HC Deb 04 July 1958 vol 590 cc1784-99
Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)

I beg to move, in page 4, line 33, to leave out "fifty" and to insert "forty".

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche)

It may be convenient to discuss at the same time the two Amendments to Clause 12 in the name of the hon. Member, in page 8, line 17, after "Ireland", insert: or to the Republic of Ireland", and in line 19, at end insert: or to the Government of the Republic of Ireland, as the case may be".

Mr. Emrys Hughes

I think, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that I can cover the points I want to make in one speech and that that will be for the convenience of the House.

I want to put in a word for the historians. I believe that if my first Amendment were accepted it would be of benefit to historians that various interesting and important historical controversial documents would now be available whereas if the period of fifty years as specified in the Bill remains it will mean that the documents will not become available for another ten years.

I can understand a person living in Victorian times thinking that fifty years was a sufficient period to elapse before documents were made available to historians at the Public Record Office, but history, as Karl Marx said—I am sure the Solicitor-General will recollect this—sometimes moves forward in bursts. The years from 1916 to 1920 are in a very important period of history when events in the world moved very quickly and historians are greatly concerned about them. We have some reason to believe that a number of interesting documents relating to that period wait to be studied by present and future historians.

If my Amendment were carried, it would mean, for example, that all the various documents concerned with the First World War would be available for inspection at the Public Record Office. There is still a great deal of discussion of events, policies, personalities and crisis during that period, and I suggest that the First World War has now reached so far that it is reasonable to ask that documents which would be available to the Public Records Office in 1966 or 1968 should be made available now.

The further we move from those events, the more they become of academic interest. There is still fierce controversy ranging round, for example, the history of the Dardanelles, about which historians take different points of view. There is also considerable controversy about the events connected with the Russian Revolution, which is covered by that period. If my Amendment were carried, we should presumably have access to important documents, which are now at the Foreign Office and the Home Office, about the attitude of the British Government of the time towards the Russian Revolution. I submit that now that time has passed on it would be very convenient indeed for historians if these records were available and they had opportunities to make their necessary research and studies at the Public Record Office.

The period about which I am talking also covers the relations between ourselves and Ireland. The controversy in that respect continues. There is still a great deal of controversy over certain documents which are at present in the custody of the Home Office. I refer to the documents connected with what is known as the 1916 Revolution and the events with which Sir Roger Casement was connected. There are, I understand, in the possession of the Home Secretary documents which are still the subject of considerable historic and political controversy.

For example, during the last two years I have been visited by Irish and American historians who are very anxious to see the original documents connected with the trial of Sir Roger Casement. Hon. Members will know that last week Alfred Noyes died, and it again became a question of current interest whether there is still in the possession of the Home Office a diary which many Irish historians say was a forged document. I will not go into great detail but will merely mention the fact that after Sir Roger was executed the Home Office circulated throughout America documents relating to the personal character of Sir Roger.

Mr. Hyde

The documents were not circulated by the Home Office. That has been denied. They were circulated, but not by the Home Office. For the sake of the record, I think it desirable to make that correction.

Mr. Hughes

I am obliged for the intervention of the hon. Member, who has studied the period and is a recognised authority upon it. We all read his books with great interest. Whether the documents were circulated by the Home Office or the Foreign Office is a matter of academic interest. The fact remains, as Alfred Noyes pointed out, that they were put on his desk and he circulated them to the United States, which he bitterly regretted in his later years, and for which he tried to make amends in his book.

The facts are that these documents were circulated by somebody, and I understand that they are still in the possession of the Home Office. It is very difficult for historians to check whether these documents are genuine, and I have repeatedly asked that these documents should now be released to the Public Record Office and its opposite number in Ireland so that historians can check the documents so that the controversy which has caused so much speculation and bitterness may be possibly ended for ever.

The last occasion on which I asked about these documents was on 30th January this year, when I asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department: when he proposes to make a decision about the return of the alleged diaries of Sir Roger Casement to Ireland. I received the following reply: I am unable to add to the reply to a Question asked by the hon. Member on 2nd May last, when I said that I was not prepared to hand over to the National Library of Ireland certain confidential documents relating to the case of Roger Casement which are among my Department's papers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th January, 1958; Vol. 581, c. 99.] That is an admission by the Home Secretary that the papers are there.

I do not know why they should be described as confidential now, because, as time marches on, documents cease to be confidential and I believe that that time has now arrived. The controversy will go on as long as the documents are not deposited in the Public Record Office, or sent to Northern Ireland or Dublin, so that historians can consult the originals there.

I shall not now pass judgment on whether the diaries were forgeries, but the time has come when the documents should become part of the raw material of history and be made available at the Public Record Office so that experts can judge whether these interpolations in the Casement Diaries were forgeries carried out at the Home Office, or whether they were not. If my Amendment were accepted, all documents relative to the period 1916–18 would be available, as would other interesting documents.

I have not gone to the Public Record Office in recent years, but I know that on one occasion a request was made for a copy of Pravda which was forged by Scotland Yard. I understand that it was then said that it was too soon for the papers to arrive, but hon. Members who delve into the pages of HANSARD know that it was admitted by the then Home Secretary that Sir Basil Thomson had been responsible for circulating in the Baltic States a Pravda which was not published in Moscow but forged in Scotland Yard. This is the raw material of history. I have often wanted to consult this paper myself to find out what possible purpose there could be in Scotland Yard forging copies of Pravda. There are still many interesting and unsolved problems of history which, whether we like it or not, are not just forgotten, dry-as-dust documents, but documents about which people still argue and which are still of current interest.

In its obituary notice on Mr. Alfred Noyes last week, the Manchester Guardian said that his contribution to the Casement controversy would remain longer than some of his other contributions to literature. That may or may not be true, but the time will come when passions will die down and when controversies will cease to be virulent.

2.15 p.m.

It is now forty years since the First World War, since the Russian Revolution, since the war in Ireland and the formation of the Irish Republic. Now is the time when these documents should be available at the Public Record Office. It may be that other periods of fifty years have not attracted so much attention, but I appeal to the Solicitor-General not to regard the figure of fifty as necessary simply because it happens to be half of a hundred This is not a matter of the multiplication table. We are here dealing with a period of intense interest to our own generation and, possibly, to future generations. This raw material of history should be available now, and we should not have to wait for another ten years for these documents to be deposited in the Public Record Office.

Mr. Marcus Lipton (Brixton)

I beg to second the Amendment.

The effect of the Amendment would be to reduce the "waiting period" from fifty to forty years. It may well be that the Solicitor-General will draw attention to the fact that as it stands the Clause enables the Lord Chancellor to designate a period longer or shorter than fifty years for these documents to be made available to the public. However, if there is any possibility of the period being reduced, that should be specifically stated in the Bill.

It is clear that the argument for still regarding as confidential all the documents relating to the First World War is not as strong as the Clause makes it appear. It is clear that the time has now been reached when the fullest possible facilities should be provided for students of these historic events which came to an end, if that is the term, in 1918. I cannot see what individuals would be embarrassed if the Amendment were accepted.

There is another aspect of the matter which has not yet been mentioned in discussions on the Bill. Cabinet Ministers naturally have access to Cabinet papers. When a Cabinet Minister resigns or is removed from office, he is entitled, within certain limitations—the exact nature of which I do not know—to retain Cabinet papers and memoranda. That has applied to all Cabinet Ministers since Cabinet records of the kind referred to in the Bill have been kept on some sort of scientific basis.

When a retired Cabinet Minister wants to write his autobiography or present to the outside world a justification of various incidents in his political career, he makes use of those Cabinet papers which are in his possession, subject to the approval of the Prime Minister who, if there is a difference of opinion between the ex-Cabinet Minister and the Cabinet Office, decides what may be included in the book. If what I have said represents a reasonably accurate picture of what takes place when an ex-Cabinet Minister wants to write his memoirs—and the same sort of thing, mutatis mutandis, applies to retired field marshals, admirals and so on who are attempting to justify various actions which they took during the war—it is true to say that two distinct classes of people are concerned here.

The first is a small, select, privileged class of retired ex-Ministers, field marshals and so on, who naturally have access to papers in the course of their public duties but who, after they have retired from public life, can also retain control of certain papers and documents of which they have made use or have had to deal with in their active careers, for the purpose of writing what sometimes are later discovered to be rather tendentious and partial narrations of what they have done.

In those circumstances, it is most unjust that there should be this differentiation in treatment between a retired Minister or high-ranking Service officer and a member of the other class of people—the genuine student of history or the professor from one of our universities, who may be particularly interested in carrying out researches into the period in question.

By having a forty-year period instead of one of fifty years we should be narrowing the gap between the small and privileged class of the community to which I have referred and the genuine, responsible student of history in one of the universities or someone who may not be professionally engaged in the teaching or writing of history but wants to make his contribution or engage in research in the subject matter concerned.

If the problem is regarded in that light it provides an additional reason why the Amendment of my hon. Friend for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) should be accepted. I would ask the Solicitor-General to give his serious and, if possible, sympathetic consideration to the arguments which have already been adduced and to the further arguments which may later be adduced by hon. Members in support of reducing the period, by Statute, from fifty to forty years, and not leaving the matter in the vague position set out in the Clause.

Mr. Hyde

I sympathise with the plea for historians which has been put forward by the proposer and seconder of the Amendment, but at this stage of the Bill it would be extremely difficult to accept the Amendment. The period of fifty years, after which documents—subject to a few exceptions—can, generally speaking, be open to public inspection, was the recommendation of the Grigg Committee, which gave the matter very careful consideration, and that recommendation has been accepted by the Government. I cannot see that an alteration of ten years would make all that difference.

The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) rightly referred to documents relating to the origins and conduct of the First World War and also to Irish affairs. It is only right to tell the House that many of the documents relating to the origin and conduct of the First World War have already been published in a whole series of documentary works, and official historians have been employed upon them. I doubt whether a great deal more has yet to be made public in relation to the First World War, from purely official sources.

The hon. Member also referred to the documents concerning the trial of Sir Roger Casement. With the exception of the controversial diaries, all the documents which were in the possession of the late Mr. Justice Gavan Duffy, who was then the defence solicitor, have been deposited with the National Library of Ireland, where they can be freely consulted in Dublin by anyone interested. Furthermore, there are photostat copies also deposited there of what purport to be authentic copies of the diaries. Like the hon. Member for South Ayrshire, I am not going to say whether I think that the diaries are genuine or false.

As I understand, the diaries were seized by the police in 1915, while Sir Roger Casement was in Germany. They were not used at his trial, although they were offered by the then Attorney-General, Sir F. E. Smith, later Lord Birkenhead, to Casement's leading defence counsel, Serjeant Sullivan, in case he should wish to put forward a defence of insanity on behalf of his client. Serjeant Sullivan declined to look at the diaries, since he was not going to conduct a defence of that kind. That being so, the diaries were not introduced at the trial.

In those circumstances, I very much doubt whether they can be regarded as public records at all. The Forfeiture Act, which governs the custody of the property of those convicted of high treason, makes it clear that any document not used at a trial of a person convicted of high treason should be returned to the convicted person's executors or heirs, and I should have thought that if it were interested, Casement's family would have a very good claim on the Government for their return.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

Is the hon. Member aware that the Casement family and the committee interested in the rehabilitation of Roger Casement have repeatedly asked the Home Secretary for these documents. Is the hon. Member arguing that it is illegal for the Home Secretary to retain them?

Mr. Hyde

No; I said that there is probably a good case, which Casement's family can test in the courts. I have not been in touch with this committee, so I do not know what steps it has already taken. I am putting forward a purely ex parte opinion of my own, but I should have thought that if they had met with a point-blank refusal to hand over the documents they could test the matter by bringing proceedings in the courts.

2.30 p.m.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I think that the hon. Member has gone too far away from the Amendment.

Mr. Hyde

I was led into doing that by the fact that the hon. Member for South Ayrshire raised the point.

Mr. E. Fletcher

May I ask the hon. Gentleman, if he is right in saying that the Casement family have a claim against the Home Office for the return of these papers, whether it is not odd that no proceedings have been taken before now? Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that the ordinary rules of prescription must apply here?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I do not think that on this Amendment we can discuss a claim against the Home Office.

Mr. Hyde

I quite appreciate that, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I will simply say that if the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for South Ayrshire were accepted it is extremely doubtful whether it would cover these diaries at all. In the first place, they may very well not be qualified to rank as public records, and in the second place, of course, the Lord Chancellor has authority under the Bill to order the retention beyond fifty years of any class of documents for a special reason. That is quite clearly laid down in Clause 3 (4).

While I sympathise very much with historians and students, I do not feel that at this stage it would be possible to accept the period of forty years instead of fifty years. Indeed, I think that as a general rule fifty years is a very great advance on the previous practice, and, personally, I am very glad to see that period incorporated in the Bill.

Mr. R. T. Paget (Northampton)

I do not entirely see why, even at this late stage, the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) should not be accepted because of the overriding provision that documents can be retained.

May I immediately confess to an interest in the matter? I have been engaged, in a desultory manner, in preparing a biography of Lord Kitchener. I should have thought that the time had certainly arrived for a biography of that very great Englishman, and that it certainly was not premature. One is rather placed in the absurd position that one's researches are stopped at 1908.

Among the most fascinating aspects of the life of Lord Kitchener is that of the conflict between the Secretary of State for War and his Cabinet colleagues, ending with the very mysterious tragedy of the "Hampshire". Surely it is not too early to have an opportunity of seeing what really happened at that time. I should have thought that the time had arrived when, with certain exceptions, for which any way the Bill provides, the general documents of the First World War could and should be made available.

Mr. Arthur Skeffington (Hayes and Harlington)

I wish, briefly, to support the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). I should have thought that there was an overwhelming case for making forty years rather than fifty years the time limit so that so many of the very fascinating documents of the First World War might be made more easily available now to students and other people interested in them. There are still living those who were active in some of these great events. Surely they should be able to now know the inside story.

I hope that when he replies the Solicitor-General will not rest his case on the suggestion put forward by the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Hyde) that because fifty years was recommended by the Grigg Committee it is sacrosanct. I do not know whether that Committee thought that fifty years was a good round figure or whether it felt that individuals who may be referred to are less likely to be embarrassed or inconvenienced after that length of time. Concerning documents relating to a middle-aged man, one should remember that if one adds forty years that man, if still alive, would still be over ninety years of age. Therefore, I do not think that the possible embarrassment of people can really be a very strong reason in such circumstances for not agreeing to the shorter period suggested in this Amendment.

Many of us have a special interest in a number of incidents connected with the First World War. I should be out of order if I referred to the Casement documents, but it would, I think, be of very great advantage in our relations with our neighbours across the Irish Channel if the matter could be cleared up once and for all. I think that the proposed Amendment would help in this direction, and I hope, therefore, that if the Government cannot accept the Amendment my hon. Friends will press the matter to a Division.

Mr. E. Fletcher

I am sure that the Solicitor-General will have listened to the arguments that have been addressed to the House with a view to reducing the period from fifty to forty years. If one reads the Grigg Report, I think one will come to the conclusion that the sugges- tion of fifty years was, to some extent, an arbitrary one. There is no magic in the figure suggested by the Grigg Committee, and it is relevant to remind the House that in paragraph 153 of its Report, dealing with the period of access, the Committee states: This is not a subject on which we would wish to make a final pronouncement and we suggest that the question whether some classes of records should be opened before the lapse of fifty years might be examined some five years after the introduction of the new reviewing procedure. Then the Committe dealt with the subject subsequently.

The position is that, whether forty or fifty years are selected as being the normal time for access to public records, the Bill provides that the Lord Chancellor shall have the power, with the approval of any Minister concerned, to prescribe either a longer or a shorter period in connection with any particular class of public records. Therefore, I have every sympathy with the representations that have been made by the mover of the Amendment and by those who have-supported it.

Personally, I hope that the Amendment will be accepted, but if it is not, or if it is defeated, then I trust that the Solicitor-General will bear in mind, as so many of my hon. Friends have pointed out, that we are now living at a period of history when events of great historical interest occurred between forty and fifty years ago. The tempo of life is moving at a much greater rate than it used to move, and there is an overwhelming case for saying that the present generation of students, historians and research workers should have access to the many documents that relate to what occurred between the years 1914 and 1920.

This has given rise to a matter of very considerable importance. My hon. Friends the Members for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) and Brixton (Mr. Lipton) said that if the Amendment were accepted—indeed, it was one of the reasons why they pressed its acceptance—it would mean that the Casement diaries, about which there has been so much controversy and public interest, would become available for public inspection. The hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Hyde) threw some doubt on that proposition. We cannot leave this important matter in this state of confusion.

These diaries have been the subject of Questions in this House to the representatives of the Home Office. I should call them Departmental records, and, therefore, public records within the scope of the Bill, like any other documents in the possession of any other Department. If there is any doubt about that matter it ought to be cleared up, whether forty years or fifty years be the right period and whether or not the Lord Chancellor may come to the conclusion that there is a case either for throwing open to the public access to the Casement diaries at an earlier date or that the period of inspection should be postponed. I hope that there can be no doubt that these are public records and documents of the kind with which the Bill deals. I understand it to be the object of the Bill to ensure that all important historical documents in the hands of any Government Department shall be preserved.

There are arrangements for destroying a mass of documents thought to have no historical value and for others to be preserved, transferred to the Public Record Office and made available for public access. The Casement diaries are a very good illustration of the kind of document to which all historians attach great importance. There is no doubt that the diaries exist in the hands of the Home Office. There is controversy as to whether the diaries are forgeries or genuine and particularly whether certain interpolations in some of the diaries are genuine.

I should have thought that the diaries were undoubtedly public records and should become available in the Public Record Office on at least one of two grounds. Not only are they in the possession of the Home Office, but, as I understand, they are diaries by Sir Roger Casement at a time when he was engaged in the public service in making reports to the Foreign Office or it may have been to the Colonial Office, on the atrocities——

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman is going into too much detail on these Casement diaries. He has explained quite clearly the point that they ought to be made available for public inspection but that is as far as he should go.

Mr. Fletcher

I am very much obliged to you for your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. It seemed to me that doubt having been raised on the subject, that doubt should be cleared up. I will not pursue the matter. Enough has been said to show the need there is about documents that came into the possession and into existence about forty years ago being available for inspection. I hope that the Solicitor-General will be able to accept the Amendment.

2.45 p.m.

The Solicitor-General

I have been asked to bear in mind many things that have been said. I will, but I have been asked to bear so many other things in mind on successive Friday mornings that I begin to wonder about the increasing burden upon my mind with the increasing representations that I am asked to bear in mind. I do so with good heart. I wonder what your view is, Mr. Speaker, but I am entitled to ask you. I wonder if there were ever a period when events which took place forty or fifty years ago were not of the greatest interest to historians of the day.

The hon. and agreeable Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) has been talking about these Casement documents. While he did so, I was looking in the book to remind myself of something. The hon. Gentleman has been here longer than I have, and he knows very well that if he wants to know where these documents are and where they are kept he has to ask the specific Department in whose care he thinks they are.

If I started saying whether the Casement diaries were or were not public records for the purpose of the Bill, I should run headlong into your displeasure, Mr. Speaker, as being manifestly out of order. Obviously there are documents relating to the Casement trial, such as official criminal records, which no one can dispute would fall within the ambit of the Bill. Whether or no they would be records in the normal period for public inspection is another matter. There is a Home Office practice in relation to documents which are strictly criminal records not to let them loose in circumstance where they are likely to be emotionally disturbing to living relatives.

Suppose there are Casement documents in the custody of the Home Office and suppose these documents are public records within the meaning of the Bill; there is nothing in the Bill to prevent their being let loose for inspection tomorrow. What there is in the Bill is a general, normal period laid down which has to apply, unless in the special circumstances applying to the particular category of documents the Lord Chancellor orders otherwise, in which case they might be kept for a longer or shorter period than the normal.

This normal period was not chosen in those ages which the hon. Member for South Ayrshire rather disrespectfully called "Victorian" times. It was chosen by the Grigg Committee in the last few years. I do not say that that sanctifies it, but it is entitled to the respect properly due to hard work done by very competent people, who thought it was a good rule to choose fifty years, as the normal period in relation to the life of a man.

In the Report, paragraph 111, we can see that their motive was what they called "the preservation of unself-consciousness" in the writing of records. If a man felt that the document he was writing was soon to be exposed to public view he might become self-conscious about it. By reason of that, the document would lose something of its historical value because these are documents which persons read as splendid material for history. It was with these considerations in mind that the Grigg Committee thought that fifty years was the right general period to take, with power to make exceptions from it.

Although we have listened with great care to the arguments, we do not find any reason to depart from the conclusion at which the Committee arrived. The present state of the Bill does not debar an exception from being made. The Bill merely lays down a general principle. I hope that on consideration the House will think that is the right thing to do. Certainly no harm can be done by leaving the Bill based on that principle as it is.

The hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton), in an emotional appeal which went straight to my heart, asked me to be sympathetic towards arguments which neither he nor I at that moment had heard. I could not go so far as that, but I hope that the House, having heard me, will think it right not to accept this Amendment.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

It was ruled that we should discuss these Amendments together and there is a further point dealing with the Republic of Ireland. Could the Solicitor-General tell us the Government view on that?

The Solicitor-General

I am sorry I did not mention that. It is true that we were invited to consider these Amendments together. The difficulty about the proposal in the Amendment referred to is that it would apparently mean that the Republic of Ireland was to be put in the same position as that of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland under the Bill. That would be odd. What would be the justification for picking out one Commonwealth country—[HON. MEMBERS: "It is not in the Commonwealth."] Well, one foreign country, which makes the point even more emphatic—without special treatment for other Commonwealth or foreign countries? It does not seem that there is any justification for taking that course.

I am afraid, also, that as an Amendment it is technically defective because, if one were to try to do something of this kind there ought to be an Amendment to subsection (8) of Clause 3 in order to make it work. For the reasons I have indicated, I suggest to the House that it would not be right to do this. I am sure the hon. Member will see that there are what would seem to be sufficiently generous powers in the Bill as it stands. I do not know if he has looked at subsection (6) of Clause 3 and at Clause 6. Both would appear to include power to convey documents to the Republic of Ireland and other places in all circumstances in which it would be reasonably right to do so.

Question put, That "fifty" stand part of the Bill:—

The douse divided: Ayes 38, Noes 22.

Division No. 192 AYES [2.55 p.m.
Agnew, Sir Peter Goodhart, Philip Page, R. G.
Aitken, W. T. Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye) Peel, W. J.
Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M. Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.) Redmayne, M.
Barber, Anthony Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel Robertson, Sir David
Batsford, Brian Hill, John (S. Norfolk) Sharples, R. C.
Bennett, F. M. (Torquay) Hornby, R. P. Shepherd, William
Bishop, F. P. Hyde, Montgomery Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)
Browne, J. Nixon (Craigton) Hylton-Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry Wall, Patrick
Chichester-Clark, R. Keegan, D. Webster, David
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne) Linstead, Sir H. N. Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E. Maddan, Martin
Doughty, C. J. A. Markham, Major Sir Frank TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Gammans, Lady Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C. Sir G. Wills and Mr. E. Wakefield.
Glyn, Col. Richard H. Moore, Sir Thomas
NOES
Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J. Johnson, James (Rugby) Skeffington, A. M.
Cattle, Mrs. B. A. Mitchison, G. R. Sparks, J. A.
Deer, G. Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon) Stewart, Michael (Fulham)
de Freitas, Geoffrey Paget, R. T. Storehouse, John
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C. Proctor, W. T. West, D. G.
Fletcher, Eric Rankin, John Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)
Holman, P. Reid, William TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Hunter, A. E. Reynolds, G. W. Mr. Lipton and Mr. Emrys Hughes.