POLISH RESETTLEMENT CORPS (Hansard, 1 February 1949)

§ Mr. Rankin (Glasgow, Tradeston)
I wish to give my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for War the opportunity to make a statement on the intentions of the Government with regard to the Polish Resettlement Corps, and at the same time to afford him an opportunity to clear up some of the doubts which have been so obviously manifested in the House at Question Time during the last six months with regard to the functions of this organisation. So far as I understand its purpose, the intention was that the Resettlement Corps should be a filter whereby the Pole was returned from his military unit into civilian life.
1609 One of the remarkable features of the administration of the Act has been the number of Ministers who have been concerned with it. When searching through the columns of HANSARD one finds that the Departments concerned with the Polish Resettlement Corps are very many. The Minister of Defence is concerned; so are the Minister of Labour, the Secretary of State for War and the Secretary of State for Air. In addition, there are the Minister of National Insurance, the Minister of Education and the Minister of Health. It would appear as a consequence that what has been everybody's business would at times seem to have been nobody's business at all. There have been cases where an individual has been de-militarised from the Polish forces, but, in fact, it would appear that instead of passing from the Corps he is just passed from the care of one Minister into the care of another. That, I think, is an added reason for suggesting that if it is at all possible the control of this organisation should be concentrated in the care of a smaller number of Departments than presently exists.
We have been assured by each of the Ministers I have mentioned, either personally or through their junior colleagues, that it was the intention of the Government that the Polish Resettlement Corps should be wound up by the end of 1948. One of my right hon. Friends who is on the Front Bench just now, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, gave quite a definite guarantee to the House, in a reply to a Question, that this organisation would cease to exist by December, 1948. If necessary I can quote the exact answer and the date. If my right hon. Friend disputes that he will find that the records show just exactly what I have said. But, of course, I am not seeking to pin down any of my colleagues on the Front Bench on this particular point. I am merely trying to point out that the House was convinced that the intention of the Government was to wind up this organisation by the end of 1948, and we accepted that. Then a remarkable thing happened. On Tuesday last, in answer to a Question, the Secretary of State for War stated that his intention, and I assume the intention of the Government, was to wind up this organisation early in 1950. In view of that reply I think we are entitled to ask 1610 the reason for this obvious change of decision on the part of the Government.
It is remarkable to note that in September, 1946, the number of persons in the Polish Resettlement Corps was of the order of 100,000; and at this moment the number is 13,180. So that in the space of two years we have returned to civilian life 88,000 of these people. Now, instead of that rate of de-militarisation going on in the next 15 or 18 months, or whatever it may be, we are going to dispose only of this 13,180. That would seem such a remarkable slowing down in the process of filtering these people back into civilian life as to cause me rightly to ask my hon. Friend if he will state the reason for that very decided slow-down.
There is another point which is of consequence, and that is the cost of this organisation. Up to date, it has cost us over £27 million, and that is a large sum of money. I am not going to deal so much with the past. That money has gone. But at this moment, of the 13,000-odd who are still in the Corps, 5,892 of them are officers. They are being paid at rates far in excess of what is paid to officers in the British Army at the present moment.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Ness Edwards)
No.

§ Mr. Rankin
Well, my hon. Friend, in his reply, will keep me correct. I understand that a general in the British Army is paid something like £3 a day, but a general in the Polish Resettlement Corps is paid £5 10s. per day.

§ Vice-Admiral Taylor (Paddington, South)
Will the hon. Member elaborate that statement and say whether the sum he has stated is the full pay of a Lieut.-General or whether it is half-pay, and if it is full pay, how many of them receive it?

§ Mr. Rankin
Both of these sums to which I have referred, I understand from HANSARD, are the sums paid to a general who is established, not an un-established general, where the rate for the Polish general would be 47s. instead of £5 10s. I calculate that the cost for these. 5,892 officers is £2,132,330. In addition to that—which is a big sum to be paid when we realise that in our own Forces the corresponding ranks are not paid nearly 1611 so much—they are given allowances for clothing and for messing, and I believe that in certain cases the pay rates are completely free of tax. It is obvious that, if people are drawing these salaries in the Polish Resettlement Corps, they have very little incentive or desire to find themselves redundant in their present jobs, or to help in the winding up of that organisation and the return of themselves to civilian life.
I understand that it has been suggested that we cannot easily get rid of this large block of officers because, at the present moment, it would seem that every Polish soldier has a personal officer, and, if we are going to allow that sort of thing in the Polish forces, we might create in the British Army a similar position whereby every soldier had a claim to his own personal attendant in the shape of an officer looking after him, which would create a very serious set of circumstances. We are told we cannot get rid of these people because some are too old and some are too infirm, but that is an added reason why they ought not to be in a military establishment at all and ought to be returned to civilian life.
There is a further point which I want to put to my hon. Friend. I know it may be difficult for him to reply to all the points raised, but that very fact emphasises the point which I made at the beginning that far too many Ministers have become responsible for the administration of this Corps. I should like to ask him why a special scheme was created for the Royal Air Force, apart from the ordinary resettlement scheme. Are there still in this country any armed units of the Polish Forces, apart from the Polish Resettlement Corps? How many women have been put into uniform in the Polish Forces since the end of the war, and how has the number of their dependants increased during the last three years? Further, what property and transport do they possess? There is also a good deal of disquiet with regard to the disposal of the welfare funds which were in the possession of the Polish Army when the war came to an end.
In conclusion, I want to suggest two points. No one in this House will say that any Pole should be returned to Poland if he does not want to go. I do not think there is any argument about 1612 that. I was a member of the first Parliamentary Delegation that went from this House to Poland, and, after I returned, I said wherever I went and on all possible occasions that every Pole who had the welfare of his nation at heart should return to Poland because Poland needed him. We had all sorts of stories at that time about what was happening to these people, but they were untrue. I asked our Consul-General at Gdynia if he could give me an example of any one Pole returning from this country to Poland and not being well treated, and he said that not one example had ever been put before him. He said that they were all well treated and were welcome.
Nevertheless, I say that any Pole who does not desire to go to Poland should not be compelled in any way, either directly or indirectly. But I would also say that, if a Pole wants to continue military life, let him continue that military life in the service of the British military forces and under the general conditions within our own military forces. If he does not want to do that, if he is unable to find work, then he ought to pass into the care of the appropriate welfare department in this country. There is one thing upon which we ought to insist, and I hope it will be insisted upon tonight. It is that we ought not to allow to be created in this country a separate community, with separate organisations. living in our own country and living on military rates of pay.

§ Vice-Admiral Taylor (Paddington, South)
Having listened carefully to the hon. Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin), I am somewhat at a loss to know what his objective is. Does he mean that he desires to do away with the Polish Resettlement Corps?

§ Mr. Rankin
I said so clearly, and I apologise to the House for repeating it.

§ Vice-Admiral Taylor
That has not helped me very much. I am still at a loss to know what the hon. Member desires, although I was very glad to hear him say that no Pole should be forced to return to his own country against his wishes. I ask the hon. Member whether he realises that the Polish Resettlement Corps was brought into being by the Foreign Secretary in 1946 with the object 1613 of enabling members of that Corps to be absorbed into civilian employment in this country or to emigrate overseas. It is not, in the strict sense of the word, a military organisation at all, though the Polish Government have tried to make out that it is.
I am certain that the mass of the people of this country are only too glad to do everything they possibly can to help these unfortunate Poles, who are only in this country for the reason that, after the war was won, Poland did not obtain its independence, but came under the control of Communist Russia, and is more so today than at the beginning. It is quite impossible for many Poles in this country to return. If they did, it would be very much the worse for them. I ask the hon. Member opposite for example what would happen to General Anders if he returned to his native country? Can the hon. Member tell me?

§ Mr. Rankin
It is not for me to say.

§ Vice-Admiral Taylor
There is not much doubt about what would be the fate of General Anders and an enormous number of others, who have been most unjustly branded as traitors to their country by the Polish Government. They are here because they will not return to their country, where there is no freedom whatever, because that country is dominated by Communist Russia and that domination is getting worse all the time.

§ Mr. Rankin
Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman say why they ought not to return to civilian life in this country?

§ Vice-Admiral Taylor
They ought not to return to their own country because they believe in freedom and independence, and there is neither freedom nor independence there.

§ Mr. Rankin
I am sorry, but I do not think the hon. and gallant Gentleman took up the point which I put to him. My point is, why should not these people return to civilian life in this country?

§ Vice-Admiral Taylor
That is exactly what they want to do. I would remind the hon. Member of the fact that it was not until May, 1947, that the conference between the Government and the trade union officials came to the decision whereby the trade unions would allow the Poles to work in this country, which is 1614 what they wanted to do. The trade unions have been greatly to blame in this connection and have prevented the Poles from working. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour whether that is so or not.

§ Mr. Ness Edwards
We have had a very great degree of co-operation from the trade unions in getting these Poles into civilian employment and the fact that we have 88,000 now in employment is an indication of that.

§ Vice-Admiral Taylor
It has taken a considerable time to get that co-operation. The right hon. Gentleman cannot deny that for some time the unions would not have these Poles working with their members—for instance, in the mines.

§ Mr. Ness Edwards
I am sure that we all want to do the best we can to help these Poles back to civilian life, and I ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman in his condemnation of some people in some parts of the country not to forget that, so far as the headquarters and leaders of the trade unions are concerned, we have had the most complete co-operation.

§ Vice-Admiral Taylor
I am very glad to hear that things are now much better. I know that they are. I very much deprecate the attacks which are made on the Poles in this country, because I think that they are in very bad taste, for one thing, and, far worse, that it is inhuman to attack people who desire to go back to their own country but who for very good reasons cannot do so—people to whom we are enormously indebted for what they did during the war. I am certain that the people of this country will still willingly foot the bill for maintaining such Poles as it is necessary for us to maintain.
The Poles themselves desire to get work. I have the figures here of the number who are in employment, the number who are self-supporting, the number supported by their relatives, and the number supported by the State. There is a total of 140,200, of whom 96,000 are self-supporting, 68.5 per cent.; 16,400 maintained by heads of families, 11.7 per cent.; 27,800 maintained by public funds, 19.8 per cent. I would remind the House that those who are maintained from public funds include the following categories: those in the Polish Resettlement Corps and the Polish Resettlement Corps 1615 of the R.A.F., people under the care of the Assistance Board, students in receipt of scholarships from the British Committee for the Education of the Poles, and the persons on the Polish Resettlement Care and Assistance Board establishment—some 9,000, who can really be taken as self-supporting.
I would remind the House that in Great Britain 40 per cent. of the population are actively employed, whereas of the Poles 68 per cent. are actively employed. It is quite untrue, quite wrong and most unjust to say—and the suggestion has been made more than once in this House—that the Poles will not work and do not desire to get work, and that we ought to do something about it. That is quite wrong, and I very much object to it because it is unjust. The Poles are most anxious to work. Those remaining at present in the Polish Resettlement Corps are some 15,500, I believe; there are in this number 7,000 officers, some 3,500 of whom are over 50, and 3,500 are war disabled. It will be seen that the number includes those whom it is now becoming more and more difficult to employ—for instance, the officers over 50. Our own people who have come back from the war and who are over 50 find it extremely difficult to get a job. How much more difficult, therefore, must it be for those of a foreign country to get employment here. Of the war disabled, 3,500, I understand that only some 300 have so far been found jobs.
This hard core of some 15,000 which is left, for whom employment has to be found, is an extreme difficulty, but it is a difficulty which must be met. If the hon. Member has his way and the Polish Resettlement Corps is done away with, what does he suppose would happen to these people? What does he suggest should be done with them? He can give me an answer. I suggest that, if the Polish Resettlement Corps is done away with before these people are absorbed into industry, the Government should set up some organisation to deal with them. We cannot so degrade these Poles who desire to work that they have to be maintained by public assistance. The Poles are an extremely proud people.

§ Mr. Tiffany (Peterborough)
Would the hon. and gallant Gentleman tell me why 1616 it is more degrading for a Pole than for a British subject to seek public assistance?

§ Vice-Admiral Taylor
It is equally degrading for both. But it is far more difficult for the Poles to obtain employment than it is for the British. When our men came back from the Forces, there were offices attached to the Ministry of Labour, so that they could get into contact with employers, etc., and there were also many voluntary organisations in which were experts in the matter of job finding. But for the Poles that is not so at all. They have to find employment through the ordinary channels of the Ministry of Labour. There is one organisation which assisted them, the Polish Ex-Combatants' Association, which was formed to deal with these hard cases and has done exceedingly good work. Each case is an individual one, and the right hon. Gentleman will, I am sure, agree with that. It requires special people to be able to place these hard cases.
This association, which has done excellent work, requires money. The Poles are not capable of going on for a long time subscribing to it, and very shortly, I am informed, it will have to close down. If that happens, it will be still more difficult for these men to find employment. I beg the Government to do something about that, to fill up the gap, to take some special action as was done with our own men, so that these hard core cases may be employed in industry. The right hon. Gentleman will agree that the Poles are only too willing and anxious to get work. The ordinary, normal human being hates doing nothing, and the Poles are as anxious as anyone else to stand on their own feet, hold their heads high, and say that they are not being a burden on this country which has been friendly to them, and I am sure will remain so.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. Michael Stewart)
I rise at this stage of the Debate—

§ Mr. Tiffany
On a point of Order. In view of the time, is it not rather unusual for the Minister to reply when there are other points of view to be put forward?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Bowles)
I am conducting this Debate. The Minister may at this stage conveniently intervene. It does not mean that the Debate is coming to an end.

§ Mr. Tiffany
I was of the opinion that the Debate might come to an end.

§ Mr. Stewart
I was about to say that I rise at this point in the Debate, not because of any wish that it should come to an end, because this subject is one of great interest on which, I know, many hon. Members have points of view to put forward, but for two reasons. First, I do not wish to let go unchallenged too long either the inaccuracies of which my hon. Friend the Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin) was guilty, or the suggestion made in the more heated parts of his speech by the hon. and gallant Member for South Paddington (Vice-Admiral Taylor) that there has been anything in the nature of serious obstruction from the trade union movement in this country in regard to placing the Poles in civilian employment.

§ Vice-Admiral Taylor
I said that that was so at the beginning, and that is perfectly true; but I said afterwards that I was glad to know that matters had so much improved.

§ Mr. Stewart
I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman will agree that he spoke at times with very considerable heat, and when he reads the account of his speech he may be a little surprised at some of the things he said and at the general impression created.

§ Vice-Admiral Taylor
Not at all.

§ Mr. Stewart
It is to that general impression that I wish to come. Indeed, I hope that I shall succeed in lowering the general temperature of this Debate so far. It will not be at all in the interests of the Poles, or of the people of this country, among whom many are to live and work, if their destiny is to be the subject of violent controversy and prejudice. I believe it may be possible for me to provide the House with a more solid framework of facts and figures than has so far been advanced in this Debate, in the light of which hon. Members may be able to judge the issue.
First, what was the function of the Polish Resettlement Corps? At the end of the war, or shortly afterward, the British Government had under their control, side by side with their own proper Armed Forces, some 230,000 Poles. Of these, very shortly, 102,000 went back to Poland, and others have followed since: 1618 so that, in round figures, about half of the total number have returned to Poland. I am speaking now of all the Poles under the control of the British Government, and not merely of the Polish Resettlement Corps. I shall come to those figures later. I stress that point about the numbers who returned to Poland lest it should be suggested that there has been any undue pressure or undue propaganda brought to bear on those men to prevent them from returning to their own country if they wished. It has always been the Government's view, and it was strongly assented to by my hon. Friend the Member for Tradeston, that they should not be sent back if they did not wish to go. Indeed, it is not surprising, when we remember how their country had been blasted by invasion, that very many of those men, their homes destroyed, their families and friends dead, should feel that they must pass their future life in some other part of the world.
The Polish Resettlement Corps then came into being with the purpose of helping those men who did not return to Poland by arranging for their keep, their discipline, their administration, and for their disposal either by resettlement into civilian life and work in this country, or by emigration, or, in the more tragic cases, by hospital treatment—or by whatever form of disposal was most appropriate to them. There were also their wives and children, for whom medical services, welfare services, and education must be provided, and in those facts is to be found the answer to one of the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Tradeston: why are so many Ministries concerned? The answer to that is simple enough. The Poles are human beings; like British subjects they have the same variety of needs; and to argue that there should be a special Minister for Poles is rather like arguing that there should be a special Minister to deal with British subjects.
Suppose there were a Minister for Poles. If he had to provide for the education of Polish, children he would have to deal with that through the Ministry of Education; if he had to provide for those who are ill or infirm he would have to do so through the machinery of the Ministry of Health; if he had to arrange for the administration, pay, and discipline of those who are not yet absorbed, he 1619 would have to do so through the machinery of one of the Service Departments; one of the largest parts of the work he would have to do would be arranging for placing them in industry, which he would have to do through the machinery of my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour.
I hope my hon. Friend will agree that in doing all this such a Minister would be a fifth wheel to the coach; inevitably all these Departments must be concerned, more particularly if we want, as does my hon. Friend, to see these men not segregated but made part of the British community. If that is so, the same departmental arrangements ought to provide for the education of Polish children as provide for the education of British children; and the same arrangements should be made for their sick as for ours. To have had from the outset a Minister for Poles, if one may so call him, would have been to make the assimilation of these men into the British community more difficult than was otherwise the case.
My hon. Friend asked particularly—and it is a question the answer to which is not obvious at first sight—why two Service Departments had been concerned; why the Air Ministry as well as the War Office, since both have a similar job to do: the holding, paying, administration, and discipline of the men while they are awaiting disposal. There was a very good reason for that. The Poles who have served in the Polish Air Force, a body very closely integrated with our own Air Force, wore Royal Air Force uniform and badges; the Air Force had already appropriate administrative machinery for dealing with their resettlement; and further, they were men who were qualified and trained in Royal Air Force trades, who while awaiting resettlement could do useful work, according to their qualifications, in the Royal Air Force itself. To have put them with the Army Poles under the War Office would have been to waste administrative machinery already at hand in the Air Ministry, and to have wasted these men's particular qualifications.
I do not propose to say anything further about the Poles under the control of the Air Ministry. All told, there 1620 passed through Air Ministry hands some 12,000, and at the present time rather less than 1,000 remain. The House will appreciate that that has now become a small problem, and has been in effect a sort of miniature representation of the problem we have had to deal with at the War Office. In round terms, the Air Ministry problem has been about one-tenth the size of ours.

§ Mr. Rankin
Would my hon. Friend say whether that 1,000 is additional to or included in the 13,000 mentioned by the Secretary of State for War last Tuesday?

§ Mr. Stewart
The answer to that is both "Yes" and "No," because the figure given by my right hon. Friend last Tuesday did not include R.A.F. figures. On the other hand, I am glad to say that the figure mentioned by my right hon. Friend, although it was correct, is now out of date by some 2,000. The rate of resettlement and discharge from the Corps has proceeded at such a rate that for the figure of 13,000 we should now read a figure of 11,000, plus the figure of rather less than 1,000 under the control of the Air Ministry. That is the progress in one month.

§ Mr. Rankin
Might we assume, then, that the further information that the Corps will be wound up early in 1950 is also out of date?

§ Mr. Stewart
If my hon. Friend will allow me, I will come to that point in a moment. With regard to the length of time which men may serve in the Corps, the terms of service have already been given to the House on more than one occasion. Men who joined the Corps prior to March, 1948, entered into a contract of service for two years; men who joined between March, 1948, and December, 1948, had a contract of service for one year. I could not understand what my hon. Friend the Member for Tradeston meant when he talked of an undertaking given that the Corps would be wound up by December last. I have a strong suspicion that he is confusing the Polish Resettlement Corps with the Polish Land Forces, the military body which was wound up in December last in accordance with statements previously made in this House.
I stress that because my hon. Friend was at great pains to argue that there had 1621 been a radical change of policy in this matter. That is not so. The House has never been given to understand that the Polish Resettlement Corps would come to an end in December last. Anyone who had studied the history of the Corps and the problem it had to deal with would have realised that that was not a possibility. If we look at the terms of service—two years for those who entered up to May, 1948, and one year for those who entered up to December, 1948—it might appear that theoretically the Corps could continue in existence until May, 1950, when the very last group of men were discharged, but—

§ Mr. Rankin
Will my hon. Friend give way for a moment? I had not the quotation at hand, but I have it here now. It is from column 1108 of the OFFICIAL REPORT. It is one of many answers given by my right hon. Friend—

§ Vice-Admiral Taylor
I should be greatly obliged if the hon. Member would speak up.

§ Mr. Rankin
I am very sorry. I will give an exact quotation, from only one of many answers, from the OFFICIAL REPORT. Replying to a Question, my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour said: I think I may say that it is the Government's intention to wind up this Corps by the end of the year."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th June, 1948; Vol. 452, c. 1108.] that is, the Polish Resettlement Corps.

§ Mr. Stewart
My hon. Friend will appreciate that that is a much more modified statement than the impression he gave the House earlier. We have repeatedly made it clear that, while one may have a hope, an intention and an aim, there is the limitation of the difficulty of placing some of these men and their contract of service. That brings me to the point—

§ Mr. Bramall (Bexley)
I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend, but, before he leaves the question of the date, it is a rather odd fact that I had two Questions down today, one to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War and one to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, on this very subject, and I got two entirely different answers. The Ministry of Labour informed me that the Corps would come to an end by the end of this year—presumably in December, 1622 1949—which is an earlier date than my hon. Friend has now stated, whereas the answer from the War Office was that it could go on until October, 1950, which is a later date than that of May, 1950, which my hon. Friend has now stated.

§ Mr. Stewart
If my hon. Friend will allow me to continue, he will see the answer to that. I have already said in set terms that hon. Members will see from the dates I have given about the contract of service that theoretically the Corps might continue until May, 1950, when the last group of men would be discharged. I am now going on to the reason why we have no grounds for supposing that that theoretical final date will be the actual final date, but may expect something very much earlier. That is because of the progress already made and still being made in the dispersal of these men.
My hon. Friend who opened this Debate suggested that the rate of placing until recently had been satisfactory, and said that we must exceed what he thought would be a much slower rate of dispersal in the future. What has happened? If we look at those for whom the Polish Resettlement Corps has been responsible, the total number who have passed through our hands have been 103,000. Of those, in round figures, 8,500 have gone back to Poland, 9,500 have migrated to other countries, death has accounted for nearly 2,500, 3,500 have been discharged by the expiry of their contract of service. Hon. Members will notice what a small proportion that is of the whole. The majority of these men left the Corps because they got work well before their contract of service expired.
The figures I have mentioned so far account for 24,000. Now we have to note that 66,000 have been placed in productive work in industry, 1,600 have been placed as students, and 400 have entered the Armed Forces. That accounts for some 68,000, and hon. Members will see that we are left with a remainder, in round figures, of 11,000 as contrasted with the figure given recently by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the figure having shrunk by further discharges owing to the expiry of the contract, and by further placings in industry by a figure of about 2,000 in the last month.
In view of what has been said about the cost of the Corps to this country—and my hon. Friend produced a romantic 1623 figure of pay which has no relation to the facts—may I say that these men are paid at rates between two-thirds and three-quarters of the pay of a British soldier of comparable rank; that is, if they are in receipt of full Polish Resettlement Corps rates; but the majority of the officers—about four-fifths of them—are now on what are known as supernumerary rates, which are again, in the senior ranks, some two-thirds of the full rate of Polish Resettlement Corps pay.
Against the cost of resettling these men—and it has been considerable—must be put the nearly 70,000 productive workers who have been added to the manpower of this country. This money has not been spent in a way that gives us no return. In some cases we have in industries and at points in our country where they are most vital, a solid block of productive workers. It is altogether wrong to suggest that the task of placing these men has been made unreasonably difficult by opposition on the part of the trade unions. It is no easy matter to get any body of workers—whether they are manual, skilled, unskilled or professional workers—to accept any new body of entrants into the industry. It says a great deal for the work of the Ministry of Labour and for the willingness of British workers themselves to help us solve this problem that we have achieved the rate of settlement and of placing that we have.

§ Vice-Admiral Taylor
Before the hon. Gentleman finishes that point, will he state the amount which the Poles in industry render to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Income Tax? Is it £3 million? Also, those paid by the Resettlement Corps ought to pay Income Tax.

§ Mr. Stewart
I do not think I can answer that question. When these men leave the Resettlement Corps and go into civilian life, they are absorbed into the British community. One could make estimates of how much they pay in Income Tax but there is no machinery by which a precise answer could be found. It will be apparent that, since they are working and earning, they are subject to Income Tax in the same way as British subjects.
On the question of cost, my hon. Friend the Member for Tradeston raised the question of certain funds belonging to units of the Polish Resettlement Corps and 1624 said there was grave disquiet about their disposal. I do not believe there is any such disquiet. If my hon. Friend feels there is, however, I ask him to allay it by reading what I had the opportunity to say to the House on this matter as long ago as 20th February last year. He will find there that the whole matter was discussed on the instance of, I think, my hon. Friend the, Member for Bexley (Mr. Bramall); that it was made clear that these funds had been properly applied in ways which redound to the advantage and benefit of Poles, and that regard had been paid, not only to those in this country but to those who had returned to Poland. There is no ground whatever for any disquiet about the use of those funds.

§ Mr. Rankin
May I make that explanation quite clear by saying that when it came to the question of the disposal of these welfare funds, there was a proper and fair proportion between the constituted Government in Poland and the organisations which remained in this country?

§ Mr. Stewart
I can assure my hon. Friend that if he will refer to the Debate which I have mentioned, he will see that not only was that so, but that the Polish Government got a very fair bargain indeed out of the settlement of those funds.
Whilst on the general question of the placing of these men in work and the cost, on the one hand, and the benefit, on the other hand, which they have been to this country, I should like to refer to the allegations made in certain quarters that these men are idling on public funds and are not anxious to secure work, and that the Government have not been sufficiently diligent in helping them to get work. The formidable figure I have quoted of the numbers that have been resettled is an answer to both these allegations. The work of seeking openings for these men, of making them known to the men and of seeing, if need be, that there is no unreasonable refusal by the men of jobs offered them, has been going on steadily by co-operation between the Ministry of Labour and the War Department. The Ministry of Labour has had the assistance of certain Polish officers who were well qualified to explain to the men what was required of them.
For some considerable time the Anglo-Polish boards, which will continue to 1625 work, have been dealing with unreasonable refusals by the men of jobs offered to them. I would mention also that while men have been waiting to be placed, considerable use has been made of them by the War Department on work which very often, it is true, was of an unskilled character, which can be comparatively simply and easily done, but which, nevertheless, was valuable to us as part of the immense process of tidying up which faced the War Department at the end of the war.
My hon. Friend referred also the number of women. All told, 5,000 women have been going through the Polish Resettlement Corps, of whom about one-tenth, or a little more, remain in the Corps at present. Their particular problems, of course, have been somewhat different, but the general process has been much the same. My hon. Friend also asked me to say, and I say it most emphatically, that there are no armed Polish forces now in this country outside the Polish Resettlement Corps; even that, in its present form, is a military force only in name. How can the remainder, 11,300, be classified? If we classify them as officers and other ranks, rather less than half, about 5,000, are officers and I would altogether rebut the suggestion that it is regarded as a sine qua non in the Polish Resettlement Corps that every officer has to have a personal servant.

§ Mr. Rankin
My hon. Friend is completely twisting round the little by-play I made. I put it the other way about, that every ranker had his personal officer.

§ Mr. Stewart
I am glad to have that assurance from my hon. Friend. It has often been asked why there is this high proportion of officers. One reason is that among the officers were to be found a high proportion of the older men. It was on the officer that we very often had to rely for the organisation of these men, for the teaching of English to them, giving them training in some cases for work and explaining to them the type of jobs and for being, in fact, an interpreter to them of all the problems with which they were faced in a strange country. It was not unnatural, therefore, that as the Corps reached its closing stages, a high proportion of officers should be left. If many of these officers had gone out before, in one way or another we would 1626 have been faced with a far more obstinate backlog of other ranks, whose placing in industry would have presented us with much more difficulty.
If we divide the men by age, we find that 5,000 are more than 45 years of age, and it is not necessary for me to stress what that means in difficulty of placing. If we divide them according to health, we find that 3,000 are in greater or lesser degree disabled and therefore in greater or lesser degree limited in the number of jobs they can accept. It may be asked, "What are they doing in a Resettlement Corps at all?" It is true there are some 500 of whom we are obliged to say it is extremely unlikely that they will ever be able to take work at any time, but is it to be suggested that our medical advisers could have told us two years in advance when these men would be fit for work? The remainder of the invalids will be fit for work, but will be restricted, as disabled persons inevitably are, in the range of jobs from which they can choose, and it would be unjust and inhumane to exclude them on that ground from the benefits of the Resettlement Corps.

§ Mr. H. Hynd (Hackney, Central)
Can my hon. Friend give an assurance that the 500 will not be indefinitely continued on salaries proportionate to Army ranks?

§ Mr. Stewart
I can give an assurance that they will not be continued indefinitely, because how long they will be continued is laid down by contract of service, and that will be apparent from what I have said. Men do not enlist in the Corps indefinitely, but for a fixed term. It may be that, in some cases, a man was admitted to the Corps because we hoped to resettle him and he stays in for the whole contract of service because, subsequently, it is proved that he was more sick than was supposed and he is obliged to remain for the full length of his time. But if that were to happen to 500 men out of the 100,000 and more with whom we have dealt, I do not think that is a ground for criticism.

§ Mr. Eric Fletcher (Islington, East)
What is the term of contract of service?

§ Mr. Stewart
I have stated it earlier; moreover I think it is well known to the House. In some cases it is two years, 1627 in some cases one, according to when they came in. Of this remainder 2,000 are waiting to emigrate. I am happy to say from recent information I have received, that we shall be able to send away 800 of these intending emigrants in the very near future. The House will appreciate that in the case of intending emigrants we sometimes have to wait for shipping.
The number will decline by the further running out of the contract of service, and the number who leave the Corps in this way is now likely to grow. Let us suppose for a moment that there was no other way out of the Corps than by expiry of service, that from now on there were no placings in industry and no emigration. Even if that were so, by the mere expiry of time the Corps would be down to a figure of about half its present strength by April, and down to about 2,000 by the end of September. In fact, that supposition is far from the truth. Not only will 2,000 emigrate, but placings are still proceeding at the rate of about 1,000 a month.
We are left with the residue of about 11,000, which is 2,000 less than a month ago, and even by expiry of contract of service alone that number would be ruthlessly cut down. In addition to that, there are 2,000 intending emigrants and placings at the rate of about 1,000 a month. If hon. Members will consider those facts it will be apparent that the days of this Corps are numbered. We can say that in the matter of a few months this problem will have ceased to be one of any size. After that we may be left with small groups of men whose claim on our pity I think no one will dispute, but there is no question of this problem persisting as a major one beyond the end of this year. It will cease to be a major problem much sooner than that—in a matter of a few months.
I expressed the hope that what I had to say might lower the temperature of the Debate. Looking back upon what I have said, I am afflicted by a feeling that I may not have fulfilled that charitable purpose. However, I would at least ask hon. Members on both sides of the House, many of whom are interested in this problem, to give their consideration to the framework of facts and figures which I have endeavoured to lay before 1628 the House. I suggest that we have, on the whole, been able to deal with this matter in a way which has met our two obligations. I refer to the obligation, on the one hand, to the Poles to see that they were not left completely helpless and destitute, bearing in mind the services for which we are indebted to them; and on the other hand the obligation to our own people to see that just as we resent any British subject trying to live without working, on the backs of the rest of the community, we do not permit a Pole to do the same.
I would not dispute that among 100,000 or more men there must be some who have abused the arrangements and the hospitality which we have provided, but I ask hon. Members not to be led away by the attempts which have been made in some quarters to sensationalise particular cases. My hon. Friends will remember the propaganda which was rife in certain sections of the Press in 1920 on the subject of abuses of the Unemployment Insurance Act, and how it was common form in certain quarters, by picking out particular abuses, to suggest that the entire British working class were endeavouring to live in idleness on public funds. I am sorry to say that some of the Press comments that have been made in some quarters on the Polish Resettlement Corps bear an ugly resemblance to the propaganda of that period. I believe that if we look at the story as a whole, we shall see that these attacks are not justified, and that although there must inevitably have been some mistakes, we have carried out our handling of this problem with due regard to our obligations both to the Poles and the people of this country.