun, because the 6 lbs. shot can take only one ounce of explosive, and that is of no use. Has proper consideration been given to the importance of having a high explosive shell not only for dealing with anti-tank gun personnel but for the purpose of damaging tanks in action? One cannot expect to hit a tank every time, and therefore, one should try to blast its tracks off with high explosive.

Thirdly, I want to refer to a rather personal point. I hesitate to mention individual names in the House, and the gentleman to whom I am about to refer to is no friend of mine, but he is one of the most competent gun designers in the country. Why has Commander Stokes-Rees been relieved of his job and sent to Canada? He has a better brain for guns than anybody else in the country, and apparently, because he knows too much about the matter, he has been relieved of his job. Fourthly, can the Secretary of State tell us whether we or the Americans have anything approaching the Russian Klim II tank, which mounts a 4-inch gun and weighs 52 tons, or the German "Tiger" tank which weighs 55 tons? Finally, I consider the position now is more deplorable than it was two years ago.

Sir J. Grigg indicated dissent.

Mr. Stokes

The Secretary of State shakes his head, but I want to take him back to the speech he made in September of last year, when he told us that we had a tank which would beat everybody. Nobody can say that the A.27 is equal to the German "Tiger" or the Russian Elim II. With the A.27, if you get in under the enemy's belly, you will probably blow him up, but try to get in under his belly and see how you like it. I say in all seriousness that I think this scandal is a worse scandal than the shell scandal of the last war. I hope public opinion will be roused and that people will rise in their wrath and insist that a full and proper inquiry shall be made into the whole situation.

Sir J. Grigg

I ask your permission, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and the indulgence of the House for not more than two or three minutes, to pick up the worst mis-statements of the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes). I cannot go into all of them, partly because, for obvious reasons, I am not going to give information to the enemy, and partly because it would be an infliction on the generosity of the House if I dealt with more than the very minimum. Let me answer the hon. Member's statements about the Tank Board. It would be quite silly for me to say that I am satisfied about the Tank Board, but I am sure it is better now than it has ever been before. I am not in the least sure that the proper place for the user is on the Tank Board. Outside the Tank Board there is a great deal of experience in the Middle East available. Not only are there in the D.C.I.G.S.'s Department at least half a dozen names which spring to my mind immediately of people who have experience in the Middle East, but there are the Operational Research Groups and all the machinery out there which I tried to explain in my statement. There are innumerable reports from the Middle East, both from people stationed out there and from people who have been sent out, including characteristic ones from General Montgomery himself. There have been all sorts of visiting missions. To take up the point about General Richardson's report, certainly that report has been seen by the Tank Board and discussed by them.

Mr. Stokes rose——

Sir J. Grigg

I cannot inflict myself on the House for more than two or three minutes.

Mr. Stokes

The right hon. Gentleman is misquoting me.

Sir J. Grigg

I am not in the least misquoting the hon. Member. Moreover, Middle East experience is not the only kind of experience that is wanted on the Tank Board. As far as the Tank Board is concerned, I am prepared to rest myself on the 18th Report of the Select Committee on National Expenditure. They did not say that the present arrangements are perfect, but they did say that the present arrangements in both Departments are founded on what they consider to be sound basic principles. As the hon. Member pointed out, the development of a tank from the initial design and conception to its being in the hands of the troops is a very long process. If we do not cut out stages and take short cuts, we are blamed, and if we do so, we are blamed. One of the examples which is quoted as showing the folly of short cuts is the Churchill A.22 tank, about which the hon. Gentleman made a great song and dance. I do not propose to go into that or to re-peat over again what the Prime Minister and the Minister of Production have said in the House, but I shall be prepared to take up the matter at greater length on an occasion when I shall not trespass on the indulgence of the House. To my knowledge, quite a number of the statements which the hon. Member made about the Churchill tanks are inaccurate.

Mr. Stokes

Which ones?

Sir J. Grigg

The Churchills were used—and I say this in answer to the hon. Member's question—in small numbers at El Alamein and the figures he gave about the numbers which were put out of action were inaccurate. They are being used and are in action in larger numbers in Tunisia, and we ought to have a very good chance of seeing who is right, and whether the hon. Member is right in thinking they are no good. Personally, although I have not in the least the certitude which the hon. Member displayed, I am pretty confident that in its present form this tank will be an extremely useful battle instrument.

With regard to the future, I have not the slightest intention of telling the hon. Member what is going on. The hon. Member talked a great deal about his knowledge of what is going on. From the actual quotations he gave, it is clear to me where his knowledge comes from. I have heard all that story over and over again from the same person. But a great deal more is going on than the hon. Member evidently knows about. There are only two things I have to say on that part of the hon. Member's oration. Of course, we have not a full report on the Tiger or the Mark VI, but one of the Tigers which was knocked out showed four or five penetrations from the six-pounder gun, for which the hon. Member has such contempt.

Mr. Stokes

At what range?

Sir J. Grigg

How can I tell the range? The six-pounder put four or five holes into the Tiger, and into the turret of the Tiger. With regard to what I said at Cardiff, the hon. Member quoted me more or less verbatim from the newspaper report. I said then that these new tanks were coming into production. I confess that the period of teething has been several months longer than I hoped and expected then, but subject to that, I am completely impenitent about what I said at Cardiff. With regard to the hon. Member's question about solid shot and high explosive, all that sort of thing is being taken care of. We are not quite so simple as the hon. Member seems to think, and most of the developments which he demands, and says are being completely neglected, have been going on, to my knowledge, for months and months past. But there again, obviously I am not going to tell the House in Public Session what is going on. I do not want to pretend that everything is well and I do not want to claim too much, but I am pretty confident that things are a great deal better than the hon. Member pointed out, and that in the end all will be well. I end by commending to the hon. Member the advice which Cromwell gave to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland: Gentlemen, I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken

Mr. Stokes

On the subject of the Tank Board, will the right hon. Gentleman answer this question? Have the responsible fighting soldiers in North Africa—I do not mean the rank and file—expressed satisfaction with his composition of the Tank Board?

Sir J. Grigg

That does not seem to me to be relevant for this purpose. The only thing that is relevant is whether all the views which they express on technical matters are at the disposal of the Tank Board, and that is certainly the case.

Mr. Kirkwood (Dumbarton Burghs)

Are we to understand that General Montgomery assured the right hon. Gentleman that all was well as far as the tanks are concerned?

Sir J. Grigg

What I said was that, in order to prove that we were not so devoid of information of what was going on in North Africa, we had innumerable opportunities for the interchange of information and reports from the front, including a characteristic report from General Montgomery.

An Hon. Member

What does that mean?

Sir J. Grigg

Exactly what it says.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden (Doncaster)

What is the characteristic message?

Sir J. Grigg

It is full of information.

Mr. Hutchinson (Ilford)

I am sure the House will not expect any ordinary Member to intervene in the controversy in which the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) engaged with so much vigour and energy with the Secretary of State, except, perhaps, to say that the House will agree with him when he says we should not say in this House that our troops have been provided with adequate weapons, if in fact they have not; and I think that the House will consider it equally important that we should not say in this House that our troops have not been provided with adequate weapons, if in fact they have. The only other reference which I desire to make to this controversy is that many of us who are not so familiar with the technicalities of the matter as the hon. Member for Ipswich may think that my right hon. Friend would be well advised to direct that this matter should now be inquired into by a Select Committee of this House, or some other body, in secret so that our doubts may be finally and definitely resolved.

I am sure the House has listened with interest to the account which the Secretary of State gave both of the operational events of the last 12 months and of the background of administrative progress which has been made since he last spoke. I think his speech will help to dispel the impression that was prevalent in the House, and I think in the country, not very long ago that our military organisation moved slowly and adapted itself very slowly to changing events. My right hon. Friend has shown that that is not the case.

There are one or two matters to which I desire to invite my right hon. Friend's attention. He told us that a special organisation had been introduced for the purpose of finding drafts for field force formations at home and overseas. It came to me rather as a surprise to hear that at this stage of the war we were still engaged in organising machinery for draft-finding. I understand that what has been done is that reserve divisions have been formed whose task it is to find the necessary drafts for formations overseas. I should like to ask what is the nature of the units which have been transferred to the reserved formations, because one has heard that units which for many months have been organised and trained as field force units have now been converted to a draft-finding status and have been transferred from their original field force formation to these new reserve formations, where their chief function will be to find drafts. That is a treatment which is very discouraging to the troops. Naturally a unit which has been for many months fitting itself to take the field, particularly if it is an old established unit, feels very strongly that it has not been fairly treated if it is reduced to a draft-finding status.

I should like to ask this question also. There are, I believe, certain old established Territorial formations, to which the attention of my right hon. Friend has recently been drawn, which have been broken up and many of their units, I understand, have now been reduced to the status of draft finding units. That is a matter which will arouse a great deal of disappointment not only amongst the troops themselves but in the areas from which they were recruited. My right hon. Friend will recollect those formations to which I am referring. Some of them come from parts of the country with long and loyal traditions of territorial recruiting and service and the populations in those areas, as well as the troops themselves, feel that their units have not received fair treatment by being transferred in this way to reserve formations whose function is to provide drafts for other units.

The Secretary, of State dwelt on the question of man-power. I hope he will be able to tell the House whether he is satisfied that adequate officer material is now forthcoming. Some time ago difficulty was experienced in finding suitable candidates for commissioned rank in the Army and I would particularly invite my right hon. Friend to say whether he is satisfied with the present arrangements for distributing suitable officer material between the Army and the other Services. At one time a large number of young men who possessed the necessary qualifications of character and education to make successful officers in the Army were being permitted to go into other Services, the Royal Air Force in particular, where the qualities of leadership required in the officers are different from those called for in the Army. Are the present arrangements providing the necessary number of potential officers for the Army?

There are still being retained in the Army a large number of men who have sunk to a low medical category, not sufficiently low to entitle them to discharge, but too low to make them fit for active forms of employment. I understand that the War Office was actively engaged some time ago in reviewing these cases with a view to their discharge. What progress has been made with that review? The impression I and other Members are under is that there are still in the Army a large number of men in the lower medical categories for whom suitable employment in the Army cannot be found. Many of these men possess qualifications which would make them of value in civil life, in the difficult labour conditions that exist, not only in industry, but in the retail trades and other forms of business. I frequently encounter cases among my constituents of men in medical category C who tell me that they can be found very little useful employment in the Army. If I take a case up with my right hon. Friend's Department, my hon. and learned Friend the Financial Secretary writes, as he always does, a courteous letter saying that it is hoped that suitable employment would be found for the man in his medical category. The impression left on my mind, and I think on the minds of many hon. Members, is that there are a large number of men in this class who might be usefully released and that what is going on is a desperate attempt to find them suitable military employment although employment of a suitable character is not really available. I would like my right hon. Friend to consider whether a substantial number of these men, who cannot really be found suitable employment in the Army, could not now be released to civil life where they would be of much greater value.

In the earlier stages of the war arrangements for dealing with soldiers undergoing detention were not altogether satisfactory. They were particularly unsatisfactory in that no arrangements were made for affording separate treatment for young soldiers who were first offenders. These young men were treated in detention barracks with men of a different type who in a civil prison would be regarded as hardened offenders and who would be kept apart from those who had gone to detention for the first time. That system continued in military detention barracks until recently, but I believe that some time ago a committee was appointed by the War Office to inquire into it. Can my right hon. Friend tell us whether any results have followed from the appointment of that committee and whether their inquiries have been completed? I hope he will be able to give us some assurance that changes have been made and that first offenders and youthful offenders are treated now in the same way as they would be in civil prisons and are kept separate and given different treatment from that given older offenders. I hope that my right hon. Friend can give us this assurance because to-day the Army has the responsibility for a large and increasing number of young soldiers. It is most desirable that if these young men are sent to detention barracks for comparatively small offences, of a purely military character, the treatment which they receive should not have any permanent effect upon their characters. Experience in civil prisons shows that this is the result of associating young men during their first period of imprisonment with old[...] offenders.

Captain Duncan (Kensington, North)

I think that I can answer most of the questions that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson) has asked, but I will leave the Secretary of State to answer them. I would, how ever, make one suggestion. It is that in connection with the new system of detention, Members of the House, including my hon. and learned Friend, might be invited to visit detention barracks and see the working of the scheme that has been set up recently to deal with young soldiers. Judging from this Debate the politician seems to be satisfied with the Army to-day. The Army is glad to know that it satisfies the politician. The Army was not always satisfied with the politician, and a large part of the remarks of the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) might have been avoided, if more money had been spent by the politician on the development of tanks in the days before the war.

I wish to raise only one question, the future of the Army. There is no doubt that after this war is over we shall have to retain compulsory military service. We must have a fairly large Army for all our commitments. First, there will be the ordinary peace-time garrisoning of our Empire, the Colonies and home stations, and reserves must be maintained so that those overseas garrisons can be properly relieved. The international security aspect will loom large in the future of the British Army. Can my right hon. Friend say what the War Office is doing in regard to fixing the future size of the British Army? The question of demobilisation cannot be settled until we have decided the future size of the British Army. I remember being in Maubeuge on nth November, 1918. We soon started to march into Germany. We went to Cologne, where we arrived early in December, but before we reached the town a rumour went round that miners were wanted at home, and the whole of my platoon said they were miners. I believe, though I have not looked it up, that the British Army in France in 1918 numbered about 5,000,000, but the numbers fell to somewhere in the region of 100,000 in less than a year.

Mr. E. Walkden

I am not a miner, but I was a ranker in the last war, and I remember that men who made such a claim were court-martialled, because their pay-books proved that they were not miners. Is it not true that the evidence was that of their paybooks, and that they could not get away unless they had such evidence?

Captain Duncan

The fact remains that, in spite of whatever plans were made, the Army did practically disappear, and I think I am not far out in the figures I have quoted. The numbers got so low as to embarrass the Government in maintaining our overseas garrisons, and the fact that men came out of the Army so quickly led to all sorts of complications when the slump in trade came. I believe that plans were made for orderly demobilisation which were never carried into effect. Is there a Department of the War Office now making plans for demobilisation? My right hon. Friend did briefly allude to the matter in his speech. I hope plans will be completed and that we shall stick to them this time instead of allowing them to be broken as was the case at the end of the last war.

I have assumed that for men there will be in future some form of compulsory military service, and that the obligation to garrison Europe and our Empire and maintain troops at home will be carried out. If that is so, then the last question I want to ask—and I have not yet been speaking five minutes—is whether there will be room for the A.T.S. after the war. In the small army which we had before the war, I think it would have been impossible for the A.T.S. to have fitted into the Army's organisation, but if we are to have a much larger Army, with recruiting depots through which our conscripts will go, things will be on a sufficiently large scale to warrant the A.T.S. being continued. I believe there are a considerable number of girls in the Army to-day who want to go on serving. Not only would it be useful to keep the nucleus of the A.T.S. organisation going, but I think it would be welcomed by the A.T.S. themselves, provided some sort of career is open to them.

Mr. Bellenger (Bassetlaw)

The only reference which I want to make to the very powerful speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) is to say that I for one, and I think other hon. Members too, are not entirely satisfied with the answer which was given by the Secretary of State for War. I do not think he himself is quite satisfied, and I would venture the suggestion that I do not think he is quite in a position to give the complete answer. The answer must be given by some right hon. Gentleman who has greater authority to speak than he has. When my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who was then, I think, Minister of Supply, set up the Tank Board, he told us that the trouble up to that time was mainly that the Army did not specify what sort of tanks they wanted, and that that was why we had so very few tanks in France for the Battle of France. It is a very serious charge that my hon. Friend has made to-day, and it is a very courageous attitude he has taken up. If he is right, the situation is serious and demands an answer, and this House should insist on one. If he is wrong, his statements ought to be denied categorically and authoritatively without delay.

My right hon. Friend made a very conciliatory speech, a very good speech from the Army's points of view, and it was about time that he or somebody did so, because the Army has not been so well understood by the general public as has the Air Force. I think I can say without fear of contradiction that the reason for this is that the other two Services, particularly the Royal Air Force, have had a better system of press relations than the Army, but I wish to pay my tribute to the Army's Press Relations Department now. We have to depend upon the newspapers to interpret the Army to the public, and it is admitted throughout Fleet Street that the press relations department of the War Office is now working very satisfactorily indeed.

When, as in the latter part of his speech, my right hon. Friend, probably emulating the Prime Minister's style, becomes provocative and rather deplores the speeches of hon. Members calling attention to the deficiency of the weapons and the inadequacy of the equipment of our soldiers in the past, I think he is making a great mistake. He himself knows, because he has been in a different position at the War Office, that civil servants, to say nothing about their political chiefs, do pay attention to what is said in this House and do get a move on if hon. Members continue to press their subjects. The hon. Member for Ipswich has a particular subject at the moment, and I can only say, in view of the attempts that were made to get investigations undertaken into such deplorable incidents as Singapore and Tobruk—when it did not need any speeches of hon. Members in this House to affect the morale of the Army, as they saw the things that were happening—that when we find that we come up against a blank wall we are right to have a sense of frustration if the Government, through their spokesman, pass by and short-circuit criticism made on the authority of the Members of Parliament.

I hope that the Secretary of State will not forget that a certain number of hon. Members recently paid a visit to the airborne division. I am not going to say anything about the experience we had. Some of us went up in gliders and came down, some not so whole when they came down as when they went up. I say in all seriousness to the Secretary of State for War, under whose charge the airborne troops are, that the situation there is serious and will have to be looked into by him, and probably by the Minister of Defence himself. He knows, as do hon. Members who went to visit that airborne division, that everything is not well with those troops. We have information derived from responsible sources. The right hon. Gentleman knows some of those sources. He cannot smile that off. This Debate has dealt, in the main—

Captain Duncan

I hope the hon. Gentleman will go into a little more detail about that matter, or the effect will be felt upon recruiting. If he is going to make wild statements—

Mr. Bellenger

My hon. and gallant Friend was not there and did not hear the statements by responsible military and Air Force commanders. If I am overstating the case, there are other hon. Members present in this Chamber at the moment who can get up and deny my statements. I think I have been understating the case, if anything. I want to make no wild charges. Those troops of the airborne division, both paratroops and others, are excellent and first-class. If they are denied the right to aeroplanes or gliders or opportunity for training themselves and are then sent hurriedly overseas, a grave responsibility will rest on whoever sends them. I do not want to develop that side of the matter at the moment, but I hope that the House will be given an opportunity of going into that question more in detail. I do not want to delay my hon. Friend opposite from giving a reply to questions which have been put to him in the Debate, and to one or two which I shall put to him.

Nothing has been said by the Secretary of State for War about personnel. He roamed at great length and breadth over the whole world, and he justly paid tribute to the efforts of our troops in action. I endorse every word he said in that respect, but he must understand that many hon. Members, particularly after the recent Debate on pay and allowances, are not satisfied. The Army is not satisfied. That has nothing to do with the morale of the troops. If my right hon. Friend will not set up any organisation which can deal with these matters outside this Chamber, and can deal with them in a satisfactory way, what alternative have we but to bring them on to the Floor of this Chamber? As has been said before, the Army have nobody to speak for them, no trade union or powerful influences like that, except hon. Members of this House. I am very glad to see the number of serving Members who are now returning here, and I hope they will put the case of the Army very forcibly before the Secretary of State. In respect to pay and allowances, there are grievances which have not yet been settled. If the right hon. Gentleman will refer to the increasing tendency of wages in the country, as is exemplified in the reports issued by the Ministry of Labour, he will see that there is a growing divergence between the pay and allowances for members of the Forces and their dependants and those of the civil population. I do not wish to make any invidious distinctions. I believe that the labourer should get what he is worth, but if one section of the population is worth a certain sum and can get it, the Army are entitled to their share.

There are many things I should like to bring up to-day. I will lump them under one heading, which the right hon. Gentleman has given to me, a term which he is content to use, "anomalies." There are many grievances and anomalies which should be put right, and I will refer to one only, the difference which is made between officers and others ranks in the rations that they get. In the home country there is a difference of 2½d. in cash between what the offijcers receive and what is received by the other ranks. It works out when you consider other factors, to a discrepancy of more than 2½d. in relation to rations drawn by units of a strength under 100, but in war-time there can be no justification for making a difference between rations drawn by other ranks and rations drawn by officers. That may be a slight anomaly and the right hon. Gentleman may pass it off by saying that officers are in a different position and that it has always been accepted that an officer shall provide himself with part of what he eats and drinks. However that might have been in peace-time it is not good enough in war-time. Officers on leave are paid the same ration allowance as are other ranks, and they get exactly the same quantities of food as other ranks when they go overseas.

I think the right hon. Gentleman does not yet realise the amount of silent discontent, or discontent expressed perhaps only between officers and in their messes, at the way sick officers are being treated and, when it comes to that, the manner in which men discharged from the Army are being treated. Part of it rests with the Ministry of Pensions but part with the Army, and a very serious part too. Before the man or the officer is discharged he has a medical board which states certain conclusions, which go on to the Ministry of Pensions. When the Ministry of Pensions officials assess whether the disability is attributable to the service of the officer or the man, or was aggravated by his service, they go largely in the first place on what the medical board has said. What opportunity has the man or the officer to state his case? He is asked a question, "When did you first get your disability, and to what do you attribute your disability?" I suppose 99 out of 100 men would answer, "To my Army service." That question might just as well be left out for all the attention it receives from the Ministry of Pensions.

In conclusion I want to pay one or two tributes. I have been a critic in the past and I still am a critic, as hon. Members know. I hope they will not think I am a fatuous critic. I want to pay a tribute to the way in which officers are selected now under the War Office Selection Board. I have complete confidence, and I think the candidates have too, in that system. I know there are some officers still who object to the new system of selecting officers but the War Office Selection Boards are doing very well indeed. Why is it not possible by working co-operatively between this House and the Department to get more innovations started like that, which are due in the main to a very broad minded and sensible member of the Army Council? It is not usual to pay tributes to individual members of the Army Council, but sometimes criticism has been made, of officers, as the right hon. Gentleman said in his speech. Therefore it is only right to say that, under the present Adjutant-General we are effecting many considerable and desirable improvements. I wish to pay my tribute to him and to those associated with him who are able to give effect to those improvements in war-time. We can do those things in war-time. Just think of the large amount of work entailed in altering the system of training to the present general service Corps system and the whole system of selecting officers by War Office Boards. If that can be done, why cannot some of the other things be done for which we have constantly pressed? If my right hon. Friend replies later, or perhaps my hon. and learned Friend the Financial Secretary, I hope he will say something—I know it is impossible to say everything—on this question of pay and allowances. We are not satisfied with that position, and among other matters it will very soon have to come up again in this House.

Wing-Commander James (Welling-borough)

I wish to make a very few remarks. They follow closely on those of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger). The Secretary of State in his review referred to the extraordinarily good supply arrangements which have been evident in the recent Libyan campaign. I think one might compare the attitude of the military-minded public to-day towards the War Office with the position in the equivalent period of the last war. One cannot but be struck by the fact that there are very few complaints about the operations side—G-branch—and about Q-branch. I believe that the very marked improvements there have not been quite so marked on the A side. I would like to give one or two specific examples. One is rates of pay. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw finished on that note.

One difference between the present war and the last war is the very much closer integration of the civil population and the Services. There are many more officers and other ranks serving in England in this war, and there is a much closer basis of comparison between the three Services than there was then. Whereas the Navy and Air Force rates of pay are comparatively simple and straightforward, the Army rates of pay are incredibly complicated. It cannot possibly only be due to the increase in the Army. If the other two Services can have a relatively simple system, why cannot the Army? The anomaly is heightened by the fact that in a hospital, or very often on a station, there are men of all the three Services together. Whereas naval "other ranks" and officers and those of the Air Force, know what their rates of pay are, the Army do not and their officers cannot explain it to them. Could not the Minister appoint a small committee of a few bankers and accountants to straighten out this surely unnecessary tangle? It is a great pity that the Opportunity was missed when there was a recent increase in the rates of carrying out the necessary revision to secure simplification.

With regard to officers' pay and allowances—again I follow the hon. Member for Bassetlaw—I think there is real hardship in the way allowances, particularly, are paid in arrears. Take, for instance, travelling. It frequently happens that an unfortunate officer, probably living on his pay, is sent on what may be an expensive journey and he may have to wait weeks, even months, before he is recouped. In civil life,. I understand, the practice is that a man who is sent away on duty for his firm is paid either half or three-quarters in advance and then completes his claim on return. Surely there could be some system of the same kind in the Army. There are cases of real hardship in this matter of outstanding claims. In hospitals—again an A matter—I understand that private soldiers can only receive up to 10s. a week. Would it not be possible to allow them to draw, say, an extra 2s. 6d. or 5s. provided they put that in war savings stamps? If they could accumulate savings in this way many men will save as they go along and many men actually want to save as they go along.

Another striking anomaly between the three Services relates to leave when in hospital. I understand that a soldier, as distinct from an airman or a naval rating, cannot have sick leave from hospital and also cannot accumulate privilege leave. It is very hard on a man who is in the same ward with men who are accumulating privilege leave, while he cannot. Of the three systems one must be right. As regards Army medical boards—I am being very disjointed to save time—there seems to be a great lack both of uniformity and of powers of discrimination. Again, you have three separate systems in the three Services but I understand there is a rigid rule in the Army whereby a man who is sick in hospital, if he is not cured of injury at the end of nine months, is automatically out of the Service. I actually had a case brought to me the other day of a regimental sergeant major with a broken leg who was discharged from the Service at the end of nine months when one of the best civilian consultant medical opinions in the country was that two more months would have made him 100 per cent. fit. Could not such rigidity be changed?

There is another point which was also raised by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, that of disability being attributable to military service. I agree with everything the hon. Member said. I would add that we all know from pre-war experience the awful aftermath, the drag that goes on for years in pension cases, on the question of what is or is not attributable. Surely the hardest hit is the officer or N.C.O. serving for pension. He may be, I think unjustly, deprived of a legitimate expectation for which he has served. Again, I had a case the other day of an officer with about 17 years' service—10 in India—who developed one of those filter-passing germ diseases. One could not say that it was directly attributable to military service, of course, and he was turned out and lost all that pension because of a rigid rule. I hope that particularly in the case of long-service men, serving for pension, this difficulty—I know how difficult it is—will be looked at again.

I wish to refer to War Office selection boards. Again I agree with the hon. Member for Bassetlaw that they have been enormously improved. There is just one further improvement which might be of use and which the Secretary of State might consider. There is a feeling that in some cases the personnel of the boards have not quite sufficient experience of civil life to be able to assess the probable power of command a man may have on his civilian experience. There may be cases where the addition to these selection boards of experienced employers and experienced trade union officials, would enable a judgment to be given on the probable power of command a man would have from his civil life experience. Finally, I would say a word on the Judge Advocate-General's branch. I do not think it is working quite satisfactorily at present. The idea that a court-martial is the fairest form of trial generally holds good, but with the enormous extension of the Army we do get a much more difficult problem. I suggest that the present personnel of the Judge Advocate-General's branch is rather too young and inexperienced, and might be improved. Again, could not free legal aid which is provided or available to other ranks be extended upwards, to cover warrant officers and subaltern officers?

Earl Winterton (Horsham and Worthing)

We have had to-day a method of discussion which I hope will be generally followed—that is, of Debate and not merely of set speeches by a' number of people, who sometimes have a discussion on a subject in which the majority of the House are not interested. From the last two speakers we have had most valuable contributions, following upon another from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Londonderry (Sir R. Ross). I want, in the very short summing up which, if I might say so, I thought would be for the convenience of the Committee before the Minister replies, to follow upon what they have said.

I would beg my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—to whom I would pay a tribute for his speech—to give attention of this question of Army pay. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James) did not exaggerate. The position in many respects is worse than he says. It was complicated in the last war, and is more so in this war. In some cases serious hardship is caused. Secondly, there is the question, raised by three speakers, of the attribution of incapacity, total or otherwise. I am speaking quite impartially, not from the point of view of criticising the Government. Hardly a single Private Member in this House is convinced by the Government's argument that the present system is fair to the officer or to the man. Again and again, we have had examples, both in the Army and when the matter comes to the Ministry of Pensions afterwards. Surely some system could be devised which would be fairer. Then there is the question of temporary rank. In this war, as was the case in the last war, it is, to say the least, not very encouraging to the individual officer when a man who has been a substantive lieutenant and has risen to acting colonel goes sick, through no fault of his own, that he should revert to his substantive rank. I know that the difficulties are very great, but if we could get some assurance that these questions of pay and allowances and of temporary rank will be dealt with it would do a great deal to allay public feeling, both in this House and outside.

I come to the question of leave. Several hon. Members have pointed out the position of many officers and men, mostly of the old pre-war Regular Army, who have been in the Far East or India for five or six years, and who have gone through a lot of fighting. I admit that I am on very delicate ground and may cause offence to some Members, but I hold the opinion, which I held strongly in the last war, when I made myself unpopular in the House by giving voice to it, that there is more privilege about getting leave than there should be. That was my view in the last war, and there are cases which give ground for it in this war. Certain officers with influence, either because they are Members of this House or of the other place or because they are related to Members—[Interruption]. No, I am not thinking of any particular case, it is more serious than that—are able to obtain more leave from the front than they should have.

Mr. Bernays (Bristol, North)

Is the Noble Lord attacking Members of this House who have come here on leave?

Earl Winterton

Perhaps my hon. Friend will allow me to make my speech. I said that in the last war there were some who obtained leave through influence, either because they were Members of this House or of the other place, or through relations who are. If the hon. Member is not satisfied with my statement, I will make this confession. In the last war I came home twice on leave from Palestine, getting, I think, 80 per cent. more leave, than other persons got. It is true that I had good reasons—business reasons—but I must honestly confess that I should not have got leave if I had not been a Member of Parliament. It would be out of Order to discuss on this occasion whether or not it is right that a Member of Parliament should have the right to come back to this House, but the mere fact that they have that right should make them very careful about using it when others cannot get leave. I knew that some Members would not like me saying this, but, other things being equal, say that there is a limited amount of accommodation, by the Clipper or by any other means, from Egypt or anywhere else, I say that the first right should go to men who have been wounded. I feel very strongly about this, because in the last war I saw bad examples of what was happening. A Member of this House said to me, "You are a fool to ask for leave through the ordinary channels; send a telegram to the Secretary of State and you can come home." If I find that sort of thing happening in this war, I shall take strong action.

Mr. Beverley Baxter (Wood Green)

The Noble Lord says that he came home on a matter of business. Perhaps it would be different if a Member thought that he should come home and fight the battle of the troops in this House.

Earl Winterton

I agree. I only say that I would not like to be in the position of a Member of Parliament who had to decide between himself and another man who had been out there for years. I would not like to be in the place of a man who decided in favour of himself.

Mr. Bernays

Who has done it?

Earl Winterton

I do not say that anybody has, but I saw this sort of thing in the last war. When the hon. Member has had as long an experience as I have, he will understand. I do not wish to quarrel with him; I only wish to say that those who have first claim to leave are those who have the longest service. I do not think anyone will deny that. I come to an analagous question, which I think will even more upset my hon. Friend; I am afraid that he will go up in flames about it. I am sure most of the House will agree, but not my hon. Friend. I think that, so far as possible, positions on staffs, of a non-technical character—that is, the positions of aide-de-camp or of assistant aide-de-camp, should be given to people who have had long military experience, and not to men who have had none. I am glad to see that my hon. Friend assents to that proposition. I am sure that my hon. Friend would obtain a post on his merits, and not for the delightfulness of his character and personality alone.

The only other point I want to emphasise—it is not of a personal character—is this. It is a matter on which I think the hon. and gallant Member for North Kensington (Captain Duncan) was guilty of an injustice to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger). There is no question of those of us who had the privilege—because privilege it was—as guests of the War Office, of visiting the airborne division, carrying out any raging, tearing propaganda in this country about what we saw there. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw was right in saying that there were certain matters which it was not desirable to discuss and debate where the equipment of the division might be improved. All of us who went there, irrespective of party, and whether soldiers in the last war or in this war, were immensely impressed by what we saw. There were certain things that I would not mention across the Floor of this House where we think there should be an improvement. In particular, we hope very much that the number of gliders available for the troops will be very greatly increased. That is essential, and we hope the Secretary of State will be able to impress upon the other authorities of the Government the need for that. I wish to refer, as have other hon. Members, to the value of the reform made by the right hon. Gentleman since he has been at the War Office in the way of endeavouring to send to units men as far as possible who come from the part of the country in which the unit was originally recruited and of endeavouring as little as possible to upset the identity and continuity of the unit by not removing officers and men in the numbers in which they were removed in the early days of the war.

That is of the greatest importance. A number of us in this House, both serving soldiers and those who were soldiers in the last war, went to see the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, now the Secretary of State for the Colonies, a few years ago because we were very dissatisfied at the way in which changes were being made. We thought that changes were being made merely for the sake of making changes, though we might be wrong, in the Territorial Army. Huge blocks of officers and men were taken away from the Territorial units and sent to other units, and men were sent to the Territorial units who had no connection with the Territorial Army. That was a grievance of the last war. I happen to be a foundation member of the Territorial Association. We were told that the Territorial Army would not be treated as it was treated after the last war. We ought to have some regard for the fact that the Territorials are the patriotic people who join the Army in peace. While they cannot be given any undue privilege, they should as far as possible be kept together.

I do not propose to join with the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) in the controversy over tanks. I do not know who is right. I regard both my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member as two very honest, forthright people, and it is really difficult to judge between them when they take such a completely opposite point of view. I would say one thing in support of the hon. Member for Ipswich, that in the past some of the charges which hon. Members have made on the subject of armament generally, unfortunately, have only too often proved to be true. I just cannot understand the mentality of people, mostly outside this House, though some in this House have that mentality, who seem to think when there has been some major disaster to British arms such as occurred in Burma and Malaya last year one should not ask for an inquiry. I never thought that I should live to see a patriotic English newspaper like the "Daily Telegraph" refer to all of us who, very properly and naturally, in the discharge of our Parliamentary duties, asked for information about an appalling disaster which may or may not have been preventable—as only history can tell us about what occurred in Burma or elsewhere—as croakers. I will not enlarge on that subject, but we ought to be grateful to the Secretary of State for telling us about the progress of the Army. It has been said that he has an aggressive manner. I wish that there were more people with an aggressive manner. What this House has suffered from in recent years is that you must not look in a nasty way or say anything to upset anybody. I may say I was not looking at a particular hon. Member.

Mr. Baxter

Is it not possible in a case like Singapore that the very hon. Members who are pressing for a statement have already information at their disposal which makes it very difficult for the Government and inadvisable to make a public statement? In that case do not hon. Members exceed their duties and therefore to that extent is not the "Daily Telegraph" justified?

Earl Winterton

My hon. Friend is usually so lucid that I hesitate to say that on this occasion he is not quite up to his usual standard. My right hon. Friend presented a picture which was one of the most satisfactory given by any Defence Minister during the war, and that much abused institution, the War Office, is entitled to the greatest credit for this state of affairs. Leaving aside the question of tanks, which is a difficult and vexed question, and I agree an important one, the criterion of success which we should apply to the Secretary of State and the War Office, and indeed to any institution of the kind, is, Have they or have they not succeeded in producing an Army which can fight? I think that they have. There is one thing that should be said, though it is a delicate thing to say. I believe it to be true, from information which reaches me from all sources, that the Russian, British, Polish, Canadian and Japanese Armies—and I exclude the Germans, to whom it applied once, but not to-day—are the most highly trained in the world. The test of endurance and training in these armies is very much higher than in the armies of other countries fighting on other sides. That is a very important thing. We ought to be grateful to the Secretary of State for War and to the Army Council, and to the General Officer Commanding Home Forces all the more because in this very properly democratic country, where the individual in the past, owing to our way of looking at things, does not very much care for discipline, for producing during this war this highly disciplined and highly trained Force. It is the severest training the British Army has ever gone through in so short a time. I am convinced that we shall gain from that enormously when the really big fighting starts.

Any of my hon. Friends who are in the Army to-day have a great advantage in that respect over those of us who were in the Army in the last war, because it happened again and again last time, with one or two exceptions, that when there were tremendous casualties—and it was due sometimes to mismanagement of manpower—the ranks were filled up with officers and men who had had no proper training. They were sent to us in the line in Palestine and Mesopotamia, as all "old sweats" in the House will agree, after having had the most inadequate training. Sometimes the selection of officers was bad, and sometimes it was done through influence, and it is pleasing to note that the officers in this war are selected on the best possible basis. I say to anyone who is disposed to criticise the Secretary of State for War and the War Office—and no person or institution in normal times is more likely to be criticised—that we should remember with gratitude the vast change that has come over the Forces during the last two or three years and the magnificent Army which has been formed.

Lieut.-Colonel Lancaster (Fylde)

I propose confining my remarks to only a few minutes. I feel that if any hon. Member can take part in discussion of a topic such as that which was brought up by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) and can bring to light any evidence which will enable the House to form a judgment, it is his duty to do so. I do not want to question the motives which actuate the hon. Member for Ipswich in the attitude he takes about our tanks generally, but for the House to form a proper appreciation of this matter, two points must be borne in mind. The first is that, rightly or wrongly, the Germans decided before the war—and have maintained their decision—to form for tactical purposes one standard armoured formation. Into that formation they put all their types of tanks, the B.K.W.2, the B.K.W.3 and the B.K.W.4. The British Army, again rightly or wrongly, decided that that was not necessarily the soundest method of employing tanks, and we have generally two formations of tanks. We have what is commonly called the armoured divisions and the tank brigades. The armoured division is made up in general of a much lighter type of tank, and the purpose and usage of that division is for what is called "soft spot tactics." That in itself explains that these tanks are not necessarily either armoured or have weapons which are comparable with the heaviest and strongest, tank in the standard German formation, that is to say, the Mark IV, which so often is compared with such tanks as the Covenanter, the Crusader and, in a lesser degree, the Valentine.

If we compare our heaviest tank with the Mark IV—I am leaving aside the question of the Tiger—we must compare the Churchill, the successor to the Matilda. Whereas I would be at one with the hon. Member for Ipswich in his point of view that at one time there was rightly a great deal of disturbance throughout the Army as well as in this House about the A.22 both as to its mechanical efficiency and as to the gun it was mounting at that time I think it is fair to say that to-day, certainly so far as the Army in England is concerned—I cannot speak for the Army in Libya—that feeling has in a great measure gone. By and large both officers and men who are equipped with the Churchill tank are becoming increasingly pleased with its performance and its ability to deal with the heaviest type of German tank when it meets it in action. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War said he hoped in the near future to be able to give us an account of what happened. As I have said, a great deal of the worry of the Army in regard to this tank has been assuaged, and to-day there is increasing confidence among those who use it. The attitude which has been taken towards it has altered in five months in a way which it seemed impossible to expect.

Mr. Stokes

May I ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman two questions? Is he aware that the German Mark IV tank, mounting the 76-mm. gun and firing a 13-pound shell, was known of before the war? While it is true that the mechanical efficiency of the A.22 has improved, does he really want to tell the House that a tank equipped with a 6-pounder gun, with an effective range of 800 to 1,000 yards, is the real answer to the Mark IV, which fires a 13-pounder shot and has an effective range of 2,000 to 3,000 yards?

Lieut.-Colonel Lancaster

No, I do not want to suggest to the House that it is necessarily the answer, but I would like to repeat that whereas the A.22 was criticised, and reasonably so, on the score of mechanical deficiency, at small range a 6-pounder is perfectly capable of dealing with a Mark IV. Also, as the hon. Member knows, the only way of dealing with a tank is not necessarily with another tank. We have now an anti-tank gun which is quite capable of dealing with any German tank.

Captain C. S. Taylor (Eastbourne)

There is another Debate to follow, and I do not want to delay the House for more than a few minutes. First, let me say for the benefit of my noble Friend the Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winterton) that I have not had 40 years' experience in this House. I have been here for only a brief period, and I hope he will forgive me if I do not follow the trend of his speech and the rather vague accusations contained therein. Listening to his speech was more like listening to a lecture. There are two or three questions I would like to ask arising out of the very able speech of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War. He mentioned the question of Army and Air co-operation in so far as the Eighth Army was concerned, and I would like to ask him from what date it was decided to introduce the principles which had been learned about Army and Air co-operation by the Eighth Army to the training of troops in this country? Before the First Army was sent out to take part in the North African campaign was anybody from the planning staff of the War Office, or the planning staff responsible for making the plans for this vast manoeuvre, sent out to learn from the only successful Army we had had in the field—the Eighth Army? Furthermore, was anybody having experience in the Eighth Army brought back to teach the First Army some of the lessons that have been learned? If not, I feel this is a most serious thing and a thing which hon. Members should know. If not, why not, who was responsible, and has action been taken?

The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Arthur Henderson)

In view of the fact that the House has still to consider the Amendment to the Motion moved by my right hon. Friend, perhaps I may be allowed now to deal with some of the many questions that have been put by hon. Members. I am afraid it will not be possible for me to answer all those questions, but the points that have been raised will be given proper and due consideration at the War Office, and, if necessary, replies will be sent to the hon. Members who raised them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) made one of his characteristically friendly speeches as far as the Army is concerned. He has always taken a very great interest in the British Army, and we appreciate most sincerely the references he made to the men in the Forces. The hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore), as one would perhaps expect, knowing his great interest in all matters concerning the Home Guard, raised several points which are not new either to him or to me, and which, as he knows, have been receiving the consideration of the War Office authorities. He raised a point that in my opinion is fundamental when one is dealing with the Home Guard. He asked why should not Home Guard officers be allowed to travel first class in certain cases and why should they, if they are sick, be refused treatment in officers' hospitals. My hon. and gallant Friend, realising the great weakness of his case, endeavoured to by-pass it by suggesting that conditions had changed since the inception of the Home Guard and that the original basis was no longer feasible in present conditions. I am afraid it is not quite as easy as that. The 1,500,000 men, or whatever the exact number may be, who joined the Home Guard joined on the basis that there would be equality of rank and of status, and if I may use the word "democratic" in relation to our Forces, we have always prided ourselves on the fact that if there was ever, a perfect example of a democratic force, it was our Home Guard.

Mr. Bellenger

The old L.D.V.

Mr. Henderson

I suggest it would not be consistent with that fundamental basis if now we were to give special preferential and different treatment to the officers of the Home Guard compared with that which the other members of the Home Guard receive.

Sir T. Moore

It was not the Home Guard that changed all these matters; it was the House and the War Office which, by granting His Majesty's Commission to officers; changed the whole basis of the Home Guard from what it was in the old L.D.V. days.

Mr. Henderson

I was engaged in other duties at the time that the announcement was made, but—

Sir Edward Grigg (Altrincham)

I think I was responsible, and it was laid down quite clearly that they were not altering the basis on which the Home Guard was raised. The point was emphasised throughout the Debates in the House.

Mr. Henderson

I am obliged to my hon. Friend for stating with greater force what I was about to say. I think the same objection applies to the suggestion put forward by the hon. and gallant Gentleman that the Home Guard officers should be authorised to award summary punishment for offences committed by members of their company or battalion as the case may be. It has always been understood, at any rate prior to mustering, that offences committed by Home Guards should be tried in the same way as civil offences and not before military tribunals, though I believe it will be a different position once the Home Guard is mustered as an armed force. After all, at present its members are part-time and unpaid, and I think it is reasonable not to treat them in the same way as enrolled, enlisted soldiers.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Londonderry (Sir R. Ross) gave an account, in somewhat passionate terms, of a personal experience that he has had in relation to an illness from which he suffered some little time ago. I am sure he will not expect me to attempt to deal with the facts of the case, which I realise he raised rather as an illustration of the argument that he was addressing to the House. But I should like to respond to his appeal by saying I am certain my right hon. Friend will go into the procedure which is operating in relation to the particular type of case to which he refers with the object of satisfying ourselves that these cases are being treated in a proper way and, if not, deciding what improvements may be made if we consider them necessary.

Earl Winterton

Would the hon. and learned Gentleman perhaps go further and consider making a statement in reply to a Question, say within two or three months' time? Great interest is taken in the question throughout the country.

Mr. Henderson

We will go into it very thoroughly.

Mr. Bellenger

All ranks?

Mr. Henderson

It will apply obviously to all ranks.

The hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson) was concerned with the effect of the new organisation establishing reserved divisions, and he feels apparently that the best units have not been chosen to constitute the divisions in question. I can assure him that the problem has reached the higher levels in the War Office, and investigations are being made certainly into one case which has been reported to my right hon. Friend. The hon. and learned Member also referred to officer material and asked whether we were reasonably satisfied that there was an adequate supply from which officers were to be obtained. We are constantly paying attention to this very important problem of choosing the best officer material, and also of ensuring that the best officer material is not kept in a unit because of a desire on the part of the commanding officer not to part company with him. It is a difficult problem, and all I can say is that we are endeavouring to ensure that the material is available.

Mr. Hutchinson

Is my hon. and learned Friend satisfied that a due proportion of the officer material which becomes available and might be better suited to Army requirements is not going to the Royal Air Force?

Mr. Henderson

The Royal Air Force has a limited priority, but apart from that we are treated pari passu with the Royal Air Force.

Mr. Mathers (Linlithgow)

Can candidates for commissions be given some indication of why they are turned down? There seems to be great mystification about the causes of men failing to be chosen, and if they could have the information it would be helpful to them.

Mr. Henderson

My hon. Friend can be assured that that point has come to our notice and is under consideration. The question of detention barracks was raised by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford, but I would rather deal with it later, on the Amendment. The hon. and gallant Member for North Kensington (Captain Duncan) raised the question of the future of the Army. I obviously cannot make a statement at this moment about policy on this problem, except to say that a good deal of consideration is being given to post-war military questions. The same applies to the point he raised about the position of the A.T.S. in the post-war Army. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) and the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton raised the problems of pay and allowances and of temporary rank. I am not in a position to carry the matter any further than it stands to-day. All I can say is that the representations which both Members have made will place on record what they consider should be done. The position with regard to temporary rank is not as bad as the Noble Lord appears to make it out to be by contrasting it with the position that existed in the last war. In this war we have granted substantive rank, which is only one step lower than the temporary rank, and that was not done in the last war.

The hon. and gallant Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James) raised the question of travelling allowances being paid three or four weeks after expenditure has been incurred, and he suggested that officers have to borrow money before they go on duty trips. I should imagine that only an infinitesimal proportion of officers have to do that. Officers proceeding on duty trips are invariably provided with free travelling warrants and can, if they wish, get an advance of money from the unit. As far as the settlement of a travelling claim is concerned, there is no reason why that should take as long as has been suggested. I am advised that all these claims are cleared in the pay offices in 48 hours, unless they have been wrongly made out.

Wing-Commander James

I could give my hon. and learned Friend the case of an officer who was sent on a long journey, involving an expenditure of more than £100, and it took more than two months to recover that sum on his return from that journey.

Mr. Henderson

Obviously I can only state the general position. If my hon. and gallant Friend has any particular case in mind and lets me have particulars, I will go into it.

Mr. Bellenger

Has the hon. and learned Gentleman overlooked the substantial point which I put about the difference between the rations issued for officers and other ranks?

Mr. Henderson

The position remains as stated in reply to my hon. Friend's Question two weeks ago. I cannot at the moment take it any further. My hon. and gallant Friend also raised the question of the limitation of the pay of soldiers to 10s. a week when they are in hospital. I am advised that the rule is based on medical opinion. The soldier is allowed pay only with the permission of the medical officer, and up to date 10s. has always been regarded as sufficient to meet the needs of a convalescing soldier. There is this advantage in the present system, that after they leave hospital they have a balance on which to draw for the purposes of leave.

Wing-Commander James

The hon. and learned Gentleman entirely misses the point I made. I did not suggest that the 10s. a week was inadequate for the man while he was in hospital, but that he should be allowed, if he desired, to purchase savings stamps. I was not querying the 10s. at all.

Mr. Henderson

I gathered that my hon. and gallant Friend was criticising the limitation of 10s. He also raised a point about payment in arrear in the case of officers. There is no reason why officers in the Army should not adapt their expenditure to the system of payment in arrear, which is almost universal, and we seek to mitigate inconvenience to individual officers in the following way: On being first commissioned an officer gets an advance of £18 5s. designed primarily to tide him over the period of transition from weekly payments to monthly payments, and this advance is recovered over a period of a year at the rate of 1s. a day. An officer who is placed under orders for service overseas may draw an advance of a month in his pay. Officers who are serving overseas may draw the greater part of their net pay in advance, in cash, in the form of advances. The view is taken that, under a system of payment in advance, an officer might very well be seriously inconvenienced on leaving the Service. It is only fair to say that Regular Officers of the Army do receive their pay monthly in advance, but I am informed that this is an ancient privilege which may or may not continue after the present war is concluded. I have endeavoured to cover—

Captain C. S. Taylor

May I have an answer to my question before the Minister sits down?

Mr. Henderson

I thought I said expressly at the beginning of my remarks that I would not be able to deal with all the questions which had been put to me at the beginning of the Debate and that I would take steps to have the points, of those I was not in a position to answer in the course of my speech considered, and a reply sent to the hon. Members concerned.

Captain Taylor

I will put it down next week.

Mr. Henderson

If you please. In view of the fact that another Debate is to be initiated by the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell), I hope the House will permit me to content myself—not that I have sought to evade various questions—with dealing with the questions which I have already answered.