§ 5.1 p.m.
§ Mr. Cyril Osborne (Louth)I do not think that anyone in any quarter of the House would disagree with the policy of building up strategic reserves, but I wish, while agreeing that it is urgent that we should build up our stocks in a rearming world, to ask the Minister whether any thought is being given by His Majesty's Government and the American Government to what is to happen to world prices in a disarming world.
Unless some thought is given to that matter now, I can see, in three years' 424 time, the greatest slump the world has ever experienced. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is present—and if attention has not so far been given to this matter—I would impress upon him the necessity for giving consideration to it before the crisis comes upon us.
§ Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne)As I am in most unexpected agreement with the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne), I cannot let the occasion pass without acknowledging it. He has put his finger, very surprisingly —to me at any rate—upon one of the most serious aspects of trying to do this kind of thing in an unplanned world. What he points out is perfectly correct. There is this sudden rush for things that do not increase, there is a rise in prices and many nations are driven into enormous financial economic difficulty or into solvency while the cost has risen without getting very much for it, and then, when the fever has abated, there is the drop the other way.
Here we find a very classical example of this constant succession of booms and slumps which is the misery of the world and which is inherent in the whole of the system in which the hon. Member for Louth spends the rest of his life outside politics.
§ Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)I think that the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) has asked a really important question on this issue—
§ The ChairmanThe hon. Member cannot debate policy now.
§ Mr. HughesI have not yet asked my question, Sir Charles, which is whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer will give an answer to the question put to him by the hon. Gentleman?
§ Mr. C. R. Hobson (Keighley)I do not know whether it is too late at this stage to ask for a definition of non-ferrous metals, but on looking through the list on page g I see that there is quite a number of them.
§ The ChairmanWe have passed that.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Resolved,
§ That a supplementary sum, not exceeding £40,455,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1952, for expenditure of the Ministry of Materials in connection with the procurement and maintenance of strategic reserves.