HC Deb 12 May 1944 vol 399 cc2268-74

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. A. S. L. Young].

Mr. Stokes (Ipswich)

It, is, perhaps, somewhat of an anti-climax that, after the passing of a great Measure, I should wish to go back to one of my hobbyhorses. I have apparently learnt nothing by the Bill. I gave notice to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that I proposed to raise a matter which was the subject of a Question that I addressed to him yesterday. My Question was: whether he will give the names and qualifications of the British experts who collaborated in drawing up the Joint Statement by Experts on the Establishment of an International Monetary Fund. I got the most unsatisfactory reply. The Chancellor said: No, Sir. The experts in question are working for His Majesty's Government and it would be contrary to traditional practice to give the names of those who have collaborated in this task."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th May, 1944; Vol. 399. col. 2108.] The Chancellor, who has got as far away from me as he can get without falling over the edge, has gone to Edinburgh. I do not blame him for that, any more than he can blame me for raising this matter. I have been pursuing this particular side of the matter for 15 months—I have been raising the whole subject, actually, for about two and a half years. I have never yet got any satisfaction. Now I hope that the Financial Secretary, out of the goodness of his heart, if for no other reason, will tell the truth for a change—at any rate, the whole truth. About a year ago I raised this matter, and the late Chancellor of the Exchequer gave me an exceedingly unsatisfactory reply about what was going on in America. The reply would indicate that there were no Treasury officials engaged in discussions. Knowing that discussions had been going on, I assumed, therefore, that there were people who were not Treasury officials engaged in discussions on our behalf.

Later in the year I raised the matter with the present Chancellor. He assured me that the discussions—which I had understood had not been taking place—had come to an end! Rather bewildered, I assumed that there had been an interim period and that Treasury officials must have joined the unofficials. Mean- while, I was not smart enough to raise it sooner, or perhaps the House was not sitting, and then the next Chancellor told me that the discussions were drawing to a close. This year I pursued the Chancellor, and asked him for an assurance that there would be no commitments entered into by the Government until this House had discussed the subject. He assured me that there would be no commitments entered into until that had happened. I am all the more perturbed because there was a Debate two days ago, which was almost universally condemnatory of the White Paper; yet one of the papers which cannot be regarded as completely dissociated from the Government, the "Financial News," said, in a leading article to-day: Although the Commons have accepted the International Monetary Fund scheme in principle, their acceptance has been somewhat timid and reluctant Could that possibly be regarded as a correct description of the Debate which took place last Wednesday? Of all the speakers who spoke, including even the Chancellor, there was not a single person—well, perhaps, there was one who gave a half-clap to the scheme, but all the others who spoke were condemnatory of the scheme. Yet the "Financial News" says that: The Commons have accepted the International Monetary Fund scheme in principle. They have done nothing of the sort; and the sooner the world, and particularly our cousins in America, know it, the better. I want to ask why I, and the House, should not know who was responsible for carrying on these discussions in America. Everybody knows that Lord Keynes was there. That is no secret: you have only to read the document to know that he was. But who else was there? There is some mystery about it. If the Financial Secretary can tell me that only Lord Keynes and accredited Treasury officials —not part-timers brought in for the job—

Mr. Bowles (Nuneaton)

Did the hon. Member say brought in, or bought in?

Mr. Stokes

Both: brought in, and paid. I do not want any of these "ternporary gents"—that is an old Army expression from the last war—regarded as permanent officials. If the Financial Secretary tells me that there were Treasury officials only, I have no more complaint to make, and I will sit- down. I do not regard as a Treasury official a part-timer brought in by the Government, and paid by the Government for the job. I want to know what commercial associations anybody engaged in the discussions had. Why should we not know the actual names of the people involved? I feel very strongly about this. I may have never made it quite clear yet, but I want to make it clear now, that I have never liked this Government. I think they have spent their time suppressing the truth. We are never allowed to know what is going on. We lose half the Empire, and are never allowed to see the despatches. Singapore and Burma were lost; Norway, Greece, Crete, and other campaigns were a fiasco; and we have never seen any of the despatches. We are not even allowed to know what happened at Teheran, when they tore up the Atlantic Charter. In the British Isles to-day 45,000,000 people, who are concentrating on the war effort, are fighting for reasons known to the Government of which they have no idea whatever. My suspicion—and I hope that I shall be forced to withdraw it when my right hon. Friend replies—is that you are juggling with what is the lifeblood, the monetary machinery, of the people. You are in fact arranging for the next war.

Mr. Speaker

I hope I am not.

Mr. Stokes

I beg your pardon, Sir. The Government are doing these things. I entirely exonerate you from all those accusations. They are playing about with the monetary system. No less a person than the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour said, not many years ago, that if we really examined the causes of war we could not excuse ourselves, on account of the dominating part we had played in the financial affairs of the world between the two wars. If there is juggling with the financial system there are things going on that may lead us into another holocaust. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to say definitely that nobody but Lord Keynes and professional officials were at these discussions; and I hope that if there was anybody else at all there, he will tell us who they were and what were their associations.

Commander King-Hall (Ormskirk)

I do not propose to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) precisely along the path he traversed, and I must not anticipate the Financial Secretary's reply, but I will tell my hon. Friend, in case he does not consider that reply satisfactory, that I happened to cross the Atlantic with Lord Keynes on that occasion, and I can give him the passenger list to the best of my recollection. I want to raise a point which is generally related to the point raised by my hon. Friend, in so far as he was appealing for light to be cast on dark places. My point is related both to the speech we have just heard, aid to the great Bill that we have just passed through the House. In the speech which I made on the occasion of the Budget Debate, I pointed out the great value there was in the document which the Treasury issued on the Financial Statement, and asked my right hon. Friend the Chancellor whether it might not be possible for a more popular account of these financial matters to be published by the Treasury—an account that would include a statement of the war effort of this country in the financial field and also—and to this I attach great importance—include the elementary facts about money and the financial situation.

At that time my right hon. Friend gave a sympathetic reply to that request, and my excuse for raising it again is, partly, that I was glad to see that "The Times," at the conclusion of its leading article, also suggested that it was of public importance that a further document should be produced, and also, after I had read and listened to as much as I could of the Debate on the monetary system, I was very much struck by the evident desire of the House to approach this matter from the point of view of the man in the street, and in many speeches it was pointed out quite correctly that in these matters, which are of the utmost importance to the future of every living thing in this country and the world, we are in a really great mystery. There has been a tremendous amount of mystery making and mumbo-jumbo—

Mr. Bartle Bull (Enfield)

Does the hon. and gallant Member think that this would be slightly lessened, if we could get the decimal system introduced?

Commander King-Hall

I do not think it is necessary to wait for the introduction of the decimal system in order that people in this country should understand certain simple facts about our monetary system.

Mr. Bull

Except that they have to put in more hours working, where other people do it much more quickly.

Commander King-Hall

That is not precisely the point to which I am addressing myself. I have risen to link up my observations with the general desire on the part of the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes), with whom I have been associated in questions on this matter, in order to throw some light on dark places, and to ask the Financial Secretary again if he will not give sympathetic consideration to this idea of producing a popular statement on finance, which I regard as a matter of real urgency. I ask him if, at the earliest possible moment, he will get on with the job of producing such a document, because I know that the Treasury has plenty of people on its staff capable of producing it.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Assheton)

The hon. and gallant Member for Ormskirk (Commander King-Hall) knows that I gave him an answer not many days ago saying that we will consider this very point which he has put again to-day. The task, for example, of writing a "Child's Guide to Keynes," must always be difficult, but we will bear in mind what my hon. and gallant Friend has said in relation to Treasury policy in general.

The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) said that he never liked the Government. I am tempted to reply to him in like manner but I refrain. He also said that he had been persecuting the Chancellor of the Exchequer—and that is certainly true—that he had persecuted the last Chancellor, and he is now persecuting, in his kindly and persuasive way, the Financial Secretary. The hon. Member seems somehow or other to have got it into his head that Lord Keynes has something to do with the proposals in question, and there seems to be a very general opinion throughout the world that that is true. I must try to draw my hon. Friend's attention to the reply which the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave to his Question. What the Chancellor said on 11th May, when the hon. Member asked whether he would give the names and qualifications of the British experts who collaborated in drawing up the Joint Statement by Experts on the establishment of an International Monetary Fund "— was— No, Sir. The experts in question are working for His Majesty's Government and it would be contrary to traditional practice to give the names of those who have collaborated in this task."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th May, 1944; col a108, Vol 399.] I stand by that reply, and my hon. Friend knows that a Financial Secretary is peculiarly accustomed to that position. It is one of the tasks of a Financial Secretary, from time to time, to say "No," and on this occasion I am bound to say "No" again. I will, however, go so far as to say this to satisfy the hon. Member's curiosity. Leaving aside the Noble Lord to whom the hon. Member has referred, there were officials in Washington, and they did not include a single part-timer or anybody appointed ad hoc because of currency expertise. On the other hand, they did include certain whole-time temporary civil servants who have been in the service of the Government since the beginning of the war. Beyond that, I am afraid I cannot go, and I suggest to the House, and to the hon. Member, that it is quite contrary to the traditions of the public service that members of it should be other than anonymous. As the hon. Member knows, the House recognises that tradition and I think hon. Members will wish to recognise it once again to-day. Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and, 40 Members not being present, the House was adjourned till Tuesday next, pursuant to the Resolution of the House this day.