COLONIAL SERVICES

HC Deb 15 March 1960 vol 619 cc1181-260

5.55 p.m.

Mr. G. M. Thomson (Dundee, East)

I beg to move, to leave out "£10" and insert "£5".

This sum of money is the first instalment that the British taxpayer is being asked to pay of the price of the emergency in Nyasaland. As far as I can understand, it is only the first instalment because, according to an Answer that the Colonial Secretary gave on 16th February, it seems likely that there will be another £1 million on the bill before the end of the financial year 1961–62. And this is only the financial bill for the emergency. The political bill is still to be calculated and will depend a great deal upon the wisdom with which the problems which we have just dis- cussed are faced in the months that lie immediately ahead.

Perhaps two things might be said straight away about the sum of money which the House is being asked to vote. At the risk of the wrath of the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), I must say that this emergency need never have taken place and the Vote need never have been before the House if the Government had followed the advice of the Opposition and, before March last year, had made concessions of reasonable political advance and the promise of the right of self-determination for the people of Nyasaland in relation to the question of secession. There would then have been no emergency and no Vote before us tonight.

Again, if the Government had seized the priceless opportunity which they were offered as long ago as last summer, when the Devlin Commission reported and quite deliberately gave the Government the chance of reconciliation between Dr. Banda and the Governor of Nyasaland, the cost of the emergency, both financially and politically, would have been a great deal less than it has been. But, as we know, the emergency has dragged on month after month, and, in our view, indefensibly.

We were greatly heartened in January when the Secretary of State, in his speech at Leeds, talked about the need for an early end of the emergency. It is two months ago since that speech was made and the emergency is still with us, and, as the Colonial Secretary will be well aware, he now has against him on this matter a body of public opinion which is very critical and widespread. It includes not merely the normal newspapers which take a liberal view, such as The Guardian and the Observer but, as he will know, The Times, on more than one occasion, has indicated that it feels that the emergency should be brought to an end.

As this situation has carried on, the unsatisfactory situation in which this country finds itself has become clearer and clearer and has revealed the humiliating position in which the Government have allowed themselves to be placed. The British Government have imposed a state of emergency in a territory for which they are responsible and have put into detention citizens of the Commonwealth who are protected persons of the Commonwealth. Yet the moment they go into prison under detention orders they are removed from the protection of the British Government.

We had an example recently, when Sir John Moffat, a respected politician in Central Africa, sought an interview with Dr. Hastings Banda in prison. As I understood it, the British Government were not unwilling that the interview should take place, and most helpful results might have come from it. However, the Federal Government, which has the responsibility for people in their places of detention, refused permission and the British Government weakly gave way.

As the Colonial Secretary knows, my hon. Friends and myself have from time to time put to him many Questions about the conditions under which people are being detained; Questions about conditions in prisons, about health dangers, about visitors attempting to see those in detention. All the time we are given the answer that this is a Federal responsibility and that the conditions of imprisonment of those for whom we are responsible in this House are no longer within our jurisdiction. This is a most unsatisfactory position.

What has also been becoming increasingly clear is the final humiliation which has been imposed on the British Government during the last month or two. It is that the British Government find themselves unable or unwilling to end their own state of emergency in a territory for which they are responsible because of Federal opposition. If the Minister feels that this is unduly strong and unfair language, I will quote to him the words used by The Times as far back as 18th February: … there is good reason for supposing that if the British Government had had their way, Dr. Banda would by now have been released and be back in Nyasaland … It stated, later, that the British Government cannot afford to hesitate longer. That was four weeks ago, and the purpose of this debate, and our reason for tabling our Amendment, is to attempt to stiffen the Government into doing their overdue duty of ending the emergency, bringing about the release of Dr. Banda, and carrying out the other steps which should go with this and of which I shall speak in a moment.

One of the questions to which the House will want to address itself on this Vote is whether the money in the Vote, nearly £¾ million, will be wisely spent. Insofar as we have been able to gain information about this money, it seems that it will be devoted almost entirely to strengthening the forces of law and order. I ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any part of this money will go towards the cost of maintaining the Federal troops which have arrived recently in Nyasaland.

It seems to us on this side of the House that this movement of Southern Rhodesian troops was a most unfortunate and provocative step. The House will remember—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

Order. That does not arise on this Vote.

Mr. Thomson

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The internal security of Nyasaland is the responsibility of the Governor under the British Government. This Vote is related to internal security, and it is on this that I am seeking further enlightenment.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

The movement of Federal troops is under the Federal Government.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke

On a point of order. May I make a further submission, to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker? The hon. Gentleman was speaking on the subject of the detention of Dr. Banda and he may do so again. I understand that all prisoners are the responsibility of the Federation and so, if anything, they come under the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and not my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary.

Mr. John Dugdale (West Bromwich)

Further to that point of order. Although the troops may be Federal troops they have been accepted in Nyasaland by the Government. It is for internal responsibility that they have been accepted. If it did not want them, they would not be there. Is that not a fact?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

But they do not appear to be included in the Vote which we are discussing.

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway (Eton and Slough)

Further to that point of order. This seems to be a tremendously important point upon which you are ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Is it not the case that in both British Protectorates, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, the duty of internal security is in the hands of the respective Governments? Is not this Vote on the issue of Nyasaland, and is it not related to the maintenance of the emergency in that territory? If that is so, I submit to you that all matters which relate to the internal security of Nyasaland are in order in this debate.

If the Minister says, as he hinted in answer to questions, that these troops have been brought into Nyasaland for some purpose other than internal security, then one would agree that my hon. Friend is out of order, but there is no other possible purpose for which those troops could be brought into Nyasaland than that of its internal security.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

The Colonial Secretary is not responsible for the movement of Federal troops.

Mr. Callaghan

With great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, when the Federal troops went into Nyasaland, on 4th March, they did so because the Government asked that they should go in because they feared for the internal security of that territory. It was the responsibility of the colonial Governor that they were there. Indeed, when it was suggested from this side of the House that it was the responsibility of the Federal Government, that was hotly denied because we were told that the Governor had invited them there.

I agree with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) and I think that the Colonial Secretary could help us there. Does the right hon. Gentleman give us an assurance from the Dispatch Box that the Federal troops now in Nyasaland have gone there purely for military reasons, and that their presence there has nothing to do with the internal security of that territory?

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Iain Macleod)

I do not know whether I can help the House, although I am very willing to answer. This is just a question of the rules of the House. I have no desire to be obstructive in any way on this matter. I am answering this Vote as Colonial Secretary, and the question of the movement of troops is a military matter for the Federal authorities. This battalion of the Rhodesian African Rifles is in Nyasaland with the knowledge of the Governor and myself. It is not taking part in anything to do with the internal security of Nyasaland. It is taking part in exercises with the King's African Rifles battalion which is in Nyasaland. The movement of troops is a matter for the Federal authorities. If it be in order for me to answer questions on this matter, I am willing to do so.

Mr. Callaghan

That helps us greatly, because the Colonial Secretary has said that the Federal troops are in Nyasaland with the consent of the Governor. This Vote is a Vote purely about the emergency in Nyasaland. For whatever military purpose the troops are there, they are there also in a state of emergency in Nyasaland.

As the Colonial Secretary has indicated his willingness to reply to questions about this matter, if it is in order, and as it is an unprecedented movement that must be related to the emergency in some way and has been done with the consent of the Governor, I submit that it would be ruling unduly narrowly to deny my hon. Friend the opportunity of questioning the Colonial Secretary about the reasons and the length of time that the Governor proposes to give his consent for the troops to remain there and in what circumstances they shall leave the territory. These seem to me to be perfectly legitimate questions which should be in order.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

The question seems to depend upon whether the movement and maintenance of these troops are paid for out of this Vote.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke

May I make a submission, Mr. Deputy-Speaker? Nothing could be more clear than that the pay and allowances of these Federal troops and the cost of their military movements are in no way a Colonial Office matter. It must be a Federation matter. If any Department is responsible to this House, it could only be the Commonwealth Relations Office. I submit that all this discussion is out of order.

Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne)

May I put the further point that the question of the funds from which the pay and allowances of the troops are met is not quite the relevant factor? As the Colonial Secretary has made perfectly clear, the troops could not be there without the consent of the Governor. They could not enter the territory or remain there without his consent. Since the Governor's pay and allowances are borne out of the moneys which we are now considering, the reasons for his consent and the conditions for the maintenance of the consent must be proper for the House to consider in deciding whether to make this Vote.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

The Governor's allowances are not paid for out of the Supplementary Estimates that we are now discussing.

Mr. Thomson

Perhaps I can assist the House in this way. I am not anxious to get out of order, but the Estimate deals with expenditure for the twelve months ahead, until March of next year. The amount of money that may be required to meet the cost of the emergency will be very much related to the kind of actions now taking place and, in particular, to the consent given by the Governor of Nyasaland to the arrival of troops on a so-called military exercise at this politically delicate time.

The Secretary of State must know as well as anybody that these troops were suddenly moved to take part in the so-called military exercise at the very time he was being pressed in relation to the ending of the emergency and the release of Dr. Banda. What we on this side argue is that this is utterly the wrong way to bring about a state of conciliation and peace in Nyasaland.

In view of the record of these troops during the period of the emergency, and of what the Devlin Commission said about how they had been used to cow troublesome areas in Nyasaland, this is utterly the wrong way to go about maintaining law and order, with which, as I understand it, the Vote is principally concerned. I leave the matter at that point, but I hope that the Secretary of State will tell us on what ground he justifies the consent given by the Governor of Nyasaland to allow this military exercise to take place at this time.

The greater part of the Vote appears to be devoted to a large increase in the police force of Nyasaland. According to Answers that the Secretary of State has given in the House, it is proposed very nearly to double the size of the police force from 1,268 to 2,407. This is an astonishing approach to the admittedly difficult problem of ensuring security, law and order in Nyasaland. The House will recollect that the Devlin Commission, on the very first page of its Report, chose to make the charge that Nyasaland was, no doubt temporarily, a police state ". That was more than twelve months ago and the word "temporarily" is beginning now to wear a little thin.

That charge outraged the Government and hon. Members opposite. It seems somewhat odd that the Government which considered this to be an unjust charge against it should now react by spending the greater part of its moneys for the emergency on doubling the size of the police force.

Nor is that the whole story. This is not the first increase in the size of the police force in Nyasaland. The Colonial Secretary will be familiar with the memoranda that are sent to him by the Bow Group of the Conservative Party. He will, perhaps, recollect that a memorandum which he received from that Group at the beginning of the year commented on the fact that the police force in Nyasaland had already been increased three times over since the imposition of federation. The Bow Group stated: That the size of the police force in Nyasaland has increased threefold since Federation is not a symptom of better administration. The Colonial Secretary may argue, as he has done in the House, that in the past Nyasaland has had fewer police in relation to its population than other African territories. This is not quite the point. The point, surely, is that before we made the political blunder of attempting to impose federation on Nyasaland, it was a quiet and peaceful country with a very small police force.

It is a devastating indictment of the policy of imposing federation against the will of the population that one of its results has been to bring about a sixfold increase in the strength of the police in order to maintain law and order. We on this side suggest that this money might have been better devoted to other things in Nyasaland which might have made a more effective contribution—

Mr. Henry Clark (Antrim, North)

It is of considerable interest that, although Nyasaland has had an unfortunate history in the last few months, Tanganyika has had an extremely happy one. At the same time, Tanganyika has had to increase its police force by about 50 per cent.

Mr. Thomson

I wholeheartedly agree about the excellent progress that is being made in Tanganyika. I can only say to the hon. Member that if Tanganyika had been forced into the same kind of Federal framework as Nyasaland, there might have been a somewhat different record of political progress in Tanganyika.

Mr. Clark

Surely it is hardly logical to argue that an increase in the police force is a sign of a thoroughly unhappy and unfortunate country. Tanganyika, a happy and fortunate country, has had an increase in its police force.

Mrs. Barbara Castle (Blackburn)

Perhaps my hon. Friend will be interested to know a figure of which he may not be immediately aware. In Tanganyika, there are about 1,850 inhabitants to every member of the police force. That is the 1958 figure. This is the valid comparison, because the Colonial Secretary says that we must increase the police force in Nyasaland to give us one policeman to every 850 inhabitants.

Mr. Thomson

I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that intervention, which so effectively deals with the point made by the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Mr. H. Clark). My point is that we would much rather see this £¾ million spent on tackling some of the kind of problems in Nyasaland that the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations mentioned in his speech yesterday. It was a most unfortunate speech, coming a week before the Secretary of State sets out for Nyasaland. I can only conclude that the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, who was speaking in Luton, had fallen under the polemical influence of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, because that kind of phraseology about the conditions and people in Nyasaland set a most unfortunate tone for the right hon. Gentleman's forthcoming visit.

However, we can agree with the Secretary of State to the extent that there are many things which need to be done in this very poor country of Nyasaland if we are to have the sort of social and economic conditions which, in the long run, are the best guarantee of the maintenance of law and order. I fully agree with those hon. Members about the economic implications for this country if this cannot be done within a federal framework or within a framework of the looser economic association which we would like to see enhanced.

We are not in favour of breaking up the Federation as such. We are in favour of obtaining the consent of the peoples of those territories to whatever form of political advance seems to them desirable, but, in the long run, we may be forced to face the need to give substantial help to the people of Nyasaland, who may have enjoyed too little help from us in the past.

We have just received the Jack Report, a survey of the Nyasaland economy. Professor Jack has done an immense amount of work and has provided us with a unique body of economic information. Everybody interested in Nyasaland will be grateful to him for that work. However, in passing, I must say that I find many of his conclusions both disappointing and reactionary, although I am very glad to note that he laid much emphasis on increasing the number of places in higher education in Nyasaland.

I recollect that in the early part of the emergency I asked the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor how many African graduates there were in Nyasaland at that time. The answer was that there were 22 African graduates, of whom 12 were in detention at that time. We would far rather see some of this money used on doubling the number of secondary school places and doubling the number of technical college places than doubling the number of policemen in Nyasaland.

Again, there is the urgent question of agricultural development, to which the Jack Report drew attention and which is the foundation of any economic progress in Nyasaland. I understand that within the Nyasaland development plan only £500,000 is earmarked for land reorganisation and land improvement, and yet here we have £¾ million earmarked almost purely for the purpose of doubling the size of the police force.

At the December meeting of the Legislative Council, the Financial Secretary of Nyasaland reported on his visit to the Secretary of State, which must have taken place a short time before. He was very coy about what other things were to be done to meet the conditions created by the emergency. He said that he had put before the Government in this country other things as well as an increase in the police force, but that he was not yet in a position to make any sort of announcement. He said that urgent consideration was being given to a programme of agricultural development.

That announcement was made in the Legislative Council three months ago, and perhaps the Secretary of State can tell us something tonight about the results of that urgent consideration which has been given to the need for agricultural development. Perhaps he will tell us that he will reconsider whether some of this £¾ million might not go to agricultural development, rather than be concentrated on increasing the police force in Nyasaland.

On the subject of agricultural development, the Government sometimes complain about the difficulty of getting adequate co-operation in schemes of agricultural improvement and, in particular, in the very difficult task of changing the basis of land tenure. When I read about those difficulties, I wonder whether the Government will never learn the lesson of other African territories which have advanced further along the road to self government—that economic co-operation can be expected only where political hope is provided.

Economic advance can never be a substitute for political advance. The two have to go hand in hand. We therefore take the opportunity of this debate to urge upon the Government that the best way to maintain law and order is not to hold down an unwilling population by a bigger and bigger police force. The most essential step to restoring social peace—indeed, the first step —which need not cost the British taxpayer one penny, is a declaration of the ending of the emergency and the release of Dr. Banda and all the other detainees against whom ordinary charges cannot be brought in an open court, and —this I emphasise—a positive programme of political advance to responsible government with real political power in the hands of the Africans in Nyasaland.

The ending of the emergency without real hope of peaceful political progress is not enough. The two steps should be taken together, and before he sets off for Nyasaland next week we urge the Secretary of State to make those two moves— ending the emergency and providing a positive programme of constitutional advance. As a censure on the Government for having delayed those steps for so long, we take the step of moving the Amendment.

6.27 p.m.

Sir Lynn Ungoed-Thomas (Leicester, North-East)

The part of this Vote which particularly concerns me is that in respect of the police. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) about the desirability of having political rather than police solutions to the problems in Nyasaland, but I must admit at once that if the choice is between having police in Nyasaland under the Governor of Nyasaland, and, therefore, indirectly under the Colonial Secretary, and having the Federal troops of Sir Roy Welensky in Nyasaland, I am in favour of the police every time.

That may well be the main issue tonight. The troops which have been in Nyasaland have been Federal troops and they have contributed to the political difficulties there. The difficulty in Nyasaland is the difficulty of internal security and not of ordinary crime. The difficulty of internal security is a political difficulty, and if we use as our implement for dealing with that problem something which exacerbates that political problem we make no contribution towards the solution of the internal security problem. That is exactly what is involved by the employment of Federal troops.

The Devlin Report has been mentioned. The troops recently sent into Nyasaland are those who were sent during the emergency from Southern Rhodesia and all of them are indirectly under Sir Roy Welensky. In the words of the Devlin Report, they were used during the emergency to "cow the population". The Devlin Report says that the troops were used for punitive expeditions intended to make it plain that siding with Congress led to very unpleasant consequences. Sending those same troops into Nyasaland now, so recently after the emergency, is bound to produce precisely the same popular reaction.

These people were cowed by the troops during the emergency. The troops are there now, at a time when the Monckton Commission is visiting the country. Will not the people consider that the troops are there for the same purpose as before? It does not matter to them. They are not aware whether the troops are there for defence purposes, or for internal security purposes. What matters to them is that there are troops on the spot who behaved in the way they did during the emergency, and who may behave in precisely the same way again. To have troops there in those circumstances is to invite internal security trouble.

Despite the risk of sending these troops there—and the Colonial Secretary recognises the risk to internal security resulting from the presence of these troops—they were sent into the country. We were told by the Minister the other day that they were sent for defence purposes, and that the decision to send them was the responsibility of the Federal Government. That means that they were sent by Sir Roy Welensky. They were not sent by the Governor, or on the direction of the Governor, or the Colonial Secretary, but by Sir Roy Welensky.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke

On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, you were not in the Chair when a similar point of order was raised about half an hour ago, when an hon. Member on the opposite side of the House persisted in discussing the question of the despatch of Federal troops to Nyasaland. Mr. Deputy-Speaker ruled that this was out of order because it was not applicable to a Colonial Office Vote.

Mr. Speaker

Obviously, the detailed movement of troops not under the responsibility of the Colonial Secretary would not be, but I can see that while discussing the expense arising out of the emergency there must be some degree of permissible discussion in so far as the movement of troops is a background, or an alleged cause of the continuance of the emergency.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas

It is on that basis that I am putting it, Mr. Speaker, and giving the Colonial Secretary the opportunity, which I gather he welcomes, to deal with this difficulty which is troubling hon. Members in all parts of the House.

Are these troops to be used for defence purposes, or are they to be available for internal security purposes? What is the motive in sending them there? If they are for defence purposes, defence against whom?

Mr. Speaker

That is over my line, because if they are not sent there under the control of the Minister it is not much good asking him why they were sent there.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas

They were sent there after consultation with the Minister. We are entitled to know what representations he made when Sir Roy Welensky informed him that he proposed to send these troops there, because the sending of troops will have an aggravating effect on the internal security problem.

The Minister has a responsibility for that. What consultations took place? What representations were made to Sir Roy Welensky about it? Did the initiative come from the Minister, from the Government, or from Sir Roy Welensky? What representations were made by the Colonial Secretary, or by the Government, to Sir Roy Welensky when it was proposed to send those troops there?

Those are vital matters to which the House is entitled to have an answer. I hope that the Colonial Secretary will clear up the deep concern which many of us feel about what is essentially an internal security problem. To put it baldly, we are troubled that these troops have been sent there by Sir Roy Welensky not for defence purposes at all, and we want to know what representations were made by the Government to Sir Roy Welensky when he told them that he proposed to send these troops there.

6.35 p.m.

Major H. Legge-Bourke (Isle of Ely)

Not having been to Nyasaland or to any of the three countries in the Federation, I am always hesitant to say anything on that subject. My feeling is that it is dangerous for those hon. Gentlemen who have been on visits to these countries to assume that they know more than the Governor or the people in the territories. I have always deplored—and I do not mean to be insulting to hon. Members opposite— attempts by anybody in the House to frame his question and make his point in such a way as, possibly, to lead those who have grave responsibilities in the territories concerned to imagine that this country's confidence in them is being lost. I have always felt that that is something about which we should exercise a great sense of responsibility.

The operative factor in this matter is who has the authority to send the troops. That responsibility is obviously outside the scope of discussion on this Vote. It is a Federal matter, and a matter for the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. The agreement by the Governor in Nyasaland for the troops to be sent is a matter which is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Even then it seems somewhat unfortunate for us to go on having this wrangling in the House about this issue which was considered in some detail, arising out of the Devlin Report, before the General Election. I do not believe that it will produce any constructive result to continue this battle which has been decided by the country. Before the election the Devlin Commission had produced its Report, and the contents of the Report were well known.

On the whole, most of us accepted the facts in the Devlin Report but rejected many of the opinions. I hold that view today. The Devlin Commission did a splendid job in finding out the facts, but I find it difficult to accept all the opinions based on those facts. That is all I propose to say about Nyasaland.

My principle purpose in rising is to raise another matter contained in the Vote under the headings B.17 and B.18, which deal with the grant to the Cyprus Government of £3,750,000 and with the grant to Nicosia Airport of £72,450, which are more substantial matters for the taxpayer to consider than the token Vote of £10 arising out of the Nyasaland matter. I realise that my right hon. Friend could easily be embarrassed if we were to ask questions relating to the negotiations going on in the island. I am anxious not to embarrass him on that, but I am sure he will agree with me that there are one or two somewhat unusual features about what is said on page 42 of the Estimates. There is a hieroglyphic—the typographical name of which I can never remember—against B.17 and B.18 on page 40, and on page 42 one reads the following: Expenditure from these sub-heads will not be accounted for in detail to the Comptroller and Auditor-General, but he will be furnished with audited accounts. Any balances of the sums issued which may remain unexpended at 31 March, 1960, will not be liable to surrender to the Exchequer. I should like to ask my right hon. Friend two questions on that. First, is this procedure without precedent? Secondly, by whom will the account be audited? If we can be satisfied on these two questions it will not be necessary to ask the third, namely, is there an auditor general to the Cyprus Government to carry out the rôle which would otherwise have been carried out by our Comptroller and Auditor General? We are here dealing with a very substantial sum of money—nearly £4 million—and it is appropriate that these matters should have that scrutiny which we expect them to be given by the accountants and the Comptroller and Auditor General when raising money from the British taxpayer.

There is one other matter to which I wish to refer, arising out of Subhead B.18—"Cyprus (Nicosia Airport)", in respect of which we again have some rather unusual wording. The item is prefaced by a hypothesis. It says: Subject to satisfactory arrangements being concluded with the Government of the Republic of Cyprus,"— presumably by 31st March, 1960— and as announced in the House of Commons on 25th June, 1959, assistance is being made available towards the cost of constructing a new terminal at Nicosia airport. The House will remember that in the defence debate on 9th February the Minister of Defence said that we had offered to give up control of Nicosia airport. He said that that was a major step, and I agree with him. We are here dealing with a sum of £72,450 and we are entitled to ask what will happen to that sum, or to part of it, or what has already happened. Has the work begun or not? If it has not begun and if we do not arrive at an agreement, what happens to that money? Would we then expect it to appear as a reduction on the outturn of the year, or would it be used as an appropriation in aid in the ensuing financial year?

I ask these somewhat detailed questions because these appear to be two rather unusual items in a Supplementary Estimate, and I should like to know whether or not they are to be regarded as a precedent for the future.

6.43 p.m.

Mr. John Dugdale (West Bromwich)

The hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) will not expect me to follow him—[An HON. MEMBER:" Why not? The right hon. Gentleman would be in order, for once."] That is a very uncalled-for remark, in view of Mr. Speaker's Ruling. It appears to be more a reflection upon the Chair than upon hon. Members on this side of the House.

My only comment upon the hon. and gallant Member's speech is that from his early remarks he appeared to hold the view that hon. Members who had not visited these territories, or stayed there for any length of time, were not competent to discuss the question, and that the House of Commons should not concern itself with matters outside the United Kingdom. That is an oversimplification of our duties.

Major Legge-Bourke

I do not dispute the rights of any hon. Member to ask about expenditure at any time. I was merely pointing out that the question of policy represented here has been debated ad nauseam, and I was saying that hon. Members intervening with regard to security matters do not know what they are talking about.

Mr. Dugdale

I will leave that matter now—not because I think that the hon. and gallant Gentleman is right, but because I see no use in pursuing it further. Most hon. Members on this side of the House disagree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman.

We were profoundly disturbed to read in The Times today a report of a speech by the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations about Nyasaland. It has been said that the noble Lord has been misquoted in this case. I want to know exactly how he has been misquoted, and I would ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies to clear the matter up. I understand that the noble Lord did not say that Nyasaland was a slum, but I am not clear what he did say. The Times is not often found guilty of misquoting Ministers, but we are told that he did not refer to Nyasaland as a slum. Did he say: People glibly talk about self-government for Nyasaland, and it is a country that has only about a dozen native lawyers, one doctor who is a properly qualified "— presumably Dr. Banda, who is now in prison?

Mr. Speaker

The right hon. Gentleman may be quoting an extremely interesting speech, but I find it difficult to relate it to expenditure arising out of the emergency during the period ending on 31st March, 1961. The right hon. Gentleman must relate his remarks to that.

Mr. Dugdale

I shall relate them to that, Mr. Speaker. I maintain that if the Government had carried out another policy in Nyasaland the emergency might not have arisen. Many of these difficulties have arisen because of the policy of the Government. I will refrain from further comment upon this matter; I will merely ask the right hon. Gentleman whether those words were used, because it is important that we should know.

Mr. Speaker

It may be important, but it cannot be in order. I understand what the right hon. Gentleman is submitting on the question of policy, but it is difficult to see how the question whether a speech has been accurately reported has any bearing upon the matter under discussion.

Mrs. Eirene White (Flint, East)

Surely we are entitled to discuss matters which may exacerbate feelings in Nyasaland and lead to an intensification of the emergency. Surely it can be said that if this speech was truly reported it was so insulting that it might easily exacerbate feelings in Nyasaland.

Mr. Speaker

I follow that argument, but I have not heard it emerge from the right hon. Member for West Brom-wich (Mr. Dugdale).

Mr. G. M. Thomson

The Secretary of State was making what I assume to be a statement of Government policy about self-government in Nyasaland, which is closely related to the expenditure on the emergency. I submit that it is in order.

Mr. Speaker

I follow that argument.

Mr. Dugdale

Do I understand that, owing to my hon. Friends' more successful intervention, I am in order in mentioning this point?

Mr. Speaker

It seems to me that Minister A is being asked whether or not Minister B has been correctly reported.

Mr. Dugdale

I am assuming that he has been correctly reported. I maintain that if he has, his remarks are likely to exacerbate the situation in Nyasaland, and that it would be in order to ask the Colonial Secretary whether or not his noble Friend has been correctly reported. I do not intend to pursue the matter further. All hon. Members will have read the remarks, and will have found them somewhat disquieting.

A state of emergency has been declared, but instead of money being spent on improving the conditions of the people, which would appear to be necessary from the statement that I have just read out it is to be spent mainly upon the police. To hon. Members on this side of the House that seems to be a wrong balance of expenditure. Not only that —leaders are now being imprisoned. Some have been released, but many are still in prison. In view of the remarks made by the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely, it is important that we should consider what the people on the spot think of these leaders. I have here a quotation from an article by Sir John Moffat, who describes what these leaders are like. He says: These African leaders are certainly men with whom the Nyasaland Government could negotiate and I believe that such negotiations could result in a reasonable plan for constitutional development. I took a careful look at these leaders and was much impressed by them. In view of the emergency, there was an astonishing absence of bitterness. I can bear that out from my personal observation, and from having spoken to Mr. Orton Chirwa. Except, perhaps, for Mr. Nehru, I have not seen anybody who has been imprisoned who has come out of prison with less bitterness. This is a remarkable testimony to the people of Nyasaland and their leaders, and I hope that the Government will see their way to release the rest of these people before long. I hope that the Secretary of State will also tell us something about the reasons which prevented Sir John Moffat from visiting Dr. Banda in prison. It would seem to me that the decision must be one primarily for the Governor, and it is up to the Governor to say whether or not he can visit him, because he is the Governor's prisoner, even if lodged in a prison in Salisbury. I will not pursue that matter any further, but I hope that we may get an answer to that point.

I should like for a moment or two to compare the conditions in the emergency in Nyasaland and the conditions in Tanganyika. In Tanganyika we get calm and the leaders are free, whereas in Nyasaland we have tension and the leaders are in prison. In Tanganyika we have racial equality, and in Nyasaland racial inequality. In Nyasaland we have a demand for a better franchise, and in Tanganyika the people are satisfied with the new franchise that has been proposed. The Secretary of State for the Colonies has been to Tanganyika and has himself secured, as all of us would agree, what seems to be a very remarkable degree of unanimity upon a new and better constitution.

Why does that not happen in Nyasaland? Why is there nothing like that in Nyasaland? I believe that it is because of the shadow of federation which has been imposed against the will of the great majority of people in Nyasaland. As long as that continues, it will be virtually impossible, I fear, to get the same sort of conditions as exist today in Tanganyika. I wish it were not so; I wish we could get them, because all of us would like to see these kinds of conditions, and I feel that we ought to congratulate the Colonial Secretary on what he has done in Tanganyika.

I hope that when he goes to Nyasaland he will look northwards instead of southwards. I would ask him to do this. I hope that in the first place he will take steps to end the emergency, because that is the most important thing of all, and to free Dr. Banda and the other leaders. I hope that he will then call a conference, something on the lines of the Kenya one, to deal with a new internal constitution for Nyasaland, because quite apart from the question of a Federal Constitution, it is vitally important to promote a better and more liberal constitution for Nyasaland itself. I ask him again to look northwards and to consider the possibility of a federation between Nyasaland and Tanganyika which would be far better than the idea of a federation of Nyasaland with Northern and Southern Rhodesia.

It seems to me that there are two roads, one which leads to the fulfilment of the national aspirations of the people of Nyasaland and the other which leads to the dead end of federation. It is up to the people of Nyasaland to choose. I feel sure which road they will choose, and I hope that the Colonial Secretary will help them to choose the right road.

6.53 p.m.

Mr. John Eden (Bournemouth, West)

I hope that the right hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale) and his hon. Friends will forgive me if I turn the discussion to the Supplementary Estimates now before the House, and ask my right hon. Friend one or two questions on some of the subheads on which a certain amount of detailed information has already been given. I would reinforce the plea made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) for additional information about the control of expenditure under Subhead B.18 in regard to Cyprus and Nicosia Airport. May I, very briefly, ask some straightforward questions on some of these subheads that are worrying me at the moment?

I refer, first, to Subhead A.1, relating to the St. Helena grant in aid, the details of which are given in the Supplementary Estimate, showing that additional provision is required for further issues of grant in aid of expenses of administration. This item in the Supplementary Estimate amounts to £17,000. Could my right hon. Friend give me any information about the nature of the expenses of administration in this respect, and say to what extent he can himself supervise or exercise any control over the expenses of the administration in St. Helena?

Mr. Callaghan

Puerile.

Mr. Eden

The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) may object, but the purpose of bringing Supplementary Estimates before the House is to enable hon. Members to obtain information about the expenses.

Mr. Callaghan

I am sorry. I only want to say to the hon. Member that I think his contribution is puerile because a full explanation of this expenditure has already been given in a debate in the House, and that if we had had the advantage of seeing him present during an earlier debate he would have known the answer.

Mr. Eden

The hon. Gentleman should know that a full explanation has already been given of the nature of the emergency in Nyasaland and other related matters, yet he persists in trying to raise them in the House today. Like every Member opposite, he is not concerned with considering other subheads.

Mr. Callaghan

The point is that there is a real difference between us and the Government on these matters. There is no real apposition by the hon. Member to the expenditure of this money in St. Helena, or is there?

Mr. Eden

My opposition is not specifically directed to St. Helena, or any other place. It is not my fault that I have to raise the question of St. Helena, since the Opposition chose this particular Vote to be put down for discussion in the first place. I am concerned to see whether the control which can be exercised by the Government over the expenditure of the taxpayers' money has been properly applied, and I shall continue, therefore, to ask questions of my right hon. Friend to try to satisfy myself that he and his Department, and the accounting officials in the Department, have done this.

Could my right hon. Friend turn his attention to Subhead C.2, relating to the Aden Protectorate? Here an increase of £137,750 is required for certain increased costs in connection with the Aden Protectorate levies. Could he give further details of the nature of this increased expenditure for the Aden Protectorate levies? Is it required for equipping them with uniforms, or certain expenses involved in their operations? Could he give any further information on that, and also on Subhead C.3, concerning a Supplementary Estimate for £22,000 for further issues of grants in aid to certain States of the Aden Protectorate for administrative and other services? I assume that these are administrative services based on the Aden Protectorate, and staffed and controlled mainly by British officers and personnel, for assistance to the Aden Protectorate States. If he could say a word or two about that, I should be grateful.

Finally, on page 44, Subhead C.14, relating to the desert locust control in the Ethiopian-Somali area, could he tell us about the results so far of the activities of the locust control organisation there? Is it meeting with a better degree of co-operation from the local people in trying to carry out its essential work? It is a very essential service which the organisation is performing there, and it would be interesting to know how far the money which is being spent on these operations is achieving results.

One further word on the question of the British Council, referred to in Subhead F.2. I am sure that no one will dispute the value of the work of the Council, but this is a rather generalised provision, in that it calls for a Supplementary Estimate of £43,500 to meet the increased costs of the Council's activities. That might well account for a multitude of blessings, but it could also account for a multitude of sins, and it would be valuable if we could have some further information about the nature of the activities, and also be told where the Council is carrying out increased activities, which is the reason why it has called for a Supplementary Estimate. Further, why when the original Estimate was prepared could it not have been foreseen that an additional £43,500 would be required?

I shall be grateful if my right hon. Friend can provide that information so that I and other hon. Members may be sure that the closest scrutiny and attention of his Department is being given to all the items of expenditure under its control.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Dingle Foot (Ipswich)

I wish to bring the House back to the question of Nyasaland. It is clear that we are being asked to vote additional money largely to increase the establishment of the Nyasaland Police. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman this question: have the Government, either here or in Zomba, seriously considered the observations made by the Devlin Commission on the organisation of the Nyasaland Police Force?

The House will recall that that force was analysed on page 36 of the Report and it falls into three branches: … the uniformed branch, whose duty it is to police the country and deal with all ordinary crime, including criminal investigation; special units, known as the P.M.F. (police mobile force), designed to deal with riots; and a special branch whose business it is to detect subversion and seditious activities. The organisation came under a good deal of criticism by the Devlin Commission and on the following page of its Report the Commission draws this contrast: In Southern Rhodesia, on the other hand, there is neither a P.M.F. nor a special branch. There, it is the belief of the British South African Police, with a strength of 4,250 (one European to 2.23 Africans) and a record of never having killed anyone since their formation in the '90s, that a P.M.F. is liable to be cut off not only from the rest of the population but also from the rest of the police force itself and that the 'riot squad' technique is no training for ordinary police duties; secondly, that a special branch, as 'a force within a force' tends to deprive the ordinary police of their normal intelligence duties as well as, by reporting direct to the Governor, risking sidestepping the overall responsibility of the Commissioner of Police. That was the view expressed from Southern Rhodesia. The Commission goes on to make this finding: We have not received enough evidence to suggest that the Nyasaland police force, despite the devotion of many of its officers, has succeeded in making itself a thoroughly acceptable part of the population of the Protectorate with, so to speak, 'its feet well under the table'. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether this passage in the Devlin Report has been considered and whether as a result any reforms of the Nyasaland Police Force are in contemplation.

The relations between the police and the population must depend not only on the organisation of the force but also, of course, on the duties which it is called on to carry out. At this moment nobody can deny that there is a very deep division in Nyasaland between the rulers and the ruled. That is due to a number of causes, but in a very large part it is due to the continued existence of the state of emergency and to the nature of the emergency regulations under which Nyasaland is governed at the present time.

The attention of the House has already been called on various occasions to Regulation 35. I will cite the relevant words: No person shall do any act or publish likely … to undermine the authority of, or the public confidence in, the Government or the Government of the Federation If anyone commits that offence, he is liable to a maximum term of imprisonment of 14 years or to a fine of £1,000, or both imprisonment and fine. I wish to make two comments on that regulation. First, it has, and it must necessarily have, the effect of stifling practically all political discussion, at any rate so far as the African population is concerned. If I may digress for a moment without getting out of order, there has been the question about who should give evidence before the Monckton Commission. It is extremely difficult for any body of persons to decide to give evidence if they cannot act freely and discuss together. Any sort of free discussion involving any attack on the Federation and any discussion among Nyasaland Africans exposes the persons concerned to the penalties here attached.

Secondly, I wish to comment on the penalties. It is, of course, perfectly true that courts in Nyasaland, as in this country, often mitigate the severity of statute law by imposing sentences which fall a good deal short of the maximum which the law allows. But, nevertheless, it must be the intention of those who framed the law that the maximum punishment should on occasions be imposed.

I simply cannot understand the mentality of the authors of these regulations who seemed to think that a sentence of fourteen years' imprisonment and a fine of £1,000, or both imprisonment and fine taken together, was the appropriate penalty by which to deter criticism of the Federation or the territorial Government. That is one regulation. There is another regulation to which I should like to refer. I could cite a good many but I will content myself with one, Regulation 28. It reads: No person shall publish, whether orally or otherwise, any report or information calculated to create alarm and despondency, or which is otherwise likely to prejudice the public morale, unless such report or information is merely a repetition of information which had already been published by or with the authority of the Governor. If the Governor says anything to create alarm or despondency one can repeat it, otherwise one cannot say it. There the maximum penalty is three years' imprisonment or a fine of £500, or both imprisonment and fine.

It is rather remarkable when one contrasts that with the similar regulation which we had in this country during the war under the Defence Regulations— Regulation 39BA. There also it was made an offence to publish any report or statement likely to cause alarm or despondency. But there was the proviso that no person should be convicted of the offence against the regulation if he could prove that he had reasonable cause to believe that the report or statement was true; and that the publication thereof was not malicious and ought fairly to be excused. If he made a statement in good faith believing it to be true he had a perfectly good defence. The penalty in that case —and this was in the middle of the war—was a month's imprisonment or a fine of £50. Compare that with the sentence of three years' imprisonment or a fine of £500 which obtains in Nyasaland. Is it not remarkable to compare these two regulations and to note the comparative savagery of the penalty imposed under the emergency regulations in Nyasaland? The point I wish to make is that so long as the emergency conditions and these regulations continue in force, so long are the people of Nyasaland subject to this extremely harsh and oppressive law, and those are not conditions in which a settlement can be brought about.

The complaint that I make of what goes on and the law which the police have to enforce in Nyasaland is not confined simply to the emergency regulations. The police have to administer the ordinary law and it is worth while to look for a moment at the ordinary law in Nyasaland as it affects the liberty of the subject. Ever since 1909 there has been in force in Nyasaland the Political Removal and Detention of Africans Ordinance. Only Africans may be removed or detained. The Ordinance provides that if a district commissioner is satisfied that any African … residing or being within his district is conducting himself so as to be dangerous to peace, order and good government in the Protectorate or is intriguing against Her Majesty's power and authority in the Protectorate the district commissioner may detain any such African … After the detention order has been made by the district commissioner, the report is made to the Governor and then it is provided that The Governor may, if he thinks fit, … direct that such African shall, (a) be detained in such place and for such period as the Governor may consider necessary in the interests of peace, order and good government; or, (b) be removed from within the limits of the district in which he ordinarily resides to some other district appointed in the said order, and there detained in such place and for such period as the Governor may consider necessary in the interests of peace, order and good government. Quite apart from emergency regulations, we have this power of arbitrary detention and restriction which has existed for many years in Nyasaland and which continues to operate today. One particular case which I have already taken up with the Colonial Office is the case of M.Q.Y. Chibambo. He is a man of 43 years of age. In 1953 he was convicted of uttering seditious words. He was alleged to have said that the agricultural laws should be disregarded, that offences against the laws of the Protectorate should not be reported to the Governor or the native authority and that such offences should be tried by the people themselves. In other words, he was advocating non-co-operation. He was following in the footsteps of Gandhi and a good many other figures in the history of the British Commonwealth.

That, of course, may have been very reprehensible but it took place in the year 1953, a year when the Nyasa people were greatly exercised because federation was being imposed on them against their will. Mr. Chibambo served his sentence. He served for fifteen months and was released in July, 1954, but he was not allowed to go back to his home in Blantyre. He was at once deported to Port Herald in the far north of Nyasaland, hundreds of miles from his home, and continued to remain there under a restriction order until March of last year when he was detained under emergency powers.

I wrote to the Colonial Office on his behalf in December, 1958, and got this reply from the Under-Secretary of State: The order under which Mr. Chibambo is restricted to the Port Herald area in Nyasaland is reviewed by the Governor in Council every six months, and the last review was in September, 1958, when it was decided that it should remain in force. That is an entirely arbitrary proceeding; there is no appeal and there is no redress. This man goes on year after year without any explanation ever being furnished to him or to anyone else of why it is thought necessary to keep him in detention.

The police in Nyasaland have a very thankless task. That is not their fault. I think it only right that I should say in this House that I have had a good many contacts in the last twelve months with the Nyasaland police, particularly in May of last year when I was appearing before the Devlin Commission. I think I ought to say in this House that both then and when I was in Nyasaland a few weeks ago, I and my colleagues received every possible courtesy and assistance from the Law Officers and from all members of the Nyasaland Police Force. I am not making any attack upon the force. It is not their fault, but their task is due to the relations which now exist in Nyasaland between the rulers and the ruled.

Earlier today when the Monckton Commission was discussed during the debate in an earlier Vote, we had two very remarkable maiden speeches by hon. Members opposite, the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mr. Berkeley) and the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. Tapsell). The hon. Member for Lancaster quoted a sentence which was used by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) during the debate on the Address when my hon. Friend said that the task of this Administration, newly returned at the General Election, was to restore African confidence … in the good intentions of the Conservative Government."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd November, 1959; Vol. 612, c. 668.] I think it goes even further than that. I think that when the right hon. Gentleman goes to Nyasaland in a few days' time, his task—and it may be very largely the task of Lord Monckton as well—will be to restore the faith of the Nyasa people in British rule and in British integrity. It may be that the right hon. Gentleman will be assisted—I hope he will—by the speech made by the Prime Minister in the Union of South Africa, and that he will also be assisted by what he himself has recently accomplished in relation to Kenya, but in any event his will not be an easy task. When I was in Blantyre last January I had the opportunity of speaking to leaders of the Malawi Congress Party and many Africans I have met on an earlier occasion. We discussed many things, including the question of their attitude towards the Monckton Commission.

I am putting it in the form of a summary, but this was the effect of what they said to me: "What use is any Commission to us? We have had one Commission already. We all gave evidence before it; we accepted its Report as a fair and accurate picture of events leading up to the emergency, but what happened? The British Government accepted only those findings which were favourable to themselves and rejected every finding which was in favour of the African leaders." They went on to say, and this was said to me more than once, "What can we expect from Britain, or from any Commission which Britain sends out?"

On 28th July last year, when hon. Members opposite filed through the Lobby in support of the Government Motion on the Devlin Commission Report, the Motion which picked out merely the findings favourable to the Government, and by implication rejected the rest, they were engaged, no doubt, in a very slick Parliamentary manoeuvre, but I wonder how many of them realised the immense damage they were doing in Nyasaland to British authority and British prestige.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary will be able to repair the damage. That is the hope of hon. Members on this side of the House just as much as it is the hope of hon. Members opposite. There are many things he can do. I will not enumerate them now: I want to mention only two. I believe he could go a very long way to repair the damage if, first, he would arrange for the ending of the state of emergency and, secondly, if he would induce the Protectorate Government at once to review the permanent legislation in Nyasaland under which persons living in that Protectorate can be restricted and imprisoned without charge and without trial.

7.20 p.m.

Sir Charles Mott-Radclyffe (Windsor)

I listened to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich (Mr. Foot) with great interest. I do not know the details of the story which he told about the Nyasaland farmer who, because he thought that the agricultural laws of Nyasaland need not be adhered to, was removed a hundred miles or more from his home.

Mr. Foot

More.

Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe

No doubt my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, when he replies, can tell the House a little more about this than could the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich, but it seems to me to be a strange paradox that the Labour Party as recently as two years ago was still anxious to retain powers not merely to remove a hundred miles but to dispossess farmers in this country who, under certain circumstances, did not think that the agricultural legislation should be upheld.

Mr. Foot

Was not every farmer against whom a dispossession order was made entitled to appeal to an impartial tribunal sitting in public?

Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe

I do not want to be out of order, but there was considerable difference of opinion, not confined to one party, as to just how impartial some of the tribunals were all the time.

I share the view of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) that, while we are fully entitled, and indeed under a direct obligation, to discuss in whatever detail we like the contents of these Supplementary Estimates, it does not necessarily follow that the views of hon. Members are always better informed than those of the people on the spot who have the unenviable task of maintaining law and order, preserving security and taking the extremely difficult decision whether, in a given set of circumstances, a state of emergency should be declared.

Nor do I think that we should turn this debate on the Supplementary Estimates into another discussion of the Devlin Report, because, as has been said from these benches, that Report was discussed fully before the election. I can, of course, understand why hon. Members opposite want to discuss it again, because in retrospect it must be a ray of sunshine for them; it is about the only thing upon which they are agreed at the moment. I can quite understand why they are anxious to rehash this old story, while keeping within the terms of the Supplementary Estimate.

But whatever views hon. Members opposite take about the Devlin Report and the opinions which the Devlin Commission expressed, surely there is one thing about which there can be no doubt whatever—and that is that Mr. Justice Devlin and his colleagues fully vindicated the action of the Governor, Sir Robert Armitage, in proclaiming a state of emergency. All the members of the Commission went out of their way to say that if he had not done so he would not conceivably have been able to discharge his essential duties as a Governor. I think that, with the example of the Mau Mau atrocities in Kenya behind us, we ought to applaud rather than condemn a Governor who takes action in time to stop outbursts of physical violence and bloodshed from occurring.

I hope that I shall not be misunderstood if I say that I wonder whether hon. Members opposite would like to be in the position of officers in the colonial police forces serving in remote territories. They are out on a limb, faced with difficult decisions, knowing quite well that if they take action too soon they are almost certain to be criticised in the House and, on the other hand, that if they take action too late, and what might have been quite a small riot becomes a very big riot, they are equally certain to be criticised in the House.

The hon. and learned Member for Ipswich paid a tribute to the police forces in the Colonial Territories. Against the background of events which we have witnessed in the last two or three years, it is perhaps time that one or two other hon. Members opposite, a few more members of the Labour Party and the Liberal Party, and some who belong to both, should say a word of encouragement to the colonial police forces and have the grace to admit that if they were in their shoes they would not have done the job nearly so well.

7.27 p.m.

Mrs. Eirene White (Flint, East)

I will not take very long because I know that several of my hon. Friends wish to take part in the debate. It is possible that my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) is better cast in the rôle of Cassandra than I am, but it is several years since I first rose in the House to speak of the problems of Nyasaland. It was rather more than five years ago that I raised questions of development in Nyasaland, of land tenure and of the development of the Shire Valley, and that was at a time when Nyasaland was not a headline country, as it has unfortunately since become.

I am therefore justified in saying to the Colonial Secretary that had some of the things which were advocated from this side of the House been done by his predecessor the lack of confidence in Nyasaland which now exists might never have been created. The discussion of this Estimate, which is to pay for matters arising out of the emergency, is a discussion of the lack of confidence in Nyasaland in the intentions of the Government, otherwise it would not be necessary in the form in which we have it.

May I make it perfectly clear that I am not opposed to some increase in the police force in Nyasaland if that is required? I take the point which has been made in the debate about some increase in Tanganyika. It is true that there are conditions in which one can properly say that the police force is undermanned and needs some increase to maintain its efficiency. But an increase of sixfold, which is the basis of the discussion, is surely quite out of proportion. I am certain that this large increase in the police force would not have been required at this time had more attention been paid to other matters.

If we ask people from Nyasaland why they distrust the Government's intentions they give several reasons. The primary reason, which we have often discussed in the House, is the political question of imposed federation, but there are other reasons. They feel themselves to have been the neglected territory. They feel that if we in the House had been in earnest about our concern for their conditions, we should have done far more about it in the years since the war.

If I take only one subject—education —we have the Jack Report to which my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) referred. The Report points out that even now, in spite of the increased expenditure on education—and there has been an increase—only about half the children of school age in Nyasaland have any education at all, and Che larger proportion of those are in school for about two years only. To give a smattering of education to children and then to leave them without further training for a livelihood is to make the worst of all possible worlds and to create a thoroughly discontented younger generation the members of which feel that they have had education dangled before them and that they ought to have had better opportunities in life than those to which they are entitled by a tiny smattering of education. This is one of the underlying social reasons, apart from the political reasons, for the discontent in that territory.

As to the economic development of the territory, according to the Jack Report matters which were discussed in the House years ago are still being discussed, investigated and examined. There has still been no decision about what will happen to the development in the Shire Valley, either as regards the large hydro-electric schemes, which I think are probably not likely to come about, or, what are as important from the point of view of the individual African, about the very necessary schemes for land reclamation, swamp drainage, etc., which would make a vast difference to the prospects of economic improvement for many of the Africans in the Southern Province.

I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman is in a position to tell us more on the matters about which we have already questioned him. We have asked him about agricultural improvements. Has he a Swynnerton plan for Nyasaland? Does he intend to leave education where it is now? Does he intend to say, "You can trust the Federation to stimulate economic progress, and therefore we in the House need do no more about it"?

The position in Nyasaland is so exceptional that outstanding action is required by Her Majesty's Government and Her Majesty's Treasury. If there is one country in the Commonwealth of which one can say that there are exceptional and special circumstances, Nyasaland is that country. There is a peculiarly difficult political situation there. That can be dealt with only on a political level, but it would greatly alleviate the political tension and make political advance at least easier if, at the same time, Her Majesty's Government adopted a positive approach on the other matters.

Moreover, to point to a relative increase in expenditure on various services to be provided begs the question. When one starts from near zero, the fact that one is now spending perhaps four times as much as was being spent ten years ago is of little consequence. This matter is not being viewed in proper perspective. It is important for hon. Members to study all the figures closely. For instance, the total Government expenditure on education is less than the cost of a mile of M.1.

I feel that we should not be asked to spend the money which we are being asked to spend on the emergency. Some of it presumably will be used for the purposes mentioned by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Foot). I should very much like to know how much of this Estimate is likely to be devoted to enforcing Regulation 35. Is it to be devoted to paying the salaries of bands of snoopers who are to find out whether people say things derogatory, not merely of Her Majesty's Government and the Federal Government, but as I recall the Regulations—I have not the text with me—of a very much lower group of persons in the Governmental hierarchy? To bring any of those persons into disrepute is sufficient to bring one up against the law, if that law is to be enforced. If it is to be enforced, I am sure that it will need much more expenditure than we are being asked to vote to pay people to go round listening to conversations. If that is the only way we can carry out our administration in Nyasaland, we shall have not just this Supplementary Estimate this year but, I have no doubt, a very substantial Estimate indeed in subsequent years.

We are entitled to ask the Government to tell us not merely what they propose to do on the purely political side concerning the police, but also on some of the more fundamental matters which I believe very strongly indeed are at the root of much of the dissatisfaction and lack of confidence which the ordinary African has in the intentions of Her Majesty's Government.

7.35 p.m.

Miss Joan Vickers (Plymouth, Devonport)

I had not intended to talk about Nyasaland, but as it has been discussed by right hon. and hon. Members I wish to make a few remarks before asking one or two questions on other subjects.

We all sympathise with the views expressed on education by the right hon. Member for West Bromwiah (Mr. Dugdale). I think that the right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do Ghat, unless one has a peaceful country, it is not possible to go on with other desirable improvements in the standards of the people. One must remember that at one time in Malaya and Kenya people were forced to live in separate villages in order to have their protection.

I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that it is far better to have the police free and not have the people put in separate villages. The people should be given the protection of the police in the way it is being done now. We do not want to come to the emergencies which were necessary in other countries when one was forced to herd people together for their very protection.

I was glad that the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich (Mr. Foot) paid a tribute to the police, because I know that he has great knowledge of Nyasaland and visits the country frequently. A tribute from him will be very well received there. The hon. and learned Gentleman took exception to some regulations dating back to 1909. Since that date, Socialist Governments have been in power. If the hon. and learned Gentleman was so very upset and worried about this, the authorities could have been asked by one of the Socialist Governments to rescind the measure which he so dislikes at present.

I do not think that extra police is necessarily a very bad sign, because as countries become more fully developed they need extra police. In this country, we have considerably increased our police over the last fifty years, and we hope that our civilisation in this country is improving. In Plymouth, recently, despite everything, we have had to take on 37 new police. Even in this country we cannot say that the police force is up to strength. Therefore, having extra police in a country is not necessarily a sign that we are being overbearing. It is a sign that we wish to keep a country peaceful in order to fulfil the further objects that the Government have in mind.

Mr. G. M. Thomson

What would be the hon. Lady's view if it were announced that Plymouth was to increase its police six times over?

Miss Vickers

It has increased its force by 37. I am not sure what percentage that is. Plymouth is also to have some policewomen.

I do not think that percentages really matter. We have had the percentage discussed between Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. There are far more Europeans in Southern Rhodesia to help to keep order, particularly with the volunteer police service. Therefore, I do not think that the numbers are comparable between the two.

We hope, naturally, that the police will be successful in keeping law and order. That will enable the Government in the future not to have to budget for this type of Estimate. They will be able to spend the money on improving the lot of the people individually. I have lived in Malaya and outside the Commonwealth in Indonesia. When one is living in fear for one's life, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to work on improving the social services. One just has to help the people to live their daily lives, and, in many cases, to find sufficient food to feed their families.

We hope that the emergency will soon be over. As my right hon. Friend is to go to Nyasaland shortly, he will be able to discuss the matter on the spot. I hope that he will achieve success equal to that which he has achieved at the Round-Table Conference on Kenya.

I want to draw my right hon. Friend's attention to two other points which arise out of the Estimates. One is Subhead C.16, "Singapore: Relief of distressed British subjects." We are being asked to vote £2,000 for these people in Singapore. The note says that they are receiving relief against a promise of repayment. I understand that these British subjects and British-protected persons are not necessarily citizens of Singapore. They may come there on their way to a ship, miss their ship and be stranded, as often happens in Singapore. Who is to make the repayment? In many cases it is quite impossible for the individual to do so. I think it would be a proper gesture for the Government to take the responsibility.

Can my right hon. Friend tell me whether the Nantina Home, set up in Singapore with the object of helping distressed British subjects and protected subjects, is still in being. There does not seem very much in this Vote for the provision of food, clothing and medical services where necessary. There ought to be some hostel to which these people can go. I should be very grateful for some information, because my experience out there was that a considerable number of people got stranded, and some, in fact, had no home of their own to go to. Does my right hon. Friend really think this sum sufficient for repatriation, where necessary, to the territory from which these people originally came?

Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Eden), I have a great admiration for the work of the British Council. It is one of the best links we have at present between the various Parliaments. We no longer have the same types of people living in many territories—including the civil servants—and in many places the main contact now is through the Council.

The Council also attends to students residing in this country. Does my right hon. Friend think that the Council's headquarters here is really large enough to deal with the number of students visiting us? I gather that the Council has to limit membership of students at its headquarters to those in their first year. After that, owing to lack of accommodation, they must go elsewhere.

I should also like to see far more co-ordination between the voluntary organisations working for these students. I know that there is a London council, but perhaps the British Council might set up a national council to undertake this work of co-ordination. I gather that in the London council there are 40 or 50 people who represent the different organisations and meet from time to time to discuss student welfare but, as far as I know, there is no co-ordinating link throughout the country between these organisations.

That may lead to considerable overlapping, and also tend to destroy the work of the British Council and other organisations. A considerable number of students still, somehow, seem to slip through the net and do not get in contact with any organisation. The result is that very few of those who have been living here for two years have been invited to the houses of our people in England, Scotland and Wales. We should try to obviate this.

I agree entirely with the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) that there has been a great deal of neglect of education in Nyasaland in the past. The difficulty is that one always has to educate people for something. Nyasaland is principally an agricultural country. Most of the people work on the land, while a large percentage of the rest go to South Africa to work in the mines, and never return to Nyasaland.

I support the hon. Lady in everything she says about increasing educational opportunities. In this work the British Council has a great part to play. I see that this work is expanding, and has been increased greatly in recent years, and that there are further proposals to strengthen future educational activities. Any support that we can give to the Council in its efforts to obtain more teachers will be very valuable.

I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education held a Commonwealth conference on this subject a few weeks ago, but there is still a great shortage of teachers who are prepared to go overseas. One of the difficulties is the period for which they go. If they are already in a teaching service, particularly that of a local authority, they may not be able to get an assurance that they will get a job on their return, and that their pension rights will be safeguarded.

I therefore hope that the British Council will continue its work on further education. That, I think, is one of its principal duties; not only encouraging people to know more about our country and forming a greater link between the Commonwealth countries themselves, but bringing students here for education and sending our own people overseas to teach. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give every support to the Council in the future.

7.46 p.m.

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway (Eton and Slough)

As I have been away for some time, perhaps I may be allowed to congratulate the Colonial Secretary most cordially on the success that he achieved in his plans for Kenya. He then had the good fortune of gaining the support not only of the African and Asian representatives but of the moderate European representatives. He will have a much more difficult task when he approaches Central Africa and Nyasaland, because in those territories the moderate Europeans are in a minority. It is the diehard Europeans who are in the dominant position. I extend a good deal of understanding and sympathy to him when he approaches this further task.

I am quite certain that while the right hon. Gentleman has held his present office he has been urging the Government of Nyasaland and the Government of the Federation to release Dr. Hastings Banda. Early this year it was indicated in the Press that his release might take place at an early date. I think it very likely that the Colonial Secretary has also asked the Government of Nyasaland to consider whether the state of emergency there could soon be brought to an end.

I come to these conclusions, not only from Press indications, but because the right hon. Gentleman, since he has been Secretary of State for the Colonies, has carried out policies in other territories which show an approach to these issues much broader than we have had from his predecessors.

I take into account the fact that he must have been very well aware that Dr. Banda has now been in prison for one year without any trial whatsoever. The Colonial Secretary must have had in his mind the fact that the Devlin Commission, appointed by his own Government, declared that the plan for massacre, alleged by his predecessor, was a myth. He must have been quite aware that that Commission declared that there was no evidence at all that Dr. Banda had advocated violence.

In these circumstances, I am perfectly sure that the right hon. Gentleman's sense of justice would not allow him to be Secretary of State for the Colonies without his urging upon the Government of Nyasaland, and that of Central Africa, that Dr. Banda, after one year in prison without trial, should be released.

If that is an accurate description of what has been happening—and I am fairly confident that it is—I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman how it is that his view has not succeeded in these matters. He has referred earlier—and there have been several references to the matter during the debate—to the increase in the police force. I want to know whether or not that proposal for an increase in the police force followed his suggestion that Dr. Banda should be released. I want to know whether it was not the reaction of the Government of Nyasaland, supported by the Federal Government, to his own proposal that Dr. Banda should be allowed to return to Nyasaland. Is it not the case that those Governments said to him that if Dr. Banda were returned to Nyasaland it would be necessary, in order to maintain order, to strengthen the security forces?

I recognise that under those pressures he did not immediately respond to the suggestion that troops should be called into Nyasaland, but instead himself made a proposal that the police force should be doubled since the police were unobtainable from Northern Rhodesia in view of the condition of unrest which existed in that country. I, with other speakers, would much prefer that the police force should be increased to maintain internal security rather than that troops should be brought in from the Federal territory.

I want to take that history, which I believe the right hon. Gentleman will not be able to deny, a stage further. I should like to ask whether a stage was reached where the Prime Minister of the Federation, in conjunction with the Governor of Nyasaland, urged that troops should be introduced if there was any proposal that Dr. Banda should be allowed to return to Nyasaland. Is it not the case that because of the fear of the conditions that would arise in Nyasaland if Dr. Banda returned and the emergency were lifted, there was immediate pressure that troops should be brought to Nyasaland from the Federal territory? If and when that pressure took place, on what grounds did the right hon. Gentleman accept the proposal that troops should be brought into Nyasaland?

I hope I have made it clear that I understand the difficulties of the right hon. Gentleman. Apparently both from Nyasaland and from the Federal Prime Minister there was advice that if Dr. Banda should be released there would be likely to be an emotional disturbance in Nyasaland which would lead to violence.

I urge upon the right hon. Gentleman tonight that when he goes to Nyasaland he should suggest a different solution from the solution of increasing the police force and the troops. There is one way in which he could safely bring Dr. Banda back to Nyasaland and in which he could lift the emergency without the danger of violence occurring in that territory. That way is this: the release of Dr. Banda should be accompanied by a statement to the people of Nyasaland that there will be constitutional changes in that country giving them a majority in their own Legislature and in their own Executive Council before consideration is given to the future of the Federation to which they are opposed.

I ask the Minister to look at the figures of population in Nyasaland. There are 2,250,000 Africans, 10,000 Asians and coloured people and a mere 7,000 whites. Look at the representation which that population has in the present Parliament. There are a Speaker and 27 members, of whom 14 are official and 13 unofficial; there are only 7 Africans. On the Executive Council are the Governor and nine members. Of those nine members five are official, four are unofficial, and there are only two Africans on the Executive Council.

The people of Nyasaland are in this frustrated position. Africans form the overwhelming majority of the population, and it is undubitably an African society, with a mere 7,000 whites in that territory, most of whom are officials and managers of plantations without having to the same degree their roots in the life of the country as the whites in Kenya and in the Rhodesias have. The people of Nyasaland have a sense of frustration because their future is to be decided at the coming conference on Federation by a Parliament and by a Government in which they have no voice and in which there is no reflection of their point of view.

I say to the right hon. Gentleman that simultaneously with the release of Dr. Banda and with the lifting of the emergency he should say to Nyasaland, as he has had the courage to say to Kenya, "You shall now be given a majority in your own Legislature; you shall now be given a majority in your own Executive Council. When the future of the Federation comes to be discussed you shall have a Government which represents your people."

The right hon. Gentleman should say to Nyasaland what he has said to Kenya. He could then release Dr. Banda. He could lift the emergency without the need of police or troops. He could do it, because he would then begin to act with justice to the people of that territory.

7.59 p.m.

Sir Godfrey Nicholson (Farnham)

I fancy that the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) is to a large extent pushing at an open door. On the other hand, I think that, unintentionally, he has been rather unfair to the Colonial Secretary. The nearer the hon. Member gets to the truth in his speculations, the less my right hon. Friend will be able to say. I therefore hope that neither he nor I need interpret what may be a measure of silence or restraint on the part of the Colonial Secretary as meaning that the speculations of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough are entirely inaccurate.

From the start, I interpreted the movements of troops and the increasing police as meaning that the release of Dr. Banda was imminent. I do not see why the hon. Gentleman should be so pessimistic about it. It seems to me—and although it is oft repeated by people of extreme diehard views, it is none the less true— that the first duty of any Government is the maintenance of law and order. If there is any risk attaching to the release of Dr. Banda—and I think it is quite clear that there is—the first thing to do is to see that there is no measure of unrest as a consequence. Therefore, I welcome the movement of troops and I welcome the increase in the police.

I cannot go the whole way with the hon. Member for Eton and Slough when he urges my right hon. Friend to make the release of Dr. Banda coincide with a declaration that there will be an elected African majority in the Nyasaland Parliament. We should be doing the gravest possible disservice to Nyasaland if we hastened too fast. But I shall be bitterly disappointed if my right hon. Friend comes back and the situation in Nyasaland remains the same as it is today. I think that we all realise that on both sides of the House and, indeed, throughout the country people are profoundly dissatisfied with the present state of affairs, and regard it as purely temporary.

My purpose in speaking is quite simple. It is to say to my right hon. Friend that the majority of his hon. Friends are confident that he will come back with proposals for constitutional advance in Nyasaland—not going so far as the hon. Member for Eton and Slough proposes, but far-reaching proposals for constitutional advance in Nyasaland. We wish my right hon. Friend well. We have great faith in him. We believe that his visit to Nyasaland may light a candle of liberty in that country which will redound to the credit of the British Commonwealth.

8.2 p.m.

Mrs. Barbara Castle (Blackburn)

I congratulate certain hon. Members opposite upon their new-found enthusiasm in probing the minor details of expenditure in this Estimate and for posing as the protectors of the public purse. They deceive themselves, however, if they believe that they are benefiting the taxpayer more by asking questions about small administrative matters rather than by examining the broader aspects of Government policy.

It is surely the political experience of everyone in the House that political inefficiency is, in the long run, far more expensive than administrative inefficiency. If Cyprus had not taught us that, and if Suez had not taught us that, we should be very hard indeed to teach. In Nyasaland, we have a classic example of expensive policies against which it is our duty to protect the British taxpayer. It is for this reason that we have raised this matter tonight, because of the misapplication of public funds and the unnecessary burdens put on the hard-pressed taxpayers of Britain.

As more than one of my hon. Friends has clearly shown, the emergency for which we are presented with the bill tonight arises quite directly from the Government's denial to Nyasaland of her constitutional rights. I am very glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) drew attention to what has been achieved in Kenya, because that, of course, is the answer to hon. Members opposite who say that we must have a bigger police force in Nyasaland.

I think that it was the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) who referred to Mau Mau and the need to protect the public against violent movements of that kind. The Colonial Secretary himself would be the first to admit that the best safeguards against the resurgence of Mau Mau are the constitutional reforms which he has been instrumental in introducing.

This Vote arises directly out of the emergency. If we really want to save the taxpayers' money we ought to probe the Government's plans for ending the emergency, and ending it without any unnecessary delay whatsoever. Every month of delay is putting an unwarranted burden upon the British citizen's pocket and, as such, it ought to be vigorously denounced on both sides of the House.

This is why we on this side found this Estimate so alarming and singled it out for attention. What does it foreshadow? We are here presented with what the right hon. Gentleman himself will agree is no mean item of expenditure between now and the end of 1962. Let us remind ourselves of what it is that we are here voting. We are discussing a total Vote which the Colonial Secretary himself has told us, in answer to Questions in the House, is part of a planned capital expenditure of another £1¼ million on the Nyasaland police by the end of 1962, in addition to the expenditure of £288,000 for what he calls emergency items. Taken against the whole background of colonial expenditure in any individual country, particularly one as poor and small as Nyasaland, this is a very considerable item indeed.

Why is it necessary? We are alarmed about what is foreshadowed when we take this Estimate in conjunction with the speech made by the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. We really cannot just dismiss that speech as another piece of misreporting by those slack chaps the journalists. We have had rather too many cases of this kind lately. I gather that during the last day or two the Secretary of State for War and Dr. Kennedy have been trying to hide behind that one, and they have not succeeded in getting away with it. As a member of the National Union of Journalists, I object to Government spokesmen trying to escape the consequences of their Freudian lapses by blaming the chap who was taking the shorthand note.

It is not just a matter of whether or not the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations did or did not describe Nyasaland as the slum of Africa—a picturesque phrase which I should not have thought any conscientious shorthand reporter would have the time to make up. Let us leave that aside. I am much more concerned about other elements in the Secretary of State's speech. They come under two heads. First, he told his listeners in Luton that Nyasaland could not expect independence for several years yet. Then he added that it was no good talking glibly about self-government for Nyasaland because she was so terribly backward and was a country which had practically no assets at all.

The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations is in the Cabinet just as much as the Colonial Secretary is and, therefore, we have a right to attach as much weight to his words as to any soothing syrup we may be given by the right hon. Gentleman here this evening. We must couple the speech of the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations with the very significant words used by Sir Edgar Whitehead in a recent speech when he threatened that Southern Rhodesia would march out of the Federation if the British Government were ever to be so intolerable as to allow an African Nationalist Government to arise in Nyasaland. What is an African Nationalist Government? It is, of course, merely a Government which democratically recognises that the Africans in the territory are in the majority.

I suggest that all these things taken together amount to a recipe for a continuing emergency. A continuing emergency will be a worsening emergency. It is against this background that we are asked to vote an increase of £1½ million for the maintenance of law and order in Nyasaland over the next two years alone. It is no good the Colonial Secretary telling us, as I know he will because he has already revealed his hand a little in answer to questions, "Well, of course, this increase in the Nyasaland police force will not be relatively large." Relative to what standard? I know one example that the right hon. Gentleman will give us, because he has given it before, and I think that it is a sinister and significant example. He will tell us that the increase in the Nyasaland police force will still give us only one policeman to every 850 people in Nyasaland.

What is the strength of the police force in Northern Rhodesia? It has one policeman to every 550 people. The right hon. Gentleman will tell us that, therefore, the Nyasaland police will still be of only moderate strength. I could give him another example which on the appearance of things seems to support his case. Southern Rhodesia has one policeman to every 590 people. Policemen are thicker upon the ground in Southern Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia than in Nyasaland, but Nyasaland is heading fast to catch up. The significant fact is that these three territories inside the Federation need excessively large police forces.

I think that the real comparison is that which an hon. Member opposite, unfortunately from his point of view, referred to—Tanganyika. He told us that the Tanganyika police force was recently increased by 50 per cent. Between 1951 and 1958 the Tanganyika police force increased by 50 per cent., but what does its strength remain at the end of that increase? We still have in Tanganyika one policeman to every 1,850 people because Tanganyika is a country which is solving its constitutional problems, and I give credit to the Colonial Secretary for the part which he has played in helping it to do that.

Uganda has one policeman to every 1,330 people. If we take England and Wales, we have a crime problem and juvenile delinquency and no one will tell us that we are a more virtuous nation than the people of Nyasaland, one of the most peaceable tribes which would put some of us to shame. In England and Wales we have one policeman to every 1,581 people. Why do we need this sudden strengthening of the Nyasaland police force to bring it into line not with the more peaceful territories in African but with her unhappy neighbours within the Federation?

Reinforcing what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White), I put this question to the Colonial Secretary. Are we entitled to increase this expenditure in a poor country which is crying out for our help in every other direction of social development? Already in Nyasaland 9 per cent. of the total public expenditure goes on the police compared with only 12 per cent. on education. Is not this as much as she can afford? If we have this money to throw about, I would suggest to the Colonial Secretary that there are far more important fields in which to do it.

When the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations says that Nyasa-land's assets are few, that she has only about a dozen native lawyers and one fully-trained doctor, whose fault is that? We in this House are directly responsible, and have been for years. As my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East pointed out, we have an intolerable situation in this territory for which we are responsible in which only 50 per cent. of its children get any kind of schooling at all and some of such a quality that Government spokesmen themselves say that we cannot really say that any of them are properly literate.

We talk about spending £1½ million on the police for the emergency, but we continue to deny constitutional development because we say that the people are not ready for it. That is a vicious kind of nonsensical story which is leading us into all this waste of money in Cyprus. Let us stop it before it is too late.

The total development grants alone from this country to Nyasaland during the whole period from April, 1946, to March, 1958, amounted to only £4½ million and we are to spend £1½ million in two years on police and emergencies. Of this expenditure of £4½ million the educational service in Nyasaland for the full period of twelve years received only £670,000. Yet the Government tell us that we are going to pay £1½ million on maintaining law and order.

In 1958–59 the total grants and loans which went to Nyasaland amounted to only £¼ million. We are going to give six or seven times as much in the next two years, I repeat, on the police and on the emergency, and therefore I most earnestly ask the Colonial Secretary to end this nonsense before it is too late. This poor country is crying out for aid and constitutional development; do not let us instead give it the baton of the police.

8.17 p.m.

Mr. John Biggs-Davison (Chigwell)

I want to speak for a minute or two on one point. I listened with very great interest to what the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) said, and I think that the whole House and my right hon. Friend would agree with her that we want to bring this emergency in Nyasaland to an end as soon as we can without danger of renewed disturbance and, possibly, bloodshed.

I think that we are all agreed that we want more money to be put into Nyasaland to raise the present deplorable standard of living of the people there who are under British protection. That is one reason why I support the idea of a strong federation in Central Africa.

The point I want to speak about is that which the hon. Lady mentioned about the extra money which is now being made available for the police force in Nyasaland. I think that there was a slight contradiction in her argument. If she wants, as I want, the emergency to be brought to an end, we must see to it that conditions are provided which will enable that emergency to be brought safely to an end.

We owe it to Nyasaland to see that the police force is efficient and that there is an improvement in the relations between the police force and the public in Nyasaland, because whatever may come out of the inquiry in Blantyre I think that there is no doubt that the relations between the public and the police in the Protectorate are not what we should like to see in a British territory. I am not trying to make any criticisms of the police force. It has a terribly difficult job with few resources. The point I want to make is that we should give it adequate resources.

One difficulty in Nyasaland, and it may be the difficulty in other territories, is that there are not enough policemen on the ground. It may be cheaper or administratively convenient to centralise or concentrate the police force into mobile reserves so that when trouble breaks out in some district or village the riot squad descends and knocks the people about, but that does not make for good relations between the public and the police. If we are to get those good relations, and they are necessary, I believe, for the restoration of normal conditions in Nyasaland and for a steady advance towards greater freedom and a greater degree of self-government, we must see that sufficient funds are provided by this House for the police force to be adequately maintained and for its standards to be progressively improved.

8.20 p.m.

Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East)

I think that my hon. Friends have made a very valuable contribution to our debate, although I should like to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) that I think she was rather more than generous to the Tory rebels. Incidentally, where are they? I have been reminded of the eighteenth century battles when in the evenings the gentlemen retired to their picket lines for dinner. This rebellion seems to have been carried on in much the same sort of way.

I was moved to considerable irritation by the speeches of one or two Tory rebels who have been snuffling through these Estimates trying to save candle-wicks when there are major decisions costing this country hundreds of thousands of pounds, the expenditure of which could be averted by a change of policy. If the rebels do not want to be a cut-rate or third-rate lot, for whom the Whips will have no respect at all, and if they want to do a job, let them attack the Government on policy. My hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) will be willing to give them assistance at any time. He is expert at organising this sort of thing and could do a darned sight better than has been done over the last two days.

Mr. S. Silverman

I am much obliged to my hon. Friend. I hope that if he arranges the transfer I shall have a proper and legitimate share of the transfer fee.

Mr. Callaghan

I should also like to say how much I appreciated the speeches of the hon. Members for Lancaster (Mr. Berkeley) and Nottingham, West (Mr. Tapsell). The hon. Member for Lancaster made me feel rather old. I remember twelve years ago, when he was President of the Cambridge Union, speaking against the present Lord Chancellor. I believe that we won. I would only say to the hon. Member and to the hon. Member for Nottingham, West that it is far better that they made their speeches in this Parliament. They would not have had such a warm reception in the last Parliament if they had tried to make those speeches then. However, the winds of change are sweeping across the Conservative benches, and we all welcome this very much.

The Vote that we are discussing is to make provision for a grant in aid not exceeding £725,000 towards expenditure arising out of the emergency. I understand that it is in respect of the police. It is described as expenditure arising out of the emergency. I want to ask one or two quite direct questions. Why is the emergency still in force? Why have the resources and the forces of law and order not been capable of bringing it to an end? When does the Colonial Secretary expect that it will come to an end? What are his plans for bringing it to an end? These are the sort of questions which I should have preferred to hear asked by hon. Members opposite. They will determine whether the taxpayer will have to find this money.

What is the reason for continuing the state of emergency in Nyasaland? There are no armed guerrillas. This is not Cyprus. There are no ships stealing into harbours bringing arms to the rebels. As far as I know, there has not been a single political murder. In fact, I am sure that that is so. No European has lost his life. The only crimes that I can find have been committed are those which would have been committed anyway, and which had nothing to do with the political situation. There are no armed bands in the hills. There are no riots. Why is there still a state of emergency in Nyasaland? When the emergency was imposed on 3rd or 4th March last year, we were promised that it would soon come to an end. There is no reason why it should not come to an end. Such opposition as exists is channelled through the Malawi Congress Party which has eschewed violence but which is not allowed to organise.

I want to know why 2¾ million British subjects in this Colony are today living under a state of emergency. Is it true that the Colonial Secretary wants to lift the state of emergency and that the Federal Government are denying him the opportunity of doing so? The right hon. Gentleman will say that this matter is the responsibility of the Governor, but so was Cyprus. We have all read the accounts of the part played by the Governor in determining these matters. I say to the Colonial Secretary that the state of emergency in Nyasaland cannot be justified by any unrest that exists, that has existed or is likely to exist in the territory.

The right hon. Gentleman says that if we release Dr. Banda there will be trouble. We were led to expect that Dr. Banda would be released before the Monckton Commission reached Africa and started its work. We were led to believe that he would be free to have consultations with his colleagues in order to give evidence to the Commission. This has not taken place. Why? Have the Government changed their mind, or are they yielding to pressure?

The hon. Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson) said in what was, I thought, a most significant speech, "Do not press the Colonial Secretary too hard. You are pushing at an open door". I am ready to believe that this is so. I said this afternoon that there are signs that the Government are lapsing into sanity. Certainly after our experiences in the debate on apartheid in December I would not dream any more of accusing the Government in future of not being willing to accept our suggestions. The hon. Member for Farnham will remember how I was shouted down at the end of the debate merely because I said to the Prime Minister, "When you go to South Africa will you courteously make a speech telling the South African Government where we stand?". I was shouted down. Hon. Members opposite trooped into the lobbies against us. After six weeks, the Prime Minister took up our suggestion. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and I were told in an editorial in The Times that what we said was the height of irresponsibility. The Times did us the honour of attributing a whole editorial to what we said. Six weeks later, the Prime Minister took up our suggestion, and I congratulate and commend him for doing so.

Can we expect the same thing in six week's time from the Colonial Secretary? If so, I shall be the first to congratulate him, although, as I have said before, I do not want to congratulate him too much. There is only one thing which is worse than my congratulating the right hon. Gentleman and that is for my hon. Friends the Members for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) and Blackburn to congratulate him. If we want him to do a good job—he has made a good start—I think that we should be sparing in our praise, and I think that we can help him most against his own rebels, his lunatic fringe, by attacking him vigorously. That is why I have put a lot of venom into my attack on him tonight. He should have brought the emergency to an end.

The right hon. Gentleman is shortly to visit the Federation. He is going to Nyasaland. It may be that the police service there should be strengthened, but I. and I am sure other hon. Members, can remember a time when relationships in Nyasaland between the police and the community left nothing to be desired. I spoke to a policeman in the northern part of the territory near Mzuzu and Mzimbi who, by himself, patrolled an area about three times the size of Yorkshire with very little difficulty, apart from the inevitable chicken stealing and the other minor crimes. The reason why the police force has to be strengthened is that the Government have followed a policy that has led to this result. I hope that the Government will take over this part of our policy, just as they have taken over other parts of our policy during the last six months. They are welcome to them. We bequeath them to the Government with open arms.

I shall not weary the House by going through them all, but there are three simple things that the Government can do—release Dr. Banda, commence constitutional advance, together with an African majority in Nyasaland announced at the same time, and give a pledge to the people of Nyasaland that they will have the right at some time to determine their own future in relation to the Federation. That is all.

I am weary of saying it; we have said it so often. I imagine that the House is equally weary of hearing me saying it. I am, however, willing to guarantee that hon. Members opposite who acquiesce in saying that they are weary of hearing me say it will cheer the Colonial Secretary when he says it—and he will say it. In the meantime, however, we are faced with a Vote of £725,000 of British taxpayers' money to be devoted to objectives which I find repugnant and which I believe to be unnecessary. If the Government had followed the policies that we advocated they would never have had to come to the House to ask for this money. In those circumstances, I hope that my hon. Friends will divide the House.

8.30 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Iain Macleod)

As the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) has announced that whatever I say, he intends to divide the House, it may be thought that there is comparatively little point in replying to the detailed debate. However, undeterred by that, I will do my best.

First, to start on a point on which, I know, everybody will agree, I should like to congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Lancaster (Mr. Berkeley) and Nottingham, West (Mr. Tapsell) on their outstanding maiden speeches. We have heard many first-class speeches in this Parliament, but even among those, these two today were notable and I was very glad to hear what they said.

The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East said that the Motion which we are discussing relates to £725,000 for Nyasaland. That is not so. We are discussing Class 11, Vote 8, in which there are twenty-one subheads and the one to which the hon. Member referred is only one of them. It is wholly proper to discuss the other matters and I do not see how anybody can describe as minor detail matters relating to Cyprus, for example, where sums of £8 million and more are called for.

The whole of the sum comes to the figure that I always used to find incomprehensible and now I merely find baffling—£10. No matter what one adds up, it always comes to £10 in the end and the Opposition propose that we should reduce it to £5. I do not know whether the House remembers the story attributed to one of my predecessors, perhaps unfairly to my noble Friend Lord Chandos. When an Amendment was put down by the party opposite to reduce his salary by £1,000, he offered simply to accept the Amendment on the ground that it would not make much difference anyway and the debate could then be avoided. I am rather tempted to follow a similar procedure on this occasion.

It might make for a more coherent reply if I deal first with all the separate matters that have been mentioned and then concentrate on the Nyasaland speeches together rather than try to separate the two issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Eden) asked a number of questions on Subhead A.1 concerning St. Helena. The main reason in that case is that we have to pay an increased subsidy to the shipping company, the Union Castle Line, which calls at the island. The amount was negotiated by the Colonial Office and I am satisfied that, having regard to increased shipping costs, the company makes little or no profit from calling at the island.

The next two questions concern the Aden Protectorate. Those matters, which are covered by Subhead C.2, deal in the first instance with increased provision required, in the main, to cover the cost of famine relief operations which involve the flying of grain supplies to the affected areas, and with a contribution in Subhead C.2 (b) to the Army Vote. That is because we provide a 50 per cent. share of the cost of maintaining the Aden Protectorate levies.

The next question was on Subhead C.3 in relation to the grant in aid to those States in the Aden Protectorate that are not included in the Federation. The answer is that this is essentially an error in estimating and that the savings from the previous year fell short of the amount then anticipated by the amount now required.

The next question was about locust control by the East African High Commission. The whole subject of financing the control organisation is under review by the East African High Commission. This money is required to replenish stocks of insecticide, which are nearly exhausted.

Both my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West and my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) referred to the British Council and the money required for it. The additional provision, which amounts to £43,500, is required for library schemes and for the purchase of books and periodicals and has been partly offset by savings elsewhere. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West asked what had caused the increase since the original Estimate, and I am afraid that the answer is my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who headed a committee into this matter with resulting recommendations which have necessitated this expenditure, which I think will be money very well spent.

My hon. Friend the Member for Devonport asked about the British Council with special reference to co-ordination and whether it would be of value to have an additional body. I do not think that it would. In 1954, an overseas students co-ordinating committee was set up, composed of heads of all the students offices. The majority of territories which send students to this country now have their own student offices in London—and a very good thing too— and representatives of the British Council and my office sit on that committee under the chairmanship of someone from my office. I think that that is satisfactory and that it would not help if there was an additional body.

I was asked about the Cyprus Vote, particularly by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke). I know that this matter is difficult to follow and I will try to explain it only very briefly. The House will see that the figure of £3¾ million in Subhead B.17 and £4¼ million in Subhead C.19 together add up to the saving which is put down under Subhead B.1. We are therefore dealing not with new money, but with a reallo-cation of money which has become necessary in the changed circumstances and the changed relationship of this country with Cyprus.

The answer to questions about Subhead B.17—Cyprus—and Subhead B.18 —Nicosia Airport—is that this is not without precedent and, indeed, is common form for grants in aid to Colonial Governments. The audit is carried out by the local director of audit. It is not possible to do it in detail, because this is a Vote to make up a deficiency in a budget, but the audited accounts of Government expenditure as a whole are forwarded to the Comptroller and Auditor General in the United Kingdom.

The situation about Nicosia Airport is complicated because when this Supplementary Estimate was produced—in January—we thought that independence for Cyprus would come on 19th February, 1960, and this amount was therefore asked against a total cost of £500,000. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely asked whether money would still be paid if we did not get agreement about Cyprus. The answer is, "No.". Work has started, but it has been started with money put forward by the Cyprus Government and, until final agreement is reached on all points of the Cyprus settlement, Her Majesty's Government will not pay over any money for this project, so that in a sense it is in suspense until we see how the Cyprus negotiations finally go.

There is one last point before I deal with Nyasaland. I was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Devonport about the relief of distressed British subjects. The small sum of £2,000 shown there is not directly related to the specific cost. There have only been three, of which I have details in each case, since June, 1959, but this provides a fund, and I am certain that it will be more than enough, from which such expenses as arise unavoidably in the current year can be met. Where it is appropriate, those who have had money advanced to them are approached for repayment.

So much for all the questions which I was asked which I think I have answered in full on matters that do not directly concern Subhead B.16, Nyasaland, to which I should now like to turn.

We all know the situation in Nyasaland. It is by far the most densely populated of the three territories within the Federation. Its African population of about 2¾ million exceeds that of Southern Rhodesia, although its area is only one-third of the size of the latter. We know the essential economic facts of the Federation, that it is largely dependent on agriculture, helped with one or two cash crops, and that what light industry there is is usually associated with the main agricultural products.

I was asked by more than one speaker on the other side of the House whether we had a Swynnerton Plan for Nyasaland. I shall return to that in a moment in connection with the point that I should like to make to the House about the strengthening of the administration. The hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) made this point. To put it shortly, there is a Nyasaland Government Development Plan which envisages the expenditure of about £12 million at the rate of £3 million a year over the next four years. The money will be devoted to the expansion of agricultural production and research, and to improving education facilities.

I assure the House that during the visit which I am about to start, I will, apart from the investigations which I will be making into the political situation, be careful to look at the question of advancement in agriculture and education because I agree with what has been said by hon. Members on both sides of the House. If from now on I concern myself mainly with political problems, that does not mean that I am not conscious that political and economic advance ought to go together.

The situation is that we have this poor, crowded country, and it has been possible for it to benefit to a substantial extent —to the extent in total of about £3 million to £4 million a year—from federation. One of the most encouraging things that has emerged from this debate is that speakers on both sides of the House —with the exception of the right hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale)—consider that in certain circumstances, and with certain reservations, federation could and would work well. That opinion came from both sides of the House, and it is good to have that said. It is my firm belief that that is so.

Nevertheless, what has given rise to this debate is the fact that the special expenditure that was necessitated by the emergency, which the events before and during the emergency clearly demonstrated, meant that we had to accelerate plans for strengthening the administration and the police. That inevitably produced a serious budgetary situation.

I think that I can clear one point out of the way now. The hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) made a long, detailed and involved hypothetical comment. He said that the question of this increased expenditure on the administration, and particularly on the police, might have arisen from a hypothetical disagreement about the duration of the emergency, or the question of Dr. Banda or any other detainee. I can assure him that that is not so. The Nyasaland financial year runs from July to June, and the expenditure envisaged for this financial year, on matters which I shall discuss in a little detail, amounts to £640,271. The programme of expenditure was approved last autumn, before any of these matters arose and probably before I became Secretary of State—although I would not be certain of that to a day.

Mr. Brockway

I was referring to the right hon. Gentleman's own announcement of an increased expenditure of £1 million or more on the police, which meant a doubling of the police force. That was not before last June.

Mr. Macleod

I think that we are referring to the same thing. The plans for that were drawn up last autumn, and this is the first opportunity, through a Supplementary Estimate, that we have had of discussing this matter, because this is the first Estimate that has come before the House since the Estimates of almost a year ago.

A summary of what has been said about the use of this money was put most clearly by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle)—not today, but in a supplementary question to me on 16th February. That is not intended to be a reflection on her speech today, but I shall have other small reflections to make on it in a moment. On 16th February she asked: Would not it be far better (a) to abolish the emergency and to save British taxpayers' money and (b) to see that British taxpayers' money is spent on educating the people of Nyasaland instead of repressing them? "— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th February, 1960; Vol. 617, c. 1107–8.] If that were the choice there would be no doubt about the answer, but the Committee must not underestimate the importance of sound administration, and of a machine, including the police, which can carry out swiftly and efficiently the wishes of the central Government—and I am not thinking in any repressive sense. If someone goes to the International Bank and asks it for a loan for a certain territory, one of the first things to which it will devote a great deal of care is the ascertainment of the capability of the local administration to undertake the project and carry it through to fruition.

It is at this point that we come back to the point made about the Swynnerton Plan and to the question asked by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson), "Will we never learn the lessons of other African territories?" Many references have been made to Kenya, and that is the very lesson we learned there. Our experience there showed how essential it was to strengthen the administration, and a substantial part of the help we voted to Kenya during the years of the emergency was devoted to the improvement of the administrative machinery. As a result, a terrific impetus was given to African production.

It was from the strengthening of the administration in Kenya that the Swynnerton Plan came. It would have been quite impossible to put it into effect without that. The lesson that was true for Kenya is doubtless just as true for Nyasaland.

Mrs. Castle

Is not the Minister aware that in our criticisms today we have not been dealing with the item of £250,000 in respect of the expenditure on the provincial administration, which is additional to the £l½ million devoted to the police and the emergency? We agree with what the right hon. Gentleman says about the administration, but he must answer the point made about the comparison between the police force considered necessary for Nyasaland and that considered necessary for Tanganyika.

Mr. Macleod

I can assure the hon. Lady that I shall deal faithfully with that point very shortly. I intend to come to exactly that point, but part of this money is concerned with the administration, and the major part, as the hon. Lady said—and she just anticipated my next sentence—is in relation to the police.

After the expansion that is planned has taken place, there will one policeman to every 850 people. The hon. Lady went to great pains to prove that that establishment was too high. I wonder, with respect, if she was not herself a little selective in the territories she took. It is quite true that Tanganyika has a ratio of one to 1,820, but Kenya has a ratio of one to 510, and both Northern and Southern Rhodesia have less than the Nyasaland figure. The Britsih Guiana figure is one to 334, and the Jamaica figure is one to 759, while Trinidad is one to 391.

But the most remarkable difference which I find, and we may have to go to an arbitrator on this matter, is that between the figure of the proportion of police to population in England and Wales which the hon. Lady states and the one which I am given from the Home Office. I am not saying for a moment which is right. I will give the figures. The hon. Lady said twice that the figure is in the region of one to 1,580, but the Home Office makes the calculation of one to 580. I do not know where the decimal point slipped in. It may be that, in Lord Randolph Churchill's phrase, "one of those damned dots" somewhere came into the hon. Lady's calculation. If she would like the precise figures, there are 71,475 policemen and women in England and Wales against a population of about 45 million, and the arithmetic of that, I think, comes nearer to the Home Office figure, if I may put it this way, than the figure which the hon. Lady puts in front of us.

I am sure that she will realise, because she is a very good and fair debater, that assuming, if I can do so for a moment, that the Home Office is right and that she is wrong, she will accept as a conceivable possibility that much of her argument disappears. She made a tremendous case about some of those countries where these figures show that they were not coping with their constitutional problem. It will be very sad indeed if we have to come to the same conclusion about England and Wales as a result of the hon. Lady's calculations. She said a moment later, in response to some comment from someone, that her mental arithmetic was not very good, and I think that this may be some evidence that this is so.

Mr. Callaghan

So far as I know, they are not yet towing away motor cars in Blantyre, and do not need to strengthen the police for that.

Mr. Macleod

That is an extraordinarily weak argument, like most of the others which the hon. Member feels he has had to put at the present time. Of course, the situations are different. In Nyasaland, there are nothing like the traffic control problems which we have here, but, on the other hand, there are other problems in Nyasaland with which they have to cope.

Anyway, that is the background against which Her Majesty's Government have agreed to provide assistance of up to £1.8 million in the three financial years ending on 30th June, 1962. That is the end of the Nyasaland financial year, as I explained earlier, and the greater part of this sum is, as was said, for the police. I believe, as I think I have indicated, that that too is a wise expenditure.

Of course, we take into account—I say this in reply to what was said by the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich (Mr. Foot)—the different point of view expressed about the use of a police mobile force. From the small knowledge that I have of these matters, I believe that the police mobile force should be regarded in the context of it being a part of the central Government just as in the same way the administration is regarded. We must consider this in that context and not in the context of repression, if that has happened. No doubt we are now moving into other times. There are great benefits to come from having an efficient police force and, as I have shown, the figures are not remotely out of line with other territories in the Colonies or indeed with the figures at. home.

I wish to say a word on the question of payment because, after all, this is a financial Estimate which I am discussing. The aid provided is in the form of two-thirds by grant and one-third by interest-free loans.

I wish to turn now to another matter about which we have argued a good deal as to whether it is in order or out of order to discuss it. Most of the points raised appeared to be out of order, but it seems to be in order for me to make some passing comment about the movement of troops This is a difficult matter, not because I have any desire at all to make the situation obscure—the facts are perfectly simple—but because it is genuinely difficult for Secretaries of State to answer on matters which have been ruled upon by the Chair, and which we know are true, but which, if they come under the jurisdiction of anyone, come essentially under the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth Relations Office.

As I think has been said, the facts are quite plain. The first battalion of the R.A.R. is carrying out exercises in conjunction with the second battalion of the King's African Rifles. I was talking about the constitutional responsibility when I said that this was a defence matter. The hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn pertinently observed, "Against whom?" Of course it is against nobody. I did not mean it in that sense. I meant that it is a military matter, and the question which I think it fair to ask—I hope it is in order for me to say a sentence or two about it— is whether it was wise.

I do not wish—let me make this clear —to question the judgment of the man on the spot—in this case the Governor —knowing the security reports from Nyasaland. I can assure the House that not all of them are wholly reassuring, because I studied them with great care. I do not wish to question the judgment of the Governor that it would be a good thing to have troops near. I do not think for a moment that one can really sustain the argument—except on the question of polemics in this House—that this could be interpreted in any way as a threat or intimidation to—or protection of, for that matter—those who may appear, or may not appear, before the Monckton Commission.

I think the sentence which would carry most weight in this matter was included in a supplementary question asked on 10th March by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West who said: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that if an increase in the number of troops in Nyasaland is a necessary prerequisite to the ending of the emergency, that is something which some of us would very much welcome?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 10th March. 1960: Vol. 619, c. 605.] It was the view of the Governor that it would not be provocative but would, on the whole, have a good effect, if troops could be near and, as I say—I do not know whether what I have said is in order—I have no wish to question his judgment.

Mr. G. M. Thomson

Will the right hon. Gentleman go further in clearing up the matter? He is saying that in the judgment of the Governor these troops were desirable in the interests of internal security. The question of internal security is the responsibility of the Governor and not that of the Federal Government. As I understand it, during the emergency it was the Governor who requested the troops. Under what circumstances was the Governor's prerogative and the Secretary of State's own prerogative overridden?

Mr. Macleod

It was not overridden in the least. That illustrates the difficulty we are in. It is partly a procedural difficulty in that a Secretary of State cannot be answerable for something which, according to the laws which prevail in the Federation, does not strictly come within his responsibility. I think I must leave that matter there.

The hon. and learned Member for Ipswich asked a specific question about Mr. Chibambo. Strangely enough, only this morning I was reading my latest copy of the Malawi News, which is the voice of the Malawi Congress Party, I saw it had an editorial saying: "Welcome Macleod, but …" I shall not go on with the "but". It is fairly extensive and there are a lot of other things, but Mr. Chibambo's name is mentioned in that article. I know only the outlines of this particular personal case, but, in view of the fact that the hon. and learned Member raised it, I shall undertake to discuss the case with the Governor during my visit there if this man has not yet been freed. The number of those in detention now is probably something under 200.

I have been asked a tremendous number of questions about Nyasaland and outside Nyasaland and I have done my best to answer. The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East said that he felt he had to divide the House. I do not object to that in any way, because he and his hon. and right hon. Friends feel that the Government have been wrong, perhaps, or misguided over a considerable period. I do not accept that position for a moment, but I should like to establish this one thing, even though we are to divide now. Divisions are sometimes misread outside this House. We understand what we mean here, but in other countries they do not always understand these matters.

In a few days time I am going to Nyasaland. That is a journey I am looking forward to very much indeed. The announcement of my visit said that I was going to discuss constitutional changes, and so I am. That is the main object of my visit and I am very grateful for the different suggestions which have been made by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I hope that we can agree on this even though, for Parliamentary reasons, we must divide on this Vote. I accept and understand that, yet I should like to feel that it is the wish of the whole House that Nyasaland can go forward, both politically and economically, in peace.

Mr. Stonehouse

Before the right hon. Gentleman resumes his seat, will he answer the questions addressed to him? When will the emergency be brought to an end and, in particular, when will Dr. Banda be released?

Mr. Macleod

I have said more than once that I have no intention of dealing with personalities, whether of Dr. Banda or anyone else. Responsibility for that matter is for the Governor in relation to law and order and not in relation to a Vote, Questions in this House, visits of the Monckton Commission, or any other consideration whatever.

Mr. Dugdale

Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the speech of the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations was or was not accurately reported? If it was not accurately reported, in what was the inaccuracy?

Mr. Macleod

I think that the right hon. Gentleman was not present when, at a very early stage, the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations explained that matter to the House.

Question put, That "£10" stand part of the Resolution: —

The House divided: Ayes 207, Noes 161.

Division No. 50.]	AYES	[9.4 p.m.
Agnew, Sir Peter	Glover, Sir Douglas	Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Allason, James	Glyn, Dr. Alan (Claphtm)	Noble, Michael
Alport, C. J. M.	Glyn, Col. Richard H. (Dorset, N.)	Oakshott, Sir Hendrle
Amory, Rt. Hn. D. Heathcoat (Tiv'tn)	Godber, J. B.	Osborn, John (Hallam)
Arbuthnot, John	Goodhew, Victor	Page, Graham
Ashton, Sir Hubert	Gower, Raymond	Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)
Atkins, Humphrey	Green, Alan	Peel, John
Barlow, Sir John	Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.	Perclval, Ian
Barter, John	Hall, John (Wycombe)	Peyton, John
Batsford, Brian	Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)	Pike, Miss Mervyn
Berkeley, Humphry	Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)	Pilkington, Capt. Richard
Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald (Toxteth)	Harvle Anderson, Miss	Pitt, Miss Edith
Biggs-Davison, John	Hendry, Forbes	Pott, Percivall
Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel	Hiley, Joseph	Powell, J. Enoch
Bishop, F. P.	Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)	Prior, J. M. L.
Black, Sir Cyril	Hinchlngbrooke, Viscount	Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho
Bossom, Clive	Hobson, John	Proudfoot, Wilfred
Bourne-Arton, A.	Hocking, Philip N.	Ramsden, James
Box, Donald	Holland, Philip	Rawlinson, Peter
Boyle, Sir Edward	Hollingworth, John	Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin
Bralne, Bernard	Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John	Rees, Hugh
Brewis, John	Hopkins, Alan	Renton, David
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.	Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia	Ridley, Hon. Nicholas
Brooman-White, R.	Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)	Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)
Browne, Percy (Torrlngton)	Howard, John (Southampton, Test)	Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)
Bryan, Paul	Hughes-Young, Michael	Roots, William
Bullard, Denys	Hulbert, Sir Norman	Russell, Ronald
Burden, F. A.	Hurd, Sir Anthony	Scott-Hopkins, James
Butcher, Sir Herbert	Hutchison, Michael Clark	Sharpies, Richard
Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)	Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)	Shepherd, William
Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.)	Jackson, John	Simon, Sir Jocelyn
Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)	James, David	Skeet, T. H. H.
Carr, Compton (Barons Court)	Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)	Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'rd & Chiswick)
Carr, Robert (Mitcham)	Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)	Speir, Rupert
Chataway, Christopher	Johnson, Erio (Blackley)	Stevens, Geoffrey
Chichester-Clark, R.	Johnson Smith, Ceoffrey	Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)
Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)	Kaberry, Sir Donald	Storey, Sir Samuel
Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)	Kerans, Cdr. J. S.	Studholme, Sir Henry
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)	Kerby, Capt. Henry	Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)
Cleaver, Leonard	Kerr, Sir Hamilton	Sumner, Donald (Orpington)
Cooper-Key, Sir Neill	Kirk, Peter	Talbot, John E.
Cordeaux. Lt.-Col. J. K.	Kitson, Timothy	Tapsell, Peter
Cordle, John	Leavey, J. A.	Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)
Corfield, F. V.	Leburn, Gilmour	Thomas, Peter (Conway)
Costaln, A. P.	Legge-Bourke, Maj. H.	Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)
Coulson, J. M.	Legh, Hon. Peter (Pctersfield)	Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin
Crltchley, Julian	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)	Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)
Cunningham, Knox	Lilley, F. J. P.	Tilney, John (Wavertree)
Curran, Charles	Linetead, Sir Hugh	Turner, Colin
Currle, G. B. H.	Litohfield, Capt. John	Tweedsmuir, Lady
Dance, James	Longden, Gilbert	vap Straubenzee, W. R.
de Ferranti, Basil	Mac Arthur, Ian	Vane W. M. F.
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.	McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia	Vickers, Miss Joan
Drayson, G. B.	McLean, Neil (Inverness)	Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)
Duncan, Sir James	Macleod, Rt. Hn. lain (Enfield, W.)	Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)
Duthle, Sir William	MoMaster, Stanley	Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)
Eden, John	Macpberson, Niall (Dumfries)	Watts James
Elliott, R. W.	Maddan, Martin	Webster, David
Emery, Peter	Maitland, Cdr. J. W.	Wells, John (Maidstone)
Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn	Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.	Whitelaw, William
Errington, Sir Eric	Markham, Major Sir Frank	Williams, Dudley (Exeter)
Farr, John	Marten, Neil	Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)
Fell, Anthony	Mathew, Robert (Honlton)	Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)
Finlay, Graeme	Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)	Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles	Mawby, Ray	Woodhouse C. M.
Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)	May don, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.	Woodnutt Mark
Gammans, Lady	Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.	Worsley, Marcus
Gardner, Edward	Mills, Stratton
George, J. C. (Pollok)	Montgomery, Fergus	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Gibson-Watt, David	Morrison, John	Colonel J. Harrison and
		Mr. J. E. B. Hill.
NOES
Ainsley, William	Bacon, Miss Alice	Blyton, William
Albu, Austen	Beaney, Alan	Boardman, H.
Alfaun, Frank (Salford, E.)	Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.	Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S.W.)
Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)	Bence, Cyril (Dunbartonshire, E.)	Bowles, Frank
Awbery, Stan	Blackburn, F.	Boyden, James
Braddock, Mrs. E. M.	Hill, J. (Midlothlan)	Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)
Brockway, A. Fenner	Holman, Peroy	Proctor, W. T.
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.	Holt, Arthur	Randall, Harry
Brown, Alan (Tottenham)	Hoy, James H.	Rankin, John
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)	Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Redhead, E. C.
Brown, Thomas (Inee)	Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)	Reid, William
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)	Hunter, A. E.	Reynolds, G. W.
Callaghan, James	Hynd, John (Attercliffe)	Robens, Rt. Hon. Alfred
Carmichael, James	Janner, Barnett	Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Castle, Mrs. Barbara	Jeger, George	Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Chetwynd, George	Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield)	CCCCROSS, William
Cliffe, Michael	Jones, Dan (Burnley)	Short, Edward
Colllck, Percy	Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)	Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)	Jones, Jack (Rotherham)	Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)
Crossman, R. H. S.	Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)	Small, William
Cullen, Mrs. Alice	Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)	Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)
Davies, Rt. Hn. Clement (Montgomery)	Key, Rt. Hon. C, W.	Snow, Julian
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)	King, Dr. Horace	Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank
Davies, Harold (Leek)	Lawson, George	Spriggs, Leslie
Davies, Ifor (Gower)	Ledger, Ron	Stewart, Michael (Fulham)
Deer, George	Lee, Frederick (Newton)	Stonehouse, John
de Freltas, Geoffrey	Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)	Stones, William
Dempsey, James	Logan, David	Swingler, Stephen
Driberg, Tom	Loughlin, Charles	Sylvester, George
Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John	Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson	Symonds, J. B.
Ede, Rt. Hon. Chuter	McKay, John (Wallsend)	Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Nets (Caerphilly)	MoLeavy, Frank	Taylor, John (West Lothian)
Evans, Albert	MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)	Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)
Fernyhough, E.	Mahon, Simon	Thomson, C. M. (Dundee, E.)
Finch, Harold	Manuel, A. C.	Thornton, Ernest
Fitch, Alan	Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.	Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn
Fletcher, Eric	Mason, Roy	Watkins, Tudor
Foot, Dingle	Mayhew, Christopher	Weitzman, David
Forman, J. C.	Millan, Bruce	Wells, percy (Faversham)
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)	Mitchison, C. R.	White, Mrs. Eirene
Galtskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh	Monslow, Walter	Whitlock, William
George, Lady Megan Lloyd	Moody, A. S.	Wilkins, W. A.
Ginsburg, David	Morris, John	Willey, Frederick
Gooch, E. G.	Moyle, Arthur	Williams, Rev. LI. (Abertillery)
Gordon walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.	Mulley, Frederick	Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)
Gourlay, Harry	Oliver, G. H.	Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)
Grey, Charles	Oswald, Thomas	Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)	Owen, Will	Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.
Grimond, J.	Padley, W. E.	Woof, Robert
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)	Parker, John (Dagenham)	Yates, victor (Ladywood)
Hamilton, William (West Fife)	Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)	Zilliacus, K.
Hart, Mra, Judith	Peart, Frederick
Hayman, F. H.	Pentland, Norman	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Herbison, Miss Margaret	Prentice, R. E.	Mr. Howell and Mr. Cronin.

Fourth Resolution read a Second time.

Resolution agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution.

9.13 p.m.

Mr. H. A. Marquand (Middlesbrough, East)

The Estimate now before us is one of that very mysterious character to which the Colonial Secretary referred earlier, and unless one is an expert one can hardly understand what it means. When the people of Mauritius read about our debate, they will hardly understand why we are devoting only a quarter of an hour to such a vitally important matter to them.

I want to give the right hon. Gentleman time to tell the House what he proposes to do for the reconstruction and repair of the terrible damage which has occurred in Mauritius. Therefore, I must not spend very much time in briefly outlining the information which we all have and which indeed the Minister gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) on 10th March in a Written Answer.

There were 1,700 casualties in Mauritius as a result of a cyclone that struck the island twice. Over 100,000 buildings are reported to have been destroyed or seriously damaged, and no fewer than 70,000 people—nearly half the population of the Borough of Middlesbrough—which is represented in this House by two hon. Members—are in refugee centres. Not only that, but the whole livelihood of the island is seriously imperilled, for more than half of the sugar crop is said to have been lost. Sugar, of course, can be grown again, but the immediate loss is very severe, and it will inevitably take a long time before the plantations get back into production again.

I am told that the total loss to the island is estimated at no less than £50 million. This, of course, includes the loss of the sugar crop, a large amount of which was insured, fortunately, under a plan introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) when he was Colonial Secretary. I should like to say that he is very sorry not to be here tonight to add a word in support of my plea for the maximum possible help from the people of Great Britain at this time.

The Colonial Secretary has told us of the excellent emergency action that has been taken. We are grateful to the French Air Force, for example, for the assistance it has given by flying in supplies from Madagascar; to the Government of India, to the Red Cross, and, no doubt, to many others who have co-operated in emergency relief work. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that sufficient supplies to meet immediate requirements, including food, are on the way.

For the moment, then, it would seem that as much as could be done in a hurry and in an emergency has been done, but when we consider the Supplementary Estimate for the aid that will be required from us for the future, we want to know a little more. What more is to be done? We understand that the right hon. Gentleman guaranteed a sum of about £2 million for aid for the island after the first strike of the cyclone. Now, there has been this much more heavy strike, and this much more serious damage.

The island is faced with the sort of thing that our great cities faced during the war. The kind of damage that has occurred has been the sort of damage that occurred in the average heavily bombed city here. It is really of that dimension. What we have to ask ourselves is how far we can use that experience of bomb damage, emergency action and civil defence to help these people.

Are we to send out to the island a team of experts who have had experience in the reconstruction of war damage? Are we, perhaps, to call for volunteers from within the ranks of some of our voluntary Civil Defence services, who have, at present, fortunately, nothing to do, although they have studied these problems very carefully? I am sure that there are useful ways in which they could be used, and that many would volunteer to fly to Mauritius for some weeks if transport expenses were found. There are experts in our local government service —borough surveyors, and so on—who could be of great value.

I hope that the Colonial Secretary will tell us that he has some plans of that kind in mind. Particularly, I would ask whether he does not agree that in contemplating aid and all-out reconstruction action for the people of Mauritius, it would be as well now to rebuild, in a proper form that could be satisfactory for many years to come, the mud huts that have been blown down. Really tremendous damage has been caused to those dwellings—no doubt, quite easily. These fragile buildings have been blown over by the cyclone without much difficulty. The people had been living in those huts, inadequate affairs, for a very long time. Surely this is an opportunity to be taken for rebuilding that kind of structure on a much more permanent and satisfactory basis, with drainage and other necessities of a more civilised form of life.

Mauritius is a very little-known Colony. I suppose that there are few people in Great Britain who, if they were stopped in the street and were asked, could say where Mauritius was. But, as we who have had the advantage of making contacts with visitors from Mauritius are aware, this is a Colony which is very proud of its connection with this country. It is a Colony like the island from which my ancestors came, in which people speak both French and English with equal fluency. Therefore, I feel that I have a specially warm spot in my heart for this island, although I have never been to Mauritius.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will respond tonight in the spirit in which I have spoken and will guarantee all-out aid on a large scale for a permanent improvement in conditions in Mauritius, and will have no hesitation whatever in asking the House when the time comes to provide the money. On this side of the House, at any rate, there will be no hesitation whatever in voting whatever supplies are necessary. Speaking from some personal experience that I have had lately in collecting funds for the relief of Agadir, I believe that the British people have only to be told about these things to respond generously.

9.22 p.m.

Mr. Iain Macleod

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) and to the Opposition for giving an opportunity, however short before the Guillotine falls at 9.30, to discuss his matter of aid to Mauritius, which is one very close to the whole House. I am certain that the House will be glad when we are able to come back with final plans, and that it will gladly vote the additional supply that will be necessary.

For the moment, this Vote is concerned with a token contribution of £15,000 towards the cyclone relief fund set up by the Governor of Mauritius. I have some doubt—I have such little experience in these matters—whether these token payments are or are not a good thing, because it takes so long to get away from the idea that Her Majesty's Government are just providing £15,000 for the relief of tragedy in Mauritius, whereas, of course, the discussions on cyclone Alix—that is the January cyclone—with the Ministers and the Financial Secretary who came over here to see me a short time ago resulted in agreement to provide from Her Majesty's Government £2 million, and in due course authority will have to be sought for that.

I think that it is worth while that we should make these contributions at once because they are an example to others who may wish to contribute to the Mauritius cyclone relief fund. I was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman speak so warmly in his praise of. what other Governments have done, but before I go any further I should like to say a special word about the Red Cross. It was immensely swift off the mark in this matter, as it always is. Its organisation clicked into top gear at once, and it has been of the greatest possible help. It was a tragedy that even while the Ministers from Mauritius were in this country discussing with me financial aid for the cyclone called Alix, the cyclone called Carol, which was much more devastating in its results, struck the island. There were 42 people killed and over 1,700 casualties. We have had splendid help from the French Government who sent a cruiser to Mauritius, and flew supplies in French Air Force planes from Madagascar. Also, the French Army in Madagascar offered to provide electrical engineers and other technical personnel who are so valuable, the more so because they are so near. The Indian Government, too, have been mentioned. I should like to mention that the South African and Australian Governments have both been very helpful and co-operative in supplying emergency stores. The Kenya Government, because, of course, Nairobi is the essential staging point in this operation, have given very useful help indeed.

We have, naturally, been concerned essentially with first-aid. I believe, and I have been so assured by the Governor, that the first-aid needs are being met. To a large extent they were, I am happy to say, anticipated. Now, however, we must turn our attention to the long-term problems. The right hon. Gentleman asked the very important question: Are we sending out a team of experts? The answer is, "Yes." The Mauritius Government have aleady begun planning their long-term housing schemes, and they are to discuss those with my housing adviser who is to go out later this month. There is in existence a subcommittee of the Executive Council in Mauritius consisting of the Ministers most closely concerned and the Financial Secretary which meets daily to co-ordinate reconstruction and rehabilitation work.

Quite apart from that, there is in Mauritius at the moment a very important economic survey mission led by Professor Meade, of Cambridge University, and there is also a team there led by Professor Titmuss. The economic survey mission is to examine the long-term economic prospects of Mauritius, and Professor Titmuss's team is to examine the possibility of establishing a sound system of social security in the Colony. Both those bodies will, of course, have to take into account the effects of the recent cyclone. I agree very much with the right hon. Gentleman when he says that we must not only plan but plan soundly for the future.

I have one last word to say, and I think that the House will welcome what I wish to announce. The right hon. Member said, rightly, that Mauritius is not very well known here although we have a great affection for the island and its people. It is difficult for a Secretary of State to visit Mauritius. Indeed, as far as we know, no Secretary of State in office has been able to visit it. In a few days, I shall be in Central Africa, and I have considered whether I can, at the end of my visit there, go to Mauritius. I have now made arrangements to do this, and I have heard from the Governor that he very much welcomes the visit.

Immediately after my forthcoming tour of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland I shall, between 9th and 12th April, be in Mauritius. I shall be able to see something of the first-aid work which I hope will have been accomplished and something of the long-term planning which is to be put into operation. Also I shall, I know, be able to take to the people of Mauritius the very best wishes of all hon. and right hon. Members of the House.

9.28 p.m.

Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East)

We have only two minutes left, but I am glad to have this opportunity of saying to the Colonial Secretary that we very much welcome his decision to visit the island of Mauritius. It is not often that the island sees a Minister of the Crown, and people there are always urging that Ministers should go to visit it. We are very glad that the right hon. Gentleman has decided to go there, and we shall gladly spare him from the service of the House for a few extra days for that purpose. We shall not even mind if he has a little relaxation after the arduous duties which he will have to perform in the Federation.

As regards his visit to the Federation, we wish him well in the task that he is undertaking. We are under no illusions about the difficulties which will confront him. We hope that he will have the same success as he had in Kenya. He will find that any criticism which we have to make will not be factious or advanced in any party spirit but will stem only from the principles which we believe should be applied in these circumstances. We hope that his visit will be fruitful for everyone in the territory, for the Africans, for the Asians and for the Europeans. There is no doubt—I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will carry this message from the House— that the best future for the Federation lies in a partnership between all three races, without domination by any one.

Question put and agreed to.

It being half-past Nine o'clock, Mr. SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to Standing Order No. 16 (Business of Supply), to put forthwith, with respect to each of the remaining Resolutions reported from the Committee of Supply but not yet agreed to by the House, the Question, That this House doth agree with the Committee in that Resolution: —

Question,

That this House doth agree with the Committee in their Fifth Resolution,

put and agreed to.

Question,

That this House doth agree with the Committee in their Sixth Resolution,

put and agreed to.

Question,

That this House doth agree with the Committee in their Seventh Resolution,

put and agreed to.

Question,

That this House doth agree with the Committee in their Eighth Resolution,

put and agreed to.

Question,

That this House doth agree with the Committee in their Ninth Resolution,

put and agreed to.

Question,

That this House doth agree with the Committee in their Tenth Resolution.

put and agreed to.

Question,

That this House doth agree with the Committee in their Eleventh Resolution,

put and agreed to.

Question,

That this House doth agree with the Committee in their Twelfth Resolution,

put and agreed to.

Question,

That this House doth agree with the Committee in their Thirteenth Resolution,

put and agreed to.

Question,

That this House doth agree with the Committee in their Fourteenth Resolution,

put and agreed to.

Question,

That this House doth agree with the Committee in their Fifteenth Resolution.

put and agreed to.

Question,

That this House doth - agree with the Committee in their Sixteenth Resolution,

put and agreed to.

Mr. SPEAKER then proceeded to put forthwith, with respect to each Resolution come to by the Committee of Supply and not yet agreed to by the House, the Question, That this House doth agree with the Committee in that Resolution: —

SUPPLY [10th March]

AIR ESTIMATES, 1960–61

VOTE 1. PAY, ETC., OF THE AIR FORCE

1. That a sum, not exceeding £113,110,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the pay, etc., of the Air Force, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st of March, 1961.

VOTE 2. RESERVE AND AUXILIARY SERVICES

2. That a sum, not exceeding £1,069,900, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the reserve and auxiliary services (to a number not exceeding 161,100, all ranks, for the Royal Air Force Reserve, and 3,400 all ranks, for the Royal Auxiliairy Air Force), which will come in course of payment during

AIR SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1959–60

7. That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £10, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960, for expenditure beyond the sum already provided in the grants for Air Services for the year.

Schedule
	—			Sums not exceeding
			Supply Grants	Appropriations
Vote	£	£
1.	Pay, &c, of the Air Force	…	…	1,100,000	180,000
2.	Reserve and Auxiliary Services	…	…	Cr. 100,000	—
3.	Air Ministry	…	…	420,000	30,000
4.	Civilians at Outstations	…	…	1,100,000	510,000
5.	Movements	…	…	2,740,000	*—130,000
6.	Supplies	…	…	Cr.3,910,000	*—l,080,000
7.	Aircraft and Stores	…	…	Cr. 5,270,000	*—1,650,000
8.	Works and Lands	…	…	3,650,000	*—550,000
9.	Miscellaneous Effective Services	…	…	10	*—520,000
10.	Non-effective Services	…	…	270,000	—
11.	Additional Married Quarters	…	…	—	*—150,000
Total, Air (Supplementary) 1959–60	£10	*—£3,360,000
* Deficit.

NAVY ESTIMATES, 1960–61

VOTE 1. PAY ETC., OF THE ROYAL NAVY AND ROYAL MARINES

8. That a sum, not exceeding £69,997,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the pay, etc., of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March. 1961.

the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961.

VOTE 7. AIRCRAFT STORES

3. That a sum, not exceeding £238,000,000, granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of aircraft and stores, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961.

VOTE 8. WORKS AND LANDS

4. That a sum, not exceeding £37,770,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of works and lands, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961.

VOTE 9. MISCELLANEOUS EFFECTIVE SERVICES

5. That a sum, not exceeding £3,700,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of miscellaneous effective services, including certain grants in aid and a subscription to the World Meteorological Organisation, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961.

VOTE 11. ADDITIONAL MARRIED QUARTERS

6. That a sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of certain additional married quarters, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961.

VOTE 2. VICTUALLING AND CLOTHING FOR THE NAVY

9. That a sum, not exeeding £14,044,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of victualling and clothing for the Navy, including the cost of victualling establishments at home and abroad, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961.

VOTE 6. SCIENTIFIC SERVICES

10. That a sum, not exceeding £19,362,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of scientific services, including a grant in aid to the National Institute of Oceanography, and a subscription to the International Hydrographic Bureau, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961.

VOTE 10. WORKS, BUILDINGS, MACHINERY AND REPAIRS AT HOME AND ABROAD

11. That a sum not exceeding £19,264,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of works, buildings, machinery and repairs at home and abroad, including the cost of superintendence, purchase of sites, grants and other charges connected therewith, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961.

NAVY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1959–60

15. That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £10, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960, for expenditure beyond the sum already provided in the grants for Navy Services for the year.

Schedule
	—		Sums not exceeding
		Supply Grants	Appropriations in Aid
Vote			£	£
1.	Pay, &c., of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines	…	300,000	—
2.	Victualling and Clothing for the Navy	…	Cr. 300,000	250,000
4.	Civilians employed on Fleet Services	…	200,000	—
6.	Scientific Services	…	Cr. 650,000	250,000
8.	Shipbuilding, Repairs and Maintenance, &c.—
	Section I—Personnel	…	1,050,000	100,000
	Section II—Matériel	…	Cr. 5,250,000	1,250,000
	Section III—Contract Work	…	5,500,000	3,195,000
9.	Naval Armaments	…	Cr. 3,550,000	600,000
10.	Works, Buildings and Repairs at Home and Abroad	…	—	*—300,000
11.	Miscellaneous Effective Services	…	700,000	*-l,100,000
12.	Admiralty Office	…	550,010	—
13.	Non-effective Services	…	1,450,000	—
15.	Additional Married Quarters	…	—	*—245,000
	Total, Navy (Supplementary) 1959–60	…	£10	£4,000,000
* Deficit.

ARMY ESTIMATES, 1960–61

VOTE 1. PAY, ETC., OF THE ARMY

16. That a sum, not exceeding £127,240,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the pay, etc., of the Army, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1961.

VOTE 2. RESERVE FORCES, TERRITORIAL ARMY AND CADET FORCES

17. That a sum, not exceeding £20,140,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expenses of the Reserve Forces (to a number not exceeding 337,500, all ranks, including a number not exceeding 325,000 other ranks),

VOTE 11. MISCELLANEOUS EFFECTIVE SERVICES

12. That a sum, not exceeding £9,412,900, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of various miscellaneous effective services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961.

VOTE 13. NON-EFFECTIVE SERVICES

13. That a sum, not exceeding £26,229,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of non-effective services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961.

VOTE 15. ADDITIONAL MARRIED QUARTERS

14. That a sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of certain additional married quarters at home, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961.

Territorial Army (to a number not exceeding 333,865, all ranks), Cadet Forces and Malta Territorial Force which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1961.

VOTE 7. STORES

18. That a sum, not exceeding £64,240,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of stores (including stores for research and development projects and inspection, disposal and certain capital and ancillary services relating thereto) which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1961.

VOTE 8. WORKS, BUILDINGS AND LANDS

19. That a sum, not exceeding £33,910,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of works, buildings and lands, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1961.

VOTE 9. MISCELLANEOUS EFFECTIVE SERVICES

20. That a sum, not exceeding £8,260,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of miscellaneous effective services, including a grant in aid to the Council of Voluntary Welfare Work, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1961.

SUPPLY [3rd March]

AIR ESTIMATES, 1960–61

VOTE A. NUMBER FOR AIR FORCE SERVICE

That a number of officers, airmen and airwomen, not exceeding 174,000, all ranks, be maintained for Air Force Service, during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1961.

SUPPLY [7th March]

NAVY ESTIMATES, 1960–61

VOTE A. NUMBERS

That 102,000 Officers, Seamen and Juniors and Royal Marines, who are borne on the books of Her Majesty's Ships and at the Royal Marine establishments, and members of the Women's Royal Naval Service and Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service, be employed for the Sea Service, for the year ending on the 31st day of March 1961.

SUPPLY [9th March]

ARMY ESTIMATES, 1960–61

VOTE A. NUMBER OF LAND FORCES

That a number of Land Forces, not exceeding 317,000, all ranks, be maintained for the safety of the United Kingdom and the defence of the possessions of Her Majesty's Crown during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1961.

Resolutions agreed to

WAYS AND MEANS [14th March]

Resolutions reported,

That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960, the sum of £82,026,032 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.

That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1961, the sum of £2,223,676,200 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.

Resolutions agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolutions by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sir E. Boyle.