HC Deb 25 July 1955 vol 544 cc949-60

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Colonel J. H. Harrison.]

9.53 p.m.

Mr. George Craddock (Bradford, South)

I want to talk about National Service and, before doing so, I should like to say that I have made inquiries and found that I cannot move against conscription because conscription is governed by Act of Parliament and can be removed only by a further Act of Parliament. However, I understand that it is in order to seek a reduction in the period of National Service. I consider that to ask for a 12 months' reduction is not asking for too much. I say that after having given the matter considerable thought and having contacted many civil Departments during the week-end.

I suggest that, in present circumstances, having regard to the Geneva Conference, one can quite easily come forward to the House and ask for a reduction of 12 months. I hope that, notwithstanding that, the Minister will give consideration to the whole matter. I hope that he might be forthcoming tonight and give us the date when conscription will end.

If we are to believe the professions of faith at Geneva, I am sure that the time is ripe when one of the steps taken at a conference like that at Geneva or at the United Nations should be to give people, young people especially, the freedom which they ought to have. After all, I think it merely coincides with the policy of the present Government. I noticed at the last Election and prior to it that they were standing for a policy to set the people free, and I cannot see why they cannot do something for our young folk.

If the Minister would be good enough to announce the date when conscription will end, I am sure that such news will travel throughout the world and he will go down to posterity as a man to be revered who helped to restore sanity to a crazy world. One cannot help wondering in these days, with the tremendous possibilities for a good life, why so much money, so much energy, so much time and so much waste of life are used up to no purpose whatever.

Fundamentally, I do not believe that military adventure resolves any of the problems of mankind or resolves any difficulties at all between the peoples. I am certain of this—and one need not know much about it to realise this—that after wars more problems are created which, in the end, lead to further wars, and there are plenty of examples which one could give. We also find from recent history what is particularly unfortunate—that allies today become enemies tomorrow. Now this is very strange, and I cannot understand why it is always said of people who are seeking peace that they are wrong or that they are suspect. Why, I do not know. I do not know why authority always has to trail around saying that militarism or support of the idea is patriotism, because it is not.

Then, we find that following a war, in addition to the deaths during the war, poverty, disease, waste and hatred, which, are the common factors which follow from war, are the matters which have to be cleared up and for which the people have to pay a high price.

During the last 40 years, the people of this country have had bitter experiences arising from the failure of Governments to discharge their responsibilities humanely, and that is a statement not only concerning this country. I want to say tonight that I am taking a much broader view than the narrow boundaries of nationalism. There must be a different view. There must be views at international conferences of the kind which I call a type of international talking which can be understood by the people everywhere. As I said to the former Prime Minister, it is no use having international conferences if we are to argue national views. If we are arguing national sufficiency, we shall never be successful at international conferences. We must argue internationalism and attempt to serve the whole of mankind. That is the line that I take. It is the line that many of my colleagues take, and I believe that it is the line that the common people want everywhere.

I frankly disbelieve that a political cult is responsible for the position we are in today. In my view, the real evil which besets mankind is militarism. I want that to be very clearly understood. It is the desire for territorial expansion, the struggle for raw materials and generally for national self-sufficiency at the expense of others. It does not matter how we dress it up, that is precisely what it is.

It being Ten 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. Studholme.]

Mr. Craddock

That gave me a little shock.

All the combatants have never failed to invoke God's goodness and humanity at the same time as they have thrown the youth of the ages into battle, and those youth's remains have been left in all parts of the world. I believe that we have reached a period in history when a new approach to solve the problems of mankind must be made, for science, known and not yet fully comprehended, places mankind in deadly peril. In this situation, why not reduce conscription through international understanding? Why do not the Government take steps to promote a reduction in national service in the various countries where it is in operation? I cannot understand why we have to have a longer period of national service than the French, the Dutch and the Belgians. We trade on the fact that we are generous in our treatment of people, but we are not. We are no different from other people. It is not on what we say but on what we do that people base their judgments.

All the political leaders now frankly confess that in any future war not only the combatants but the neutrals likewise will be at the mercy of science. There can be no victors. All will be losers. In such circumstances, why is it impossible that we should reduce the period of service now? Surely it is now that just the opportunity is presented to make possible a reduction in the period of two years. It is often said in the House that we must have a continuing two years' period of service, for the simple reason that we have a vast Commonwealth to look after and we have many outposts.

We shall not keep a Commonwealth on the basis of force. We shall keep a Commonwealth on the basis of reciprocity, real understanding and through partnership, and in no other way. I am pretty disgusted with the attitude of the Secretary of State for the Colonies towards those parts of the Commonwealth for which he is responsible. I do not think that we have played the part which we ought to have played in many parts of the Commonwealth. Why is it necessary that we should have an Army to keep the Commonwealth in step with the mother country? I do not understand that process of reasoning at all. We have to forge a link of understanding between the peoples of the Commonwealth. If we do that, we shall keep them in step with us.

Conscription is a denial of the fundamental rights of man. It exacts a tribute from those who are called upon to serve which is unworthy of modern society. It retards progress in many forms, particularly by arresting youth in its development. I do not want young men in this country or in any other to die for their country. I want young men all over the world to live for their country and for the good of humanity. I believe that they are the people who have a contribution to make. We should do all we can in their early formative years to see to it that they have the necessary aids for a full, decent and secure life. I would appeal to the Minister to see his right hon. Friend with a view to securing that this great benefit will be copied in many other countries if we only give a lead.

I am concerned with the development of the faculties of our young people and in providing them with all the conditions which make for a more secure life. I have been listening to the debates today, mainly about fish, and yet we are going to take only about 21 minutes tonight on peace and National Service.

In 1954, we spent £1,659 million on defence. This world spent £43,000 million, or £17 per head of the world population. We ought to do something about transferring much of that money into other more fruitful channels for the benefit of mankind. As it is impossible for any country to be a victor in a future war, why do we not do something in order to detract from that which is bad and focus attention on what is good.

I was struck by a statement made to the Press by the Foreign Secretary on what took place at Geneva. I read it in today's "Manchester Guardian," and I should like to quote it because I think it is very important. The right hon. Gentleman said: We have had a very strenuous week, both at the official meetings and at the unofficial gatherings. The Four Powers have met in conference together. They have met jointly and they have met separately. Their main conclusion I think can be formed.' Here Mr. Macmillan smiled, and then declared, 'There ain't gonna be any war.' If there is not going to be any war, why take our men into the Services for two years? He went on to say: 'This is based upon the now accepted fact that, in nuclear warfare, there can be no victor. The second conclusion is that there are a lot of very difficult problems to settle which will take time. The very fact that war is excluded means that the problems of the world have got to be solved by peaceful means and by an acceptance of the new conditions of these times.' I sincerely hope the Government are prepared to look at this matter again because so far they have not been ready to do anything about it. I hope they will believe that what has happened points to the necessity for something being done. The parents of young men of 18 write letters to their Members of Parliament, and I hope they will shower hundreds of thousands of such letters on hon. Members so as to make the Government wake up to the fact that it is time something was done in this age of comparative peace to reduce the period of National Service by at least twelve months.

10.10 p.m.

Mr. Victor Yates (Birmingham, Ladywood)

For ten years I have consistently opposed compulsory National Service in this House. I understood and realised the many argument advanced in favour of it during the period immediately after the war. But we must remember that compulsory National Service was first introduced by Mr. Neville Chamberlain in 1939 and that conscription has continued for sixteen years. The youth of today have no idea of the conditions of freedom that were fully understood before the war.

The position was made quite clear in September, 1950, during the period of the Labour Government and at the time when compulsory National Service was increased from 18 months to two years. My hon. Friends and myself opposed that increase. I have before me the OFFICIAL REPORT of the debates of that time. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey), who was then Secretary of State for War, gave a clear indication that the period of compulsory service had been increased because of the war in Korea from 18 months to two years. He gave a clear assurance to the House that that period would be reduced as soon as circumstances permitted. He went on to say that it would be abolished altogether when circumstances permitted. This was in September, 1950.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) was equally forthright in giving that clear pledge to the House. He said: If we find, in the course of perhaps, 12 months, maybe 18 months, or within the period mentioned in the new Clause, that we can revise the position, I assure the Committee that that will be done."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th September, 1950; Vol. 478, c. 1504.] My right hon. and hon. Friends gave a clear indication that they would honour this pledge, and I believe that were a Labour Government in power today, the international situation having changed so considerably, they would not only have instituted the necessary inquiry but would have come to the conclusion that the period of National Service should be reduced very considerably.

We argue that conscription interferes with the careers of our young people. Social workers know the effect it has upon their moral welfare. From time to time we have submitted to the Government examples of National Service men who have been completely wasting their time, but we seem to get no response. I have here a communication from the Electrical Trades Union in Birmingham quoting a case of a National Service man who was an electrical worker. His work included the provision of electrical installations in new houses—televisions, irons, fires, washing machines, cookers and vacuum cleaners.

He asked to go into his own trade while in the Services and was told that he must sign on for three years. When he went to Cardington he was told that even for three years he could be only an administrative orderly, a batman, a waiter or a storeman. If he wished to carry on with his electrical trade, he would be obliged to sign on for five years. The union submitted this case to me and only this morning I received a letter of protest from his father, who points out that his son has wasted three years of his life. Of course, if he can, this young man will go back to his electrical trade, but he has wasted three valuable years of his life. Many examples could be given of men who are wasting their time in the Services.

Today, if it is to have economic survival, the nation is in need of the productive capacity of all its young men. They should not be chained, but should be free to produce in industry so that the country may overcome its economic difficulties. Surely, with the international situation clearly moving in favour of a peaceful understanding, the situation should enable us to move towards a positive reduction of compulsory National Service as a first step towards its ultimate abolition.

I trust that the Government will be forthcoming on the subject. Even if they cannot agree to a reduction in the period of National Service at the present time, will they tell us why they object to an inquiry and to giving the House the facts so that we may be in a position to tell the country that it can look forward to the freeing of its youth?

10.15 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. Fitzroy Maclean)

Both the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. George Craddock) and the hon. Member for Lady-wood (Mr. V. Yates) have made it quite clear that what they want is not so much a reduction in the term of National Service as its complete abolition; that they regard it as something which is morally wrong. That is an argument which we have often heard before. It is a view of which we respect the sincerity in the same way as we respect the sincerity of hon. Members who go a stage further and say that armed forces should be done away with altogether. But it is a view that we can accept no more than could the Labour Government.

Dr. Donald Johnson (Carlisle)

What about reduction?

Mr. Yates

We are not arguing the total abolition of compulsory National service.

Dr. Johnson

Will the Minister deal with the reduction of the period which, I understand, is the purpose of the debate?

Mr. Maclean

I have already said that I am going to speak of the possibility of reduction later on. Hon. Members opposite really should not assume that they are the only people who want peace. The hon. Member for Bradford, South said that anybody who wanted peace was suspect. Surely we all realise that anyone in his senses wants peace, and we on this side are just as entitled to argue how best peace can be achieved as are hon. Members opposite.

We do not like conscription, and that has been made abundantly clear on numerous occasions by my right hon. Friends on this side of the House. What Government would like conscription? Surely hon. Members must realise that we would far sooner have young men productively employed in agriculture and industry than unproductively employed in the Forces.

It is sometimes suggested that we only have conscription because we are under the influence of the military, but surely the people who want a volunteer Army most of all are the generals. That also has been said again and again. But, much as we dislike conscription, we, like the Labour Government before us, are bound to maintain it for as long as we consider it necessary for the defence of the country, and we are convinced that at the present time it is necessary.

Before I go on to the main question, the possibility of reducing the period of National Service, I wish to refer to one point raised by the hon. Member for Ladywood—the allegedly harmful effect of National Service on the men called up. That, again, is an argument that we cannot accept. Out of 250,000 men there are bound to be misfits. There are bound to be men who come to grief or go to the bad, and men who fail to take the chances offered them, but I can assure hon. Members that, in addition to training National Service men so that they can play their part in the defence of their country, we also do everything we can to enable them to play their part as useful citizens when they have finished their time.

From what I have seen since I have been at the War Office, and also from what I saw during my service as a private soldier, I am personally convinced that the great majority of young men leave the Forces improved not only physically—of which we can produce abundant evidence—Jbut also, in most cases, mentally. They are mentally more alert and better citizens than they were when they went in.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War has said that the period of National Service will be reduced by as much as possible as soon as possible, and the same thing has been said several times in other words by other Members of the Government.

Mr. George Craddock

Will the hon. Member's right hon. Friend remember that this is an age of peace, or comparative peace? Surely he should do something about it more speedily than this.

Mr. Maclean

I am coming to that argument in a moment. If the hon. Member thinks that this age, up to the present time, can be termed an age of peace, he must have a different idea from most of us of what peace is. We all hope that there will be an improvement, and I believe that one of the chief reasons for any improvement will be that we have shown ourselves strong, and that our Allies have been strong.

When I say that the question of reducing the period of National Service is being constantly and urgently reviewed, I am not simply using a cliché. During the last six or seven years there have been eight major inquiries into the manpower question in the War Office, apart from other Service Departments, but the conclusion which we have reached is that at present—and I stress the words "at present"—no drastic reduction in the period is possible.

It is sometimes argued that because our commitments have been reduced there is no reason why we should not reduce the period of National Service accordingly. There again, hon. Members must realise that until quite recently the Armed Forces were very dangerously overstretched. They are still over-stretched to some extent; we still have a great many commitments left. But I am glad to say that we have been able to use some of the slack produced from the reduction of those commitments to build up what has all along been vitally necessary, namely, a strategic reserve in this country which is easily transportable by air to any part of the globe.

The necessity for a strategic reserve, and also the run-down in the Armed Forces—of which my right hon. Friend gave full details in his speech on the Army Estimates—have more than accounted for the men who have been released by the reduction in our commitments abroad and elsewhere.

As hon. Members will realise, the Armed Forces rely very heavily indeed upon National Service men. Of 790,000 men, no fewer than 280,000 are National Service men, and the Army, which is the biggest user in the three Services, is composed of roughly half National Service men.

The hon. Member suggested a reduction of 12 months. That would mean a fall in the strength of the active Forces of somewhere around 140,000 or 150,000 men. That would mean that we should have to recast the whole of our Armed Forces. A reduction even of six months would mean a loss of 72,000 men, quite apart from the effect that it would have upon Regular recruiting.

The hon. Member for Ladywood mentioned waste. He said that we were wasting the time of men in the Services. If the hon. Member will give me details of any such case, I shall be very glad to look into it and see that the National Service man in question does not waste his time any longer, even if he is doing so now. I must say, from what I have seen of the Army, that I very much doubt it.

Another point concerns what I might call the qualitative aspect of this matter. The time when the National Service man is of most use to the Army is during the last six months of his Service. By taking away that six months we should be depriving ourselves of the best period of his service. We depend very largely upon National Service for junior N.C.Os. and tradesmen. We could not afford to do without them.

It has been said that in a future war very few troops will be needed. But to suggest that the human element plays a small part in these matters simply does not take into account present circumstances. Unfortunately, it is still too early to presume that the cold war has come to an end. In the cold war, conventional forces are essential. It is largely because we have kept our conventional forces up to strength that we have managed to hold our own in the cold war. Because we have been strong and because our Allies have been strong, we have at last succeeded in achieving some reduction of tension in the world. We all hope that the good work which has been started at Geneva will go on, and that tension will be further reduced. We hope that in due course that may render possible a reduction not only in National Service but in the whole crushing burden of armaments which is at present weighing on the world.

Meanwhile the Government have the whole question under constant review. The House may be quite sure, even if it is not possible to reduce the burden of National Service now, that as soon as it is possible the Government will take the necessary steps.

10.29 p.m.

Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East)

The Under-Secretary of State does not seem to realise that the criticism of the Labour Party, and the particular view of my hon. Friend, the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. G. Craddock), is that the Government are falling behind the pace of events. Of course they would have to recast the Forces if there were a reduction to 18 months. Of course they would have to forgo the building up of a strategic reserve. What we complain of on this side of the House is that the Government are not facing those problems. The argument that the Under-Secretary has now put forward for two years is an argument for two years in perpetuity.

It is exactly because we believe that there should be this recasting of the Forces that we ask for a complete overhaul of our defence requirements, as we laid down in our Election manifesto, and a review of National Service in conjunction with that. We believe that to be the right course for the Government to follow.

The Question having been proposed at Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.