HC Deb 26 May 1950 vol 475 cc2391-403

11.22 a.m.

Colonel Cyril Banks (Pudsey)

During the past five years we have seen a great increase of Communist activity and we are now faced with what might be considered the greatest single threat to world peace the world has ever known. It is no longer a problem for the police forces of the countries concerned, but for the Governments. To dispense with known Communists in Government service or to restrict the travel of individual members of the Communist Party, or even to outlaw Communism, would appear to be insufficient. What was once a way of life confined to Russia has now become a world menace feared by every free country in the world. A solution must be found of this problem. It must be stamped out from the life of all free nations at least.

If nations are happy and well fed they are not interested, generally, in Communism, although there is always in any country a small pocket of revolutionaries. If some people are denied the necessities of life they will consider any alternative in order to get them. It is impossible to state one set of conditions alone under which Communism can thrive. It is important to appreciate that where a population is undernourished, where, by virtue of geography, that nation is close to the Russian borders, and where there is a weak Government, those are three conditions which assist Communism very greatly and allow it to spread very rapidly indeed. There are people far better informed than I, who will say that Communists could dominate the world at the present time with the arms at their disposal and the military might which they possess. That may be true, but we must concern ourselves with Communist progress during the past five years without resort to arms, progress made without a shot being fired on either side.

Food in exchange for co-operation is a very vital weapon and that weapon has been used. During the First World War a general of the British Forces sent a message back to this House that he could not take care of the situation. It was not a question of arms, but of bread and butter. That situation has arisen in the recent war to a far greater extent than it did in the First World War. I was head of a department responsible for supplies of food to North-West Europe. Many were the times when it became necessary to divert "Liberator" aircraft from ammunition runs in order to take food to civilians in the lines of communication. Taking food supplies is a very great job in war. I once had the job of bedding down thousands of civilians and feeding them on soup and hard biscuits for 10 days. I know the mentality of people living under those conditions. I know exactly how far you can go with them if you offer them a square meal.

In 1946, I was very concerned about this matter, and I went to various newspaper offices in this country trying to get 1,500 words printed on the use of food as a political weapon. I journeyed around many newspaper offices. Finally, after three hours at one national daily paper, I managed to see the editor and he printed 1,500 words for me on the subject. I thought I would receive some measure of support, but I did not have any fan mail. Frankly, I did not receive so much as a post-card.

Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)

What newspaper was it?

Colonel Banks

I have studied the position in the last 10 weeks, particularly with regard to the vital areas of the world and I would like to read very briefly from food organisation reports upon various areas. The report discloses the following facts: Near East: Relatively low supply of calories, animal proteins and protective foods characteristic of countries of the Near East, milk of poor qualtity, fresh vegetables lacking in many districts, deficiency diseases and every indication of poor nutritional states are widespread. Infant and child mortality rates are very high. Middle East: This provides a picture of human misery. The majority of people are receiving little food or other necessities of life and the position is little short of desperate. Far East: Conditions here are bad. Although agricultural production is nearly back to pre-war, in many under-developed areas above prewar, production has not increased as rapidly as the population during the last 10 years. Their position is desperate.

In Africa, the summer of 1949 was characterised by widespread malnutrition in the reservations. Many infants died of starvation and deficiency diseases among children were widespread. Political disturbances continue to hinder agricultural recovery and progress in Burma, China, Indo-China and Indonesia. Political and military conflicts have reduced output in many areas to what farmers need for themselves. Farmers have, in many cases, reduced their marketing to the cities or for export, either because transportation has been lacking or because as one of the consequences of inflation, they no longer care to hold money. Other areas where agriculture is similarly affected by political disturbances are the Near East and Greece. Strenuous efforts have been made, particularly by the food surplus countries, and while it must be acknowledged that much has been achieved, the problem of adequate food remains in every country outside Europe.

Food is in short supply generally throughout the world, and we cannot just take a global load and feed everybody who requires food. We, as a country, of course, can do nothing. We, I am afraid, are paupers and can only ask for assistance. There are, however, heavy stocks of food at the present time, particularly in the United States, and those food stocks could be applied to vital areas. As I see it as a layman, the dangerous possibilities are Communist influence running, first, through Poland and Eastern Germany through to the West, then through Persia and the Middle East, and thirdly through China and down through Malaya. Those are the three possibilities operating from the centre of a rough circle whereby we might be in difficulty.

In all those areas the people in the countries are underfed. I group the countries in two zones—one zone A, covering the Middle East and the other, zone B, covering the South-East Asia position. In zone A, I include Persia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Saudi-Arabia, with a population of 38 million people; if Pakistan is included, it adds another 70 million people. In zone B, I place Burma, Siam, Indo-China and Malaya, with 66 million people. There we have a barrier against the spread of Communism if we can take care of those people, and they number 174 million. In terms of the food required to put them on a decent footing [...] suggest that anything less than 500 calories a day would be quite useless. And 500 calories a day for those people would involve 24,600 tons a day if it were in meats and fats. In zone A it would be 15,000 tons, in zone B 9,600 tons, making 24,600 tons in all.

We have to thank the United States and all the food surplus countries for the efforts they have made since 1945. Their efforts have been nothing short of magnificent. They are in a position to do more at the present time and, if we were to approach those countries, I think they would be the first to buy some security and peace in this world through food, which is probably the finest motive that any country could have.

It gives me pleasure to come to this House and plead with the Government to do everything they can to obtain the necessary co-operation in order that the people in these countries may again be reasonably fed, may even be better fed than they were before the war. Their standard today is 300 calories a day below their pre-war level. If the Government can sponsor something for these people, I am sure a great service will have been done for humanity, a great service will have been done in the cause of peace, and I hope that as a result of their efforts, something may be done to strike an effective blow against the spread of Communism throughout this world.

11.34 a.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)

I expected a different speech from the hon. and gallant Member for Pudsey (Colonel Banks), to whom I listened with great attention. I agree with the main line of his conclusions, but I thought we would get a real bloodthirsty attack upon the growth of world Communism such as sometimes characterises the speeches of the Opposition, and sometimes come out at Question Time from the hon. Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers).

The hon. and gallant Gentleman has put the practical alternative to Communism presented by Lord Boyd Orr. He has not even asked for military action or an intensification of the cold war against Communism. He has, in fact, supplied the answer to the question: What is the alternative to Communism? by suggesting that an ill-nourished nation will be seeth- ing with discontent and we must supply that nation with food as an antidote to Communism. That inevitably means accepting the position that the old system of capitalism and landlordism throughout the East has failed to supply the people with food. The result is that after the economic upheavals following two world wars millions of people are starving throughout the world. They look at the present old system which has broken down and then turn to Communism. The answer to that must be a system which will supply them with food. The Communists argue that in order to supply the food, not merely by grants from the West but by creating a new economic system, there must be a system of planning and State organisation and control that we call Communism.

I do not share the point of view of the Communist Party, but if it is only a question of planning and of supplying nations with food, then that side of Communism has to be taken seriously. What I object to about the Communist countries is their totalitarian system, their secret police, their confessions, their destruction of individual liberty, but when it comes to State planning of food supplies and industry, then something in the nature of Socialist planning is absolutely inevitable.

Colonel Banks

We must realise that the majority of the world at present is being fed by the capitalists and, furthermore, that it is the Communist countries, particularly Russia, who are making no contribution to those world needs. They have the largest food stocks in the world, and are making no contribution to helping the situation in the Far East. That is why we are where we are. It is no fault of capitalism; it is the fault of Communism in not co-operating in feeding the world.

Mr. Hughes

I understand the point of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, and I am quite prepared to concede that in the present development of the world, the capitalist Western world is better organised from an industrial and technical point of view than the Communist world——

Colonel Banks

That is not right.

Mr. Hughes

—but is that position likely to last? During the last week we have heard, in several Debates, approval of the Schuman scheme for Europe. We have also heard arguments by the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. W. Fletcher) about a Schuman scheme for the Far East. We are now thinking in terms of a greater planning and industrial organisation which is taking us away from the old capitalist conception. I suggest that the hon. and gallant Member should have followed his argument to its logical conclusion and should have said that this country should support the world food plan offered by Lord Boyd Orr as an alternative to the policies which are at present involving us in grave danger of war.

Colonel Banks

I do not agree with the Boyd Orr plan, and I do not want us to be tied up in it.

Mr. Hughes

I know, but I am only carrying the argument to its logical conclusion. I am sorry that the hon. and gallant Member has not been enlightened. In his speech he was beginning to think, and thinking is a very dangerous process. If there is to be more food in the world the supply of such foods has got to be organised on an international basis. The hon. and gallant Member has not given us much to argue about, but I ask him to carry this argument to its logical conclusion and not to be afraid of the spectre of Communism. If we can give the answer to Communism in that way, we may be able to give to the world a kind of economy which will avert a clash of arms and another holocaust.

11.40 a.m.

Wing-Commander Bullus (Wembley, North)

The House will be grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for affording time for this Debate and to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pudsey (Colonel Banks) for directing attention to a subject which must occasion much thought. My hon. and gallant Friend has spent many hours of research and labour on the case which he has put before the House. I have had the privilege of listening to his reasoning and to studying his pictorial map before today's Debate. I think his arguments give much food for thought.

The attention of the House is directed to two main subjects; to two major problems which are inevitably linked. On the one hand, there is Russia, about which we know so little except its evil doctrine of Communism, which is spreading in the world and which has not been arrested. Then, on the other hand, we have the question of world food production, about which the experts are pessimistic including Lord Boyd Orr. Russia has large food-producing areas and granaries, and, undoubtedly, is using the distribution of food for political ends. She need not resort to force so long as she can make conquests in other countries.

A pertinent question we might ask ourselves is: "Who is winning the cold war?" Certainly, the free nations of the world are not, and he is an incautious optimist who would say that the free nations of the world are even holding their own. The majority of the Members of this House are aware of the dangers of Communism, but I doubt whether the nation as a whole is as sensitive to Communism as are our friends in the United States and in parts of our Empire, particularly in South-East Asia.

Yet, the challenge of Communism and Russia has to be met, and one of the certain ways of fighting it is by making available more food to the world as a whole. In this country we do not grow enough food to support our own people. We have not grown sufficient food for years past. We shall not grow sufficient food for our present-day population by our present food production methods. It may be that in some future generation, science will provide us with the self-sufficiency remedy, but this remedy has not yet appeared on the horizon. In fairness to the Government they are encouraging the home farmers in greater food production, but are we likely to obtain the maximum production? We must explore every avenue for food production, and, as such, make it our first priority. Some of my hon. Friends on this side of the House are perturbed about the loss of rich farm land to opencast coal activities.

If the Government can take credit for continued assistance to the home farmers, they are not deserving of so much credit for their arrangements in connection with Empire food supplies. I think, as do many of my right hon. Friends and hon. Friends on this side of the House, that we can do much more in co-operation in the British Empire to produce food. The Empire and Commonwealth have got to be encouraged, and, if necessary, assisted by labour and finance. Post-war figures show we have not given the Empire all the encouragement that we should have given. Take just one case. We are now importing Empire butter to feed our population for 42 weeks in the year. In 1948, it was for 48 weeks. Over the same period there has been a big drop in our Empire bacon imports. In 1948, Canada sent us £19 million worth of bacon and Denmark £5 million. This position has now been reversed, and, in addition, we have sought extra bacon from Poland. Again, in the early years of the Anglo-Canadian Wheat Agreement, Canada received a much lower price than the world price at that time.

Let us help Europe by all means, but our first concern and responsibility is to the whole Empire. That is why I believe that the time is ripe for a full Empire Conference if such a Conference is not indeed overdue. The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations appeared somewhat diffident yesterday when such a proposal was made. We on this side of the House are convinced of the necessity for a gathering of the representatives of this country, the Dominions and the Colonies at the earliest possible moment. The first items on the agenda of such a conference should be the menace of Communism, Imperial defence and the greatest possible prosecution of full food production and storage. I do not believe it is beyond the wit of man to devise means whereby, when there are good years, we can store the food for the lean years. If, at this late stage in this Debate, we can convince the Government of the necessity for such a full Empire Conference, then I suggest that this Debate will not have been in vain.

11.48 a.m.

Dr. King (Southampton, Test)

I should like to congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Pudsey (Colonel Banks) for raising a very interesting topic this morning. I take it as a very hopeful sign that Members of the Opposition are De-ginning to consider the very serious fact that we cannot get rid of Communism merely by saying rude things about it; that Communism thrives on poverty and misery; and that if we are to contain Communism and prevent its spread in the world, we must give to those peoples in the so-called free parts of the world, something like a decent standard of living. My only regret is that the thinking which is taking place on the Opposition benches today did not take place in the days before the war, when food was destroyed in a world which was clamouring for food—when coffee, wheat and other foodstuffs, of which the people were in need were either burned or ploughed back into the ground while even children in our own country went hungry.

Not only must we accept responsibility for feeding the peoples of the free world, but we must bring to them something like social justice in a much wider sense. War is the great midwife of progress, and we are living in a world where the Second World War has raised in the minds of the old submerged peoples of the world something like a demand for the social justice which the free people of this country have begun to obtain.

As long as there is unequal privilege as between child and child, as long as there is mass unemployment and misery in a country then, indeed, someone who comes along and promises a better world in the name of Communism will find a legitimate soil to work on. Revolutions come when people cannot fear the unknown ahead more than the grimness of the known.

The implications of this morning's discussion are a justification of His Majesty's Government's policy in the last four or five years. We are attempting in our own country to bring food in something like equal quantities to all our children and people for the first time. We are beginning to accept social responsibility for our Colonies in a way we have never done before and this is true throughout the British Commonwealth.

But, much deeper and more important than that, Communism receives its greatest power if, side by side, with the social misery of the people there is political lack of freedom and national lack of freedom among the people. I regard it as of great historic significance that in the years which have followed the war we have given political freedom to the people of India, political freedom to the people of Burma and have removed from one great section of the East one of the great causes of Communist advance. Had the Communists in India been able to associate themselves with the nationalist movement in India, as they did in the years before the war, then, indeed, the present picture in India might be different.

I associate myself with the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member who opened the Debate in appealing to the great nations of the United Nations to carry on with the development of world food supplies. History has shown that we cannot leave it in the hands of private profit-makers. Increased production in British agriculture is largely due to the fact that, as a nation, we have accepted responsibility for British agriculture. When it was left at the mercy of supply and demand, our agricultural industry steadily declined through 50 or 60 years. Farm workers were paid the most shocking wages of any group of workers in this country, farmers went bankrupt and the industry steadily ploughed its way down to ruin. It is only because, as a nation, we have begun to interfere with private profit making, and begun to accept food production as a great social service, that we are seeing this great advance in British agriculture in our day.

I think we have to learn the lesson, as a world, from the experience of social democracy in this country. We have to see that this question of world food supplies is a matter in which we cannot allow the interests of individuals and the profits that can be made out of scarcity to interfere with the great human demand of all the people. Back in Shakespeare's time the farmer, according to Macbeth, "hanged himself in the expectation of plenty." We must have a world where the farmers know that plenty not only means prosperity for themselves, but also well-being to great masses of people, who starved in every corner of the world through the long time when the great industrial countries of the world, having taken control of the backward countries, neglected their social responsibilities to those countries.

I think we have cause to congratulate the Labour Government on carrying on in its own corner of the world, in our own island and our own Colonies, along the lines which the hon. and gallant Member for Pudsey urged we should follow.

11.55 a.m.

The Minister of State (Mr. Younger)

I am sure that the House will be grate- ful to the hon. and gallant Member for Pudsey (Colonel Banks) for having raised this very important question today, and I am glad to have the opportunity, which I did not have the other night in my haste at the end of the Debate on the Far East, to congratulate him on the very close study he has obviously made of this subject of world food. Broadly, I am quite in agreement with the hon. and gallant Member's approach to the problem and also with that of my hon. Friends the Members for Ayrshire, South (Mr. Emrys Hughes) and Southampton, Test (Dr. King).

I think we have shown by the part we have taken in many organisations since the war that we do realise that world food is at the basis, and must be at the basis, of any lasting world settlement. The part we have played in U.N.R.R.A., and in the setting up and since in the continuance of the work of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, has borne witness to that. In the particular areas to which the hon. and gallant Member referred, South-East Asia, as he knows we have recently been studying this as part of the problem of development of South-East Asia, but long before that we had begun very large-scale emergency measures, after the war, associated with the Singapore Conference, to try to relieve the very dangerous food situation in that area.

The only thing I would say about the approach of the hon. and gallant Member—and I do not think he would really disagree—is that while it is, of course, true that hunger is one of the things upon which—if I might put it that way—Communism can feed, this is a problem which far transcends the problem of Communism. We would do well, perhaps, not to link our remedial measures too closely in all respects with the Communist menace, because what we are after is a proper organisation of world food supplies in relation to world needs. It will not always be possible to concentrate our efforts on a particular spot because it happens to be most near the Communist danger at the moment. Africa has been barely mentioned, but the food problem in Africa in the long term is just as important as it is in the Far East.

I have not come armed with statistics, but I think it is probably true to say that at the moment we are beginning to emerge from what one might call an absolute world food shortage in relation to the existing effective demand. There are spots in the world economy where one could begin to say there are surpluses, but that is very different from saying that there is over-production and too much food in the world. It is partly a question of local surpluses and local shortages elsewhere, which are hard to bring together, and the problem is also largely one of currency difficulties. It is just as much a problem of paying for food which exists as of increasing the production of food.

There is a great temptation to oversimplify the problem as though it were a very simple one in essence, while in fact it is a very difficult question involving every form of government. May I quote a few sentences from the Final Report of the United Nations Economic Survey Mission for the Middle East, which are worth bearing in mind: How simple, therefore, to suppose that, could the poor people and the poorer regions but acquire from those more blessed materially a pro rata share of the world's goods, poverty would be eradicated, and a great cause of strife would disappear. But comparative differences in the standard of living cannot be adjusted so easily …. Higher living standards cannot be bestowed by one upon another like a gift, and improved economy does not come in a neat package sold or given away in the market place; a higher standard of living must grow out of the application of human skill and ingenuity to the physical resources of a country or a region …. There is no substitute for the application of work and local enterprise to each country's own resources. It is very important to bear in mind that this is not a question of simple gifts from one area to another, or of short-term relief measures.

As I explained in the Debate on the Far East two days ago, we had that very much in mind at the Sydney Conference. It is because we think the Sydney Conference has laid the right foundation for a long-term development of the whole of that region that we regard the Conference as a success.

I want to be very brief, and I do not want to elaborate what hon. Members have said, because I am in agreement with so much of it. I should perhaps refer to the conditions governing this very large subject of malnutrition and the problem as it affects the more highly organised countries—those with a higher standard of living. Already, there is talk in some areas of surpluses, particularly of United States farm surpluses, and the problem of surpluses is quite different from the problem of over-production.

Basically the problem is one of finding means of payment, and particularly is a question of dollars and sterling. We ourselves are in difficulties over buying dollar commodities which we would like to have, including food, and, therefore, when one thinks of trying to marry the surpluses with the shortages, one finds oneself involved in the whole complex problem of the balance of payments between the dollar and sterling areas. When we try to tackle the other problem of increased production in some of the more backward areas—and there is tremendous room for it—we have to face not only this problem but also those of law and order, technical assistance, the introduction of new methods and so on.

I do not want to make the problem sound in any way impossible. There are many people and many Governments working on it, and we have been working on it ourselves. We much appreciate a great deal of the work which Lord Boyd Orr has done with such great inspiration, and the impetus which he has given to that work in many countries in the world. It is a difficult problem, which many people are trying to solve, with the agreement and support of the Government.