Lords Sitting of 15 June 1939

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
The Lord Aldenham—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his kinsman.

JARROW CORPORATION BILL.
Read 2a, and committed.
STALYBRIDGE HYDE MOSSLEY AND DUKINFIELD TRANSPORT AND ELECTRICITY BOARD BILL.
Read 2a, and committed.

SHEFFIELD CORPORATION BILL.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, Standing Order No. 107 requires that no Petition against a Private Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be received by your Lordships' House later than the seventh day after the First Reading. The petitioning time for this Bill expired on June 1. A Petition in respect of this Bill was received by the agents—not owing to the fault of the Petitioners, I think, but owing to a delay in the post—after the petitioning time had expired. The agents therefore asked that this Standing Order might be dispensed with in order that they might present a Petition. I may say that the agents for the promoters have raised no objection. I beg to move the Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 107 be considered in order to its being dispensed with in respect of a Petition of Tennant Brothers Limited.—(The Earl of Onslow.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a: Amendments (Privilege) made: Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

POULTRY INDUSTRY BILL. [H.L.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to secure improvement in the health and quality of live poultry, and in the marketing of poultry and eggs; for making better provision for securing the marking of preserved eggs, and the enforcement of the Merchandise Marks Acts, 1887 to 1938, as respects imported eggs; for regulating the importation of poultry and eggs; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid. I move that the Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Earl of Feversham.)
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, may I be allowed to congratulate the Government on at last introducing one of their more important Bills into your Lordships' House?
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

CIVIL DEFENCE BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and to be printed.
SOLICITORS BILL. [H.L.]
Message from the Commons to acquaint this House that they have appointed three members to join with the Committee appointed by the Lords to consider the Solicitors Bill, as mentioned in their Lordships' Message of Tuesday last, and that they have made the following Orders: That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records, and that two be the quorum.
SEA FISHERIES PROVISIONAL ORDER (TOLLESBURY AND WEST MERSEA) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

MARRIAGE BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
4.20 p.m.
LORD THANKERTON: My Lords, in rising to move that this Bill be now read
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a second time, I think I can explain in very brief language indeed the two objects of the Bill, and I can do it best by way of an illustration. If A and B both reside in England they can be married either by way of notice to the registrar and the consequent procedure, or after proclamation of banns. But if A resides in Scotland and B resides in England, the former procedure is not open to them, and they can only be married after proclamation of banns. There seems no obvious reason why this difference should exist, and under Clause 1 the difficulties in the way of this have been removed, and a marriage, either in England or in Scotland, between parties, one of whom resides in England and the other in Scotland, will be on exactly the same footing as if they both resided in the same country. That fully explains the purpose of Clause 1.
Clause 2 is a very small point. At present, if the parties are being married in England, the certificate of proclamation of banns in Scotland, which has to be used for the purpose of the marriage in England, can only be signed by a session clerk—it cannot be signed by the minister of the parish—whereas, if the marriage is taking place in Scotland, it can be signed by either the minister or the session clerk. The proposal of the second clause is that the minister should be authorised in the former case as in the latter to be an alternative authority for signing the certificate. These two points cover the whole object of the Bill, and I trust your Lordships will find it easy to give the measure a Second Reading. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Thankerton.)
4.22 p.m.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE MARQUESS OF ZETLAND): My Lords, not very long ago I had the pleasure of pronouncing a blessing, on behalf of the Government, upon a Bill introduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thankerton, and I am in the same happy position again to-day. As your Lordships will have observed from the brief but extremely lucid explanation given by the noble and learned Lord of the objects of the Bill, it is a measure to increase the facilities for unions between English people and Scottish people. I should imagine that no one of your Lordships

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would wish to prevent so desirable an object, and I have much pleasure in expressing on behalf of the Government their approval and support of the Bill.
LORD ELTISLEY: May I ask how many persons are usually affected by the present regulations?
LORD THANKERTON: I am afraid I have no statistics on that point, but certainly a certain number must be affected.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

WHEAT (AMENDMENT) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
4.24 p.m.
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: My Lords; in the last three years it has fallen to my lot to bring a number of long and complicated measures connected with the agricultural industry before your Lordships, and it may be said that the present Bill is the most intricate in its provisions of all the measures I have sponsored. But I will endeavour to explain as briefly as possible the main purpose of the Bill. In the first place, it makes no alteration in the fundamental principle of the Wheat Act, 1932. Your Lordships will recall that under that Act deficiency payments are made to registered wheat growers in the United Kingdom. Those payments represented the difference, less a small deduction for expenses, between the standard price of 10s. per cwt. and the price which is prescribed as the average price per cwt. obtained by all registered growers. This is subject to a scaling down of the payments when the quantity of mill-able wheat sold in any cereal year exceeds the amount estimated by the Minister as the "anticipated supply." Under the Agriculture Act, 1937, the maximum quantity of wheat which can rank for deficiency payment at the full rate in any year has been increased from 27,000,000 cwt. to 36,000,000 cwt.
The funds necessary for making these deficiency payments are raised by a levy, or in other words a quota payment, imposed on millers and importers of flour, in respect of all flour which they deliver. The administration of the Act is in the
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hands of the Wheat Commission, which consists of representatives of millers, flour importers, merchants, farmers and consumers with an independent Chairman and Vice-Chairman. The first Chairman was the late Lord Peel. When Lord Peel died tributes were paid in your Lordships' House to the many capacities in which he had served the State, and I would like to take this opportunity of adding a further tribute to the able way in which he presided over the Commission in its early years. I am sure the House will agree with me that the Act has been administered in a remarkably smooth and efficient manner, which reflects great credit upon the ability of the members and staff of the Commission. The Government count themselves fortunate in having obtained the services as Chairman of the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, whom I am glad to see in his place.
The principle of the Act of 1932 has commended itself strongly to the farmers, and I think I may say it has caused the minimum of difficulty to the other interests affected. But two questions have arisen which led the Government to decide that amending legislation was necessary. The first relates to the standard price of wheat, and the second to the definitions of flour and wheat offals. Under the principal Act a small Committee was appointed in 1935 to consider and report to my right honourable friend whether it was desirable to make any alteration in the standard price of 10s. per cwt. The Committee made a decided recommendation that it was undesirable at that time to make any alteration in the standard price, but that provision should be made for a further review after a period of years. The Government have accepted this proposal and under Clause 1 of the Bill there is provision for the setting up of a Standard Price Committee in the present year and thereafter at intervals of three years. In making their report the Committee are directed to consider general economic conditions and the conditions affecting the agricultural industry. Any amendment of the standard price would require to be confirmed by Parliament.
The second difficulty has arisen from the definition of flour and wheat offals. According to the 1932 Act, "flour" is subject to quota payment while "substances separated in the milling as wheat offals" are exempt, if they are used for

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feeding to animals or poultry. Despite the absence of any sharply drawn distinction between these two groups of commodities no difficulty arose—I think Lord Harlech will bear me out in this—except with a small class of imported products intermediate in quality between offals and low-grade feeding flour. The decisions of the Commission in certain cases falling within this class were challenged in the Courts, and the case of R. W. Paul, Limited, versus the Wheat Commission ultimately came before your Lordships' House in its judicial capacity. Without going into technicalities the essential point of the decision given was that the test of liability under the Statute should not be the precise character of the substance, but its method of production and the purpose for which it was to be used. The Wheat Commission held that this decision was directly opposed to the agreement between the interests concerned on which the quota provisions were based; that is, that all commercial flour of whatever quality and for whatever purpose it was used should be liable for quota payment. The Commission also said that this decision would raise many administrative difficulties. Meanwhile, the associations representing the millers, flour importers and corn merchants entered into a Gentleman's Agreement with the Wheat Commission in which they undertook to use their influence to prevent any claim being made that low-grade flour should escape quota payment. As a result of this most helpful step it has been possible to go into the matter thoroughly and to arrive at what I think is a generally acceptable solution in regard to the main issues before bringing this Bill forward.
The solution proposed is embodied in the new and precise definition of wheat offals—or, as they are now to be termed under the Bill "wheat by-products"—which is contained in Clause 4 of the Bill. Any product of milling which does not fall within that definition is defined as flour and will be liable to quota payment. But I think it should be noticed that Clause 6 provides for a reduced rate of quota payment on certain low grades of flour which are destined for livestock—it was a disadvantage of the principal Act that if a border-line product was pronounced to be flour the Commission had no alternative but to levy the full quota payment. The effect of the changes to which I have drawn your Lordships' attention is that now
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we have an agreed definition of flour and wheat by-products which is easy to apply and which will remove doubts in the administration of the 1932 Act.
While putting forward their proposals for dealing with the situation created by the Paul judgment, the Wheat Commission suggested that several other amendments should be made in the principal Act. These were for the most part amendments designed to remove doubts and to facilitate administration, and they account for the bulk of the remaining clauses of which your Lordships will notice there are 32 in all. I will refer briefly to only one or two proposals of considerable importance which are incorporated in the Bill. Under the 1932 Act wheat meal used as animal food is exempt from quota payment. The Commission were anxious to see some safeguard against the risk of quota-free meal being diverted to uses other than stock feeding, but the Government, on the other hand, were unwilling to depart from the original intention, which was that there should not be by the passing of the Statute any direct handicap placed upon either the livestock or the poultry industry. It is hoped that these objects will be attained by Clause 7 of the Bill.
Wheaten breakfast foods are given rather special treatment by Clauses 11 and 12. There is some doubt about the present position of these foods in relation to quota payment, but they certainly do not fall clearly within the present definition of flour, and there have been a number of protests against their freedom from liability. On the other hand, the manufacturers and importers of these foods can argue with some force, I think, that their real competition is not with bread but with non-wheaten breakfast foods. The Government therefore concluded that before deciding this question of liability the Minister of Agriculture should be advised by an impartial Committee. The effect of Clause 11 is to grant to manufacturers of wheaten breakfast foods exemption from liability to quota payment until August 1, 1940, when they will become liable unless exempted by order of the Minister. Applications for exemption will be referred to the Reference Committee to be appointed under Clause 24. Clause 12 is designed to put the importer of breakfast foods, and also the importer of other foods having a wheaten content, such as

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macaroni, into approximately the same position as the home manufacturers as far as quota payments are concerned, but that is done by a somewhat different procedure.
A further point to which your Lordships will, I think, attach importance, is the power given to the Wheat Commission by Clause 23 to make grants in aid of research and education in regard to the growing, marketing and utilisation of wheat. This will bring the scope of the Commission into line with other bodies set up in recent agricultural legislation. I hope that the House will be content with this somewhat technical but brief preliminary explanation of a very complicated and intricate Bill. I have refrained from going into greater detail of the provisions because no doubt in the course of debate certain issues will be raised and, with the consent of your Lordships, I shall have an opportunity to reply to them at the conclusion of the debate. I beg to move that the Bill be given a Second Reading.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Feversham.)
4.40 p.m.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, my noble friends and myself do not propose to offer any formal or serious opposition to the Second Reading of this Bill. It is undoubtedly a very complex measure and it deals with a most important subject. To master its details requires special knowledge of farming and wheat production, but there are certain general questions concerning which we have some anxiety, and the details of the Bill will of course be the subject of consideration at a later stage. Our interest seems to centre especially in Clause 1, and as far as we can see the situation now we are far from being satisfied with what the Bill provides. Speaking generally, it would appear that the consumer of bread is to pay some £9,000,000 more for the bread that he consumes, but that there is no provision whereby the farmer who produces the wheat gets a fair share of the profits. It would appear that the millers and the middlemen are to receive the chief benefit of this measure. We should prefer that there should be established a proper marketing organisation under which the farmers would be able to market their wheat efficiently and with
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profit to themselves. That is a question which we shall probably have to urge upon your Lordships in greater detail when the Committee stage of the Bill is reached. To-day I need only say again that, whilst being far from satisfied with some of the provisions in the Bill, we do not propose to resist a Second Reading.
4.43 p.m.
LORD HARLECH: My Lords, I feel it my duty as Chairman of the Wheat Commission to thank the Government for proceeding with this Bill. A great part of its provisions is the result of suggestions that have been made from time to time by the Wheat Commission in the light of their experience of the working of the 1932 Act. It is, as both noble Lords have said, an amending Bill of a highly technical and complex character, and it is that because any measure dealing with a question of this kind in the light of the experience of a novel experiment—for the Act of 1932 was a novel experiment—is bound to be complex. Undoubtedly a large number of the provisions of this Bill arise out of the legal decisions that have been given in the Courts on the interpretation of the Act of 1932. We have to remember that the purpose of that Act was to levy on flour a sufficient sum of money each year to pay wheat growers in this country the difference between the price they got in the free markets of this country for their wheat and a standard price fixed by Parliament.
The noble Lord who has just spoken alarmed me when he said that as he read Clause 1 there was a prospect that the human consumers of flour would have to pay an additional £9,000,000. I can assure him that unless the Government are going to make, and Parliament agrees to, a standard price something like double what it is to-day, that is not likely to occur. It is true that this year, owing to the fact that the last harvest in the United Kingdom was a bumper harvest for wheat, and owing to the fact that during the past season wheat has been at an almost unprecedentedly low price throughout the world, something like £9,000,000 in all was necessary for the payment of the difference between what the British growers of wheat have obtained in the free markets of this country and the present standard price of 45s. a quarter. Admittedly the scale of our operations as a Wheat Commission

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this year has been unprecedentedly large, both in the quantity of wheat ranking for deficiency payment and the amount of revenue we have had to obtain by the quota on all kinds of flour.
I will not detain your Lordships by saying anything about Clauses 1 and 2, which deal with a matter of policy—that is to say, what the standard price should be on which deficiency payments are to be based. That is a particular political and financial issue on which anybody can express an opinion, but I feel it my duty to say one or two words on Clauses 4 to 15 which are the vital administrative clauses from the Wheat Commission's point of view. The whole problem arises from the fact that until this Bill was produced there was no satisfactory objective definition of what wheaten substances were to be regarded as flour liable to quota payment to find revenue for the Wheat Commission, and of what wheaten substances are or are not wheat offals. That has been the cause of major difficulties of recent years. Ever since the Paul judgment, to which the noble Earl who introduced the Bill referred, the technical officers of the Ministry of Agriculture, the various interests represented on the Wheat Commission and people like the Government Chemist, have been hard at work trying to find the necessary definition without which all concerned were quite uncertain as to what would have to pay quota and what would not have to pay quota.
At this moment the quota payment that it is necessary to demand from millers and importers of flour and from merchants and the like, in order to pay British wheat growers what Parliament intended them to have, is 6s. 6d. a sack, which is a very large sum of money and makes a great difference to many people. It is important, therefore, to know exactly what a man has to pay quota on, and it is essential that there should be no doubt in the future about it. The scientists have come to our aid—and here let me say that we owe a great deal not only to the technical work of the Government Chemist but also to the chemists employed by the milling industry itself and their technical advisers, who co-operated with the Government Chemist in finding accurate objective scientific definitions. The basic and, from our point of view, the most valuable clause in the Bill is
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Clause 4, which deals with this problem of ash content, by which you will judge whether the substance is flour liable to quota payment or whether it is wheat offals not liable to quota payment.
I will not go into further technical details except in regard to Clause 7. In another place there has been a little trouble over Clause 7 (2), and a great deal of it, I think, arose out of misunderstanding. A pledge was given in another place by the Minister in charge of the Bill that the Wheat Commission should be invited to study the debates on that subsection and to consider whether from their point of view—of course they are not to be decisive—any Amendment to that subsection was or was not desirable. The day before yesterday, last Tuesday afternoon, I presided over a full meeting of the Wheat Commission, and there were present representatives of the millers, the flour importers, the corn merchants and provender millers, the Farmers' Union, the manufacturers of biscuits, and the consumers—the co-operative movements and the rest of it. We had a full meeting of the Commission to go into this matter and we discussed it at no little length. At the end we passed a unanimous recommendation—of everybody there and all the interests—urging the Government not to make any Amendment to Clause 7 (2). That is the subsection which says that you shall not put on to the market a substance composed of wheat meal (a particular form of wheat) for feeding to livestock unless it is admixed with an equal weight of non-wheaten substance. I may say that for our afternoon meal one of the members of the Commission produced for us two admirable loaves of bread, both good in appearance and appetising in taste, which were composed of 75 per cent. of wheat and 25 per cent. of non-wheaten substance.
I think they, as well as the argument, convinced the Commission—they certainly convinced me—that if permission is given to put on the market, free of quota, wheat meal not mixed with 50 per cent. of non-wheaten substance, we shall have a large number of loaves and cakes in the bakers' shops and groceries of this country which have evaded the quota payment which it is the intention of Parliament that they should pay. Under the Act of 1932 there was a certain safeguard that these various wheaten substances

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other than flour, the definition of which has broken down under that Act, should be "without further manufacture." I do not say that this mixture of 75 per cent. of wheat meal and 25 per cent. of rye or whatever it is could be made into a good bread without further manufacture, but in this Bill it has been the deliberate policy of the Government—and the Wheat Commission do not wish to challenge it—to do away with the safeguard of "without further manufacture." Those words are to be deleted from the Statute Book because it is in the interests of the livestock feeders, and particularly of the poultry feeders, that they should be able to get as cheaply as possible, and in the most useful form for the purposes of their industry, wheaten substances which have been further manufactured for the purposes of feeding to livestock and poultry.
So that limitation "without further manufacture," having been deleted, becomes all the more necessary unless we are to have a complete breakdown of the administration of the Act and complete facility is to be given to evade the intention to submit to quota payment flour used for human consumption to help the wheat growers. We shall have new processes and new industries started simply for the purpose of evading quota payments. In a year like the present year, when quota payments are as high as 6s. 6d. per sack of flour, there is a great incentive to all and sundry to drive a coach and four through the intentions of Parliament and to evade quota payments by delivering substances to a farmer nominally to feed livestock but telling him he can send it back to another miller so that the flour can be extracted or other manufacturing processes undertaken. Thus the whole intention of Parliament and the whole basis of our revenue could be destroyed. I have, I think, made it clear that we have always felt that.
But may I say one other thing?—and this I say not so much as Chairman of the Wheat Commission as one who is equally interested in agriculture—that one of the dangers I foresee is that, unless the provisions with regard to dilution are adhered to, there will be a tendency to put upon the market, for poultry feeders especially, not a balanced ration—that is, the best ration for the poultry feeders—but a mixture far too rich in wheat. It
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is not desirable in the interests of stock feeders, in the interests of sound nutrition of stock or poultry, to have a mixture too rich in wheat. I think that everybody familiar with feeding will bear me out that, particularly at certain times of the year and under certain climatic conditions, corn feeding-stuff too rich in wheat is not desirable. As at this present moment wheat is very cheap, and although we expect maize will probably go down—maize at the moment is rather high—there would be that tendency, unless that further safeguard were in this Bill which is in it at present. Not only for the purpose of preventing evasion of the intention of Parliament, but also in the interests of the livestock and poultry-feeding industry itself, you should take care that you do not by the inevitable consequences of an Act of Parliament start entirely new trade habits in industries and alter existing trade habits in industries against the interests of growers.
May I say that my experience of the Wheat Commission in the last nine months has been a singularly happy one in that, though divergent interests are represented on that Commission, they have always shown themselves, ever since the passing of the Act, ready to see each other's point of view and come to fair all-round compromises? I should like, particularly in view of the last controversies that have led up to what is really the basis of Clauses 4 to 15 of this Bill, to pay a particular tribute to the part played by the representatives of the Farmers' Union, as well as by the millers, in the very able advice and counsel they have given to the Wheat Commission. Admittedly some of these complex clauses are the results of compromises worked out, or unanimously agreed, in the Wheat Commission, and I am sure that it is in the interests of a Bill of this kind that the good will and good feeling between the various sections represented on the Wheat Commission should continue in the future as in the past. It certainly will make my duty as impartial Chairman all the easier. Therefore, I sincerely hope that except for purely drafting points—nobody knows what Parliamentary draftsmen will produce at the last moment—at any rate no Amendments of substance, altering these technical clauses, which will necessitate any further meetings or negotiations and discussions in the Wheat Commission, will be found

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necessary, and that substantially Clauses 4 and 7, in particular, will be passed by this House as they come to them from another place. I will not take up any more of your Lordships' time by talking on what is necessarily a very technical subject, but merely add that the Wheat Commission are only anxious that this Bill should reach the Statute Book at the earliest possible moment.
5.3 p.m.
LORD CRANWORTH: My Lords, as a farmer I would e to welcome this Bill and to express the hope that it will get a Second Reading. I welcome it not only on its own merits, but because it is a fulfilment of a promise given more than once, and also because it is a first instalment of the new drive of the Government to give agriculture its proper place in our industry. As it is the first instalment of that policy I should like humbly to express my good wishes to the new Minister of Agriculture, who is introducing in another place, I think to-day, another still more important instalment of that policy. I venture to hope that the experience he has had in riding the somewhat troubled waters of 45, Bedford Square, will enable him to ride with some measure of safety the far more tempestuous seas of 10, Whitehall Place. I am rather glad that this first instalment of the new policy is in connection with arable land, because recently we have heard such a lot about grass land, and such a little about arable land—and this I think is largely due to that great genius, Professor Sir George Stapledon, who has shown to the people of this country not only what a bad state much of their grass is in, but how much of it can be made into good grass. I think it is sometimes forgotten that much of that land remains poor grass land because it is not a sufficiently good economic proposition to make it into good grass.
While considering the question of wheat, I would like to give one or two of those exceedingly dull things, figures, to your Lordships. In the first place, where 100 acres of ordinary grass land in this country produces food for twenty people, if that land is broken up, and properly broken up and put under the plough, it will produce food for eighty people, or four times as many. Of cultivable land in this country, we have less than 40 per cent. under the plough. In Germany they have over 75 per cent.
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under the plough, and in France over 70 per cent. Here, I think, is a really very striking comparison which I know to be approximately accurate. In this country we produce the bread equivalent of 75 lbs. a year for each inhabitant of these islands. In Germany they produce just under 500 lbs. per head of the population, and in France just over 500 lbs. per head of the population. That is rather a striking difference, I feel. There is just one further figure which I think is of some interest, and it is this: although the land of Germany is generally recognised by agriculturists to be as a whole of less good quality than the land of this country, they produce in Germany, on 100 acres, 33 tons of cereals whereas we produce 15 tons.
The Wheat Act of 1932 is said to-day to be, and is generally recognised as having been, by far the most effective measure to help agriculture that has been produced of late years. It has stimulated employment, and kept land under the plough—indeed I doubt if without it arable farming would exist to-day—and I think on that account it is well worth while to study why it has been effective. I would venture to put before your Lordships three reasons. The first is that it takes into consideration the cost of production. The second is that it takes into consideration the necessary balance of agriculture, in that, as the noble Earl has said, the guaranteed price begins to go down if a certain amount of wheat has been produced. Whether that amount is sufficiently high, of course there will be a question. But it does to that extent consider the balance of agriculture. The third reason is that it is, I think, the only measure that makes use of the levy subsidy, and although there are some of us who would rather that the levy was a levy put upon the foreign exporter, nevertheless it is a levy and the levy subsidy is one of the reasons, I venture to assert, why that Act has been so successful in this country.
Taking the Bill itself, it consists of 32 clauses. One clause is of great importance, and 31 are of less importance. The first clause is the one that is of importance, because it is that clause which shows the method whereby the price given to the farmer for wheat will be reviewed. It is an old undertaking that it should be reviewed, and it is going

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to be reviewed this year, and again at intervals of three years. It is going to be reviewed by a Committee. I am bound to say that when I first heard a new Committee would sit I was a little scared, because it has always appeared to me that when there was any trouble a new Committee was always set up. I notice, however, one good thing about this Committee. It is a Committee of three, and although there are some who say that a Committee of one is the best, I think everyone will agree that if we cannot have a Committee of one, a Committee of three is the best. The members of this Committee of three have a pretty difficult task in front of them, and I venture to press upon the noble Earl in charge of the Bill that it would be desirable that at least one of the three Committee-men should have some practical knowledge of the growing of wheat. I know it is generally considered amongst those who are not farmers that farming is a very easy job, and that everyone can do it; but as a matter of fact those who have made money, and the many more who have lost money, know that farming is not an easy job. The growing of wheat and a knowledge of all the circumstances connected with wheat are not an easy job; they are an extremely difficult and intricate job; and unless you have men with agricultural knowledge they will not even be able to weigh the evidence put before them. I therefore do most seriously suggest to the noble Earl that it would be right and proper that at least one of these three members of that Committee should have some practical knowledge of the production of wheat.
It would not, I think, be right to go far into the question of what this Committee may decide. They would have the power of keeping the price as it is now, and they would have the power of recommending the reduction of that price. I am bound to say on that that I noticed with some surprise, in the very admirable book produced by the noble Lord, Lord Addison, the statement that in his opinion the price was much too high, and that the price should be approximately 37s. 6d. I could not but think that that was a rather remarkable way of making farming pay, which the noble Lord, when he was Minister of Agriculture, as I well remember, said was the first essential for farming. On the other hand, the Committee
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of course may put up the price, and I think it is fair to say that if the price of 45s. a quarter, which was settled in 1932, was a fair and just one—and I have heard very little criticism in any quarter as to that price—one may assume that any change would be in the direction of a rise, seeing that the cost of producing a quarter of wheat has risen by at least five shillings. I think there would be no difficulty in proving that.
Then there is a large part of the Bill, to which the noble Earl has alluded, which concerns the extracting of quota payments for substances containing wheat flour from people who have so far failed to pay their proper quota. Most of these clauses are quite unintelligible to the layman, and at one time I should have thought that such unintelligibility was rather a cause of annoyance, but as I mellow with old age I do appreciate that those who draft Bills have a very dull and dreary life, and I feel that it would be somewhat churlish on our part to grudge them their little amusements, of which I feel this Bill must have been one of the greatest
I have only one more criticism, and that refers to Clause 27, which has not yet been alluded to, in which power is taken to increase the number of members of the Wheat Commission from seventeen to twenty. Seventeen seems to me to be a very handsome figure for a Commission; indeed I venture to say, from my experience of Commissions or Committees, it is a great deal too big. It becomes almost a debating society. Seventeen people are quite capable of spending the whole day discussing a thing which three will finish in a remarkably short time, and I find it very difficult to believe that the addition of three to make the round number of twenty is likely to have any good effect. I hope that the noble Earl will at a later time explain the reason for this addition. I feel that this Bill is a small, but nevertheless useful, start in the great efforts that the Government are making to place agriculture not only in its proper position but on an equal footing with the other great industries of this country, and I am quite sure that your Lordships will give it a Second Reading.
5.15 p.m.
THE EARL OF RADNOR: My Lords, I intervene for a very few minutes only

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because, as the noble Lord, Lord Cranworth, so rightly said, this is a very difficult Bill to understand. When I read it, I tried to do so with understanding, and I am afraid I failed completely. But I read sufficient to realise that it was a Bill which was designed to fill in the gaps which experience has shown to exist as the result of the original Wheat Act. I also read sufficient to find out that there was one gap of which I am quite certain the noble Earl in charge of the Bill has knowledge, but which is not touched upon in this Bill. One of the results of the original Wheat Act has been that in a great number of cases there has been on farms an excessive cropping of wheat, with the result that the fertility of the land concerned has been decreased very considerably. The fertility of the land is a very important national matter.
As my noble friend Lord Cranworth mentioned, there is a further Bill in another place, I believe being debated to-day, which deals with various matters, among other things oats and barley, and in that Bill it is proposed that those who receive assistance for the growing of oats and barley should be under a penalty of some reduction of their assistance it their cultivation of the crop is not adequate and does not have regard to the fertility of the soil. So far as wheat is concerned, there is absolutely no provision that I know of to ensure anything similar; that is to say, the wheat grower can, if he wishes, virtually grow wheat crop after wheat crop, to the detriment and pauperisation of his land and to the harm of the country. I think that is something which should be remedied. In the old days, when the landlord had the power, he saw to it that his land did not depreciate. To-day the landlord virtually has no such power, and his tenant can almost do as he likes. Further than that, there is a great deal of land in this country to-day not farmed under the landlord and tenant system, and I am informed that in some cases the trouble has got so far that there are so-called farming companies who buy land, grow wheat on that land by mechanical cultivation and the cheapest possible methods for so long as they can continue to grow any wheat at all, and then sell the land, go and buy elsewhere and start all over again. Whether that is true or not I do not know of my own knowledge, but
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I am informed that it is so, and that is a disastrous thing for the country. I hope that the noble Earl may be able to tell us in his reply whether the Government have anything in their mind to ensure that that process which is now going on will be put a stop to.
I feel fairly certain that the answer that will be given is that in the case of wheat the assistance given is on the yield of the wheat, and is not a per-acre assistance. That is so, and it should work, but the fact is there that it does not work, and that too much wheat is, in cases, being grown, to the detriment of the land, and the position has not been helped by the increase in the total volume of the wheat which ranks for assistance. I do not know whether any Amendment is suitable to this Bill, which is so largely a Bill dealing with the machinery of the administration of the original Act. I am quite certain that it cannot go into the Bill which is being considered in another place, because that does not mention wheat, but it would be helpful if the noble Earl could give some reply to that question.
5.20 p.m.
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: My Lords, as is customary in your Lordships' House, we have this afternoon had the advantage of listening to a debate of a high standard in respect of agricultural matters, which is all the more interesting because of the fact, traditional in your Lordships' House, that we have not confined ourselves to the strict limitations of the Bill before the House. If we had done so, the House would have been unfortunate in losing the particularly interesting figures provided by the noble Lord, Lord Cranworth, in respect of the proportion of arable cultivation in this country and Germany. I should be much interested, as indeed other members of your Lordships' House will be, to look more closely into those figures and to have an opportunity of analysing them before making any comment on them. It is sufficient to say that the noble Lord must be well gratified, as he has this afternoon pointed out, that not only does this Bill amend the Wheat Act of 1932 so as to obtain an efficient administration, but the Bill which is at present before another place is likely to give incentive to all those with potential arable land to increase their cultivation owing to the fact

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that for the first time they can receive State subsidies on barley and oats as well as on wheat.
The noble Lord, Lord Snell, in his opening remarks, referred to the fact that he was apprehensive that the Wheat Act, which placed, in his opinion, a financial penalty on consumers, was in effect working to the benefit of the millers and merchants rather than of the farmer. Lord Harlech has spoken in reply to that question, but I should like to add that, in the first place, it can be said that the country with its vast number of consumers is better off with the Act than without it. I say that for these reasons. As the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, indicated, the Act had resulted in an increase of the area under wheat in this country from an average of a little over 1,300,000 acres in the three years 1929 to 1931 to more than 1,900,000 acres in 1938, which is an increase of nearly 50 per cent. This increase in peace time naturally means a reduction in our dependence upon imports, which must undoubtedly be a potent factor in preventing high prices in times of world scarcity, and if war should come its importance is likely to be out of all proportion to its cost. The noble Lord, Lord Snell, referred to the increase in the price of bread to the consumer. I have had supplied to me figures which show that over an average of the seven years of the working of this Act the increase has been something less than one farthing per 2 lb. loaf, so in these circumstances, thinking not only of the conditions and the times in which we live but also of the possibility of an emergency, it seems that the fractional premium paid by the country at large is well worth while.
I am very gratified to learn from the Chairman of the Wheat Commission that at a meeting recently held they decided with unanimity that Clause 7, subsection (2), of the Bill was satisfactory as it stood. The noble Lord has gone into the technical question relating to that clause, and I would say for the information of this House that Amendments were only moved to the clause as it originally stood because representations were made on behalf of the small millers and farmers that the percentages of dilution were not satisfactory. Therefore we proposed that it should be in the ratio of 75 per cent. to 25 per cent. instead of the 50–50 basis. Finally, another place reversed its former criticism,
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and I am glad to hear that all parties represented on the Wheat Commission are agreed that the clause is better as it now stands.
The noble Lord, Lord Cranworth, referred to the Standard Price Committee which is set up under Clause 1, and he made the comment that, although the complement of the Committee would be right, it was at fault because of the fact that no person qualified in agricultural practice was to serve on the Committee—at least that was not laid down in the Bill. I would point out to my noble friend that the terms of reference of such a Committee cover questions as to which it is essential to have an unbiased opinion and impartiality. If the noble Lord refers back to the Report of the 1935 Committee, he will there find that the Committee dealt with such wide subjects as the world supply of wheat, the price of bread to the consumer, and other similar matters. Therefore it would be unwise in this particular instance to specify that a member of that Committee should have technical knowledge of the practices of agriculture.
Lord Cranworth expressed doubt as to the wisdom of setting up further Committees. I agree with the general sentiment, but I would point out that this is not a new Committee. It was provided for in the original Act, and it has already served its purpose by submitting one Report. It is intended that a similar Committee should be set up so that in this year it will have an opportunity of making the recommendation that the noble Lord calls for, in view of the fact, as he has told the House, that the cost of production must have gone up considerably since the original Act was passed. The noble Lord also referred to the size of the Wheat Commission. I am informed that it is necessary to add to the size of that Commission in order that there may be room for representatives of the breakfast food industry should that be desirable. I am also told that the section that is represented by the smaller millers consider that their representation is insufficiently large, and it has been proposed by the Wheat Commission themselves that it should be augmented. There can be no doubt that my noble friend Lord Harlech, who has shown such great skill in the management of the Commission of its present size, will be able to conduct with equal skill the affairs of the larger Commission.

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My noble friend Lord Radnor referred to a matter of very great importance when he stated that in this Bill there is not a provision similar to that which is included in the Agriculture Act, 1937, and which is also included in the Agricultural Development Bill at present being debated in another place in respect of the maintenance of the fertility of the arable areas. The Government, of course, are fully alive to the undesirability of any form of cereal subsidies encouraging bad cultivation or leading to over-cropping and thus diminishing the fertility of the soil. There is no doubt that in the last two years there has been a great deal of cross cropping—wheat followed by wheat—which in many instances has led to a reduction of fertility. But the answer to the point why a provision of the character to which the noble Earl referred is not included in this Bill, is the one which was indicated by the noble Earl himself. I am inclined to think, from the experience I have had at the Ministry, that administrative difficulties can generally be surmounted—difficulties which have resulted as often as not in complicated legislation which has come before this House. But in this case I do not think that can be done.
It is proposed in this Bill to make payment by way of monetary subsidy which falls eventually upon the consumer. In the case of barley and oats it is a subsidy on an acreage basis, and in the case of those two crops it is easy for the 300 crop reporters and the staff of the Ministry of Agriculture to see that a crop is negligently cultivated or that because the land has had cereal cultivation in previous years its fertility has been injured. In the case of the wheat payment it is impossible to differentiate between the production of one field and another field because payment is only made through the channels of the middleman. In fact it would be administratively impossible to work. But if a fanner crops his land consistently with cereal crops without any intervening root crops, his oats and barley subsidy payments can be reduced under the new Bill, so the position is improved to this extent, that the fertility of the land will only be impaired by the farmer who grows wheat upon wheat.
It is to be expected that the assistance that is to be given to the oats and barley
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growers will help to restore that better balance between wheat and other cereals to which my noble friend Lord Cranworth referred. We shall have an opportunity of debating that very important question at a later stage when the Agricultural Development Bill comes before this House, but I hope my noble friend Lord Radnor, and those he represents on the Central Landowners' Association, will see the reason why such a provision as he has advocated cannot be incorporated in this measure, which is essentially one of a technical character. I regret that I have not dealt with all the points raised, but I hope at least that I have covered some of the main criticisms that have been put forward in the course of the debate.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

MARRIAGES VALIDITY BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

DEFENCE: SUPPLY.
LORD DAVIES LORD DAVIES rose to ask what steps are being taken to expedite the supply of munitions and armaments necessary for national defence and honouring our commitments to other countries; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Resolution that stands in my name. May I say at the outset that I have no intention of asking the noble Lord who speaks for the Government that any information should be given to your Lordships' House which he considers to be not in the public interest? On the other hand, I am sure that in these critical times your Lordships will welcome an assurance that everything possible is being done to expedite the production of munitions and to put this country in a proper state of defence. Your Lordships will remember that a few days ago the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, told us that the people of this country would be willing, should the necessity arise, to face any emergency and to repel any attack, however sudden and devastating, which may be launched against them. I believe this is profoundly true, because when the crisis came last September the vast majority of men and women throughout the country displayed great coolness and courage. If people are again confronted

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by a similar emergency I venture to think they would display the same resolution and fortitude. Therefore, if I may be allowed to do so, I should like to appeal to the Government to take the nation into their confidence—within the limits, of course, enforced by prudence and the public interest—in the firm belief that whatever service or sacrifice may be demanded there would be an immediate and overwhelming response.
There are certain particular facts which I think must give us all grounds for some anxiety as to whether the most strenuous and determined efforts have been undertaken to make good the defects in our defensive system, and especially to expedite the production of armaments not only for the equipment of our own forces, but also, should the necessity unfortunately arise, for the purpose of assisting our friends and allies as we were compelled to do in the last War. Everyone I think realises that during the past five or six years some European States have been feverishly rearming themselves at an unprecedented rate. I have looked up the figures and I find that the estimated amount which has been spent by Germany during the five year period 1933–38 was no less than £2,800,000,000. The corresponding figure for this country and France put together was £1,340,000,000—about half the amount spent by Germany. I cannot help feeling that these figures show that there is a big leeway to be made up, and in considering the adverse balance we cannot forget that since last March the Axis Powers have acquired the armament works in Czecho-Slovakia which have always been regarded as the main source of supply for the States of South Eastern Europe.
Secondly, we are told that there is no unemployment in the Axis countries. Every available man, and I believe a great many women, are working long hours on fortifications, in munition factories and on other work of a military character. Moreover, there are, I believe, thousands of men who have been imported from further afield to assist in these military undertakings. Thousands of Czechs, for example, have been sent from their homes to work in Germany. Let us contrast this state of affairs with the conditions in this country. Here we have still, unfortunately, nearly 1,500,000
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unemployed on the registers. It is true that there has been a decrease in recent weeks, but on January 16 the figure stood at 2,300,000. I imagine your Lordships will ask why is it that with so much leeway to make up the services of these unemployed people are not being utilised to provide alternative means of transport, better roads, to make provision for the storage of food and other things, and in other ways to expedite and to strengthen our national defences. I must confess that, having regard to the magnitude of the task with which the Government have been confronted during the past few years, I cannot understand why it is that the services of the unemployed have not been utilised, and why they have not been provided with work, which of course they would be only too willing and too anxious to do, in building up the defences of their country.
Thirdly, I sometimes wonder whether we realise the extreme gravity of the present situation. If we have realised it, why is it that we have allowed so many months to pass before creating a Ministry of Supply? Those of us who recollect what happened during the last War must realise how essential the establishment of such a Ministry is in order to avoid overlapping and in order to utilise our industrial resources to the best advantage. I cannot understand why the powers entrusted to the new Ministry have not covered the whole field of supply to all the Fighting and all the passive Defence Services—why the new Department has not been modelled on the old Ministry of Munitions which rendered such notable service to the country during the last War.
The apprehensions which I believe exist in the minds of some people—perhaps a great many people—are not allayed when we consider the armament policy which has been pursued by successive Governments in this country since the War. Roughly I think this may be divided into three periods. First of all there is the period which may be described as the unilateral period when we disarmed ourselves to what I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer once described as "the edge of risk." During those years unfortunately our Air Force, which at the end of the War was, I believe, the strongest and most efficient in the world, descended from the first to the fifth place in the list. The second

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period began in December, 1935, when the tension with Italy over Abyssinia reached an acute stage and apparently the Government at that time discovered that there were serious deficiencies in the equipment of the Fighting Services. I believe the noble Lord, Lord Chatfield, at that time occupied the responsible position of First Sea Lord. Perhaps he will be able to tell your Lordships what the position really was at that time and what steps were taken afterwards to make good those deficiencies.
The second period, I suggest, covers 1936 and 1937 and down to the crisis last September. It lasted for about three years when the rearmament programme which was announced during that period was supposed to be in lull swing. Your Lordships will remember that during the War it took us approximately two years—from August, 1914, to July, 1916, when the offensive opened on the Somme—to get the country into its stride so far as military preparation—especially the output of munitions—was concerned. Therefore one would have imagined that, even with all the handicaps which fifteen years of unilateral disarmament had imposed upon us, a resolute and determined Government could have placed our defences in an impregnable position during those three years from 1935 to 1938. But unfortunately, when the end of the second period came last September, more gaps and deficiencies were disclosed. In another place the former Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence said:
"Nobody … can be unaware of the fact that there have been gaps, serious gaps, and defects which must be remedied in our preparations."
Of course the usual recriminations followed, new promises of speedy improvement were given, and we were told that the rearmament programme was to be accelerated. I agree that recriminations are useless at this stage and that it is no use crying over spilt milk. But what I think your Lordships want to know is how far these promises have been fulfilled and, in view of recent events and commitments, what steps the Government now propose to take in order to increase and accelerate the delivery of munitions, to build up a supply of reserve material, and generally to put ourselves in a state of preparedness.
In passing, may I say one word about the office of the Minister for the Co-Ordination of Defence? I assume that the function of the noble Lord, Lord Chatfield, is to co-ordinate the activities of those Departments which direct the Fighting Services. "Co-ordination," of course, is a blessed word, and sometimes, I fear, it is more honoured in the breach than in the observance; but may I ask the noble Lord if he can tell us how far he is able to co-ordinate the measures, not only for active but also for passive defence, undertaken by the A.R.P., the Home Office and other Departments in order as far as possible to avoid overlapping and confusion? I do not know, but I imagine that it is impossible to draw a hard-and-fast line between measures of active defence on the one hand and what is described as passive defence on the other, and that there are many points where the one impinges upon the other. The noble Lord will, I am sure, be able to reassure us that everything possible is being done to secure the closest co-operation, especially in the matter of supply, between the various Departments, and between these Departments and the local authorities, who are also involved in these arrangements.
It is not necessary for me to direct your Lordships' attention to the vast changes which have taken place during the last twenty years in what may be called the technique of war. We all know that a declaration of war has now become an anachronism, and that the initial blow may be delivered without the slightest warning and may come as a bolt from the blue. To-day, of course, there is no lag period, as in former times, between mobilisation and the actual outbreak of hostilities. This means, of course, that owing to the development of the air, the element of surprise has been exploited in a way which was hitherto deemed impossible. I do not propose to labour this point, because your Lordships are all familiar with it, but what I want to try to emphasize is that under these conditions, when it is or may be a question of minutes or hours, it is insufficient merely to have plans on paper for what we propose to do when war actually comes. Many, I suggest, if not all of these plans should be put into operation before and not after the event; otherwise, obviously, they will fail in the purpose for which they were intended.
The essential thing, and I am sure the noble Lord opposite will agree with this, is that what are described as nerve-centres or vital points, which include munition works, transport services, water supplies and industrial and power plant—all those concerns which are essential to the war economy of the country—should be protected now in some order of priority as the defensive equipment becomes available. I have no doubt that the noble Lord the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence and his staff are alive to the importance of this aspect of the problem and are doing their best to speed up the delivery of the antiaircraft guns, searchlights and other equipment which are so urgently needed. But even if all this material is not yet available, I should like to ask the noble Lord if there is any reason why these vital points should not be guarded by troops capable of preventing acts of sabotage or raids, either organised by enemy agents in this country or undertaken by armed squads transported by aeroplanes from abroad.
I am sure your Lordships must be impressed by the extraordinary feat we read about a few weeks ago when several thousands of fully-armed men were transported in a few hours from Italy to Tirana, the capital of Albania. What is to prevent an enemy from launching a series of raids by air on vital points—our water supplies, for example—and inflicting enormous damage almost before the war has commenced? I understand that it is feasible for raiding parties to be landed either by parachute or on our lakes and reservoirs by aeroplanes, and the fact, of course, that such raiding parties may be completely lost and wiped out will not deter those who are responsible from sending them if they imagine that irreparable damage can be inflicted in the space of a few hours. Some of these places are no doubt remote and inaccessible, but that, I imagine, is all the more reason why they should be adequately protected. During the last two weeks I have visited some of these places, and I venture to draw the attention of the noble Lord to the risks which may possibly—I do not know—be involved. Of course I do not profess to be in any sense an expert on these matters, but surely, if certain contingencies which we have never had to face before and
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the consequences of which might be very disastrous are now in the realms of possibility, it is only reasonable to take such precautions as are feasible at this moment, and not to wait until the blow has been struck.
I do not want to enter into any details regarding the inadequacy of our military supplies and equipment, but only this morning I read in The Times the following passage from an account given by their special correspondent at present with the Territorial Army. This is what he said:
"Many special courses have been arranged for officers and men of the training units. One deals with the Bren gun carrier, but is somewhat hampered because only seven carriers are available for the whole brigade. Bren gun instruction is also much hampered in both training and recruits' units because of a scarcity of these weapons. The brigade has only a quarter of the number of Bren guns necessary for proper instruction."
This only confirms, of course, the statement made a few days ago, at Llandudno, by Mr. J. C. Little, President of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, when he said that he had watched the output of munitions in this country for the past two years with some concern, and from reliable sources he had learned that the shortage of Bren guns was such in the Territorial Army that there was only one gun for every ten required. Similar apprehensions regarding other deficiencies have been expressed by Captain Liddell Hart, the military correspondent of The Times, Major General Temperley and Group Captain Payne in the Daily Telegraph, the military correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, and many other experts. Unfortunately I have not time to quote all these extracts to your Lordships. All I wish to do is to appeal to the Government, and especially the noble Lord, Lord Chatfield, to consider most carefully the points which have been raised, and not to dismiss them as merely uninformed criticism.
Now I come to my last point. There is one thing which I believe puzzles and mystifies every man and woman in this country. It is this. Why do the Government allow huge quantities of scrap metal to be exported to the Axis countries which may or may not, at some future date, descend upon us in the form of shells, bombs and other missiles? Last year, exports of scrap iron and steel from the United Kingdom to Germany, I understand, leapt from 4,500 metric tons

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in July to nearly 17,000 metric tons in August. The figure for September was 21,000, and it reached its peak in December, when 23,000 tons were exported. May I suggest that it would have been far better and wiser if all this scrap material had remained in this country, as a reserve supply in case of emergency, and that it was really the height of folly to have allowed it to go abroad?
The same is true, unfortunately, in greater or less degree, of many other minerals and commodities, such as pig iron, copper, lead, nickel, manganese and chromite, to mention only a few. For instance, the export of pig iron from the United Kingdom to Germany jumped from 305 metric tons in October last to nearly 10,000 in November, and reached its highest point of nearly 12,000 tons in January. France is an even worse offender. In August she exported to Germany 350 metric tons of pig iron, and in September this figure had leapt to 19,000. It reached a peak of 75,000 tons in November, and continued at a high level until March, when it stood at 67,000 tons. I. may say that these figures are taken from a German publication of the highest repute. Surely some arrangement can and ought to be reached with the Governments of the Dominions, France, and possibly the United States, to restrict in some way the export of these commodities, which add to the whole problem of armaments, and which in the event of war would probably be used against us.
There is one other matter, and that is the case of British ships which have recently been sold, I understand, to foreign Powers. The Government, I understand, have promised legislation to prevent these transfers in future. May I respectfully ask the noble Lord opposite how long we shall have to wait before the proposed legislation becomes effective? If the Parliamentary machine is so clogged up with business, surely it is high time to overhaul it, in order that urgent measures of this kind may be passed without delay, for we cannot afford to lose any time. Therefore I would beg leave to urge the Government to expedite and extend its programme, and to take whatever steps are necessary not only to ensure the safety of our country, but also to enable it to play its appropriate part in any collective system or peace front of which it is a member. I beg to move for Papers.
6.8 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, my noble friends have asked me to say a few words on this important Motion. I think your Lordships who have stayed to listen to the noble Lord will agree that he has raised very important matters, and for myself I think he has brought up points of some moment. In the very few minutes that I propose to detain your Lordships, I would like to support one or two of his arguments. I have just been over to Belgium. There I made some inquiries. I was glad to see that the Belgians were in very good heart. The country is very well prepared. Her technical people are mobilised, and the ordinary classes of the Army. I am told that all the vital points in Belgium, such as those which have been referred to, are guarded and adequately guarded, and that in case of sudden attack the charges are already placed where structures have to be destroyed. It must be remembered that in Belgium they are only a few miles away from certain of the greatest Army concentrations in Germany. They have therefore to be ready for instant action. I am told also that in Holland there is very much the same state of preparedness, and that all the dykes and bridges of any importance are already mined and guarded. The Dutch are much more confident than they were and say that now they could hold up any attack for a considerable time. I am told the same thing is true of Switzerland also. They are absolutely ready to blow up tunnels and bridges to hold up an advance.
With regard to France, I have also been in that country since I last had the pleasure of seeing noble Lords opposite, and I made some inquiries about the question of metal going to Germany from France. I ventured once before to raise this question of what I call the pig iron scandal. I do not blame the noble and gallant Lord opposite. I know who was responsible. It was the Treasury, who said there was no precedent for buying surplus pig iron. The iron trade begged the Government to buy and store it, but the Treasury would not sanction it, and so it went to Germany. The French say that if they stopped this metal trade it would create unemployment. I should have thought that that was a case for economic co-ordination, if I may use the word, with our French friends. Between us we could make a pool of metals, so as

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to prevent unemployment in France and at the same time accumulate a lot of this metal that will be required in this country in case of war. There is now a shortage of steel, as the noble and gallant Lord knows, and we are having to import scrap to make into steel. That metal situation does not make sense at all. But I know that the Government are now alive to it, and I only just mention it in passing.
I, like the noble Lord, Lord Davies, realise that one has to tread rather carefully in dealing with these matters, and we certainly do not expect the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, to say anything which will give away information that would be of value to a possible opponent. I certainly do not intend to say anything that may have come to my notice that is not common knowledge, or that could not be obtained quite easily in any case. If I might give an opinion, our most vital need at the present time, and the most dangerous point in our whole defences, is our merchant shipping. I am thinking of the undeclared act of war, the bolt from the blue that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, spoke about. We must obviously have our merchant shipping scattered, doing its ordinary work of carrying our trade. It is most difficult to devise a means of defending it against the combination of the utterly unscrupulous act of war without the ordinary formalities, which seems to be the fashion nowadays, on the one hand, and the new weapons of aircraft and the long distance cruising submarines, and so on, on the other. It is quite obvious that the problem is complex and difficult, and I have been assured that the Government have that in hand, but I cannot lose this opportunity of again drawing attention to it.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies, spoke of the way we disarmed, or allowed our armaments to fall away, in certain years before the crisis with Italy in 1935. It is the fashion to hold the Labour Party responsible for that—I have never quite understood why. We held office for a very short time during the period that has elapsed since the end of the last War, and why we should be blamed I do not know. I know that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, himself does not speak, and never has spoken, in your Lordships'
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House as a Party politician, but in case he attempts to make that old score, I would like him to compare our strategical position to-day with what it was in 1931, when the Labour Party was jockeyed out of office. Compare our relative military and naval position and our strategical position generally with what it was then. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, I am sure, would like to make that comparison. He was not responsible for any sort of Government at that time, and therefore he can look at the matter with a completely judicial mind.
I think the noble Lord, Lord Davies, rather underestimates the tremendous output of munitions which is now taking place. It is terrific, especially with regard to naval armaments, and I congratulate the Government on their long-term naval programme, which is formidable, and also on their aircraft production. The aircraft, we know, are now coming along at a tremendous rate. There is this point to be remembered also, that the fact that our programme has been somewhat delayed, perhaps dangerously delayed, has at least this advantage, that our equipment which is coming along now is much more modern than that of our possible opponents. They are cluttered up with a lot of obsolescent material, on which the immense sums mentioned by Lord Davies were spent in the years that are past. That is an advantage that cannot be overlooked. But I must say that I think the noble Lord, Lord Davies, is justified in drawing attention to the lack of Army equipment. That really is scandalous. I know it is coming along, but it is common knowledge—you cannot keep it from 200,000 men whom you have called up under the Military Training Act, and from all your Territorials now going to camp—that there is a woeful lack of equipment for the infantry. That seems to me the weakest point there.
I do not want to anticipate the discussion on the Ministry of Supply Bill which after many many months will reach your Lordships' House, but I must say I think the noble Lord, Lord Davies, was justified in his complaint about military equipment. Nor do I wish to anticipate the discussion on the Civil Defence Bill, which, after many, many months of discussion and delay, has eventually reached your Lordships' House; but I must say that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that the anti-air-raid precautions

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are not proceeding fast enough. I believe we are ahead of other countries. I have reason to suppose that we are well ahead in civil defence of certain other very important countries on the Continent, but there are tremendous gaps still in the equipment needed for civil defence and in the organisation of civil defence. I know the answer will be that so much of this depends on the people themselves, on the local authorities, and so on. But there is more needed than that. There is a lack of drive at the centre in the preparations for civil defence in this country, and there is tremendous congestion in the hastily formed organisations that are trying to deal with it. Correspondence is held up, decisions are held up, and the complaints among the unfortunate people in business who are trying to deal with these matters are bitter and sustained. If I had the ear of the Prime Minister at any time, and it was my business to do so, I would beg him to look into that matter.
So much for the question of equipment. I think there is another weakness, and perhaps the greatest weakness of all; it is perhaps inevitable, but it can be dealt with. Our weakness in the general scheme of defence—I am talking now of grand strategy—is lack of co-ordination with our potential allies in the countries we guarantee. In this matter I exempt the case of France. We all know that there have been, and still are, very important Staff talks going on with the French, and there presumably will be Staff talks—or perhaps they have already taken place—with Poland, Greece, Turkey and Rumania, all countries who are guaranteed in one form or another, and there must surely be some co-ordination in case of a war in which they and ourselves are involved. There the two Axis Powers, Germany and Italy, have an advantage. They have been working closely together, for example in Spain, for the last two and a half years. They are used to working together and co-ordinating their efforts, and it is common knowledge now that the Germans are very well represented in all the Italian Defence Ministries—to the great annoyance of the more patriotic Italians, who feel that the Germans have far too much influence in their country. But, be that as it may, there is a very close welding together of all the forces of Germany and Italy for any kind of war in which they may become
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engaged. That is common knowledge. It is announced and boasted about, especially by the German leaders. The Italians do not talk so much about it now. Some of them say Mussolini was a very fine Dictator, and they much prefer him to their present leader.
But on the Staff side undoubtedly there has been great progress made in Italy and Germany, and the Minister for the Co-Ordination of Defence would never stand at that box and pretend that we had made anything like the same progress with the people with whom we may have to co-operate in the event of a great war breaking out. He could not say that because everyone knows it is not the case. That matter ought to be taken in hand now. And of course that also applies to Russia—very much to Russia. I am going to suggest to your Lordships it might have been better, looking backwards, if the Staff talks with Russia, which must take place in any case if we proceed with the proposed mutual guarantee, had preceded the political negotiations. I made that suggestion in your Lordships' House some time ago, and the noble Lord, Lord Chatfield, told us these Staff conversations had not taken place. If these Staff consultations with Russia had taken place before the political negotiations, we should have seen what difficulties stood in the way of the political negotiations. I throw that out now as a suggestion.
In that connection, may I make another suggestion which I made publicly before? It is this. We should use our Navy rather more as ambassadors. For example, I should very much like to see a squadron of some of our most modern ships in the Baltic during the coming summer months, visiting not only Russian ports but the Baltic ports generally. I would send them to German ports as well. Perhaps that has been arranged. Why not? Our naval officers and bluejackets are very good diplomats. They get on very well in these foreign ports, and they do a great deal of good. If you arranged a naval visit to the Russian ports the officers of the two Fleets would get to know one another, and would have an opportunity of making arrangements to work together in any necessity.
Finally, if I am not detaining your Lordships too long, I would again stress the importance of the noble Lord's Motion in view of events which are at present happening in Asia. I believe my noble

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friend Lord Snell intends to ask whether it will be convenient to put a Question on this subject on Tuesday, and I do not want to enter into the politics of it; but what is happening in Asia to-day reinforces once more the lack of co-operation with our potential allies in case of trouble. In this connection I should respectfully like to congratulate His Majesty's Government and the French Government on the Staff conversations taking place, I understand, in the East Indies. According to the newspapers—and I hope it is true—an important French Naval and Military Mission is visiting Singapore, and we are sending senior officers of the Services to French Indo-China as well. I am delighted to see that, and I hope the practice will be extended to other parts of the world where we can help one another in case of trouble.
I have never concealed the opinion I have held for many years, from my political friends or anyone else, that a far greater danger to the peace of the world exists in Asia than in Europe. That is still my considered opinion, and I am very glad we are taking steps, perhaps a little tardily, to co-ordinate our defence with our French friends in the Far East. There are other nations I could mention, but I will not do so on this occasion, because it would be most inadvisable to discuss such conversations as might take place. If I might summarise the view I know is held by my political friends in my party, it is that, while we have now a tremendous efflux of equipment and munitions of all kinds, there is still lacking the organisation of the grand strategy for the defence that may be required if the peace of the world is unhappily broken.
6.26 p.m.
THE MINISTER FOR THE CO-ORDINATION OF DEFENCE (LORD CHATFIELD): My Lords, the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, which has been so usefully added to by the noble Lord opposite, has convinced me, if I needed convincing, of the enormous range of duties that fall under me as Minister of Co-ordination. Perhaps a generous interpretation of the terms of the Motion has been used by the noble Lord who brought it forward, but of that I have no complaint to make at all. On the contrary, where anxiety exists,
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it is much better that it should be expressed in your Lordships' House and that those who are responsible should take such opportunity as offers to reassure where reassurance is needed.
I do not propose to traverse the very many subjects that have been raised this afternoon. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, has given us a considerable dissertation on the history of the lack of armaments, the commencement of rearmament, and of rearmament in full swing—if he admits at all it is in full swing. I have found it best myself, in taking on my present duty, to give up soliloquising over the past and to confine myself rather to pursuing the present. I certainly had not got in my mind any idea of making any accusations against the Party that the noble Lord opposite (Lord Strabolgi) represents in the way he suggested, but it is astonishing how, when suggestions and hints are dropped, one's mind inevitably moves in a direction it had no intention of taking before. At any rate, I think I may say, in so far as the Navy is unready owing to the lack of the renewal of its important and vital Battle Fleet, the noble Lord must take a little responsibility for the fact that in the 1931 London Treaty the Government of which, I believe, he was a supporter deliberately agreed that the replacement of our Battle Fleet should be deferred for five years. As a result we were unable to build a single battleship until December, 1936, or January, 1937.
LORD STRABOLGI: You built the "Rodney" and the "Nelson."
LORD CHATFIELD: That was before. Battleships which had to be replaced, schedule by schedule, under the Washington Treaty were cancelled. Building was deferred for five years, and during those five years the country, I cannot help thinking, ran a risk we ought never to have run. I do not want to pursue that point or to be controversial. It was only because the noble Lord put these thoughts into my mind.
LORD STRABOLGI: Might I remind the noble Lord that there was not a Labour Government at the time of the Washington Conference, but the Washington Treaty was on the whole a good thing?
LORD CHATFIELD: Yes, but the important thing to remember is that in 1922

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the Naval Conference, in which I personally took a part, laid it down that the Battle Fleet of all the signatory Powers should start replacement in 1931—that was the agreement—ten years after the Conference, and we decided each year how many ships should be laid down by each Power, so that by this time if that Treaty had been carried out, we should have nine or ten brand new ships instead of having them on the stocks. But in 1931 the London Naval Conference took place when the Party to which the noble Lord belongs was in power, and that Treaty was cancelled in that respect. The rebuilding of our Battle Fleet was deferred by agreement for another five years. I do not think I need deal with the question of the defence of shipping, for the noble Lord will not expect me to deal with that. I did deal with it to some extent when I was speaking in this House some months ago.
Similarly I do not think he will expect me to deal with pig iron or with civil defence, which is to come before your Lordships' House soon, and the Bill in regard to which I am afraid I shall have the responsibility of having to ask your Lordships to pass as quickly as possible so as to ensure that there will be no further delay in the Legislative Assemblies. I have also been asked to consider whether our legislative procedure should not be overhauled. That is a little outside the terms of the Motion, and perhaps I may be excused from dealing with that also. I would just refer to the important point raised by the noble Lord opposite about Staff conversations with our allies. He can be quite sure that I am fully cognisant of the very great importance of conversations of that type, and he can rest assured that those conversations will be carried out, are being carried out, and will be completed. When he says that we are behind in our conversations of this kind as compared with other nations with whom we are not allied, I would remind him of the fact that many of our responsibilities have only recently been entered into and that has naturally prevented us from making arrangements of that sort so early as those rations to whom he referred.
Now, if I may, I will come to the Motion itself. It is really divided into two parts. There first of all the question of the armaments necessary for
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national defence, and in regard to that very great stress was laid by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, on the question of home defence. The second question that he asks is as to whether we are really taking any steps at all such as we should be taking to meet the guarantee that we have given to certain countries. I think I will deal initially with his first point, the question of home defence. I am sure that your Lordships will realise, as indeed the noble Lord, Lord Davies, himself has pointed out, that I am in some difficulty in dealing with defence questions, because they must to some extent deal with dispositions for war, and I have to be very careful not to say anything that would be of value as information to any potential enemy Power. Otherwise, I am only too anxious to give such information as I can not only so that your Lordships may be able to judge for yourselves, but also, I trust, to satisfy you that every reasonable precaution that can be taken is being taken.
Lord Davies has asked to be assured that adequate protection is being created both to deal with air attacks and against sabotage in vital parts of this country. I think it is necessary, in order to explain what has been done, to give a very general but brief picture of the arrangements for home defence. It is so difficult for what I may call the local man to understand that he is being protected, whether it is in the air or on the sea, by far-flung forces. Local defence is always the thing that sticks most in the mind of the man in any particular locality, whether he is in Fiji, or, shall I say, in the Welsh mountains. We all know and we all have that natural feeling of anxiety about the spot where we ourselves happen to be. But the noble Lord has in mind a much bigger principle than merely any particular point.
So far as the active defences of this country against air attack are concerned, let me point out that in the first place, we have got numerous squadrons of fighter aircraft, ever increasing in number, so disposed as to be able to intercept the enemy at the earliest possible moment, which is the vital thing to do. Secondly, we have our high altitude guns, so disposed as to protect all important areas. Thirdly, there is an enormous number of searchlights so disposed as to ensure that enemy aircraft will be continuously

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illuminated, and to ensure that the fighter aircraft and the high altitude guns will operate effectively by night. Fourthly, we have balloon barrages at important vulnerable areas, in order to make the risk of low flying very much greater than it would otherwise be. Fifthly, there are light anti-aircraft guns, which are capable of a tremendous rate of fire, and are designed specifically to deal with this menace of low-flying aircraft which, if allowed to fly low, would drop bombs with accuracy instead of scattering them promiscuously from a height of 10,000 or 15,000 or 20,000 feet. Sixthly, there is the intelligence system, which includes, of course, the Observer Corps, which will enable hostile aircraft to be located and tracked wherever they go. That is the broad background.
Now let me try to explain the general principles which have guided the Committee of Imperial Defence and His Majesty's Government in deciding on the points to which special protection should be given, either against air attack or against sabotage. There are, of course, thousands of points in this crowded country, with its innumerable industries, which are of importance for the continuance of war or the maintenance of life of the community. There are, for instance, our power stations, our gas works, our water supplies, our railway systems, our docks, our oil supplies and factories of every kind, and so forth. It would obviously be strategically impracticable and wrong to use both our man power and our material resources to attempt to provide specific protection for each and all of these points, over and above the very substantial protection that is provided by the general defence system of the country to which I have just referred. Indeed it would be an unjustifiable dispersal of force. I understand that the noble Lord considers that we should have the whole of these thousands of points protected now in peace time. Your Lordships will remember that only the other day the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, initiated a debate, to which I had to reply, in which he endeavoured to use all the emphasis he had to induce the Government not to concentrate too much on the defensive, but to try to think of offensive action as a far more valuable means of
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saving ourselves from trouble and disaster. For the reasons I have given it has been necessary for the Committee of Imperial Defence to discriminate in these cases so far as specific protection against air attack is concerned.
The whole country has been reconnoitred by specialist officers during the last few years and the result of the reconnaissance has been completely reviewed by the Committee of Imperial Defence. It is always very difficult for the non-technical mind to understand the technical situation of to-day. So often we are told—I was told myself when I was Chief of the Staff—that Chiefs of Staff are always thinking of the last War. I think the only people really who can think intelligently—using that word in a Staff sense—on present dangers are those who are possessed of full technical knowledge. The noble Lord who moved the Motion this afternoon spoke about the experiences of the last War as indicating the perfectly clear course which is open, and obviously open, to His Majesty's Government as regards the setting up of a Ministry of Supply on the full scale of the old Ministry of Munitions. But we must understand that, whether the Government are right or wrong, these decisions that they are making are not political decisions but are decisions made on the advice of the best officers there are in the Service at the present time, and I think myself that the officers in the Service available to advise His Majesty's Government at the present time are certainly in every respect as competent to advise them as those who advised His Majesty's Government in the last War. The Government are bound to take their advice, and are taking their advice and are acting on it.
I will indicate the general principles which have to guide the Committee of Imperial Defence in determining whether specific protection should or should not be provided for any particular point and, if so, the extent to which it should be provided. In the first place you have to consider the geographical position of the point in question. Obviously there are places, say, in the north or the west, which are less attractive targets for the enemy, if there is one, than other places in the east or the south. Secondly, the relative importance of the point has to be considered—whether, for instance, if it

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was damaged it would cause a serious loss to the nation in conducting the war, or whether it is only one where damage would be regrettable and should be prevented, if possible, but would not appreciably affect the conduct of the war or the maintenance of the national life. Another factor, of course, is the size of the target, its visibility from the air and its vulnerability to attack. These are the kind of principles which have guided the Committee of Imperial Defence when making our initial dispositions, and they are kept under constant review. If war experience showed that we had erred—as no doubt we may err, or shall err—we can redistribute our forces, because in the first place the light anti-aircraft guns are mobile and can be moved at will; and secondly, there is a mobile reserve of guns of all types which can be moved to any particular types of target on which it may appear that an undue effort of the enemy is being concentrated.
Now let me turn to the question of protection against sabotage. Obviously the provision of such protection is simpler than that against air attack since it does not involve elaborate equipment. Nevertheless it would not be justifiable to attempt to provide 100 per cent. protection for each and every point which might conceivably be imagined as a possible objective of sabotage. Without in any way wishing to minimise the danger, I think it would be fair to say that the difficulties of the saboteur are often very much underrated. I may perhaps remind your Lordships' House that during the last War no attempt was made by the enemy to damage vulnerable points in this country. This immunity was due, perhaps, to the measures concerted before the War to provide protection for the most important points and for dealing with enemy agents. I would, however, emphasize that nothing is being left to chance.
The whole question of protection against sabotage has been under constant examination and review by the Committee of Imperial Defence for the past fifteen years, and arrangements have been made to provide appropriate protection for literally thousands of vulnerable points. As your Lordships will be aware, there is a special body, called the National Defence Companies, which exists for this very purpose. Their numbers have lately been very substantially increased and are now to be reckoned, not
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in terms of hundreds, but in terms of many thousands of men. May I give your Lordships my personal assurance that I have been into the whole matter of protection of important places against both air attack of every kind and against sabotage in any form, and I shall continue to do so? I have found, for example, that certain localities, which have formed the subject of correspondence between the noble Lord who moved the Motion and myself during the last month or so, have not been overlooked, and were in fact considered in great detail by the Committee of Imperial Defence some years ago. I can, in fact, give your Lordships the assurance that in so far as I am a competent judge every reasonable precaution that can be taken is being taken. I do not wish to set up ourselves as infallible, but we have these things continually under review. All the suggestions made by the two noble Lords who have spoken on that particular point will, I assure your Lordships, receive consideration and I will bear them in mind.
Now I come to the last part of the noble Lord's Motion, and that is what steps we are taking to deal with our new responsibilities. I am afraid the noble Lord gave your Lordships' House a somewhat depressing and gloomy picture of the great national effort that is being put forward at the present time. I think that a great deal of what he said has been already dealt with in innumerable debates during the last few years. Moreover, we have issued White Papers. I might remind your Lordships that in February last there was published a White Paper which dealt with the whole of these subjects. I hope the noble Lord will read that White Paper again, and make quite sure that he cannot get some consolation, however small, from what was the position up to last February. But I should like to say to your Lordships that since that time—during the four months when I myself have been in my present position—the progress made has been, in my opinion, at a highly reassuring and ever increasing rate.
Of course we have taken on new responsibilities which have necessitated our recasting our programme. We have had to set up new hypotheses as to the strength of our forces, and that has been done by doubling the Territorial Army, by the introduction of the Military Training Bill, and the setting up of a Minister

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with partial duties as Minister of Army Supply. All these steps are of great magnitude and importance. You may say that we might have foreseen these commitments a year or two ago: that we were going to guarantee Poland, Rumania and Greece, that Czecho-Slovakia would be invaded and so on, and that we ought to have done these things a long while ago. I am afraid we were unable to foresee events so clearly; it would have been an advantage if we had been able to do so. I know that the noble Lord opposite will appreciate that it would not be desirable for me to make public details of the extent to which that programme has been completed. But I should like to point out that during the last two months no less than thirty new factories have been started and are in course of construction, and another thirty factories of all kinds are approved and in the stage of preparation. Then there have been considerable extensions and modifications of various kinds to the existing works, and fresh capacity is daily being achieved by giving what are called "educational orders" to existing firms which can be called in if necessary to help in that programme.
Then I come to the fact that we have set up this Ministry of Army Supply. I do not wish to deal with that at the present time, and I am sure that both the noble Lords who mentioned it will not wish me to do so, because I shall be speaking on that matter later. We shall be having a debate on that Bill when it comes before your Lordships—I hope not, as the noble Lord said, in months' time, for I am sure the other House will pass it through as quickly as possible and we shall get it much sooner than he anticipates. But I agree that the Ministry of Supply, when it is set up with its limited powers, will meet a need. I told your Lordships, I may respectfully point out, in answering the Motion of the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, that there are always occasions which produce a need, and that one of those occasions would be if we were enormously to increase any of our forces; that it might then be necessary and better to set up such a Ministry than to swallow the disadvantages, the disturbances and the delay which are so apt to happen in the transitional period when we engage in an enormous programme and vast staffs
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have to be transferred from one Minister to another. But we are taking every step we can to ensure that no delay occurs in that way—no undue delay, at least—and I believe that the creation of this Ministry, giving a man a special task and special powers in order to deal with this problem which we have suddenly taken on, will cause a very considerable increase in the rapidity with which the equipment of the new Army will be carried out. In addition there is the fact that the Minister is going to be responsible for the accumulation of raw materials which up to the present have been divided between the different Departments. That will no doubt have advantages as well.
There is also the provision of articles of common user, which again will help: the demands for uniform, for instance, and that sort of thing. The Government have been very fortunate, I should like to mention, in enlisting to deal with this work the services of the expert Sir Frederick Marquis, whom I believe we shall soon welcome as a member of your Lordships' House. We have had some reference to shipbuilding, and I should like to mention that the assistance which has recently been afforded to the shipbuilding industry has, I consider, had the effect of very greatly improving the conditions in that industry, which was badly needed. This should have a beneficial influence on progress and construction, and on the maintenance of our shipbuilding labour generally. Another step that we have taken is to set up a Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence to deal with the scientific and optical instrument industry, under the chairmanship of Sir Frank Smith. Although this is actually a long-range Sub-Committee, they will be making interim reports and recommendations, which I am quite certain will be of great value in expediting the present programme in that very important direction.
The last important point that I would mention is on this very difficult question of supplies to other countries. We have in this country at the present time, as your Lordships may know, distinguished representatives of other countries to whom we have given certain assurances and who are anxious to equip their forces in various ways. It is exceedingly difficult to gauge which is the best way to use your productive capacity: is it better to use it to equip your own Army or to

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equip the Army of a friend? That is a strategic problem, the question of how we are going to use to the best advantage the enormous productive capacity that we have in this country and which we are increasing at such a tremendous rate, but the Committee of Imperial Defence are already dealing with that. We are having our discussions with our friends, and I am sure we shall find what is the best solution for the common good.
I think I have dealt as fully as I can with the Motion of the noble Lord. I should like to say in conclusion that I believe there has never been a time when the plans for war have been so carefully laid or given so muck thought. We are well on our way to achieve our aim of being more ready for war in peace than we have ever been. By the energy and devotion of our scientific staffs, we have harnessed science in such a manner that the risks and anxieties of ten or twenty years ago are in many respects no longer of the same degree. In many instances the defence is rapidly catching up the attack. We have the men we need, and of a higher average physique and intelligence than ever before in our history. This human factor is the main asset we shall rely on with confidence in the future, as we have so successfully in the past. If ever we are to be tested, that is the factor that will decide our future.
6.59 p.m.
LORD DAVIES: My Lords, should like to thank the noble Lord who has just sat down for his very exhaustive and very clear speech, and also for the reassuring statement which he has given your Lordships as to the general defence arrangements of the country. I am sure we are all very grateful to him for having dealt with all the points which my noble friend and I have endeavoured to bring forward. There is just one point that I would like to mention before I sit down. I think perhaps the noble Lord did not quite do me justice when he suggested that I was approaching the points which I raised in correspondence from a local point of view. I assure the noble Lord that that is not so. I was really concerned about the water supplies; of two of the biggest cities in this country, which happen to be in the locality where I live. I am sure he realises that, and that I have no local interest in the question that has been raised. Then he told us
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that he was not in a position to answer the question about iron ore. That I can understand, but I hope he will be good enough to convey my views to the proper quarter. He also said that he had no responsibility for the legislative speed with which the Government worked. There again I do not quarrel with him, but I am sure he will agree that he has a certain measure of what used to be called Cabinet responsibility, and the Cabinet as a whole are responsible, I venture to think, for pushing through the measures which they regard as of vital importance.
LORD CHATFIELD: The noble Lord is under a misapprehension. I did not say I had no responsibility for improving our legislative machine, but that I did not feel, as Minister for Co-ordination, that he would expect me to respond to the invitation that we should do so.
LORD DAVIES: Of course I accept that interpretation, and I shall be glad if the noble Lord will be good enough also to convey to the proper quarters the suggestion which I have ventured to make. We understand now what is to be done in the case of sabotage and of possible air raids, or by an armed force being dumped down in a particular place in order to do damage in a very short time. I am sure we should be reassured if what I think the noble Lord described as a National Defence Corps can be mobilised for that purpose. I am sure your Lordships do not wish me to detain you any longer. I am only sorry that the House is so thin, and that there were not a larger number of noble Lords present to listen to the speech which has fallen from the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (ADAPTATION OF ACTS OF PARLIAMENT) (AMENDMENT) ORDER, 1939.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE MARQUESS OF ZETLAND): My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Order be made in the form of the draft approved by the House on Tuesday last.—(The Marquess of Zetland.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to His Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.