COMMONWEALTH TRADE, TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND COMMONWEALTH LINKS

HC Deb 06 February 1964 vol 688 cc1398-484

Question again proposed.

6.14 p.m.

Mr. Grimond

I was speaking of the official attitude of the Labour Party to Europe. What strikes me as sad and alarming is that the Labour Party never seems willing to give the European countries credit for the very virtues which one would expect to appeal to the Labour Party. The statistics which have been quoted, showing that Commonwealth trade with Europe has very greatly increased—it has gone up 39 per cent. in the last six years—plainly show, whatever their other implications, that Europe is not an entirely inward-looking community and is not unmindful of the necessity to trade with the Asiatic and African countries as well as with the richer countries of the world.

Further, I doubt whether it is generally recognised in this country—it is certainly not often mentioned by the Labour Party—that France gives a greater amount of aid per capita to the under-developed countries than we do. I believe that this country will make a very grave error if it thinks that it can shut out the developments in Europe.

I believe, also, that there is a fundamental contradiction in saying that we want to be an outward-looking country, that we are anxious to build up our Commonwealth and give all the help we can to the under-developed countries while, at the same time, appearing, at least, to be blind or even hostile to our neighbours across the Channel.

I follow the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) in asking the Government to be a little more specific about their present position. At Question Time last Monday, it appeared either that they felt that there could be no question of reopening any economic negotiations in the near future, or even, perhaps—I certainly gathered this impression from some of the Foreign Secretary's replies—that they would not at present want to do so. On the other hand, they did seem very favourably disposed to being brought in on any political developments and even to taking some political initiative themselves. I am not sure that these positions are entirely consistent. It would be valuable in this debate, though I agree that it is somewhat off the subject of the Commonwealth, to know exactly what their present attitude is.

As I understand, it was one of the great objections of those in the Labour Party who were suspicious of any move into Europe that it would mean some loss of sovereignty by this country, but, of course, many of their other proposals, for instance, for international commodity agreements, and for anything in the nature of a Triffin or Stamp plan, which is very necessary would also mean a very considerable diminution of sovereignty. Here again, there is a contradiction in their attitude.

With the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) I found myself in a great measure of agreement, bearing in mind that he and I disagree about the Common Market. As regards the question of the Commonwealth, I think that he was right in saying that a considerable initiative is called for from this country. I believe that one of the difficulties in the Commonwealth is that, naturally, the Commonwealth leaders themselves are much engrossed with their own internal affairs. If we are to achieve any great extension of Commonwealth trade or the establishment of any new Commonwealth institutions, the initiative will, I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman, rest upon the older members of the Commonwealth and, probably, very largely upon our Government.

Secondly, I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the rule of law is of prime importance to the Commonwealth. My only comment is that he coupled this, of course, with Parliamentary government. I believe that one of the mistakes we have made has been to think that our particular form of democratic government can be exported without drastic amendment to countries whose conditions are quite different. For my part, I disagree with the Prime Minister when he attributes troubles in these countries to Communism. I have no doubt that Communists may be very willing to take advantage of a situation in which there is already trouble, but, in my view, we do ourselves a disservice by suggesting that troubles in Africa are always due to the Communists. I believe that they are sometimes due to the fact that we have failed to give the African countries a structure for the administration of government or to advise them how to adapt our highly complicated and rather peculiar system of Parliamentary government to the circumstances of their country.

May I now turn to the question of Commonwealth trade. It is all very well, and, I think, proper, to say that we want it to increase. All sorts of interpretations can be put on the statistics which show that our Commonwealth trade has been decreasing and that Commonwealth trade with the rest of the world has been increasing. But the fact is that the Commonwealth demands bigger and bigger markets and we are unable to supply them. Malaya supplies half the rubber of the world. Australia now looks to Japan as its chief market for wool. Many Commonwealth countries inevitably look outside this country simply because the scale of their trade is now so large. Nevertheless, this should not make us complacent about the fact that our percentage of Commonwealth trade continually falls.

What I should like to hear from those people who think that this can be easily put right is what they are prepared to do about it. For instance, this country maintains certain tariffs against Commonwealth goods. It maintains a tariff against Canadian cars. It maintains certain restrictions on the entry of goods from Hong Kong. What I should like to hear from those who think this matter can be easily put right is whether they are prepared to do away with these tariffs. I very much doubt whether the Labour Party or any other party is prepared to see a free flow of Commonwealth goods into this country. I frequently hear complaints that the products of cheap labour are very unpleasant for Lancashire. I sympathise with these complaints. This is not such an easy problem to solve as it is sometimes supposed to be.

What we can say is that this country would help a great deal by having a more expansive economy. That it might have achieved that by going into the Common Market, but, certainly, unless the economy of this country is buoyant and expanding, the foundation for increasing our Commonwealth trade does not exist. We can take the lead in pressing for commodity agreements, although, again, there have been suggestions, I think by Baumgartner, about there being one price for certain products in the world. This leads to considerable difficulties and might help some of the more well off countries while not being so helpful to some countries which are less well off.

No doubt we can also encourage the export of capital. I should have thought that, looking at the enormous amount of capital required, it would be very much easier to assist the Commonwealth and under-developed countries on an international rather than on a national scale. I have one concrete suggestion to make, and that is that there would be great value in an international organisation to guarantee capital which goes into Commonwealth countries against non-commercial risks. I hope that the Government will pursue that matter with their sister Governments in Europe and elsewhere.

I turn to the very important negotiations which start in Geneva on 25th March, the United Nations Trade Conference and the Kennedy Round. We might be able to reduce some of the obstacles to trade in general, but, again, we meet a difficulty, and that is the great discrepancies in various tariffs on goods. If there is an across-the-board reduction, it will have different effects in different countries, and tariffs on some goods—for instance in America and the United Kingdom—will remain high. I do not know whether the Government have any thoughts on this matter which they can divulge to us this evening. I hope that they have. Is it possible to have negotiations on groups of tariffs? Is it possible to have some provisional or contingent arrangement for bringing the higher tariffs down and then perhaps to have a cut across the board?

It was said earlier that the Government have been attempting to get some form of executive Commonwealth Economic Council in operation. The right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East, I think, also mentioned his proposals in this matter. It is sad to hear that there is, perhaps, a lack of enthusiasm for this in some Commonwealth countries, but even if we are able to go only as far as an advisory council I hope that such a council would be able to make a great deal more information available throughout the Commonwealth about economic matters and the sort of products which are needed; to assist exporters in directing and channelling their efforts to the parts of the Commonwealth which require their commodities and to produce the goods which they need.

However, in all this talk about trade, we must be clear that one object is to help the Commonwealth and particularly the poorer members. It may well be that there are certain occasions when we can come to a bilateral agreement and make something useful to the Commonwealth such as the old carriage shops on the railways. This is possible, but now and again we look at this matter as a sort of aid-to-Britain movement. If the Commonwealth can get better and cheaper goods elsewhere than in Britain, it is not very useful to a poor and underdeveloped country to say that it must get them from here. It is important to remember that for some purposes it may pay the Commonwealth to go elsewhere. This is not necessarily something to which we should object.

I wish to say a few words on the other topics of this debate. May I deal, first, with personnel. I am told—and I hope that someone will contradict this, because I can hardly believe that it is true—that last year there was in Nyasaland only one lawyer who was trained at the Bar of this country. I am also told that there are very few doctors there.

I think that we are apt to forget how absolutely vital it is to economic advance in that country that it has a structure of government services, doctors and humble administrators without which no influx of capital yields results. Can we not only build up a university, as the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East suggested, but inquire of the Bar Council, the General Medical Council, and so on, what they are doing to increase the number of administrators and technical and professional men in that country?

Mr, Edward Gardner (Billericay)

Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that between 3,000 and 4,000 Commonwealth law students come to this country annually to study law and the traditions of the Bar at the Inns of Court in London? The great majority of these students go back to their countries imbued with those traditions and the principles of law and practise them successfully.

Mr. Grimond

I am aware of that, because I am a member of the Inns of Court, and I have frequently thought that possibly we train too many lawyers, a view widely held in the Inns of Court. But that was why I was amazed at the fact that there was only one lawyer in Nyasaland who had been trained at the English Bar. I cannot believe that that is wholly true. However, the hon. and learned Member will agree that we have a very strong duty to train personnel. This is something which we can and ought to do.

I have long thought—and, again, this was touched on by the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East—that it was a tragedy that this country allowed its colonial service to run down instead of trying to make it the foundation of an international service to supply administrators to these countries. It was a magnificent service. I should have liked to see an arrangement by which pensions could be guaranteed and by which people could be moved from country to country as needed. This is an entirely different type of job and service from that which organisations like Voluntary Service Overseas attempt to do.

I understood the Prime Minister to say that the Government will increase their aid to such organisations as Voluntary Service Overseas for sending young people to the Commonwealth. I was a member—I am not sure whether I still am—of the council of this organisation, and I have the greatest respect for it, but it is vital that we should realise the sort of work that it does. Naturally, the young people it sends overseas cannot be fully technically trained. Therefore, they are not a substitute for a civil service, a teaching service, or a medical service.

The other vital point to be realised is that those who derive the benefit are not only the countries to which the people go, but the people who go there. It is the people whom Voluntary Service Overseas sends out who benefit in the first place. Therefore, while it is a wonderful service, it is no substitute for technical aid. Furthermore, while I welcome the Government's determination to help this organisation, one of its great virtues is that it is unofficial and that it has no aura of being related too much to the establishment either of this country or in the country to which it goes. I hope that we preserve the existing relationship, which I am sure the Government are anxious to do.

The Secretary for Technical Co-operation (Mr. Robert Carr)

While I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is no substitute for the assistance of the more experienced experts whom we send out, and while I also agree that the young people who go gain great benefit from going, I think that the right hon. Gentleman went rather far in saying that they do not do much service to the countries in which they work. I assure him that they do very great service. They are in growing demand by the countries to which they go.

Mr. Grimond

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman interrupted me. If I gave that impression, I did not mean to do so.

I accept that those people do great service to the countries to which they go. I was merely saying that the needs of Africa and Asia are enormous, almost insatiable. They will not be effectively met by an operation on the inevitable scale of the present one. We can hardly expect people of the age and training of these volunteers to fulfil the need for highly trained specialists. It must not, however, be thought that I am in any way detracting from the service which they give, which is very great.

The possibility has also been mentioned of towns in this country adopting towns in Africa. This is already being done. The Borough of Finchley, for example, has adopted the town of Ginja, in Uganda—an excellent move. As it is widely done between this country and the Continent, perhaps I may redress the balance between myself and the right hon. Gentleman by saying that I should welcome a move away from the Continent in this respect and more links with towns in Africa.

I cannot conclude without adding my praise to that already given to the conduct of the troops where they have been called upon to do a very difficult job in the last few months. I do not think that we should be complacent because we are unable to build up Commonwealth institutions—some people talk as though this was a possible advantage. While it is probably inevitable that we cannot build up many Commonwealth institutions, I do not regard this as a virtue. On the other hand, I fully admit that the strength of the Commonwealth lies in the bond of common feeling which persists even in countries which seem to be seething with discontent.

I can think of no other example in history of an imperial Power such as ourselves, which has just given up its control over these countries, like Tanganyika and Kenya, being called back within a matter of months to support the new Governments of those countries. It is a remarkable tribute to the Commonwealth and to those principles of law, democracy and government to which the light hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East so rightly paid tribute.

We should not, however, presume upon this too far. It is inevitable that the Commonwealth countries will tend to become involved in their own regions. Many of them must be absorbed in their own problems. It is not reasonable to ask those countries which have just gained independence and pulled away a little from the Mother Country to come back into any tight commercial organisation with us. We should, however, put the greatest weight upon the heritage of law and democracy and on all the intangible links which bind us together. While I certainly hope that these might be given a visible sign in appeal courts, in councils dealing with economic affairs and in meetings, between Commonwealth Parliamentarians, I should not be deeply depressed about the Commonwealth even though we continue to find it rather difficult to build up new institutions to give effect to its old bonds.

6.35 p.m.

Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine (Rye)

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) has said that it would be a good thing if more indigenous people were trained to take the professional jobs in their various countries. He mentioned, for example, Nyasaland, in which there are not many people of that status. Let me give the right hon. Gentleman a further example. A year or so ago, I was in New Guinea, which at that time had only one local inhabitant who had got to the second year of training at Sydney University. I have no doubt that by this time he has got to the third year. That is one person from a very large country. The thought that passed through my mind when the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland was making those remarks was that we have a tremendous task upon our hands. Although I in no way deprecate anything that the right hon. Gentleman said, I simply wanted to mention that there is a great deal to be done.

One of the things that worries me is that not only in this House but throughout the country, and, indeed, in the Commonwealth, when we talk about Commonwealth trade, almost everyone who speaks of the Commonwealth in that context means something different. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland suggested, for example, that what we are discussing today might almost be regarded by some people as an "aid Britain" movement, and that is one of the ways in which we could regard this debate about Commonwealth. That would be what I might call the view of people who are still living in 1932.

When I was in Australia about a year ago, I had the privilege of listening to Sir Robert Menzies reporting to Parliament in Canberra his version of what had happened at the last Prime Ministers' Conference. What he said dealt so faithfully with this concept of the Commonwealth that I should like to mention two sentences from his speech. He had reported that in his earlier time as Prime Minister he had been to a Prime Ministers' Conference when only five Prime Ministers were present. He recalled that at the last conference seventeen Prime Ministers and three observers were present, and he said that in so large and diverse a gathering, it would not be reasonable to expect any high measure of unanimity. Then followed a long passage in which he set out all the divergent interests of various parts of the Commonwealth wanting different things, and at the end of it he said: Under these circumstances, it is not so remarkable that we failed to produce an agreed statement on all of the economic matters involved, as it is that we were able to produce a communiqué at all. The first point, therefore, which I put to the House for consideration is that when people talk about Commonwealth trade, it is as well to remember that the Commonwealth today is not an identifiable trading community with a clearly defined boundary around it. There are plenty of examples that any of us could give of different parts of the Commonwealth thinking that they were usefully providing something for other parts and then those other parts of the Commonwealth finding that they can do those things quite happily themselves.

A year ago in Fiji, for example, I saw a plantation which some years ago had grown bananas for the Australian market. Australia found, however, that it could grow quite nice bananas at home, and bananas are now no longer grown in that part of Fiji. Equally, I could give examples of companies which have gone from this country to set up factories in different parts of the Commonwealth finding in due course that they were in competition with new and similar factories erected in the locality and regulations being introduced making it impossible for the original company to continue its work.

Secondly, there are those who proceed entirely on the basis, mentioned by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, that it is largely a matter of trade between this country and the different parts of the Commonwealth. I myself have found that in a great many places of the Commonwealth, when talking about Commonwealth trade, people there mean trade between their country and the United Kingdom. Of course, such trade makes up three-quarters of the total trade done by the Commonwealth. This country is the largest importer and exporter to every part of the Commonwealth, with the exception of Canada. That point of view, however, seems a dangerous approach to Commonwealth trade, as was shown when the Common Market was under consideration.

The right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) said that apparently all these difficulties which have arisen in the Commonwealth have resulted from recent Government policies, in particular the decision to try to join the Common Market. I would like him to consider the foreword to a book, given to me before I went to Australia, entitled Australia—An Economic and Investment Reference, which was published under the authority of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1961. That was before the Common Market negotiations reached their peak. This was the view expressed by the foreword: Under the United Kingdom/Australia Trade Agreement, 1957, the principle of mutual preference was retained. At the same time Australia gained the right to reduce tariff preferences, accorded to the United Kingdom, to lower levels than those required under the Ottawa Agreement of 1932. This freedom has given Australia room to manœuvre in negotiating trade agreements or mutual tariff concessions with other countries, and to effect valuable cost savings for industry That seems to be the view held by most Commonwealth countries. They want to do trade wherever they can. It is certainly the view that Australians were expressing before the Common Market negotiations began. The right hon. Gentleman set out the figures for trade between Australia and Japan. I have them here, and the fact that they have gone up steeply in an example of the type of development I have just mentioned.

The third way in which one can look at Commonwealth trade is not quite as common as the other two. This is the importance of trade between different parts of the Commonwealth other than the United Kingdom. When I was discussing this aspect with someone in one of the outer parts of the Commonwealth he said, "The trouble with the Commonwealth is that it is really a wheel without a rim". Possibly the most important thing we should be discussing now is what we can do to encourage the building of the rim, to see how we can get more trade going between different parts of the Commonwealth and not concentrate entirely on other aspects.

In New Zealand, I remember discussing on a number of occasions the possibility of New Zealand having increased trade with the Caribbean and other parts of the Commonwealth. I was not really surprised that the idea did not seem to have occurred to some of the people I was speaking to, but I was recently in the Caribbean and was pleasantly surprised to find that New Zealand is doing quite good business there. That is the type of development I should like to see encouraged by every possible means. However, there are some quite encouraging figures from that point of view. For example, Canada, between 1958 and 1962 increased her sales to New Zealand by 77 per cent. and has doubled her trade with Australia in the last five years.

The Leader of the Opposition gave a long list of figures indicating that a lower percentage of total Commonwealth trade had been achieved by this country than was the case some years ago. He told us about total Commonwealth exports as a percentage of exports to all countries and also gave the figures for imports. I thought that he was quite misleading and unfair when he failed to mention that precisely the same figures could have been given for trade between, for example, Canada and the rest of the Commonwealth, for which Her Majesty's Government cannot be accused of having any direct responsibility. The same would be true of Australia or New Zealand.

I have here figures showing that the percentage of exports to the Commonwealth from Canada in 1958 fell from 21 to 19 per cent., in Australia from 52 to 39 per cent. and in New Zealand from 64 to 57 per cent. I utterly reject, therefore, the main burden of what was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, that it is only in this country that this unfortunate tendency is to be noted.

That brings us to the problem of what we are to do. I was very pleased to be given a report of one very commendable activity. It came from the Australian and British Action Council. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister referred earlier to these developments in Australia but there are one or two details I would like to mention as this seems a very practical way of dealing with the problem.

The Council has been set up by the United Kingdom Committee of the Federation of Commonwealth Chambers of Commerce and by Australian members of the Chambers of Commerce and Manufacturers. The report says: … it was agreed that some fresh and positive machinery must be set up to undertake urgent action in tackling the problems of falling Australian and British trade. The formation of Action Councils in Australia and Britain in response to this decision has recently been announced. The Councils are to be representative of the major sectors of the economy in both countries and will be concerned with fostering friendship and understanding between the Communities of the two countries and in particular with promoting and stimulating reciprocal trade and economic relations. The report adds: The Council has held a first meeting and sees as its main objects the projection in Australia of a modern image of Britain and in the U.K. the engendering among industrialist exporters and potential exporters to Australia a greater interest and more active market research in the Australian market. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister also referred to the Commonwealth Economic Committee and the Commonwealth Economic Consultative Council. The Economic Committee has provided us with a wealth of material. I am most grateful to it for the figures I have obtained from its publications. I am not sure, however, that I detect in any of its publications evidence of great, overall strategic, forward thinking to deal with the problems mentioned today and one or two others to which I wish to refer.

I would first like to see the Consultative Council or a Commonwealth Economic Development Council considering the areas in which mutual trade could be engendered to the benefit of different parts of the Commonwealth. I do not believe that any of the bodies to which the Prime Minister referred are tackling that problem. If I am wrong, I should like to know, because I believe that if we can tackle the problems on that basis, we may have a method of increasing the strength of the trading links among different parts of the Commonwealth.

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland mentioned the difficulty arising from production in countries where prices were rather lower than in other parts of the Commonwealth. This is another problem which must be solved. We have what are known as the old countries of the Commonwealth and the newer countries, and if the trade of the newer countries is to be only an embarrassment to the older and vice versa, that will not be a very favourable method of progress. I should like this council to tackle that problem, because I do not believe that it is insoluble. If the right economic thinking and effort are put into trying to make it possible for the old and newly developing countries to be mutually beneficial in their trading relationships, it would be a great help to all of us.

I found that views about commodity agreements varied considerably in different parts of the Commonwealth. There was not a great deal of enthusiasm for them in New Zealand, while in Australia they were better regarded, and when I returned to England I found that the President of the National Farmers' Union thought they were very good indeed. Whether we have commodity agreements, or however we solve these problems, the right approach would be at first to tackle them on a Commonwealth basis. After negotiations have begun, few commodity agreements could be kept entirely within the Commonwealth, because some of the major producers and some of the major consumers are outside it. Hardly any commodity agreement could be satisfactorily negotiated on a purely Commonwealth basis, but it is something which can most usefully be started as a Commonwealth activity.

A number of hon. Members have already dealt with stability for the producers of raw materials and the right hon. Member for Huyton also spoke about it and I need not develop that point.

Those are some of the problems which I would like to be referred to a council and dealt with urgently and responsibly. There are one or two other and smaller matters which should be considered. One of them concerns our trade commissioners in different parts of the Commonwealth. Some are doing a first-class job and I pay tribute to their work, but it would do no harm for my right hon. Friend to have a look at some of the others. If this organisation were considered, there might be a significant improvement in some quarters in the trade which results from this work. We have 68 trade commissioners in different parts of the Commonwealth and only 19 are being paid over £3,000 a year. Only one is getting £4,700. I very much doubt whether at those rates my right hon. Friend is likely to retain the best quality people in the service, and that is another matter which he might consider. Some countries, particularly in the Commonwealth, recall their trade officials to meet each other once every two years. That might be worth considering, because they then have an opportunity to find out what the overall problem is and perhaps to find a better solution to their own problems.

How often do we send missions to different parts of the world to see what sort of trade we could find? I noted that in 1962, 20 trade missions came here from Canada, and while I was in Australia there were 12 missions going round different parts of the Pacific and elsewhere. One of these missions comprised 14 people of whom only four had visited the area before. Within six months of their return home, ten members of the mission had made one or more futher successful business trips to the part of the world which the mission had visited. I see a certain amount of the missions which come here from different parts of the Commonwealth, and I should like to feel that we were showing as much effort to find out what is going on in other places. The other side of the problem is dealt with in some parts of the Commonwealth by asking many people from various other countries who come to the Commonwealth country to see what is being manufactured and to be shown around. Some time ago, a party of 200 people from 53 different countries made such a trip to Canada.

What about exhibitions? There is an exhibition which is held in Toronto every year, the Canadian National Exhibition, which 3 million people visit to see what Canada is producing. Some time ago, the Canadian High Commissioner pointed out that there was a British Government building of 52,000 sq. ft. at that exhibition. I have been there on a number of occasions to find the building crammed with British produce and filled with people looking at it and, no doubt, making purchases in due course as a result. Last year, at the exhibition we had only 2,250 sq. ft. and we used it for showing films, while the Polish exhibitors had 7,500 sq. ft. That does not seem to be the best way to arrange for increased trade.

Then we must not overlook the importance of tourists. This trade could well be developed in different parts of the Commonwealth. The British Travel and Holidays Association, in a recent survey of visitors to this country said that 13,000 Canadians came here and spent £13 million and that three-quarters of them spent all their time in the United Kingdom and that the average time they stayed here was 45 nights. This is an indication of what can be done, and I hope that more will be done to develop it.

I should like finally to add my support to what has been said by the Prime Minister and others about the excellent work being done by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Any support and encouragement which can be given to that body should be given to it. The very small sum of money given to that organisation to do its work every year provides the Government with the best value for any money it spends.

When I first came to the House eight years ago, I found that Canada, for example, had had for many years only one visit from two Members from this House, since then we have had two further delegations to Canada, each of two Members. There is an organisation in Ottawa which sends 20 Canadian Members of Parliament to Washington once a year, and then there is a return visit of Congressmen six months later. I am told that 75 per cent. of the last Canadian House of Commons had visited Washington. That has to be compared with the six Members from this House who have officially visited Canada in about fifteen years. If this work can be encouraged, then the better the understanding there is among Members of Parliament, the better the understanding there will be between the two countries.

In the Commonwealth we have one-quarter of the world's population, one-quarter of the world's trade and one-quarter of the land area. We have some of the fastest expanding populations in the world, and if we set about these problems with the fervour which they deserve, there can be great increases in Commonwealth trade.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Ellis Smith (Stoke-on-Trent, South)

For three and a half hours this afternoon we saw the House of Commons at its best. During Question Time there was deep cut and thrust; there were points of order which Mr. Speaker firmly dealt with, and held the balance between one side and the other. Then we listened to a reasoned speech made by the Prime Minister from the Conservative point of view. After that, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) made an analytical, informative and brilliant speech. It was a speech that will become historic, and it will be the basis for the foundation of Commonwealth reconstruction and reinforcement which must be taken in the mid-twentieth century if Britain is to hold its own in the world. The logic of the speech of my right hon. Friend is that at the next General Election people will be asked to vote for Labour and the Commonwealth Party.

The Prime Minister, in opening the debate, made a number of points which I was pleased to hear, and about which I shall attempt to make some constructive proposals. I wondered, during that speech, why no action had been taken on what was said this afternoon during the past 12 years. The Prime Minister said that the Commonwealth could become a working co-operative society. This is just what we want. This is what we have lived and worked for. He went on to say that we desired to forge all the links that we possibly can, and that the British market is one of the largest in the world. All the New Zealand and Australian farmers, when they hear that on the radio or read it in their newspapers, will say, "Hear, hear. The British people should remember what we have done for them in two world wars."

The Prime Minister said that we were going to use the machinery of the Commonwealth Consultative Committee during the Kennedy Round discussions. We welcome that. He also put forward proposals for a Commonwealth Economic Development Council. Others prefer only a consultative council. The Prime Minister is in the inner circles and when he says that we must accept it. But I should like to know how often we have taken the initiative to win over those who are against constructive proposals of that kind.

The Prime Minister went on to say that action councils were gradually being built up. I welcome this. I had read about them in the Australian Press. But I should like to know why we in this country are not encouraging cities and towns to take the initiative in a similar way in order to co-operate with the action councils in Australia and New Zealand.

Then the Prime Minister said that we were seriously considering proposals for commodity agreements. I know that in Australia he will have the support of all thoughtful people for a proposal of that kind. Our own National Farmers' Union has several times put this constructive proposal on record in a number of its publications, and I shall welcome this proposal if it is to be carried out.

It was my privilege, which I never thought that I would have, to fly 40,000 miles, a year ago, to places in New Zealand and Australia. No matter what I do, I can never repay those who treated me so well during those months. In my young days in my area, and in the large industrial areas, it was common to have large families of 10 to 15 children. There was no insurance; there was large-scale unemployment; life was very insecure. Most of my cousins were driven to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. We kept touch during two world wars, but little did I think that one day it would be my privilege to visit them in many parts of Australia.

That is why I have always been an uncompromising opponent of the Common Market and desirous, first, of building up trade with our own people who were driven to the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Just as we work together in this House for the benefit of our fellow-countrymen, so we should be doing the same in the Commonwealth, and, as a result of reinforcing the Commonwealth, negotiate from economic strength with those countries who are prepared to be friendly with us in all parts of the world.

Therefore, I was pleased when the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend made such constructive proposals. Although they differed on some things they had a good deal in common, and I hope that the House of Commons, when it is re-elected, will be determined that we shall shake ourselves out of our complacent attitude towards the Commonwealth and pursue the constructive rôle that has been laid down this afternoon. It is on these lines that we should be working. Our cousins in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, in two world wars, have responded to our needs. In the First World War we were subject to the terrible menace of the submarine. In the Second World War we were bombed nightly and our food supply was constantly in jeopardy.

It was New Zealand, in particular, which put our needs first. She never took advantage of world increasing prices. She continued to supply us with food at the normal prices, negotiated prior to the war. It seemed that during the Common Market negotiations too many people in this country forgot what we owed to New Zealand and Australia in particular.

Therefore, when we talk about the Commonwealth, as the Prime Minister did, we have to remember that there is such a word as reciprocity. But it is not one-way traffic. We owe something to them as well as they to us. I hope that as a result of this debate we shall brush away the cobwebs which have been hiding our weaknesses so that we can take action to strengthen ourselves in the way that we should.

While I was in New Zealand I met a man who, though small in stature, is a giant. I am referring to Walter Nash, who was the Prime Minister. He took me to his home on several occasions. It was a great privilege, a thrill, and an education. He told me something that I ought to have remembered, but I plead guilty to having forgotten it. He said that during the war he was a member of the War Cabinet and had served in London. The thought that immediately occurred to me was that if it was right for his to be a member of the Commonwealth War Cabinet, surely it was right to have a Commonwealth Economic Cabinet in peace time so that we could prepare economic plans; so that we could negotiate with other countries from a position of strength, and so that we could build up the Commonwealth as it should be built up.

Too many people forget that Australia is not an ordinary country. It is a mighty continent. It is nine-tenths the size of the United States, and what the United States can do Australia can do. We are an industrial country, with a teeming population of nearly 60 million, which, according to official prophecies, will rise to 70 million within the next 20 years. We therefore have everything to gain by building along the lines that have been suggested this afternoon.

I spent six days in Geelong, which is about 50 miles from Melbourne. I never realised that I knew so many people. Scores of them had been victimised in this country. Scores of them had been unemployed and lost hope, and as a result had migrated to Australia. They went there from London, Birmingham, Glasgow and other centres. Most of them knew me when I was a young man, but I had forgotten them. They took me to their homes night after night. All the neighbours gathered round and we had a wonderful time. None of these people desires to return home to these shores, yet they all put this country first. They have enormous good will for us.

There is a greater shortage of skilled men in those countries than in any other part of the world. Many of the people whom I met said that they would like to transplant large parts of England—I suppose I had better say Scotland as well, to be on the safe side—to Australia. They all desire British firms to open up there. They all admire the way in which we are winning through in this country. They all admired the way in which we stood up to events during the war. We ought to capitalise on their admiration rather than discourage them, as we have been doing during the past few years.

I have a great respect for the Secretary of State for Industry and Trade. I have seen him at work as Chief Whip, and in other offices. There are no personal differences between us. He put an enormous amount of energy into the Common Market negotiations, and I should like the Government to ask him, or other right it hon. Gentlemen who are members of the Cabinet and have the privilege of serving the country, to put a similar amount of energy into negotiating with the Commonwealth so that we can build it up in the same way as we were trying to build up the Common Market.

I hope that no one will misunderstand me. I want to be friends with every country in the world. We have suffered too much through not wanting to be friends. Many of my contemporaries were killed at an early age, and I do not want to experience the agony of another war. Any contribution towards peace has my support, but in my view the best way to achieve that is in a constructive, organised, way, and the best contribution that Britain can make is to win over the whole of the Commonwealth and be able to negotiate from strength. When Britain takes her place at an international conference, instead of differing amongst ourselves, as all the big countries do, she should speak from strength, and with one voice, on behalf of the Commonwealth.

Some people say that it will never be possible to get the countries of the Commonwealth to agree. My answer to them is, Oh thou of little faith. It has been done in other respects. This country has a long pioneering tradition. What has been done with regard to constitutional government of the kind that we have at local, county, and national level, can be done in the Commonwealth. As a result of strengthening the Commonwealth, we could go to the United Nations and speak with more authority than we have done in the past.

As a result of my thoughts, some weeks ago I tabled a series of Questions. They were answered last week, and I was a little disappointed with the replies I received. As a result of the Montreal Conference, a number of publications were issued. I have read many of them, but I cannot say that I have read most of them, because I do not know how many there are. I give credit to everyone who contributed towards the publication of those documents. They make excellent reading, and the logical step is to use them as a specification for preparing plans along the lines that I am suggesting.

Western Australia is planning to harness its tidal waters. Why were not we informed of that? I spent a day with one of the greatest authorities in the country. He was poring over large-scale drawings of the Severn Barrage, which was one of the finest schemes in the history of man. It would have been a great asset to this country, but, because the Government of the day were limiting expenditure on capital development of that kind, the scheme was never put into effect. A similar scheme has been carried out in France. Western Australia is preparing to do it, but it is a French consortium that is preparing the specifications, drawings and designs.

The time has come when we cannot allow the needs of our export trade and the needs of our Commonwealth links to be left in the hands of private individual firms. It should be the responsibility of the Government to invite a number of large electrical firms to form themselves into a consortium, along with civil engineers, to enter into competition with any other firm in the world.

That was the purpose behind many of my Questions, because Australia and New Zealand have some of the richest and best iron ore mines in the world. Much of the iron ore is being exported to Japan. Why have we not made arrangements to import it here? If we can bring oil from South Arabia, from Kuwait, and from the Middle East, to this country, we ought to be able to build big enough ships to bring iron ore here from Australia. In my view, we should start negotiations as soon as possible with they Government of Western Australia, who have iron ore in abundance, to be sent to this country in the most modern and largest ships. We would find the Western Australian Government most sympathetic to our request that they should facilitate the making of mutually satisfactory arrangements of that kind.

One of the greatest needs of Australia is water. Large-scale capital expenditure schemes to harness power for electric light and to use some of the water for irrigation purposes [...] being prepared. This is an example of how large-scale civil engineering is being harnessed to electrical engineering, and we have some of the finest engineers in the world. I would have hoped that the Cabinet would take the initiative and form a consortium of these people, together with financial corporations in the City, so that we could make a greater contribution on the lines that I have indicated.

The people among whom I moved received me with exceptional cordiality. I never felt more at home than I did in Australia, although in many parts I was among strangers. I never thought that this cordiality was expressed for me as an individual; it was because they realised that I was a man from the heart of industrial Britain—a man representing the ordinary people of this country, one of themselves. We should learn a lesson from that. I believe that this attitude could be reflected in terms of an arrangement to build up our links so that we could make the Commonwealth much greater than it now is.

What I have said about Australia and New Zealand applies equally to Canada and India. I have documentary evidence to show that the people of India are now more friendly towards us than ever before, although they can build up a terrible indictment of the way that we treated them at Amritsar and many other places. But although they are now so friendly towards us, I read that a German consortia is doing the work in India that we should be doing on a large scale.

In March, a conference is to be held in Geneva, under the auspices of the United Nations, where the world's representatives will discuss proposals for the expansion of world trade. Although the two sides of the House differ politically I hope that the Government will appoint representatives with a wide outlook, and real vision, so that we shall not be drawn into discussing narrow issues of a pettifogging personal character. These are the days for a display of real manhood and courage—for vision and constructive proposals. I hope that the British representatives will go to the Geneva conference with the idea of putting forward constructive proposals, so that we shall not only benefit the world, but will ourselves achieve a greater proportion of world trade.

At the same time, I hope that our representatives will establish close contacts with Commonwealth representatives, and will make them aware of the feeling of this Parliament, so that as a result of our discussions there we shall be able to speak at the conference with a united voice, and make constructive proposals. We shall then be able to take the greatest step forward for many years, not only for our own benefit but also in terms of making a great contribution towards the needs of the whole world.

7.23 p.m.

Mr. John Harvey (Walthamstow, East)

This is not the first occasion on which I have been privileged to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith). His honest-to-goodness sincerity of purpose and his down-to-earth eloquence are such as to impress us all and to encourage us to forgive him for his occasional departures into the realms of party interests.

I tried to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, because in November I was privileged, together with nine other Members from both sides of this House, to represent this Parliament at the meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Kuala Lumpur. In a sense, some of what I shall say will be a report of that conference. It was an impressive affair. It was a week-long conference at which members of virtually every Parliament and legislative assembly in the Commonwealth spoke, or had the opportunity to speak. I had the good fortune to catch the Chairman's eye on three successive days, which was a far greater measure of generosity than a Member usually manages to encounter in this Chamber. The conference was none the worse—indeed, it was immeasurably better—for the fact that our Malaysian hosts allowed us to use their brand-new House of Commons. We were able to meet in the Chamber there for our debates, and this created an extremely good atmosphere.

Apart from the Conference, we toured Malaysia together in four groups. Members of different Parliaments and of different races travelled around together, and at the end of it we found that, whatever might be the differences that divided us, the things that united us were immeasurably greater and counted for very much more. It is important that this House should take stock of that sort of thing.

As usual, the Leader of the Opposition made an interesting speech today. He made a number of suggestions which would find favour on both sides of the House. If, in the fulness of time, some of them can be implemented, he will doubtless again claim that he thought of them first. In self-defence, I must point out that in a HANSARD of five or six years ago he will be able to find a suggestion [...] made that, whatever the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association does for the unity of Parliamentarians and parliaments of the Commonwealth—and it does a great deal, and I should like to see infinitely more support given to it—we have still not achieved for the Commonwealth what the Council of Europe has achieved for Europe.

If we could find ways and means of uniting the Parliamentarians of the Commonwealth more closely in some regular assembly it would be a considerable boon to us all. It would help still further to widen the scope of understanding and to remove the causes of misunderstanding. The fact that the right hon. Gentleman has repeated this afternoon a suggestion that I made a few years ago gives me cause for considerable pleasure.

Those of us who went to Malaysia were greatly impressed with what we saw there. It is an inspiration to the Commonwealth, this country of 10 million people, because it consists of three races consciously working together for the good of their country; three races, all with quite serious differences, trying to resolve those differences and to understand each other and make a determined effort to overcome all the problems. In this endeavour, these three races are not scared by the bogy of neocolonialism. They are prepared to assert themselves for Malaysia, but they also recognise that they have a lot to learn from other more advanced countries.

They are willing to have us there in partnership with them. As far as I can see, we are being sensible and enlightened in accepting that we are training the people in the arts and crafts that should build the prosperity of Malaysia tomorrow. We are helping them the better to be able to run their own country and to shape their own destiny. In many ways Malaysia is a powerful example of what the future of the Commonwealth Association as a whole can and must be.

When talking to Members of Parliament from other Commonwealth countries, one finds that, great as their need for aid may be, they want, rightly and understandably, to see the emphasis put on trade rather than aid wherever that can be done. So I will deal, first, with certain questions of trade.

We must recognise that there are different patterns right across the Commonwealth, in the older Commonwealth countries and in the new, but an intermixture all the way of a need to protect one's own infant industries from imports and a need to protect one's exports against all sorts of competition, fair or perhaps unfair. Inevitably, the interest in commodity prices and agreements is considerable in many parts of the Commonwealth, although we should guard against the assumption that commodity agreements of themselves are simple matters.

If we fix commodity agreements at an artifically high level, or at a level which may become artifically high, we encourage someone else to produce the same sort of commodity and to compete with and undermine the agreement which has already been made. It remains true that diversification must be among the most important of the aims of the nations in the Commonwealth.

To nations which have only just started to trade on any scale, diversification is something for the future. But it is important. In discussing trade, I should like to deal for a moment with some of the figures which were given today by the Leader of the Opposition. When he allowed me to interrupt him, I suggested that it was so easy to mislead by giving casual figures and percentages. I acquit the right hon. Gentleman of any desire deliberately to mislead the House. But when using figures in a debate it is very difficult to convey everything which ought to be conveyed.

Does it really matter all that much whether the overall pattern of Commonwealth trade was X-per cent. in one year and Y-per cent. in another? Is it part of our intention to try to put Commonwealth trade into a little straitjacket of its own in isolation from all other types of trade? Or is what really matters the total growth in the volume of trade right through the Commonwealth? It is all just as—

Mr. Shinwell

But that is precisely what members of the Tory Party did during the controversy about the Common Market. They sought to denigrate the Commonwealth because there had been a decline in the volume of Commonwealth trade. They used statistics all along the line. I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Figures do not matter a great deal. It is the general volume of trade, not only in the Commonwealth. But the hon. Gentleman must not point the finger of scorn at Members on this side of the House. He should turn his eyes in the direction of his hon. Friends.

Mr. Harvey

I am not sure that the right hon. Gentleman has followed what I was saying. The Leader of the Opposition tried to suggest that under a Labour Administration the total volume of Commonwealth trade was greater in percentage than it is today. Even if it were true, is that what really matters? Surely what really matters is whether Commonwealth countries as a whole are doing more trade as a whole today. Not necessarily with other parts of the Commonwealth, but more trade—full stop. In other words, if the gross national product is greater than it was, if the standard of living is higher than it was, that is what really matters far more than how the trade is done.

The other quarrel which I had with the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition was when he sought to give vastly impressive figures showing how the Germans, Italians, Swiss and Americans are contributing so much more to the Commonwealth today than we are. When I intervened during his speech and said that what we had to remember was the total volume of British investment right through the Commonwealth, there was a roar from hon. Members opposite and one or two hon. Gentlemen suggested that I should sit down. As I thought that my intervention had in any case been long enough, I obliged them. But I return now to the argument.

I do not know why any reference to investment should automatically attract a roar of derision from hon. Gentlemen opposite. Some of the hon. Gentlemen who are on the benches opposite now may take another view. A factory built somewhere in the Commonwealth becomes part of the investment in the Commonwealth. The simple argument which I was trying to make was that if through the years that have gone by most of the investment in the Commonwealth happens to be investment which we have made, it is quite unfair to compare the subsequent growth in the volume of our trade with that of the trade of Germany or France with the Commonwealth today.

What we have to compare in order to get a fair comparison is the total amount of our trade going into the Commonwealth—the total amount of our investment going in—with the total amount of theirs; and not to take a "phoney" figure which represents an increment of ours, forgetting what has gone on in the past, and comparing that with the completely fresh start to this sort of investment made today by other countries in Western Europe.

Mr. Jay

Surely it would be a bad argument to say that because we have invested heavily—as we have—in the past, we must therefore expect our share of trade to decline in the future?

Mr. Harvey

I am not suggesting that for a moment. I am saying that if we have built factories there, as part of our fixed investment, which are producing goods there today rather than in this country, we cannot also be sending goods from this country as well. A country which has never traded with the Commonwealth territories before could and would be doing that. Let us get the basis of comparison right. The basis put forward by the Leader of the Opposition was utterly wrong, and if the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) is adopting the same basis he is as wrong as his Leader. I will not pursue the argument further, because I do not wish to become too involved in party political differences. I wish to try to be constructive.

The Prime Minister said that we must seek to provide each other with the maximum opportunities for trading in the Commonwealth. I think that would command assent from hon. Members on both sides of the House. A lot has been said about the Common Market. I do not dissent for a moment from the assertion that the Common Market negotiations placed a considerable strain on traditional Commonwealth loyalties. This was largely due to the misunderstanding about what we were trying to achieve. Hon. Members opposite, in an election year, have found a sort of unity about their attitude to the Common Market. But they should not forget that this never was originally a party argument. It was one which cut right across traditional party lines. As it happens, the very fact that the whole negotiations could not be made public at the time when they were going on, resulted in rumours which caused people to fear the worst. I think it wrong—and one day it will be seen to have been wrong—to suggest that my right hon. Friend in any way sold any sort of Commonwealth pass in those discussions.

The point must be made that if we had been willing to sell Commonwealth interests down the river we would have had no difficulty in getting into the Common Market. It was de Gaulle's intransigence with our constant insistence on reaching compromise—not on giving way—in which they had to give as much as we, his intransigence with our attitude over that led him in the end to break off the negotiations. What we must recognise today is that large numbers of the British people could see no useful purpose in trying to restart negotiations with the Common Market—let us be frank about this—while de Gaulle remains in charge of the destinies of France and, therefore, there seems no point in going on wasting time in this particular direction in these particular circumstances.

Therefore, the Prime Minister's suggestion this afternoon that we should consciously within the Commonwealth seek to provide each other with maximum opportunities for trade is precisely what we should now give priority. We should go ahead in trying to reach real and effective agreements with all those different parts of the Commonwealth willing to reach them with us. If ever we find it a reasonable proposition again to negotiate with Europe it should be only against the background of agreement we have reached in today's circumstances with the Commonwealth and its interests as they are today and will be in the future. This could be a reasonable solution to an otherwise quite intractable problem.

In the development of Commonwealth trade there is no doubt—this came up time and time again in the conference at Kuala Lumpur—that expertise and information matter a great deal to the developing countries. We must welcome everything that can be done and that is to be done to make more technicians available to those countries to build up a service on which they will be able to draw for the experts that they want. We must welcome the young volunteers, the young teachers who are prepared to go out and to give one, two or three years in their early lives to helping in the Commonwealth. That will do them immense good and it will do the Commonwealth immense good.

We must seek deliberately to widen opportunities for travel and work within the Commonwealth, for constructive endeavour by each and every one of us able and willing to contribute something, because there is no doubt that what so much of the Commonwealth needs is the type of technical aid and advice on which it can build itself up. Provided it gets aid and advice it will build and profit by it, and we shall profit by it because we shall have an increasingly self-reliant Commonwealth, which, after all, is what the stability and peace of the world will greatly benefit from.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine) touched on the question of trade commissioners and commercial counsellors in various Commonwealth countries. Some of them are excellent, but when we travel round the local business communities we find they have grave doubts about the excellence of some others. What we need more than anything else is increasingly to create a commercial service within which these people will feel their whole future to exist. One of the real difficulties of the moment is that so many of them feel that they are out on a limb serving commerce and trade. They want to get back into the main stream of C.R.O. work, Foreign Office work or Board of Trade work, and do not want to stay out on that limb for too long. That is an important point.

My hon. Friend also talked about an exhibition in Canada. I make the suggestion that the President of the Board of Trade should consider the possibilities of a Commonwealth exhibition which would tour the world. A Commonwealth exhibition could show in Washington or Moscow the things that the Commonwealth has available to sell and the services the Commonwealth has available to give. Might it not in return attract investment to the Commonwealth once the opportunities of the Commonwealth became more widely evident?

There is not the least doubt that we shall have to find better methods of concerting ways in which aid is made available. The fact that at the moment once again we find that not nearly all the aid we are prepared to make available, limited as it is in relation to the need, is fully taken up shows that present methods are not working effectively. That may not be our fault. On the other hand, we have somehow to try to give more co-ordination to it all. At the moment there is individual action, largely by our own country and France, in relation to their former Colonial Territories. There is a certain amount of co-ordination and concerted action, in which we all join, which goes beyond our former Colonial Territories and outside the Commonwealth. It must do so because problems of aid in South America, for instance, are little less important than they are in the Commonwealth.

We have the American concept of aid which is largely a question of buying off Communism. This outlook on aid must change. We have now moved beyond the question of buying off Communism. We have to invest in the future by world organisation, the aim of which the Nigerians put so splendidly at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference when they said, "Towards a future more abundant". There is something in that. This is what we are all aiming at. We should all join in trying to see that we can achieve it as quickly as possible and as effectively as possible.

Science must play its part, as has been suggested this afternoon, for production is vital. We saw in Malaysia a fisheries research institute in which up to now the average production of fresh water fish has been 20 lb. per acre and it has proved possible to produce 2,000 lb. of fish per acre. That is an institute for which our Government are responsible. I say "our Government" not in any partisan sense, because the blueprints for it were prepared when hon. Members opposite were in office and it went forward when we took over from them.

This increased production has been brought about, I gather, by cross-breeding certain strains of fish. It was eventually found that if one can separate the male from the female the male grows very much larger. There is probably a moral in that somewhere. Then it was found that a particular type of cross-breed invariably bred males and it was no longer necessary to sort out the males from the females among the young. It is now possible to breed a fish which is invariably male and to get 2,000 lb, of fish per acre.

No sooner had this been achieved than a tremendous drought set in and all the ponds went dry. We who go around leaving water taps running forget the immense value that water is to man. Those of us who have seen in Malacca and Hong Kong the miseries in which people live through lack of water know that although it is unpopular to suggest that a tax or levy should be specifically attached to a specific purpose we would all be happy to pay something which we knew would go in aid to parts of the world which need it so much. I sometimes think that we who can turn taps on so easily should not grumble too much if a jolly good impost was put on our water rates, in the knowledge that the money would go to provide other people with the water which is their lifeblood, because we sometimes have almost too much of it.

No one has so far mentioned the population explosion. In the present five-year plan it is the aim of the Indian Government to create 13 million new jobs. This is an impressive aim. A study of the figures shows, however, that in the same five years they will be creating 25 million new Indians. Even when trying to run one cannot keep pace with the problem. This is a realm in which science and education still have a great deal to contribute. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister mentioned television. There are villages in India where the arrival of a wireless set to which the community can listen is a remarkable thing. Television has a great part to play in education, in teaching. Some countries have a long way to go before they will even reach television.

There is no doubt in my mind that we must find ways of better concerting the aid that it lies in our power to give. I refer not me rely to this country but to Western countries as a whole, not merely to Western countries but to countries such as Australia and New Zealand, which can join in this aid giving. We must find better ways of concerting the aid, whether it be money aid, aid in kind, or aid in technical experience and assistance.

The Commonwealth is the natural agency through which this country and certain other Commonwealth countries should try to build up the aid they can give. I cannot help feeling that we have not done enough yet to interest the Commonwealth as a whole in what could be done if we set our minds to it. In Malaysia we saw the operations rooms which had been used to fight the terrorists in what was called "The Emergency". Those operations rooms have been turned into planning rooms to plan Malaysia's agricultural development. The new roads, the new irrigation schemes, the new bridges—everything is graphically obvious in these planning rooms. One can see everything, in Kuala Lumpur and in each of the State capitals. This indeed is a case of beating swords into ploughshares.

I believe that there is much to be said for taking this concept a great deal further. Why could not we have a planning room in each Commonwealth capital, showing the needs of the Commonwealth as a whole, with a sub-planning room in areas showing what needs to be done over areas? Then there could be a local planning room in the countries concerned. In this way we could contrive ways and means of weaving the whole complex pattern into something that seems attractive in its aim, something that we can see happening as we go along.

However this may be, the need for aid is great. India alone needs about £500 million a year. I mention India because its population is the greatest of those with which we are concerned, but India is not the only country that we are talking about. Government and private contributions—

Mr. Henry Clark (Antrim, North)

Has my hon. Friend by any chance signed the Motion which stands on the Order Paper suggesting that five minute speeches at this stage in debates would be a very good idea?

Mr. Harvey

I have not signed such a Motion. On the other hand, if my hon. Friend will look at HANSARD he will find that it is quite a time since I sought to catch the eye of the Chair. I never seek to intervene in a debate unless I feel I have something that can be usefully said.

I have only one more point to make, but I should like to make it. The co-ordination of the aid that we need to give must come under one Ministry if that is to be most effectively given. I should like to see some constructive thought given to this. I believe that the Department for Technical Co-operation could and should be expanded into a Ministry that is responsible for the whole of this question. I believe that there is the will right through the Commonwealth to develop aid and integrate effort. I believe that the need requires only to be given the impetus, and I believe that the impetus must fundamentally come from London. I believe that we shall find willing response if we now go ahead and give as vigorous an impulse to the development of aid and trade in the Commonwealth as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry and Trade has sought to give in other directions in the last year or two.

7.56 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Foley (West Bromwich)

I hope that the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. J. Harvey) will forgive me if I do not follow his arguments too closely. I want to deal especially with the developing countries of the Commonwealth, because I believe that this is the real challenge. If the Commonwealth means anything to us, the real challenge is to bridge the gap between rich and poor, between hope and despair.

Reference has been made to the proposed conference in Geneva on world trade and development. The countries from the developing areas and from the Commonwealth which attend this conference will go there hoping that they will come away with some agreement. This is the kind of thing that happens at every international conference, but this is a matter of their very existence. In the 10-year period 1950–60 the share of world trade of the less developed countries fell from 30 per cent. to 20 per cent. The average price that they received for their exports remained virtually the same. However, the average price of the goods they imported rose significantly. In terms of trade, the figures declined by 9 per cent.

The vast majority of Commonwealth and other countries are developing countries and are dependent upon primary produce. Ninety per cent. of the exports of developing countries consists of primary produce. These countries are, therefore, vitally concerned with decisions related to the control of prices and commodity agreements. They will, and do, suffer if there is any fluctuation in demand or price. They are the ones who feel it immediately.

In the context of the world problem we in the Commonwealth are placed in a unique position to give a commanding lead. If the Commonwealth means anything to us, we should not look upon ourselves merely as the consumers, with a traditional attitude of wanting to keep prices down. We should also look on the matter with the eyes of the producer, the man who wants some knowledge of what kind of markets he will get, who wants long-term agreements, who wants stability in prices, who needs foreign currency to buy the imports he so vitally reeds to diversify his economy. These are issues of vital concern to every developing country.

Failure to agree on these matters will produce, and has already produced, discord and dissatisfaction. Last October, two Commonwealth countries, Ghana and Nigeria, were involved in discussions on cocoa. They broke down. There was failure to agree. Yet to our Commonwealth countries this is a matter of vital concern to the livelihood of their people. When we talk from the lofty heights of this country—from our vast experience and the wealth of Britain—we tend to forget that a fluctuation in the price of cocoa can mean the difference between going under and surviving For these people.

I regret that I did not sense in the Prime Minister's speech the need for urgency in this matter; the realisation of the divisions that exist in the world and the necessity to solve these problems. There was a vague reference to commodity agreements, but that sort of thing is not good enough if we are to build up a multi-racial Commonwealth. I look forward to a new initiative coming from Britain, prior to the conference in Geneva, so that hope will be given to the developing countries.

Many people have said that one cannot separate trade from aid. I would put trade first, because it is fundamental to countries which are beginning to get on their feet. Aid is the stimulus to this, but one should never be seen as the substitute for the other. A few weeks ago I was in East Africa, in Kenya, Uganda and Zanzibar, I, too, join in paying tribute to the way in which the British Government readily responded to the requests for help from Commonwealth countries.

I also applaud the way in which our troops behaved. Whatever people may say about tome of the African leaders, their requests for aid show that despite their attitudes on some matters, they are prepared, when in need, to turn to us, It reveals that despite everything that has happened in the past they are willing to state publicly, before all the forums of African influence, that they need us. It is equally peasant to know that we are there when we are wanted.

The concerns of these countries are the problems of most other African and developing countries. They are newly independent and are building nations out of various tribes and religions, with artificial frontiers and a welter of languages. They are trying to make themselves a unity. They are trying to tackle problems of poverty, misery and sickness, but, above all, they are trying to do all these things with a lack of skilled personnel and without proper economic and administrative experience. The amazing thing is that there is still the will, effort and energy in these places to build-up their countries.

If we look carefully at recent events we do ourselves a disservice if we label them all Communist. We do the Commonwealth countries a disservice, too, because it shows that we have not made the effort to understand their difficulties. Above all, we do ourselves a disservice, when we read in the Press that this or that committee, of the Freedom from Hunger Campaign, refuses to send money to Zanzibar. Or, for instance, that the Foreign Minister in Tanganyika is a Communist. Three months ago he was invited to address American academics in San Francisco on African affairs. Unless we receive from Her Majesty's Government a statement of concern for the real problems involved there we will, perhaps by implication, be saying that this is a Communist plot.

I have talked with many African leaders. Some of them have stayed with me in my home and I have stayed with them. I am aware of their desire to make a go of their independence. If one reads the Report of the Afro-Asian Conference in Moshi one reads how Julius Nyerere referred to the dangers that could lie ahead for Africa. He was not referring to the former colonisers, but to others who were wanting to subvert the country. Having worked and fought hard for their independence, they do not have the slightest intention or desire to give it over to someone else.

This is not to minimise the extent of Communist penetration, though it must be remembered that for every person who has gone behind the Iron Curtain from any of these countries, 10 or 20 have come to Britain for training in our universities. We must keep this in its right perspective. The kind of people who go behind the Iron Curtain are not of the educational standard to come to a British university.

The real lesson to be learned is that Communism and subversion grow and thrive on discontent and great social problems. It must equally be remembered that in Zanzibar now there are boys and girls with O-level G.C.E.s who are unemployed, and that one quarter of the police force from the mainland, is on a year's notice to go back. One must consider these things and examine them carefully. Having examined them, can one say with certainty that this is a carefully planned Communist plot; or can we learn the lesson that these countries are in their infancy of independence and need all the help, thought and encouragement that we can give them?

If we are to make an effort to look at the world through their eyes, to be more sensitive in our thinking about their needs and the kind of aid they want, we must ensure that we fully understand their needs. We must look again at the personnel of our High Commissioners in these areas and consider whether or not they are the right sort of people. Do they know about the social infrastructure of these places? In the creation of a nation there must be women's organisations, co-operatives, community development, and so on.

Are we satisfied that our machinery for responding to requests for aid is oiled and sufficient to react quickly, or is it too cumbersome? We must also make imaginative efforts to harness the latent energy of the people in Britain—to encourage them to think in terms of the needs of the developing areas. I do not think that we have done this. I do not see this exclusively as a Government or voluntary effort, for there is need for both to work together. While we may appeal to our young people to do this work, let us not forget the potentialities of older people, even those who have reached retiring age.

Lusaka, the capital of Northern Rhodesia, will probably contain 30 to 40 embassies from various parts of the world when the town becomes independent this year. Who will plan the town? Who will design it, determine the kind of structures it should have, and so on? I am sure that somewhere in Britain there is a town planner who is retiring soon, but who considers himself a young enough 60-year-old to go out there and use his experience and creative skills to help in the development of this town.

This is a small example of what can be done. Above all, if we really believe in the Commonwealth, if we want to see it as something which transcends frontiers and as a new concept, we must have the right kind of motives. It is not a question of charity, or of appealing to people—a sort of blackmail; that once they have responded to an appeal for help they can return to the "telly". It is more a question of conscience, morality and of having a proper spirit of justice and equity as a basis for our action. This requires a great deal of educational effort. That is why I say that if we can harness the latent talent in this country and have our finger on the pulse of the urgent needs of the developing areas we can really make something great out of this concept.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. Henry Clark (Antrim, North)

I must begin by apologising to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. J. Harvey)—perhaps my intervention was a little unfair. This has been an excellent debate and it is one in which I am extremely anxious to take part.

I want to take up the point mentioned by the hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Foley) about the staffing of our Commonwealth Relations Office and of our High Commissions abroad. Can the Minister tell the House whether it is still true that no encouragement whatsoever is given within the Commonwealth Relations Office to members of the staff to learn Commonwealth languages? And will he remember that only about 10 per cent. of Commonwealth people speak English?

It seemed inevitable that someone or other—and it was the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition—would drag into what has otherwise been an excellent debate the question of the Common Market negotiations—

Mr. John Stonehouse (Wednesbury)

But the hon. Member will agree that those Common Market negotiations were absolutely crucial to the future of the Commonwealth?

Mr. Clark

But they are over.

The one thing that those negotiations did was to make us look very closely at the Commonwealth. We saw it, warts and all, and lost many of our illusions. The Common Market negotiations were, perhaps, responsible for the very down-to-earth and workmanlike speech of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister about the Commonwealth as it is and as it could be, and not about a Commonwealth as we might dream it to be.

I particularly welcomed my right hon. Friend's announcement of a Commonwealth approach to the Kennedy Round and to the U.N.O. World Economic Conference. It is very important that a combination of advanced countries and underdeveloped countries in the Commonwealth should put over at that conference the very simple proposition, which I think we must accept, that the economics of the 'thirties, or even of the Ottawa Conference, or primary producers supplying primary products and getting manufactured goods in return—the sort of simple economics that we read in our first geography book—is not enough to solve the problems of Commonwealth or of world trade today.

How many hon. Members saw in the newspaper today the report that, for the first time—and this is a sign of the times—United Kingdom consumption of synthetic textiles has exceeded its consumption of raw cotton? More and more, we shall produce our own raw materials in this country, as we are producing more and more of our food. The F.A.O. projections for European agriculture show that in 20 years' time the only commodity Europe will really need to import in bulk will be timber. We must tell the underdeveloped countries as firmly and as kindly as we can that they must not look to us to go on buying more and more of their produce, because we cannot do it, and if they are to base their development plans on that thought, those plans will fail.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine), in his very excellent speech, really got the gist of the problem when he talked about completing the rim of a wheel that now has only a hub and spokes. I believe that with Commonwealth initiative, we could institute a series of small regional economic conferences, starling with the Commonwealth members only in a particular region and, one hopes, spreading out to other nations. One can immediately think of half-a-dozen interlocking arrangements between Commonwealth countries—Malaysia, Hong Kong and Australasia; Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific and Canada; the one that I perhaps know better—India and East Africa: and, on the other side, perhaps West Africa and the West Indies tying up, again, with the West Indies and Canada. If, with ourselves as a partner, we could instigate small down-to-earth conferences of a few nations to see where trade could be developed, we might be getting somewhere.

We all agree that trade is better than aid. One of the best ways of looking at the under-developed countries is to think of them as being in a state of permanent slump. It is not simply that the means of supplying are lacking; in many cases the basis of supply is there, and the real problem is that demand is absolutely minimal, and the supply will never develop unless the demand conces at the same time.

When we take the Commonwealth grouping, we can put India, which is desperately short of food, next door to East Africa, with a huge potential of food production. When we then find that India has at present a favourable balance of trade with East Africa, but that many East African products are prevented from entering India because of currency control, one really begins to think that there is tremendous scope for developing this regional grouping. It need not be exclusively Commonwealth. If India and East Africa can make agreements, why not bring in Madagascar, Afghanistan or Burma? They could make up this pattern, which I think would work.

Let us see where our part in these groupings could come in. It is frequently said nowadays that it is a sin that we in the Western civilised world should have surpluses of food, while, in other parts, people are going hungry. It is a sin, but the solution is not to ship the food from here to there. We in Europe have such knowledge that 7 per cent. of our population can grow enough food for the rest, and the real tragedy is that, having that knowledge, we have not yet imparted it to the rest of the world. It is knowledge of agriculture not agricultural produce, crossing thousands of miles, that will solve the problem of freedom from hunger.

This country has the expertise, and by giving it to East Africa so that East Africa can grow the food that India needs so badly, and by doing the same kind of thing in a hundred other cases, we can get away from the old elementary pattern of primary products being exchanged for manufactured goods, get down to steadily-growing diversified trade, and so solve a Commonwealth problem and do away with a great deal of poverty in the world.

8.17 p.m.

Mr. E. Shinwell (Easington)

The trouble about the Commonwealth is that we all take it for granted. It is an entity that has existed for many years, and we naturally expect it to continue. Indeed, there are some hon. Members who expect it to continue in its present form, but they forget that the world is changing. There has been a vast transformation. There is a reorientation in the Commonwealth itself, and it is to that factor that we must direct our attention.

The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Mr. H. Clark) spoke about the advance in production in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. It is true that there are surpluses of food in some parts of the world but that, in other parts, people suffer from malnutrition and there is lack of consumption, but that is a world economic problem. The disparity between production and consumption is the basis of the world's social problem, so let us make no excessive argument about it.

The fact is that we in the United Kingdom, for our own survival as a first-class industrial nation, have to go to the help of the Commonwealth nations, and of the under-developed and backward nations in other parts of the world. There is compassion in this—that is natural—but it is also a question of self-interest. We must understand that, and we must be realistic. It has been said today that what we want for the Commonwealth countries, and what the Commonwealth countries themselves want—whether they are independent, or about to be independent—is not aid, but trade. When that statement is made, it creates a good deal of interest and attracts considerable applause, but there are some parts of the Commonwealth where now, immediately, they want aid, and trade is of no immediate value to them.

Recently, in company with some of my hon. colleagues from both sides of the House, I had the privilege of visiting the West Indies. There was a barrage of hospitality, which, of course, we appreciated. I would not go as far as to say that it was an orgy of hospitality, because that might be regarded as inimical to the interests of the country and the people concerned. In the course of our travels we visited Tobago. The devastation and destruction, which was the consequence of a hurricane that occurred last September, is almost indescribable. It is no use talking about trade for them. They want aid, and they want it at once. If they do not receive it immediately they will continue to suffer and they will be unable to make even a modest beginning on the rehabilitation of that island.

If I may quote Voltaire, perhaps to the surprise of hon. Members, we ought to be much more concerned with the misfortunes of others than in cultivating our own garden. That appears to be an exclusively compassionate attitude, but there are elements of self-interest and self-enlightenment in what I have just observed. In other words, and I repeat it with emphasis and deliberation and, I hope, with understanding and judgment, unless we can raise consuming demand not only in the Commonwealth countries, but throughout the world, we shall not remain as great an industrial nation as, fortunately, we are at the present time.

This is the sum total of the argument. I can embroider it as some hon. Members have done, including the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. J. Harvey). He spoke at length, even excessive length, to the annoyance of his hon. Friends, to say nothing of the annoyance I felt. He indulged in what might be regarded as a postprandial oration. He brought in all sorts of petty-fogging points, the sort of material which one uses after an excellent lunch. He even included a reference to some kind of fish he had observed somewhere or other in the Commonwealth. This caused great laughter, but all this was immaterial to the subject under review, which is how we can raise consumption and improve Commonwealth relations, in other words, how we can help the Commonwealth to survive.

The Commonwealth is imperilled and menaced by enemies of an external character. Let us be realistic. It is even menaced and imperilled by some elements within the Commonwealth itself. Some relate to Ghana and what is happening there, some to Uganda, some to Zanzibar and to other places in the Commonwealth. They indicate that people there are not very happy about the United Kingdom or about the Commonwealth, except in so far as they can gain some aid from the United Kingdom or from other parts of the Commonwealth. Some of us may have been offended by what is happening in some of these areas where the elements of parliamentary democracy are interlocked with elements which seem to be of a somewhat anti-democratic character, but I disregard all that.

We have to concern ourselves with what will be good for us in the long run. We are interested in the development of our mercantile marine, for example, not only because it provides invisible assets of a substantial character but because it helps the shipbuilding industry. In the North-East, with which I am primarily concerned because I happen to represent one of the constituencies there and I have to pay attention to what will happen at the forthcoming General Election, because I want to retain my seat, there is some controversy as to whether the Government are doing enough in the way of shipbuilding. But we cannot solve the mercantile marine problem, to put it in a sentence without embroidery or embellishment, unless there is a greater volume of international trade. It is as simple as that or, rather, it can be expressed easily. It is not so easily solved.

Some time ago we had a debate on a Friday when few hon. Members were present and it was easy to catch Mr. Speaker's eye. We discussed the Commonwealth. I see that my hon. Friend, or rather the hon. Lady—I am sorry that I said "Friend"—the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) is present. She spoke on that occasion. In that debate, I ventured to point out that on one occasion in this Assembly a revered colleague although he fell by the wayside, Philip Snowden, who became Lord Snowden, said that if in those days we could have lengthened the shirt of the Indian coolie by one inch it would have solved the problem of the Lancashire textile industry. There was some substance in that.

If we could raise consumer demand it would help shipping, shipbuilding, engineering, and the machine-tool industry and we would almost be on velvet, provided that we had another type of Government, and, of course, that is coming along in due course. Therefore, I should like the House to be realistic about this subject. I shall not suggest that hon. Members opposite are not passionately devoted to the concept of Commonwealth. Like ourselves, they are enthusiastic about the development of the Commonwealth and raising consumer demand and, either for compassionate or for selfish reasons, going to the aid of newly independent countries or those who have become independent. The only trouble about them is that they "blotted their copy-book" when we had the controversy over the Common Market.

The Prime Minister said today that, of course, they could not get the terms they wanted. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, in a magnificent and brilliant speech, hammering the Prime Minister as the right hon. Gentleman rightly deserved, pointed out that de Gaulle had something to do with it. We ought to congratulate General de Gaulle, because he saved this country from making a fool of itself. Indeed, we ought to invite him to become a member of the Labour Party.

As I say, hon. and right hon. Members opposite "blotted their copy-book". There is no doubt about it. In their speeches they denigrated the Commonwealth. I do not want to quote from the innumerable speeches which they made—I remember them well, as other hon. Members do. They said, in effect, "The Commonwealth is on the decline. Australia is going this way, New Zealand that way, Canada that way in the direction of the United States", and so on. That was the sense of what they said. Now, they have discovered their mistake. For the time being at least, apart from a mild flirtation with the countries of the Six—I hope that it does not develop into something illegitimate—that controversy is out of the way.

Now, we are to concentrate on the Commonwealth. Let us do it realistically. As the Prime Minister was making his speech today, I commented to my hon. Friends beside me that it all came from this booklet. As he made his speech, I was reading it. It is all contained in a document issued by the Stationery Office, under the auspices of the Central Office of Information, the title of which is, Consultation and Co-operation with the Commonwealth. It set forth the number of organisations associated in this consultation. There are innumerable pieces of machinery, consultative machinery, planning machinery, information machinery, research machinery—the whole bag of tricks. That is not what we want.

What we want is a thorough examination and analysis of Commonwealth trade relations and a clear understanding of what those relations imply, of how to bring the Commonwealth countries together in order to promote Improved trade and better relations in harmony, good will and friendship, but with the understanding also that we are trying to help ourselves as well as to help others. This examination ought to take place very soon.

What surprised me today, when the Prime Minister was speaking, was that although there was a look of annoyance on the countenance of the Leader of the House he did not get up to protest. Some time ago, the Leader of the House, after he was dismissed from his previous office, made a proposition about the need for a Commonwealth Economic Development Corporation. Some of us supported him in that. The Prime Minister talked today about a Commonwealth Economic Development Council, but did not go so far as the Leader of the House went on that occasion.

Mr. R. H. Turton (Thirsk and Malton)

The right hon. Gentleman will remember that the Prime Minister said that he himself was in favour of a Commonwealth Economic Development Council, but that he had to persuade other countries of the Commonwealth to that effect.

Mr. Shinwell

With great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, I think that the Leader of the House, on the occasion to which I referred, went much further than that. I remember, also, that, when both he and I were called upon to speak at a meeting in connection with a visit of Commonwealth students here, the right hon. and learned Gentleman developed the theme, and so well did he develop it that I heartily endorsed what he said, much to the consternation of some of the delegates there, who were evidently on the Left wing and did not like my support of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. But the fact was that we both agreed. This is the sort of thing we need.

Consultation is all right. I do not disregard it. It is very important. Nor do I disregard the need for research and analysis to get at the facts. But when we have got at the facts and already they are well known, the time comes for action. If there is no action, what do hon. Members think will happen?

A few minutes ago, I referred to the visit we made to the West Indies, to Jamaica and Trinidad. I dislike what I now have to say, and it will probably cause a little offence among my friends over there, but one has to be realistic. After making very careful inquiry, I came to the conclusion that neither of those countries was viable. I came to the further conclusion that, perhaps during the course of a few years, unless there is a vast development of their agricultural potential and a considerable amount of aid in one form or another, whether from the United Kingdom, the United States or elsewhere, they will still not be viable.

In Jamaica, unemployment is 14 per cent. That is the figure which is given officially. It is more likely 20 per cent. In Trinidad, in spite of oil and the rest, there are indications—I put it no higher, but one must take note of it—that, during the next 10 years, there may be a severe diminution of oil reserves, and Trinidad will have to rely on its agriculture with, perhaps, a few industries.

These are very unsatisfactory and disturbing conclusions to reach, but we must face facts. Unless these countries receive aid very soon and have the opportunity through the means of export guarantees or some other financial, economic or industrial arrangement to build up their trade and develop their agriculture, I doubt very much whether there is any possibility of solving their problems. Having talked to the people there and observed what is going on, I feel not only compassionate but that we could render a great service by helping them. The same applies to the other independent Commonwealth countries.

I appeal to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, who is on the Front Bench, to approach this matter realistically and with great urgency and animation. He has to escape from his past. He is the real villain of the piece concerning the Common Market, because I remember that many years ago, when he was agitating for a European movement, he came to me and asked for my support.

The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and for the Colonies (Mr. Duncan Sandys)

The right hon. Gentleman was very helpful.

Mr. Shinwell

The right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) came to the War Office when I was there. I was Chairman of the Labour Party at the time. The Secretary of State wanted me to commit my party. I could not do anything of the sort, and I was not in the least helpful.

As I say, the Secretary of State must escape from this terrible past and devote himself with assiduity, vigour, virility and imagination to the task of building up the Commonwealth. This is a great objective, a fine objective. I know that some people, say that the Commonwealth is declining, that we have multi-lateral trade and that New Zealand and Australia seek to trade with China, and so on. That is all very well. We cannot escape from multi-lateral trade; we must have it. But there is no reason why we should not seek to build up our trade with Commonwealth countries.

I am sorry to have to say this for the sake of my constituents and of others in the North-East and on the Mersey—

Mr. Cyril Bence (Dunbartonshire, East)

And on the Clyde.

Mr. Shinwell

—and on the Clyde, and in other shipbuilding centres, but unless we can do something of that sort, and unless we can place in the possession of our friends and comrades—I think that that is probably the best expression—the means of raising consumer demand, of buying our ships, machine tools and agricultural machinery, and so on, I do not see very much hope of survival for the Commonwealth.

For many years I have been a devotee of the Commonwealth. I ventured to demonstrate that in the last debate that we had by quoting an article which I wrote in the Empire Review, of all periodicals, in 1943, when I urged that we should do what we are now asking should be done. I am an enthusiastic devotee of the Commonwealth because, to use a commonplace, familiar and almost hackneyed expression, I believe that it is a great moral force, despite the giant United Nations. It is a catalyst which can assist in utilising the various chemical ingredients of this globe for the benefit of mankind.

I beg the Secretary of State, before he goes out of office—I am sorry to have to say that; we will miss him—to make a gigantic, a superhuman effort, which I am sure he can do, to make all the talk, sometimes "ballyhoo", about the Commonwealth a reality.

8.40 p.m.

Mr. R. H. Turton (Thirsk and Malton)

The right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) always talks common sense about the Commonwealth, and this latest speech of his was no exception. I have been a Member of the House for 34 years. I have never before heard a Prime Minister move a Motion on Commonwealth trade and development. Today is the first time that it has happened and I regard this as a landmark in the history of this Parliament and of this country.

I very much regret that the Opposition are not rising to the occasion, as the right hon. Member for Easington rose to it, and trying to bring the debate above party politics. On Commonwealth development and trade, there is no real issue between the two sides of the House. I accept that the Liberal Party has a rather different view, but there is no great difference between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. It would make a tremendous difference to the whole Commonwealth if this House could accept unanimously the Motion moved today by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. It is a great pity to try to pick party issues and party squabbles at the present time.

I do not know who is to reply for the Opposition, whether it will be the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Bottomley), who usually looks after Commonwealth affairs, or the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay).

Mr. Jay

That depends upon Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Turton

I appreciate that. Whoever it is, whether he speaks from the angle of the Commonwealth or of trade, I hope very much that he will rise to the occasion and make clear that there is no great issue on these matters between the two sides of the House.

On the Common Market, I took views that were different from those of the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East and rather similar to those of the right hon. Member for Battersea, North, but that issue is past and dead. We now have to go forward and build up a strengthened Commonwealth and then, no doubt, we in the Commonwealth will have to find suitable relations with Europe. That is the future for this country, and it is a great pity if we try to divide, either within or between parties, on this issue.

There are two main issues on the question of Commonwealth trade. The first is that whilst, during the last five years, Commonwealth trade has expanded by £1,130 million, United Kingdom trade with the Commonwealth has declined. That must be put right. That is the first issue. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made an important declaration this afternoon when he said that he would do what had been done in Australia and organise a trade drive with the help of the Federation of Commonwealth Chambers of Commerce in each of the several regions of the Commonwealth. I should like whoever replies for the Government to elaborate Government policy in this matter.

I firmly believe—and in this I agree with the Leader of the Opposition—that what we want is an Export Council for the Commonwealth. The Export Council for Europe, under Sir William McFadzean, has been of tremendous value. We want the dynamism of a similar council for the Commonwealth. I understood my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to suggest that there would be an export council for each region—for Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, and so on—and that they would all go their several ways. That is a great idea, but it is not sufficiently great.

I believe that we could do more if we had one large export council for the Commonwealth, no doubt with subcommittees dealing with different regions. Just as European trade varies from Greece to France, so does Commonwealth trade vary. Although one wants separate approaches to various parts of the Commonwealth, an overall pattern is necessary.

The second problem is that, during this period the prices of primary products have been stationary or have declined. On the other hand, the prices of manufactures have been rising. The hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Foley) dealt very well with this problem of the rich and poor countries. It can be solved only by the development of Commonwealth trade through appropriate Commonwealth machinery.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was very clear in saying that he was attached to the idea of a Commonwealth Economic Development Council, but that this was a matter for the Commonwealth as a whole to decide. What steps are the Government taking now to raise this matter with the other Commonwealth countries? Last September, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer suggested a survey of the Commonwealth, a sort of Paley Report. That was accepted at a meeting of the Commonwealth Economic Committee.

I believe that was a most valuable step forward, and from such a beginning, we can, in time, move to a Commonwealth Economic Development Council.

This debate has achieved a great deal in awakening people to the possibilities of the Commonwealth and also to the danger that, if Britain does not act quickly, the trade of the Commonwealth and the links of the Commonwealth will decline. I beg hon. Members on both sides of the House, on this occasion, to rise above party in order to try to present to the nation one Commonwealth policy.

8.47 p.m.

Mr. A. E. Oram (East Ham, South)

The right hon. Member for Thirsk and Mahon (Mr. Turton) can at least claim consistency in his attitude to Commonwealth trade, particularly during the great controversy about British entry into the Common Market. But it is not a consistency which can be claimed by many of his right hon. and hon. Friends. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said, during those negotiations no reasonable conditions for Commonwealth trade were reached yet the Government were prepared to take Britain into the Common Market. The right hon. Gentleman was one of the vigorous opponents of the Government at that time.

Throughout this debate I have been struck by the note of complacency and lack of urgency, particularly in speeches from the benches opposite. I was also struck, when I read the Government Motion, by its confident and untroubled wording and by the Prime Minister's speech today, According to the Motion and the speech here is a Commonwealth in which all the right policies are being pursued, aid given and efforts made in the right direction for Commonwealth trade. In fact, it would seem that everything in the Commonwealth garden is lovely.

But after reading the Motion yesterday I turned to The Times and found in item after item of Commonwealth news very gloomy headlines from all over the world—Borneo, East Africa, Cyprus, New Zealand. The only reasonably cheerful news item was that the Canadian Conservatives were having trouble over the election of their leader, which made me feel a little more at home. In such a situation, with trouble in Malaya and Africa, surely the wording of the Motion is utterly complacent and inadequate.

These troubles of which we read are largely political and military and the purpose of the debate is mainly to discuss trade and aid problems. I agree with the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) that the essential links for the Commonwealth are economic and that unless we get our economic links right, we cannot get our politics right. What is wrong with the Commonwealth today is largely due to the wrong attitudes which successive Conservative Administrations have taken towards Africa and South-East Asia over the years. The territories of the Commonwealth have been treated by those Governments almost solely as sources of raw material and cheap labour, and the present political difficulties in the period of freedom for Commonwealth territories are largely due to those wrong economic approaches over the years.

Each territory is dependent for its livelihood on the production of perhaps only one or two plantation crops, and this makes them extremely vulnerable in the world's commodity markets, which means that they find it impossible to lift themselves out of poverty. These troubles lead some hon. Members opposite to the view that perhaps we were too impulsive and gave freedom to territories in Africa too quickly. Indeed, Lord Salisbury has said this openly and I was glad to see that he got a forthright reply from the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod), the editor of the Spectator, who said that it was absolutely essential to quicken the pace of giving freedom to African territories during his period of office.

The centre of the economic problem of territory after territory throughout the Commonwealth is that if something goes wrong with one commodity market, the territory is in trouble—Mauritius, with sugar forming 90 per cent. of its exports, cocoa making 50 per cent. of the exports of Ghana and coffee 30 per cent. of the exports of Kenya. I was looking at one particularly illustrative fact of the way in which something going wrong in one commodity market can upset the whole income and welfare of one of these developing territories. I refer to Sarawak in Borneo. In 1960, it exported 50,000 tons of rubber and earned an income of £15 million. In the next year, it exported almost the same tonnage of rubber, 47,000 tons, but it earned an income of only £10 million, a slump of £5 million simply by the fortuitous slump in the world price of rubber.

The White Paper on aid to overseas territories says that since the war this country has given Sarawak £6 million worth of aid. This afternoon the Prime Minister gave some impressive figures of the extent of our financial aid to overseas territories, but they must be considered against the background of relentlessly declining commodity prices on which these countries depend for their livings. In one year Sarawak lost almost as much aid as it had received from this country over nearly twenty years. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) that aid is as necessary as trade, that both are essential, but he did not sufficiently emphasise that the long-term necessity is getting our trading relationships right. Aid can be only temporary. It is proper trading relationships which are essential. That is why I felt that the Prime Minister was more than a little complacent in his treatment of commodity agreements.

The Prime Minister

I hope that I was not complacent about commodity agreements, but a rubber agreement has so far defeated everybody. I remember that when I was Commonwealth Secretary I was very keen to get a commodity agreement covering rubber, but the synthetic rubber made it almost impossible to conclude an arrangement and have it internationally agreed.

Mr. Oram

I agree that there are difficulties with almost any commodity. We have been told of that with cocoa, and so on. But I cannot believe that it has been impossible to get more than the three agreements which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. If we had approached commodity agreements with sufficient vigour over the last 10 years, we could have reached much better arrangements than we now have, not only to our advantage, but more especially to that of the developing countries.

The House went through a period of debate after debate about our entry into the Common Market. An enormous machine of negotiating skill was in operation and a great deal of energy was applied by the Government day after day and month after month. If only a quarter of that skill and energy and time had been used, not in Brussels but in a world centre, to negotiate world commodity agreements, the Commonwealth, this country and the developing countries of the whole world would be far better off, and this country would not have wasted much of its administrative and negotiating ability on what turned out to be a fruitless exercise.

We ought to have been thinking in Commonwealth terms and world terms during those critical years. They were particularly wasted years, two or three years within a whole dozen wasted years of which the Government have been guilty.

8.58 p.m.

Mr. Edward Gardner (Billericay)

I have two minutes to say something which, I hope, the House will think of some importance. One of the most remarkable things said by my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister in this stimulating debate was that he was considering setting up a Commonwealth Court. This court would have, I believe, a tremendous possibility before it. It is a court that is very necessary, and it could have a future that would be an inspiration to the world. I believe that it is a court from which could issue a writ of habeas corpus which could do much to solve the problem of the political prisoner in the Commonwealth.

I congratulate the Prime Minister on his foresight in deciding to give this prospect of a Commonwealth Court his attention in the future.

8.59 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Jay (Battersea, North)

If anyone ever damned anything with faint praise, it was the Prime Minister speaking of the Commonwealth today. I do not know why he chose to speak. We did not even get a deathbed repentance. All we had was a deathbed confession; a confession of failure in the whole of this campaign.

We see today posters which promise us straight talk and action from the Prime Minister. All we had in this debate was double talk and no action. The Prime Minister gave no firm assurance that the damage done to the Commonwealth by the Brussels negotiations in 1962 would not be repeated if the present Government ever got the chance. That damage was far too deep and lasting to be healed by a few equivocal words, and I must warn the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Industry and Trade, who is not with us yet, that he is not the best man to restore confidence in the Commonwealth. I believe that he could have tested the terms which were obtainable from the Brussels powers without wounding the Commonwealth if we had held genuine consultations with our own friends first and if we had not offered terms which plainly would have mutilated vital Commonwealth trade. In spite of that, what the Government did was to send round to the Commonwealth a number of prejudiced Ministers who did not indulge in bona fide consultation, but who told the Commonwealth countries what we proposed to do and tried to bully them into not making any protest.

I assure the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and for the Colonies, who is not here either, that I would not like to repeat some of the remarks made to me by Australians and New Zealanders about his activities there on this issue. Frankly, I would not like to repeat those remarks either outside or inside the House.

The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and for the Colonies (Mr. John Tilney)

I think that my right hon Friend explained to the Leader of the Opposition why he could not be here.

Mr. Jay

That may be so. Perhaps it would have been better if he had not gone to Australia or New Zealand either.

Last summer, while in India and Pakistan, my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (M. G. M. Thomson) and I were asked time and again why it was that Britain had decided to write-off Commonwealth trade and the Commonwealth. We constantly had to explain that it was not Britain who had written them off but a handful of Tory Ministers who were gravely misrepresenting British opinion.

Only one argument was really advanced two and a half or three years ago for writing off Commonwealth trade and looking elsewhere. The argument was that our trade with the Commonwealth was declining and that therefore it should be allowed to go on declining. The truth was that it was not declining absolutely but only as a percentage of total trade. This was due partly to the natural swing back to the pre-war situation and partly to our own policies, and in so far as any decline existed action ought to have been taken to stop it.

The first deception in the argument was to take Commonwealth trade as a percentage of our total trade in some year such as 1950 and compare it with 1960 and show that the percentage had been declining. But the Commonwealth share of our trade rose very markedly from 1938 until after the war, partly because the Commonwealth sustained us during the war and partly due to the deliberate policies of the Labour Government. There was a swing back towards the previous percentages when we resumed trade with Europe after the war, and therefore it was grossly distorting to take only the second chapter of the story.

If we look at the real figures, we see that United Kingdom exports to the Commonwealth as a percentage of total U.K. exports rose from 31.6 per cent., in 1938, to 37.8 per cent., in 1948, and fell back to 30.7 per cent. in 1962, very much the same as they were before the war. Of total United Kingdom imports, 34.2 per cent. came from the Commonwealth in 1938, 42.3 per cent. in 1948, and 31.1 per cent. in 1962. Overall, therefore, we have very nearly got back to the prewar percentages, with imports a little below them.

In his brilliant speech this afternoon, my right hon. Friend mentioned some of the causes of this swing back in our share of Commonwealth trade over the last ten years. But none of them provides a reason either for expecting or, still less, wishing this decline to continue. The first is simply the natural switch back from an exceptional wartime situation. The second is our own policy, as is shown in a most revealing article in the December issue of the Three Banks Review by Professor Austin Robinson. He there shows that the premature liberalisation of United Kingdom imports by the present Chancellor in 1958–59 increased, proportionately very markedly, our less essential imports from outside the Commonwealth and forced us to cut down proportionately our essential imports from the Commonwealth—because a large slice of this country's essential imports of food and raw materials comes from the Commonwealth. What happened was that the Government, having needlessly cut down by this means the Commonwealth share of our trade, then complained gloomily that the share was falling and proceeded to use that as an argument for letting it fall still further.

As the Prime Minister said, the third reason is the decline in primary commodity prices which took place from 1957 to 1961 and which held back the purchasing power of some Commonwealth countries. But what the Prime Minister did not notice was that the decline came to an end two years ago. Generally speaking, over the last two years commodity prices have risen, and food surpluses in the world have been declining and not growing.

The next reason is also due wholly to our own policy, and is wholly in our own hands. Let us take the case of India and Pakistan—two nations which together form an important part of the Commonwealth and which are typical of the developing countries generally. Why have our exports to India and Pakistan not increased so fast in the last five years as have those from the United States and several other countries? The answer—as was constantly borne in on my hon. Friend and me when we were in India and Pakistan last summer—is that aid from this country to India and Pakistan is far less, and on far less favourable terms, than the aid which is being given by the United States. Nowadays trade follows aid in exports to the developing countries. We must recognise that as a fact whether we like it or not.

Conclusive proof of this comes from the F.B.I.'s excellent booklet on India's development plans, which shows that by 1961–62 America's share of aid to India was 52 per cent. compared with only 7 per cent. from this country. In the six years from 1957 to 1963, if we include the American special wheat exports to India, the British share of exports to India fell from 25 per cent. to 17 per cent. and the United States' share rose from 12.5 per cent. to 30 per cent. It is now actually higher than ours.

There is no serious doubt that was due to the volume of aid being given. Indeed, the F.B.I. concludes in its report that our trade is being lost—rightly or wrongly—because of the limitations on the aid that we give which, in the words of the F.B.I. impose an exactly equivalent limitation on British exports to India. That is the whole explanation. It is not that India does not want to buy, or that she does not want to buy British goods; it is that she simply has not the foreign exchange to do so, and as the United States offers tied loans, or tied gifts—if I may use that expression—India is bound to buy American goods. If there were time to tell the story of Pakistan, it would be the same.

I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State that the whole of the lorry market in Pakistan for the next 30 years has been lost to this country because the American firm competing with Leyland was able to offer much easier credit terms.

On the other side of the account, why is it that our purchases in return from India and Pakistan have not risen faster? The answer to that is simply because we have been unwilling to buy more. At the present stage of development of these countries they can export in large quantities only textiles, leather goods and a few other types of goods. Unless the industrial countries are prepared to buy these, the poorer countries of Asia will be neither able to pay their debts, carry development plans forward nor buy goods in increasing quantities. This is one reason why Commonwealth trade has not been growing faster.

They are almost all forces which are in our own hands to control. In my opinion, they should be spurs to action and not excuses for defeatism. I believe that if we look forward over a rather longer period, 30 or 40 years ahead, it will be evident that the main future of British trade is going to lie with the Commonwealth, both the developed and the developing countries. That is true, first, because the population of the Commonwealth already very large, is going to grow very fast as the already developed countries grow, due to immigration. It is quite clear that when the standard of living does rise the purchasing power of these countries will be enormous.

Secondly, do not let us forget that the Commonwealth covers every climate of the world, and every type of crop and mineral can be found within it. That is not true either of the Soviet Union, the United States or the Common Market Six. So let us have the imagination to realise what opportunities we have on our side.

From the point of view of the United Kingdom a high proportion of our essential imports, food and raw materials in particular, comes from the Commonwealth countries, because they are far more cheaply and efficiently produced there. Of our imports from the Commonwealth at the present time food and materials represent 65 per cent. and of our imports from the Brussels Six only 27 per cent. is represented by food and materials. It is always a surprise to me how seldom the obviously practical inference is drawn. One of the first maxims in making provision for this country must be to export, at any rate largely, to those countries from which, for physical reasons, we must, in the long-run, draw our essential imports. If we slide into the position of buying goods from one set of countries and exporting mainly to another set of countries, our whole economic survival will depend on the continued convertibility of the currencies of other countries. If we look over the last 40 years of history, we realise that that is a considerable gamble to take. With those tong-term aims for the Commonwealth, what practical action can we take now?

I believe that the first principle of our policy should be to maintain the freest possible entry for food and raw materials horn the Commonwealth into the United Kingdom. Every rational argument converges in favour of this. It assists our standard of living; it keeps down our export costs; it helps our balance of payments through the terms of trade; it benefits other Commonwealth countries; it expands Commonwealth trade and, incidentally, the production of food in the world where it can be best and most favourably produced. The second principle, I suggest, must be a concerted effort, which ought to be led by Britain, to persuade the industrial countries to buy bigger quantities of textiles and other secondary manufactures from the developing countries. Incidentally, the United Nations Trade Conference next month in Geneva should give the Government an opportunity to pursue that aim.

It is intolerable that this country should be taking 35 per cent., for instance, of its textile consumption from overseas, while the United States takes 5 per cent. or 6 per cent. and the Common Market takes only 1 per cent. It is ludicrous that the West as a whole should be contributing, for instance, to India 1,000 million dollars of aid a year and should refuse to take payment in return in the only form which it is possible for India to make. It is for those reasons that in our view the terms which were being negotiated a year ago by the right hon. Gentleman as Brussels would have been absolutely disastrous both for the Commonwealth and for Britain.

The Prime Minister did not mention today that the right hon. Gentleman had agreed to placing new duties and restrictions on the import to this country, not merely of textiles and other manufactures from the Commonwealth, but on the great bulk of food and a number of materials imported to the United Kingdom. It is deplorable enough with the present widening gap between the richer and the poorer countries of the world if we fail to remove the present obstacles which prevent those countries selling their goods and earning foreign exchange from the richer countries, but for Great Britain in the 1960s to impose a sweeping new range of severe restrictions on those countries' goods as the right hon. Gentleman proposed a year ago would have been stark, staring madness.

Those terms were not merely humiliating but, what is worse, they would have been crippling. They would have mutilated Commonwealth trade and struck the most wounding blow for generations past at this country's economic position in the world. What we should like the Secretary of State to explain tonight is what the previous Prime Minister meant by telling us a week after General de Gaulle had saved us from this disaster that these negotiations were near to success. Does that mean that the Government thought that these were good terms? Does the Secretary of State agree with him, or does he agree with the later view expressed by the present Prime Minister on the moors that those terms were not suitable? Can we have some real straight talk tonight in answer to this question? All that the Prime Minister said today was that the whole thing was not a live issue.

Will the right hon. Gentleman in his reply also tell us what are the Government's terms for possible negotiations with the Common Market Six in future? Our own position on this is perfectly clear and perfectly firm. What is more, it stays the same from one year to another. We stand emphatically by the five conditions for any resumed negotiations laid down by the Labour Party Conference in Brighton in October 1962. The first of those conditions, which some may well think the most important, is that in any settlement there must be strong and binding safeguards for the trade and other interests of our friends and partners in the Commonwealth". That means at the very least that no new restrictions must be placed on the freedom of Commonwealth trade.

Will the right hon. Gentleman tonight give a similar undertaking on behalf of his party? If he does not the country is bound to draw the inference that the party opposite, if it ever gets the chance, intends to renegotiate our entry to the Common Market on terms similar to those which the previous Prime Minister thought were successful. After all, both the present Foreign Secretary and the present Prime Minister have been giving private assurances to this effect to various continental statesmen in the last two or three months. The Foreign Secretary's statement of this week—I quote the latest version from HANSARD—that no question has arisen of our joining the Six in the economic sphere at all."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February, 1964; Vol. 688, c. 799.] not merely contradicts everything that has been happening so far, but also contradicts what he himself has been saying to various continental representatives. Will the Secretary of State therefore clear this up once for all tonight and tell us whether he accepts the Foreign Secretary's latest dictum and whether that dictum applies only to the period before the General Election or to the period after the General Election also?

After all, even at this moment the Government are pushing through the House an Agriculture and Horticulture Bill which would introduce into this country that very system of food levies and food taxes which most people regard as the most vicious part of the Common Market's ring fence against the outside world. We believe, therefore, even if the party opposite does not, that we need fewer restrictions, not more, on the flow of Commonwealth trade, and we urge immediate practical steps to that end. The Prime Minister said, rather pathetically, today that in terms of institutions we could do virtually nothing because the other Commonwealth countries would not agree to strengthen the Commonwealth Economic Consultative Council. Cannot the United Kingdom Government take any initiative of their own? I can tell the right hon. Gentleman several things we could do straight away.

The Prime Minister

The right hon. Gentleman ought to know that we have got a Commonwealth Economic Consultative Council. What I was talking about was a Commonwealth Economic Development Council, with a secretariat. If it is to be developed, we must have the consent of the other Commonwealth countries, and so far they have not given it.

Mr. Jay

I understand that perfectly well. What I am trying to explain to the Prime Minister is that, though some things require the assent of the other countries, there are several things we could do on our own initiative, which I will now tell him. We could, in the first place, set up a Commonwealth export council on the same terms and with the same powers as the Western Hemisphere and the European Export Council. I can tell him another thing we could do. We could establish links between the highly developed planning organisations that several Commonwealth countries, including India and Pakistan, have with our own planning organisation here. Why cannot we do that? Both the Indian and the Pakistan authorities told me last summer that they would be very sympathetic to this idea. There is a great deal of work which such organisations could then do.

Next, why cannot we put the maximum pressure behind the campaign for expanding international credit and liquidity? That would at once do as much as, if not more than, the starting of commodity agreements, because it would increase the demand for the products of all these countries. What I would like to see would be new credit created by the International Monetary Fund, lent through the World Bank or one of its affiliates, and used by the developing countries to buy goods from us. That would start priming the pump all round. I am glad to see that some right hon. Gentlemen at least agree to that.

Next, I suggest that this country—if the Prime Minister is really interested, this is something this country should do—should take a major decision to offer to India, Pakistan, Malaysia and the other Commonwealth developing countries easier credits, on longer terms, with lower rates of interest, to be spent on British exports. I advise right hon. Members opposite to read the F.B.I. report, if they think we have done all that we could do. If we do not do that, we shall lose further export markets in those countries.

I know the argument that we cannot give away our exports for nothing. I certainly would not advocate lavish gifts or negligible rates of interest. However, if the loss of markets we have suffered in the last few years is not to be repeated—for instance, if the Trident is not to lose further orders to the American Boeing—we must accept payment for these goods on deferred terms over a long period of years and at lower rates of interest. These countries are not viable enough to pay in a short period, but they may be viable enough to do so if they had a long enough period in which to pay.

These are measures which the United Kingdom could take on her own initiative. But I do not see why we should not make an effort to explore, together with the other Commonwealth countries, whether it is not possible jointly to go further than that. Surely we should try to explore the various possibilities?

I cannot at this hour detail all of these points, but if it were possible to make an agreement with the developed Commonwealth countries by which, in return for guaranteed markets and continued free entry for their primary products here they were willing to reduce their tariffs on Commonwealth manufactures and some foreign goods, we could make further progress towards free trade in the Commonwealth. Would it not be possible to advocate some reforms in G.A.T.T.? I am in favour of G.A.T.T., but we should not regard its present rules as absolutely sacrosanct and unalterable. Should we not try, with other Commonwealth countries, to get agreement on at least this Amendment of the G.A.T.T. rules; that an enlargement of a preference, or a widening of a preference area, provided that it resulted not in raising but in lowering a tariff, would not be outlawed by the rules of G.A.T.T.? That would make a great deal of progress possible towards freer trade in the Commonwealth and between E.F.T.A. and the Commonwealth.

I know perfectly well that this requires a lot of discussion and agreement with other countries, but surely we should try to explore these possibilities and take a lead in opening the negotiations. Success would depend partly on our showing a little initiative and partly on the value which we all attach to the Commonwealth. My hon. Friends and I value the Commonwealth profoundly, for wider than economic reasons, all the more, because colonialism has come to an end. It seems that there are many people in other parts of the Commonwealth who also value it. I have noticed recently that a number of people have asked for British troops to come to their aid. I have not noticed quite the same enthusiasm for Russian, Chinese or even German or French troops.

I hope that today's debate and the spirit in which it has been conducted may mark an end to the habit, which has become far too common, of denigrating both the Commonwealth and this country. [Interruption.] It is a habit which I regard as rather juvenile and rather myopic—[Interruption.]—but the tragedy is that in the last three years many of the detractors of the Commonwealth have been found sitting on the Government Front Bench.

9.29 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development and President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Edward Heath)

The whole House will agree that the debate today, on the Government's initiative, has been invaluable in focusing attention not only on the problems but also on the possibilities of the Commonwealth countries. It has, right from the beginning, emphasised the many ways in which the relations between Britain and the Commonwealth and between the Commonwealth countries are remarkably close.

Be it in defence or in trade, in aid or in technical assistance, whether it is in professional associations, in education, in research or in innumerable personalties, the debate has once again focused the interest of the country on all these things. The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) has just said that he and his party support the Commonwealth, which we welcome, but for things much wider, he said, than economic ties. It may, therefore, appear to some to be somewhat extraordinary that all reference to other ties in our Motion are sought to be deleted by him, and nothing but economic matters put in their place.

It has been a thoughtful and a reflective debate, and many suggestions have been put by hon. Members and right hon. Gentlemen on both sides. We will, of course, examine them, and consider them further; they may provide the germ for further fruitful work. Many hon. Members spoke from their own experience. Some spoke from their very recent experience, like the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith), and my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. J. Harvey), who both recounted their experiences on a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association visit. I would gladly and willingly acknowledge my own debt to such a visit in 1954, when I enjoyed similar experiences in most of the Commonwealth countries of Africa. Again, at the Foreign Office, I had the opportunity of visiting many Commonwealth countries.

In the European negotiations, strange though it may seem to the right hon. Gentleman, we formed a closer habit of consultation with the Commonwealth than has ever before been experienced. People who have the idea that those who supported the negotiations—which the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend have been so anxious to discuss again today—should know that the great majority of my own party in the House and in the country never regarded Europe as an alternative to the Commonwealth and that those who now, for political purposes, are trying to make out that to be the case could not be more false.

The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition suggested that there might be a formalisation of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association; that it should be turned into a consultative assembly and then, perhaps, into a council. I must say to him, from my own experience of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association ever since I have been in the House, that I should have thought it unlikely that the Association would want to do that, because it is just the informality of the meetings, the visits and the tours of the C.P.A. which have brought to it many of its greatest benefits. But no doubt that is a matter that the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association itself can consider, and decide whether it is a move it would like to make, and which the other Commonwealth country branches would like to join it in making.

But this approach illustrates the two themes that have run through this debate. There are those—and I hope that they will not take offence if I say so—who want to see more emphasis on seeing the Commonwealth as a rather more exclusive organisation. They would like to see it develop politically and economically, and in this way become a closer, more tightly bound and rather more exclusive organisation. I do not believe that, today, it is possible, even if it were desirable. Others recognise this, and recognise that it is their independence that the Commonwealth countries value almost more than anything, and are, therefore, developing their links with the outside world in every possible way, and want to see a conception of the Commonwealth that fits in with their own activities in that direction.

That particularly affects trade and our trade relationship with Commonwealth countries, which are developing trade extensively with the other countries of the world. Britain is still the centre of intra-Commonwealth trade—because we are the only big Commonwealth market for food and raw materials, and also because we are the only big Commonwealth exporter of manufactured goods—but, by 1962, two-thirds of the trade of the Commonwealth countries was outside the Commonwealth; in other words, they did twice as much trade with outsiders as they did with each other. There is nothing here to resent, and nothing to lament, because it conduces to the strength of the individual Commonwealth countries and, therefore, to the strength of the Commonwealth as a whole.

But it means that they themselves put the emphasis on multilateral trading, on the arrangements which they can make with the other countries of the world. Therefore, they put the emphasis on the international organisations for supporting multilateral trade, on the United Nations Trade Conference and on G.A.T.T., and, in particular, on the Kennedy Round.

Here I find myself at variance with the right hon. Gentleman, because towards the end of his speech he emphasised that there should be a growing trade automatically between the Commonwealth countries and ourselves, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) said, because they are complementary in their economies.

This may at first appear to be so, but the lesson of post-war trade, whether desirable or not, rightly or wrongly, is that it has increased much more rapidly between Western industrial countries in industrial goods than it has done between developing countries and the industrial countries themselves. All the facts show that to be the case, and this is surely the problem that we face with the developing countries—the ever-widening gap between the industrialised world and the developing countries.

The right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) had three themes running through that part of his speech dealing with the Commonwealth. First, he emphasised the success of the Labour Government of 1945–51 in Commonwealth trade. Secondly, there was what was described by one of his hon. Friends as a brilliant analysis of the situation after that. It was, in fact, a recital of facts. I do not quarrel with the facts, but there was no analysis beneath them of the real cause of these developments.

Mr. H. Wilson

I made two points on that.

Mr. Heath

I do not regard those two points as being a real analysis of the situation.

The right hon. Gentleman's third point was to produce solutions which, again, did not go to the root of the problem in dealing with Commonwealth trade.

Let us deal, first, with this question of the high proportion of Commonwealth trade under a Labour Government. Why was it so high at that time? The right hon. Gentleman said that it was because of conscious Labour Government planning, but the real reason was that these were six years of world shortage of food and raw materials. There has been never any doubt about that. At that point the whole of the Commonwealth was restricted in its imports from the dollar area and other countries, because of the restrictions on the sterling area and because sterling was not convertible. This, also meant that the Commonwealth countries were limited very largely to trade between themselves. This was the reason for the high percentage of Commonwealth trade in those years.

Mr. H. Wilson

The right hon. Gentleman really has his facts wrong. He made one important statement just now, but the rest is completely wrong. Does he not realise that because of enemy occupation, for example, of Malaya and other Commonwealth countries, we could not get anything like our pre-war imports from those countries and we were driven for food, oils, fats, grains and the rest, much more into the dollar area and away from the Commonwealth because of war-time devastation and the very facts which the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned?

Mr. Heath

In that case it does not enable the right hon. Gentleman to boast of the commodity arrangements which he made exclusively with Commonwealth countries. Therefore, we had an exceptionally favoured position in the Commonwealth because of these restrictions. Moreover, our competitors today, Germany and Japan, were in no position to compete with us in the Commonwealth.

What are the reasons for the changing pattern today? First, our own market is much too small to absorb the increasing Commonwealth primary production. Secondly, our own agricultural expansion limits Commonwealth sales of food here. The right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have been very enthusiastic about a policy for expanding British agricultural production. Let them say quite clearly how they will reconcile the two sides to this problem of taking larger and larger supplies from the Commonwealth? Is it to be at the expense of the British farmer or of the outside supplier?

Thirdly, the Commonwealth countries have built up their own industries, and the fact that they have done so has had a heavier impact upon Britain because we had a far larger share of the market than the other countries who were competing with us. Also, as the right hon. Gentleman himself admitted, so much of the resources of the Asian and African Commonwealth come from aid which is tied by other suppliers.

Finally, since 1951, so many of the Commonwealth countries have achieved their independence and, whereas under the Labour Government it was quite natural that they relied, as dependencies, for their supplies on this country, as independent countries they shop in the world where they wish and where it suits them.

In his analysis, the right hon. Gentleman went on to say that Her Majesty's Government were against commodity arrangements which would have helped the purchasing power of the Commonwealth countries. We have maintained the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement in full force as a long-term agreement. The first post-war international Tin Agreement came into force in 1956, the international Olive Oil Agreement in 1958, and the international Coffee Agreement in 1963. We were founder members of all those, and we have carried out our part in commodity agreements during our term of office.

The right hon. Gentleman accused us of eroding Australian preferences. What he did not say is that there has been a general erosion of preferences both ways, reflecting the general reduction of tariffs on imports from foreign countries because of the multilateral arrangements which have been made under the G.A.T.T. That has been the real reason for the erosion of preferences among the Commonwealth countries.

What were the two reasons which the right hon. Gentleman gave? He said that there were two reasons, ignoring all those which I have just mentioned which, in fact, are fundamental. There was what he chose to call the "soft-centre" economy of Britain—an economy which, nevertheless, has not prevented our exports in the world as a whole today reaching a record level. Secondly, he blamed British industry for its weakness and its failings.

I have some suggestions to make about what is required of British industry to cope with the problem of exports in the world as a whole, but the right hon. Gentleman might have acknowledged that British industry has been facing a large number of difficult obstacles in many Commonwealth markets in the post-war world. Why did he not mention these obstacles, in fairness to British industry? In Canada, for instance, we know that British industry has been discouraged because of devaluation and surcharges and because of anti-dumping duties which predated the G.A.T.T.; and, of course, there is the disadvantage that Canada is geographically next door to the great American production line, with very short communications. I believe that British industrialists should now throw off this discouragement and make a fresh attack on the Canadian market.

In Australia, British industry has been facing increased tariff levels because of protection for domestic industry. This, again, hit us more heavily than others.

Mr. H. Wilson

Germany?

Mr. Heath

It has not affected Germany in the same way because our preferences have been eroded more, and, also, we had a larger share of the market beforehand. Therefore, our imports into Australia have been replaced by domestic production.

The same thing has happened in New Zealand. In addition, in the African and Asian Commonwealth we have the problem of tied aid. These are the factors with which British industry has had to compete, and it is only fair to British industry to recognise these things.

Let me come to the points raised by the right hon. Gentleman in his proposals. He said that he welcomed the proposal for an Atlantic community. But, before the Common Market negotiations, this idea was part of the development of an Atlantic community. The right hon. Gentleman may differ about how it should be brought about, but this does not alter the fact that the object should be to work within an Atlantic community, not formalised or institutionalised.

The right hon. Gentleman's first suggestion was that there should be regular meetings on capital investment programmes of all the Commonwealth countries. There can be an exchange of information. The Chancellor of the Exchequer took the initiative at the last Commonwealth Finance Ministers' conference in September to have exactly such an exchange. It was a British initiative. My right hon. Friend has since sent invitations to the Commonwealth countries in order to carry this out. This has not yet been accepted by all the Commonwealth countries, but it is an initiative we have taken because we believe it to be useful and right.

The right hon. Gentleman said that the Commonwealth countries will give preference for British equipment. The plain fact is that the Commonwealth countries which need British equipment, apart from those acquiring it by aid, are those which, at the moment, are giving preference to their own domestic producers. This is one of the facts of life which the right hon. Gentleman must face.

The right hon. Member for Battersea, North made an astonishing suggestion. He said that we should approach these countries and, in return for a continuation of free trade, ask them to lower their industrial tariffs. Is he suggesting that we should say to them, "If you do not do this we will not maintain free entry", because otherwise what is the point of saying it to them?

Mr. Jay

Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to give an assurance that in any future negotiations with Europe he will maintain absolutely free entry, as now?

Mr. Heath

That is an entirely irrelevant remark. I was asking the right hon. Gentleman how he expects to carry on negotiations by offering people something which they have already and asking them to make a concession in return.

Mr. Jay

rose—

Mr. Heath

I have given way a great deal and I have to deal with Europe and other matters.

The right hon. Gentleman's second proposal was guaranteed markets for Commonwealth agricultural produce. Again I asked him: at whose expense would he carry this out? We are doing it for sugar.

Mr. H. Wilson

What about wheat?

Mr. Heath

This has been going on for the last 15 years. If the Commonwealth is to have additional markets, they already have free entry for their agricultural produce. In some cases, like barley, they have a preference.

Mr. Wilson

Would the right hon. Gentleman keep it?

Mr. Heath

They know perfectly well of this free entry and they can make use of it.

The third proposal was to expand our industrial system to meet Commonwealth needs. Our industrialists are only too anxious to do this.

Mr. Wilson

Are they?

Mr. Heath

Yes. They are trying to sell in all Commonwealth markets and to meet their needs. What the right hon. Gentleman did not mention was any provision about meeting the needs of the Commonwealth countries to sell their industrial goods here. This is the key point. When the right hon. Gentleman says, "Take their textiles and their goods" when our own industry thinks that these are produced by cheap labour, is he saying that we should abolish the arrangements which we have at the moment for limiting textiles?

Mr. Wilson

The right hon. Gentleman knows the answer which we have given. We gave it a year ago. It is to support, as he supports, the George Ball plan for all industrial countries to take their fair share of Asian textiles.

Mr. Heath

In other words, the right hon. Gentleman can produce easy solutions about agricultural commodity arrangements, but he does not face up to the difficult problem of the industrial goods of the developing countries.

The right hon. Gentleman said, "Let us have commodity agreements on other goods to stabilise prices". Those we are already supporting fully. What we do not support are commodity agreements which do not stabilise prices, but which are designed to give additional foreign exchange earnings. That is a different matter. We are already carrying out the right hon. Gentleman's fourth point.

The right hon. Gentleman's fifth point—to take an initiative to increase liquidity—was exactly what the Chancellor of the Exchequer did in Washington 18 months ago, and which is now being carried out. Therefore, of the five solutions put forward by the right hon. Gentleman, we are already carrying out three of them, one will happen in any event because industry will meet the requirements in the Commonwealth, and the last one must be at the expense of the home farmer or the overseas supplier.

The right hon. Gentleman then dealt with a large number of other activities, which I will not deal with now because I want briefly to come to his other question concerning Europe before dealing with some of the positive aspects. First, the right hon. Gentleman raised the old hare about the broken pledges. He knows full well that we went into the negotiations on the authority of the House of Commons in the Motion passed by the House, on which the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends did not divide. Those were the terms on which we conducted the negotiations. The right hon. Gentleman accused us of trying to rush in at all costs. While the negotiations went on, he accused us of long-drawn-out negotiations.

The fact is that the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends never for a moment understood the arrangements which were made on behalf of the Commonwealth. India was to have her foreign exchange earnings underwritten completely. Was not that valuable? What about the textile agreement and the arrangement which was made also in the negotiations? What about the African, Asian and Caribbean Commonwealth countries, which could either have had association or alternative trade agreements? What about the commodity agreements for Canada, Australia and New Zealand?

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) said that we should not wait in the courtyard. We are not waiting in the courtyard. What is happening is that the Commonwealth countries themselves are now visiting the Six in Brussels to try individually to get the trading arrangements which we had negotiated for them in Brussels. The older Commonwealth countries are trying to get the same commodity agreements in the Kennedy Round in G.A.T.T. That proves that these were arrangements which they wanted.

The right hon. Gentleman stated his position and said that this also was clear. He said that he would go in on the five points which he made, which had been made by his party, and one of which was repeated by his right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North: that was, strong and binding safeguards for the trade and other interests of our friends and partners in the Commonwealth.

The right hon. Gentleman put it quite differently. He said that he would not join in any talks which would reduce Britain's existing freedom to trade with the Commonwealth. That is much more narrow than the first point of the Labour Party's declaration. If, however, the right hon. Gentleman joined a world commodity agreement, that would limit his freedom to trade with the Commonwealth. He knows it well. He also knows that this sort of condition is incompatible with a customs union, a common tariff and a common commercial policy He must, therefore, know that he could not possibly even enter into negotiations with the Community. It is simply deluding himself to say that he wants to join it on this condition. He should not try to delude the country any longer and he certainly does not delude Europe by producing this sort of comment.

Our position is quite clear. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said, this is not at the moment a live issue. Any future Government will have to judge the matter on the circumstances of the time and will have to obtain the authority of Parliament to enter into negotiations.

I wish, in the last few minutes of the debate, to turn to the positive aspect of our Commonwealth trade policy. It is one in which we fully support the Kennedy Round. We worked hard for it. The Leader of the Opposition welcomed our support for it. I discussed this with Mr. George Ball and the United States Administration in Washington a fortnight before they made any public announcement about it. We gave full support, on behalf of the British Government, to the Kennedy Round right from the beginning. We support the United Nations Trade Conference and we are working in O.E.C.D. to try to find ways and means, with the other Western industrialised countries, of helping not only the Commonwealth developing countries but other developing countries as well.

The conference is due to begin on 23rd March next and we have sent invitations to the other Commonwealth Governments to send Ministers here in order to have a full discussion again about our position in the conference before it opens. Naturally, when the date for the Kennedy Round conference is fixed, we would like to do the same thing.

I believe that we in Britain should be immensely proud of everything we are doing in trade for developing countries, because we are doing far more than any other country in the world. In 1962, our imports from developing countries were worth more than £21 per head of our population, compared with £11 per head of the population in the United States and £14 per head of the population in the European Economic Community. If every other industrialised country took 30 per cent. of its textile imports from the developing countries the problems we are facing would be far fewer.

We are simplifying the documentation used in Commonwealth trade. The Canadian Minister of Trade is coming here at the end of the month and I very much look forward to my talks with him about problems which have arisen. Meanwhile, Lord Amory, as the former British High Commissioner in Ottawa, has been having discussions, as we invited him to do, with 70 or 100 of the main firms dealing with Canada at the moment in order to give them any further information about trade with Canada.

In Australia, we are carrying out the biggest programme of British weeks, fortnights and exhibitions that we have ever put on in any country in the world, and this will culminate in the great exhibition in Sydney in the autumn. This shows the attention that we are paying to this major Commonwealth market.

In addition, the Federation of Commonwealth Chambers of Commerce has set up action committees in many Commonwealth countries, including Canada, the Caribbean, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand, Nigeria and East Africa, as well as one in this country, in order to encourage Commonwealth trade.

I have already announced that we are reorganising the Western Hemisphere Export Council and I hope to see it now in three separate arrangements, one dealing specifically with Canada. I believe that it is in these individual activities that we can best focus attention on the individual Common-wealth markets and thereby achieve a reconstruction and an increase of Commonwealth trade.

I have just heard that the final details of the categorisation arrangements for cotton textile goods have been settled between the British and Hong Kong industries. These arrangements will be published tomorrow. It is very encouraging to Lancashire and the textile trade that on this very difficult problem we have been able to reach agreement with Hong Kong.

But, of course, for all our governmental and institutional activities, the answer must depend fundamentally on the activities of British industry and British industrialists themselves. I therefore want to see the structure of British industry such that it can sustain not only the necessary manufacturing capacity and the necessary research and development but also the necessary sales organisation.

In that way I believe that we can best help Commonwealth trade and Commonwealth development as well as the development of our own country.

I believe that we are entirely justified in putting forward this Motion and are vigorously carrying out the measures I have described. The Opposition deplore damage done to Commonwealth economic relations, but that damage is a figment of their imagination. They call on us to make a plan for the development of Commonwealth production which affects independent countries of the Commonwealth. What right have the Opposition to say that we must plan the production of other Commonwealth countries? For all these reasons I urge the House to reject the Amendment.

Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 294, Noes 225.

Division No. 20.]	AYES	[10.0 p.m.
Agnew, Sir Peter	Cleaver, Leonard	Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)
Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)	Cole, Norman	Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)
Allason, James	Cooke, Robert	Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)
Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian	Cooper, A. E.	Goodhart, Philip
Anderson, D. C.	Cooper-Key, Sir Neill	Goodhew, Victor
Arbuthnot, John	Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.	Gough, Frederick
Ashton, Sir Hubert	Corfield, F. V.	Gower, Raymond
Atkins, Humphrey	Costain, A. P.	Grant-Ferris, R.
Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)	Coulson, Michael	Green, Alan
Balniel, Lord	Courtney, Cdr. Anthony	Gresham Cooke, R.
Barlow, Sir John	Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)	Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.
Barter, John	Crawley, Aidan	Gurden, Harold
Batsford, Brian	Critchley, Julian	Hall, John (Wycombe)
Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton	Crowder, F. P.	Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)
Bell, Ronald	Cunningham, Sir Knox	Harris, Frederie (Croydon, N. W.)
Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)	Curran, Charles	Harris, Reader (Heston)
Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald	Currie, G. B. H.	Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Bidgood, John C.	Dance, James	Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Biffen, John	d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry	Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macolesf'd)
Biggs-Davison, John	Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.	Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Bingham, R. M.	Digby, Simon Wingfield	Hastings, Stephen
Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel	Doughty, Charles	Hay, John
Bishop, F. P.	Douglas-Home, Rt. Hon. Sir Alec	Heath, Rt. Hon. Edward
Black, Sir Cyril	Drayson, G. B.	Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Bossom, Hon. Clive	Duthie, Sir William (Banff)	Hendry, Forbes
Bourne-Arton, A.	Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)	Hicks Beach, Maj. W.
Box, Donald	Elliott, R. W. (Newc'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)	Hiley, Joseph
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John	Emery, Peter	Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)
Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward	Errington, Sir Eric	Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Brewis, John	Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.	Hirst, Geoffrey
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter	Farey-Jones, F. W.	Hobson, Rt. Hon. Sir John
Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry	Farr, John	Hocking, Philip N.
Brown, Alan (Tottenham)	Fell, Anthony	Holland, Philip
Browne, Percy (Torrington)	Fisher, Nigel	Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John
Bryan, Paul	Fletcher-Cooke, Charles	Hopkins, Alan
Bullard, Denys	Forrest, George	Hornby, R. P.
Burden, F. A.	Foster, John	Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.
Butcher, Sir Herbert	Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (Stafford & Stone)	Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)
Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)	Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)	Howard, John (Southampton, Test)
Carr, Rt. Hon. Robert (Mitcham)	Freeth, Denzil	Hughes-Young, Michael
Cary, Sir Robert	Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.	Hurd, Sir Anthony
Channon, H. P. G.	Gammans, Lady	Hutchison, Michael Clark
Chataway, Christopher	Gardner, Edward	Iremonger, T. L.
Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)	Gibson-Watt, David	Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)	Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)	Jackson, John
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)	Montgomery, Fergus	Speir, Rupert
Jennings, J. C.	More, Jasper (Ludlow)	Stainton, Keith
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)	Morgan, William	Stanley, Hon. Richard
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)	Morrison, John	Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey	Neave, Airey	Stodart, J. A.
Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)	Nicholls, Sir Harmer	Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm
Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)	Nicholson, Sir Godfrey	Storey, Sir Samuel
Joseph, Pt. Hon. Sir Keith	Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard	Studholme, Sir Henry
Kerans, Cdr. J. S.	Oakshott, Sir Hendrie	Summers, Sir Spencer
Kerby, Capt. Henry	Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Hendon, North)	Talbot, John E.
Kerr, Sir Hamilton	Osborn, John (Hallam)	Tapseil, Peter
Kershaw, Anthony	Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)	Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)
Lagden, Godfrey	Page, Graham (Crosby)	Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)
Lancaster, Col. C. G.	Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)	Taylor, Sir William (Bradford, N.)
Langford-Holt, Sir John	Partridge, E.	Teeling, Sir William
Leather, Sir Edwin	Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)	Temple, John M.
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry	Peel, John	Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)	Percival, Ian	Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)
Lilley, F. J. P.	Peyton, John	Thomas, Peter (Conway)
Lindsay, Sir Martin	Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth	Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)
Linstead, Sir Hugh	Pike, Miss Mervyn	Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter
Litchfield, Capt. John	Pitman, Sir James	Thornton-Kemsiey, Sir Colin
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)	Pitt, Dame Edith	Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)
Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)	Pounder, Rafton	Tilney, John (Wavertree)
Longbottom, Charles	Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch	Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon
Loveys, Walter H.	Price, David (Eastleigh)	Turner, Colin
Lubbock, Eric	Price, H. A. (Lewisham, W.)	Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn	Prior, J. M. L.	Tweedsmuir, Lady
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh	Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho	van Straubenzee, W. R.
McAdden, Sir Stephen	Proudfoot, Wilfred	Vane, W. M. F.
MacArthur, Ian	Pym, Francis	Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John
McLaren, Martin	Quennell, Miss J. M.	Vickers, Miss Joan
McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia	Rawlinson, Sir Peter	Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis
Maclay, Rt. Hon. John	Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin	Walder, David
McLean, Neil (Inverness)	Rees, Hugh (Swansea, W.)	Walker, Peter
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)	Rees-Davies, W. R. (Isle of Thane[...])	Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek
Macleod, Sir J. (Ross & Cromarty)	Renton, Rt. Hon. David	Wall, Patrick
McMaster, Stanley R.	Ridley, Hon. Nicholas	Ward, Dame Irene
Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)	Ridsdale, Julian	Webster, David
Madden, Martin	Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool, S.)	Whitelaw, William
Maginnis, John E.	Robson Brown, Sir William	Williams, Dudley (Exeter)
Maitland, Sir John	Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)	Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)
Markham, Major Sir Frank	Roots, William	Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Marlowe, Anthony	Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard	Wise, A. R.
Marshall, Sir Douglas	Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)	Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Marten, Neil	Russell, Ronald	Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard
Mathew, Robert (Honiton)	Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan	Woodhouse, C. M.
Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)	Scott-Hopkins, James	Woodnutt, Mark
Maude, Angus (Stratford-on-Avon)	Seymour, Leslie	Wool[...]am, John
Mawby, Ray	Sharples, Richard	Worsley, Marcus
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.	Shaw, M.	Yates, William (The Wrekin)
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.	Shepherd, William
Mille, Stratton	Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Miscampbell, Norman	Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher	Mr. Chichester-Clark and
		Mr. Finlay
NOES
Abse, Leo	Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)	Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Ainsley, William	Callaghan, James	Edwards, Walter (Stepney)
Albu, Austen	Carmichael, Neil	Evans, Albert
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)	Castle, Mrs. Barbara	Fernyhough, E.
Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)	Chapman, Donald	Finch, Harold
Bacon, Miss Alice	Cliffs, Michael	Fitch, Alan
Barnett, Guy	Collick, Percy	Fletcher, Eric
Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)	Corbet, Mrs. Freda	Foley, Maurice
Beaney, Alan	Cronin, John	Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)
Ballenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.	Crosland, Anthony	Forman, J. C.
Bence, Cyril	Crossman, R. H. S.	Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Benn, Anthony Wedgwood	Dalyell, Tam	Galpern, Sir Myer
Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)	Darling, George	George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)
Benson, Sir George	Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)	Ginsburg, David
Blackburn, F.	Davies, Harold (Leek)	Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Blyton, William	Davies, Ifor (Gower)	Gourlay, Harry
Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.	Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)	Greenwood, Anthony
Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics, S. W.)	Deer, George	Grey, Charles
Bowles, Frank	Delargy, Hugh	Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Boyden, James	Diamond, John	Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Braddock, Mrs. E. M.	Dodds, Norman	Griffiths, W. (Exchange)
Bradley, Tom	Doig, Peter	Gunter, Ray
Bray, Dr. Jeremy	Driberg, Tom	Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Brockway, A. Fenner	Duffy, A. E. P. (Colne Valley)	Hamilton, William (West Fife)
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.	Ede, Rt. Hon. C.	Hannan, William
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)	Edelman, Maurice	Harper, Joseph
Butler, H[...]rbert (Hackney, C.)	Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)	Hart, Mrs. Judith

Hayman, F. H.	MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)	Royle, Charles (Salford, West)
Healey, Denis	Mahon, Simon	Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)	Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)	Silkin, John
Herbison, Miss Margaret	Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)	Silverman, Julius (Aston)
Hewitson, Capt. M.	Manuel, Archie	Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Hill, J. (Midlothian)	Mapp, Charles	Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)
Hilton, A. V.	Marsh, Richard	Slater, Joseph (Sedgsfield)
Holman, Percy	Mason, Roy	Small, William
Houghton, Douglas	Mayhew, Christopher	Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)
Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)	Mendelson, J. J.	Snow, Julian
Howell, Denis (Small Heath)	Millan, Bruce	Sorensen, R. W.
Howie, W.	Milne, Edward	Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank
Hoy, James H.	Mitchison, G. R.	Spriggs, Leslie
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Monslow, Walter	Steele, Thomas
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)	Moody, A. S.	Stewart, Michael (Fulham)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)	Morris, Charles (Openshaw)	Storehouse, John
Hunter, A. E.	Morris, John	Stones, William
Hynd, H. (Accrington)	Moyle, Arthur	Strauss, Rt. Hon. G. R. (Vauxhall)
Hynd, John (Attercliffe)	Neal, Harold	Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)	Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)	Swain, Thomas
Irving, Sydney (Dartford)	Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)	Swingler, Stephen
Janner, Sir Barnett	O'Malley, B. K.	Symonds, J. B.
Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas	Oram, A. E.	Taverne, D.
Jeger, George	Oswald, Thomas	Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)	Owen, Will	Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)
Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield)	Padley, W. E.	Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)
Jones, Dan (Burnley)	Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)	Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)
Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)	Pargiter, G. A.	Thornton, Ernest
Jones J. Idwal (Wrexham)	Parker, John	Tomney, Frank
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)	Parkin, B. T.	Wainwright, Edwin
Kenyon, Clifford	Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)	Warbey, William
King, Dr. Horace	Pearl, Frederick	Weitzman, David
Lawson, George	Pentland, Norman	Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Ledger, Ron	Popplewell, Ernest	White, Mrs. Eirene
Lee, Frederick (Newton)	Prentice R. E.	Whitlock, William
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)	Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)	Wigg, George
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)	Probert, Arthur	Wilkins, W. A.
Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)	Proctor, W. T.	Willey, Frederick
Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)	Pursey, Cmdr. Harry	Williams, D. J. (Neath)
Lipton, Marcus	Randall, Harry	Williams, W. T. (Warrington)
Loughlin, Charles	Rankin, John	Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson	Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)	Winterbottom, R. E.
McBride, N.	Reid, William	Woof, Robert
McCann, John	Reynolds, G. W.	Wyatt, Woodrow
MacColl, James	Rhodes, H.	Yates, Victor (Ladywood)
MacDermot, Niall	Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)	Zilliacus, K.
McInnes, James	Robertson, John (Palsley)
Mackie, John (Enfield, East)	Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)	Ross, William	Mr. G. H. R. Rogers and
		Mr. Redhead

Main Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 292, Noes 225.

Division No. 21.]	AYES	[10.13 p.m.
Agnew, Sir Peter	Box, Donald	Costain, A. P.
Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)	Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John	Coulson, Michael
Allason, James	Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward	Courtney, Cdr. Anthony
Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian	Brewis, John	Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Anderson, D. C.	Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter	Crawley, Aidan
Arbuthnot, John	Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry	Critchley, Julian
Ashton, Sir Hubert	Brown, Alan (Tottenham)	Crowder, F. P.
Atkins, Humphrey	Browne, Percy (Torrington)	Cunningham, Sir Knox
Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)	Bryan, Paul	Curran, Charles
Balniel, Lord	Bullard, Denys	Currie, G. B. H.
Barlow, Sir John	Burden, F. A.	Dance, James
Barter, John	Butcher, Sir Herbert	d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Batsford, Brian	Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)	Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.
Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton	Carr, Rt. Hon. Robert (Mitcham)	Digby, Simon Wingfield
Bell, Ronald	Cary, Sir Robert	Doughty, Charles
Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)	Channon, H. P. G.	Douglas-Home, Rt. Hon. Sir Alec
Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald	Chataway, Christopher	Drayson, G. B.
Bidgood, John C.	Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)	Duthie, Sir William (Banff)
Biffen, John	Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)	Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Biggs-Davison, John	Cleaver, Leonard	Elliott, R. W. (Newc'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)
Bingham, R. M.	Cole, Norman	Emery, Peter
Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel	Cooke, Robert	Errington, Sir Eric
Bishop, F. P.	Cooper, A. E.	Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Black, Sir Cyril	Cooper-Key, Sir Neill	Farey-Jones, F. W.
Bossom, Hon. Clive	Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.	Farr, John
Bourne-Arton, A.	Corfieid, F. V.	Fell, Anthony
Fisher, Nigel	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)	Ridley, Hon. Nicholas
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles	Lilley, F. J. P.	Ridsdale, Julian
Forrest, George	Lindsay, Sir Martin	Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool, S.)
Foster, John	Linstead, Sir Hugh	Robson Brown, Sir William
Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (Stafford & Stone)	Litchfield, Capt. John	Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)
Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)	Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'n C'dfield)	Roots, William
Freeth, Denzil	Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)	Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard
Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.	Longbottom, Charles	Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)
Gammons, Lady	Loveys, Walter H.	Russell, Ronald
Gardner, Edward	Lucas, Sir Jocelyn	Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan
Gibson-Watt, David	Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh	Scott-Hopkins, James
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)	McAdden, Sir Stephen	Seymour, Leslie
Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)	MacArthur, Ian	Sharples, Richard
Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)	McLaren, Martin	Shaw, M.
Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)	McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia	Shepherd, William
Goodhart, Philip	Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute & N. Ayrs)	Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick)
Goodhew, Victor	McLean, Neil (Inverness)	Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher
Gough, Frederick	Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)	Speir, Rupert
Gower, Raymond	Macleod, Sir J. (Ross & Cromarty)	Stainton, Keith
Grant-Ferris, R.	McMaster, Stanley R.	Stanley, Hon. Richard
Green, Alan	Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)	Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)
Gresham Cooke, R.	Madden, Martin	Stodart, J. A.
Gurden, Harold	Maginnis, John E.	Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm
Hall, John (Wycombe)	Maitland, Sir John	Storey, Sir Samuel
Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)	Markham, Major Sir Frank	Studholme, Sir Henry
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)	Marlowe, Anthony	Summers, Sir Spencer
Harris, Reader (Heston)	Marshall, Sir Douglas	Talbot, John E.
Harrison, Brian (Maldon)	Marten, Neil	Tapsell, Peter
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)	Mathew, Robert (Honiton)	Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)	Matthews, Gorden (Meriden)	Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)	Maude, Angus (Stratford-on-Avon)	Taylor, Sir William (Bradford, N.)
Hastings, Stephen	Mawby, Ray	Teeling, Sir William
Hay, John	Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.	Temple, John M.
Heath, Rt. Hon. Edward	Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.	Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret
Hendry, Forbes	Mills, Stratton	Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)
Hicks Beach, Maj. W.	Miscampbell, Norman	Thomas, Peter (Conway)
Hiley, Joseph	Montgomery, Fergus	Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)
Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)	More, Jasper (Ludlow)	Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter
Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)	Morgan, William	Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin
Hirst, Geoffrey	Morrison, John	Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)
Hobson, Rt. Hon. Sir John	Neave, Alrey	Tilney, John (Wavertree)
Hocking, Philip N.	Nicholls, Sir Harmar	Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon
Holland, Philip	Nicholson, Sir Godfrey	Turner, Colin
Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John	Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard	Turton, Rt. Hon. R.
Hopkins, Alan	Oakshott, Sir Hendrie	Tweedsmuir, Lady
Hornby, R. P.	Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Hendon, North)	van Straubenzee, W. R.
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.	Osborn, John (Hallam)	Vane, W. M. F.
Howard, Hon. C. R. (St. Ives)	Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)	Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John
Howard, John (Southampton, Test)	Page, Graham (Crosby)	Vickers, Miss Joan
Hughes-Young, Michael	Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)	Vesper, Rt. Hon. Dennis
Hurd, Sir Anthony	Partridge, E.	Welder, David
Hutchison, Michael Clark	Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)	Walker, Peter
Iremonger, T. L.	Peel, John	Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)	Percival, Ian	Walt, Patrick
Jackson, John	Peyton, John	Ward, Dame Irene
James, David	Pickthom, Sir Kenneth	Webster, David
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)	Pike, Miss Mervyn	Whitelaw, William
Jennings, J. C.	Pitman, Sir James	Williams, Dudley (Exeter)
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)	Pitt, Dame Edith	Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)	Pounder, Rafton	Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey	Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch	Wise, A. R.
Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)	Price, David (Eastleigh)	Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)	Priers, H. A. (Lewisham, W.)	Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard
Joseph, Rt. Hon. Sir Keith	Prior, J. M. L.	Woodhouse, C. M.
Kerans, Cdr. J. S.	Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho	Woodnutt, Mark
Kerby, Capt. Henry	Proudfoot, Wilfred	Woollam, John
Kerr, Sir Hamilton	Pym, Francis	Worsley, Marcus
Kershaw, Anthony	Quenne[...] Miss J. M.	Yates, William (The Wrekin)
Lagden, Godfrey	Rawlinson, Sir Peter
Lancaster, Col. C. G.	Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Langford-Holt, Sir John	Rees, Hugh (Swansea, W.)	Mr. Chichester-Clark and
Leather, Sir Edwin	Rees-Davies, W. R. (Isle of Thanet)	Mr. Finlay.
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry	Renton, Rt. Hon. David
NOES
Abse, Leo	Beaney, Alan	Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Ainsley, William	Ballenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.	Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics, S. W.)
Albu, Austen	Bence, Cyril	Bowles, Frank
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)	Bonn, Anthony Wedgwood	Boyden, James
Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)	Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)	Braddock, Mrs. E. M.
Bacon, Miss Alice	Benson, Sir George	Bradley, Tom
Barnett, Guy	Blackburn, F.	Bray, Dr. Jeremy
Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)	Blyton, William	Brockway, A. Fenner

Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.	Hoy, James H.	Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)	Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Peart, Frederick
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)	Hughes, Emrys (S, Ayrshire)	Pentland, Norman
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)	Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)	Popplewell, Ernest
Callaghan, James	Hunter, A. E.	Prentice, R. E.
Carmichael, Neil	Hynd, H. (Accrington)	Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)
Castle, Mrs. Barbara	Hynd, John (Attercliffe)	Probert, Arthur
Chapman, Donald	Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)	Proctor, W. T.
Cliffe, Michael	Irving, Sydney (Dartford)	Pursey, Cmdr. Harry
Collick, Percy	Janner, Sir Barnett	Randall, Harry
Corbet, Mrs. Freda	Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas	Rankin, John
Cronin, John	Jeger, George	Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)
Crosland, Anthony	Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)	Reid, William
Crossman, R. H. S.	Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield)	Reynolds, G. W.
Dalyell, Tam	Jones, Dan (Burnley)	Rhodes, H.
Darling, George	Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)	Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)	Jones J. Idwal (Wrexham)	Robertson, John (Paisley)
Davies, Harold (Leek)	Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)	Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)
Davies, Ifor (Gower)	Kenyon, Clifford	Ross, William
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)	King, Dr. Horace	Royle, Charles (Salford, West)
Deer, George	Lawson, George	Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Delargy, Hugh	Ledger, Ron	Silkin, John
Diamond, John	Lee, Frederick (Newton)	Silverman, Julius (Aston)
Dodds, Norman	Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)	Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Doig, Peter	Lever, Harold (Cheetham)	Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)
Driberg, Tom	Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)	Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)
Duffy, A. E. P. (Colne Valley)	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)	Small, William
Ede, Rt. Hon. C.	Lipton, Marcus	Smith, Ellis (Stoke S.)
Edelman, Maurice	Loughlin, Charles	Snow, Julian
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)	Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson	Sorensen, R. W.
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)	McBride, N.	Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank
Edwards, Walter (Stepney)	McCann, John	Spriggs, Leslie
Evans, Albert	MacColl, James	Steele, Thomas
Fernyhough, E.	MacDermot, Niall	Stewart, Michael (Fulham)
Finch, Harold	McInnes, James	Stonehouse, John
Fitch, Alan	Mackie, John (Enfield, East)	Stones, William
Fletcher, Eric	MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)	Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)
Foley, Maurice	MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)	Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)
Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)	Mahon, Simon	Swain, Thomas
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)	Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)	Swingler, Stephen
Galpern, Sir Myer	Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)	Symonds, J. B.
George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)	Manuel, Archie	Taverne, D.
Ginsburg, David	Mapp, Charles	Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.	Marsh, Richard	Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)
Gourlay, Harry	Mason, Roy	Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)
Greenwood, Anthony	Mayhew, Christopher	Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)
Grey, Charles	Mendelson, J. J.	Thornton, Ernest
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)	Millan, Bruce	Tomney, Frank
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)	Milne, Edward	Wainwright, Edwin
Griffiths, W. (Exchange)	Mitchison, G. R.	Warbey, William
Gunter, Ray	Monslow, Walter	Weitzman, David
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)	Moody, A. S.	Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Hamilton, William (West Fife)	Morris, Charles (Openshaw)	White, Mrs. Eirene
Hannan, William	Morris, John	Whitlock, William
Harper, Joseph	Moyle, Arthur	Wigg, George
Hart, Mrs. Judith	Neal, Harold	Wilkins, W. A.
Hayman, F. H.	Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)	Willey, Frederick
Healey, Denis	Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)	Williams, D. J. (Neath)
Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (RwlyRegis)	O'Malley, B. K.	Williams, W. T. (Warrington)
Herbison, Miss Margaret	Oram, A. E.	Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)
Hewitson, Capt. M.	Oswald, Thomas	Winterbottom, R. E.
Hill, J. (Midlothian)	Owen Will	Woof, Robert
Hilton, A. V.	Padley, W. E.	Wyatt, Woodrow
Holman, Percy	Paget, R. T.	Yates, Victor (Ladywood)
Houghton, Douglas	Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)	Zilliacus, K.
Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)	Pargiter, G. A.
Howell, Denis (Small Heath)	Parker, John	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Howie, W. (Luton)	Parkin, B. T.	Mr. G. H. R. Rogers and
		Mr. Redhead.

Resolved, That this House approves the action taken by Her Majesty's Government to promote the development of the Commonwealth through the provision of technical assistance and development aid on an increasing scale, and strengthening of educational and cultural links, and the pursuit, in co-operation with other Common wealth countries, of the policies for expanding trade endorsed at the meeting of the Commonwealth Economic Consultative Council in May 1963, and welcomes the intention of Her Majesty's Government to press forward vigorously with these and other measures to reinforce the bonds between the Governments and peoples of the Commonwealth.