Commons Sitting of 28 March 1946

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter past Two o'Clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

  PENSIONS AND GRANTS
  Mr. Edward Evansasked the Minister of Pensions the number of personnel in receipt of disability pensions on account of aural disease or deafness.
  The Minister of Pensions (Mr. Wilfred Paling): Approximately 15,500 awards of compensation have been made to persons suffering from disablement due to aural disease or deafness arising out of the 1939 world war.
  Mr. Evans: Can my right hon. Friend tell us the number suffering from these disabilities who have been refused pension?
  Mr. Palinģ: If my hon. Friend will put down a Question, I will do what I can to answer it.
  Mr. E. Evansasked the Minister of Pensions what categories of deafness are laid down as entitling to disability pension for Service personnel; and whether he is satisfied that they are adequate or whether further revision is contemplated.
  Mr. Wilfred Palinģ: Deafness of any type or category due to war service is accepted for pension purposes. The question of a revision of categories does not therefore arise.

  HOUSING

    Permanent Houses
    Mr. William Shepherdasked the Minister of Health the number of workers employed in London on 1st March on the
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    erection of permanent houses; and the number so employed on 1st March, 1939
    The Minister of Health (Mr. Aneurin Bevan): At 1st March, 1946, 8,389 men were employed in the London region on the erection of permanent houses and 4,400 on the clearance and preparation of sites. I regret that no records are available of the number so employed on the 1st March, 1939.
    Mr. Bossomasked the Minister of Health how many different types of permanent prefabricated houses he has recommended to local authorities; and how many of each type have been ordered by local authorities.
    Mr. Bevan: The only types of permanent prefabricated houses so far recommended to local authorities are those named in Circular 182/45, of which a copy has already been supplied to the hon. Member. Tenders have been approved for 2,300 Easiform and 862 Orlit houses; and 994 Howard houses have been allocated. Requests are now being received from local authorities for B.I.S.F. houses, but definite figures of the demand for this type of house are not yet available.
    Mr. Bossom: Are specimens of these houses to be seen by Members of this House? Is there anywhere in London where they can be seen?
    Mr. Bevan: Specimens of these houses can be seen, and in fact have been seen, by the housing committees of local authorities. If hon. Members wish to see the houses I am quite prepared to let them know where the houses are, and, if necessary, to make arrangements for hon. Members to see them.
    Mr. Bossom: Will the Minister please do that?
    Mr. Bevan: Certainly, Sir.
    Mr. Laversasked the Minister of Health how many permanent prefabricated steel houses the Government proposes to erect; what will be the rate of erection; and is he satisfied that adequate steel supplies are available.
    Mr. Bevan: These houses will be provided by local authorities, and I am at present in consultation with the larger authorities in order to settle the numbers for which contracts can he let in the near

    545
    future. The rate of erection will depend largely on the flow of materials and every effort is being made to secure a steady flow. An adequate allocation of steel is being provided

    Shrewsbury
    Mr. J. Lanģford-Holtasked the Minister of Health whether he is satisfied that a sufficient number of building firms are fully employed in Shrewsbury.
    Mr. Bevan: I am not aware of any firm not being fully employed, and so far as I know there is no building labour unemployed in Shrewsbury.
    Major Guy Lloyd: Is this not rather exceptional? Is it not a fact that all over the country many building firms are unemployed because of the Minister's policy?
    Mr. Bevan: No, Sir.

    Prefabricated Houses (Costs)
    Mr. W. Shepherdasked the Minister of Health the average factory cost of the temporary and permanent prefabricated houses; and what is the average cost of the work on the site.
    Mr. Bevan: As regards temporary houses, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Works to my hon. Friend the Member for Central Hackney (Mr. H. Hynd) on 29th November last. I am unable at present to give any figures for permanent prefabricated houses.
    Captain Crookshank: Does that mean there has been no rise in the average price since November?
    Mr. Bevan: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman should refer to the answer I mentioned, which is in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Captain Crookshank: That answer about prices was given on 29th November. I am merely asking if that means there is no change in the average level.
    Mr. Bevan: It is impossible to give a price yet for the permanent prefabricated house, as I explained to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman in the Debate a day or two ago. The question with regard to temporary houses should be addressed to the Minister of Works.
    Mr. Bossom: Could the Minister give us the highest and the lowest prices that go towards making this average?
    Mr. Bevan: I do not know whether the hon. Member expects me to carry these prices in my head.

    Architects' Fees
    Mr. Bossomasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the present scale of professional fees which local authorities are permitted to pay private architects for small housing estates is, due to the increased cost of assistance, below the cost of the production of the drawings and supervision and other professional services; and if he will consider authorising an increase in fees in the case of housing estates below a certain size.
    Mr. Bevan: No, Sir. The present scale was drawn up by the Royal Institute of British Architects, and I have no reason to think that it is inadequate.
    Mr. Bossom: As the scale was drawn up some time ago, before the increased wages came into effect, would the Minister please reconsider this matter?
    Mr. Bevan: I am not proposing to make any increase at the moment.

    Buildinģ Materials (Alternatives)
    Mr. Laversasked the Minister of Health whether he is satisfied that the supply of materials necessary for the completion of permanent houses in the North-East are available; and what materials, if any, are retarding or likely to retard progress.
    Mr. Bevan: No, Sir. I am not satisfied with this. Instructions to local authorities about the main shortages of materials and advising them of the alternatives which can be used will be issued within the next few days, and I will send my hon. Friend a copy. I would also refer him to the statement made by my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Works, in this House on Monday.
    Mr. Lavers: Whilst I appreciate the reply of the Minister, may I ask if he is aware that within the last week the Houghton-le-Spring Urban District Council, among others on the North-East coast, have reported a serious shortage in bricks, sand and gravel, and as a consequence are proposing to come to a Northern group of M.P.s to make representations?
    Mr. Bevan: I appreciate the difficulties that may exist in this area, but I hardly believe that at the moment housing is brought to a standstill because of that. I will, however, certainly make immediate inquiries to see whether we can have materials sent there.
    Mr. Lavers: Would the Minister be prepared to receive a deputation from the local authorities?
    Mr. Bevan: Certainly, Sir.

    Associations (Subsidy)
    Mr. Anthony Nuttinģasked the Minister of Health whether he will consider granting a subsidy to building institutions, such as the Anchor Tennants, Ltd., of Humberstone, Leicester, to enable them to contribute to the solution of local housing shortages.
    Mr. Bevan: As I stated in the Debate on 12th:larch, I am prepared to approve arrangements made by a local authority with a housing association under Section 94 of the Housing Act, 1936, where I am satisfied that the association can usefully supplement the local authority's own programme. In that case the association will receive the same Exchequer assistance as a local authority.
    Mr. Nuttinģ: That does not quite answer the question. I asked whether the Minister would be prepared to consider giving a subsidy to such non-profit making bodies as this. Is he prepared to do that, or is he not?
    Mr. Bevan: If these persons or bodies do not come within the definition of "housing association" the answer is "No."

    Requisitioned Premises (Rents)
    Major Leģģe-Bourkeasked the Minister of Health what changes have been made in the basis of assessment of rent payable for accommodation provided under his requisitioning powers.
    Mr. Bevan: I am sending the hon. and gallant Member a copy of the original Circular 183/45, and of the amending Circular 224 / 45. Comparison of the two shows the changes which have been made.
    Major Leģģe-Bourke: Is the right hon. Gentleman, in those circulars, making any effort to obtain uniformity in this matter?
    Mr. Bevan: The local authorities in many instances are applying the circulars differently. I am having the position examined.
    Mr. H. Hynd: Will the Minister make clear to local authorities that they are not expected to put so tight an interpretation on this Circular 224 as to ignore the rent previously paid by the tenants?
    Mr. Bevan: There arc other Questions on the same subject on the Order Paper. I am rather disappointed by the manner in which some of the local authorities have used their discretion.
    Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Minister of Health how many objections he has had from local authorities to the operation of Circular No. 244; how many objections from individuals; and whether he will state the names of the councils objecting
    Mr. Bevan: Objections to the operation of Circular 224/45, which I presume is the Circular referred to by my hon. Friend, have been received from 12 local authorities and from some 75 individuals. I will, with permission, circulate the names of the objecting councils in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Lewis: In view of the general misunderstanding and misinterpretation on the part of many local authorities as to the interpretation of this Report, will the Minister state whether it is a statement of fact that they have no need to increase the rents unless they so desire? If they do not increase the rents, is it not a fact that he will take no action against them?
    Mr. Bevan: I think the hon. Member has interpreted my desires properly.
    Following is the list:
    Beckenham B., Bexley B., Cheshunt U., Chislehurst and Sidcup U., Crayford B., Erith B., Kingston-on-Thames B., Malden and Coombe B., Walthamstow B., Wembley B., Wanstead and Woodford B., Willesden B.
    Mr. Piratinasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that arising from Circular 224/45, it has been found that a number of tenants in requisitioned properties have been paying more than the controlled rent; and what steps he will take to ensure that the excesses of rent paid by these tenants are now refunded to them.
    Mr. Bevan: In some cases, tenants were paying more than the controlled rent before Circular 183/45 was issued in October, but they should not have done so since. It would not be practicable to reopen those past transactions.
    Mr. Piratin: Do I understand from the answer that the extra which they have paid will not be refunded to them?
    Mr. Bevan: It would not now be practicable to reopen these discussions and make the payment retrospective, but, as my hon. Friend knows, the position has been put right.

    Islinģton
    Dr. Haden Guestasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that there are 10,000 applicants waiting for housing accommodation in Islington, of whom 2,000 are urgent cases, including a large proportion of men recently demobilised; and if he will consider the provision of emergency accommodation in any large buildings which can be made available by requisition.
    Mr. Bevan: Yes, Sir.

    Furniture (Local Authorities' Powers)
    Mr. H. Hyndasked the Minister of Health how many local authorities are using their powers under Section 72 (2) of the Housing Act, 1936, to supply furniture to their tenants.
    Mr. Bevan: Action under Section 72 (2) of the Housing Act, 1936, does not require my approval and I regret, therefore, that the information is not available.
    Mr. Hynd: In view of the difficulties now facing local authorities about getting priority dockets for their tenants who qualify for such dockets, will the Minister encourage local authorities to use their powers?
    Mr. Bevan: I think local authorities are well aware of their powers and they require no further encouragement from me. I hope I will not be asked to send yet another Circular to the local authorities.

    Rural Housinģ (Report)
    Mr. Turtonasked the Minister of Health what was the reason for the delay in not placing in the Library of the House before 21st March, 1946, the Interim Report of the Rural Housing Sub-Commit-
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    tee of the Central Housing Advisory Committee which was signed on 18th January, 1946.
    Mr. Bevan: This Interim Report is very brief and deals with only one aspect of the problem. Arrangements were made to place it in the Library as soon as a request was made.
    Mr. Turton: Is the Minister aware that, such is the secrecy about this Report, hon. Members have applied to both the Vote Office and the Ministry of Health and have been told that no copies are available?
    Mr. Bevan: I am told that there is a copy in the Library. There is no secrecy about it, and its contents are well known to the most vocal hon. Members on the other side.
    Mr. R. S. Hudson: Why did the right hon. Gentleman wait until he was asked, because he gave a definite promise in the course of the Debate?
    Mr. Bevan: Because the Report is extremely brief, and it seems to me to be quite unnecessary to circulate what really amounts to two or three paragraphs. There is not the slightest desire to have any secrecy on this matter, and that is why it was placed in the Library, but if hon. Members insist on publication and general distribution, I am perfectly prepared to do it.
    Captain Crookshank: Well, do it.

    Buildinģ Methods
    Major Leģģe-Bourkeasked the Minister of Health why the procedure adopted for a period after the last war of speeding up house-building by laying bricks dry, three courses at a time, and then pouring through the cement in properly spaced holes to key the whole together was dropped, and if he will cause this procedure to be re-adopted at the present time.
    Mr. Bevan: If the hon. and gallant Member would be good enough to give me further details of the use of the method, I will be glad to have it investigated.

    Furnished Flats (Notices to Quit)
    Commander Nobleasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that a number of tenants of furnished flats in

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    Chelsea have received notices to quit which quote a recent legal decision as to what constituted a furnished flat in a specific case; and what steps he proposes to take to prevent hardship in these cases, and in similar cases that may arise, pending clarification of the point of law raised by the legal decision referred to and the passing of the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Bill.
    Mr. Bevan: I have seen reports in the Press, but have no knowledge of the merits of this particular case. The general position is that, under the Rent Restriction Acts, security of tenure is given to the tenants of furnished houses only in cases where the value of the furniture to the tenant is not a substantial proportion of the rent. Under the new Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, the rent of furnished premises outside the scope of the previous Acts may be controlled, and a limited security of tenure is given in cases where reference is made to tribunals set up thereunder. Local Authorities may be authorised, however, to requisition premises for the purpose of providing accommodation for the inadequately housed or of preventing a situation where people become homeless, and I propose to call their attention to these powers in suitable cases.
    Mr. Janner: Will the Minister take immediate steps to notify the local authorities, because there are in fact a large number of similar notices being given to tenants all over London—for example, in Paddington as well as in my hon. and gallant Friend's constituency—and the people are becoming very alarmed about the situation?
    Mr. Bevan: I propose to call the attention of the local authorities to their powers immediately.
    Mr. Janner: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman.

  PUBLIC HEALTH

    Water Supplies, Northamptonshire
    Mr. Mitchisonasked the Minister of Health how many and which parishes in each rural district of the administrative county of Northampton are without a pressure piped water supply; to what
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    extent the lack of such a supply, suitable for use in connection with domestic boilers and ranges, will delay the provision or occupation of new houses in the Brixworth Rural District; and whether he is satisfied with the water supply in that and other rural parts of the Kettering division pending the completion of the proposed Pitsford reservoir.
    Mr. Bevan: With permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a list of the 115 parishes in the county which are without, or substantially without, piped water supplies. I understand that the first instalment of the Brixworth Rural District Council's housing programme will be provided in eight parishes which already have piped supplies, or will be supplied by a scheme for which the council have obtained tenders, and that there should be no delay in the provision of the houses by reason of lack of water supply. Other schemes prepared or in course of preparation should result in the early provision of piped supplies pending the construction of the Pitsford reservoir, but I am not satisfied with existing conditions in the areas mentioned, and I am, therefore, arranging for the matter to be considered with the responsible authorities.
    Mr. Mitchison: May I give notice that I propose to raise this Question on the Adjournment?
    Following is the list:
    Parishes in the administrative county of Northampton without, or substantially without, piped water supplies.

    Brackley Rural District.

    Boddington.

    Middleton Cheney

    Chacombe.

    Moreton Pinkney.

    Chipping Warden.

    Radstone.

    Culworth.

    Sulgrave.

    Edgcote.

    Syresham.

    Eydon.

    Thenford.

    Farthinghoe.

    Thorpe Mandeville.

    Helmdon.

    Warkworth.

    Kings Sutton.

    Brixworth Rural District.

    Clipston.

    Maid well.

    Cold Ashby.

    Marston Trussel.

    Draughton.

    Naseby.

    East Farndon.

    Old.

    Great Oxendon.

    Ravensthorpe.

    Guilsborough.

    Scaldwell.

    Hannington.

    Sibbertoft.

    Haselbech.

    Sulby.

    Holcot.

    Thornby.

    Holdenby.

    Walgrave.

    Hollowell.

    Welford.

    Lamport.

    Daventry Rural District

    Brockhall.

    Fawsley.

    Canons Ashby.

    Hellidon.

    Catesby.

    Preston Capes.

    Elkington.

    Stanford.

    Everdon.

    Stowe Nine Churches.

    Kettering Rural District

    Ashley.

    Geddington.

    Brampton Ash.

    Weldon.

    Braybrooke.

    Oakley.

    Dingley.

    Newton.

    Stoke Albany.

    Harrington.

    Sutton Bassett.

    Loddington.

    Weston-by-Welland.

    Orton.

    Wilbarston.

    Cransley.

    Northampton Rural District.

    Bugbrooke.

    Great Houghton.

    Cogenhoe.

    Milton.

    Collingtree.

    Quinton.

    Hackleton.

    Rothersthorpe.

    Oundle and Thrapston Rural District.

    Collyweston.

    Southwick.

    Duddington.

    Stoke Doyle.

    Wakerley.

    Pilton.

    Harringworth.

    Wadenhoe.

    Laxton.

    Thorpe Achurch.

    Blatherwycke.

    Aldwincle.

    Bulwick.

    Sudborough.

    Deene.

    Chelveston.

    Deenethorpe.

    Cotterstock.

    Fineshade.

    Tansor.

    Glapthorn.

    Woodnewton.

    Nassington

    Yarwell.

    Towcester Rural District

    Ads tone.

    Slapton.

    Blisworth.

    Stoke Bruerne.

    Bradden.

    Tiffield.

    Grafton Regis.

    Wappenham.

    Pattishall.

    Weston and Weedon.

    Shutlanger.

    Woodend.

    Wellinborough Rural District.

    Bozeat.

    Mears Ashby.

    Strixton.

    Newton Bromshold.

    Great Harrowden.

    Mr. Mitchisonasked the Minister of Health whether he is satisfied that a water supply for domestic, industrial and agricultural purposes, adequate to meet the actual and prospective needs of Kettering and adjacent rural areas, can be provided by the action or co-ordinated action of local authorities; and what steps he proposes to take to organise water supply on a regional or national basis and under regional or national authority.
    Mr. Bevan: I have no doubt that it is feasible to obtain sufficient supplies for all purposes in the areas mentioned, and I am considering the extent to which co-ordinated action by the responsible authorities is desirable. It is my policy o secure the consideration of water fsupply problems over wide areas and
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    joint action by water undertakers where this is required in the best interests of water supplies, but subject to this there is no present intention of removing the responsibility from the local authorities and water undertakers.
    Mr. Mitchison: May I give a like notice to that which I gave on the previous Question?

    Maternity Cases, Howden
    Mr. Glossopasked the Minister of Health what arrangements are being made for a continuance of a ward for maternity cases in the Howden rural district, in view of the proposal to close the Howden Public Assistance Institution, which at present houses the maternity ward for the district; and the number of births in the Howden Public Assistance Institution from 1st January to 3rst December, 1945.
    Mr. Bevan: No date has yet been fixed for the closure of the institution, and the Council's arrangements for providing alternative accommodation are not yet complete. The answer to the last part of the Question is 75.

    Ante-Natal Clinic, Howden
    Mr. Glossopasked the Minister of Health the number of persons who received advice, during 1945, from the ante-natal clinic attached to the Howden Public Assistance Institution; and where the clinic will be transferred when the institution is closed down.
    Mr. Bevan: There is no ante-natal clinic attached to this institution. During 1945, 69 women who were to be admitted to the institution for confinement received antenatal advice from the matron. For other women antenatal advice has been and will be given under special arrangements made with general practitioners and domiciliary midwives.
    Mr. Glossop: Will the Minister give an assurance that advice on ante-natal matters now being given at this institution will not be terminated until other suitable premises have been found?
    Mr. Bevan: The responsibility for providing for this matter is upon the local authority. As the hon. Member knows, I am in communication with them on the matter.
    Mr. Glossop: I wish to give notice that I should like to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

    Tuberculosis, Middlesex
    Mr. Sparksasked the Minister of Health how many cases of pulmonary and non-pulmonary tuberculosis have been notified for each year from 1935 to

    Year.

    Notified Cases of Tuberculosis.

    Beds available for tuberculosis Cases (as at 31st December)

    County of Middlesex

    Borough of Acton

    Pulmonary.

    Non Pulmonary.

    Pulmonary.

    Non Pulmonary.

    1935

    …

    …

    1,782

    317

    66

    18

    635

    1936

    …

    …

    1,782

    313

    92

    14

    686

    1937

    …

    …

    1,895

    375

    77

    13

    722

    1938

    …

    …

    1,895

    411

    82

    16

    831

    1939

    …

    …

    1,872

    357

    88

    7

    755

    1940

    …

    …

    1,956

    354

    78

    79

    795

    1941

    …

    …

    2.344

    365

    79

    7

    973

    1942

    …

    …

    2,534

    455

    98

    16

    1,243

    1943

    …

    …

    2,607

    431

    95

    19

    1,308

    1944

    …

    …

    2,551

    345

    96

    15

    1,213

    1945

    …

    …

    2,456

    371

    91

    16

    1,146

    The figures in the last column are of beds in institutions administered by the County Council, but the Council has arrangements for the admission of Middlesex cases to beds in other institutions also, to such extent as they may be available, though not to any fixed number. At the end of 1945, for example, some 400 cases were accommodated in this way.

    Churchill Hospital, Headinģton
    Squadron-Leader Sir Gifford Foxasked the Minister of Health how many beds are at present occupied in the Churchill Hospital, Headington; for what purpose this hospital is being used; and why the Army were moved from this hospital.
    Mr. Bevan: The number of beds occupied today at the Churchill Hospital, Headington, is 88, and this will be steadily increased to full capacity as domestic staff becomes available. The hospital is a civil institution built for my Department and intended, after its use for emergency purposes terminated, to supplement the beds at the Radcliffe Infirmary, where there is a growing waiting list. The use of the hospital by the Army was a temporary arrangement pending the
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    1945 in the county of Middlesex and the borough of Acton, with the number of beds available in sanatoria in the county during the same period.
    Mr. Bevan: As the reply involves a number of figures I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the reply:
    preparation of the Military Hospital at Holton Park, Wheatley.
    Sir G. Fox: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the military hospital at Holton Park, Wheatley, is completely unsuitable for bad cases of head injuries, which are sent there?
    Mr. Bevan: That is not a question for me.

    Hospitals (Nursinģ and Domestic Staffs)
    Mr. Sparksasked the Minister of Health to what extent hospitals of all kinds have been closed and bed accommodation restricted; and how many patients who would normally enter hospital for treatment have been unable to do so on account of shortage of domestic and nursing staffs.
    Mr. Bevan: I am afraid I have no precise information on this, but it is clear that the number is considerable.
    Mr. Sparks: Does not my right hon. Friend feel that this matter should be taken up with the Minister of Labour— [HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up."] Does not my right hon. Friend feel that this matter is so important that he should

    557
    approach the Minister of Labour with a view to recruiting the maximum number of domestic and nursing staff, because there are instances I know of in my own constituency where there is a serious shortage of accommodation for maternity cases owing to the fact that a section of the hospital has had to be closed down?
    Mr. Bevan: The whole House is aware that last year I launched a campaign for the recruitment of nurses, in all institutions. I am in close cooperation with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour all the while, because this matter is causing me great anxiety.
    Mr. Gallacher: Is the Minister aware that every constituency is affected by this, and will he see to it that nurses and domestics are given higher salaries and better amenities?
    Mr. Bevan: Nurses were to have their salaries raised at the beginning of the year. The salaries and conditions of domestic staffs are now under consideration by the organisations concerned.
    Sir Henry Morris-Jones: In view of the very serious position with regard to this question, how does the right hon. Gentleman expect to improve matters by offering free treatment to everybody in the country when there are no facilities?
    Mr. Bevan: The answer surely is plain. If we had a national health service we should get more nurses into it.
    Mr. Hastinģs: Will the Minister consider sending round the provinces a nursing exhibition so that people who are coming out of the Forces will know what the possibilities are?
    Mr. Bevan: A large number of the larger authorities are holding exhibitions at the present time. However, I will consider whether that suggestion could be used to supplement what they are doing.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Mooreasked the Minister of Health how many nurses are still required to man the civil hospitals of the country; how many have been released from the Forces in the past six months; and how many still remain in the Services.
    Mr. Bevan: On nth March, 1946, there were approximately 28,000 vacancies noti-
    558
    fled to the Ministry of Labour and National Service for nurses of all grades, in hospitals and similar institutions in Great Britain. During the six months ending 28th February, 3,239 trained nurses were released from the Forces. I understand that the number still in the Services is 8,973.
    Sir T. Moore: Is my right hon. Friend taking any steps in conjunction with the Service Departments to have nurses released now from the duties that must obviously be lessening every day, so as to try and meet the demands of civilians?
    Mr. Bevan: Nurses are being released every day.

    Patent Medicines
    Mr. Nallyasked the Minister of Health whether he will have periodic examinations made of claims in Press, periodical and other advertisements, as to the health-giving properties of patent medicines, foods and wines, and take effective steps to keep the public informed of the results of such examinations.
    Mr. Bevan: As regards patent medicines, I do not think that anything really useful on these lines could be done without further legislation—which would be complicated and is out of the question for the time being. As to foods, the Question should be addressed to my right hon Friend the Minister of Food.
    Mr. Nally: Is the Minister aware that many millions of pounds are extracted from the public annually, largely on the strength of misleading and often completely false claims about the values of these products? Will he have another look at the situation to see whether it is possible without legislation to provide more adequate and much needed protection for the public?
    Mr. Bevan: I certainly will have a look at it because I am sympathetic towards the intention that the hon. Member has. I think the public ought to be protected. That may be one of the more advantageous by-products of a national health service.
    Sir T. Moore: Is it not a fact that the trade associations exercise a very strict supervision?
    Mr. Gallacher: They are all Tories.
    Mr. Bevan: They may be exercising supervision, but I cannot see that it is with beneficial results.
    Mr. Skeffinģton-Lodģe: Is the Minister aware that many of these so-called remedies claim to cure more than one disease at one and the same time?
    Major Lloyd: Would the Minister give urgent attention to the possibility of patent nostrums for the brave new world?

    National Health Service (Doctors' Remuneration)
    Mr. Gaitskellasked the Minister of Health whether the salary and capitation fees to be paid to doctors taking part in the National Health Service will be affected by the number of private patients, if any, whom they treat.
    Mr. Bevan: If the Bill now before the House is passed into law, these will be matters for discussion when subsequent regulations are being drawn. I do not think I can attempt to anticipate them now.

    Service Patients (Hospitals)
    Mr. Jannerasked the Minister of Health how many beds in infirmaries and hospitals are being held vacant for military patients; and whether he will consider releasing these as quickly as possible in view of the shortage of beds available in hospitals for civilians.
    Mr. Bevan: As the reply is rather long, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the reply:
    The number of beds reserved in civilian hospitals and institutions in England and Wales for the purposes of the Emergency Hospital Scheme is approximately 53,000. No part of this total reservation is earmarked exclusively for military patients, but the latest available figures show that of these beds 15,800 are occupied by Service patients and 10,700 by civilian patients who are the responsibility of the Emergency Hospital Scheme, leaving approximately 26,500 vacant emergency scheme beds, the majority of which are unstaffed.
    With regard to the second part of the Question, the Emergency Hospital Scheme bed reservation figures are under constant review, and if hospital authorities find it necessary to encroach upon the
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    emergency reservation they are at liberty to do so in agreement with the responsible medical officers of my Department. It is hoped to release a substantial number of beds after 1st June, when it is expected that the Army's needs for civilian hospital services will be limited to exceptional cases which cannot be provided for in military hospitals.

    Civil and Military Hospitals(Patients and Nurses)
    Sir T. Mooreasked the Minister of Health the number of patients at present in Service hospitals and the number of nurses retained to care for them; and the number of patients in the civil hospitals of Britain and the number of nurses in charge of them.
    Mr. Bevan: I understand that the number of patients in Service hospitals in Great Britain is approximately 21,300, and the number of trained nurses 1,936. The figures for civil hospitals, not including mental, mental deficiency and maternity hospitals and institutions, are approximately 282,100 patients and 30,900 trained nurses.
    Sir T. Moore: In view of the fact that these proportions are. obviously unfair and unbalanced, will the Minister not take some steps to equalise the burden of the nurses and the patients?
    Mr. Bevan: I think that, when the hon. and gallant Member looks at my reply, he will see that the cold logic of the figures is in contradiction of his own subjective impressions.

  PUBLIC ASSISTANCE

    Howden Institution
    Mr. Glossopasked the Minister of Health when he will be in a position to reply to the letter, dated 9th March, from the hon. Member for Howdenshire, in connection with the proposal to close the Howden Public Assistance Institution.
    Mr. Bevan: I replied to the hon. Member yesterday.

    Casual Poor
    Mr. Battleyasked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the increasing number of casual poor now using social

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    welfare institutions throughout the country, he is in a position to inform the House of any distinct plans for dealing with this growing problem.
    Mr. Bevan: This matter was recently discussed by my Department with representatives of the local authorities concerned, and I hope shortly to issue a circular for the guidance of the authorities.

  DAY NURSERIES (CHARGES)
  Mr. Piratinasked the Minister of Health if he will instruct local welfare authorities to limit the charge for the attendance of children at day nurseries to Is. per day, as is the practice, until Circular 221/45 comes into operation.
  Mr. Bevin: I would refer the hon. Member to paragraph 10 (f) of the Circular which says that the present charge should continue until 31st March. After that, part of the cost of the nurseries will fall upon the local rates, and welfare authorities will have discretion in fixing their charges.
  Mr. Piratin: Is the Minister aware that if a local authority desire in any way to sabotage or boycott this order, all they have to do is to put up the rate to 5s. a day and no mother will place her child in a nursery, and industry will suffer?
  Mr. Bevan: I should imagine that those considerations are well known to the local authorities, and I do not intend to send another instruction to them which would undermine the authority of local government.
  Mr. Shurmer: Is the Minister aware that already, in the City of Birmingham, these rates are going up from 6s. to 18s. per week, which will mean a prohibition on In omen proposing to go to work?
  Mr. Bevan: This seems to be a matter for representations to the Birmingham local authority, not for the Ministry of Health.
  Mr. Piratinasked the Minister of Health, whether he is aware that the Birmingham City Council proposes to charge 3s. per day for attendance at its day nurseries; and, as this will act as a deterrent to women working in industry,
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  what steps he will take to ensure a reduced charge.
  Mr. Bevan: I have not yet received the Birmingham City Council's scheme, but when I do so I will look into the matter. As the relevant Circular says, however, the question of charges is primarily one for the welfare authority.
  Mr. Piratin: Is not the Minister avoiding his responsibilities in this respect by suggesting that local authorities can do exactly as they please, whereas, if they do as they please, we have the case of Birmingham, where they raised the charge by 3s. a day?
  Mr. Bevan: The answer is that local authorities are receiving a 54 per cent. grant for this service, and they are also receiving from the Ministry of Health a very substantial block grant towards local government services. The local authorities, therefore, have no need to charge exorbitant fees for this service, but it surely is impracticable for the Ministry of Health to make local authorities merely passive instruments of the central Government's directions.
  Mr. Martin Lindsay: Is the Minister aware that hon. Members from Birmingham are quite capable of looking after the problems of their city and do not require any assistance from the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Piratin)?

  RAILWAYS (RATINGVALUATION)
  Mr. Eric Fletcherasked the Minister of Health whether he contemplates introducing, before the end of the present financial year, the Bill to give effect to the Government's decision on the assessment of railways for local rates, in accordance with the intimation of that decision which has been given to the local government associations and to the railway companies.
  Mr. Bevan: I regret that it will not be possible, before the end of the present financial year and the beginning of the Fourth Roll period under the Railways (Valuation for Rating) Act, 1930, to introduce the Bill upon which the Government have decided, but I hope to be in a position to do so early in the coming financial year. The Bill will provide that it shall take effect from the beginning of the

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  Fourth Roll period as regards the main line railways, and the Third Roll period as regards the London Passenger Transport Board.
  Mr. Fletcher: Is the Minister aware that, while all local authorities will welcome that announcement, there are still unsolved problems relating to the Third Roll period which might with advantage be dealt with in the proposed Bill?
  Mr. Bevan: I will look into that.

  EDUCATION

    Additional Holidays
    Major Diģbyasked the Minister of Education why no provision is made in Grant Regulations No. 2 (Amendment No. 1, 1946), issued by her Department, for additional school holidays, over and above the normal 10 holidays, such as it is customary in many schools to grant at the request of the distinguished visitor who attends the annual prize giving; and whether she will amend these regulations so as to make the grant of such extra holidays still possible.
    The Minister of Education (Miss Ellen Wilkinson): I see no occasion to amend the Regulations to cover such exceptional holidays as the hon. Member has in mind. I should, however, see no objection to the continuance of the practice of granting a holiday on such occasions; and, if such a holiday cannot be granted out of the ten days allowed by the Regulation, I should be prepared to take the circumstance into account in considering any failure on the part of the school to comply with the full requirements of Regulation 20.

    School Furniture
    Mr. Morleyasked the Minister of Education to what extent local education authorities have ascertained the requirements for additional school furniture to meet the demand on the raising of the school-leaving age to 15; and what arrangements have been made to satisfy these requirements.
    Miss Wilkinson: I am sending my hon. Friend a copy of an inquiry which has been addressed to local education authorities in this matter. The replies are being collated in order that any necessary arrangements may be made for securing adequate supplies of furniture.

    Released Teachers
    Mr. Morleyasked the Minister of Education the numbers of teachers who have been released from the forces up to date under Class A and under Class B, respectively.
    Miss Wilkinson: Up to 28th February, 7,875 teachers, including Scottish teachers, had been released from the Forces in Class B. I regret that information about the number released in Class A is not available.

    Handicapped Children
    Mr. E. Evansasked the Minister of Education how many deaf children are suffering from epilepsy, marked mental retardation, blindness and impaired vision; how many of these children are attending schools for the deaf; and whether it is proposed to provide special schools accommodation for them apart from the present schools for the deaf.
    Miss Wilkinson: I have no information showing the total number of deaf children in England and Wales suffering from the other disabilities to which my hon. Friend refers. In one special school for the deaf which caters for such children, there are 48 who are educationally retarded, six who are blind and five who are partially sighted, and a few such children are in attendance at other schools for the blind and the deaf. I hope that provision for a group of these children will be made in due course in another school for the deaf, but the precise categories for which it will provide have not yet been determined. It is thought that with this additional provision, the needs of the whole country will be met.
    Mr. Evans: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether this was referred to the Advisory Committee on handicapped children set up under the chairmanship of the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer)?
    Miss Wilkinson: I could not answer that question without notice, but I am continually in touch with that committee, and so are my advisers.
    Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Can the right hon. Lady say how many schools there are to which mentally retarded children can be sent?
    Miss Wilkinson: I am afraid I shall have to have notice of that question.

  NEWSPRINT (CANADIAN PULP)
  Mr. De la Béreasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that many newspapers can only publish four pages because of the shortage of newsprint, resulting in the creation of difficulties in finding work for many returning from the Forces, he will negotiate with the Canadian Government for the purpose of supplying the necessary dollar exchange and transport for additional quantities of pulp for newsprint.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): The financial assistance which we have received from the Canadian Government does not free us from the need to husband our dollar resources carefully. The question whether we can afford additional imports of newsprint will be kept under review. I understand that more pulp is not likely to be available.
  Mr. De la Bére: Does the Prime Minister appreciate the fact that the nation wants the full, plain, unrestricted truth, and is he not aware that the Canadian Government have offered pulp, transport and the dollar finance? Why not deal with these very generous people and let us have the truth?
  The Prime Minister: I do not need to be told of the generosity of the Canadian Government. My information is that pulp is not available.
  Sir Wavell Wakefield: Is the Prime Minister aware that exporters are being handicapped in their trade by the inability to get sufficient paper pulp for export journals and catalogues, and could not something be done to arrange for increased supplies to help our export trade?
  The Prime Minister: We are doing all we can with regard to newsprint, but I am assured that we have all the pulp available.
  Mr. W. J. Brown: May I ask whether, in the clearing up of the difficulties referred to in the Question, we could not, at least, stop the export of paper from this country, because that is still going on in spite of the great shortage of paper?
  The Prime Minister: That is another question.

  HOUSING (MINISTRY)
  Mr. Garry Alliģhanasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the changed circumstances occasioned by the additional Departmental responsibilities associated with the National Health Scheme, he will now consider relieving the Ministry of Health of the task of directing the national housing campaign and creating a Ministry of Housing, armed with overriding authority, to coordinate the relevant work of all Departments concerned.
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir.
  Mr. Alliģhan: Is the Prime Minister completely satisfied that the Minister has sufficient powers to insist on other Ministries keeping up with the rather rapid rate of progress in housing?
  The Prime Minister: There is full cooperation between the Ministries.
  Mr. Spence: May I ask the Prime Minister whether he is aware that he has a mandate for making this change?

  RE-EMPLOYED SERVICE PERSONNEL (PENSIONS)
  Captain Swinģlerasked the Prime Minister when he expects to be in a position to state the results of the review of the rates of retired pay and pensions of professional officers and other ranks of the three Services who were re-employed during the war.
  The Prime Minister: The position of retired officers and pensioners of the three Services who were re-employed during the war is now under consideration and an announcement will be made as soon as possible.

  AUSTRIA (U.N.R.R.A.SUPPLIES)
  Air-Commodore Harveyasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when U.N.R.R.A. will commence distributing food in Austria.
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Hynd): This matter is still under consideration in Vienna and Atlantic City, but it is hoped that agreement will be reached which will enable U.N.R.R.A. to take over supply responsibility for Austria as from 1st April.
  Air-Commodore Harvey: In view of previous arrangements made to open up at the beginning of March, will the right hon. Gentleman see that the date is kept as near as possible to 1st April?
  Mr. Hynd: The question whether the date will be kept or not will depend on the progress of negotiations now going on.
  Mr. Lanģford-Holt: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether this arrangement will apply to all zones in Austria?
  Mr. Hynd: If U.N.R.R.A. takes over the responsibility for the supplying of Austria, it will, of course, apply to the. whole of Austria.

  EMPLOYMENT

    Mine Ballotees (Holidays With Pay)
    Mr. Nuttinģasked the Minister of Labour whether he will consider giving holidays with pay to boys directed to the mines on their release, in the same way as is granted to Servicemen on release from the Forces.
    The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): No, Sir.

    Laundries (Holiday Resorts)
    Mr. Douģlas Marshallasked the Minister of Labour, in view of the coming holiday season in Cornwall and the wish to provide our hardworked people with a good holiday, he will assist the laundries in order that they can meet the holiday demands.
    Mr. Isaacs: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. and gallant Member for Finchley (Captain Crowder) on 28th February. The labour needs of laundries in holiday resorts and elsewhere are having the continual attention of my Department.
    Mr. Marshall: Is the Minister aware that, if he does not do something in this connection, it will be utterly impossible for these laundries to cater adequately for visitors in the coming season?
    Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir, but perhaps the laundries can do something themselves. My information is that many of the women working in laundries in the seaside resorts were women who went there from
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    London for the season and that this arrangement is now impracticable owing to shortage of accommodation, the low rate of wages and the general unpopularity of the work.
    Mr. Robens: Is not the Minister aware that if the employers' associations would pay decent wages and give decent conditions they would have no difficulty in getting laundry workers?
    Winģ-Commander Millington: Is my right. hon. Friend aware that the real purpose of this Question is, in fact, to ask him to spend his Eeaster recess working in a laundry?
    Mr. Isaacs: If that is the request, I can give notice quite definitely now that I am not accepting the invitation.
    Mr. Skeffinģton-Lodģe: Would not a solution of the problem be for holidaymakers either to do their own washing or to bring their dirty clothes home with them?

    War Production (Irish Citizens)
    Major Vernonasked the Minister of Labour the estimated number of men and women from Northern Ireland and Eire, respectively, who took part in war production during the war.
    Mr. Isaacs: I regret that this information is not available.

    Disabled Men (Government Service)
    Mr. Gammansasked the Minister of Labour what is being done to provide alternative employment for the 8o disabled men who have been discharged from the Royal Ordnance factory at Enfield, Middlesex.
    Mr. Isaacs: A preliminary report shows that alternative employment has already been found for ten of these men. Every effort is being made and will continue to secure satisfactory resettlement of the others.
    Mr. Gammans: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if Government Departments are compelled to take on a percentage of disabled men in exactly the same way as private employers?
    Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir. But those Government Departments who are now retaining more than 4 per cent. of disabled men

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    are not expected to go outside that quota unless they feel disposed to do so. They are now keeping 4 per cent. of such men.

    Transfer Applications
    Major Symondsasked the Minister of Labour if he will publish the details of his recently issued instructions to National Service officers to give greater consideration to applications for permission to leave made by workers seeking permanent resettlement in normal civilian employment, and by workers wishing to transfer to employment in which they have skill and experience.
    Mr. Isaacs: It is not my practice to publish details of confidential instructions issued to my officers, but I may -say that the general effect of guidance recently issued to national service officers is correctly described in my hon. and gallant Friend's Question.
    Major Symonds: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that his instructions have been sufficiently widely drawn to get all the square pegs out of the round holes?
    Mr. Isaacs: I am not so sure that there are any square pegs in round holes. I thought they did not fit. I think the instructions have been sufficiently widely drawn and circulated to have the desired effect.

    Government Typists
    Sir T. Mooreasked the Minister of Labour how many shorthand typists have been released from compulsory duty in the fighting and civil Services; and how many still remain.
    Mr. Isaacs: At 1st January, 1946, the number of shorthand typists in Government Departments was 15,127. The other information required by the Question is not available without special inquiries involving a disproportionate expenditure of time.
    Sir T. Moore: In view of the many complaints that we have heard about the difficulty of getting letters answered speedily, and in view of the heavy demands that are constantly made by the civil population for these young women, can the right hon. Gentleman not agree that it is essential to get these figures out so that the public can understand all that is happening, because they do not at present?
    Mr. Isaacs: The difficulty is that we know those who describe themselves as shorthand typists, but there are others who come under several other headings. There are copy typists and there are those who describe themselves merely as clerical workers. To go through a list of all those who may have some remote connection with clerical work, in order to pick out the actual shorthand typists, would involve the use of an unreasonable amount of time.
    Mr. W. J. Brown: Can the Minister say when he will make such questions as this unnecessary by lifting the Civil Service (Control of Employment) Order?
    Mr. Isaacs: I am afraid I could not say.

    Essential Work Orders (Notice of Withdrawal)
    Mr. Attewellasked the Minister of Labour if he will give an assurance that he will advise the workers' and the employers' organisations of any industry covered by the Essential Work Order, of his intention to withdraw the Order before the notice to withdraw the Order is made public.
    Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir.

    Industrial Concentration (Transferred Workers)
    Major John Morrisonasked the Minister of Labour whether he has a record of workers transferred from factories closed down under schemes of concentration.
    Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir, but the information is not up-to-date as it has not been practicable to record subsequent changes of address.

    Resettlement (Private Company Directors)
    Mr. Keelinģasked the Minister of Labour whether he has reconsidered the question of admitting as eligible for resettlement grants, ex-Servicemen who are directors of private companies which are analogous to partnerships and one-man businesses.
    Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir. I have decided that applications from such persons may, in future, be accepted for consideration, provided that the other conditions of the Resettlement Grants Scheme are satisfied. The revised arrangements will he put into operation as soon as possible.
    Mr. Keelinģ: Thank you.
    Mr. Bechervaise: Does that answer mean that if applications go before the Minister they will be reconsidered?
    Mr. Isaacs: I would like to have notice of that question, but I think the answer would be in the affirmative.

    Unemployment Statistics
    Mr. Thomas Reidasked the Minister of Labour if he will state, approximately, the number of adult persons under 65 years of age, unregistered, who are unemployed and the number of registered unemployed; and in respect to the latter the causes and nature of the unemployment.
    Mr. Isaacs: The number of unemployed persons who have not registered at offices of the Ministry of Labour and National Service is not known. The number of insured persons aged 18 years and over, suitable for ordinary employment, registered as unemployed at employment exchanges of the Ministry in Great Britain at 11th February, 1946, was 338,413. In addition, there were 5,032 uninsured persons aged 18 years and over on the registers, and 23,472 persons aged 18 years and over classified as unsuitable for ordinary employment.
    As regards the last part of the Question, the causes and nature of the unemployment are so many and so varied that I could not hope to give a detailed answer in reply to a Question.
    Mr. Reid: Could the Minister state whether, in general, the cause of this unemployment is of a temporary nature?
    Mr. Isaacs: I would express the hope that it would be of a temporary nature. The problem is that this figure of 23,400 is the old hard core of unemployed workers, who were found to be very useful indeed when the country was in need during the war, and employers were willing to engage them, but now they are on the "not wanted "list. We shall do all we can to find work for them.

    Caterinģ Wages Boards (Workers' Representatives)
    Mr. A. Lewisasked the Minister of Labour the trades unions responsible for negotiating the conditions of employment, etc., within the catering industry so far as the various wages boards are concerned under the Catering Wages Acts.
    Mr. Isaacs: The members appointed to the workers' sides of the various Catering Wages Boards so far constituted were nominated by the National Joint Trades Union Committee for the catering industry, except in one instance, where the nomination was made by the National Union of Club Stewards. With the hon. Member's permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the names of the trade unions which are members of the Joint Committee.
    Mr. Lewis: Is the Minister aware that among most catering employers there is an anti-trade union bias, and will he assure the House that it is the view of himself and of the Government that these workers should be allowed freedom to join their appropriate unions?
    Mr. Isaacs: That is rather a difficult point to answer. As I have asked the Catering Wages Boards to investigate complaints which have reached us relating to these questions in the industry, I hope I shall not be pressed to say more about this matter at the moment.
    Following is the list:
    Amalgamated Union of Operative Bakers, Confectioners and Allied Workers.
    The Clerical and Administrative Workers' Union.
    National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks.
    National Association of Theatrical and Kine Employees.
    National Union of General' and Municipal Workers.
    National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers.
    National Union of Railwaymen.
    Railway Clerks' Association.
    Scottish Union of Bakers, Confectioners and Bakery Workers.
    Tobacco Workers' Union.
    Transport and General Workers' Union.

  DEMOBILISATION

    Former N.F.S. Personnel
    Mr. Ernest Daviesasked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the institution after 3oth April of voluntary release in the N.F.S., he will now permit former N.F.S. personnel serving with the

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    Forces, to take service with the N.F.S. into account in calculating their age plus service group numbers.
    Mr. Isaacs: No, Sir.
    Mr. Ernest Davies: Does my right hon. Friend fully appreciate the unfairness of the situation which has arisen, that men who served in the N.F.S. during the war and were called up for the Forces still have to serve whereas those not called up and who remained in the N.F.S. do not?
    Mr. Isaacs: Any such extension given to men in the N.F.S. would have to be given to other persons similarly.
    Hon. Members: Why not?
    Wing-Commander Millinģton: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there is something almost approaching a precedent for what the hon. Member has asked, in that any members of the Armed Forces who did previous N.F.S. service and who were temporarily released in order to go back to the Fire Brigade during the blitz have had that period of temporary release counted towards their service?
    Mr. Isaacs: That, with other considerations, has had repeated attention in this matter, but because of the difficult consequences that would ensue elsewhere, with problems arising, we do not think we can make any change.

    Individual Specialists
    Mr. Sidney Shephardasked the Minister of Labour how many individual specialists have applied for release under Class B; and how many releases have been granted.
    Mr. Isaacs: Applications for the release of individual specialists have to be made to the Government Department primarily concerned with the work for which release is desired and it is not possible to say how many such applications have been made. The number of men and women released in Class B as individual specialists by 28th February, 1946, was 9,667.
    Mr. McGovern: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if there could not be a more efficient and speedy system devised for the consideration of these cases? When letters are sent to Departments, it
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    is usually two or three months before answers are received.
    Mr. Isaacs: The difficulty arises not in the handling of the papers and requests in this country; it is mainly due to the fact that the men asked for are a long way overseas and that there is difficulty in getting them back.

    Group Numbers
    Mr. Callaģhanasked the Minister of Labour if he will now publish a table showing the numbers of men and women in the three Services in each of the groups below No. 50.
    Mr. Isaacs: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave him on 7th March, and to the answer to the hon. Member for South Dorset (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) on 12th March. I will circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT very shortly.

    Students
    Mr. Georģe Thomasasked the Minister of Labour if he is now prepared to make a further statement concerning the release of students from the Services.
    Mr. Isaacs: The question of further releases of students in Class B is under consideration. I hope to be able to make an announcement within the next few weeks.

    Ophthalmic Lens Workers
    Major Symondsasked the Minister of Labour the number of ophthalmic lens workers released under Class B, in accordance with his undertaking given on 22nd January; and if, in view of the continued shortage of lenses, he will increase the number of Class B releases.
    Mr. Isaacs: Nominations for the release of ophthalmic lens workers in Class B were only recently received, and there has not yet been sufficient time to enable releases to be effected. As regards the second part of the Question, an increase in the number of Class B releases allocated to this industry has just been agreed.

    Class B Releases
    Major Symondsasked the Minister of Labour if he will publish at regular intervals the age and service groups reached in block releases under Class B for the various occupations and trades covered by that scheme.
    Mr. Isaacs: It is not practicable to adopt this suggestion. Information is not readily available as to the exact age and service groups reached in each Service at any given time. The position is constantly changing according to the number of refusals of release in Class B.
    Major Symonds: Will my right hon. Friend look into this again, because if he were to publish such figures at regular intervals, it would save his Department and hon. Members a great deal of correspondence?
    Mr. Isaacs: If it is possible to relieve hon. Members of that correspondence, we will certainly do what we can and look at the question again, but the problem is that the different groups and different occupations in the different Services are called out at different times, and it is difficult to get any real parallel. However, I will look into the question again and see if anything can he done.
    Mr. Stephen: Will the right hon. Gentleman issue a Government paper showing the position?
    Mr. Isaacs: No, Sir. I could not undertake to do that, but I will keep the promise I have already made.

  MILITARY SERVICE (FISHERMEN)
  Mr. Cooper-Keyasked the Minister of Labour whether he will cease calling up men from the fishing industry for National Service; and, if not, whether he will see that these men are given the option of joining the R.N.
  Mr. Isaacs: No, Sir. The men concerned are called up only when it has been decided after consultation with the district inspector of fisheries or district fisheries officer that they are no longer required in the industry. Most of them express a Navy preference, but those who are below the minimum standard for entry into the Navy, are called up for service in the Army.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Motor Car Tax
    Sir G. Foxasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the continuance of petrol rationing, he Will
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    so adjust the motor car tax in his forthcoming Budget as to provide some rebate to those who are only able to run their motor cars on a basic ration.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): I cannot anticipate my Budget Statement.

    Old Aģe Pensioners (Spare Rooms, Lettinģ)
    Mr. Palmerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that many elderly people are willing to let spare rooms and provide accommodation for homeless families, but fear that if they do so the income received will make them ineligible for an old age pension; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter.
    Mr. Dalton: The answer to both parts of the Question is, "No, Sir." Where means have to be taken into account in determining an old age pension, there is no legal authority for disregarding income from letting rooms.

    International Monetary Fund and Bank
    Sir Frank Sandersonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will publish a list of countries who accepted membership of the International Monetary Fund and Bank up to the date of the first meeting now in session at Savannah; and if he will also publish a list of countries whose representatives attended the original Bretton Woods Monetary Conference who have not yet accepted membership.
    Mr. Dalton: As the answer is detailed, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the answer:
    Up to the opening of the Savannah Meeting, the following countries had accepted membership of the International Monetary Fund and Bank:
    Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia (Fund only), Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Union of South Africa, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Yugoslavia.
    Denmark had intimated her desire to join and her quota was fixed at Savannah. El Salvador, Nicaragua and Panama joined both bodies during the meeting. Of the countries represented at Bretton Woods, Australia, New Zealand, the U.S.S.R., Venezuela, Haiti and Liberia have not accepted membership, but all except the last two were represented by observers at Savannah.

    Postwar Credits
    Major Leģģe-Bourkeasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many taxpayers have been informed that they are riot entitled to any postwar credit for 1943–45 owing to tax cancellation being greater than the credit due.
    Mr. Dalton: About 9,500,000.
    Major Leģģe-Bourke: Could the right hon. Gentleman say how it is possible for a sum which is a cancellation in itself to be used to cancel out something else?
    Mr. Dalton: The figure which I have given results from calculations based upon the amount by which the tax actually paid for the year exceeds what would have been paid if the personal allowance and the earned income allowance had not been altered in 1941.

    Local Housinģ Revenue(Income Tax)
    Mr. Turner-Samuelsasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how many local authorities receiving Exchequer contributions under the Housing Acts are paying Income Tax yearly on their housing revenue account.
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): A local authority is not assessed to Income Tax on its housing revenue account as such. Tax is chargeable under Schedule A in the normal way in respect of the properties which it owns under its housing schemes.
    Mr. Turner-Samuels: Does the Financial Secretary realise—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up."]—Does the Financial Secretary realise the point of this Question—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up."] —Does the Financial Secretary realise—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up."]—Do try to show a little courtesy. Does the Financial Secretary realise that the point of the Question was, what Income Tax these authorities are paying, not under Schedule A but under Schedule D?
    Mr. Hall: My hon. Friend raised this point the other night in a Debate in what I thought was a not very short speech. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Health did answer him. I think that at the moment that is as far as we can go.

    Surplus Lend-Lease Goods(Disposal)
    Mr. Gammansasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, in view of the criticisms made by the investigating committee of the Senate of the U.S.A., on the onerous restrictions put by His Majesty's Government on the method of disposal of surplus Lend-Lease goods in the British Isles, he will issue a White Paper explaining the system of disposal.
    Mr. Dalton: No, Sir. It will be for the United States Administration to deal with these criticisms.
    Mr. Gammans: Does not the Chancellor of the Exchequer propose to do something to meet these criticisms which have been levelled against this country and which are doing a lot of harm to the relations between this country and the United States?
    Mr. Dalton: I have nothing to add to the answer which I have given.

  MEXICAN RAILWAY BONDS
  Mr. Douģlas Marshallasked the Chancellor of the. Exchequer whether the agreement recently concluded between the International Bankers Committee and the Mexican Government concerning Mexican railway bonds, was negotiated with the full knowledge and approval of His Majesty's Government, and, in view of the fact that this agreement was criticised by the Council of Foreign Bondholders as inadequate for the British bondholders, what steps he proposes to take to safeguard their interests.
  Mr. Dalton: The answer to the first part of the Question is in the negative. I am considering whether there is any' action which I can usefully take in this case.
  Mr. Gallacher: Is not the Chancellor of the Exchequer aware that if the bondholders get anything they will get too much?

  JACQMAR ISSUE
  Mr. Richard Adamsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is satisfied that the recent Jacqmar issue was in the interests of the industry and the country as a whole, and that no undue profits were made by those concerned in the issue.
  Mr. Dalton: This undertaking has important export connections and the Capital Issues Committee, after consulting the Board of Trade, recommended consent to the issue on 9th January last. They were satisfied, on the facts then before them, that the issue arrangements were not unreasonable.

  GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING
  Mr. W. Shepherdasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if he will issue instructions to Government Departments to limit the size of their Press advertisements to three-inch double columns and so bring them into conformity with commercial practice, in view of the shortage of space in newspapers.
  Mr. Glenvil Hall: No, Sir.
  Mr. Shepherd: Will the Minister give one single reason why he refuses to make those instructions?
  Mr. Hall: The question is obviously based on a misunderstanding. Commercial practice does not limit advertisements to three-inch double columns. If the hon. Member will look at "The Times" this morning he will see that what I say is correct.

  POST OFFICE

    Telephone Service
    Air-Commodore Harveyasked the Assistant Postmaster-General how many new telephones have been installed at Macclesfield and Congleton since 1st June, 1945; and how many applicants are on the waiting list.
    The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Burke): In the Macclesfield area (including Prestbury), by the beginning of this month, 109 telephone exchange lines with 151 telephones had been installed since 1st June, 1945; and there were 186 appli-
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    cations for exchange lines on the waiting list. The corresponding figures for Congleton are 33, 54 and 74.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Assistant Postmaster-General how many telephones have been installed since 1st January, 1946, in the boroughs of Kingston-upon-Thames, Surbiton and Malden and Coombe, respectively; and the number of applications for installation of telephones at present outstanding in each of the three said boroughs.
    Mr. Burke: The number of lines provided during January and February of this year on the Kingston, Malden, Derwent, Elmbridge and Epsom exchanges were 117, 81, 71, 102, and 46 respectively, and the number of applications for telephone service on these exchanges outstanding at the end of February were 1,002, 668, 1,210, 956, and 373 respectively.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Can the Assistant Postmaster-General give an assurance that he is taking steps to improve these miserable figures?
    Mr. Burke: Work is beginning which will clear up some 30 per cent. of the outstanding applications. Work is also under preparation for clearing it up still further.
    Sir W. Wakefield: Will the Assistant Postmaster-General speed up the installation of telephones in St. Marylebone?

    Parcels (Oversea Deliveries)
    Major Huģh Fraserasked the Assistant Postmaster-General whether he will speed up the delivery of parcels sent by industrial firms to foreign countries, particularly to the U.S.A., where delays do not improve our industrial prestige.
    Mr. Burke: Every available outlet is being used for the despatch of parcels, whether sent by industrial firms or by private individuals, to all overseas countries, including the United States of America. Full and immediate advantage will be taken of improvements in the shipping services.
    Major Fraser: Is the Assistant Postmaster-General aware that when he refers to "outlet" he may be referring to a sink? It is taking over three months for parcels to get to America, and that is

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    having a very bad effect on our export trade. When he talks of "outlet" what does he mean?
    Mr. Burke: I mean that we use every ship that goes to send mails.

    Letter Deliveries(Orkney and Shetland)
    Sir Basil Neven-Spenceasked the Assistant Postmaster-General if he will arrange for a daily delivery of letters throughout Orkney and Shetland.
    Mr. Burke: The question of providing a daily delivery of letters throughout Orkney and Shetland must depend, as elsewhere, first on transport services being available and, secondly, on the practicability of providing a daily service at reasonable cost. A daily delivery is now given, where air and steamer transport facilities permit, throughout Orkney and Shetland with the exception of part of the "mainland" of Shetland. The question of increasing the number of deliveries in the "rural" part of the "mainland" of Shetland is under consideration, but it should be borne in mind that prewar the cost was prohibitive.

    Reģistered Letters (Claims)
    Major Niall Macphersonasked the Assistant Postmaster-General how many claims he has received for the loss of money transmitted by registered letter between 1st September, 1945, and 28th February, 1946; in respect of how many of these claims lie has accepted liability; and in respect of how many liability has been refused by the Post Office.
    Mr. Burke: 6,172 claims were received. Liability was accepted in 3,811 cases, liability was not accepted in 533 cases, and 1,828 cases are still under investigation.
    Major Macpherson: Does the Assistant Postmaster-General realise that the condition is unsatisfactory inasmuch as contents are not examined at the point of origin, and the postmen are not instructed to see that the recipients actually examine the letters on arrival?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Churchill: Would the Leader of the House state the Business for next week?
The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): The Business for next week will be as follows:
Monday, 1st April, and Tuesday, 2nd April—Conclusion of the Committee stage of the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Bill. If there is time it is hoped to proceed with the remaining stages of the Bill.
Wednesday, 3rd April—It is proposed to move Mr. Speaker out of the Chair on going into Committee of Supply on the Navy Estimates, 1946. The hon. Member for Caernarvonshire (Mr. Goronwy Roberts) is calling attention to naval recruiting.
Thursday, 4th April—The Adjournment of the House will be moved to give an opportunity for a Debate on the world food shortage.
Friday, 5th April—Motions to approve the continuance in force of the Proclamations issued by the Governor of Burma on 17th. October, 1945, and 10th December, 1942. We propose-to make further progress with the United Nations Bill [Lords], and the Patents and Designs Bill [Lords], and take the Motion to approve the Purchase Tax (Exemptions) (No. 1) Order relating to centrifugal organ blowers.
Mr. Churchill: With regard to the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Bill, it is impossible to say how long the completion of the Committee stage will take. May we have an assurance that we shall have a full day for the Third Reading, and that the Third Reading will be postponed if necessary?
Mr. Morrison: I am afraid that must depend on what progress we make with the Committee stage and the preceding stages before the Third Reading. We had hoped, in view of the time that was spent on the first day's Debate, that it was not unreasonable that another two days should complete the proceedings.
Mr. Churchill: It would seem that this Measure, which raises wide issues, and admittedly is of great importance on both sides, should be brought to a conclusion in the House in a final Debate on a day reserved for that subject alone.
Mr. Morrison: That must depend on how we get on with the earlier stages. Perhaps conversations could proceed through the usual channels. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the points

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of principle involved are important. On the other hand, it is not a Bill that really lends itself to a great deal of detailed consideration. [Interruption.] By the nature of this Measure, with great respect, I do not think it does. It certainly lends itself to argument. Therefore, I hope if we could agree upon a reasonable scope in Committee, we might be able to meet the right hon. Gentleman. Anyway, I suggest that conversations might proceed on the point.
Mr. Churchill: I agree with that.
Mr. Clement Davies: With regard to the Debate on the world food situation, when may we expect the promised White Paper setting out the details of that situation? Can we have it in good time before the Debate?
Mr. Morrison: I hope it will be available on Tuesday.
Mr. Eden: Can the Leader of the House give any more information on the point I raised last week about the Second Reading of the National Health Service Bill? The right hon. Gentleman said that we would take it before Easter, but it is a Bill of great concern to local authorities in many parts of the country, and it would seem therefore desirable that hon. Members should have the opportunity of consulting their constituents and the local authorities before they are asked to debate it.
Mr. Morrison: I still take the view that it would not be unreasonable to take the Second Reading before the Easter Recess. To that position I must adhere. On the other hand, I am quite willing that there should be conversations through the usual channels, and if we can reach some sort of overall understanding there may be room for elasticity, with a view to meeting the point the right hon. Gentleman has raised.
Mr. Eden: It is not a question of hon. Members having time to study the Bill, though that is arguable, no doubt. The point I wanted to make was that it is essentially a Bill on which we should like to consult our constituents and local authorities. That is why I think we ought to have it after Easter.
Mr. Morrison: That is a factor which we shall be willing to take into account.
Mr. Lipson: With regard to the food Debate, will it be upon a statement by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Food?
Mr. Morrison: So far as we are concerned, we are willing that it should be opened by a Government statement, but whether it will be the Minister of Food or not I cannot at the moment say. I should have thought that that arrangement would meet with the general convenience of the House.
Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Will the terms of the Motion on the Proclamations issued by the Governor of Burma be wide enough to allow of a general discussion?
Mr. Morrison: I am afraid I do not know; that is a matter for you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Member is talking about the Motion which is down for Friday week, I have not yet looked at it. It remains to be seen.
Mr. Nicholson: It is highly desirable that the House should have the opportunity of a short discussion on Burma.
Mr. Speaker: That depends on the limits -of the actual Motion.
Mr. Nicholson: In connection with Orders under the India Act it has frequently been the case that the rules of Order have been interpreted. rather widely so as to allow a general discussion on Indian questions. I suggest that the same procedure might be followed with regard to Burma.
Mr. Speaker: I can make no promises in advance.
Mr. Stokes: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he has yet had an opportunity to consider, through the usual channels with the Opposition, a possible opportunity for a Debate before Easter on the tragic economic situation in Europe arising out of the faulty decisions taken at Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam?
Mr. Morrison: I am afraid that the prospects of any other special days before Easter are very thin.
Mr. Maclay: Has the Leader of the House any idea when the Scottish Health Bill will be introduced?
Mr. Morrison: Not yet, Sir.
Sir W. Wakefield: Could the Leader of the House say whether the Civil Aviation Bill will be published before Easter?
Mr. Morrison: If possible. It is a little uncertain, but it will not be very long; I cannot be sure whether it will be before Easter.
Major Lloyd: Referring again to the question of the Health Service Bill, will the Leader of the House give sympathetic consideration to the fact that most local authorities meet only once a month, and that if the Bill is taken too soon it will be putting them to grave inconvenience?
Mr. Morrison: I am very familiar with the period of the meetings of local authorities, and I will not forget that point.
Sir Waldron Smithers: In view of the fact that those who are called into consultation by the Government were bound to secrecy until the Bill was published, does not the Leader of the House think we should have more time, in view of what has already been said, to meet our constituents and the local authorities, and to give them more time to consider it?
Mr. Robens: In view of the fact that hon. Members in all parts of the House need to make advance arrangements for meeting their constituents during the Recess, when will the right hon. Gentleman be able to announce the actual date of the Recess?
Mr. Morrison: I do not know at the moment, but my hon. Friend has raised a perfectly fair point and I will do what I can to meet the convenience of the House.
Lieut.-Colonel Harry Morris: Can the Leader of the House say whether there will be any opportunity to discuss the Treaty of Alliance with Transjordan?
Mr. Morrison: It had not occured to me that arrangements should be made for that.

CHANNEL ISLANDS (FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): With the permission of the House, I have a statement to make about the Channel Islands.
586
The Lieutenant-Governors of Jersey and Guernsey, together with the bailiffs and representatives of the two Islands, attended a conference held at the Home Office this morning to discuss the arrangements for meeting the financial indebtedness of the Islands arising out of the German occupation and for meeting the expenditure to be incurred on the economic reconstruction of the Islands on an austerity basis.
For this purpose the Islands have to face expenditure of the order, in the case of Jersey, of somewhat more than £7½ million and, in the case of Guernsey, of slightly under £6 million. His Majesty's Government have thought it right, that any financial assistance to be afforded by the Exchequer to the Islands should be calculated on a basis proportionate to the respective expenditure of the two Islands, and have accordingly offered to the States of jersey a capital sum of £4,200,000, and to the States of Guernsey a capital sum of £3,300,000, to be used for the purpose of liquidating part of the indebtedness of the Islands. The balance of the expenditure required for the purpose of reconstruction will be borrowed by the States.
An official communication will be sent in due course by His Majesty's Government to the Islands through the usual constitutional channels.
Mr. Lipson: Is the settlement which the Home Secretary has just announced acceptable to the representatives of Jersey and Guernsey, and has it been proposed that the British Government should lend the balance of the money, and if so at what rate of interest?
Mr. Ede: With regard to the first part of the supplementary question, I saw the representatives of the Islands this morning, and I. think the arrangement was, generally speaking, acceptable to them. With regard to the second part of the supplementary question, it is a matter for the Islands themselves how they deal with the balance outside the sums I have mentioned.
Mr. Walter Fletcher: Do those sums include compensation to individuals for loss due to enemy occupation?
Mr. Ede: This has nothing to do with reparations and things of that nature.

SCHOOL MILK AND MEALS (FREE SERVICE)
The Minister of Education (Miss Ellen Wilkinson): The Government have decided to make school milk free of charge in all grant-aided primary and secondary schools from the date of the introduction of cash family allowances in August next. The whole cost of this benefit will be borne by the Exchequer in accordance with the existing provision for the payment of 100 per cent, grant on the school milk service.
The Government have also decided to make school dinners free of charge at the earliest possible date for day pupils in all grant-aided primary and secondary schools, but this cannot be done until school canteen facilities are sufficient to meet the expected demand. For the present, therefore, parents' payments will continue. These payments may not, however, under the Regulations be more than the cost of the food supplied and may be remitted wholly or in part in any case of hardship.
In order that there may be no avoidable delay in bringing the provision of school canteen facilities to the point at which school dinners can be made free, the Government ask education authorities to press forward with the utmost possible speed with the formulation and carrying out of their proposals. The Government recognise that the development of school canteen facilities to the point required for freeing school dinners will form a substantial contribution to the national policy for assistance to families. It is therefore proposed, as from 1st April, 1947, to raise the Exchequer subvention in aid of the cost of school dinners to a level which will meet in full the reasonable net cost of school dinners to authorities; but this Exchequer subvention will be limited to the reasonable net cost per meal as fixed annually by the Minister for the area after consultation with the authority. The expenditure of authorities on establishing and equipping school canteens will continue to attract grant at 100 per cent., as at present. It is not intended to make school meals and refreshments other than school dinners free of charge to parents, and as from 1st April, 1947, the expenditure of 'authorities on such meals and refreshments will rank for grant at the normal formula rate.
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The Ministry will initiate discussions with the authorities with a view to settling the detailed arrangements for the administration of the new system of grant-aid on the above basis. This new system will replace as from 1st April, 1947, the existing special meals grant provisions of the Ministry's Regulations governing grants to local education authorities. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland asks me to say that similar arrangements will apply to Scotland.
Mr. Churchill: Can we be told at the same time the cost of these desirable benefits?
Miss Wilkinson: I am afraid I should require to have notice of that question. Nor could the answer be given immediately.
Mr. Churchill: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer not in a position to tell us, considering how near he is to the date of the Budget?
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): We should be in a position to give an answer to the question the right hon. Gentleman is asking if it were put down on the Paper. Or it might be desired to wait until the Budget statement. Perhaps, to put it on the Paper would be more convenient.
Mr. R. A. Butler: May I ask, first, whether the day on which these meals will be made free will coincide with the introduction of family allowances and, secondly, are there any provisions in the Government's policy for dealing with pupils of independent schools?
Miss Wilkinson: If I may deal with the second question first, the answer is that consultations are still going on with regard to that. All I have said here applies to pupils in grant-aided schools. With regard to the first question, I think my statement pointed out it would not be possible to free the dinners at the exact date on which cash family allowances are introduced, because canteen facilities will not be available. The exact date cannot now be given. It will depend on how soon the local education authorities can make these canteen facilities available.
Mr. Tolley: Can the right hon. Lady say what arrangements she is making for those meals to be available for children attending rural schools?
Miss Wilkinson: Exactly the same provision as is made for any other grant-aided school.
Mr. Clement Davies: May I thank the right hon. Lady for her statement which, I am sure, will be received with great joy everywhere? But may I ask her to tell us now, roughly, the percentage of schoolchildren who are receiving today midday meals?
Miss Wilkinson: Thirty-seven per cent.
Mr. Erroll: Will the right hon. Lady allow local authorities to instal their own canteens, as they are now so urgent, and as the Ministry of Works which, I think, is in charge of the work, is proving very slow?
Miss Wilkinson: That is a matter to be addressed to the Ministry of Works.
Mr. Walkden: Will the right hon. Lady say whether she contemplates setting up a committee of experts or a group of persons to guide and advise local authorities on the most modern methods of preparing, cooking, and distributing these meals? Secondly, does she contemplate any proposal to supply meals during school holidays? Have any suggestions been sent to her about that from local authorities?
Miss Wilkinson: A committee of experts is unnecessary. We have all the experts that are necessary in the Ministry of Education. After all, what is a Government Department for? With regard to the second part of the question, school milk is provided during holidays in school where there is a sufficient demand for it.
Mr. Robens: In the provision of school milk, will the right hon. Lady ensure that only T.T. milk, or pasteurized bottled milk, is supplied and so prevent what is taking place at the present time, the supplying of loose, raw milk, a good deal of which is quite impure and would cause the health of schoolchildren to deteriorate, rather than improve?
Miss Wilkinson: I am sorry the hon. Gentleman should make that statement, because it may cause unnecessary anxiety. At the present we have to give some loose milk rather than milk in bottles owing to the extreme difficulty in getting bottles and bottling facilities. But the question of the cleanliness of the milk is constantly under our supervision.
Colonel Wheatley: Will the right hon. Lady give instructions to local authorities to see that the great waste of milk that goes on in the schools is stopped? Is she aware that the amount of milk wasted. is very great indeed?
Miss Wilkinson: Indeed I do not know it. There may be waste in isolated cases, but it is certainly not general.
Mr. Wilkins: In view of the right hon. Lady's statement, it is probable there will be very rapid development of the use of these facilities, and, consequently, the retention of school teachers to supervise the provision of school meals. Does she not think, as some of us do, that it is rather an imposition on the teachers to have to supervise meals during their own lunch hour?
Miss Wilkinson: We are so concerned about that matter that I set up a small working party representative of local authorities, the National Union of Teachers, and the Ministry, and they have put proposals before me on which I hope to come to a decision shortly.
Mr. Driberģ: Can the right hon. Lady say whether it is still the case, as was, I think, announced by her predecessor, that the building of school canteens has equal priority with houses in the demand for building materials?
Miss Wilkinson: It comes out of the allocation for building which is made to the Ministry of Education. That allocation has nothing whatever to do with the housing allocation

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House).—[The Prime Minister.]

LIVERPOOL COTTON MARKET
3.39 p.m.
Mr. Oliver Lyttelton: I beg to move,
" That this House regrets the decision of His Majesty's Government not to reopen the Liverpool Cotton Market and considers that the system of balk purchase under State control will hamper the manufacturer, increase the cost of cotton to the consumer and deprive this country of a valuable source of foreign exchange."
I feel a great responsibility this afternoon in moving the Motion which stands in my name and that of my right hon. and hon. Friends, and I crave the indulgence of the House lest, in discussing it, I have to descend sometimes to technicalities. This afternoon we find the Lord President of the Council again in the position of wearing a borrowed coat, or, rather, he has had a coat thrust upon him. This time it is not a fur coat; it is the lugubrious garment, adorned with a dagger, of the President of the Board of Trade. He has got the dagger which is about to be plunged deep into the heart of a great British trade and a great British industry.
I am so bold as to think that the Lord President will wear the cloak and dagger rather uneasily, and that he may be prepared to tell the House and the Press a little later on that they are really not his own, but are borrowed just for the day. I have often heard him, when we were colleagues, use such phrases as, "The country has got to earn its living," or, "That is very bad business." I am sure that the Lord President said that sort of thing yesterday, and that he will say it again tomorrow; but today he must refrain from holding such language. Today he must make use of the very half-hearted brief with which the Board of Trade have provided him. I say half-hearted, not without knowledge of the subject, because I have presided over that Department 'twice in the last six years, and I have too lively a regard for the intelligence and wisdom of the officials to imagine they can be other than half-hearted about the
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destruction of a piece of British trade. Phrases, which I know are deeply and sincerely meant by the Lord President, such as the country must earn a living —a happy phrase—ill accord with the announcement of his colleague, which might well be paraphrased into, "here. is one of the ways in which we can prevent the country from earning its living."
The Liverpool Cotton Exchange has existed for more than roc years, and has about 500 members and 200 associate members. The Association and the Exchange command a larger body of experts than any other exchange in the world. Liverpool is the only market in the world which deals with cotton of all 16 cotton producing countries, and it is a truly international market for that reason. It is looked to not only by the cotton growing countries, but by all countries which spin cotton which do not necessarily have their own cotton. All producing and spinning countries use these facilities in Liverpool, and the market earns commissions and arbitration fees on cotton sold by one foreign country, and bought by another, even when that cotton never touches our shores. Liverpool Cotton Exchange provides a necessary piece of machinery by which the industry in this country is carried on. [Interruption.] I am sorry that hon. Members keep interrupting, but no doubt these facts come as a surprise. Liverpool Exchange also brings to this country large stocks of cotton, carried mainly at other people's risk, and a good proportion of it in British ships, and these stocks not only give manufacturers a wide choice of cotton to spin in peacetime—a very necessary thing in such a variable commodity—but also provide a useful reserve when war breaks out. The cotton industry not only brings commissions, but money by way of warehouse rents, which foreigners have to pay, and shipping, banking and insurance business in large volume. These are secondary, but hardly less important results which flow from the existence of this market.
The birth, growth and existence of the Liverpool Cotton Exchange are due to the desire, and, indeed, to the necessity, of growers, spinners and manufacturers avoiding speculation. [Interruption.] I realise how surprising the unvarnished truth may be to hon. Members who do not know it or who, perhaps, do not often hear it. I will illustrate the point. Let us imagine a cotton planter in the

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romantic Southern State of Tennessee. He has cotton which will be ready for picking and shipment in six months' time. He sees, in the local Memphis newspaper, that cotton for delivery ha Liverpool six months hence is at such a price that it will return to him the cost of growing it, fertilisers and so forth, and of wages for the plantation, and provide a modest profit for himself. He reflects that he is responsible for the plantation, for the men upon it and for keeping the plantation going, and that his job is to use his brain to grow cotton and not guess the market. So he decides to sell his cotton for delivery in Liverpool six months hence, or, in other words, he uses the market in order to avoid taking a risk. On the other hand, let us cross the Atlantic in our minds and imagine a cotton spinner in Lancashire. He has to make a price for 20 million lbs. of cotton yarn to a manufacturer about to offer cotton cloth to a foreign market. The spinner must protect himself against the danger of the price of cotton going up, firstly, while the offer is current, and before the business is struck or concluded and, secondly, during the period it takes to spin 20 million lbs. of cotton yarn. If cotton were to go up during either of these periods, he would lose money, he would lose big money very quickly, and employment in his mill would be jeopardised. He must avoid this risk, so what does he do? He buys cotton in Liverpool, and thereby hedges the risk. If cotton did go up during the open period when his offers were out, it is not a possibility, but a certainty, that his tender will be accepted, because it will have been put out at a price below that of current world prices.
I give this as an illustration to explain the reasons for the existence of the Liverpool Market, which is to provide an insurance market whereby growers, spinners and manufacturers can avoid the risk of speculation. It exists, on the one hand, to enable a grower to fix ahead the price at which he can sell his crop, and, on the other hand, for the manufacturer or spinner to fix a price on cotton which will cover the orders on his book, or which he hopes to obtain. The role of the cotton market is to eliminate speculation and risk from the industry, with its hundreds of thousands of workers dependent upon it. There may be some who are not familiar with the actual
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mechanism, and I will give a short illustration of how it works. A manufacturer of cotton piece goods makes an offer in the face of foreign competition to South America. His price is based on the current price of cotton. Let us suppose that cotton is 15 pence a lb. The business will obviously take time to conclude, and during that time he will be at a risk. Therefore, he buys cotton futures six months ahead. Let us suppose that he buys also at a price of 15 pence per lb. If the market goes up to 16 pence while the offer is still outstanding he will make a profit of one penny per lb. on the purchase price of the cotton on the market and a loss of one penny on the price which he has tendered for the cotton piece goods. In other words, he is all square. Similarly, if the market goes down to 14 pence per lb. during the currency of this offer, he will make a profit of one penny per lb. on his manufacture and a corresponding loss of one penny per lb. on the market operations. Again he comes out all square. This type of transaction is known as "hedging."
I hope that we shall not have the argument from the Treasury Bench that one of the objects which they have in mind in closing the exchange is to curb speculation, because it is demonstrable—and I have tried to demonstrate it—that the reason for its existence is to avoid speculation in the industry. I see an hon. Member wagging his head, but I will deal with the matter of speculation outside the industry later.
Mr. McGhee: Are those the only operations which take place in the futures market?
The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I do not dissent from what the right hon. Gentleman has said. There is the relief of the spinner from the element of speculation, but the right hon. Gentleman will not have completed the picture, unless he indicates to the House that it is inevitable that the clement of speculation has to be transferred somewhere else; and will he explain to the House where it is transferred?
Mr. Lyttelton: I do not propose to shirk the question of speculation by those not concerned in the industry, but the right hon. Gentleman is in error in thinking that "hedges" are necessarily trans-

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ferred to other people. That is not so, I think that the validity of what I have said will come out in the course of my argument. There are two questions: Firstly, why are there risks inherent in the business and why should prices fluctuate sometime violently; and, secondly, if the Government are willing to buy cotton in bulk and make a fixed price to the spinners and other manufacturers, what have the spinners and other manufacturers got to worry about? The answer to the first question—why are risks inherent in the business and why do prices fluctuate violently—is that cotton is an agricultural crop, peculiarly susceptible to weather and pests—the sun and rain, on the one hand, and, generally, the boll weevil on the other. If the conditions are ideal and the boll weevil is repulsed, the crop will be abundant, and sometimes the supply will exceed the demand and prices will fall. That is not because of wicked capitalists, in shiny top hats, who speculate in cotton, or because of a lack of national planning. It is because agricultural crops are subject to risks of sun and rain and the boll weevil, over which even His Majesty's Government's present advisers have no control, even by Defence Regulations. If the boll weevil should sustain a successful offensive against cotton—nothing personal is intended—the reverse will happen, the crop will be a failure, the supply will be less than the demand and prices may rise. In short, the boll weevil and the weather are the great influences which cause fluctuations in the price of cotton.
I would like to support this statement with figures. In 1916, 33 million acres produced 11· million bales. In 1921, 28,678,000 acres produced 7,945,000
bales. In 1937, 33,625,000 acres produced just under 19 million bales.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): Are those the figures for the United States or for the world?
Mr. Lyttelton: The acreage is the United States and the grower is the United States. In those years, the acreage required to produce a bale was 2.88 in 1916; 3.6 in 1921; and 1.77 in 1937.
Mr. Robens: Is it not a fact that in the United States they are given a subsidy by the Government to plough back every third furrow?
Mr. Lyttelton: This is the yield of cotton per acre. It took only 1·77 acres in 1937 to grow a bale. These things are outside the control of His Majesty's Government. We are here dealing with the destruction of a piece of domestic machinery intended to avoid these risks falling on the domestic manufacturer. If the Government are willing to make a fixed price to the spinner, why should not the spinner sit back and have no worries? The reason is, that the risk that he runs is whether the Government have bought their cotton ill or well, and for other reasons which I will deal with later on. It is in the nature of things that a single bulk purchaser must, when dealing with a fluctuating agricultural crop like cotton, fare ill.
Before I discuss the question, let me remind the House that the President of the Board of Trade made the surprising claim that the experience of bulk purchase by the Government during the war gave evidence of how well the Government would buy cotton in peace time. That will be within the recollection of the House. I am going to expose the fallacy of that assertion, by asking the Government if they will tell the House what loss the Government made by buying and selling cotton since the end of Lend-Lease. I will give way now, if necessary, for the answer. I see that they do not know the answer. If they do not know the answer, would it not be as well for them to find it out before deciding to close the Cotton Exchange, which has bought cotton for the industry, at no cost of public money, and bought it very satisfactorily, for the last 100 years. I am sorry that question seems to have gone. so badly. I am now going to ask a much easier one, which I have no doubt the Government will spring to answer. Have the Board of Trade since their last purchase of raw cotton used the New York Cotton Exchange either to "hedge" or fix the price of cotton? There is no answer. Perhaps right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench will consult with one another and decide what the answer is to be. We are entitled to know the answer some time during this Debate. I hope that, on this occasion, they will abandon the practice, which seems to people of my political complexion to be becoming very frequent, of avoiding awkward questions.

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No single purchaser of cotton, be it the Government or another, can eliminate the inherent fluctuations in the price of cotton which are due to causes over which they have no control. In bulk purchase, without the possibility of "hedging," if cotton is badly bought by the Government, and the prices are passed on to the spinner, another blow, and it will be a fatal one this time, will have been struck at the cotton spinning industry. If the Government wish to avoid this they will have to vary their prices to the spinners in accordance with world prices. If, for example, the world price of cotton falls below the Government fixed price, can the spinner rely on the Government following the price down day by day? If he cannot rely on that, how is he to compete, for he will be buying his cotton dearer than his competitor? If he can rely on the Government following the price down day by day what becomes of the specious argument that Government purchases make for stability? Could we have an answer to those questions? Incidentally, if the Government does follow the market down, they will make losses which the taxpayer —the much cow of the 10th century State —will have to meet. If the world market by chance—and I can assure the House it will rarely happen—goes up above the Government's fixed price are the spinners to be assured that the Government will not raise the price against them? would remind the House that the Government raised the price of cotton in 1944 by 4.½d. a lb. over night. If these are the kind of operations that go on what becomes of the argument that Government purchases make for stable prices? It is just nonsense.
I promised the House that I would give some other reason why a single purchaser cannot buy a commodity like cotton at the average world prices over a year or any longer period. A single buyer has to rely upon a statistical forecast on the crop, the' nature of the weather, the size of the crop and the general course of business in cotton manufactured goods. The whole of the transactions are based upon premises which are entirely uncertain. It is only by a forecast that a single purchaser is likely to purchase a fluctuating commodity like cotton. Where this differs from the ordinary course of business is that cotton is hedged, when there is a market such as
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the Cotton Exchange, by hundreds of thousands of transactions entered into by spinners, manufacturers and growers which are in no sense based upon a statistical or theoretical forecast of the. size of the crop and the probable price, but are based upon the orders taken day by day and hour by hour and placed on the order book. The man who puts an order on his book which involves the use of 500 bales of cotton at today's prices, has no great statistical forecast to make. He requires no cablegrams about the boll weevil. All he does is to buy 500 bales of cotton for three or six months' delivery, and thereby he covers himself against fluctuations in the price. In this way the countless series of individual transactions, which take place, secure that the industry, as a whole, is covered from hour to hour against the fluctuations in the price of the raw material, which goes into their manufacture. The hedge is a moving one, whereas the single purchaser, who has not access to the individual order books or to the offers which are open, has to use other data upon which to base his decision to buy, and is, in fact, a plain outright speculator.
There is another inherent reason why a single purchaser cannot buy cotton well, and that is because everyone in the cotton growing industry will see the Government buyer coming a mile off, just as sometimes you can tell the policeman by his boots. It will not be surprising during that period when it is known that the British Government have to buy cotton—and the fact cannot be concealed—if the prospects of the crop and the depredations of the boll weevil look calamitous. Or do His Majesty's Government really suppose that they can alter human nature, and create conditions under which sellers of cotton will be anxious to show that the price of their wares is going down? It will not be until the Government are known to have covered all their requirements, that it will be discovered that the forecast of the crop was much too pessimistic. If the crop should be a bumper one, and His Majesty's Government pay too high a price, the individual traders in other parts of the world who are fortunate enough to be clear of the President of the Board of Trade and his rigid regime will have bought their cotton at very much cheaper prices.

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Whether my prophecy concerning crop prospects is too cynical or not, it is necessary to realise that conditions of plenty or scarcity are not ones which can be computed far in advance of their occurrence. The weather is a continual and changeable factor, and many times when the prospects were fair the weather has turned foul and the results have been poor. At other times the reverse will be the case. Even those who carry on the industry cannot judge of these factors accurately, and spinners all over the world conducting an industrial business, "hedge" not upon their opinions of what the market is going to he, but, as I have said, upon the state of their order books and upon actual orders received or offers made. I do not believe for one moment in the idea that London can teach Lancashire how to buy cotton. The only way they might be able to do so would be if the Government engaged a crystal gazer or an astrologer—if there is one unemployed after certain casualties that have occurred on the Continent. I see here another evidence of that most undesirable centralisation which is part of the Government's policy, and which is seeking, more and more, to try to run all business from London and from Whitehall.
The third main reason why the British Government will not buy cotton well is because they must always be the owner of large stocks of cotton with which to supply spinners. The Chancellor of the Exchequer laughs. I am awfully afraid that later on, he will be tearful. As I said, the third reason why the Government will not buy successfully is because they must always be the owners of large stocks with which to supply spinners. They will be, so to speak, always by the nature of things, one-way speculators. They will always be, in the vulgarism of the market, a "bull" of cotton. In fact, there is only one method by which His Majesty's Government can prevent having a large stock of cotton at risk, and that is by "hedging" their purchases by forward sales on the New York Cotton Exchange since they will have destroyed the domestic means of doing so. The British Government will be the only merchant in cotton in the world that must be perpetually a "bull" of cotton, without any protection against price fluctuations.
Mr. Fairhurst: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us exactly what was the policy pursued by the Japanese when they were buying cotton?
Mr. Lyttelton: No doubt, we shall hear that in support of the Government's case. My right. hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. R. S. Hudson) reminds me that the Japanese always hedged in New York and Liverpool. If any Member wants to know about this, or if the Government want to know about the results of bulk purchase, I suggest that they should examine the financial results of such purchase of cotton by the United States Government, who are much bigger people in this business than the Japanese ever were—
Mr. Fairhurst: I do not like interrupting, but would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that 70 per cent. of the cotton purchased in Japan was purchased by three firms only?
Mr. Lyttelton: The American Government will be found to have lost thousands of millions of dollars on the bulk purchase of cotton. If the Government want any practical reasons to drive home the theoretical argument I have been obliged to make, then they are there.
I now turn to another aspect of the matter, namely, the speculation which undoubtedly takes place in these markets by those who have nothing to do with the industries which the markets serve. First, let me assure the House that the influence of outside speculation on the cotton market is very small, and does not represent more than a small percentage of the total business done.
Mr. Rhodes rose
Mr. Speaker: lithe right hon. Gentleman does not give way, then the hon. Member is not entitled to interrupt.
Mr. Lyttelton: I do not want to be discourteous, but we have only a short time for this Debate, and I must continue. The world crop of cotton is worth£ 500 million sterling, and if that is turned over twice, theoretically that is a turnover of potentially £1,000 million, so that outside speculation is a small part of the business. It may come as a surprise to hon. Members opposite if I say that speculation, in The main, has a

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stabilising influence on the markets. All speculation is intended to buy commodities when they are cheap, and to sell them when they are dear, or sell them when they are dear and buy them when they are cheap. That is the object. But speculation, like many other things:n human affairs, is not always intelligently conducted, and I admit straight away that it is necessary to have rules to keep speculation, by those outside the industries, within bounds. That is not hard to do. For example, today commissions charged to those outside the industry are twice those which are charged to those inside, and it is also necessary, I think, to impose upon those who are outside the recognised traders' list the obligation to cover every transaction by cash. By these means it is easy to keep outside speculation within strict limits, and if it is within limits it is beneficial, and not harmful. Because an insurance market like Lloyds, which is necessary for shipping business, is used to speculate on election majorities, or even the removal or imposition or taxation by the Chancellor, that is no reason for abolishing Lloyds. But it is a reason for tightening up the rules and securing that Lloyds are not used for purposes for which they were not intended.
I have given an illustration of the necessity for the existence of this Exchange, and I now turn to the second part of the subject. The cotton market has meant that, year in and year out 1,000,000 bales of cotton have been carried in the warehouses in Liverpool. That has not been by any means all. The larger part has not been at the risk of British traders, but of shippers. This stock gives the spinner opportunity to select the type of cotton which will run best in his mill, and it has brought very valuable business in its train. It has, for instance, been the source of important gains in foreign exchange. All this business, owing to the decision of the President of the Board of Trade, will, in future, go elsewhere because the cotton futures market is necessary to the industry. I want to ask another question—and I am sorry to be so interrogatory. Are the Government aware that negotiations are already in train to start a futures market in Rotterdam, Ghent, or Antwerp? Is this the time to cancel these gains to this country? Is this the time to disrupt part of the mechanism of the cotton industry, which everyone of us wishes to see put
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fairly on its feet again? I ask the Lord President of the Council whether the Government have consulted on this matter the Cotton Spinners' Association, who are the consumers of our cotton, and whether their decision was discussed with Sir George Schuster and the working party which was set up? I have it on credible authority that that working party have not been consulted. This can easily be denied if my information is incorrect.
I am told that the President of the Board of Trade informed a deputation in November, that the decision regarding the Liverpool Cotton Exchange would be a Cabinet one, as it was a question which contained much political content. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Will the Government confirm that in their opinion this is the way they intend to deal with economic questions—that they do not intend to deal with such questions on their merits? The House is entitled to know. Anybody knows that no political considerations enter into the subject of the existence or destruction of this vast piece of machinery. If the working party are not consulted, what is the good of these working parties. How can they be expected to make constructive suggestions, when decisions are taken behind their backs, and without their knowledge?
I wish to refer for a few moments to the human side of this problem. About 7,000 men and women will be thrown out of work—
Mrs. Braddock: I challenge those figures.
Mr. Lyttelton: The hon. Lady is anxious to show that the incidence of this decision on her constituents will not be as bad as they themselves think it will be.
Mrs. Braddock: I will give the exact figures when I speak.
Mr. Lyttelton: I suppose the hon. Lady's role is to show that it does not matter to the Exchange Division of Liverpool.
Mrs. Braddock: The right hon. Gentleman will see.
Mr. Lyttelton: I think the Government might have heeded the Socialist Lord Mayor of Liverpool in this matter. Further, could they explain why no consultation took place with the trade

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unions concerned? Perhaps we can have an answer to that question? I have no doubt that Lancashire Members will deal more fully with these subjects. To sum up—and I apologise for keeping the House so long—this essential piece of trade machinery, a valuable source of foreign exchange, a valuable feeder to shipping, banking and insurance industries, is being wantonly thrown away on the mere ipse dixit of the President of the Board of Trade. If I did not know his habits so well, I should have thought that it was "tipsy dixit." Few more ironical things have happened—and many ironical things have happened so far during the life of this Government—than that a Minister who is supposed to be the custodian of British trade interests should be destroying one for the benefit of our foreign competitors, and this at a time when Government exhortations to work together to increase our exports, particularly invisible exports, have hardly died away on our ears. What a tragic spectacle it is to see the right hon. and learned Gentleman sawing away one of the branches of the tree on which he is sitting.
No reasons were advanced except the inadequate and, I think, totally frivolous one, that the Government will buy cotton better than the trade, that London will buy it better than Lancashire. All that is being done is that a market which exists to provide a hedge against risk and to prevent traders from having to speculate is being done away with in order that the Government themselves may speculate to any extent they please, which they will do
exceedingly ill. A piece of machinery built up over 100 years is to be destroyed 'by a statement which does not occupy 100 lines in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I earnestly ask that the Government should reconsider this ill-judged step, and while we all recognise that at this moment there may be some passing reasons for not reopening the market, can the Lord President give us an assurance that he will look into the matter again, and not close the door on this necessary piece of commercial machinery?
I understand that His Majesty's Government are already approaching the spinners—as has been done before—saying., "We are going to hang the market in a week's time and we should be glad
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of your cooperation in telling us how to manufacture the rope." I do hope that they will reconsider this. I am told that His Majesty's Government are planning a businesslike scheme for buying cotton. Might they not take into account that there is a businesslike scheme for this purpose ready to hand, and that they have only to leave it alone to be satisfied.
4.22 p.m.
The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): In the field of politics, I have sometimes used the phrase "the doctrine of some people in politics is to march through chaos to triumph." In this economic and financial discussion it seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) has been seeking to prove that, somehow or another, we can walk in this business through chaos to order. With great respect, I do not agree with him. He painted a picture of the operations of the Liverpool and Manchester cotton merchants, and the cotton futures markets, which seemed to me a highly complicated one of a large number of people engaging in the purchase of raw cotton with the inevitable element of speculation—I entirely agree with him that speculation is inevitable and am not making it a moral crime—passed from the spinner and from the manufacturing industry on to the merchant, who took the risks. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Surely this is so. It is passed on to the Manchester and Liverpool Cotton Associations, on to the Exchange. That really is the virtue of the Exchange—it takes the risk. It offers the spinner the cotton at a firm price at a period ahead. This is the whole business of the futures market, that they take the risk to a great extent of what happens in the meantime.
Of course, there must be speculation and elements of uncertainty in the matter because, as the right hon. Gentleman said, nobody can be sure this month what the current price of cotton produced many miles out of the country is going to be in six months' time. That is a perfectly fair point. The spinner wants to know ahead at what price he can buy in a certain number of months' time. I should have thought that since the spinner wants to know where he is and we have to buy cotton as a nation,

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somehow or another, for somebody or another, the question is whether this is best done by a large number of individuals ordering and buying it from abroad and marketing it here through the exchange at home, so that it is ultimately bought by a considerable number of spinners. In fact, the question before the House is whether this operation of acquiring the cotton from numerous markets in various part of the world and selling it can best be done by a large number of operators in the competitive and speculative field or by a collective, adequately organised buying organisation with its agents, its observers, and its experts scattered throughout the growing areas of the world, having a proper organisation at home, knowing what they are doing, and serving the spinner in an organised, sensible, and proper manner. That seems to me to be the real issue before the House.
What the right hon. Gentleman has been trying to do is to seek to prove his case with good Manchester school argument—good 19th century Liberal stuff which I thought the Conservatives had dropped a long time ago, since the Liberals certainly have done so. With the true voice of the Manchester school, without conviction, and without proving it, he says, "Well, somehow or another, in some curious way, by some abstract law that I cannot vindicate, and cannot prove, if you let lots of men operate upon the market, purchasing in the world and somehow act as middlemen between the producers and the consumer or the manufacturer, all will work out for the best." That is what the argument came to. I make no abusive comments about it, nor am I making any moral condemnation of speculation as such. This is not the day and not the subject for such, because, inevitably, in the transaction of this business there is bound to be an element of speculation. We are buying ahead and "chancing our arm" on the purchase made today, as to what the price will be in the months ahead. Therefore the element of speculation is there, whether the purchase is undertaken by the Liverpool merchant and by the Liverpool and Manchester Cotton Exchanges or by an organisation appointed by the State to undertake this business on behalf of the nation and, as I see it, to render the best service to the spinners in
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particular, and the Lancashire textile industry in general, at the end of the business.
The right hon. Gentleman asked it we have consulted the spinners. The spinners met my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade some little time ago, and put their views before him, both by oral observations and in writing. Therefore, before the decision was reached by the Government, the President of the Board of Trade was made aware of the views of the spinners.
Mr. Churchill: What were their views?
Mr. Morrison: As put before the President of the Board of Trade they were hostile to this proposal. On the other hand, we know that there are many progressively minded spinners. [HON. MEMBERS: "Who are they? "] I do not know and neither do the right hon. Gentlemen opposite, but we say, and we believe, that there are quite a number of spinners of a progressive and competent order, who think, (a) that this will not injure the spinning trade, and (b) that it may be of distinct benefit to the spinning section of the Lancashire textile industry.
Mr. Walter Fletcher: What proportion of the spinners does that opinion represent?
Mr. Morrison: I am no more in a position to say, than is the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Fletcher: I can say.
Mr. Morrison: Therefore, if we both confess our relative ignorance on the matter of proportion, we shall leave the matter where it is, and all will be well.
Mr. Marples: If the right hon. Gentleman had consulted the spinners, surely he would have known.
Mr. Morrison: I have been perfectly frank in the answer I have given, and as to what the deputation said. But there is a division of opinion, if the truth be told, among the spinners; some think one way, some think another. It may well be that the majority of the spinners think against this proposal, but that does not necessarily mean that they are right.
An Hon. Member: Like the election.
Mr. Alpass: They are only right, when they vote for hon. Gentlemen opposite.
Mr. Morrison: I do not know who is complaining about the election; I am not. But what does all this interrogation come to, in answer to which I have been perfectly frank? As far as I can see, in numbers the majority of the spinners take another view, but there is another proportion—I cannot be sure about the proportion one way or the other —
Mr. Lyttelton: It is small.
Mr. Morrison: I do not know. There is a proportion which takes the view that we are right, and they are not among the least progressive or intelligent spinners in the Lancashire textile industry. But what does it come to? What is the Opposition asking by all these questions, about what the spinners think? They are really asking this—
Mr. Lyttelton: I hope the right hon. Gentleman is coming to the other part of my question, which is, Was the working party consulted?
Mr. Morrison: I thought the right hon. Gentleman was treated a bit roughly by interruptions, but I am beginning to think the same applies the other way round. What does all this interrogation mean? Here we have an industry, the whole Lancashire textile industry, of which this is only a part, which everybody in every quarter of the House knows has been in a bad way right through the period between the two wars. Everybody knows that it has been highly conservative—I am not talking about politics but about practice; that it has been not too willing to be reorganised and that, as a matter of fact, previous Governments between the wars have not done much to reorganise and to make this industry efficient. The industry has not much for which to thank Conservative Governments between the wars, for little interest was taken in it.
What is the argument? That we have to take, so to speak, a referendum of the people in an industry which everybody must admit has been in difficulties between the wars; that we have to take a referendum of the people who have been running the industry in the period between the wars and, as a Government, secure their approval or disapproval of
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what we are doing. We are not going to do it. We gather, and we acquire opinions of people in industry to the best of our ability. We take the most serious account of the opinion of people who are engaged in industry—this textile industry or any other industry. We' are often very much influenced by the people who are engaged in industry but this Government, it must be understood, will not be the slave of anybody 'engaged in industry. We must judge our policy and frame our policy after discussion, after we have heard everybody; after the contribution has been made, then it is the duty of this Government, as it is indeed the duty of every Government —and I wish they all had lived up to it—in the light of all the information they have both from industry and from their own State Departments, to decide what the public interest requires. It is in that spirit that we have approached this problem which the House is discussing this afternoon.
I want to make this abundantly clear. The decision to continue centralised purchase of cotton has been taken because of the circumstances of this particular case, and not in pursuance of any doctrinaire policy of bringing all our imports, one by one, or all together under centralised purchase. We are considering the future of those materials in which war conditions rendered Government purchase necessary, in the light of facts and not theories, and we do not suppose that the facts need necessarily always lead in one direction. Indeed, it is the case that in regard to a number of materials, where the circumstances are different, and where, on balance, there was not sufficient public advantage in continuing importation through the Control the Government have already handed back importation to private enterprise.
That shows that the Government are willing to consider each case upon its merits. I wish I could congratulate the Opposition on being willing to consider each case upon its merits according to the public interest. It was perfectly clear from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman that he is convinced that, somehow or other, these accidental transactions are the best way in which to run industry. That is not necessarily the right view, and it is not necessarily the view of His Majesty's Government. The right hon. Gentleman said that in Liverpool they are

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dealing with the cotton produced from 16 cotton-producing countries, and that many commissions are achieved—
Mr. Churchill: What about the working party with which the right hon. Gentleman was going to deal?
Mr. Morrison: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon; I was going to deal with the working party. The working party's terms of reference did not include this phase of operations. The working party's terms of reference refer to the organisation of the manufacturing industry, and I am hoping that their report will not long be delayed. They were not, however, expected or asked to go into this side of the problem, which was dealt with separately. Indeed, if we ask the working party at this late stage, as, of course, we could, to go into this problem and report upon it, it would mean further delay, and already we have been criticised by the people in the industry for not announcing a decision about this matter. They badly wanted a decision in principle, as to the future of the Cotton Exchange, and it was partly for that reason that we have given the decision already. I was also asked whether we had consulted the trade unions. There is no necessity to consult the trade unions because the views of the trade unions on this matter have been known for quite a time, and they expressed themselves earlier, as being in favour of the proposals which the Govern-merit have now adopted. Therefore we are proceeding, not by way of consulting the trade unions on a matter on which the trade unions have already expressed themselves, and on which we fully agree with the trade union point of view.
It is the case that cotton is grown in many countries of the world, and far from it being the case that this new system will restrict the expertness of the purchasing organisation of raw cotton and its knowledge of various foreign countries, it is my belief that the new organisation will give us a wider and better knowledge of cotton from a wider variety of countries than has been the case hitherto. In the main—I would not say exclusively—the Liverpool Cotton Exchange has devoted most of its attention to American cotton and Egyptian cotton. It is our belief that we must take notice of cotton wherever it is grown and become experts on its growth in every part of the world. For
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the life of me, I cannot understand why it is assumed that a national organisation of this kind, fully organised, with resources behind it, with a fully expert and large staff, cannot be as expert and as adequate and comprehensive in its service to the industry as a large number of separate and moderate-sized undertakings. The assumption seems to be all the other way. The right hon. Gentleman asked what the financial results of the wartime control had been. That is easy.
Mr. Lyttelton: I asked what losses had been made by the Government in trading in cotton since the end of Lend-Lease.
Mr. Morrison: I did not hear it that way. Anyway, the answer is not conclusive to anybody. I know the right hon. Gentleman had a limited time, and I am, trying to be considerate myself.
Mr. Churchill: That was not the question.
Mr. Morrison: It is disputed whether or not that was the question. I am going to give something that will be in HANSARD anyway. I can only give this answer. It will be appreciated that, in the time of the war, gains and losses in this matter were neither here nor there. Everybody will agree with that. We all agree so far. We had a war which we had to win, and commercial considerations did not apply too fully. There was a question on the Order Paper today by the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr.Erroll), and here is the answer made by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for Overseas Trade:
" In the period from April, 1941 ''—
That does not quite meet the right hon. Gentleman. There is an implication here that may have a bearing on it—
" to March, 1945, the Cotton Control's trading in raw cottons has shown a loss of about £2 million. This excludes cotton obtained on Lend-Lease, on which there were notional losses. For most of the period, the Control's selling prices were deliberately maintained at a low level in order to stabilise the prices of yarns and cloth. Since April, 1944, the Control has traded at some profit."
That is the answer to the Parliamentary Question and it is the best I can do for the right hon. Gentleman at the moment. It is significant that since April, 1944, the Control has traded at some profit. This new organisation will, of course, seek to pay its way. We shall expect it to seek to

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pay its way. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor is in no bursting hurry to subsidise it out of taxes, and it ought not to be subsidised out of the taxes, but there must be ups and downs in the industry. We must provide cover for the spinners. We shall provide cover for the spinners. The State organisation must have an element of risk about it, just as the existing organisation has. We anticipate that over the period of a reasonable number of years, income will balance expenditure. In some years there will be losses and in some years profits but, on the whole, it will be our object and our policy to see to it that the undertaking broadly speaking, pays its way.
Mr. R. S. Hudson: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain how?
Mr. Morrison: By wise management. How else? By estimating as accurately as possible what prices it ought to charge, buying in the most advantageous way it can, and seeing that it conducts this business in a businesslike manner. Why the Conservative Party should always think that anybody who conducts a national business in the interest of the nation, is bound to be a tenth-class fool, I cannot follow. If it is the case, that all the businesses engaged in private enterprise never make a mistake, and that all the businesses engaged in national enterprise do, why is it that there are so many bankruptcies from time to time in private enterprise? This kind of assumption is childish. It really is a childish assumption that the State or national organisations cannot do anything with any degree of success. The right hon. Gentleman persisted in talking about a Government organisation and Government operations. This is not going to be a Government Department.
Mr. Lyttelton: I did not say so.
Mr. Morrison: Well, I know the right hon. Gentleman did not say so, but the ordinary, common or garden cotton spinner, reading the right hon. Gentleman's speech, will think so. That is what he was meant to think. There is far too much loose talk in this business of Government this, and Government that.
Mr. Lyttelton: In my argument I said that it was a single bulk purchaser. I have no doubt it will be a national cor-
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poration, and not a Government Department. It is a single bulk purchaser.
Mr. Morrison: We seem to be having unfortunate memories of what the right hon. Gentleman said. I am not going to accept all the blame.
Mr. Churchill: I do not think the right hon. Gentleman need have very much of the blame for this, judging by his speech.
Mr. Morrison: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition ' has come back a great expert on the growing of cotton. I only want to say that there was, I thought, an assumption behind the right hon. Gentleman's speech that this would be a Government operation. If he is quite clear that it is not a Government operation, and that it is another kind of organisation, that is all right, but I am bound to say that in the deputation I received yesterday there was a good deal of assumption that this was an official Government organisation. It will not be a Government Department. It will not be conducted in the ordinary way as a Government Department.
Mr. Lyttelton: Will it be owned by the Government?
Mr. Morrison: It will be promoted by the Government.
Mr Lyttelton: Will it be owned?
Mr. Morrison: It must be, in the sense that the Government finance must be behind it.
Mr. Lyttelton: And Government capital?
Mr. Morrison: Yes, somebody with finance has to stand behind this— [HON. MEMBERS: "The taxpayer? "] What is the matter with the Opposition? Otherwise, the spinners will have nobody to guarantee their prices and see that they are all right.
Mr. Lyttelton: Will there be a Government credit?
Mr. Morrison: Certainly, there must be Government credit behind it, but it will have its own till, and its own cash register, income and expenditure, and as it makes profits it will set some profits aside, presumably, in readiness for the days when it will make losses. It will be partly Government money, and partly money which will arise from trading operations. What

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shall we do? We shall set up this body and we shall employ first-class experts, in its operations. Surely, this new organisation, this modified cotton control, this development commission, will be able to buy brains of a first-class order, technical experts, who will be as competent to run this business as anybody who has been in it so far. Therefore, there need be no apprehension that we shall not run this business by technicians and experts, and with a very peat deal of freedom, so that they can run their business and conduct their operations without meticulous State interference at every point.
I am bound to say that I should not myself think, and I am perfectly sure that the President of the Board of Trade would not expect, that he should himself start determining what the price of cotton is going to be on a given purchase a few weeks ahead, or himself engage in market operations. [HON. MEMBERS: Who will?"] The President of the Board of Trade will do no such thing. Of course, he will not. We shall employ experts for those operations, first-class experts. I hope that the organisation will not only employ them, and pay such salaries as may be necessary, but that the spinners themselves will be brought in as active copartners and cooperators with the operations of this new corporation, and that will put them into a much superior position compared with the position before the war. I thought the right hon. Gentleman referred to this as a Government undertaking. He certainly referred to "London," and he certainly referred to "Whitehall." Therefore he should not be so indignant that I thought he had rather misled people as to the nature of the organisation by talking about "Whitehall."
Mr. I. J. Pitman: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman a question? Where will the ultimate responsibility lie in this House? Will it lie with the President of the Board of Trade?
Mr. Morrison: According to the doctrine of the Conservative Party there ought to he no responsibility to this House whatever. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] I am answering it. Of course, my right hon. Friend will accept responsibility. A Government guarantee will be behind the financial operations of
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the undertaking, and responsibility, answerability, will presumably be through the President of the Board of Trade.
Mr. Pitman: In Whitehall.
Mr. Morrison: If that interruption is meant to show that the undertaking will be managed from Whitehall, really I begin to wonder whether I am in the House of Commons or with Alice in Wonderland. I am asked to which Minister questions should be put, and I answer that questions should be put to the President of the Board of Trade, but this will not be a Whitehall organisation. It will not be a London organisation. This will be a Lancashire organisation. It will operate in Lancashire. It will live to serve Lancashire and the great textile industry of Lancashire. Lancashire has seen too many London financiers. I would be the last person in the world to repeat what was done under the system encouraged by hon. Gentlemen opposite, whereby London financiers got messing about with the Lancashire textile industry. Lancashire can be quite sure that, this new organisation will be a Lancashire organisation and that it will be looked after from the, point of view of the interests of Lancashire itself.
I think I have covered the points which were raised. [Laughter.] Yes, I think I have, all those put by the right hon. Gentleman in the course of his observations. I admit that I have not made a reasoned observation as to whether we consulted the Lord Mayor of Liverpool and if not, why not? The Lord Mayor of Liverpool is an old -friend of mine.
Mr. Marples: Was.
Mr. Morrison: Believe me, I have had much more heated rows with him in the past than this. The Minister of Education had an awful to-do with him about women firewatchers during the war, and a good time was had by all, including us. That did not prevent us from being good friends afterwards. This is a free country. The civic head of Liverpool is entitled to his opinions. I do not know whether the House would expect me necessarily to engage in a close argument with the chairman of a municipality, or the Lord Mayor of the City of Liverpool, on a matter of this sort. We genuinely believe, having looked at this matter all round, that, on balance—I put it no

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higher than that, as I admit there are arguments the other way and it would be a wonder if there were not, but we have taken account of those arguments and tried to come to a reasonable conclusion—in the public interest, it will be better to organise this business competently and thoroughly and to employ first-class experts upon it.
It is our belief that by means of this national agency we shall get more stability, more reliability, in the purchase of cotton, more possibilities of future active cooperation with the manufacturing industry itself, if we do it this way, than if we reverted to a very- large number of private and separate operators. Believing that, on balance, this is the best thing to do in the public interest and that it is the best thing for Lancashire cotton, if we can do it this way, we commend the scheme to the favourable consideration of the House, and we ask the House to reject the Motion moved by the right hon. Gentleman.
4.58 P.m.
Mr. Raikes: I am always surprised by the right hon. Gentleman, but I have never heard him less convincing than he was today. Humble Back Bencher that I am, I propose to examine the case that the right hon. Gentleman has put forward. He has said that this is not a political issue and that the idea of closing this market is that, on balance, he believes he will do better by bulk purchase. The right hon. Gentleman is closing a market which has played an honourable part in the markets of the world for a considerable number of y ears. It has been the one market which has established world prices and it has brought a prestige and an honour to this country throughout our history. Through the spot market, it made it possible for the most diverse forms of cotton to be examined, inspected and turned into a variety of Lancashire cotton goods that, by their variety, have secured trade that otherwise would never have been gained. All those advantages are to be turned aside because, having made an examination of the matter, the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friends are confident that they can find something better. Where have they looked? Have they discussed the matter with the Working Party? No, that would mean
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further delay. Well, better to delay a little than to make a mistake which may bring chaos, not only on a great industry, but on the nation as a whole.
The right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council and I will not disagree on percentages, as none of us know the percentages, but I think he will agree when I say that the large majority of cotton spinners are opposed to his scheme. I put it no higher than that; the majority are against it. He has not discussed the matter with the Working Party, he has not waited to discover what his own losses have been since the end of Lend-Lease. I should have thought that, if it meant a little further delay, it might be worth while to try to find out how much has been lost under control since the end of Lend-Lease, before finally clapping control on this industry in regard to bulk purchase. None of these things has been done, except that a few enlightened cotton spinners, unknown and unnamed, have patted the Minister on the back. Therefore, we are told they are the progressive elements in the cotton industry of Lancashire, a tiny minority of them.
What is the object of bulk purchase? It is twofold—greater stability and less speculation. My right hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) has dealt with speculation questions. Whatever is being done under this scheme, the last thing which will be done is to end speculation. All it will do is to ensure that instead of private speculation, there will in future be public speculation—speculation at the taxpayers' expense. That must be so, because if we buy and world prices fall, we have two alternatives, and only two. If we sell to the spinners and the spinners find that, owing to variations of world prices, they cannot compete in the world market after they have bought the mules, they will have to be subsidised at the taxpayers' expense or go broke. From all we have seen of cotton controls of the past, not only in this country but outside, if there is one gambling certainty it is that the taxpayer has to pay the bid as a result of this experiment.
As a Liverpool Member for a brief period, I feel bound to say my say before that great city is stricken and smitten one of the greatest blows in its history. I know that the hon. Lady the Member for the Exchange Division of Liverpool (Mrs

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Braddock) is panting to get at me—in a political sense. I am sure she will support the Government and is in favour of closing down the Cotton Exchange. She may express a desire that the historic name of her constituency shall be changed into something less contaminated by big business of the past.
If we are to have varying prices, stability becomes impossible and nothing is gained by it. We must not forget that the spot market goes on, that in the past 1, 000,000 bales of cotton have come into the market, and that there were experts checking it off for every form and variety in order that spinners might choose.' That spot market has done more to make Lancashire trade attractive by specialising on carefully selected varieties than has anything else. We shall be told by the Government that the army of experts who arc to appear on the scene will be able to take the place of the old spot market. But this army of experts, with no one to compete against, will be merely under the eye of whatever corporation or board is set up. They cannot and will not select with the keenness which can only be obtained if they are competing against one another in very considerable numbers.
The Lancashire cotton market, quite apart from its role of fixing prices and so on, has earned a great deal of foreign exchange for this country in past days. There have been arrangements by which invisible exports have been realised by selling cotton to other persons without ever the cotton actually coming to this country Such things have brought foreign exchange, and we are told every day that we need to build our exports and get foreign exchange. That market goes and I imagine that somewhere about £17 million a year will be lost in foreign exchange. There will be no foreign exchange coming in under the proposed scheme, except occasionally through re-export, of which there can be but little. Liverpool will be superseded in the international market by Rotterdam, Le Havre and New Orleans and there will be a blow struck at the prestige of this country and Lancashire. All we get in return is a sort of sketched-out plan of something like the projected Coal Board. By buying in bulk at a fixed price the wretched taxpayer will be given a harder time than in the past. I hope it will give the Chancellor of the Exchequer the biggest headache he has ever had.
5.8 p.m.
Mr. Kirby: I would like to convey to the Lord President of the Council my grateful thanks for the Socialist speech he made today. After hearing the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) who opened the Debate, I felt that the plausible way in which he presented the case might cause me to slip from my creed at any moment and come down on the same side as the Lord Mayor of Liverpool. I am glad that did not: happen, because it may have been followed, as I am a member of the City Council, by an invitation to accept the chair of that institution, and I do not want that to happen.
I feel that the case for Liverpool has not been properly put on both sides by the hon. Member for the Wavertree Division of Liverpool (Mr. Raikes). It is true that in Liverpool today there is wide agitation in regard to this matter, but it is strongly centralised, concentrated and organised agitation in regard to the announcement made by the President of the Board of Trade. As a Member for one of the Divisions of Liverpool, I have had no communication whatever from any constituent affected by possible unemployment or any aspect of the scheme. The whole agitation seems to be top heavy. The public in Liverpool and Lancashire generally are not nearly so interested as the hon. Member for Waver-tree would have us believe. The right hon. Member for Aldershot led us to believe that all the people engaged on the cotton market in Liverpool were public benefactors and he said that the Exchange had a good effect as it prevented speculation.
I do not see how that can be claimed, when those of us who come from the Merseyside know very well that crops were bought and resold, and bought again and resold again, long before they were ready for picking and long before they were grown. Then the cotton having, been put on ships coming from the United States and other places to Liverpool, it was resold again half a dozen times, and on reaching the Liverpool warehouses, was resold three or four more times. Every one of those transactions was meant to provide, even though in fact it may not have provided, a profit on the turnover for somebody, Even though some of the transactions were unsuccessful from the

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speculator's point of view, one may take it that, in general, the great Majority did achieve that object, that a profit was made, and the price to the consumers of cotton went up.
The right hon. Member for Aldershot spoke about fluctuations. Apparently, from his point of view, the only fluctuations that arise are those caused by the cotton getting wetted by rain or damaged by the boll weevil. But there are fluctuations in price that arise because of the operations of these people who want to open this speculative market again. The right hon. Gentleman did not say that it has been quite a common practice in Liverpool, when the warehouses were full and cotton was not getting the price which they thought it ought to get, to lock the doors of the warehouses, sack the warehouse porters and put them on the dole, and wait patiently until prices rose in order that they might release the cotton and get the profit they wanted. There is speculation in cotton. What hon. Members on the Opposition Benches want is that this country, after five or six years of State control of the buying of cotton, should go back to unrestricted competition and gambling in the very necessities of life of the people of this country. The right hon. Member for Aldershot said that the futures market was essential to the industry. He did not say, he did not prove—and nobody else can prove—why it should be necessary in the cotton industry and not necessary in any other industry. One does not hear of other commodities being bought and sold before they are grown.
Mr. Walter Fletcher: May I enlighten the hon. Member's ignorance by pointing out that the London commercial sales, the metal and rubber exchanges, mean that every other commodity of any importance is dealt with on exactly parallel lines in this country?
Mr. Kirby: I do not accept that. The ordinary exchange markets in other commodities are pretty straightforward buying and selling by people who want things and people who want to get rid of things. In the case of cotton, it is just like going into a gambling house. The people who are on the cotton market have no need for cotton, they are simply playing about with money in
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the hope of making a profit. They do not use the cotton, market it, or store it. There is nothing like the cotton market in other industries. It has been said that this matter has some relation to unemployment. I challenge the figure of 7,000. There were about 7,000 affected some five or six years ago, but we have had State purchase during the war and all these people have been employed, and there is no question of that number being dislocated and put out of their jobs. We shall have the support of the Ministry of Labour as regards this policy, and the Ministry of Labour will see that anybody who is discharged from employment in the cotton trade as being redundant will promptly get work in some other direction.
It amazes me that this Motion should have been put down under the names that appear on the Order Paper. Anyone would think that the idea of buying cotton by the State was a completely new idea. The idea was introduced under the barter scheme in 1939, when the Chamberlain Tory Government arranged a barter scheme with the United States for £10 million worth of cotton, a barter scheme under which we, getting the cotton because we anticipated an emergency, bartered tin and rubber, with the war in the offing. That was done by a Tory President of the Board of Trade. I was the only Member from Liverpool or Manchester, Merseyside or Lancashire, who challenged that in debate in the House, and I did not get any support from anybody. I pointed out that the Liverpool cotton market and cotton exchange could contribute and still serve the nation, but nobody took any notice of me.
The right hon. Member for Southport (Mr. R. S. Hudson) was the Minister who replied to that Debate on that occasion—9th June, 1939—and he did not even mention the Liverpool Cotton Exchange or any of the points that I raised. Who was President of the Board of Trade at that time? Another right hon. Member who heads the list of sponsors of this Motion, the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley). When was the Cotton Exchange finally closed down? In 1941. Who was President of the Board of Trade then? The right hon. Member for Aldershot, who opened the Debate today. If it was good enough under a

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Tory Government and for war purposes, surely, it is good enough for Socialistic purposes. If it was possible and useful in war time, surely, it is likely to be useful now in these years of reconstruction. Everybody must recognise that today the world is in turmoil, and that if the Government are to do the right thing by the people, they must plan ahead, and see that all the needs of the people are being met. This is the only way to do it with regard to cotton. I am glad to have heard the speech of the Lord President of the Council. I am satisfied that that speech will rally to the side of the Government full support for their action.
5 18 p.m.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I am very grateful for the opportunity of taking part in this Debate, because I was brought up and have always tried to earn a living on the Merseyside, and in my constituency, which has 110,000 electors, as compared with the rather smaller number of the hon. Member for the Exchange Division (Mrs. Braddock), there are very many hundreds of people who are vitally concerned in the future of the Liverpool Cotton Market. I found myself in disagreement with almost everything that was said by the hon. Member for Everton (Mr. Kirby), except in the first portion of his speech, when he said that he required the vigorous partisan speech of the Lord President of the Council to convince him after he had been almost convinced to the contrary by the right hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton).
What we are attempting to discuss in this Debate, surely, is normal functioning in normal conditions. We are not dealing with wartime conditions. We are trying to examine the best way of serving the interests of this country in normal conditions. The first point, which I submit has not been met by hon. Members opposite, is the question of the effect of this decision on the commerce of the country. What hon. Members opposite often seem to forget is that we are a commercial nation. We are not a nation of primary producers. We get a great deal of our standard of living from, and we support a great many people in this country by, our commercial earnings. It is the interchange of commodities, international trading, insurance, banking and shipping services, the great number of services which a commercial nation offers to the
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world, which bring to it foreign exchange and enable it to give a decent livelihood to many of its people. It has not been disputed that the Liverpool Cotton Market was the only international cotton market in the world. There was no other which dealt in all classes of cotton from all cotton producing countries. Other exchanges were limited to the production of their own countries.
Liverpool permanently kept a stock of 1,000,000 bales of cotton. The Liverpool form of contract was well known and respected throughout the world. A vast number of transactions were entered into whereby cotton was shipped from one part of the world to another on a Liverpool contract, with the shipping arranged and the shipping documents going through Liverpool, and with insurance and banking facilities arranged in Liverpool, and with arbitration carried out in Liverpool. It is a remarkable tribute to the commercial integrity of this particular market that people in foreign countries were prepared to have their disputes arbitrated upon on the Liverpool market. That brought to the Liverpool cotton market, and to this country, a great deal of most valuable foreign exchange, and employment for the people. The Bremen market handled a very big business before the war, and that business will certainly not be handled by Bremen under modern conditions. There was a great opportunity for Liverpool to step in and get that business, but the effect of this decision will be that not only Bremen business but Liverpool business, will go to the competing exchanges of Ghent, or Rotterdam, or Le Havre. We shall lose, at this time of crisis in our affairs, a most valuable source of income to our people.
That is the first point, the effect on the commerce of our country. That has not been touched upon by previous speakers on the other side of the House. To turn to the local effect on Liverpool itself, this cotton market was essentially a matter of the small firm. There were about 200 trading firms on the cotton market, employing between 4,000 and 5,000 people before the war, that is to say, administrative staffs and cotton porters, who drew their livelihood through the operation of these firms. In addition, there were many ancillary matters—banking, insurance and the like—which also provided employment in Liverpool. A great deal

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of the business of Liverpool was directly attributable to the fact that the Liverpool Cotton Exchange was in its midst. It gave employment to many more people than the actual numbers I have already mentioned. There can be no dispute that this Government decision is a mortal blow to Liverpool as a commercial centre. That feeling is most widely felt on Merseyside. It may not have penetrated certain quarters, but the commercial interests of Liverpool—and the future of Liverpool as a commercial centre depend on them—people of all parties, of varying parties and no parties, are in no two minds that this decision means a mortal blow to Liverpool as a commercial centre.
My third point is a comment on the manner in which this decision has been made. When a man is on trial for his life, there are certain judicial proceedings. There has to be a preliminary examination, and a prima facie case has to be established by the prosecution. After that, the matter has to be investigated by a judge and jury. So far as the Liverpool Cotton Market is concerned—and this is a death sentence for it—all that has happened is that in August last year the President of the Board of Trade met representatives of the Association, and setting the black cap austerely on his head, pronounced the death sentence, as he said, for political reasons. He did then consent to receive representatives from the Liverpool Market.
Mr. Georģe Porter: Is not murder the wrong analogy? Should not the hon. Member not have approached the question from the point of view of divorce? Is it not a case of the spouse not coming back to her husband?
Mr. Lloyd: I was making the point that in August last year, the President of the Board of Trade announced the decision that the market must go, and then consented to receive representations from the representatives of the market. A memorandum containing, in detail, many weighty arguments was put to him, reinforced by a memorandum from the Master Spinners' Association. There has been no attempt to discuss any of these representations, no counter-arguments have been put forward—I would also include the proceedings of this House so far—to
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the matters contained in that memorandum. All we have had is this brief dictatorial answer, the pronouncement by the President of the Board of Trade as he hurried out to catch his aeroplane to India.
It will be most unfortunate if this matter is dealt with on a political party basis, because I feel there is something much more fundamental at stake here than a question of purely party politics. I submit that there is a real case here for an independent inquiry into the facts of this matter. I will give hon. Members on the other side a point in regard to the nationalisation of the coal mining industry, although I do not agree with it. But I concede that there has been inquiry after inquiry into that industry, and every point of view has been ventilated almost ad nauseam. In the case of the Liverpool Cotton Market, this step is being taken without that independent inquiry, at which an opportunity is given to the interested parties to give evidence, and to have their arguments advanced and examined from one side or the other. I plead with the Government, even now, to hold their hand over this matter, so that there shall be an opportunity for full ventilation of the facts.
I wish to make only one other point. There is a great deal I should like to say, but as only about four hours have been given for this important Debate, it is impossible to put forward many points which should be raised on this important matter. A point which has not been dealt with at all however is the tremendous disadvantage of the Government entering, as a bulk purchaser, into these cotton growing countries. In Egypt, at present, the question of whether or not the British Government buy the Egyptian cotton crop is a first-class political issue. Everyone in Egypt has bought cotton, and is anxious to sell it to the British Government. If the British Government do not buy that cotton, they will have on their hands a first-class political crisis. In fact, the last purchases of the British Government Cotton Control from Egypt were at 23 pence per pound. That cotton has been passed on to the spinners at 15 pence or 16 pence per pound. In other words, the taxpayer has been subsidising the cotton purchased from Egypt, so I am informed, to the extent of of 7d. or 8d. per pound. In regard to

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this year's Egyptian crop there is a tremendous anxiety among Egyptians for the British Government to buy their crop, otherwise there will have to be some quid pro quo from the British Government. If private merchants were dealing with that matter, none of these considerations would arise. Next door to Egypt, in the Sudan, the British Government Cotton Control is also acquiring the cotton crop. It is paying a price which is many pence lower than the price which is being paid in Egypt.
We have reached such a situation that, where the Control is able to dictate the price in Africa, cotton growers are giving up growing cotton on the ground that it is unprofitable to do so. There is the position of this Government of all Governments, buying cotton in the Empire at a price which does not pay the growers. In other words, it is exploiting the Empire, and paying out to foreign countries sums for cotton which are greatly in excess of the price they are charging for it. I think that is a perfectly fair example. That is the type of danger which a Government bulk purchaser gets into when he enters a cotton growing country. That will happen in every case, in my submission, where the bulk purchaser goes to buy. There is something about a bulk purchaser which puts him at a grave disadvantage. I have been told before the war when the Co-operative Wholesale Society's buyer went to Athens to buy currants and his ship was sighted off the Piæs, the price of currants went up by 5s. a cwt. When his ship left,- the price went down by 5s. a cwt. That was simply because the producers and the merchants knew a big purchaser was in the offing. That is exactly what will happen. I am not saying that in criticism of the Co-operative Wholesale Society. It simply shows that when there is a big purchaser in the market, inevitably prices are put up.
In this highly speculative business it will be the Government who will speculate: it will be the taxpayer who will pay. This decision will inflict very grave damage upon the commerce of the country by removing a means of earning international exchange. In my opinion, it will inflict a mortal blow upon Liverpool, and I appeal to the Government to reconsider the matter.
5.33 p.m.
Mrs. Braddock: Let me first congratulate the Government upon their courage in taking a very definite stand, in relation to what is considered among working people in Liverpool to be the beginning of measures to control capitalist and Tory influence throughout the Liverpool area. When I listened to the speech of the right hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) I was reminded of an interview I had when I was elected for the Exchange Division. I could have imagined that the words which the right hon. Gentleman spoke were the words that were spoken to me during that interview. Of course, that leads me immediately to the conclusion that the case he stated was the case prepared for him by the Cotton Association in Liverpool.
I propose to divide my speech into two sections, dealing with the questions of the Cotton Association and of the cotton employees. I intend to take rather a different line in relation to the cotton employees. The Cotton Association in the Exchange Division of Liverpool has been, since its inception, the bulwark of the Tory administration in Liverpool. When elections were in progress and Labour representatives were reaching the stage when they might have been elected, the vast wealth and the vast amount of transport controlled by individual members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Cotton Association were used to bring in votes from such faraway places as Wirral, West Kirby, Southport, and Kirkdale. Wherever the Cotton Association people lived, their organisation was used, through the Tory association, in desperate efforts to get their votes into the Exchange Division. We, as working-class people and workers in the division, watched streams of beautiful cars, packed by men with business interests and their wives, pour into the Division of Liverpool, in which the Cotton Association is situated, in order to defeat the efforts of progressive thought in Liverpool. We watched that for a long time. We were the happiest people in Liverpool when it was known that this marvellous place, from which came all the wealth, on the one hand, and all the poverty, on the other, had, at last, fallen to a representative of the working classes.
It might be said that the Cotton Association consists of a series of small people

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who have linked themselves together to run a business. In that connection it may interest the House to know that no one can join the Cotton Association unless they can put down £10,000 immediately. I referred to a meeting I attended after I was elected. Perhaps I might be permitted to tell what I consider to be an important story in relation to this matter. On that occasion I listened with interest, for just about an hour, to the story of the purchase of cotton, cotton futures, and "hedging," and I can assure the House it was very interesting. When we had finished, it was obvious to those who were speaking to me, that I had no intention of supporting them. They suggested I might have a look at the gallery where there, were photographs of the founders of this great Cotton Association They took me along to see them. There were a lot of photographs in this gallery. I looked at them. I went over them right from the first one of 100 years ago. When I had finished, I turned to the secretary, who was with me, and said to him quite seriously, "Can you tell me how many of these people died in the workhouse? "I believe that immediately divorced me from any chance of ever being in the good books of any section of the Cotton Association.
It has been said during this Debate that this is the all-important matter in relation to cotton, and that nobody can do it as well as this group of financiers, who are there for no other purpose than to make profits for themselves. The question was asked whether the Board of Trade had made any representations to the Master Spinners' Association. Now, I happen to be fortunate enough to have the comments that were made just after the last war, when we were in a very similar position to that in which we are at the moment from a trade point of view —though a very different position from a control point of view. I have the comments of a gentleman named Sir Charles Macara, who was a former president of the Federation of Master Cotton Spinners' Associations. I think it ought to be on record in this Debate these comments were made. Sir Charles said:
"It is felt that one #of the greatest evils with which the cotton trade has to battle is the gambling which goes on in respect to the raw material. It is plain that the wild fluctuations in cotton with which the spinner is
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faced are largely responsible for the raising of prices to the consumer, and that no other factor works so detrimentally. When it is taken into consideration that the raw material is turned over innumerable times before it reaches the hands of the spinner, and that it is reasonable to conclude that a profit is made on nearly every transaction, it will be seen where the trouble lies, and how necessary it is in the interests not only of the planter, spinner, and manufacturer, but of the great body of consumers, that something should be done to eliminate this great bugbear of the industry.…"
"A computation made recently was to the effect that for every bale of actual cotton grown 27 hales are gambled with. This is where the leakage is. The cotton grower and the spinner are making the sacrifices, while the gamblers walk off with the loot. How long are the cotton growers and the manufacturers of cotton goods going to be the puppets of those who neither grow, spin, weave, nor merchant the material? One has no quarrel with the legitimate broker in cotton, but it is monstrous that cotton should continue year after year to be the sport of thousands of outside speculators."
These are not the criticisms of any Socialist, but the words of the late chairman of the Cotton Spinners' Federation. Let us look at the position for a moment, because I think that, in a Debate of this sort, there ought to be an opportunity for a statement of the actual position, in regard to those people who are dependent for their livelihood on cotton. The position is that, in Lancashire, between 1931 and 1939, when this form of cotton purchase through cotton futures was in operation, there were hundreds and thousands of spinners working short time—not because there was a shortage of material and who were receiving wages less than the amount paid in unemployment benefit to people who were totally out of work, and to whom no additional payment could be made by way of unemployment benefit, because the State said that wages could not be subsidised by unemployment pay. That was the position, and I only wish that my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), whom I have known for so long, and into whose constituency I have very often gone, could back up this statement in the way in which he knows it could be backed up. This Government have made up their minds that that sort of thing is not going to apply again.
In regard to the international aspect of buying cotton, it is bought in Egypt and sent to America and is never seen here at all. Nobody here ever sees it. It is

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dealt with only on the basis of samples. That is international trade—but capitalist international trade. There is a different way of dealing with the situation, and this Government have found the different way of dealing with it. I will now refer to two conversations which I had last Saturday. A gentleman by the name of Major Thornton, a big noise in big business in Liverpool, came to see me with regard to a meeting which he was going to call, or to have called by the Chamber of Commerce in regard to this matter. During his argument in trying to persuade me to alter my point of view, he said, "Of course, if the Government are foolish enough to close this cotton market, all that will happen is that the-trade of cotton buying and the cotton futures market will move somewhere else "—to one of the three places referred to by the mover of the Motion. My reply to that is quite simple—Can hon. Members opposite say that capitalism is going to last? That is the answer to that question, and perhaps hon. Members opposite will have a look at it from that point of view.
Then there is the question of unemployment. While not so much noise has been made about it in this House by hon. Members who have spoken, there has been quite a lot about it in Liverpool. An agitation has been worked up—not among the ordinary workers, because they are used to unemployment, or have been up to now—but among the people who make up the great Conservative Party in Liverpool. There have been lots of conferences and much agitation. Let us think back just a little bit. The question of rationalisation comes into the question of nationalisation. I can remember, and many of my Liverpool friends will also remember, that the same type of person; and, in some instances, the same person, who was interested in cotton was interested in other business deals in Liverpool. I can remember the Eastern and African Corporation, who decided, between the wars, to rationalise their business, and their basis of rationalisation was to close down their offices in Liverpool, and move them to London, and the only people who were considered for any sort of employment there were those who had at least 16 years' service. There was no question there of how much unemployment was going to be created because of the move to London; it simply meant
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that more profits would be made by those concerned with the Corporation. I remember also the case of Levers, who decided to move from Liverpool to Ellesmere Port, and also decided that, of their employees in Liverpool, none could be employed at Ellesmere Port except those who had 15 or 16 years' service—no question of how much unemployment was going to be created, but only the question of a little more profit to be made.
There is another example. The Cunard-White Star was a big Liverpool concern which moved its works to Southampton, and its offices to London, creating a similar sort of situation in relation to those employed by them previously. These are matters that have to be considered when we talk about unemployment. I have been amazed to discover the Liverpool facts as to the supposedly large numbers who were to be affected by the closing down of the cotton market. The figure was said to be anything up to 7,500. Let us have a look at the actual facts. My first interview on Saturday was at the request of the Cotton Employees' Association. They asked me to meet them in relation to their position under any new scheme. I agreed to meet them, and they gave me some very interesting information. These are the actual figures of the persons employed in the cotton trade of Liverpool when the war broke out in 1939. It is true that there have been a few more, with men being released, but the figure was estimated to be the minimum figure on which the cotton trade could work in Liverpool. These are the figures: Clerical workers, 1,537; spot salesman and collectors, 531; other salesman staff, 272; ring traders, 157; permanent warehouse workers, 952; and casual warehouse workers, 613. That makes a total of 4,062 as the total figure of employment in that section before the war commenced. These figures were given to me by members of the Association themselves, and I was permitted to use them as the accurate figure, in relation to the employment through the Cotton Association and cotton trade in 1939.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Surely, the position is that these are people directly employed, and that the figure does not include certain others, or any of those indirectly affected by the operations of the cotton market, of whom there are at least as many again.
Mrs. Braddock: This was the statement made by the chairman, who came to see me. I have come to the conclusion, by the way, that, in order to get what one says correctly reported by the Press, or anybody else, one has to have a stenographer there to take down what one does say. It is an advantage because what one says is actually recorded and one can refer to it again if necessary. The chairman said to me that they had come freely of their own accord and had nothing to do with the Cotton Association, and that they represented all employees of the cotton trade, whether clerical workers, ring traders, spot salesmen, permanent warehouse workers or casual workers. The figures given to me, covering the whole of the organisation, are 4,062 at tilt, end of 1939, out of which 1,954 went into His Majesty's Forces or into war factories. At the present moment, the total staff employed in the cotton organisation in Liverpool is 1,000. That is the position and those are the figures given by the people who represent the cotton employees in Liverpool.
Mr. Marples: If I may interrupt the hon. Lady for a moment, there are two points I would like to raise. The first is that the Cotton Exchange is not open at the moment, so that the statement about 1,000 people being employed is not quite accurate. The second point is that I would like to ask the hon. Lady whether every person who works on the Cotton Exchange is a member of that Association.
Mrs. Braddock: They tell me that all are included in their Association. On the hon. Gentleman's point about the Exchange not being open, I would point out that the firms have their workpeople —their clerical staffs and technicians—dealing with cotton at the moment, which proves that cotton can be dealt with efficiently by a staff of 1,000 and not by the tremendous numbers supposed to be employed prior to 1939. The question of the employment of these staffs is rather interesting. I have received the following letter from a person whose life has been spent either in the employ of cotton merchants or in the organisation of cotton workers. At the beginning of his letter, this man refers to the fact that I intended to speak. He says that he started as a cotton porter in the warehouses in 1904 and worked in that capacity till 1921, and then became an official of the trade
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union which took direct responsibility for the cotton warehousing porters in the establishments in Liverpool. Some of the things he says are worth noting:
"The season for American imports began about September each year and finished in May. In that season millions of bales of cotton came by different lines, White Star, Harrison, Welsfords Booths, and, during the first war and after, by American boats. This cotton was landed in Liverpool and had to be cleared from the docks in 72 hours.… In the business nothing is wasted. The bands, rags and damaged cotton is all sold. If cotton was exported to Spain, Japan or Russia canvas was piled on and bands all charged for as cotton. Twice in my experience cotton was sent back to America to break the rings out there and then burnt. They had another game in which big firms placed cotton on the market which was overstocked. They called this 'docketing,' and all these dockets, about too bales, had to be sampled and taken from one firm to the other in ten days.…There were also instructions to get the last ounce when weighing and men were at each other's throats over short weight. It also used to be a practice on Saturdays to flood the top rooms with water and this soaked the cotton and made it weigh heavier. Of course, we had to watch that the salvage man did not see us."
Those are the sort of things that this person refers to, the sort of things that control by a Socialist Government will ensure will not be allowed to happen again.
Prior to the war, all cotton came through Liverpool, and this can still happen. The Government can make arrangements with Liverpool as being the most suitable port through which cotton can come. They can make arrangements in their bulk buying scheme to see that Liverpool plays its part in that type of organisation. There is one thing, at any rate, that might be considered by the Government. It is the question of using the skilled knowledge of people who have been employed in cotton purchasing, cotton sampling and cotton selecting when a scheme is drawn up by the Government and put into operation. The experience and knowledge of such people should be used to the very fullest. The cotton exchange employees, through their Association, are very anxious to give that knowledge to the Government if the Government desire to use it. I want to ask the Board of Trade to make arrangements to meet a deputation of those cotton experts in Liverpool who are employed in dealing with every aspect of cotton selection and cotton purchasing, and to listen to the facts they have to put before them because I am

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certain the Board of Trade can get this knowledge if it wants it.
The bulk buying scheme goes on from 1st April in one year to 31st March in the next. I understand it is a yearly arrangement in order to keep the matter open and under consideration. The employees are particularly concerned to know whether, for the next period at any rate, the same method of dealing with the situation can be continued so that there can be a breathing space to consider their present position. I would like to have said more, but I know that other hon.:Members want to take part in the discussion. I ask that the very fullest possible use of these people who have the knowledge and experience shall be made by the Government. In this trade, which has been built up by capitalism and capital private interests, there are many trained, expert technicians. Let us use those expert technicians and let us, as a Labour Government, offer terms to them for giving that expert knowledge. They want to be assured that there will be no round pegs in square holes. The people in the industry are anxious that no changes shall be made which would make a lot of staff redundant and make their position difficult. Everybody knows how difficult it is for people between 45 and 6o years of age, who have given most of their lives to a specialised industry, to find new jobs when they are out of work. A Labour Government ought to be able to use to the full the expert and technical knowledge of these people who have been employed in the industry for a long time. I would like to ask whoever is to reply to this Debate to say that as many as possible of such people will have the opportunity of giving the Government the advantage of their very full knowledge
6.0 p.m.
Squadron - Leader Emrys Roberts: I intervene with some diffidence in what might be regarded either as a domestic Debate between representatives of Merseyside on the one hand, or as a private war between the Government and the Conservative Party on he other hand. I cannot help feeling that there is more uncertainty in this Debate than there has been in any other Debate in this Parliament. There is uncertainty about the facts which this House ought to know. There is some
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uncertainty about the views of the cotton spinners; that is admitted on both sides. It is also apparent that there is some uncertainty as to the number of people engaged directly and indirectly in the cotton trade. Uncertainty also prevails regarding the financial results of the operations of the Control Board, and concerning the manner in which the Control Board will function. All that uncertainty should not exist in a Debate on an industry which is so vital to the commercial standing of this country, and I cannot help reflecting that that uncertainty is the fault of the Government. It should have been removed before the Government made their original announcement to the House.
My natural disposition when I hear of the gambling and the large scale speculation that have been bound up with this industry, is to come down on the side of the Government and agree with the abolition of an institution which often has played so lightly with an essential commodity with resulting hardship to the consumer and also when firms overreach themselves, has resulted in unemployment far and wide, in Lancashire. But I have tried to consider this matter as dispassionately as I can. The Lord President admitted that there is a speculative element inherently bound, up with the cotton trade, because, whether or not one closes the Liverpool Cotton Market, we shall still have to deal on the cotton exchanges of the world, and the Cotton Control Board itself will have to face that element of risk. I asked myself certain questions before deciding what line I should take in this Debate. First of all, it is essential that any change should result in our being able to secure the raw material for Britain on terms better than those under the old system; in other words, it is no use making a change unless it is for the better. The Lord President said nothing to convince us that we should obtain the raw material more advantageously. In his original statement all the President of the Board of Trade did was to say that the Control Board would get the cotton on terms at least as economical as under the old system. That sort of argument is not sufficiently strong for changing this institution, for closing the Liverpool Cotton Market with its world wide contacts and its great repository of

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experience—an institution which has performed important services for this country in a commercial sense.
I refer in particular to the earnings of foreign exchange; there again, there is a large amount of uncertainty which ought to have been cleared up. There should have been an inquiry into the position of foreign exchange earned. It is not a matter lightly to be dismissed. We know that the international Cotton Market at Liverpool earned considerable income for this country; first, by profit on the sale of cotton by merchants to overseas buyers; secondly, by brokerage commissions on cotton sold from an overseas grower to an overseas buyer on a Liverpool contract;' thirdly, through substantial arbitration fees; and fourthly, through the visits of people from all over the world to buy cotton from Liverpool and who inevitably became involved in other transactions. Further, as the hon. Member for Wirrall (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) said, there are other important ancillary services to consider, such as banking, shipping and insurance, dependent to a large extent on the Cotton Market. I cannot help feeling that the Government are throwing away an institution which has been a valuable source of invisible income to this country. Having examined these proposals for public ownership, I cannot think that the Government have made a convincing case for dispensing with this important source of income and foreign exchange. We are told by the Government it is important for this country to export as much as possible, and yet here is a valuable source of income for this country which we are throwing away without any sound case made out for it.
I would like the Government to say what is the relation of this experiment—as experiment, indeed, it is in peacetime conditions—on the International Bretton Woods Agreement. How does State trading fit in there? Is it altogether fortunate that we are embarking on it at this particular time? I would like to know the answer to those points, because I feel that the Lord President skated very lightly over them. He did say the Liberal Party had long ago left the 10th century laissez faire which dominated the Conservative benches, but I may inform him that we are. also far ahead of the specious blandishments which pervaded the Lord
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President's speech. We want to know how this Control Board will work. Whether or not you eliminate competition at Liverpool, and blot out this picture painted by the Lord President of a mass of men struggling for markets and cutting each other's throats, we shall still have other world markets and world-wide oscillations in price. Even though 'the spinners are supplied by the British Government or by a public board, these oscillations are bound to affect them because there will still be competitors in the foreign markets. How will bulk purchase work when the markets are falling? How will the Government afford cover to the spinners? Will this create another burden for the taxpayer? It may be that the Board will have so much profit that it can well afford to pay out of the profit, as the Lord President said it would, but he said nothing to relieve my anxiety that it may merely make losses. That means that the taxpayer will have to pay for the spinner's cheap raw cotton. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) inquired whether the Cotton Control Board were, in fact, dealing in futures in the New York futures market at the moment. I would like to know whether the Government is hedging on the New York futures market. The hon. Member who asked that question rather conveyed the impression that that was being done. If I misapprehended him, I am sorry, but that was my impression.
Mr. Marquand (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): Perhaps I should say, that Question was on the Order Paper today and the answer was, '` No, Sir." The Government are not hedging on the New York futures market.
Squadron-Leader Roberts: But in spite of that assurance that they are not doing it at the moment, the Lord President did say in his speech that they would be providing cover. And yet how can they provide cover without hedging on a futures market? We would like that cleared up.
I would like whoever replies for the Government to clear up another point also. I think there is a case for regulation of these oscillating prices and these unstable commodities, but I feel the approach could be done much better, by starting to work through an international organisation rather than beginning through

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a State trading organisation which may jeopardise the Bretton Woods Agreement. We have not had any assurances or explanations on that from the Government. In the present state of the world economic position, a free organised market will produce the most desirable result; Government trading may make the Bretton Woods Agreement more difficult to operate. For the reasons I have given, I feel that the balance of the argument is with the Motion. Therefore, unless we have those arguments answered satisfactorily, I shall support the Motion.
6.12 p.m.
Mr. Rhodes: Having listened to the Debate this afternoon, it seems to me that the case put forward by hon. Members opposite has been for one section only; not for the hard working mill managers, or for the persons in the mill, but for the people who, in the past, have been sitting pretty and have taken the loot. The hon. Lady the Member for Exchange, Liverpool (Mrs. Braddock) gave a quotation from what Sir Charles Macara said in the years between the wars. That was quite right. The late President of the Board of Trade tied to make out that there is no harm in the gambling which goes on in this trade. I came back after the last war, and put my wound gratuity into a small business, having had two and a half years in hospital before I did so. Unfortunately, with the ex-Serviceman's ill-luck, I bought when the commodity was high.
Mr. Beverley Baxter: Hard luck.
Mr. Rhodes: As the hon. Member says, it was hard luck. It was 7½d.; it went to 32d., and came back to 5½d.—all in 20 months. By looking the matter up I can verify it, but it is there in black and white for anybody to see. If that is not speculation, what is? It may be argued that because of the conditions during the war, and the need for stuff on the shelves, it is very necessary for the price to go in that direction. However, there is no doubt that the variation in cotton prices in that time was directly due to outside gambling. The late President of the Board of Trade mentioned the countries producing cotton. I say he omitted quite a lot; in point of fact, he omitted 20. There are 36 cotton producing countries. The major cotton producing countries,
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producing 90 per cent. of the world's cotton are, United States, Brazil, China, India, Russia—nobody has mentioned Russia in this matter — and Egypt. Of the remaining 10 per cent., 6 per cent. is produced by five countries, 2 per cent. by four countries and 2 per cent., I admit, is taken up by the remaining 21 countries. In the case of Peru, Uganda, and Brazil, there never has been a perfect cover on the Liverpool cotton futures market. It has been an absolute impossibility for spinners in Lancashire, requiring, say, a super-white yarn for hosiery, to have a certain market because there has not been a cover. I agree a cover was provided under the cotton futures Market. However, the new system, brought in a week ago, definitely gives a cover for every single growth in the whole wide world, and covers it adequately and properly. The result is that at the present time a spinner can look with confidence to his future. He does not need to go to bed at night wondering whether the market is going against him or not.
The arguments which have been advanced from the other side have been for one small section of the cotton industry, which is incidentally almost out of the cotton industry. Why on earth did not the right hon. Gentleman opposite use the strongest argument for the continuation of the Liverpool futures market and the machinery set up there? He has missed it altogether; he fluffed it. I will put it into his mouth and carry on with the argument if he likes. It is the question of selectivity, and the ability to put the cotton, when it comes from America, on the table of the spinner in Lancashire in August, so that he can see what he is buying, and follow on from year to year. In the days before the war, it was a system that worked. However, do not forget this, that there has been a war. There was a war in 1914 to 1918. As far as I have been able to see, from 1921, when I came out of hospital, until 1939, the business elements in this country were hankering, with a kind of nostalgia, after conditions which obtained before 1914. The same applies to some aspects of trade unions too. What about the trade rates in the cotton industry? They are all based on 1913. Every time anybody mentions cotton wages, it goes back to 1913. That mentality goes back to the time of acceleration in the trade.

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Whatever Government were in power, we could not possibly bring a cotton futures market into-operation for some time to come. With the present state of the world, there will be more national buying. There is no question about that. It has come to stay. In my opinion, there can only be genuine peace in the world by international cooperation and allotment of commodities, as has been said so often. The Atlantic Charter, Dumbarton Oaks—they are all the same. There must be a distribution of commodities to the places in which they are most required.
On the question of selection, I would put a few remarks to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. In Lancashire, there are people who cannot be equalled in any other country in the world. They are technicians, whose enthusiasm as cotton mill managers has given them an asset which no other country in the world possesses. I will explain it. It is easy to set up a cotton industry in any country where there is a background of primitive textiles. They can start making mass-produced cotton goods quite easily, so long as they have that background to carry them over the initial stages. But it is the years of experience that these Lancashire men have got that form one of our major assets. During the war, great strides have been made in setting up mills in other countries. In January I was in Switzerland, observing the development of textile machinery. Some people think that Switzerland is negligible as an engineering country—[HON. MEMBERS "No "]—all right, but I have heard it said; I agree with those who said "No," because I do not think it is. The number of automatic looms which I estimated were being produced in Switzerland was in the region of 5,000 per year. This is serious. When the Platt Commission came back from America they definitely said that the Lancashire cotton trade needed 200,000 automatic looms to set the industry on its feet. That was a few years ago. Our present rate of production of automatic looms is 6,000 a year. How long will it take to catch up? Shall we ever? It is very unlikely.
Mr. Erroll: Can the hon. Member say what this has to do with the cotton market?
Mr. Rhodes: At the present time we can see that we shall lose a percentage of
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our mass-produced trade, so we must, without any question, give all the support we possibly can to the men in the industry who have specialised knowledge and can produce specialised cloths. Let me give an example. There is the question of the difference in grades. A man who is making super sateens requires a bright cotton which he purchases from the region of North Carolina. He could not use Brazilian for that. A tremendous lot of care will have to be taken by the Board of Trade to preserve the speciality lines which, in my opinion, are our hope for many years to come, and I hope that if he replies the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to say that we are taking steps to do so.
6.24 pm.
Mr. Walter Fletcher: The extremely cogent argument of the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) against having a Cotton Board of great assistance, because it brings us back to what the Lord President of the Council said was the hub of the whole of this Debate. Will this new Board, when it is set up, be more efficient than the Liverpool Exchange or not? That is the whole of the argument. A great deal of other ground has been covered, but we have to come down to that, and so far, I have not heard a single argument to show that we can expect anything but an organisation, built up painfully at the expense of the public, which might, with good luck, be equal to the one which the Government are now so eager to destroy and that for the home trade only. The Lord President of the Council quoted "Alice in Wonderland "; his arguments also came from "Alice in Wonderland," and seemed to be based on the good old saying, "If I say it three times, it is so." But that was not very convincing to those of us who have any knowledge of this trade. I must confess to having been an associate member of the Liverpool Cotton Exchange for a good many years, and a good many years before that to having assisted in cotton growing in Uganda, and I have also dealt with commodities and been connected with commodity exchanges all my life. The one ray of hope that has come out of the Debate so far is the very clear statement made by the right hon. Gentleman that they do not propose that the action which they are now taking will be a sealed pattern for

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all other commodity exchanges, but when this experiment which they are undertaking fails, as it undoubtedly will, the, will not go on repeating the error.
The right hon. Gentleman used one expression which surprised me. He referred to the day-to-day working of the Liverpool Cotton Exchange as a series of "accidental transactions." What are these accidental transactions? They are, in fact, the vital and essential transactions which allow the manufacturer at this end to get exactly the grade and quality he wants when he wants it, and to fix a price for it, so that he can, in turn, pass it on in his sales, home or export. On the other hand, it allows the growers throughout the world to fix the price of their crops a good way ahead, which is not a gambling transaction, as appears to be believed on the other side, but is a necessary precaution to allow the producers to know their wage levels, and how they will stand financially at the end of the producing season. If hon. and right hon. Members will get it into their minds that that is the true function of any commodity exchange, and that such an exchange cannot exist unless it exercises that function, we should get well away from the red herring of speculation which has appeared so frequently in this Debate.
A suggestion has been made that the great inherent skill of Lancashire should be put at the disposal of this new and rather amorphous organisation which the Lord President was quite unable to define in anything like recognisable terms as a working entity. Many references have been made to skill in selecting and buying cotton and in working it on the loom; it is an inherited skill and a very great one. I would point out the inevitable result of putting it at the disposal of the Board. It is no use pretending that this publicly-owned corporation is anything. but a Government Department, once or twice removed. It is a very close relation, and the Government will be responsible for its relation, as we all find ourselves from time to time, and the taxpayer will have to pay for it. But what will happen? It will be like every Government Department or Government organisation of that sort—the U.K.C.C. was a good example during the war. Sooner or later the urge and the incentive which have made the Liverpool and Lancashire cotton buyer or cotton selector such an efficient man will go. It will depart altogether, and he will come
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to depend on pleasing the man next or next but one above him in the hierarchy.
It will not make any difference to him what the spinner says about it at the other end. There can be no mistaking that one of the inherent vices of bulk buying is that the spinner will have to take what he gets, and cannot ask for and get what he wants. That is the vital difference. It reminds me of the story of a man in the Far West town who went to a small restaurant, and was presented with a menu containing about 30 dishes. He selected half a dozen, but then mine host, with a large pistol in his hand, came along and said, "Stranger, you'll have hash." That is exactly the position of the spinner in Lancashire under this new scheme. He will have the hash that the Government will make of this particular transaction. I challenge anybody on the Government Benches to deny that we cannot sell to a man who is a spinner what we have not got in the country In stock. Government bulk buying is vicious and wrong from this point of view. It will always be infused with the political taint.
Nobody in the world knows better than the Chancellor of the Exchequer what happens when buying has to be done for other than purely economic reasons. He was Minister of Economic Warfare and I was his humble and very distant servant at the time. He knows that when, during the war, preemptive buying in Spain and in the Middle East had to be done, the prices paid were political prices and not economic prices, incredibly high. When Governments get together for transactions of this sort, then prices gradually get out of line with the economic price and become purely political ones.
Look at some recent transactions. There is the five-year contract for the purchase of copra in one part of the world which is going to guarantee that in three or four years' time prices will not be hopelessly out of line. What happens then? One of two things: either the British housewife will have to pay more for her margarine than she ought; or, if it is a question of exports. a subsidy out of the pocket of the Government has to be given to maintain our exports. That is one of the evils of bulk buying. The other is that it gives the Government the illusion that they have a much greater measure of

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control over world prices than in fact they have
We heard this afternoon one very curious statement, that there was a practice previously in Liverpool by which cotton was kept locked in warehouses in order to effect an alteration in price. I do not know whether this is a myth or a figment of the imagination, but it is certainly not in line with the facts known to everybody who has an interest or who should have taken an interest in cotton. There were between 7,000,000 and 10,000,000 bales of cotton lying in the hands of the Government of the United States of America. It was that enormous bulk and the question of how and when it was to be released that weighed over the market and margin prices.
What is to happen in these circumstances, when there is a surplus of cotton in the hands of the United States and our Government go to buy? Their position is absolutely hopeless. They can be dictated to. Whereas, if the transactions were carried through by "Mr. A "in Liverpool, knowing his opposite number in America, his opposite number being able to go to the American open cotton market to buy cotton in moderate quantities to fit in with the order he had from the spinner, then no disturbance of the market would take place. The total price paid for the same quantity as would have been purchased by the Government in bulk is spread over and weighs infinitely less in the market. The time factor comes into this. If one purchases 100,000 American bales of cotton over months instead of buying it all at once at the price on that one day, it is infinitely better. The gamble is practically nil. By buying in bulk and negotiating through diplomatic or official channels one always gets the wrong price. Such a powerful triumvirate as the President of the Board of Trade, the Lord President of the Council and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, armed with half a dozen mandates and a few Orders in Council going over to America, would not be able to get a better bargain. The Socialist Government in Australia have not been able to prevent two consecutive years of drought. It is worth while pointing out facts like these to hon. and right hon. Members opposite to show them the truth and to show them how to look at schemes like this objectively and not politically.
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The Liverpool Cotton Exchange is a well-established organisation built up through many years. Every cotton exchange in every country in the world has paid its tribute to the Liverpool Cotton Exchange as being essential. I was engaged in 1939 in the project for releasing the 10,000,000 bales of cotton in the hands of the American Government so that they could be evenly distributed in an orderly way throughout the world. I negotiated with the Government of the United States on that particular project. It came very near to completion. It was only a legal difficulty that held it up in the end. I should like to inform Members of the House of the fact that it was the insistence of the American Government at that time that the Liverpool Cotton Exchange was to be used as the basis for the prices for this transaction because they thought that was the correct means of ascertaining world prices and of how to distribute that cotton evenly.
In six years trade throughout the world has been destroyed. We come to the end of the six years. One of the first actions the Government take in Liverpool is to destroy something which Liverpool, by and large, admires, which is recognised to be of importance. It is capable of improvement. I noticed a phrase in the statement of the Board of Trade referring to the cotton market and saying that the prewar type was no longer needed. We can modify that machine. We can have controlled and canalised speculation. But because there may be weaknesses in it and it may need improvement it is the height of folly, which will be remembered against this Government and against the President of the Board of Trade and the Chancellor of the Exchequer in particular, to destroy, at one blow, that organisation earning foreign exchange and fitting in with Bretton Woods and international commerce, especially when the Government have not been able to show that they can replace it with anything better at all.
The indignation of this House ought to be expressed very strongly. We shall have a display of forensic brilliance from the Chancellor of the Exchequer in a few minutes, I do not doubt. I would say to the House, "Do not trust him, gentle maiden." On this occasion he will pull not only the wool, but the cotton over our eyes. Let us make certain of one thing.

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This Thames-side octopus, the Board of Trade, is about to put a tentacle across the Mersey and the Wirral. The Chancellor of the Exchequer may say it does not belong to him. But, nevertheless, it is to be London controlling Lancashire and Liverpool trade. As one representing a Lancashire industrial constituency—and there are not so many of those animals on this side of the House—I should like to say with fervour, to the Government:
" Use your great strength, use your great power in a way that will do you good throughout the country and earn you the real gratitude in the years to come of the country and even of hon. Members on this side of the House. Reconsider your decision. Show your strength by compromise and not by slaughter."
6.38 p.m.
Mr. Fairhurst: I have been disappointed with the Debate this afternoon, and especially with the speeches from the Opposition Benches. I feel that I could have brought half a dozen mill managers from Lancashire who could have made a better technical case than our friends on the Opposition Benches have done. I have only a very limited time, and so I shall have to cut out a considerable amount of what I wanted to say, but I want to remind the House of the Balfour Report of 1924, Part 3, "Survey of Industries." Dealing with the Liverpool Cotton Market it states:
" In the range of cotton dealt in and the extent of business, Liverpool is the most important market in the world. It is far more than a mere channel through which the raw material of the industry is obtained. It is a highly organised speculative market, with all that that implies."
It seems to me that most of what we have heard this afternoon from the Opposition Benches has come from the memorandum submitted by the Liverpool and Manchester Cotton Association. I suggest that this is a highly profitable venture for those concerned, and that it did not help the industry when the industry was in a slump. Nor can it be denied that managers of spinning mills and weaving establishments have passed many sleepless nights owing to the sometimes violent. oscillations of the cotton market, the many hourly, daily and weekly fluctuations of that same market. People who argue that gambling was unknown on the Liverpool side, are people who do not desire the full facts of the case to be
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known. There have often been times when the spinners and manufacturers have simply not known what to do or how to face the problems caused by Liverpool and Manchester. The position before us resolves itself into how best to buy raw material to feed the Lancashire cotton industry. ' Is the system which has grown up with the industry, the now highly organised and profitable affair, the best one possible, or is the method forced upon us by the war more direct and sensible? Has not the method adopted during the war proved itself to be a less speculative way for the spinners to get the raw materials which they required? Has it not been found, within the structure built up under war circumstances, that there is a possibility of a far more stable edifice, with less gamble and more safety? Will not the proposed method more closely conform to a new superstructure which must be erected if the cotton industry is to survive and flourish?
Sir William Darlinģ: Will the hon. Member please read that again?
Mr. Fairhurst: Is it possible for the methods and technique of the Liverpool cotton market, as it has been known in the past, to fit in with changed methods of production? Remember that the chaos in the cotton industry prior to the war tended to strangle it, and this was evident not only on the spinning and manufacturing sides, but also on the Liverpool and Manchester side. I cannot visualise any working party in the future existing long, if it fails to realise or ignores the impact of the revolutionary conditions which we shall have to face m the new industrial world.
We have been told that the whole business is a highly intricate one. I have spent a considerable time in ascertaining the facts, and I want to put the case fairly. Liverpool and Manchester have at times been definitely antagonistic to the industry. Many times, when the manager goes to his mill in the morning, the first thing he has done is to get hold of his "Manchester Guardian and to have a look at the price of cotton. Immediately he finds that something has gone wrong, and then for the rest of the day he has done everything he can to put right what has gone wrong at the Liverpool end. Often he finds, when he has done that,

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something has gone wrong at the Manchester end, and in consequence he has spent all his day bothering about Liverpool and Manchester. Considerable fortunes have been made in Liverpool, and those concerned have not cared "a tinker's cuss" about the industry so long as they could get a rake-off. I suggest to the Government that the pronounced policy is sound. It will stand the test of time, and it will eliminate the gamble and the speculative element in the industry. If it does only that, it will have done a really good job.
6.45 p.m.
Mr. R. S. Hudson: The hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Fairhurst), in the very interesting and thoughtful speech which he has just made, put his finger on the real point of this Debate. He said that the real problem we have to settle is how best to buy cotton for Lancashire. He asked whether the old method which was tested before the war was the best method, or whether the system which has been evolved during the war should be developed. That is the problem which the House has to face today. I am not without sympathy with the Lord President of the Council in the position in which he found himself during these last few days. I am not blaming him for this, but he clearly knew little about the subject and was speaking from a brief. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) said, it was, judging by his speech, a very half-hearted brief. The Lord President spent a considerable time, in the early part of his speech, defending himself against the accusation that this scheme had been brought in without prior consultation, and without adequate time for consultation between the different sections of the industry. He said that the industry last November had put their case before the President of the Board of Trade, and that again they had seen him yesterday. That is not consultation. I would remind the Lord President of the Council of words he used in a Debate in this House on 18th February, 1943. He stated:
"This is a country in which, if you do things without giving reasonable opportunities for consultation with the persons who are affected—I am not talking about the vested interest necessarily, but about organised labour and the professional associations—they will be very cross, and there will be
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trouble."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th February, 1943; Vol. 386, C. 2047.]
He went on to say that the word "consultation" is a very blessed word. His interpretation of the word "consultation" has "suffered a sea-change," since he was a member of the Government of my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill). No one can begin to agree that what, in fact, has taken place has been consultation.
In the whole of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman today, he did not attempt to answer the very pertinent question put by the hon. Member for Oldham. The question is what is the best way to buy cotton. All the Lord President said was that he considered his scheme was the best, and he did not give a vestige of evidence to show how it is best, or why anyone thinks it is best. He stated that a certain number of people in the spinning industry agreed with it, but did not tell us their names, or whom they represent, but merely said that they were progressive. The test of these things is experience, but, before we pass on to that, let me deal for a moment with this problem of speculation. Practically every Member on the opposite side of the House has talked about the evils of speculation. The right hon. Member for Aldershot was at pains to show that, although there may have been a certain amount of gambling outside, the essential functions which were discharged by the Liverpool market before the war was the elimination of speculation as far as the spinners were concerned.
Over a long period of time, a scheme had been worked out by which the spinner who entered into a contract to sell yarn could be assured that, however long it took to complete the contract—whether six weeks, six months or a year—during the whole of that time, provided he had hedged in futures, he would be able to get cotton at the same price. This is a point with which the Lord President of the Council entirely failed to deal during the whole of his speech—that the spinner was confident and knew that he could buy cotton on a particular day as cheaply as any of his competitors abroad. He was certain that on that day, no other spinner, whether in this country or abroad, could tender for that contract on a cheaper basis. The new scheme, as we understand it from the little amount of explanation which the Lord

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President of the Council has given, does not deal with that at all. We shall be glad, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer comes to reply, if he will follow up with details. The spinner in this country requires reassurance against two risks. He requires reassurance against the risk that during the process of manufacture he will not be able to get cotton at the same price as he originally bought it, and against the risk that someone abroad will be able to buy cotton cheaper.
The great danger of this scheme is that the spinner is being asked to quote at a fixed price, so far as the foreigner is concerned, but not so far as his English competitor is concerned. He is gambling, if he does that, with both hands tied behind his back, because the foreigner, by "hedging," is able to assure himself that the price of cotton in the world market will not alter. All the Englishman is assured of is that if there is some internal levy, at some future date, he may be reimbursed for any increase in the price of cotton that may take place. That will not put him in a good competitive position at the moment.
I think it was the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) who said that whatever else the cotton merchants in Liverpool did before "the war, they certainly made plenty of money. Let us examine that. It is very common for speakers to talk about the middlemen as parasites. What does the middleman actually do for the cotton industry? He handles the crop, he moves it, he finances it, he classifies it, he distributes it, he blends it, and, finally, he holds it until it reaches and is absorbed by the mills of the world. As a result of years of experience, and because you have some of the keenest business brains in the world in Liverpool and Manchester, Liverpool has become the centre of the cotton markets of the world. Why is a Liverpool quotation and contract taken as a standard for the world? Because the business men of the Cotton Market of Liverpool have proved, over many years, that they are the most efficient in the world, and provide the best services to the world, and, therefore, they have attracted the custom of the world. That is the result of the development, over the years, of modern methods of financing large consignments of cotton, and they have brought the cost of doing this so low, that it represents a negligible percentage
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of the total cost of the turnover. The Liverpool cotton merchant is prepared to carry out the various services which I have enumerated, at an average cost of one per cent.—£1 per £100.
The right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council claimed that under their new scheme, they would give a better service to the manufacturers and spinners than is given by the present merchants. What possible basis has he for that claim? Can he point to any Government Department, to any State-sponsored corporation, that will provide administrative conveniences at as cheap a rate? Let him take, for example, a Department where there is no risk at all—the administration of unemployment insurance. That is a perfectly fair test. Does the House know what it cost immediately before the war to administer unemployment insurance? The cost was nine per cent.—nine times as much to administer something which entailed no risk at all, compared with the risk of the administration of the whole of the cotton transactions done by the middlemen of Liverpool. There is no reason to believe that a corporation set up on the lines suggested would do any better.
The right hon. Gentleman claimed that the relations between this corporation and the manufacturers would be closer and more pleasant. That is not so, if experience during the war is any test. The cotton spinner before the war was accustomed to receive at the hands of his merchant first-class service. He ordered various qualities of cotton, exactly suited to his trade. The merchant provided him with a continuous run. It was exactly the same, week after week, month after month. If, by chance, there was a variation, the spinner was entitled immediately to ask for damages or claim rebate, and to go to the Court of Appeal. What happens today? The spinner is told, "Here is your bale "of cotton, and you have to buy it with all faults." He has to take exactly what he is given. If he complains, the controller says, "Do the best you can with it. You have no competitors. We take whatever you produce, and we are paying a handsome margin for manufacture, so what is your trouble? "That is all right in war time, but what chance is there of administering a scheme like that in peace time, with competition abroad, and when everything depends on getting the right type of

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cotton which you require. With the increase in cotton spinning, and manufacture abroad, we have to rely on superfine quality—on the very best—and how can the spinner do that, under the conditions to which he is subjected today? What guarantee is there that the corporation the Government propose to set up, will be able to give him the same service as he gets from three or four people all competing for it? The Government can now say, "If you do not like it you can leave it alone."
The Lord President of the Council talked about the cost. At present, the whole of the risk at any rate during prewar years was shouldered by private enterprise, and it did not cost the taxpayer one penny. What is the future going to be? My right hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot pointed out the disadvantages of bulk purchasing. The Lord President of the Council said it was much better and the Government would actually get much better terms through purchasing through, one or two centralised bodies rather than having to depend on a number of independent individuals. What proof is there of that? What happened during the war when we had bulk purchases? Do not let us forget there are no inherent advantages in bulk purchases except when dealing in manufactured goods from a standardised line—goods which come off a machine where the advantage of a long run is secured. We are not dealing in anything standardised when we talk about crops and especially cotton crops, and there is no inherent advantage in bulk purchase. On the contrary, there are grave disadvantages, because when everybody knows that there is a single purchaser, the sellers get together and "gang up "on that individual purchaser. That has happened in practically every case where the bulk purchase of crops has taken place.
We have had a lot of experience of it during the war. The Lord President of the Council knows that perfectly well. He was in the Coalition Government and he knew what was happening. He never said one solitary word as to the machine to be used in the Government's new corporation suffering from that grave disadvantage. What did happen during the war? For example when Lord Woolton —and I imagine no one could find a keener buyer than he is—was buying
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through a large number of individuals in the early days he paid 75 cents for wheat. When the purchase was concentrated in the hands of one buyer, and every one knew who that buyer was, and that it was the British Government, the price of wheat advanced to 85 cents in precisely the same circumstances. What happened in cotton?
Mr. H. Morrison: Does the right hon. Gentleman assert that we could have bought food cheaper during the war if there had been a lot of competitors in the world's market; and is he now a strong opponent of the bulk purchasing of food? I thought he was a supporter of it.
Mr. Hudson: I am glad to have elicited that interruption; I was rather hoping for it. The right hon. Gentleman stepped right into it. There is an essential difference between food and cotton.
Mr. Morrison: Does the right hon. Gentleman support the bulk purchasing of food?
Mr. Hudson: I support the bulk purchasing of food.
Mr. Morrison: I am glad to get the Tory Party tied down to something.
Mr. Hudson: No one to my knowledge, on either side of the House, has ever suggested that to get food as cheaply as possible it should he got by bulk purchase. As between food and cotton, quite different reasons apply. What we try to do in the case of cotton, is to buy the raw material as cheaply as we possibly can for our manufacturers who require it cheaply in order to help them to compete in the world markets. The question is, Will the bulk buying of cotton make it cheaper? We can see what happened in bulk buying during the war. We decided in 1941 to buy Peruvian cotton. The world price before the Government's first inquiries were cabled to Peru on 13th June, 1941, was 6d. a lb. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will appreciate that, because he was at the Board of Trade. The first purchase was made on 13th July, exactly a month later, but during that period the price rose from 6d. to 7.26d. a lb. and by the time the Government Control had completed its purchase of a fixed quantity, the price had gone up to 8.75d. per 1b.

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The right hon. Gentleman was asked by the right hon. Member for Aldershot to give some figures and information as to what happened in his purchase of cotton on the New York Exchange since Lend-Lease ended. I shall be very glad to be corrected if I am wrong in the figures I am going to give. My information is that the price of May futures in New York on the date of the Control's first inquiry on 16th January, 1946, was 24.47 cents per lb. The date of the first purchase was 21st January but by that time the price had gone up to 24.65 cents per lb. and on the date of the fixation of the price of the first purchase to 25.50 cents per lb. Those two examples, I think, are fairly conclusive evidence of what happens when a Government goes into the market and is known to go into the market. The interesting thing about this last case in New York was that as soon as the British Government had finished their purchase, the price immediately fell.
What has been the result? The result has been that if the British Government had passed on to the cotton manufacturer the price paid, they would have been handicapped by comparison with foreign competitors, to the extent to which the Government bought at too high a price. What has actually happened is this. The Lord President of the Council said that the Government were balancing their expenditure with their receipts. I am told —and I should be glad for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to correct me, if I am wrong—that at the present moment cotton bought in New York is sold to the British manufacturer at something like 2d. per lb. less than it really costs the Government. That obviously involves the taxpayer in a loss, but the Government are making up the loss by grossly overcharging the British spinner for cotton brought from Egypt and other parts of the world. That may be all right during a period like this when the whole thing is in a closed economy, but when we get back to real world competition and when markets are free it may be an advantage to sell American cotton at 2d. cheaper to British manufacturers, but the Government will not be able to overcharge British manufacturers for cotton bought in Egypt or in some other place like that, because the spinners of Egyptian cotton will be unable to compete with the foreign spinner who is able to buy Egyptian cotton at a much cheaper rate. Then the Government
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will inevitably face a huge loss which the taxpayer will have to bear. Therefore, I suggest that there is nothing that we have heard today to suggest in any way that this new system is going to be better for the spinner or put him in a better position than he has been in the past and there is nothing to show that it will not cost the British taxpayer sums of money, and possibly very large sums indeed.
There are two other arguments to which I want to refer briefly. The first may appeal to Members opposite. They have been preaching for years the benefit of internationalism. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he was President of the Board of Trade, was extremely anxious to see an agreement made with the United States Government. Since then he has supported the same thesis in this House, in speeches advocating the maximum expansion of world trade on a multilateral basis. I am sure he would not disagree with that. He has always argued that it is to our advantage, as a nation, that trade barriers should be reduced, that all encumbrances to a free flow of trade all over the world should be abolished as far as possible, at any rate, that the maximum free flow of trade should be secured. In order to do that he has been prepared virtually to eliminate in the Imperial ties of Preference—
Mr. Dalton: No.
Mr. Hudson: There is nothing in the world which represents, to a higher degree, the idea of multilateral trade in a free market, than the Liverpool cotton industry. The Government intend to abolish that in favour, not of a bilateral system, but of a unilateral system. I therefore find it difficult to see how the right hon. Gentleman can reconcile his present attitude.
My final point is this. From the dawn of history a succession of communities have risen to greatness in the world on the business of turning over goods. Phoenicians, Venetians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Dutch and, finally, ourselves, attained that position because they, and we, performed a service which was required by the populations of their and our respective eras. In addition, we have benefited by our historic policy of being a country which has offered refuge to persecuted sects or individuals. In the Middle Ages we owed the great development of our

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cloth industry to the asylum we gave to the Huguenots. Since then, we have given asylum to men and women who were the victims of Nazi persecution. We have benefited by that policy. In fact, you may say that we have imported, not unemployment, but employment as a result of that policy. It is ironic that the first people to reverse that historic doctrine, on which this country has become so great, should be a party which calls itself "Labour." What the Socialist Government are doing, by their policy, is to select a particular set of people for persecution. The Lord President of the Council admitted that when he said that this particular industry, or part of it, was being selected, and that others performing similar functions would go scot free. The Socialist Party, by destroying the businesses of these men in Liverpool, will be exporting, not unemployment, but employment.
Make no mistake about it, just as a watch cannot go without a balance wheel so world trade in cotton cannot exist without a futures market. Close Liverpool, and the world will have to find an alternative. There are plenty of claimants to the succession. Rotterdam, Antwerp, Ghent and Havre all enjoy more or less the very special advantage which Liverpool has by virtue of its geographical position and hours of opening of its market, overlapping, on one side, in the West, New York, and on the other side, in the East, Bombay and Alexandria. Close Liverpool, and one of those four cities will take its place. Close Liverpool, and you are gratuitously transferring to one of our competitors all that body of invisible exports, all that great national prestige involved in shipping insurance, arbitration fees, margins and the like, which Liverpool has built up over the last 100 years—
Mr. Edward Porter: It produced unemployment for the cotton weavers of Lancashire. Can the right hon. Gentleman solve that?
Mr. Hudson: You are gratuitously giving away all the things which Lancashire has built up. Well might the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, a Socialist—not a bloated capitalist, or a wicked speculator—say "I am satisfied that a grievous blow will be struck, unless the Government do
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not suspend their scheme, and take into closer contact the people involved in it."
7.17 p.m.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): We have had a most interesting Debate on an exceedingly important matter for the future of our country. I think I shall get agreement in my first statement, namely, that whatever the view of the Government on this subject might be it would be quite impossible to revert now, at once, to the prewar arrangement, even if that was desirable. I gather that the right hon. Gentleman opposite agrees with that. It would be quite impossible to do it yet. It would be quite impossible, I am informed, even if we desired to do it, to do it for two or three years. On the other hand, again apart from whether or not our decision is right—and I shall argue that it is—there is much to be said for giving certainty and decision in this matter. Delay, ambiguity, the possibility of not knowing either one way or the other, with nobody knowing where he is or being able to plan the future, is a most undesirable state of affairs[Laughter]—well, I should have thought so. In other matters I am often told so from the Benches opposite. I say that it is right to terminate uncertainty, and that is what we have sought to do.
During the war we learned, I hope, a great deal. Among other things, we learned how it was possible to organise the purchase and distribution of cotton under a new system, a system very different from the prewar system to which Members opposite would like to revert when it becomes possible. When I was at the Board of Trade I gave close and anxious attention to this matter, and sought to inform myself fully about it, and I found that the way this industry was organised during the war was one of the outstanding administrative successes of our war economics.
That is largely due to the fact that it had at its head a man of very great and outstanding experience, business acumen, and dynamic personality, Sir Frank Pratt, a remarkable personality who did a magnificent piece of war service in his organisation of the cotton control. He is himself a spinner in a large way and was head of the Lancashire Cotton Corporation before taking over the cotton control. He has now gone back and I

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am permitted to say without any breach of confidence—because I have been speaking with him and seeking his advice with that of others on this matter—that he is emphatically in favour of the policy which the Government are putting forward. When hon. Members opposite ask, "How is opinion among the spinners? "that is a very reasonable question, but account must also be taken of the number of spindles for whom the spinners speak. Sir Frank Pratt is entitled to speak for a very great many more spindles than any of those who have taken the other view
Mr. W. Fletcher: For less than 10 per cent.
Mr. Dalton: Ten per cent. is not a bad figure to begin with when you are building up support. He is definitely on the side of the Government in this matter and thinks that it would be very injurious to the productive capacity of Lancashire to revert to the prewar arrangement or anything like it.
I should like to say a word about the fluctuations in the prices of cotton.
Squadron-Leader Fleming rose
Mr. Dalton: I should like to go on if I may. Time is getting short and I do not want to detain the House too long. We are running a little behind the time table, and although I make no complaint about that, I should like to be able to state the case in my own way. With regard to the fluctuations of cotton prices the right hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate used an argument—which I find rather theoretical—that speculation tended to stabilise prices. I remember reading that in an old textbook many years ago, but I have never really believed it and I do not think the facts as they were before the war support the view. I hold in my hand a table of figures showing the fluctuation in the Liverpool, spot cash per pound prices of certain principal types of cotton, including middling American, in the years before the war, when there was no economic reason for fluctuations as wide as are shown here. It was the great amplitude of these fluctuations which was one of the disadvantages against which the Lancashire industry had to struggle, and in order to try to cope with them it had to make up these very ingenious inven-
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tions of futures markets, hedging and so on.
I will quote one figure only in order to state the case to the House. If we take the To prewar years and consider the fluctuations over the yearly periods, we find that in no fewer than five out of these to years there was a fluctuation between the highest and the lowest price in the course of the year of 45 to 65 per cent., and in one year the range was even greater than that—it went up to 66 per cent. I venture to say that that is far beyond any fluctuation which can be justified by the weather or the boll weevil of which the right hon. Gentleman spoke.
Mr. Lyttelton: Will the right hon. Gentleman also give the figures for the fluctuation of the yield per acre, or lay some emphasis upon it?
Mr. Dalton: I admit that the weather and the boll weevil were not inactive agents in this matter. When the right hon. Gentleman was speaking I ventured to ask him a question as to whether the figures he was quoting referred to the United States only or to the world as a whole, and he replied that they were for the United States. So are the figures I have just quoted, but the particular proposition which I submit to the House is that when we take account of the many different sources of supply all over the world—which tend themselves to have a certain stabilising influence as between themselves since the boll weevil is not equally active at any given moment in all the different areas of North and South America and all the other Continents—these fluctuations are much too wide to be defended. Outside speculators deliberately operate in such a way as to bring them about and that is one of the things against which the cotton industry has to be protected. In all the discussions we hear, including the right hon. Gentleman's very clear and interesting speech, a veil of silence and reserve is always drawn over those persons who, having no stake at all in the industry, butt in and conduct speculative operations made possible by the futures market and hedging facilities, and who sweep the prices upwards when they are tending to go up and downwards when they tend to go down. And largely because of their ignorance of the market and conditions in the industry, their tendency is always to

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exaggerate the existing movement of prices.
This is my view, and it is also that of many well qualified to speak, including Sir Charles Macara. I was very disappointed to miss the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Exchange, Liverpool (Mrs. Braddock) because she gave a most admirable quotation which I had by me also and which I was intending to use. Since she has used it I must not repeat it, but Sir Charles Macara—who was President of the Master Spinners' Association and is entitled to speak on the subject—states in powerful language and with great emphasis what my hon. Friend has quoted. It is on the records of HANSARD and will, I hope, be read by anyone who did not hear it. He said, in effect, that the trouble in Lancashire came not from within the industry but from outside gambling. The spinners, the manufacturing worker, and even the merchant make sacrifices while the gambler walks away with the loot. That was the view of Sir Charles Macara. [Interruption.] He was a great man. He was not a Member of the Labour Party and I do not know what his politics were, but he knew what he was talking about.
Mr. Churchill: He also said that it was impossible to see how the cotton industry could be conducted without a futures market.
Mr. Dalton: No doubt it was bearing that in mind, too, that the very able persons who now organise the cotton control have made a provision which will be a substitute under this new policy for the futures market and which will indeed be much more effective. Here I quote the "Manchester Guardian "trade notes of r9th March, which say that the new scheme for "cover" provided by the control—that is the Cotton Control—
"gives the spinner much more complete protection than he could obtain before the war by hedging in the futures market "
So we can improve upon all that is good while at the same time, I hope, eliminating that which has been very harmful in this industry in the past.
I wish to speak for a moment of a point that has been quite properly and clearly raised in the Debate and to which, in my present office, I shall not be assumed to be insensitive. It is the relation of the Government's new plans to
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the balance of payments and foreign exchange transactions arising from the prewar arrangements.
I have done my best, while studying this matter, to have the net foreign exchange earnings of the prewar cotton market estimated accurately, and the best advice I can get is to this effect: that in regard to commissions on transactions between foreign countries and the earnings from re-exports, the volume of business was not large relatively to the other items in our balance of payments and, indeed, relatively to comparable earnings in other commodities, such as grain. We made much more, I am advised, out of transactions in grain than out of transactions in regard to cotton, and I am advised that in the case of cotton, the earnings under these heads are estimated to have been in prewar years between £350,000 and £500,000 a year. In addition, there were certain associated foreign exchange earnings on freights, insurance and banking which are put at perhaps the same amount again, with the result that the top limit at issue here is £1,000,000 a year. We do not want to lose £1,000,000 anywhere if we can collect it, but at the same time we must have a sense of proportion and if, as I believe, we can assist the productive side of the cotton industry and enable the flow of exports of finished cotton goods to go forward in greater flood than otherwise they would, then I venture to say that we shall very easily overtake this £1,000,000 which we may be losing under this head, by a number of millions of pounds a year—I hope £10,000,000 a year—which we shall be able to get in the more stable conditions which we seek to get from the proper flow of our cotton exports. None the less, I thought it right to give that estimate as the best that I am able to offer hon. Members, and it is my duty to offer them such figures as I can on that matter.
With regard to the Cotton Control, I have argued that it has been a most efficient machine, and still is, but it is intended by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, as he indicated in the statement which he made to the House on the matter, not merely to leave the Cotton Control as it is, but to build it up, to develop it, to adapt it to the conditions of peace, and to establish a permanent central purchasing

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agency for our cotton. I entirely refuse to accept the view that if, as is our intention, we bring into this new peacetime organisation some of the ablest men —and that is my right hon. Friend's intention—with the best knowledge of the trade whom he can collect, many of whom would, I am sure, be very glad indeed to assist him in this; men with knowledge of the merchanting side, men with knowledge as practical spinners, and others—I entirely reject the view and so, I think, will any reasonable commentator, that we cannot meet so relatively simple a problem as that of keeping in this country a good and varied stock of the various types and varieties of cotton. Surely there is no insuperable difficulty in doing that? They must closely study this industry, closely study the needs and requirements of the particular spinners, and they must do their best to meet them. They will have experts retained in the various countries where cotton is grown. I do not really think there will be quite the degree of difficulty which the two right hon. Gentlemen who spoke from the other side have said, not quite the same degree of difficulty, and the Government broker, —I call him the Government broker, though it begs the question which I am anxious not to raise, and I am anxious not to deceive hon. Gentlemen opposite—but the spokesman or the buying agent of this Commission will not, I think, cut quite so poor a figure in his dealings with those who have cotton to sell.
The relationship between the Government and this agent, as my right hon. Friend the President explained, is quite simple as we envisage it. The agency will be located in Lancashire and not in London: It will consist of Lancashire men with knowledge and competence. It will have sufficient but not, we hope, an excessive staff. There will be certain savings in the total labour force as corn-pared with what there was before the war, but we hope and believe that in the conditions of full employment, which we hope we shall be able to achieve, there will not he a net displacement of labour. We hope that those who are still capable of work will be able to find suitable work even though not in exactly the same form as before the war. In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for the Exchange Division of Liverpool, may I say that either my right hon. Friend the President of
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the Board of Trade, or someone associated with the Board of Trade, will he very happy to receive a deputation such as she suggests, and to discuss with that deputation just how the best use can be made of all the skilled talent available. I do not believe myself that there will be any unemployment problem created as a result of this policy.
Finally, I would urge upon the House that we should be able to procure through this purchasing agency, first of all, a much more stable price than we have ever ' had before, not an eternally unchanging price, but a much more stable price but with much less inlet for various speculative elements who, as I have said, are not always mentioned in these discussions but, none the less, have been the niggers in the woodpile until now. In addition to this, there is no reason why this agency, should not keep in this country a stock of cotton at least as large as was made here by the other agencies before the war, at least as varied, possibly more varied. And there is no reason why they should not meet, as exactly as they were meeting before the war, the requirements of individual spinners. The close association of the agency with the spinners as a whole will, I think, guarantee that. As Mr. Gladstone used to say, it is certainly not beyond the wit of man to accomplish these things; certainly it is not beyond practical wisdom to do these things.
Far my part, I am convinced that if we have an organisation of this kind, it will be a basis on which we can build a more prosperous cotton industry in Lancashire in the future. Lancashire has been through bad days and has great problems in front of it. It would be going outside the scope of this Debate if I were to indulge in any further suggestions as to how the Lancashire cotton industry should be put upon its feet in the future, but I am quite sure it must have a solid basis on which to stand, whatever else we do with regard to the industry. It must be assured that there will be no more gambling with the livelihood of Lancashire by people who live in London or elsewhere in the country. I am sure that the step the Government are taking which is being challenged tonight, but which the Government have decided should be taken, is the first step in the resuscitation of that great cotton

663
industry in Lancashire on which so many millions of our people depend, and which is so essential for our future export trade. It is at any rate of significance to know that in the Division which will shortly follow, a majority of the elected representatives of Lancashire will vote against the Motion that has been moved from the other side.
Question put,
" That this House regrets the decision of His Majesty's Government not to reopen the Liverpool Cotton Market and considers that the system of bulk purchase under State control will hamper the manufacturer, increase the cost of cotton to the consumer and deprive this country of a valuable source of foreign exchange."
The House divided: Ayes, 186; Noes, 337.

Division No. 111.]

AYES.

[7.38 p.m.

Agnew, Cmdr. P. G

Grimston, R. V.

Peake, Rt. Hon. O.

Aitken, Hon. Max

Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)

Peto, Brig. C H M

Amory, D. Heathcoat

Hare, Lieut.-Col. Hn. J. H. (W'db'ge)

Pickthorn, K.

Asshelon, Rt. Hon R

Harvey, Air-Comdre A. V.

Pitman, I. J.

Astor, Hon. M

Haughton, S. G.

Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

Baldwin, A. E.

Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir C

Poole, O. B. S. (Oswestry)

Barlow, Sir J.

Henderson, John (Cathcart)

Price-White, Lt.-Col D.

Baxter, A. B.

Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

Prior-Palmer, Brig. O.

Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.

Hogg, Hon. Q.

Raikes, H. V.

Bennett, Sir P.

Hollis, M. C.

Ramsay, Maj. S.

Birch, Lt.-Col. Nigel

Holmes, Sir J. Stanley

Rayner, Brig. R.

Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C. (Wells)

Hope, Lord J.

Reed, Sir S. (Aylesbury)

Bossom, A. C.

Howard, Hon. A.

Reid, Rt. Hon. J. S. C. (Hillhead)

Bowen, R.

Hudson, Rt. Hon. R. S. (Southport)

Renton, D.

Bower, N.

Hulbert, Wing-Cdr. N. J

Roberts, Sqn.-Ldr. Emrys (Merioneth)

Boyd Carpenter, J. A.

Hurd, A.

Roberts, Maj. P. G. (Ecclesall)

Bracken, Rt. Hon. Brendan

Hutchison, Lt.-Cm Clark (E'b'rgh W.)

Robertson, Sir D. (Streatham)

Braithwaite, Lt.-Comdr. J. G.

Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)

Robinson, Wing-Comdr. Roland

Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W

Jarvis, Sir J.

Ropner, Col. L.

Bullock, Capt. M.

Jeffreys, Ceneral Sir G.

Ross, Sir R.

Butcher, H. W.

Keeling, E. H.

Sanderson, Sir F

Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A. (S'ffr'n W'ld'n)

Kerr, Sir J. Graham

Savory, Prof. D. L.

Byers, Lt.-Col. F.

Kingsmill, Lt.-Col W. H.

Scott, Lord W.

Carson, E.

Lambert, Hon. G.

Shephard, S. (Newark)

Challen, C.

Lancaster, Col. C. G.

Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)

Channon, H.

Langford-Holt, J.

Smith, E. P. (Ashford)

Churchill, Rt. Hon. W. S

Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.

Smithers, Sir W.

Clarke, Col. R S.

Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

Snadden, W. M.

Clifton-Brown, It-Col. G

Lennox-Boyd, A. T.

Spearman, A. C. M-

Cole, T. L.

Lindsay, M. (Solihull)

Spence, H. R.

Conant, Maj. R. J. E-

Linstead, H. N.

Stanley, Rt. Hon. O.

Cooper-Key, E. M.

Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)

Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)

Corbett, Lieut.-Col. U (Ludlow)

Lloyd, Brig. J. S. B. (Wirral)

Stoddart-Scott, Col, M.

Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.

Low, Brig. A. R W.

Studholme, H. G.

Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col O. E.

Lucas, Major Sir J

Sutcliffe, H.

Crowder, Capt. J. F E.

Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.

Strauss, H. G. (Com. Eng. Univ'sities)

Cuthbert, W. N.

Lyttellon, Rt. Hon. O.

Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

Darling, Sir W. Y

MacAndrew, Col. Sir C.

Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (P'dd't'n, S.)

Davidson, Viscountess

McCallum, Maj. D.

Teeling, William

De la Bére, R.

Macdonald, Capt. Sir P. (l. of Wight)

Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

Digby, Maj. S. W.

Mackeson, Lt.-Col. H. R.

Thomson, Sir D. (Aberdeen, S.)

Dodds-Parker, A. D.

McKie, J. H. (Galloway)

Thorneycroft, G E. P.

Donner, Sqn.-Ldr. P. W

Maclay, Hon. J. S.

Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.

Drayson, Capt. C. B.

Maclean, Brig. F. H. R. (Lancaster)

Thorp, Lt.-Col. R. A. F.

Drewe, C.

MacLeod, Capt. J.

Touche, G. C.

Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)

Macpherson, Maj. N. (Dumfries)

Turton, R. H.

Duncan, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (City ot Lond.)

Maitland, Comdr. J. W.

Vane, W. M. T.

Duthie, W S.

Marlowe, A. A. H.

Wakefield, Sir W. W.

Eden, Rt. Hon. A.

Marples, A. E.

Walker-Smith, D.

Erroll, F. J.

Marsden, Capt. A.

Ward, Hon. G. R.

Fleming, Sqn.-Ldr. E. L.

Marshall, D. (Bodmin)

Watt, Sir G. S. Harvie

Fletcher, W. (Bury)

Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)

Wheatley, Colonel M. J

Foster, J. G. (Northwich)

Maude, J. C.

White, Sir D (Fareham)

Fox, Sqn.-Ldr. Sir G.

Mellor, Sir J.

White, J. B. (Canterbury)

Fraser, Maj. H. C. P. (Stone)

Morris-Jones, Sir H.

Williams, C. (Torquay)

Gage, Lt.-Col. C.

Morrison, Maj. J. G. (Salisbury)

Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)

Galbraith, Cmdr. T D

Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)

Willink, Rt. Hon. H. U.

Gammans, L. D.

Neven-Spence, Sir B.

Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

Gates, Maj. E. E.

Nicholson, G.

Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

George, Maj. Rt. Hn. G. Lloyd (P'ke)

Nield, B. (Chester)

York, C.

Glossop, C. W. H.

Noble, Comdr. A. H. P

Glyn, Sir R.

Nutting, Anthony

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Gomme-Duncan, Col. A. G

O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H.

Mr. James Stuart and

Mr. Buchan-Hepburn.

NOES.

Adams, Richard (Balhant)

Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

Attewell, H. C.

Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)

Allighan, Garry

Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

Adamson, Mrs. J. L.

Alpass, J. H.

Austin, H. L.

Allen, A. CI. (Bosworth).

Anderson, A. (Motherwell)

Ayles, W. H.

Ayrton Gould, Mrs B

Fraser, T. (Hamilton)

Mainwaring, W. H.

Bacon, Miss A

Freeman Maj. J. (Watford)

Mann, Mrs. J.

Baird, Capt J.

Gaitskell, H. T. N

Manning, C. (Camberwell, N.)

Balfour, A.

Gallacher, W.

Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)

Barnes, Rt. Hon. A J

Ganley, Mrs. C. S

Marquand, H. A.

Barstow, P. G.

Gibbins, J.

Marshall, F. (Brightslds)

Bartlett, V.

Gibson, C. W

Martin, J H

Barton, C.

Gilzean, A.

Mathers, G.

Battley, J R.

Glanville, J. E. (Consett)

Mayhew, C. P.

Bechervaise, A. E.

Gooch, E. G.

Medland, H. M.

Belcher, J. W.

Goodrich, H. E.

Messer, F.

Bellenger, F. J

Gordon-Walker, P. C

Middleton, Mrs. L.

Benson, G

Grenfell, D. R

Mitchison, Maj. G. R.

Berry, H.

Grey, C. F.

Monslow, W.

Beswick, Flt.-Lieut. F.

Grierson, E.

Montague, F

Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)

Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)

Morgan, Dr. H. B.

Bing, Capt. G. H. C.

Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)

Morley, R.

Binns, J.

Griffiths, Capt. W. D. (Moss Side)

Morris, Lt.-Col. H. (Sheffield, C.)

Blackburn, A. R.

Guest, Dr. L. Haden

Morris, P. (Swansea, W.)

Blenkinsop, Capt. A.

Gunter, Capt. R. J.

Morrison, Rt. Hon, H. (Lewisham, E.)

Blyton, W. R.

Guy, W. H.

Mort, D. L.

Boardman, H.

Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)

Moyle, A

Bottomley, A. G.

Haire, Flt.-Lieut. J. (Wycombe)

Murray, J. D

Bowden, Flg.-Offr. H. W.

Hale, Leslie

Nally, W.

Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)

Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)

Naylor, T. E.

Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'p'l, Exch'ge)

Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.

Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)

Braddock, T. (Mitcham)

Hannan, W. (Maryhill)

Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)

Brook, D. (Halifax)

Hardman, D. R.

Noel-Buxton, Lady

Brooks, T. J (Rothwell)

Hardy, E. A.

O'Brien, T

Brown, George (Belper)

Hastings, Dr. Somerville

Oldhfield, W. H.

Brown, T. J. (Ince)

Haworth, J.

Oliver, G. H.

Brown, W. J. (Rugby)

Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

Orbach, M.

Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.

Herbison, Miss M.

Paget, R. T.

Buchanan, G.

Hewitson, Capt. M.

Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Wentworth)

Burden, T. W.

Hobson, C. R.

Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)

Burke, W. A.

Holman, P.

Palmer, A M. F.

Castle, Mrs. B. A.

Horabin, T. L.

Pargiter, G. A.

Champion, A J.

Hoy, J.

Parker, J.

Chater, D.

Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayr)

Parkin, Flt.-Lieut. B. T.

Chetwynd, Capt. G. R.

Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)

Clitherow, Dr. R.

Hughes, Lt. H. D. (W'lverh'pton, W.)

Paton, J. (Norwich)

Cluse, W. S.

Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)

Pearson, A.

Cocks, F. S.

Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

Peart, Capt. T. F.

Collick, P.

Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)

Perrins, W.

Collindridge, F.

Irving, W. J.

Piratin, P.

Collins, V. J.

Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A

Platts-Mills, J. F. F.

Colman, Miss G. M.

Janner, B.

Popplewell, E.

Comyns, Dr. L.

Jeger, G. (Winchester)

Porter, E. (Warrington)

Cook, T. F.

Jeger, Dr. S. W. (St. Pancras, S.E.)

Porter, G. (Leeds)

Cooper, Wing-Comdr. G.

Jones, A C (Shipley)

Price, M. P.

Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N.W.)

Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)

Pritt, D. N.

Corlett, Dr. J.

Keenan, W.

Proctor, W. T.

Corvedale, Viscount

Kenyan, C.

Pursey, Cmdr. H.

Cove, W G.

King, E. M.

Ranger, J.

Crawley, Flt.-Lieut A.

Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E

Rankin, J

Daines, P.

Kinley, J

Rees-Williams, D. R.

Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

Kirby, B. V.

Reeves, J.

Davies, Edward (Burslem)

Kirkwood, D.

Reid, T. (Swindon)

Davies, Ernest (Enfield)

Lang, G.

Rhodes, H.

Davies, Harold (Leek)

Lavers, S.

Richards, R.

Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

Lee, F. (Hulme)

Ridealgh, Mrs. M.

Davies, S O. (Merthyr)

Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)

Robens, A.

Deer, G.

Leonard, W.

Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)

de Freitas, Geoffrey

Leslie, J. R

Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)

Delargy, Captain H. J

Levy, B. W.

Rogers, G. H. R.

Diamond, J.

Lewis, A W. J. (Upton)

Royle, C.

Dobbie, W.

Lewis, T. (Southampton)

Sargood, R.

Dodds, N. N.

Lindgren, G. S.

Scott-Elliot, W.

Donovan, T.

Lipson, D. L.

Segal, Sq.-Ldr. S.

Douglas, F. C. R.

Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

Shackleton, Wing-Cdr. E. A. A.

Driberg, T. E. N.

Longden, F.

Sharp, Lt.-Col. G. M.

Dugdale, J. (W. Bromwich)

Lyne, A. W.

Shawcross, C. N. (Widnes)

Dumpleton, C. W.

McAdam, W.

Shawcross, Sir H. (St. Helens)

Durbin, E. F. M.

McAllister, G.

Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

Dye, S.

McEntee, V. La T.

Shurmer, P.

Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

McGhee, H. G.

Silkin, Rt Hon. L.

Edelman, M.

McGovern, J.

Silverman, J. (Erdington)

Edwards, John (Blackburn)

Mack, J. D.

Simmons, C. J.

Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)

McKay, J. (Wallsend)

Skeffington, A. M.

Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)

Mackay, R. W. G. (Hull, N.W.)

Skeffington-Lodge, T. C.

Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)

McKinlay, A. S.

Skinnard, F. W.

Fairhurst, F.

Maclean, N. (Govan)

Smith, Capt. C. (Colchester)

Farthing, W. J.

McLeavy, F.

Smith, Ellis (Stoke)

Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)

MacMillan, M. K.

Smith, H N. (Nottingham, S.)

Follick, M.

McNeil, H.

Smith, T. (Normanton)

Foster, W. (Wigan)

Macpherson, T. (Romford)

Snow, Capt. J. W.

666

667

Solley, L. J.

Thurtle, E.

Wigg, Col. G. E.

Sorensen, R. W.

Tiffany, S.

Wilcock, Group Capt. C A. B.

Soskice, Maj. Sir F.

Timmons, J.

Wilkes, Maj. L.

Sparks, J. A.

Titterington, M. F.

Wilkins, W. A.

Stamford, W.

Tolley, L.

Wilkinson, Rt. Hon. Ellen

Steele, T.

Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.

Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)

Stephen, C.

Turner-Samuels, M

Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)

Strachey, J.

Ungoed-Thomas, L.

Williams, D. J. (Neath)

Strauss, G. R.

Usborne, Henry

Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)

Stress, Dr. B.

Vernon, Maj. W. F,

Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

Stubbs, A. E.

Viant, S P.

Williams, W. R. (Heston)

Summerskill, Dr. Edith

Walkden, E.

Williamson, T

Swingler, Capt. S.

Walker, G. H.

Willis, E.

Symonds, Maj. A. L.

Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)

Wilmot, Rt. Hon. J

Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)

Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)

Wise, Major F. J

Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

Warbey, W. N,

Woods, G. S.

Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)

Watkins, T. E.

Yates, V. F.

Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)

Watson, W. M.

Young, Sir R. (Newton)

Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)

Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)

Younger, Hon. Kenneth

Thomas, John R. (Dover)

Weitzman, D

Zilliacus, K.

Thomas, George (Cardiff)

Wells, P. L. (Faversham)

Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Ed'b'gh, E.)

Westwood, Rt. Hon. J.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES

Thorneycroft, H.

Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.

Mr. Joseph Henderson and

Capt. Michael Stewart.

Question put, and agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  HOUSING (FINANCIAL AND MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL
  As amended, considered.
  CLAUSE 7.—(Reduction of local authorities' contributions in certain cases, and corresponding increaese of exchequer contributions.)
  7.51 p.m.
  Amendment made: In page 5, line 23, leave out "rate," and insert "rates." [Mr. A. Bevan.]
  CLAUSE 8.—(County council contributions.)
  The Minister of Health (Mr. Aneurin Bevan): I beg to move, in page 6, line 39, after "may," to insert "with the consent of the Minister."
  This Amendment is moved in order to meet a wish which was expressed almost universally in the Committee.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
  7.52 p.m.
  Captain Crookshank: If I trespass on the time of the House, it will be for only a few minutes, in order to explain the position taken up in this Third Reading Debate by my hon. Friends and myself. When we had the Second Reading, three or four weeks ago, I moved, on behalf of some of us who sit on these benches, what is known in House
  668
  of Commons parlance as a reasoned Amendment. In it, we said that we recognised the necessity for a subsidy to assist local authorities to provide houses at reasonable rents, but we were not desirous of accepting the Bill on Second Reading, for three reasons. The reasons were that it omitted to take account of the contribution that the private builder could make in the critical housing situation in which the nation now unfortunately finds itself; it did not give sufficient stimulus, in our view, to housing for the agricultural industry; and it made no provision either for the conversion or the reconditioning of houses. We failed in our submission to the House, and we were unable in subsequent stages to insert any Amendment which would have brought the Bill more into accord with the lines of policy adumbrated in our reasoned Amendment. The reason for that was, first, because the very tight Money Resolution prevented us from moving Amendments such as we would have wished to move, and, secondly, because the tightness of the Money Resolution was due to the mental attitude of the right hon. Gentleman, who still, at present at any rate—he may have to change as time goes along—is entirely unwilling to allow the private builder to make the contribution to housing which the builder and we think he could make.
  We discussed the Bill amicably, I hope, and certainly in considerable detail, earlier this week. Now we are faced with the Third Reading. We do not propose to divide the House, because we stated on the previous occasion that we recognised the necessity of a subsidy to assist local authorities to provide houses at a reasonable rent. As we study the Bill, we

  669
  consider that it will go some way, at any rate, towards that object. If we look at the earlier Clauses we find that in the normal case, what is called the general standard amount of Exchequer grant and assistance is a total of £22 per annum for 60 years. That sum is made up of£16 10s. Exchequer contribution arid £5 10s. rate fund contribution. Besides that, there is the special standard amount of £28 10s. for 60 years, made up of£25 10s. from the Exchequer and £3 from the rate fund, for areas where there is either low rent-paying capacity or where the area is agricultural in nature. Besides that, there is the special case of flats and some houses, which is made possible under Clause 4. It relates to expensive sites where it will be mostly a case of flats awing put up. For that purpose there is a special rate, as defined in the Schedule.
  All this, of course, will be done at a very advanced cost. The Minister pointed out that the standard of rent which he assumes and hopes will be achieved will bi round about 12s. 6d. a week in London and los. a week in most areas and 6d. in the country districts.
  Mr. Bevan: Net rents.
  Captain Crookshank: Yes, net rents. There is some doubt whether those figures will be achieved. There have been a good many figures quoted, and there will be more, no doubt, as time goes on. I would like to give a quotation from the "Economist" of 9th February. In recent months the "Economist" has not been unfriendly to the Government. Therefore, this is not a critical statement. I think the Minister will recognise that it is meant to be an objective statement of what they think the Bill will mean when it becomes an Act. The writer there says:
  " It is very difficult to follow the arithmetic."
  and because it is difficult I shall not attempt to give it now, except the conclusion which he reaches—
  "To rent at 10s. a week, a house (including land) must therefore cost £960 at the most, which seems a very optimistic figure. The conclusion would seem to be that there will be very few houses let at net rents of 10s., very few, in fact, at gross rents of under £1, especially when rates are inflated by the cost of the subsidy."
  We must remember that the more this policy is successful the more charge it inevitably brings upon the rates, it
  670
  means that any special concession which local authorities may make to large or particularly poor families will have to be balanced by higher rents to other tenants. There is the real risk that local authorities who build really large numbers of houses will find, as in the interwar years, that those houses have to he let to people other than those for whom they were primarily intended.
  That brings me straight to the question. For whom are these houses primarily intended? Upon that question we had some observations from the Minister during the Committee stage. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford (Mr. Walker-Smith), whose assistance to the House in these matters is so valuable, asked a question to find out what has happened in the Bill to the definition of "working classes." The principal Act refers to the use of subsidies for that purpose. The Scottish Bill which is now going through the House has references to working classes. The Bill leaves quite open the question "For whom are the houses to be provided?" The right hon. Gentleman in reply to the question in Committee as to whether there was any limitation said:
  " On the contrary, we in the Ministry take a most generous definition of the working classes. Indeed, some hon. Members opposite might qualify for inclusion in that definition."
  I suppose that is just his fun. Considering the hard work we do in this House we are all entitled to call ourselves almost super-working class. The right hon. Gentleman is certainly one of them and is most attentive.
  He added:
  " There is no limit whatever."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Tuesday, 26th March, 1946; Vol. 421, c. 236.]
  Then he went on to describe lyrically some of our loveliest villages where people of different income groups all live together. There is one difficulty which emerges as a result of this Bill. Gone is any consideration about who should get any of these new houses, except the need for a house. "The Times" yesterday contained- some interesting statements in its first leading article. It pointed out that at the moment, such is the shortage of housing that in every section of the community people need houses. It is going to be a very difficult business for local authorities when, having done away with the previous

  671
  inhibitions about who was to get subsidies, it is open to everybody. Local authorities are going to get into even greater difficulties in deciding on the degree of need.
  Mr. Guy: They ought not to have any difficulty. Many of them lost much of their revenue as a result of the bombing of property.
  Captain Crookshank: I do not know whether the first call is to be for those who have no houses as a result of the destruction caused by the enemy. But that applies right through the country; it is not the middle class, the working class, or any particular class that is affected. It may be the head postmaster, or the sanitary inspector, or the dustman. It is bound to be very difficult for local authorities to assess need when only need is the criterion, and quite undefined. Nothing has gone out, certainly not from this House, and perhaps not even from the Minister, on that point. He will correct me if I am wrong.
  Mr. Bevan: Yes, I sent out a circular to local authorities quite recently pointing out the circumstances in which they should take need into account.
  Captain Crookshank: I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman, but even so, it is going to be a very difficult and invidious task. There will be a further complication arising from the fact that these houses may be occupied by anyone on any income standard. The difficulty is that, unless arrangements are made in good time, there will be people living in these houses and getting the benefit of the subsidies from the Exchequer and from the rates who do not, in fact, need them because of their standing. That is going to be very difficult, but I think it is inherent in the problem. I sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman. He has to face this difficulty, which arises particularly from the fact that the previous categories have gone for the moment. They may have to be introduced later on, but at the moment they have gone, and only need qualifies for these houses. That is what I had in mind when I gave the quotation from the "Economist."
  The matter is also going to be difficult, because the estimated cost of these houses is so high. Even with this very high subsidy from the Exchequer and from the
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  rates, we fear, and I expect the right hon. Gentleman fears, that there will still be a gap which the rates will have to make up over and above the contribution from the rate fund envisaged in the Bill. In those areas, the more houses that are built the bigger the burden that will fall on the rates in consequence. The best thing we can all do is to try to see how to get costs down as quickly as possible.
  The Bill, in Clause 10, regularises the position of houses built during the war, especially agricultural cottages. The right hon. Gentleman has naturally fulfilled the promises and obligations which were entered into by his predecessors in the war Governments who explained that these houses would get the benefits of subsidies which were to follow immediately after the war. No one will complain of that. Clause 13, which raises from £10 to £15 the subsidy for private enterprise houses in agricultural districts, is of some, but not very much, value. In our view, the amount is insufficient and is unfair to the private builder as compared with the advantages the Bill will give to local authorities even in the agricultural areas. We had some considerable discussion on this the night before last. It does not cover the case of the tied house, which is important while there is a shortage of houses. For that reason, we consider that while there may be some advantage in Clause 13, it is nothing like so effective as it might have been.
  Clause 17 allows the Minister to make grants for houses not constructed by traditional methods. While it has been impossible during the Debates to find out exactly what the Minister hoped would be the result of his policy, it happens that since then his estimates have come out. He is asking for the sum of £9,750,000 for this purpose. According to the Explanatory Memorandum, the calculation, a purely mathematical one which does not carry anyone anywhere, shows that if we pay £200 per house and build 50,000 houses it would cost £10 million. The fact is that neither the Minister nor anyone else can make an accurate forecast. If one is hoping to do something entirely fresh in a field which has never been explored, one cannot be definite in the first two or three months. Perhaps as the year goes on we may have more information on the matter.
  Clause 18 rather shocked me when the real explanation of it was given the other

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  night. The Clause looked extraordinarily innocent on the face of it. The Minister could make arrangements for the provision of housing associations and could assist them in various ways. The total amount was not at any time to exceed £15 million. We had thought that when the Minister's own Explanatory Memorandum said that this provided for the setting up by the Minister of one or more housing associations which would provide houses which the associations would manage, it was a further development of the general arrangement for the provision of housing associations. But when it came to debating the matter on the Committee stage, it meant nothing of the kind and the rather confusing nomenclature did not refer to the question of housing associations at all.
  The right hon. Gentleman is setting up a private building army, and the reason he is doing so is that he is jealous of the Minister of Works, who has one already. That seems to be the only explanation. He said:
  " I want the Ministry of Health to be able to establish a building organisation that can step in to build houses with the consent of and in cooperation with the local authority, where the local building resources in any direction whatsoever are insufficient for local housing needs."
  He then said:
  " Hon. Members will recall that when the Building Materials Bill was before the House, the Ministry of Works had power to direct building. It is thought that the Ministry of Health, which has very much more direct relationships with local authorities, should have similar powers.''—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th March. 5946; Vol. 425, C. 328.]
  Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman is to have an army which will be able to come in, in agreement with the local authority in some cases, but, as I understand it, without its agreement if the local authority is in default, and build houses, and this local army will live on the country; it will collect all the money which would otherwise have been available to the local authority if it had built the houses. That is quite a fair description. It is a novel idea. I suppose that, as long as the right hon. Gentleman is at the Ministry of Health, we have to expect novel ideas; but novelty is not necessarily the same thing as good, and I ant not sure that is a good Clause in the Bill. However, we are prepared to let the right hon. Gentleman try the idea and see whether it works. One can see
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  the argument for it, but one can also see a great many arguments the other way.
  This is a necessary Bill. It is not anything like the kind of Bill which hon. and right hon. Members on this side would have liked, and I am certain that if the Minister had been willing to take the benefit of our advice arid marry it with the advice which he got from his own side, he would have got a better Bill, and more houses would have been built, which is, after all, what we are after. This is a financial Bill. The Minister knows as well as I do that money alone will not provide houses. Money, as he said, is a comparatively minor element at the moment; the important things are labour and materials. There was a Debate on that subject on Monday last, which the right hon. Gentleman may have had reported to him, and grave anxiety was expressed in every part of the House on the materials position. That is what will want watching; but of course, when one has all the labour and all the materials, obviously one will want finance. This Bill will give that to the Minister. It will give it to him in a very lavish manner. We can only hope that the objective Which all of us have in mind will be reached, and that is, as quickly as possible as many houses as possible. If that is, as I am sure it is, what the right hon. Gentleman wants, we hope this Bill will be an instrument to that end, but we are very sorry that it is not the Bill which it might have been, a really good, substantial contribution to the housing problem. It is a miserable little affair, cribbed, cabined and confined, by his purely doctrinal views. Let the right hon. Gentleman try his own doctrinal views first; but in the end common sense will prevail.
  8.15 p.m.
  Mr. Kinley: In saying "Goodbye" to this Bill and sending it on its journey towards becoming an Act, I hope the House will pardon me, if I point out briefly one bad spot in the Bill, and that is the financial side. I have for very many years believed that the housing problem was one of the most urgent with which Parliament could be called upon to deal. I have been disappointed with every effort hitherto made by Parliament to solve, or to attempt to solve, the housing problem, because in every case the basis of the Measure has been a financial con-

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  tribution, as in this Bill, from the local authority and from the tenant. In this Bill, there are three contributions to be made: one by the taxpayer, to provide the Government's part of the subsidy; one by the ratepayer, to provide a further part; and one by the tenant, because the very fact that the house is to be built under the provisions of this Bill requires that what he pays shall be his share of the interest upon the money which has been borrowed to permit the house to be built. This is a Bill that might just as well have been prepared and brought forward by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen of the Opposition. It is as much a capitalist Bill as any yet, and my regret is that we have not, with a Socialist Government, adopted a Socialist basis and changed entirely the whole of the financial contribution.
  I understand it is the intention of the Government that, through the instrumentality of this Bill, there shall be built in this country a very large number of houses. It is hoped by the Government, I understand, that through the instrumentality of this Bill house building shall continue until the housing shortage has been overcome. The housing shortage is a very large one, and it will require the building of a very large number of houses to overcome it. It is here that one comes to the first objection of the Bill. Every one of those houses must be built on borrowed money. The local authority must borrow money required in respect of every house. I say that is wrong, but because of that it is necessary for the Government to make provision to come to the assistance of the local authority, first, with the subsidy, and secondly, to insist upon the local ratepayer bearing a very unfair proportion. That is one of the evils which at present spoil the Bill. If the local authorities throughout the country are to be responsible for the building. of a very large number of houses under this Bill, they will need to be responsible for taking from the general money market a very large volume of money year by year. I suggest that the Government having got this Bill should now be preparing an amending Bill to deal with the weakness which I am pointing out in this one.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member. He has been very skilful so far. He is
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  not now dealing however with what is in the Bill, but what he thinks ought to be in it, and that is not in Order on the Third Reading.
  Mr. Kinley: I unfortunately failed to make my point on Second Reading although I tried, and this is my last opportunity. I feel strongly on this matter, because there is nothing of greater importance to the people of this country than good housing. We want not only good housing, but cheap housing, and that is utterly impossible on the basis of borrowed money. This Bill has that basis, and because of that, I do not like it. It is the only part of the Bill I do not like. I regret that the Government I support should have introduced a Bill with that as its basis. While I am prepared to praise what the Government have done, I am bound to take this opportunity, when I do not agree, of expressing my disagreement, in the hope that I may persuade the Government to change their ways in future. I repeat that on the basis of borrowed money, we shall never be able to solve the housing problem in this country. On such a basis we are bound to impose unfair burdens upon those least able to bear them. In the interests of public health, of the right development of the future generations of this country, it is essential to realise that this Bill will not provide the homes, the atmosphere and the environment necessary if illness and disease in our towns are to be circumvented and made impossible in the future. The Government may take their Bill. I hope that the next one will be a Socialist Bill, and will not be like this one.
  8.23 p.m.
  Mr. Gibson: I do not regard this Measure as being the miserable little Bill described by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank). This Bill will be of enormous assistance to local authorities in tackling in a big way the tremendous housing needs of the people of Britain. The financial Clause of the Bill has the support—I was about to say the enthusiastic support—of the local authority associations in this country. I do not say that the local authority associations have secured all they asked for in the first place, but the subsidy under this Bill is the best which any housing authority in this country has yet had.
  Mr. Kinley: Did not the Addison Act limit the demand on the local authority to the product of a penny rate?
  Mr. Gibson: I do not wish to become involved in the labyrinths of my hon. Friend's argument. I say again that this Bill contains the best subsidy to the local authority to assist the housing programme that we have yet seen. All the local authority associations agree, and speaking as a representative of one of the largest of them, I say we regard this Bill as being one which will give us great assistance in tackling our problem in a serious way.
  I wish to say a few words about the Clause which provides that the subsidy on higher priced land shall be paid at the higher rate, where the average of the development is three storeys or more. Some of us have been keen on building cottages wherever we can. That has been discussed in this House during the Second Reading and the Committee stage. But in places like London and other large cities, housing needs are so great, that the people will insist on living in these closely congregated centres, and the area of land is so restricted that it is impossible to house them merely in cottages. This Bill provides the opportunity, because of the way in which the subsidy is laid out, for local authorities to indulge in mixed development, which will provide not only for flats but for cottages, and provide not for the outworn prewar conception of cottages, but for cottages and flats for all sections of the community.
  I do not see any reason why local authorities, in their housing work, should be restricted to the old-fashioned definition of a working man. It has been stated that, in these days, even Members of Parliament can claim to be working men. I hope they will become more and more liable to that description. I have heard it said that this House is becoming more a purely working machine. I cannot see why anyone who earns a living should not be entitled to expect from the community at least minimum housing accommodation. Inasmuch as the way in which this Bill is drafted will enable the definition to be widened, I think it is all to the good, and as I say the subsidy is so framed as to enable local authorities to indulge in the principle of mixed development. I am glad, because already it has been possible to develop in London the principle
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  of mixed development and to provide cottages in a part of London where it might have been expected that only flats could be built. I am referring particularly to the East End of London. Inasmuch as the Bill does that, it is worthy of the enthusiastic support of this House, and of all the people outside. I believe that this Bill ought to receive a unanimous Third Reading. I know that local authorities in this country will be encouraged by it to go ahead and push on unceasingly, and with gathering speed, as labour and materials become available, in the greatest housing drive that the country has ever known.
  8.28 p.m.
  Major Leģģe-Bourke: There is one paint on Clause 7 which I should like to raise. The Clause as it stands is perfectly adequate for the vast average of the country, but I am a little worried about areas where the county rate is very high, and where rural districts are very poor. Although I give this Clause my blessing so far as I can, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will keep an eye on these poor counties and places where the county rate is very high, regardless of what the rates for housing may be. If I might take up one point raised by the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Kinley), I would say that this Bill cannot well be regarded as an expense, because its object is the most important on which money can be spent these days. I would only add that there are other fields where, perhaps, money might not be spent quite so lavishly, but to avoid getting out of Order I had better leave the point there. I wish this Bill as big a blessing as I can give it. There is a growing need for houses today and the great thing is to get them built. I do not think this Bill will do it in the best way possible. In fact, without being rude to the right hon. Gentleman, I would like to sum up the Bill, and the Government's conduct, so far, in the words which were used in a certain very popular programme on the B.B.C. a few Sundays ago, by a man who purports to be one of the Minister's countrymen, who said:
  " I am doing my very best; i could not be doing worse. try as I may."
  8.31 p.m.
  The Minister of Health (Mr. Aneurin Bevan): I am sure the House will not expect me to make a long reply to the speeches which have been made on the

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  Motion for the Third Reading. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) made a very fresh and entertaining speech but, nevertheless, one could not say that any new points emerged. The main argument that we do not put sufficient reliance upon the resources of private enterprise, which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned in the first part of his speech, was answered in the last part of it when he said the main limitation was labour and materials. Therefore, if we got on to the building sites all the building contractors in Great Britain at the present time, they would not be able to build an additional house because the limitation is on the supply of labour and materials. All the talk we have heard, both here and in the Press, about the contribution that could be made by the speculative builders is entirely beside the point because they could not give us any more houses at all. With regard to housing associations, which gave rise to some anxiety in the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's mind, I am very sorry indeed that the confusion of language obscured the intention of the Clause. It was not intentional. I think I made it clear in the Committee stage that the Ministry of Health does not need to have direct building powers. There are instances, especially where we have blitzed towns and where we have new industrial development, where it might be necessary to reinforce the resources of a local authority. Also, there have been circumstances in the last six months where it would have been very useful indeed if the Ministry of Health had been able to build and, therefore, prevent certain combinations arising which for a while had the effect of holding up building prices.
  Captain Crookshank: Why is it not sufficient for the Minister of Works to act as an agent in these matters, as he does in so many other directions?
  Mr. Bevan: Because the Minister of Health has statutory obligations to the local authorities which the Minister of Works has not got. In any case, it may be necessary for the Ministry of Health to continue to hold houses after having built them, which is a function the Ministry of Works could not discharge. The Ministry of Works could not erect houses and hand
  680
  them over to the Ministry of Health because, as the law stands at the moment, the Ministry of Health could not accept them. Therefore, it would be an extremely undesirable thing for the Ministry of Works, which does not stand in the same relationship to local authorities as the Ministry of Health, to have these powers.
  Captain Crookshank: I thank the right hon. Gentleman. It was worth making the point.
  Mr. Bevan: Certainly; I am very much obliged to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. I cannot reply to the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Kinley) without getting out of Order, and that I do not propose even to attempt.
  Mr. Kinley: Well, I did it.
  Mr. Bevan: I am very grateful to the House for the urbane way in which the Debate has been conducted. I hope now the Bill can have the Third Reading.
  Major Leģģe-Bourke: Would the right hon. Gentleman give some assurance that he will watch these county areas?
  Mr. Bevan: I certainly will watch the matter very carefully. I shall watch the whole of the housing programme carefully and anxiously, and, I hope, later on, enthusiastically. The hon. and gallant Member has no need for anxiety on this point because he will find, I believe, before very long that the rural authorities are so satisfied with the rate of subsidy under the Bill that they will be building houses relatively more quickly than any other local authority in Britain.
  Major Leģģe-Bourke: I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that in the cases where some of the councils have many houses under £10 assessment—some of the counties have many rural areas which are very poor—Clause 7 is not giving them as much benefit as it gives to many other councils.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

SUNDAY CINEMATOGRAPH ENTERTAINMENTS
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): I beg to move,
" That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department extending

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Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act. 1932, to the Urban District of Otley, a copy of which Order was presented on 25th March, be approved.
8.36 p.m.
Captain Crookshank: It is such an unusual thing for the Home Secretary to be courteous enough to come to deal in person with one of these Orders, that I am prompted to ask whether there is anything special in this matter.
Mr. Ede: Yes, Sir. The special thing is the speech made by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman earlier in the evening. The Debate on the previous Bill was rather shorter than was anticipated. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary left his dinner to come here in case the recent Debate closed early. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman's speech was of such a length that I was able to complete my dinner and come here to relieve my hon. Friend and discharge this duty. May I say that I only regret that I have had to deprive my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of one of the few opportunities an Under-Secretary gets of being responsible for some legislation in this House?
Captain Crookshank: I take it the reasons are purely culinary, and not cinematographic?
Mr. Ede: We shall watch to see the result on each of us.
Resolved:
" That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Urban District of Otley, a copy of which Order was presented on 25th March, be approved."
Resolved:
"That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932 to the Borough of Luton, a copy of which Order was presented on 25th March, be approved."—[Mr. Ede.]

ATOMIC ENERGY (INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT)
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Mathers.]
8.38 p.m.
Mr. Martin Lindsay: I take this opportunity of raising the question of the industrial development of atomic
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energy in the hope, which I trust will not prove to be too optimistic, of extracting some information from the Government as to what their plans are in this respect. We know a great deal about the future of the coal industry but we know remarkably little at present as to how the Government propose to develop the alternative of atomic power. We also know that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get young men to enter the coal industry. We understand that in about 50 years' time our stocks of coal will be exhausted. Scientists tell us that coal is so precious that it is a shame to burn it. We know that we have an alternative to coal in the possibilities of atomic power which will enable us to reduce our consumption of coal almost to zero. The highest scientific opinion on both sides of the Atlantic is agreed that it will he feasible to have atomic power at an economic price within about 10 years.
What I want to know tonight is what the Government are doing in order to develop it. I am not here to say that what they are doing is wrong or inadequate, because I do not know. None of us knows, because there has been no comprehensive statement yet on the. Government's plans. All we have had so far is a series of announcements. We have had an announcement that the Government have appointed an advisory committee under the chairmanship of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson). We know that the Government have established an experimental station at Harwell, near Didcot, and we are left to deduce—because of the fact that, owing to the dangers of radio-activity, it is impossible to establish a full-scale plant within 5o miles of a town—that the experimental work to be done at Harwell will be on a very small scale.
We also understand that a Bill is to be introduced to regulate the future development of atomic power. Lastly, we have heard that Air Chief Marshal Lord Portal is in charge of this subject at the Ministry of Supply. This is an appointment which everyone will welcome, because not only is the Air Chief Marshal a man of very great drive, but the development of radar in the Royal Air Force during the war has shown that he is accustomed to working with, and to making the best possible use of, scientists.

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But there is a great deal which still remains for us to be told, and I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman who is to reply one or two questions. We understand that, in his capacity as Minister of Supply, he is in charge of this matter, and I am sure this is very suitable, because the most important problem at the moment is that of getting supplies of raw materials. But there are other Ministers who are also concerned. The Minister of Works is very much concerned, as is also the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I want to know who is doing the central planning. Is it a sub-committee of the Cabinet, or the Lord President of the Council in his spare time? We just do not know.
It is clear to us that nuclear energy will result in a great saving of labour and transport, and that it will be of immense advantage for the development of huge tracts in our Dominions, which hitherto has not been economically possible. We also know that the provision in large quantities of radio-active substances will be of great value, for both medical and biological research. It may result in new cures for diseases, and also result in new industries of the size and importance of the synthetic rubber, plastics and the light metal industries. But I believe that it will do very much more for us than even that. I believe that the development of nuclear power will enable us to put the British national economy, which at the present moment is based on coal, on a sound, permanent footing for all time. But I also believe that this conversion can only be done smoothly if the central planning organs of the Government take the appropriate action years in advance. It simply does not make sense to read that the Central Electricity Board is, at the present moment, proposing to spend £300 million in the next 10 years upon power stations, which, I believe, will be out of date before they are completed.
That is why I ask who, or what organisation, is doing this central planning, and I would also ask the Minister what sort of priority is being given to this subject. Is it the sort of priority which the United States gave to it in the war, or the sort of priority which would have been given to it in 1938, or something between the two? I have always held that, as a nation, we cannot ultimately compete economically with the United States or
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with Soviet Russia, because we have neither the manpower nor the natural resources, and that our future is to be the clever nation. We have the ablest scientists, as the development of penicillin, radar and the early stages of nuclear energy have shown, and our future lies in developing our economy by making the best possible use of our scientific brains.
Therefore, I ask the Minister if he is satisfied that we are giving sufficient priority to this most important subject. I ask him also whether there are any Treasury restrictions upon this development. I would also like to know when, if he is not able to give a full statement tonight, he will be able to do so, and when he expects that the Bill will be introduced into the House. I hope the Minister will be able to answer some of these questions tonight, and give us some statement as to the future development of nuclear power in this country.
8.47 p.m.
Mr. Blackburn: I think the House is much indebted to the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. Lindsay) for having raised this matter tonight. We know that a tremendous amount of interest has been' aroused in the world, as the result of the dropping of two bombs about eight months ago. The world might almost be described as having become "bomb-happy," to use a phrase which became popular in the war just concluded. I think many of us would agree that the best chance for mankind to turn away from the possibility of an atomic war, is to concentrate now—first, domestically and, secondly, by international cooperation—on the peaceful development of atomic energy, and I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Supply has come down here tonight to explain to us what is happening here in Britain.
We have a greater interest in this matter, historically, than any other country. The whole of the fundamental research which led to the discovery of the fission of uranium in 1938 and at the beginning of 1939, emanated directly or indirectly from the laboratories of Cambridge University and the work done by Rutherford, Acton and Savage, and, in the main, the work done by British scientists, which became internationally known in 1939. It is somewhat unfortun-

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ate that a number of statements have appeared in the Press, emanating from sources which were evidently ignorant on this particular subject. I say that because there are people who declare that there will be atomic cars in a year or two, and when the public are told that mic cars, in the foreseeable future, are utterly impossible, that creates a sceptical reaction. I would like to say, before I go further, that this idea of an atomic car is utterly impossible. In any case, it would require a shielding weighing about 5o tons, to protect the driver and occupants of the car from injury. Assuming that atomic energy could be used for transport at all, it would 'be for very large liners, such as the "Queen Mary," but that again seems to be a matter for the future—in about ten years' time.
May I deal, first, with the subject of power which has been raised by the hon. Gentleman opposite? I agree with him at the outset that this subject of power concerns us in Britain more, perhaps, than any people in any country in the world. In the United States of America the seams are broader and the coal is far more accessible. Here in Britain we are well aware of the fact that coal is a wasting asset and of the difficulties which we are bound to have under any form of administration in persuading people to live such an unpleasant life as that of a miner. We know that even in the best collieries in Britain, like the Bolsover colliery, the modern generation of miners are unwilling to follow their fathers' footsteps. We know, also, how dependent British economy is on the forces of power. Therefore, I hope that my right hon. Friend will indicate tonight that His Majesty's Government are determined to do everything in their power to see that we have sources of power from atomic energy as soon as it is humanly possible.
May I quote one or two comments on this, because it is a matter on which there is a sincere difference of opinion among scientists? On this subject, one might say, there are optimists and pessimists, and it would not be fair to distinguish between the two. Here is the evidence given by one of the greatest authorities on the subject, Dr. Oppenheimer, who was in charge of the actual construction of the atomic bomb, before the Senate Committee on Atomic Energy in the United States:
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" I think that the installation to provide half a million or a million kilowatts in usable form—let us say for electrical energy—is not very far off. One could prove that it was possible. One could supply one and make it economically but to fit it into a living economy and find out whether plants of this kind were preferable to water power or coal may take a long time. A million kilowatts would be equivalent to an immense project like the Boulder Dam. It would yield one quarter of the electricity used in Great Britain in an average year."
I quote another distinguished American scientist to show that I am not taking one authority at random. Dr. Zillard strongly supported Dr. Oppenheimer. He said:
"I would not talk about it if I did not think that in ten years from now uranium will be a cheaper fuel than coal, although it is highly likely that the first atomic power plants to be built w ill not, in fact, produce power at an economic price. But, of course, it is manifest that in scientific endeavours of this kind one first produces the power plant at an uneconomic price and then, as the years go on, one succeeds in reaching a situation in which you actually get the power cheaper than if it emanated from coal."
Professor Oliphant, of Birmingham University, to whom, I think, we owe a great debt in many respects, has emphasised that these problems can be solved comparatively quickly if tackled as energetically and comprehensively as the project of the atomic bomb. He considers, and has estimated publicly, that in ten years' time, or thereabouts, atomic power at an economical price is feasible. The great value of atomic power is not only that it would enable us to deal with our fuel problems or help us to deal with them but that, above all, it gives mobility to power. The dependence of power upon transport will vanish, when we get a cheap source of power from atomic energy. Perhaps one of the most remarkable features is that, in the past, it has been necessary at great expense to transport huge quantities of fuel to any part of the world where it was desired to have a source of power. It has been necessary to maintain these plants by continuing to transport fuel and other supplies. Atomic power is compact and largely independent of supply problems. It can enable us to develop huge undeveloped areas in the British Commonwealth, in Australia, in India, and elsewhere. It can enable us to use ores where they are mined, and so save transport; to execute schemes of irrigation, which would have been thought fantastic; to supply cheap

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and unlimited quantities of hot water and steam for central heating; to save gas and electricity, and to supply power for agricultural purposes.
I will not weary the House by going in detail into the possibilities which unfold themselves, but it is not altogether inaccurate for people to speak about the "atomic age" because, so far, all the processes which man has used for power depend upon chemical changes outside of the atom. Now we have reached an entirely new source of power, dependent on the inside of the atom, on the nucleus, and not on the outside, or electron, which whirls round the centre. That means that we have no longer to go to the mine as the source of power in order to build up industry. We shall be able, in the future, to build industries independently of the source of power and to take the power itself to the industries. That will, undoubtedly, represent a revolution comparable with that which occurred in the 19th century.
I am in no way desiring to make any comments to the Minister which he could consider to be adverse, but I am desirous of putting this point to him. It has been accepted by almost all the authorities, that if one intends to produce atomic power, an expenditure of at least £30 million is necessary at the outset. We know that the expenditure on which we are embarking is only £2,800,000, My right hon. Friend shakes his head, and I am glad to see him do so. The figure so far published is £2,800,000, and I shall listen with great care to what he has to say later. I think it can be taken, generally, that it would cost, as an initial payment, at least£ 30 million to get going on a substantial scale with atomic power. I hope to hear some more hopeful prospects unfolded before us by my right hon. Friend tonight. I am sure that the most immediate benefit to be derived from atomic energy will come, not from power, but from medical research and therapy. Professor Sir Charles Ellis" who delivered a lecture in the presence of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson), said:
" The radioactive substances which can now be made by these new atomic processes will provide complete and adequate substitutes for radium on a scale hitherto undreamed of. In some respects, they are superior as healing agents. A wider choice of radiations will be
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available to the physicians and a variety of the chemical properties to which the radioactive powers can be allied will provide a refinement of technique which is bound to produce valuable results."
Professor E. L. Lawrence, of California University, has stated that the first use to which the giant cyclotron in California will be put is research into and the treatment of cancer. He has stated that he expects to see valuable results within the next two or three years. The treatment of cancer is, of course, a matter of great delicacy. Nobody would suggest that a universal cure for cancer is likely to be produced, but it is necessary here to divide clearly therapy from research. By the use of radioactive isotopes which can be either fed or injected, it will be possible for scientists to discover the metabolism of the human body as they have never been able to discover it in the past. A radioactive element of a half period of no years can be detected down to one thousandth of one millionth of one millionth of a gramme. That means to say that the cellular structure of the body can be examined in a living state, and it will be possible for scientists to discover what makes a cell grow. By that means one feels that it will be possible to discover the cause of cancer.
I do not desire to quote further from Sir Charles Ellis's paper to which the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities gave his general assent, but Sir Charles Ellis has stated that he believes the results will be great and far-reaching. If my right hon. Friend can give some general indication of how research is proceeding on these lines, it will help to make mankind realise how this great new discovery can be used for good purposes instead of for evil purposes for which we have had to use it owing to the circumstances of the war. It, for instance, one could capture the imagination of the world, assuming one were able to show significant results during the next two or three years in the treatment of cancer, that would help straight away to make the people who are in the habit of saying they wish the scientists had never discovered atomic energy, realise that what is needed is for atomic energy to be used for good instead of evil purposes.
Here I desire to tread on rather more delicate ground. I would respectfully, put to my right hon. Friend the need to

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exclude as much as possible of the atomic programme in all its aspects from military secrecy. The details of the construction of the atomic bomb are, undoubtedly, a matter of unparalleled military secrecy, and no one is asking His Majesty's Government to disclose details of construction of an atomic bomb; and, of course, there arc other matters associated with it which are also matters for intense military secrecy. My right hon. Friend knows, because I think I first mentioned it in this House, that one fully appreciates that plutonium is the material from which an atomic bomb can be made. All the same, there is no doubt, assuming a determined effort were made by His Majesty's Government, they would be able to separate with a broad line the peaceful developments from such developments of atomic energy as directly go to the making of atomic bombs. This matter has been to some extent exaggerated, because almost all the witnesses before the Senate Committee on atomic energy were agreed that the value of the so-called secrecy of the atomic bomb would last no more than 12 months, if a Power such as the Soviet Union were determined to produce the atomic bomb.
On this subject it is most unfortunate that from answers which have been given by the Prime Minister, it is apparent that our cooperation with the United States of America in the peaceful development of atomic energy is today most unsatisfactory. On 3oth October I stated that we knew all the details of the construction of an atomic bomb made from uranium; that is the type of bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima. That is true, and was accepted by President Truman the next day. Secretary of State Byrnes of the United States of America has recently suggested that we do not know the details of the construction of any atomic bomb. I would like to repeat what I said at the beginning. British scientists know all the details of the construction of the atomic bomb made of uranium 235. We do not know—and it has been made clear by the Prime Minister's answer to a previous question—the details of the construction of an atomic bomb made from plutonium. The Nagasaki bomb was made from plutonium, and was, in fact, about four times as powerful as the uranium 235 bomb which was cropped on Hiroshima. The seriousness of that is this. Of the peaceful development of atomic energy
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90 per cent. is associated with the plutonium process and only 10 per cent. with the separation of uranium 235. British scientists know perfectly well how to construct a bomb made out of uranium 235. Therefore, it is not logical for the United States of America, on the grounds of military security, to refrain from divulging to us information about the plutonium process, because we know how to make a bomb made of uranium 235.
I am not in any way giving secret information on this subject, because anyone who studies very carefully the Smythe Report, the White Paper and the statements made by American and British scientists, is perfectly well aware that what I am now saying is true. British scientists know how to make the first kind of atomic bomb. Therefore, it seems to me to be a most serious matter that the United States of America should be failing to allow our scientists to visit, for instance, Stamford Engineering College, where plutonium is manufactured, which produced the bomb. As an illustration of how important the plutonium process is as compared with the uranium 235 process, it is from the plutonium process that one is able to extract, in bulk, the radioactive substances and radiations which are of such vital value in medical research and therapy. This is, in some respects, most ungenerous, when one considers that Britain was responsible for almost all the fundamental research on this subject. Our British scientists went over to the United States of America; our British scientists contributed every scrap of knowledge they had on this subject.
As was most generously admitted this year before the Senate Committee, our British scientists were of inestimable value in the general promotion of atomic energy. I believe that history on this subject will record that the visit of Professor Oliphant to the United States of America in 1941 had a very valuable psychological effect on American scientists. Dr. Oppenheimer, I think, described Professor Oliphant as the greatest meddler that God ever sent to the United States of America. That was because Professor Oliphant caused Dr. Oppenheimer to nose into a number of things he perhaps should not have been permitted to nose into. The result was, he gave great impetus to this whole atomic process. I am quite sure that is accepted by most American scientists, certainly by the American

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scientists whom I have been fortunate enough to meet. In these circumstances one entertains a great hope that the American Government will follow the general inclination of American scientists.
I think that people in this country have a less vivid imagination on this matter than people in the United States of America. The reason is this. In the United States of America atomic scientists have started a great campaign to wake up public opinion to the tremendous importance of this subject. They have campaigned in Congress and in the Senate. They have given evidence before the Senate Committee They have produced papers. The atomic scientists of Chicago produced a most valuable paper. They have taken the unusual step of allowing themselves, as scientists, for the first time, to come into the political arena, to this extent and this extent only: that they consider it their duty to inform the American public of the essential facts about atomic energy, on which so much depends in their own personal life. One very much hopes that the American Government will appreciate not only the desire of American scientists for a full exchange of information on these. vital matters with British scientists, but also the need to show generosity to Britain, in view of the great generosity which Britain showed at an early stage to the United States of America.
I turn next to the consideration of the two materials from which both atomic bombs and atomic power can he produced. The Smythe Report states that there are two forms of such materials, and not one: uranium, of which there are four parts per million in the earth's crust, and thorium, of which there are 12 parts per million. Thorium is roughly three times as common as uranium. I understand from an answer previously given that a survey has been conducted of the whole of the uranium and thorium in the British Commonwealth. That is of great importance, because it is unlikely that we shall be able to go ahead on a large enough scale with the development of atomic power unless adequate steps have been taken for the control of atomic energy, and the control of atomic energy will depend in the first place, and probably in the most important respect, upon the control of the raw materials, namely, uranium and thorium.
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There is a great embarrassment here, in that thorium is used in gas mantles. The production of gas mantles in Great Britain is 20 or 30 million per year. In those gas mantles there are 10,000 kilogrammes of thorium oxide, and, therefore, in the annual production of gas mantles in Britain there is sufficient thorium to produce a number of atomic bombs. That is a most serious matter from the point of view of the control of atomic energy. I should like to make it perfectly clear that thorium is only the equivalent of uranium. Atomic bombs are not made solely from either uranium or thorium; a moderator has to be provided. But the essential material will be either uranium or thorium, thorium being not quite such a good material but far more plentiful. It is, unfortunately, a problem we shall have to tackle. The gas mantle industry in Britain obtains its thorium from Travancore, from the monazite sands which were originally worked by a company with German associations before the last war. The present concession is held by a company called Hopkin and Williams (Travancore) Ltd., in which a substantial interest is held by Imperial Chemical Industries. These supplies of thorium were described as being three-quarters of the world's supply before the war.
I am not asking my right hon. Friend to give a detailed answer on this point tonight; I merely desire to indicate that the proper survey, classification and utilisation of the total resources of uranium and thorium throughout the British Empire is a matter which concerns us in the greatest degree. I hope that His Majesty's Government will, at some stage, be able to give an assurance to Parliament that all steps have been taken to acquire, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, all the uranium and thorium which exists in the British Commonwealth and Empire.
I conclude on this note. The Central Electricity Board has announced a programme for power stations during the next ten years which will involve an expenditure of £300 million. Obviously, that is not the only plan, but it is an example of plans being made by industry, which very largely depend upon industry knowing exactly what the Government's programme is in relation to atomic energy, and what the impact of the Government's

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programme on atomic energy is likely to be upon the future of Britain. I shall very much welcome the right hon. Gentleman's statement on this subject, and I hope he will continue to give after tonight as much information as he can, both to relieve the great anxieties of
British—
It being a Quarter past Nine o'Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Pearson.]
Mr. Blackburn: I hope as I say that the right hon. Gentleman will give this information both to remove the great anxieties of the British people and also to enable British industry to know how it will face the future.
9.15 p.m.
Major Peter Roberts: After the speeches we have had, I must say I think we do need a great deal of clarification in this matter. I want to bring a certain amount of Yorkshire practical common sense into the discussion of this subject. We have heard a lot of talk about coal and chemistry and medical supplies; we have also heard much about terms of from two or three to ten years. I feel it is necessary, if we are to plan our industry—if, for instance, the Minister of Fuel and Power is to carry through his great schemes—that we should know, here and now, whether these dates are practical, or likely to be correct. Something has been said about the coal industry. I feel that it is most necessary at this time that there should be clarification upon this point. The Minister of Fuel and Power, and others in the industry, have been doing their best to obtain entrants into the industry, and I do not think it helps very much when statements are made, whether loosely or not, that coal will become unnecessary or that atomic energy, in five or ten years, will take the place of coal, and that, therefore, it is not necessary to persuade new generations to come into the coal industry. It is most important at this time to have some indication of what the future position will be, not only in relation to the coal industry, but in relation to power and electricity, too.
My second point is this. If these periods of time are correctly estimated, if
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they are not to be as long as 50, 60 or 70 years—which, to my mind, is more likely—then our location of industry must be replanned. The Minister of Town and Country Planning must start changing his ideas, and the people who are building houses must also start changing their ideas. I feel that it is most necessary that a clear statement should be made so that industry can know where it stands with regard to the very airy statements we hear of what is happening in America and what is going to happen all over the world. I think such a statement might possibly he made in a White Paper.
My third point—and this is possibly the most important—relates to the question of war and war secrets. We have been talking about industry. I want to know whether there is a conflict between the use of atomic energy in industry, and the necessity of keeping atomic uses quiet, because of war purposes. If that is so, however necessary it may be to improve our industry in this way, it seems that that will have to be put into the background until the world is in a quieter state. So we have these three points. First, the question of power and basic industries in this country, such as the coal industry; secondly, the location of buildings and of centres of living in this country and in the world; and thirdly, the question of security. I press most earnestly that this matter should no longer be left vague, but that it should he clarified. We should know whether the term of years is likely to be from two to ten years or from 50 to 60.
9.19 p.m.
The Minister of Supply (Mr. John Wilmot): In considering this most important matter of the industrial application of atomic energy, I think we should do well if we would get it into perspective, to remember that the immense development in recent years in the controlled release of energy by nuclear fission has been carried out under the stimulus of war. It is for that reason that the discoveries have been directed primarily to war purposes and to the production of the atomic bomb. As yet, up to the present time, the main product of this astonishing new discovery has been a new destructive agency. Vast and unprecedented dangers have been imported into the future of the world, and it is to find safeguards against these horrifying dangers that the United Nations organisation has

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set up its Atomic Energy Commission. If ever the labours of a body of men demanded the prayers and good wishes of their fellows, then it is these. But this Commission's work may have very far-reaching effects upon the non-military use of atomic energy. The development of military science in this, as in so many matters, is bound to have its effects upon the potentialities of atomic energy on its peaceful and humanitarian side.
I will try to avoid technical descriptions, because I am not the best qualified person to give them. I will try to stick to the plain facts as I know them. Although fissile material, produced in quantity, has been used to release the explosive energy of the atomic bomb, the problem of harnessing the energy of the atom for peaceful purposes has not yet been solved. There is no justification for the belief that there is a quick and easy solution of these industrial problems. I think that it must be some years before practical results of industrial value can be achieved. As we see it now, in the present state of our knowledge, it is doubtful if the achievements of the next Jo years can really have a widespread industrial application. I would invite hon. Members for a moment to consider the nature of the immediate industrial problem. It is necessary to find some means whereby the energy released by the process of fission can be made available as a source of power. Hon. Members who have studied this subject, will appreciate that the first essential is to get away the heat which is generated at a high temperature so that it can be converted into power. There are very serious technical difficulties in drawing off the heat at a high temperature. It is necessary to overcome the difficulty of corrosion, which becomes most serious as soon as one gets into the necessary high temperatures. That problem has not been solved.
Mr. Blackburn: Theoretically.
Mr. Wilmot: Theoretically, but not practically. When the solution is found—and it may not be so far off, but we do not know—what is the most likely thing to happen, and what is the most likely development of atomic power for industrial purposes likely to follow? I think that it is most likely that atomic energy will be used for the production of electrical power, by using the heat
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through steam or gas turbines in big rather than in small units. That is as far as we can see it. It rather looks as though the day of the atomic motor car has not yet dawned.
Mr. Blackburn: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is not making any attempt to compare transport with power, because they are quite separate subjects.
Mr. Wilmot: That was the point which I was trying to make—that it is along the lines of power production that progress is likely to flow. But the atomic motor car, which figured in the imagination of many not so very long ago, is not yet. In fact, as my hon. Friend the Member for King's Norton (Mr.' Blackburn) pointed out in his speech—a speech, I may say so with appreciation, which was charged with a rich understanding of this problem and informed by deep study—atomic energy plant produces an intense radiation, similar to X-rays or the radiation of radium, and of such a powerful character that it is lethal if not screened. Atomic energy plant and equipment of any size must, therefore, he most effectively screened. As the hon. Member for King's Norton also said, the weight of that screening must amount to many tons; not an attribute of the light car. Nevertheless, it is not impossible that we may find a way to use atomic power or nuclear energy, as it should be called, to propel large ships, where these problems are not so difficult to overcome. We think, therefore, of a large power station, deriving its heat not from fuel, as it derives it now, or from hydro-electric water power, but deriving its power from the heat which, in turn, is derived from nuclear energy, using it through steam turbines, or other means, to develop electricity, just as we develop it now, and to distribute it in the normal way.
I am sure that hon. Members will appreciate that that brings us to the next conclusion—the cost of the fuel, which is the only thing we have replaced, because although we have replaced the boiler we have other apparatus in its place. The replacement of the cost of the fuel makes only a fractional difference in the cost of the ultimate generation of electricity, because the cost of the fuel is the smaller part of the cost of the manufacture and distribution of electrical energy. I am most anxious that we should

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get this thing in its proper perspective I think that we may come to this conclusion: Except where the normal generation of electricity by the normal known means is for some reason excessively costly, it will be a long time before atomic energy will have any economic significance along these lines.
Mr. Vernon Bartlett: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us some idea of what is the percentage of the cost of fuel in production?
Hon. Members: It is 28 per cent.
Mr. Wilmot: Well informed hon. Members on all sides have given the answer I had hoped I was going to give. As hon. Members will see, fuel is a small part and we have got to look through to very exceptional circumstances, where the substitution of this new source of heat would give us an economic, competitive factor. The possibilities of the further development of this entirely new source of energy are enormous, and I think it is reasonable to assume that in the long term—and how long that term is it is now impossible to measure, but we will call it long term—the ways of using nuclear energy will be found to compete economically even when present methods are performed under favourable economic conditions. I come to the point which was raised by the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. M. Lindsay), who initiated this Debate, and to whom we are so much indebted. There is a term, even if it is a long one, to the availability of conventional fuels, and, therefore, this country must take its place in the preparation for a world wide economic revolution, for it is nothing else, which the development of atomic power must herald in. There have been some very optimistic predictions as to the effect of this new power upon our economic life. If we just cannot tell them we still know that it has immense possibilities which must not be underestimated. As the hon. Member pointed out, there are benefits to medical science by the use of artificially produced radio-active materials which come as it were as a by-product from the production of atomic power, which may have immense value in their medical and humanitarian application. Then I am told that these radio-active materials may have a most valuable industrial application in themselves, replacing X-rays and radium
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for industrial purposes. Facing this new future, I feel that the prospects of this country are very bright.
The hon. Member was right when he said that British scientists had made an immeasurable contribution to this great service, and, if we see these British brains allied with our special engineering ability—and we have specialists of high quality, thrustful and inventive—we certainly stand in a very good position in this country with regard to these developments. It is true that the United States have acquired very valuable technical experience from the vast productive programme said to,cost, I am told, upwards of 2,000 million dollars, which was confined to America during the war by mutual consent as part of the agreed distribution of the war effort. However, let us not forget that a most important contribution to the work in America was made by British brains. It is a fact that for the reasons which I have given we are not fully seized of all the aspects of what has come to be known as technical "Know how "Very valuable experience is being gained through the project which is now going on mainly financed by the Canadian Government. I hope, as we all do, that the cooperation with the United States of America which was established during the war will be developed and continued. If it is realised that the future of atomic energy, in its industrial sense, is dependent on extensive research, then I am sure that the Government will be supported in their efforts to carry that research and development work through with great energy and determination.
It has been decided that as much of the resources of this country as can possibly be made available shall be devoted to this work. The central planning is in the hands of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, advised by the learned Advisory Committee presided over with great distinction by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson). It is the intention to marshal the very best brains in the country in solving the problems which confront us. The research establishment which it is proposed to establish at Harwell will be got going as soon as it is physically possible. It will be provided with every possible facility. The airfield was evacuated by the Royal Air Force at the beginning of

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the year, and work of converting the buildings to their new purposes is already under way. New, highly specialised, buildings will need to be constructed, and a team of experts is at' present in Canada preparing plans to incorporate the very latest knowledge. At the same time, we shall press on with the construction of the main production plant to produce the fissile material which the research establishment will require. The execution of this project, the main production plant, is a major technological effort.
I was asked to state the money which the Government are prepared to spend upon it. I will say this: The limit of what we can do in this direction is a physical, and not a financial, limit. Whatever we can do we shall do. This is part of the responsibility which, I am glad to say, has been taken up by Lord Portal of Hungerford, who has now joined my Ministry. The first stage of the work of extensive designing and planning of operations is going forward. A special organisation is being established for the purpose. Work is starting. Accommodation for the designing team has been made available at a Ministry of Supply factory at Risley, near Warrington. Engineering and other expert staff is being recruited as quickly as it can be obtained. The examination of sites for the establishment of the main production plant is now going forward, but no decision has yet been made. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Supply factory at Springfields, near Preston, has been selected as the site for the subsidiary plant for the processing of materials. Over and above these direct Government research and production activities, it is the Government's policy to encourage and support, in every way, research at universities and elsewhere on fundamental problems which may, in time, lead to
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discoveries of prime importance in this new field of nuclear energy.
I can assure hon. Members that we are losing no time and sparing no effort. We are mobilising the best brains and preparing to devote as large a sector of the national effort as can be spared to this development, which we regard as of transcending importance. It may well be that we are at any rate within sight of the greatest, industrial power revolution in the history of the world. When it is remembered that in nuclear reaction about a million times more energy is liberated from a given weight of matter than in any known chemical reaction, such as burning, and that in time it may be possible to liberate the atom's energy by reactions other than the fission process, it will be realised that there would seem to be no limits to the contribution to human progress which this astonishing development may produce, provided that men will have the wisdom to use this new-found power for their happiness instead of their universal destruction.
Major P. Roberts: Would the right hon. Gentleman answer the two short-term questions I put to him? The first was, is this industrial energy at the moment subject to military security? Secondly, will he agree that there is for many years to come a great need for our present coal industry?
Mr. Wilmot:I think the answer to the first question is that the industrial application of nuclear energy is not a matter of military security; I think the answer to the second question is that there is no immediate danger of not needing coal.
Adjourned accordingly at Eighteen Minutes to Ten o'Clock.