HL Deb 19 March 1919 vol 33 cc794-815

EARL STANHOPE rose to ask the Undersecretary of State for War—

  1. 1. How many officers and men are at present patients in hospitals and convalescent homes in the United Kingdom.
  2. 2. How many of these patients are receiving technical and other instruction likely to prove of value to them on their return to civil life.
  3. 3. What is the nature of the instruction being given.
  4. 4. Whether this instruction is linked up with the instruction provided for officers and men after they have been discharged from the Army; and to move for Papers.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, several debates on the subject of the training of disabled soldiers have taken place in your Lordships' House. I think on every occasion they have dealt almost entirely with the training which is given after men are discharged from the Services. Your Lordships will observe that in the Question which I have put down on the Paper I deal entirely with the training which is given before men are discharged from the Army, and I ask what is being done in military hospitals.

Your Lordships will often have read in the Press of late accounts of the education scheme which has been launched in the Army. It is dealing with vast numbers, and it is doing a great work. The articles which appear in the Press are almost unanimously favourable, but the effect of them is a little bit discounted because I think many of them are from the same pen, and I regret to say that my information is perhaps not quite so favourable. In many places the scheme is going on extremely well; in others it is not going on quite so satisfactorily. That, of course, is due to the education officer on the spot, to his being perhaps less keen or less able, and has nothing to do with the scheme in general. But I am afraid that as a whole I rather find with both officers and men that they say they think the men are not getting quite, so much good out of it as they might; that the scheme is, perhaps, too pedagogic (if I may use the expression), and not sufficiently practical. We do not all of us want to become Oxford Dons, but in these days we have all of us to earn our living. If that criticism is true of the scheme in general, it is abundantly true of the scheme when it is applied to hospitals.

I must tell your Lordships that when I came home from France in May of last year I began to take up this scheme purely in regard to the training in hospitals for a military reason. I felt—as I think every soldier in France felt—that men who had been wounded several times, or men who had been at the Front throughout the whole war, should be allowed to come home and to earn the high wages which were being given in the turning out of munitions, and aeroplanes, and other things required for the war; and that the "Cuthberts," who had taken refuge from military service by scrambling into protected occupations at the beginning of the war, should be dragged out and made to go and serve in France and elsewhere. I believe that something like 70,000 men have been wounded twice in this war, and over 10,000 wounded three times and more. It is obvious that the feeling both in the Army and in the nation was strong that these men should be allowed to work at home, and that those who had not been out at all should take their places in the front line. That scheme became impracticable because the demand for men was so severe that it was impossible to spare either the men from the Army long enough after they had recovered from; their wounds to become sufficiently trained to do munitions, or to take away men from munitions to train them to become soldiers. In neither case, of course, were the men available for changing places until they had been fully trained in the other man's job.

It may be asked, Why was not this scheme of substitution started a long time ago and not merely last year? It was due to the opposition of the then Secretary of State for War, Lord Derby, and to Sir Alfred Keogh, who was head of the Medical Services. They held the view very strongly that if you began to give training in hospital men would be retained in hospital in order to complete their training, and not discharged as soon as they were cured of their wounds. The objection to this was, of course, that we had a great shortage of beds, and it was not possible to keep men in hospital one day longer than was really necessary. They also felt, I think—in fact, they said, so—that if you trained a man for a civil occupation the man would desire to become a civilian. I can prove that both those views were absolutely wrong, and, as a matter of fact, did a great deal of harm. As regards the time being lengthened that men were kept in hospital by their undertaking training, the scheme has been in operation for a considerable time in New Zealand hospitals and there it is the unanimous opinion of doctors and nurses that men recovered very much quicker from their injuries if their minds were occupied in hospital in any form of education, particularly some form of technical education.

If any further proof of that were required, I may say that, even though our Forces in Egypt in 1917 were extremely small, it was estimated that we increased our strength in the field that year by not less than one Division by the adoption of this scheme. It is a remarkable fact, but it is given on the authority of an officer who is very much in a position to know. Now, of course, it was absurd to think that if you train a man as a civilian he should only then wish to become a civilian and to cease to be a soldier. It appeared to be forgotten that practically nine-tenths of the Army were civilians before the war began. Perhaps your Lordships may question that this opposition to training in hospital was as definite as I have stated; but when I tell you that the Director of Education, when he began his scheme for training in hospitals, found it necessary to cancel an Army Council Instruction before he could begin, I think the proof of my assertion is maintained.

It may be said that there is no great need for men now, and therefore why should you press for the training of men in hospital in order to get them discharged quicker? Apart from the moral point of view of trying to get a man cured as speedily and as effectively as possible, there is a new consideration which has arisen. On every side we see the question of production put forward. We are told that everybody has to produce more than lie produced before the war. Well, keeping men doing nothing day after day, week after week, month after month, in hospital is not a good way of teaching them to become better producers than they were before. If you train a man to loaf he becomes a loafer whatever he was previously; and you train a man not to become a greater producer but to cease to be a producer at all. Many and many a man has left hospital and drifted into a "blind alley" occupation because he has not been prepared, after many months in hospital, to take up work. The noble Earl the Chancellor of the Duchy will agree with me that the difficulty with regard to training under the Ministry of Pensions scheme has been that when the men are discharged from hospital they are unable to take advantage of the training offered to them by the Ministry of Pensions. We are told—and I think the noble Earl himself, and anyone in the Ministry of Pensions will agree—that by the time they manage to get hold of the men it is almost too late; and even if it is not, there is a great deal of leeway to make up before the men really begin to make progress. That is why it has been found better in the New Zealand Forces—as I am sure it would be elsewhere—to take up this training as soon as a man gets out of bed and becomes what is known as a walking patient.

It may be asked, Do the men want it? Yes, unquestionably they do. I have seen a considerable number of letters—some of them more forcible than polite—demanding that this training should be given. I have seen others that are extraordinarily pathetic in their appeals, saying that owing to injuries received in action the writers will be unable to return to their pre-war occupations; that they are anxious to take up such and such a trade, but they feel that it will take a long time to learn; they wonder how they will get the necessary training, and whether they will be able to support themselves and their families until they get satisfactorily started in a new line of business. Under the Ministry of Pensions scheme they can. But after being many months in hospital the desire to take up anything new evaporates. The term—which I think probably the noble Viscount himself knows very well, and certainly every doctor and every nurse knows it—is that a man becomes "hospitalised;" which means that he gets a sort of hospital standpoint and loses interest in life and in things generally.

Then I come to the question of what is being done now. I imagine—I do not know—that the noble Viscount will tell me that we have something like 150,000 men still in hospital. I do not know what figure he will give as the number of men actually taking up trades of a definite character, but I hope he will be able to differentiate between the men who merely have put down to get this training, and the men who are actually receiving it. Even since I put this Motion on the Paper there has been quite an awakening in some of the hospitals in London, because I find that men have been asked what they desire to do only within the last few days.

Under the scheme one education officer was appointed to each central hospital. I put it to your Lordships what that must mean. The central hospitals have anything up to 2,000 beds, and twenty or thirty hospitals affiliated to them, scattered all over the country. One single officer appointed to give training on every conceivable thing which men in each of these central hospitals, and other hospitals, may require! Obviously, if he was to find out only what the men wished to learn, he would be as fully occupied as anybody could possibly desire, and would certainly earn every penny of his pay. There are, of course, difficulties. The fact that these hospitals are scattered all over the country, and vary from six or perhaps twelve beds up to quite a large number, makes the provision of technical training more difficult. We now have an opportunity of making the scheme much better, because many of the smaller hospitals are being closed, and it is possible to concentrate the men in the larger hospitals. I believe an offer has been made by the New Zealand Force that we should take over three of their hospitals each having accommodation for 2,000 beds.

It will be obvious to your Lordships that technical education is much more easily arranged where you have a large number of beds concentrated in a comparatively small number of hospitals, but I am bound to add that I think a great deal more might have been done. After all, in London you have innumerable technical classes. You have trade schools and you have workshops; yet if you go round the hospitals in London you will find that very few if any of the men are really getting training in the military hospitals. I exclude, of course, such special institutions as Roe-hampton and St. Dunstan's. If necessary, the men should be taken from the hospitals to these schools and workshops and given training which would enable them to compete in the labour market as soon as they leave the Army. Can nothing really be done in the areas outside London?

I hold here in my hand the scheme of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. I shall have something more to say about that later. I have seen that scheme in operation in several of their hospitals, and I can hardly describe to your Lordships the difference between the demeanour and the outlook of the men in those hospitals as compared with the demeanour and the outlook of men in our hospitals. The men are walking about in those hospitals with an object. They have not lost interest in life. They are learning things which interest them. In the New Zealand Hospitals the men are given an opportunity of learning things which they have wanted to learn all their lives. I am bound to add that a large amount of the success of the New Zealand scheme is due to the extraordinary personality of General Richardson, who commanded the Forces in England, and who has an extraordinary gift for interesting men, and who is filled with great enthusiasm. If you go to our hospitals, if you find the men at all—as a rule they are out in the streets from 10 o'clock in the morning till 7 o'clock at night—you will find a sort of lack-a-daisical walk, because the men have no object in getting from one side of the hospital to the other till some time in the afternoon. They have nothing to occupy their day, and therefore with the best will in the world it is a thing that necessarily grows when men are kept compulsorily in idleness.

It may be said, If you take this view why did not you do it when you were at the War Office? That is a perfectly fair argument to make. In the first place the scheme was younger then than it is now, and therefore it was less easy to put into operation. Secondly, I had not the advantage of being a member of the Army Council, and therefore it was rather more difficult for me to get things put through. I have now had more opportunity of seeing, the business end—of seeing the men who ought to be getting this instruction, and of finding out what they think of it, instead of reading the reports from the other end. I bring forward these suggestions which I am going to make in the hope that the noble Viscount will be more successful than I was. It may be asked. What is your plan? I am glad that my noble friend the Director of Education is here, because I can say what I should not have said had he not been present, although I dislike saying it. He has been of enormous value to the scheme. His knowledge of educational matters and acquaintance with people who have long taken an interest in education has been invaluable, and the Army and still more the country owe him a great debt of gratitude. In my humble opinion, however, he has now done all he can for the scheme, and I think others will be better fitted to carry it on.

What I would propose is that the scheme should be maintained under General Staff as it is now, but I do not see why a proper directorship should not be now established as it existed in pre-war days. I propose that a Director of Military Training should be appointed, and the scheme should be divorced from the Staff duties directorship, with which it had nothing whatever to do until some time after the war began. Thirdly, I would adopt the New Zealand scheme, which teaches men what they want to know rather than following a system which does not appeal. It is more practical than our scheme, and I think on the whole it is better. Fourthly, I should appoint General Richardson as my Director of Training. He is a man who has made a great success of the New Zealand scheme, and I do not see why he should not be able to attain the same success in a wider sphere. Of course it entirely depends, supposing that suggestion met with approval, whether the New Zealand Government would be prepared to give him up.

Fifthly, I would ensure that the lip service of the Army Medical Service should be translated into a genuine effort to give the technical instruction in hospitals which is necessary. The scheme is approved, and we are no longer tied down merely to giving bedside occupation. Nevertheless, nothing is really being done and bedside occupation is still going on. Only last week I saw three men, who, thank God! are going to be perfectly well shortly, doing embroidery. They were doing it extremely well and seemed to think they were going to make a living out of it when they were discharged from hospital. Ladies will give a good many shillings, perhaps, for embroideries when they buy them from men still in hospital, but they would not give pennies if they were sold to them by a civilian later on. I think your Lordships would agree that a man who is well and fit should not be trained, or encouraged to become an old woman, because that is what this embroidery really means.

Sixthly, I should group men into larger hospitals, and endeavour as far as possible to group them according to their disabilities. Where lung cases, such as gas cases, and so on, have to be dealt with, obviously more open air pursuits and open air training have to be given. If it is possible to group men by their disabilities it simplifies the training which can be given. Lastly, I should ensure that the training given prior to discharge is on lines which can be continued by the Ministry of Labour. As your Lordships know, the, training which used to be given by the Ministry of Pensions has been, or is about to be, taken over by the Ministry of Labour. Therefore, it is necessary to co-ordinate that, and to ensure that the man, when he leaves the Army partially trained, should be able to get that training continued and completed under the Ministry of Labour. Your Lordships have often heard of the Rothband scheme. It is a scheme by which employers are asked to engage soldiers because they have been soldiers. I am bound to say that that scheme does not appeal to me in the very smallest degree.

As a soldier I object to men being employed purely and simply from a charity standpoint, because that is what it means. What I want to see is that men who have been in the service are trained so as to become, experts in various trades and are taken on by employers not from a charity Standpoint, but because they are the best men who can be found. Then they will be able to command a proper scale of wages; they will be able to choose their employers and get the conditions which they deserve. I have not the smallest doubt that a man who has been in the Army is a better man mentally than either a Cuthbert or a conscientious objector. What I want him also to be is a better man physically and by his training. That can be, achieved if this training is given in hospitals and in the Army. I have one final reason for this scheme. Ask any doctor or any sister or any visitor to a hospital what is thought of the men. All will unanimously tell you that the men are splendid, and particularly so when they first arrive; but they will also tell you that the men do gradually become "hospitalised," and that then it is much more difficult to do anything with them. They lose their keenness and their energy, as I have already stated.

Eventually, these men, after discharge from the Army, become a curse to themselves and to the country. They are unwilling to work because they have become unaccustomed to work. They are unhappy because they cannot find work, and yet they do not look for it or require it. They drift into some blind-alley occupation and become totally unfitted to hold their own in civil life. They merely develop into objects of charity instead of being men who ought to be able to command the best wages in the labour market. It is obvious that they then become very suitable ground for ideas which are those of anarchists and Bolshevists, and therefore they become a danger to the State instead of the support; which they ought to be. From that point of view, as well as from the point of view of justice, from the point of view that it is a benefit to the State as well as to the individual, this training should be given. I hope that the noble Viscount will be able to give—I do not say a very satisfactory answer at the moment—but that at any rate he will give this matter his attention, and I wish him greater success than was given to me when I held the office lie now holds.

THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT PEEL)

My Lords, this is a subject in which my noble friend has taken very great interest, both when he was at the War Office and subsequently when he has examined it from what he calls "the business end." I am rather sorry that he should indicate by inference that the business end was not at the War Office. But with the general propositions that he has put forward I think every one will agree. We all admit that it is very important that the men who have served their country and have been wounded, who are leaving these hospitals, should, be possible, go out into the world well equipped in some particular trade, so that they may not, as he said, drift into any blind-alley occupation, but should be able to get some well-paid and well-skilled occupation and carry it into civil life. No one, I think, who has any acquaintance with hospitals will doubt for a moment the curative value of occupying the minds of men, especially when they are in the convalescent state, or of occupying, perhaps, their hands as well in some technical training. No one who has observed the influence of this training upon men doubts for a moment that it very much assists to re-establish their health.

I do not think my noble friend took a very cheerful view of the methods that are now being carried on at the War Office under the Director of Education. I must take some exception to the term? that my noble friend used about the present Director, who is a member of this House. I think he paid him the compliment of saying that he discharged the work well, but that somebody else would do it very much better. I confess that if I wished to pay him a compliment I would express it in some more complimentary terms. I wish to make some observations upon that point. Let us remember, first of all, what the work of my noble friend is. It is quite true that the noble Earl opposite did make some more general reference to the education of the Army itself, but the greater portion of his speech, and in fact the questions he placed upon the Paper, are entirely directed to education in hospitals and convalescent homes. But the work which my noble friend the Director of Education has to control is very wide. It embraces both subjects, and, important as is the work in hospitals, it really is a small portion of the work over which my noble friend has control. I should like to say, considering this criticism which has been passed upon him, that so far as my observation goes he discharges his duty with great energy and ability, and lie has attained a great measure of success in the work he has done. My noble friend made some reference to the work of General Richardson at the New Zealand hospitals. I am not familiar myself with the precise nature of that work, but I understand that it has been very well done. Again, I must point out that the work of the New Zealand hospitals is not comparable with, and it is not one-fiftieth part of, the work which my noble friend has been doing for Army education, and our own hospitals. Admirable as it may be, the question whether that system could be transferred bodily to our own hospitals and our own system of education is another matter, on which one might have a good deal to say. My noble friend asks some specific questions, and before I deal with one or two more general propositions, perhaps I ought to answer them. His first question was— How many officers and men are at present patients in hospitals and convalescent homes in the United Kingdom? The figures are rather larger than he suggested. They are 9,921 officers and 173,527 other ranks in hospitals, including of course convalescent hospitals.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

There would be some more abroad?

VISCOUNT PEEL

Yes. That is in the United Kingdom. The question is confined to the United Kingdom. My noble friend's second Question is— How many of these patients are receiving technical and other instruction likely to prove of value to them on their return to civil life? We must remember that this educational scheme is comparatively young. It was only extended to embrace patients in military hospitals in November, 1918. The training facilities provided by the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Pensions were not available for the soldier until after his discharge and demobilisation, and the object of the extension of the Army educational scheme was to give the utmost assistance possible to the schemes of these Ministries by extending to the patients while in hospital facilities for general education and for vocational instruction. Educational facilities for officer patients were already provided by the Appointments Department of the Ministry of Labour, and they were therefore not dealt with under the Army scheme.

My noble friend referred to the fact that in these sixty large hospitals one officer had been appointed for each, and he asked how could one officer in one great hospital with a number of auxiliary hospitals deal with the large range of subjects which must be dealt; with if these men are to get vocational and educational training. He entirely omitted to state that, in addition to this one officer for each of these large hospitals, there are no fewer than four other officers and twelve non-commissioned officers appointed for every 1,000 mm in the hospitals. It makes a considerable difference to the staff engaged on this system of education. I point out the difficulty, and my noble friend must make allowance for it, that these sixty large hospitals have a number of auxiliary hospitals, and the patients in them number from something like ten to twenty. In these scattered hospitals it is, of course, far more difficult to make arrangements for definite educational training that it would be if they were assembled in these large central hospitals. It is obvious, and I only mention it as bearing on the difficulties of the question, that the instruction must come to the patients in the hospital; the patients cannot, of course, go to the instruction. The question, therefore, of dealing with local education authorities and giving them facilities is a. very difficult one, because the patients cannot go to the regular schools and colleges which are so well arranged for the healthy population.

EARL STANHOPE

Does the noble Viscount apply that statement to London as well?

VISCOUNT PEEL

I certainly apply it to London because the education must be brought to the hospitals.

EARL STANHOPE

The men themselves are out in the streets every day.

VISCOUNT PEEL

I am not talking of the men who are convalescent. I am talking of those men who are in hospitals. The convalescent patients, who are out in the streets, are a shifting population and rapidly move away from the hospitals. I will give my noble friend the actual figures. He speaks as if these men were kept in hospital for months. The stay of the average patient in one hospital is, as a matter of fact, seldom more than a few weeks. It is not at all an average of months, and it is therefore far more difficult to give a standardised syllabus and a regular course of education.

Another difficulty is that a large number of those who were to be kept to give education, or to occupy pasts as educational instructors, are withdrawn owing to the early demobilisation of Group 43, which consisted of educationists. Every endeavour is being male to secure the assistance of voluntary instructors both locally and through the medium of the National and other societies, and I am told that a great deal has been done to secure these voluntary instructors. I have detailed some of the difficulties in the way of giving instruction to these men in hospital, but in spite of that the Army educational scheme has brought facilities for education within the reach of between 80,000 and 100,000 men. It is not all these men that can be taught. A number of them are not well enough, and they do not want to be disturbed. There is also this difficulty, which we have tried to exorcise out of the mind of the soldier but which still exists. They appear to think they are going to fit themselves for some vocation in life with high technical qualifications, and that this might have some adverse effect on their pension. It has been explained again and again that it is not so, but it is a belief which dies hard, and to some extent is an obstacle in front of those who are desiring to train them for some technical work. My noble friend rather suggested that, a great improvement had been male in the education given in these hospital's in the last few days, and rather indicated that the placing of his Question on the Paper had had a vigorous and stimulating effect. I must tell him that great changes aid much greater activity have been developed during the last two months. It is the natural evolution of the system, and substantial increases will be shown when the next figures are produced.

The next question lie asks is as to the nature of the training that is given. Up to the middle of Februay—I have not later figures—there was something like 6,000 men who were taking vocational work, but of course that number is very largely increased if you take into consideration those who are studying commercial matters. The education given can be classified under general heads, such as vocational training, general and commercial, and occupational, which of course is work mainly done in the bed and the cot. My noble friend rather sneered at those who were studying work of embroidery. I think he was a little unjust, because men can obtain great skill with the needle, and I see nothing prejudicial to the character of a man who has been severely wounded if he is able to learn some of this move decorative work. Other instruction resolves itself into lectures on history and economy, very largely done by the Victoria League. Here again my noble friend was rather inclined to sneer, and rather suggested that this education only turned people into Oxford Dons, and was not of a very practical kind. I do not know how much experience my noble friend has of these lectures. I am informed that without turning people into Oxford Dons—and Oxford Dons are highly educated persions—they do give them a very good simple and clear elementary education both on historical and economic questions. That, I think, is a general description of the kind of education that is being given.

My noble friend asks later on, How far is the instruction or training given in these hospitals linked up with the subsequent training to be given by the Ministry of Pensions, or, as he suggests, the Ministry of Labour? That is done by Committees at headquarters on which there are representatives both of the medical officers of the Army and of the Ministries, and these Central Committees are strengthened, by Committees in all the Commands who are similarly composed. They are trying to continue as far as possible the education given in the hospitals into the subsequent training to be given by the Ministry of Labour. I think that something may be set down to the credit of the Army education that in some cases the Ministry of Pensions has actually invited the Army Education authorities to undertake education for pensioners who are not really within their province because they are so well satisfied with the way in which the work is being done. Not only that, but the education officers in the hospitals are invited to give every sort of assistance, by advice and encouragement, to men leaving the hospitals, and in the way of instructions as to the lines of work that may be open to them in civil life. It is no exaggeration to say that shoals of letters come showing how very valuable this advice and suggestion has been to the men who are passing out into civil life. I have only been able to give in this short time a very brief account of what is being done. But there are two points which I should like to dwell upon. I think that my noble friend rather treated the subject as if it were much more permanent than it is, as if the life of the soldier in the hospital is longer than it really is, and he seemed inclined to undervalue or under-estimate some of the difficulties in the way of giving a regular standardised syllabus of education. Experience is always showing new ways in which education can be given, and I shall be glad to bear in mind many of the useful and interesting suggestions made by my noble friend.

LORD BURNHAM

My Lords, I think that the noble Earl has done a great service in calling attention to this subject here. There is no doubt that, in spite of the speech which has just been made by the Under-Secretary for War, the State has fallen very far short of its duties in regard to disabled officers and men. It started too late, and it has done very little to coordinate the methods of their instruction and treatment. The present facts are that among the registrations at the employment exchanges throughout the country disabled men are there in far too great numbers and out of all proportion. That means that the scheme for training them both while they have been in the Service and after they have been discharged has largely failed. I am persuaded that a great mistake was made, as my noble friend pointed out, in not commencing to refit these men for resettlement in civil life while they were in the hospitals and convalescent homes.

There was a reason, however, which he did not give, and which I have been able to find out, sitting as a member on the Resettlement Committee. The reason put forward by the military authorities for not allowing the training to commence while the men were in hospital was that they said it was impossible, while the war was going on, to divide hospital patients into two classes—those who were put down for reentry into civil life, and those who were to be got right as soon as possible to go back to their units at the Front. It was said that by so doing a distinction would have been created which would have been prejudicial to discipline, and would have done a good deal to diminish the number of effectives from the military point of view. I cannot say whether that was a good reason, but I think a great deal more was made out of it than was necessary.

I believe that a great deal of difficulty in persuading discharged men to accept special training was because, as my noble friend says, the foundations of it were not laid whilst the men were under hospital treatment. It is not as if this was a matter that only related to the past. The figures given by the Under-Secretary show the vast number of men at present in hospital, and I do not think that the number who are under any sort of training is at all satisfactory.

It seems to me that it is technical and professional training which is the master key for solving the terrible problem of dealing with disabled officers and men. Training is the main influence for their satisfactory readjustment to the conditions of industrial life, and I very much doubt whether it will be successful if it is not pursued on a more co-ordinated plan than the present. There is not sufficient linking up of the education given in the hospitals with the training given subsequently to the men discharged. The noble Earl has not dealt with the training of men after their discharge from the Army, and it is an alarming thing to think that recently only 2 per cent of the disabled men were given special training. I believe that this figure has been raised to 4 or 5 per cent. One reason was that by some extraordinary perversion of official ideas no man was allowed to take special training unless he was unable to follow his own trade, and no grant was made and no facilities given. That I believe is now done away with, yet very little has been achieved to link up the two parts of tin system, and until that is done the results will remain unsatisfactory.

But there is a greater difficulty than that. The Government has done hardly anything to make arrangements with the trade unions concerned. Unless that be satisfactorily arranged it must be evident to the House that men are not likely to apply for training either in hospital or outside unless they have some prospect of getting cards or tickets of membership to trade unions afterwards. I am not underrating the difficulties that the Ministry of Labour has had in dealing with this matter, but I know that up to the present hardly in any trade has a satisfactory settlement been arrived at, while in some trades there has been an actual refusal to admit men so trained. I hope that my noble friend the Under-Secretary of State for War will see that every effort is made to come to an understanding with the various trade societies. It is little use providing educational training unless this difficulty is overcome, and it would be foolish to assume that in all trades they are prepared to meet the Ministry of Labour to any great extent. It is mainly because the theory upon which the trade unions act is that there is only a certain amount of work to go round and that if you increase the number of skilled journeymen in any one trade you also increase the amount of normal unemployment; but all these things have been dealt with as if they were in separate compartments. The last thing that has been applied has been the scientific method of dealing with a great economic question.

The result is that the position of the disabled man in the country at the present time, both from the moral and industrial point of view, is very far from what anybody would wish it to be. The committees of re-settlement have tried to find a solution of the problem, but they cannot do it at all satisfactorily unless the military authorities would co-operate more fully than they have yet been able to do with the civil side. You cannot treat as separate subjects the treatment of men in hospital and the treatment of men after they have been discharged. When the change which is impending is carried out the whole of the training of disabled men will, except in some few cases, be under the Ministry of Labour. That makes it the more necessary that they should also have a greater say than they have as to the preliminary work that is done before the men leave the Army.

I am quite aware that things are improving, but at the same time, unless there is a greater amount of special training given, and unless there is a full agreement made with the various industries concerned, this country will have to deal with a problem which will make, a satisfactory return to normal conditions almost impossible. And therefore I urge the noble Viscount to do all he can to secure—what has been so often thought of in this war as between the various Departments of Government—a thorough co-ordination both of aim and of method in the work that is now being done.

LORD GORELL

My Lords, I feel that you will expect me to say a few words upon this subject, and I have the permission of the noble Viscount, which, of course, is necessary for me as an officer. I think the noble Earl who raised the question devoted the greater portion of his speech to dealing with the reasons which led us to adopt educational training in hospitals. They are absolutely undoubted, and I think are conceded, not only by your Lordships, but by everybody in the Army, and most certainly by the Royal Army Medical Corps. On their behalf I object most strongly to the expression which fell from the noble Earl—the "lip-service" of the Royal Army Medical Corps. With the earlier history I have nothing to do, but from the moment that General Goodwin became Director-General of Army Medical Services we have had absolutely nothing but the fullest support from the medical authorities. Without them it would be quite impossible to carry out any form of educational training in hospitals. The education officer and his assistant instructors must naturally be under the command of the commandant of a hospital. They work to his order, and I would remind your Lordships that, though now educational training is no longer a secondary consideration in the Armies which are being retained, it must always remain a secondary consideration in hospitals. The medical treatment, must be first, and the educational training must come second. But we have it from all sources, from the report of the Commands, endorsed by the reports from General Headquarters, Great Britain, that the moral benefit and the recuperative effect of educational training cannot be too strongly emphasised.

I rather gathered from the noble Earl that he advocated the system for the whole of the hospitals of Great Britain, not to speak of the Armies in the field, which has been adopted by the New Zealand Expeditionary Force—that is to say, I take it, that he would advocate in the hospitals, to which one might confine oneself in this debate, compulsory educational training. I think that is a matter which deserves great consideration. We have it on evidence from all the Commands that the greatest difficulty which our education officers Lave to combat is the apathy of the men, and to force education upon them is very doubtful wisdom. In one report recently received from a Command, it is stated that the great majority of patients know that they will remain in hospital for a short period only, and feel that the little knowledge that they could acquire in the time at their disposal would be of insignificant value to them. Education officers are endeavouring to combat this belief by pointing out the facilities which exist for the continuation of any training commenced in hospital, after men have been demobilised.

The greater part of the educational work of our officers in hospital is to bring the men into that frame of mind by which they may best profit by the training provided by the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Pensions. I entirely endorse for myself everything which the noble Lord, Lord Burnham, said about the necessity for linking up whatever training we can give with the work of those Ministries. It is a very important side, and we have, as I think the noble Viscount mentioned, committees in each Command on which are represented the military authorities, the medical authorities, the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Pensions, and the various local authorities and societies which are assisting in this work. It is the same at the War Office in a Headquarters' Committee, of which I have the honour to be chairman, with the view especially of linking up the whole work.

But whatever can be done in hospitals must be regarded as preliminary to the later training which with much greater facility can be given by the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Pensions. The noble Earl spoke of the academic side of the work. I venture to remind him that the lines upon which this training should go were very fully discussed with him whilst he was still at the War Office, agreed with him, and have not since been altered. In one report recently received from another Command they lay special emphasis upon the technical side of the work. In the Army at large there are no fewer than 163 different vocational subjects being taught. In one Command alone in the hospitals there are no fewer than forty-four, and they range from carpentry and salesmanship to science and many other strictly vocational sides. We have succeeded in obtaining from the Treasury a grant, for allocation to the various Commands by which they may engage the assistance of the local educational authorities, and great assistance has been received from them in the way of laving places open at the technical institutes for the men in hospital.

It is not always the case that facilities must be brought to the men. We have been able, especially for that class of patient to whom the noble Earl referred, who are able to walk about, to arrange with the transport authorities for the transport of the men to the work. But I think the noble Earl did not lay sufficient emphasis on what we may call the fluctuating nature of the population. I am informed that 80 per cent, of the patients are changed each month, which makes it excessively hard, indeed almost impossible, to get either a long, systematised course, or anything that would take an undue length of time. It is obvious that we must not for educational purposes retain men who wish to be demobilised, and who are entitled to be demobilised.

There is one other means by which we are able, I hope, to bring more assistance to the men—that is, by means of informing them of all the facilities that exist, both local and national, in the way of Ministries of Labour and of Pensions; and the various Commands report that the greatest help can be given by setting up information bureaux. We ourselves from the War Office issue what I call education circulars, which contain all the Ministerial information on education and on resettlement questions, and also bring to the hospitals all the separate, individual publications of the Ministries of Labour, Reconstruction, and so on, which may be of most help to the men. We do not claim that it is a perfect educational system, or that it can be so in hospitals; but we claim that we sire able to rescue a great many men from that "hospitalized" frame of mind into which they would otherwise have fallen, and so facilitate the work of the Government Departments upon whom their ultimate responsibility must rest.

EARL STANHOPE

My Lords, I imagine there, are no Papers to be produced; therefore I shall, of course, withdraw my Motion. I must, however, make a few remarks. I am glad to hear that the staffs in the hospitals have been increased; but I must remind the noble Viscount that the results of these increased staffs are still small, because, if I understood him correctly, out of the 173,000 in the hospitals 6,000 are doing vocational work.

VISCOUNT PEEL

That is if you do not include some kind of commercial training. If you include commercial training, it is much larger.

EARL STANHOPE

If the noble Viscount could give us those figures I should like to move for Papers in order that they may be produced. I am very anxious not to give extra work at the War Office, because I know that the noble Lord's section is having a great deal of work, and I do not want to press for figures which are hard to get; but if they are not hard to get they would be valuable.

It is all very well to say that the men are only a few weeks in hospital. I grant that the hospital population is a movable one, but if the scheme is well organised—as it is in the New Zealand hospitals, and that is why I have put forward New Zealand ad nauseam—the training follows the man from one hospital to another hospital, then to the convalescent depôt, and eventually back to his unit. Therefore to say that the moveability of the population makes the giving of education impossible is not true, and it can be proved to be not true by reference to what has been done with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. I grant this is a very small Force, and provided only one Division against the many Divisions we have; but if a thing works well with a small Force it can be made to do equally well with a large one, unless the scheme is on faulty lines, and I think it has been running long enough to be able to say that it is not on faulty lines. I approve of the scheme as drawn up. The scheme was meant to be both a general and a vocational scheme; and I cordially agree that they must be complementary But the vocational scheme has disappeared in the background, and it is the general educational scheme which is now holding sway—at least, that appears to be the general impression.

When I mentioned consulting the business end, that meant that I consulted the men for whom, after all, this education scheme has been produced; it is not, of course, for the benefit of the noble Lord himself and his Department. I hope that the noble Viscount and the noble Lord will insist that the scheme shall be developed still further. If the medical authorities are as keen about the scheme as the noble Lord suggests, obviously there is ample room for considerable development in the near future. I would point out that we are now four months after the signing of the Armistice, at which moment men ceased to become wounded, although, of course, the flow from abroad continued for many weeks; therefore it ought to be simpler, and should be simpler, to develop this scheme. This incidentally also shows that to talk of the sojourn in hospital being short, as the noble Viscount implied, is not the case.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

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