§ LORD STRACHIE rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they would state the principle upon which petrol has been allowed by the Petrol Control Committee to owners of private cars; and to move for Papers.
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, I desire to ask my noble friend Lord Stanmore, who represents the Board of Trade, one or two questions, which I have communicated to him so that he may be prepared with answers. I would preface my remarks by saying that I should be the last person to make the slightest objection to any restriction, even total prohibition, of the use of petrol by private cars if it were really necessary. It would be only one more inconvenience added to the many we have to suffer, and do not complain of suffering, owing to the war. But what we complain of is the way in which this question has been approached by the Government, and especially by the Petrol Control Committee. I say at once from personal knowledge that this Committee is most kind and considerate in giving attention to any complaint made to them; but one always feels that one is up against a stone wall, and that they have not the slightest intention of making any alterations or remedying any grievances as far as they are concerned.
§ Again, one wonders why, if there is this necessity—and no doubt there must be—for restricting the use of petrol, the Government did not move earlier in the matter. It is true that they appointed this Petrol Committee as long ago as April; but nothing has been done, for instance, as to restricting motoring on Sundays. Any noble Lord who moves about the country is aware that motoring by private cars on Sunday is enormous. This "joy-riding" and the excursions all over the country by heavily laden chars-à-bancs, stirring the dust all over the place and making the country hideous, consume an enormous amount of petrol. Why have not the Government put down, as they easily could, this absolute waste of petrol on Sundays 1092 merely for pleasure? And why do they not stop the large number of taxis and other motor vehicles going to race meetings? I noticed that the Acting President of the Board of Trade said that in the future they are going to impose restrictions; but surely it might have been done at not such a late day as this. Then, again, I am told, as regards aeroplanes, that even if they go out for a very short flight when they come down the whole of the petrol is simply emptied on the ground and wasted.
§ I hope the noble Lord may be not only able to tell us the principle upon which the Petrol Committee has acted, but perhaps he will also be able to say that a short statement on the matter will be circulated to your Lordships' House and the public, because at the present moment nobody has the slightest idea of the principle on which the Petrol Committee acts. It seems to have no principle at all, except that of rule of thumb. Certainly statements have been made from which it appears that the Committee goes on the principle of making no inquiries at all, although we were asked carefully to fill up census cards showing the amount of petrol we used and our estimate for the future, and we were also asked to state how we had employed our cars. It has been said that it is impossible to go into the thousands of cases, and that one man has been treated the same as another, whether he is doing public work or not; and that the man who is doing public work will get the same amount as the man who is doing nothing but simply using his car for amusement. Again I have been told, and I have no doubt it is the truth, that those people who made false declarations are treated in the same way as people who made true declarations. It seems improbable that the declarations can be true in the great majority of cases when we are told that the increase of petrol for use this year is actually 40 per cent. over the amount that was consumed last year. I may be told by my noble friend that there has been a large increase owing to the use of petrol for commercial purposes. But it is very doubtful whether that is the case, because a good many businesses have had to close down. Certainly the use of private cars has been greatly reduced. Frequently where a man used three cars, he uses only one at the present moment; or where he previously used two, he has one now laid up. So the increase of 40 per cent. seems excessive.
1093§ I cannot help thinking that the explanation is that people have put down estimates much in advance of what they have used in the past. A friend of mine gave me a case in his own county, where a man doing a good deal of public work—sitting on the Local Tribunal, presiding over the local Bench, and so on—made a true return and is allowed only ten gallons a month; whilst a neighbour of his made a return which enables him to get 60 gallons a month. What was stated in another place the other day by Mr. Harcourt was that any man who applied for over 32 gallons for the month had his figure divided by four. Therefore it is perfectly obvious that if a man applied for 100 gallons, all the Committee would do would be to divide that by four and he would get 100 gallons.
§ LORD STRACHIEI do not know whether the noble Earl has read the debate in the House of Commons.
§ THE EARL OF DERBYI have not said anything.
§ LORD STRACHIENo doubt the noble Marquess has read the debate. I was reading it this morning. Mr. Harcourt said that if a man applied for over 32 gallons for a month the figure was divided by four, and in the debate this was taken as the principle of distribution.
Another point on which I have asked my noble friend to give an answer is this, Did the Committee consider the question of the number of cars a man kept? A friend of mine, a member of your Lordships' House, told me that no doubt the large supply of petrol he received was due to the fact that he had a large number of cars. I have also been told that where an application was made by a man for petrol for use from his London house and for country use he received an equal amount in each case. I venture to say that the fair way of treating a man is not to consider the number of cars he has, but what he is doing and the amount of petrol he ought to require. Surely in these days it is sufficient for a man to have enough petrol to run one car. Then I want to ask my noble friend whether it is the case that the Petrol Committee have not 1094 allowed any owner of a car to receive more than 30 gallons a month, because statements have come to me from people who have declared that they have been allowed more than 60 gallons a month. It may be, of course, an accident. And I have heard of cases in which applications have been made in duplicate, and a man has received a double allowance in that way owing to some error—say, for instance, his agent in the country has applied for him, and he has himself in London also applied.
I do not wish to press that more petrol should be allowed than is really necessary under existing conditions, but there is a feeling abroad that in this matter there has not been fair treatment all round. Nobody would complain if it was felt that all cases were considered on their merits; but under present conditions, as was made clear the other day in another place, there is simply this rule of thumb system and every man is treated on the basis of the return he made. I hope that the noble Lord will be willing to give full information upon this question, and perhaps he will be able to say that in the future the Petrol Committee will not simply meet every request by saying, "Oh, we have no time to go into these questions. All are treated alike on their returns."
§ Moved, That there be laid before the House, Papers relating to the principle upon which petrol has been allowed by the Petrol Control Committee to owners of private cars.—(Lord Strachie).
§ THE DUKE OF RUTLANDMy Lords, I hope that attention will be paid to this matter by the Petrol Control Committee, because serious discrepancies have undoubtedly occurred. There have been such grave inequalities in the way in which petrol licences have been issued and in the amount allowed to different persons that I think a strict investigation should take place and a reorganisation of the whole scheme should be considered. I know of a case where, the chairman of a county council who is also chairman of practically every other organisation in the county cannot do his work because he has been allowed only about ten gallons of petrol a month. There are no railways by which he can get about to do his work, and he has to travel from twenty to thirty miles every day to perform the duties which the Government have placed upon him. I have been told by a 1095 noble Lord of a case which occurred near his place. A lady who takes no share in hospital work or in any organisation of any sort or kind in that direction applied for a very large amount of petrol for three months, and the amount she is allowed would be sufficient to run one of the Government's ammunition cars for a year. The actual amount was given to me, but it is so great that until I have it authenticated I hesitate to say it. At the same time, within a few miles of where that lady lives the chairman of the county council who is also chairman of the Local Tribunal—this is not the same case as the one to which I alluded earlier—was allotted such an insufficient amount of petrol that he cannot get about to do his work.
Cases such as these are occurring all over the country. The present system is also operating adversely on local doctors in the country districts. There are many cases—I have no doubt the noble Lord is fully aware of them—where doctors have not been able to get to their patients because they had no petrol. They have no power, under existing circumstances, to commandeer petrol even in grave cases. These things require adjustment at the hands of the Petrol Committee, who, I know, are terribly over-worked. Work which should have taken six months has had to be done in about three weeks or a month, and it is impossible for the people working in that office to get through the amount of work they have to do. I do not blame the Petrol Committee officials in the least, because they have been under-manned and probably under-womaned. All I ask for is a promise that the Government will take the matter in hand and try to put upon a more sound business footing the issue of petrol to those who have to do national work, especially in the country districts. If the existing grave anomalies continue much longer they will do a large amount of harm in an enormous number of country districts. There are some classes of the community who have undoubtedly been terribly wasteful with petrol for a long time past, but I think this is coming to an end; and I hope that those who have really to do work allotted to them by the Government will now have a chance to get the necessary petrol to carry out that work.
§ VISCOUNT MIDLETONMy Lords, I hope the noble Lord will forgive me for intervening before he replies. I do so 1096 because I want to put a particular question to him. I am not going over again the ground covered by my noble friends. I fully realise the Government's difficulty, and I have so much sympathy with their desire to reduce the quantity of petrol used that I wish they had taken the matter in hand a year ago, when they would have been able to give real consideration to the case. There must be grave inequalities. There are people living side by side, some of whom, although not using their cars for public purposes, have asked for double the usual amount and have been given one quarter, whereas a neighbour using his car for public purposes has got the same amount. No doubt something will be done about that.
But I rise particularly to press upon the noble Lord that he should give us, if he can, the figures of the consumption of petrol by the War Office in this country. I believe that if my noble friend opposite (Lord Derby) would take this matter in hand he could effect an enormous economy in the use of petrol by the War Department. Nothing is so difficult as to produce absolute evidence, but I live in the centre of troops and could give instance after instance of the entire misuse of these cars, of surplus journeys made by officers living within a few yards of each other to the same spot on the same day ten or twenty miles away, of cases where drivers while loading up at a station have allowed their engines to run for a whole hour, and so forth. But I will give one instance of many which reached me the other day of the sort of thing happening now, which it is impossible under the present system for the War Office to check. It happened that a gentleman undertook to lend his car to the War Office. His chauffeur was taken the day before, so he decided to drive the car himself. He attended at the War Office, where he was told to go to Wormwood Scrubs to fetch an officer. That officer, being before his time, spent half an hour at his hairdresser's, and after his visit to the War Office he spent an hour at the Savoy Hotel having luncheon. He was subsequently taken back to Wormwood Scrubs, and he ordered the car again for the next morning. Everybody knows that officers in authority would not allow that sort of thing if they could check it.
What I suggest to my noble friend is that the whole system of the use of Government cars by the War Office should be investigated 1097 by a small Committee. An attempt, at any rate, should be made, if possible, to regulate it, and to make it clear that except in very urgent cases cars are only to be used for the Service. It is quite clear that officers must at this moment to the fullest extent, especially in this country, use trains and motor-'buses, like many of your Lordships do under the present difficulty, as I have noticed in leaving this House. This is a subject on which we are all at one. In the early clays of the war, when there was great pressure, when orders had to be transmitted and carried out with great rapidity, and when there was not the organisation which now prevails, a system arose which might now with great advantage be changed; and I am quite sure that private owners would more readily acquiesce in the privations which they undoubtedly must undergo if they felt that in the Government service every effort was being made to economise petrol to the last degree.
§ VISCOUNT PEELMy Lords, I sympathise to a certain extent with the sufferings of private owners, particularly with some of those who are doing public work; but, like other noble Lords, I am not going to say a word at present in criticism of the Committee who are doing this work.
§ VISCOUNT MIDLETONHear, hear.
§ VISCOUNT PEELThey have had in a very short space of time to look into the cases of something like 324,000 motor-cars, 110,000 of which are private cars. The blame for their not having done this more fully must rest with the Government for not having made a little more provision in these cases rather than with the Committee themselves. A great deal is being said about the dishonesty of owners who sent in for larger requirements than were absolutely necessary, and almost every individual I have come across seems to think that he is the only person who has sent in a fair and just return. I am informed that this is not so, that something like 85 per cent. or more of the returns sent in are on the face of them entirely accurate, and that the wicked and dishonest section is confined to something like 15 per cent. of the owners of motor-cars. I think that is a very reassuring statement. But the difficulty, of course, is this, that though the wicked section, the 15 per cent., of owners sent in for more than they ought to have done, such is 1098 the shortage of petrol for the use of private cars that it would not be enough to cut down the wicked portion, but you must also abate the allowance to the virtuous section who sent in proper returns.
My noble friend below me (Lord Strachie) expressed some doubt as to there being more petrol used by commercial cars in this country this year than last year. So far as my information goes, that is true; and it is largely due to the fact mentioned by the noble Karl (Lord Derby) when he was speaking just now, that the railways have been so congested that a very much larger amount of work has been thrown on commercial cars in consequence, so that in all fairness a certain deduction has to be made in that way.
What I want to put to the noble Lord is this. The Committee has proceeded—and I think necessarily, in the time it has had at its disposal—by saying, "You shall have a certain percentage of the amount you sent in for"; and in order to make things a little more fair they have decreased the percentage in the case of the larger amounts, so that if you sent in a large demand the percentage which is knocked off the amount you asked for is higher. That is a noble attempt to deal with the difficulty. But it does not do so, because it does not follow that if a man sends in for a large amount he does not require it. The method adopted hits the innocent with the guilty. I want to point out this to the noble Lord. You do not want a Committee if you are content simply to lay down a percentage. You have only to engage two or three clerks to do the figures and send out the returns. You do not require men of the ability of Mr. Bury, and his colleague Sir John Hewett, an eminent Indian official, to do this work.
I should like to ask whether, when this burst of business is over, it is intended that this Committee should dissolve, or set to work to deal with the most difficult or hard cases—the case of the doctors, which the noble Duke mentioned, and other eases of that kind. Some cases have been brought to my knowledge of philanthropic men and women who let their houses for wounded, and who find themselves very much handicapped in the matter of petrol and unable to take their wounded to and from the station except 1099 by very uncomfortable methods. I have been informed—and I should like to know whether it is true—that an arrangement has been entered into, in cases of this kind, between the Petrol Committee and the Red Cross, and that there is an official of the Red Cross in each county whose business it is to draw up lists of these persons and send them to the Petrol Committee, who will accept the lists and allow these persons as much petrol as is required for their work. Of course, it depends upon the officials in the counties whether proper lists are made out. But many cases of this kind having come to my knowledge, I should be glad if the noble Lord would give a reassuring answer on that point.
§ LORD STANMOREMy Lords, I am glad that the noble Viscount (Lord Peel) has said a word on behalf of the Petrol Committee, because they have had a very difficult task. Their methods have, perhaps of necessity, been somewhat rough and ready, but considering the time and the petrol at their disposal I think they have met their difficulties in a very fair way. The shortage of tank steamers has been the factor which has decided all their operations. Owing to this shortage the amount of petrol is strictly limited. I think everybody will agree that the Army and Navy have the first claim on the supply, and after the Army and Navy the Ministry of Munitions, and after them the first call for petrol is for the conveyance of the wounded to the hospitals. When all those claims have been taken into account, all that remains is 6,300,000 gallons per month, and this has to be distributed between the owners of commercial cars and those who require petrol for industrial purposes, hackney and taxi-cabs, and 'buses, and doctors, veterinary surgeons, and, lastly, private cars and motor cycles. It is proposed to allow to owners of commercial cars and those who require petrol for industrial purposes 60 per cent. of their requirements. The omnibuses and taxi-cabs are to have 50 per cent. Doctors and veterinary surgeons are to have the whole of their requirements up to a maximum of 50 gallons a month. The noble Duke made a special point about doctors. I may say that only about three per cent. of the doctors have applied for more than the 50 gallons per month; and as soon as circumstances become at all better the doctors' claims will be first of all considered, and this three per cent. will be allowed their further claim. All these 1100 requirements reduce the amount left for private cars to 700,000 gallons a month, which is an average of rather under seven gallons a car per month.
My noble friend Lord Strachie inquired whether no difference would be made between those who had made a false and those who had made a true declaration. At present it is not possible to do so; but I think those who have made exaggerated returns will probably regret it. In the first place, they render themselves liable to a fine of £100; in the second place, when their licence comes to be renewed at the end of the period of three months, their exaggerated return will be remembered against them. In addition, the Board of Trade have made a regulation under which any licence obtained by misrepresentation is liable to be cancelled. Then my noble friend suggested the case of a man who had asked for 400 gallons and, who, he thinks, under the present arrangement, would obtain 100 gallons. That is not the case, as nobody is entitled to more than 30 gallons a month. And I think that the 60 gallons which the noble Lord mentioned must have been the man's allowance for a quarter, and not for a month. Where an owner has more than one car, the allowance is expected to cover all his cars.
§ LORD STRACHIEWhat I asked was, Is a man allowed more if he has five or six cars than a man who has only one?
§ LORD STANMOREHe cannot get more than 30 gallons a month. I am sorry I cannot give the noble Viscount (Lord Midleton) the figures for which he asked with regard to the War Office consumption. I think my noble friend Lord Derby will deal with those questions. Lord Peel asked why it was necessary for the Committee to remain in existence if the system is merely one of arithmetic. It is hoped that alterations will be made and that a more equitable plan will be arrived at in the course of the next three months. As regards cars used for Red Cross purposes, on the recommendation of the Joint War Committee an additional allowance of petrol used exclusively for the transport of wounded soldiers and sailors will be allowed. So far as circumstances permit, the more pressing requirements of those who use motor spirit for the essential needs of the country will be reconsidered, and later on the amount 1101 licensed to those who are using their cars for purposes directly connected with the war will, if the petrol available allows of this, be increased, whilst in the renewal of all licences the allowance to owners of cars which are not used for war purposes may be still further curtailed.
VISCOUNT GALWAYIs there any truth in the statement in the newspapers that the Government have been offered 4,000,000 gallons already in this country? And in that case would they be prepared to reconsider a further amount being allowed to the various cars?
§ LORD STANMOREI think an offer was made of 4,000,000 gallons, but they are not in this country, and the steamers in which it was proposed to bring this petrol over are not at present even launched.
§ THE EARL OF DERBYMy Lords, I did not come to the House prepared to deal with this subject, as I did not know that the Department with which I am concerned was going to be brought into it. Two noble Lords have mentioned the War Office—Lord Strachie and Lord Midleton—and I should like to say a few words on the subject. Lord Strachie made an accusation—one of those accusations that he flung all over the place—and I want to hold him to it. He said that in the Aeroplane Service when the men come back from a flight they empty the whole of their petrol tanks on to the ground. Can he give a single instance where that has occurred?
§ LORD STRACHIEI have been so informed.
§ THE EARL OF DERBYCan the noble Lord give me the name of his informant and where it happened? I deny it absolutely.
§ LORD STRACHIEI accept the noble Earl's denial at once, but he knows very well that I cannot give the name of my informant unless I have that person's permission.
§ THE EARL OF DERBYNobody ought to make an accusation of this kind, which amounts to a charge of deliberate and disgraceful waste of Government material, without being prepared to give the reasons, 1102 the name, and the whole of the facts. If the noble Lord is not prepared to do that he should not have made the accusation. Of course, these petrol tanks have to be emptied; that is well known, and the reasons why are well known. But when the noble Lord goes on to state that when the aeroplanes come down the petrol tanks are invariably emptied on to the ground, I say there is not a word of truth in it, and I think he ought to withdraw such an accusation against the Aeroplane Service.
My noble friend Lord Midleton asked about the War Office consumption. I should like to know the name of the officer who had his hair cut and spent a lengthy time over luncheon, because that is a case which decidedly deserves investigation. I candidly confess to being dissatisfied with what one sees in going about the streets and when one is in the country. If I am to be hung, I want to be hung with somebody else. Not only is this the case with Army but also with Navy cars, and it does seem to me that we ought to take the most stringent measures we can to prevent waste. There have been accusations of great waste at the Front in France. We wrote to Sir Douglas Haig on the subject, and I received last night a copy of new Orders that have been issued on the subject, and I will show then to the noble Viscount. I venture to say that you could not have better regulations to prevent waste. With regard to the waste in this country, I will see what can be done. But it is not really a question that the War Office can deal with. It must be dealt with by the officers commanding in the various areas and by the Generals in command in the various districts. Those are the people who ought to do all they possibly can in this direction. I can assure the noble Viscount that if there are any measures which we can take to stop waste, if it is proved that there is waste, they shall be taken.
§ LORD STRACHIEMy Lords, in asking leave to withdraw my Motion, I am bound to refer to the unprovoked attack which the noble Earl made upon me. Though I said at once that I accepted his assurance, he accused me with violence of language. I should have thought that the noble Earl would have been the last person to throw stones in that direction.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.