Lords Sitting of 24 May 1944

Preamble
The House met, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers.
  GILLINGHAM CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
  Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
  LONDON AND NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY BILL.
  Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

  POST-WAR EMPLOYMENT.
  LORD SOUTHWOOD: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government a question of which I have given private notice—namely, when they intend to announce their proposals with regard to the prevention of unemployment after the war, and whether this announcement will take the form of a White Paper, a Bill or a Ministerial statement.
  THE MINISTER OF RECONSTRUCTION (LORD WOOLTON): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for the question he has put to me. The statement will take the form of a White Paper, and copies of this White Paper will be in the Vote Office at 10 o'clock on Friday morning of this week.

  MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (WORKINGTON) BILL. [H.L.]
  THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA AND BURMA (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order of the Minister of Health relating to the Borough of Workington; and to move that it be read a first time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Earl of Munster.)
  On Question, Bill read 1a; to be printed, and referred to the Examiners.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Paper.
  Moved, That Standing Orders Nos. XXI and XXXIX be considered in order to their being dispensed with for the purpose of taking the Consolidated Fund (No. 3) Bill through its remaining stages and of giving precedence to Government business over the other Notices and Orders of the Day.— (Lord Templemore.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 3) BILL.
  Read 2a (according to Order): Committee negatived.
  Then, Standing Order No. XXXIX having been dispensed with, Bill read 3a, and passed.

  PENSIONS (INCREASE) BILL.
  Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
  POLICE AND FIREMEN (WAR SERVICE) BILL.
  Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

  TRADE WITH RUSSIA.
  LORD STRABOLGI LORD STRABOLGI rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they have any information about the reports in the British newspapers of a private loan of two and a half billion dollars arranged by a group of American industrialists and financiers to the Government of the U.S.S.R. to facilitate the supply of American machinery, machine-tools and other goods for reconstruction purposes in Russia; whether similar arrangements are being made, or are contemplated, to facilitate British trade in capital goods to the Russian market; and to move for Papers.
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving the Motion which stands in my name, I need not remind your Lordships that this is a matter of considerable interest upon which I am seeking information, and my noble friends and myself

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  attach a good deal of importance to it. It is not at all an unsuitable subject for Empire Day, because, naturally, I include the members of the British Commonwealth when I ask for information about steps to be taken, in the future, to facilitate trade with the great Russian market. If the statements in the British newspapers, to which I have referred, about a large private loan to Russia for trade purposes by a group of American financiers and industrialists, is true, I want it to be understood that I am making no sort of complaint at all. I only admire the far-sightedness and rapidity of action of these American financial magnates. But it is remarkable that, while there is still not an over-friendliness for Soviet Russia in certain American business, religious and political circles—as anyone who reads American newspapers will appreciate—the American financiers and industrialists are realistic enough to show willingness, not only to trade with Russia, but to take risks. They also showed considerable enterprise in the Russian market before the present war. On the other hand, during the period between the two wars, their British counterparts, the financial and industrial magnates of this country, I am sorry to say, because of their political prejudices, lost business with Russia—which they could have had—despite the high credit standing of the Russian governmental trade agencies. That is only too true, but I presume that His Majesty's Government will give no encouragement to so short-sighted a policy in the future.
  The position with regard to our trade with Russia is that, apart from the Cooperative Wholesale Society and one or two engineering firms, there were no important groups in this country who seriously tried to develop the Russian market. Those who did had excellent results—the one or two engineering firms to which I have referred and the C.W.S. The information which reaches me, which I dare say the Government will confirm, is that after the war there will be a very great need in Russia for capital goods of all kinds, and also that long-term credits will be needed. I have studied this matter for many years. I represented in another place a port which owed its past prosperity to the Baltic trade, so that it was my business to know about it. I believe that British and Russian trade and manufacturing
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  facturing are really complementary; we are natural customer each other. For example, after this war, we shall have to face great timber shortage, and the timber, oil and other raw materials and the foodstuffs which there Russians can supply are just what we require, while we can make to perfection there the electrical equipment, the machine tools and the heavy capital goods which Russian reconstruction will need. I am very glad to see that at least one leading British firm of electrical engineers has already signed contracts to supply equipment for Stalingrad in Russia. At the present time the united kingdom commercial corporation seems to have quasi- monopoly of all foreign trade, including trade with Russia That is natural, because its work is very largely concerned with Pre-emption, which is not a commercial process. I understand, however, that there will be grave dissatisfaction amongst British merchants and manufacturers, apart from those who may expect to enjoy its favours, if the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation continues its activities after the war.
  This subject was raised within the narrow compass of a Parliamentary question on May 16 last by an honourable friend of mine, and Dr. Dalton, replying for the Government, gave an unexceptionable answer, which I have here; but from that answer I did not get the impression that anything very big was visualized. It was a typical Departmental answer. Let us compare that with what is happening on the other side of the Atlantic with regard to the Russian market. I have cuttings here from a number of reputable British newspapers, and I should like to refer to one or two of the headlines. The Financial Times says that American firms may acquire orders worth some £375,000,000 from the U.S.S.R. in the next six months. The Financial Times quotes the current issue of the American Business Week as stating that, in the negotiations now under way for huge postwar orders with Russia, more than thirty large private businesses are concerned. One American company, it is stated, is said to have agreed to initial orders up to £60,000,000, while another has set a limit of £205,000,000 on the initial credit. I understand that the American Government have nothing whatever to do with this. It is entirely a private venture by American financial and business men.
  The brilliant correspondent of the Daily Iddon, whom I am sure your proceeding between the Soviet and that is actually I do not know what that as a result of case. He says Russia will buy of these negotiations of capital goods £2,500,000,000 worth is over a ten-year from the United State News says that period. The Financial dollars are orders for 1,500,000 six months. The same paper under speaks of a "Lombard Street" post-war loan to 2,500,000,000 dollars Russia, and then goes on to describe the capital goods which be supplied and the excellent arrangements which will be made for long-term and so on, and says that the authorities in Moscow are very pleased. I need not quote the whole of it to your Lordships, but correspondents of reputable British newspapers. Again I say I do not make any complaint; I can only congratulate our American friends on they foresight, courage and acumen.
  But compare that with answer given by my right honourable friend Dr. Dalton in another place, when asked about this. If I may, I will ask Lordships kindly to mark these wor
  "The question of export credit war trade, both with Russia countries, is now being studied an touch with my right honourable Chancellor of the Exchequer on the
  Compare that with the statements about what is going on amongst the men in New York and other American cities. "I am in touch with my right honourable friend the Chancellor Exchequer on the subject"£ Tho departmental, quite correct and tionable, but not to be compared range or scope with what the Americans have in mind. I repeat that we can only congratulate the Americans on what they are doing and admire it; we have no right to make any sort of complaint at all.
  I do not agree with those who, noble Lord, Lord Rennell, whose speech we all so much enjoyed, say that after the war we shall have to fight for our economic life. I am all for co-operation among our Allies in the trade of the
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  world. There is plenty for everybody, and the need for goods of all kinds, and capital goods particularly, in the post-war world will be immense, and we shall all be stretched to provide them. Certainly there is room in the future Russian market for both Britain and the United States of America, and in fact for the whole British Commonwealth and the United States of America. Russia's needs are immense and its future development will be very great indeed. Remember there will be a great vacuum left in Russia' by German industry. The idea of the Allgemeine Elektrika Gesellschaft, for example, providing dynamos for the city of Stalingrad is absurd. I do not think that any German business man or merchant will dare to show his face in Russia for very many years after this war, whereas the Germans before this war had a very large and flourishing business with Russia.
  I agree, of course, that in looking ahead the Government have to take into account a number of what I may call imponderables, a number of factors which it is difficult at present to gauge. For instance, we do not know whether Lend-Lease will be continued after the war to Russia, and whether it will continue in peace-time goods. The Government may have information on that score, but I certainly have not. That will obviously affect the whole situation. The future operations of U.N.R.R.A. will presumably extend to Russia, and that may make a great difference. Then there is the question referred to by my noble friend Lord Bennett in the recent debate on currency plans—the question of whether the present bulk purchases and pooling of supplies between the Allies will continue. I rather gathered that my noble friend believes that they will continue for some time, and I venture to share the same opinion. That, of course, will affect the whole trade position. Another important matter is what reparation goods Germany and her satellites will be required to provide for Russia. I imagine that a very considerable volume of reparation goods will go from Germany and German satellites to Russia as part of the peace settlement. Incidentally, your Lordships will not have allowed it to escape your notice that at present Russia is about the only country which can take large quantities of reparation goods without injury to her economy.
  Nevertheless, in spite of these imponderables, as I have ventured to call them, I see no reason, and I hope that my noble friend Lord Templemore, who is replying, will see no reason, why there should not be announced a broad Governmental policy for helping and guiding British industry and commerce in the Russian market. If credit assistance is required, as seems to be the case, it should be on a worth-while scale. We shall have to look to something far more ambitious than the operations of the Department of Overseas Trade in the past, if we are to take advantage of the immense Opportunities of this great market. At the same time, I repeat, I am sure we all hope there will be co-operation between all the Allies in this war in developing trade between them, and this particularly applies to Great Britain and the United States of America. If there is to be a wild scramble for markets as the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, suggested in the interesting maiden speech which he made the other day, I think that would be unfortunate. At the same time, if our timidity, or prejudice, or lack of enterprise results in our not getting our natural share in the Russian market in the future—and the word "natural" is the operative word there—there will be, I believe, great blame attachable to His Majesty's Government and to the leaders of British finance and industry.
  I believe I am right in saying that there has been a great reversal of opinion among the British public generally, including the men in the Forces, in favour of the Russian nation during the last three years. That was natural; they are comrades in arms, and there has been much admiration for the great military feats of the Russian forces; and I believe our people are determined that everything possible should be done to make a firm and lasting friendship and alliance between he British Commonwealth and the U.S.S R. I believe the great mass of the people are determined on that and the exchange of goods by trade is one of the ways in which this can be accomplished. I am sure the Government realize all this, and I look forward to a sympathetic and helpful reply from my noble friend. I beg to move for Papers.
  LORD RENNELL: My Lords, the noble Lord has been good enough to refer to one point I made about competition in the export markets. In spite
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  of his rather optimistic view, I feel that there will be considerable competition between America and ourselves and other producing countries in the export markets generally and in the Russian market in particular. That is the particular point in the noble Lord's Motion on which I for my own part would like to have a little explanation from His Majesty's Government in regard to what has happened in the past to credits that were made available for trade with Russia.
  LORD STRABOLGI: Is the noble Lord referring to pre-revolution credits or post-revolution credits?
  LORD RENNELL: Pre-war, but post-revolutionary Russia. It will be within your Lordships' recollection that in 1936 an agreement was come to with the Soviet trade representative relating to guarantees in connexion with the export to the Soviet Union of goods manufactured in the United Kingdom. That was Command Paper 5253. That agreement provided for guarantees to be extended by the Export Credit Department up to a total amount of £10,000,000 in respect of orders placed by the Soviet import organization with manufacturers in the United Kingdom during the period 1936 to 1937—the 30th September, 1937. The terms of that arrangement were that five-year credits would be extended under the guarantee of the Export Credit Department in respect of orders placed in this country. The Soviet Trade Commission were, very properly, to be entirely free in placing these contracts and in regard to the terms and prices of these contracts. The credit arrangements were perhaps not wholly satisfactory in certain respects, but what I should very much like to know is to what extent they were utilized, and whether in point of fact the whole of the £10,000,000 guaranteed was utilized.
  May I remind your Lordships that the terms of that agreement were that the Soviet Trade Delegation were to issue promissory notes with a five-year maturity, which would carry interest at the rate of 5½ per cent. per annum? Under the guarantee of the Export Credit Department those notes were financed in London at a very much lower rate, and that paper was in fact issued in London for the purposes intended. Was the whole of that credit drawn, and if not, what was the reason? I do not know whether

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  the whole credit was drawn or not, but it appears to me that at the time when the Soviet Government were entirely free to choose their market for their purchases, and did in fact order goods not only in the United Kingdom under that credit and by other arrangements of which your Lordships will be aware, the Soviet authorities also ordered large quantities of machinery in the United States, in Germany of course, in Sweden, Italy and other countries. During those years, when many Governments and many countries (but whether this country was one of them or not is a matter on which I forbear to comment) were unfriendly to the Soviet Government, the Soviet authorities nevertheless placed their orders there. I refer in particular to the orders placed in Germany under a Nazi Government, and placed also in Italy. I think it is a legitimate conclusion that the Soviet authorities bought where it suited them, bought in fact the goods that they wanted and of the sort they wanted, irrespective of where they came from and what Governments were in office in the countries where they bought. They did as a matter of fact also buy substantial quantities of goods in this country; it was for that purpose that the credit was granted.
  These facts have this bearing on the noble Lord's Motion, that in the postwar period, during which Russia will have to re-equip herself and possibly extend her material equipment in machinery and machine tools, the Soviet authorities naturally will buy precisely where it suits them; and if this country is in a position to produce the goods which the Soviet Government wish to have, I have no doubt that those goods will be ordered here. If goods are ordered here, it is quite inconceivable that credit facilities cannot always be found. The circumstances have changed a great deal since those years when there was an actual difference as between the 5½ per cent. paid for these credits and the 2½ per cent., at which those bills were sold in the London market. It will surely be possible for existing institutions, in co-operation, if necessary, with semi-Government institutions like the U.K.C.C., to provide for all the credit machinery necessary to finance trade. Surely the governing issue here is not the capacity, or indeed the willingness, of His Majesty's Government now or in
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  future years to assist this trade, but whether manufacturers in this country can produce the goods that the Russians want.
  The circumstances in which we are situated make it clear that, with our industrial production at the present moment concentrated entirely on war production, it may not be easy to provide the machinery, the equipment, and the goods which Russia needs. It may be that the United States are very much better situated than we are. That is precisely what I mean when I refer to the competition, the fight, in export trade which this country will have to face after the war. Therefore the emphasis which I should like to place in speaking to the noble Lord's Motion is not upon whether credit facilities are necessary or will be provided, but on whether industry in this country will be placed in a position to supply the goods which the Russians need. Without that, it is idle to discuss what credit facilities are required. The latter will always follow the demand, but no amount of provision of credit facilities will supply the goods if the goods manufactured here are not precisely those which the Russians need. That is the main point on which I should like information—notably whether, with the credit facilities which had been provided before the war, there were sufficient goods of the right sort here in this country for the Russians to draw on that credit to the full extent which was provided.
  LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Strabolgi has raised a very interesting question with regard to trade with Russia after the war and one which is, as he indicated, no doubt very suitable for Empire Day. He went into some detail regarding the political prejudices, as he called them, which prevented our business men from entering into commitments with Russia before the war. I do not intend to follow him in that because his question really refers to what we are going to do after the war. I propose to confine my remarks to that. The noble Lord's question is really in two parts. With his permission, I propose to deal with the second part first and to answer the first part at the end of my speech.
  I am authorized to say that after hostilities cease with Germany, His Majesty's Government look forward to a very great

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  increase in trade indeed between Great Britain and Russia. They know that the Government of the Soviet Union share this hope to the full. His Majesty's Government consider that such an increase will not only be of economic benefit to both our countries, but it will also help to clear away any political prejudices that may still exist as between the two countries. As my noble friend said, a good many of these prejudices have already gone. We are all lost in admiration of the part Russia has played in the war, and on the Russian side they are doubtless not unmindful of the part we have played in helping her to do it. This hoped-for increase in trade, if it comes about, will do a great deal to cement the friendship between the two co entries which we all trust will come to pass. It may well be that Russia will, with the passage of time, make an increasing amount of her own requirements, but history has shown that this will be no disadvantage to us. International trade flourishes as the countries of the world become more prosperous, and the Government think that the skill and energy Which British manufacturers have shown in the past will enable them to take advantage of this increased prosperity in Russia to promote increasing exchanges of goods and services between our two nations.
  The noble Lord in his speech was rather afraid that His Majesty's Government had done nothing. As a first step the Government have, as was announced in another place, already approached the Soviet authorities to ascertain what goods they are likely to want to buy in this country after the war. The Government of the Soviet Union have welcomed this approach, and experts of the two countries are even now engaged on working out lists of the goods which, so far as they can foresee, each country will want from the other. Before the final goal can be reached there is, of course, a good deal to be done In the fist place, it must not be assumed that each country will be able to meet readily or in full the needs of the other, at all events during the period immediately following the collapse of Germany. For instance, Russia will need many of her own native products—I would mention timber as one of the main ones—to repair the ravages of war in her own territory; and we for our part will have many essential calls on our industrial capacity both from home and overseas
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  markets which, for four years, have steadily run down their stocks of capital goods and consumer goods in subordination to war needs. Another point to which I should like to draw your Lordships' attention is that we must realize that, besides Russia, there are other friendly countries in Europe which have been overrun, whose plant has been either removed or destroyed, and whose resources have been squandered. They also will want our help.
  A very important matter for discussion must be that of loans and credits, but it would be premature to say very much about that until such discussions have taken place. There are, however, certain considerations which should be present in the minds of anybody who thinks about this matter. The first is that during the nineteenth century this country was a creditor country on a great scale, and we hope to be so again, but, in tae opinion of most people who know, that may take a good many years. As your Lordships probably know, in order to carry on the war, we have parted with foreign assets to the value of £1,000,000,000, and we have incurred foreign liabilities to the amount of some £2,000,000,000 more. In order that we may be able to have a satisfactory standard of life in this country after the war, which our people demand and to which they are certainly entitled, we shall have to export very much more than we did before the war, and we shall have to do it on terms that will enable us to pay for our imports, including the imports of food and raw materials required to feed our people and to maintain full employment. We shall have to sell in order to buy, and the position will be very different from what it was at a time when we were a creditor country on a great scale. Nor can we afford to devote an undue share to any short-term objective, no matter how attractive it may appear at first sight. Right from the start our eyes must be firmly fixed on the long-term prospects. It is with this in view that His Majesty's Government attach such importance to laying now the firm foundations of a steadily growing trade with Russia, which we can be sure will remain when the immediate post-war demand has conic to an end.
  Another point that I think we must remember is that the defeat of Germany will not mean an immediate relaxation of Government control over exports or any

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  thing else. For some time a certain amount of Government control will have to remain. I have no doubt that the noble Lord is a good Socialist and that he and those who sit beside him hope that it will remain for a long time. Personally I hope it will remain for only a short time, but that is a small matter of political opinion and circumstances will have to decide the matter. Subject to what I have said, His Majesty's Government would welcome any extension by manufacturers of their present contacts with the Soviet buying authorities. It would not be possible yet, I think, to enter into any commitments as regards fixed dates of delivery nor, probably, to enter into any firm arrangements about payments, but there is much to be done in the discussion of technical questions so that no time need be lost when firm commitments can be accepted.
  I turn for a moment to the interesting speech of my noble friend Lord Rennell. I am very sorry, but I am afraid I cannot answer the points he raised. I know that the rules of your Lordships' House are wide, but I came down to the House to answer the question on the Paper and the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, raised some matters of which I had not been apprised, and I have not had time to get information upon them from the Department. I would therefore ask him to excuse me if I do not answer the points he put forward.
  As regards the first question of the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, asking whether there is any information about the reports in the British newspapers of a private loan of two and a half billion dollars arranged by a group of American industrialists, I would recall to the noble Lord the answer—the substance of which I think he knows—made by my right honourable friend Mr. Dalton in the House of Commons on the 16th of this month. He then said he had seen in the Press reports of discussions between Soviet representatives and United States manufacturers regarding post-war trade, but that he understood the United States Government had taken no part in them. He went on to say that a number of manufacturers in this country had also been in touch with Soviet representatives, as I have already informed your Lordships. I think throughout the speech of the noble Lord there ran an undercurrent of suspicion
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  of His Majesty's Government and also of the manufacturers, an insinuation that we are being outwitted by the United States and are not fully alive to the importance of this trade with the Soviet Republic in the present and future. I can assure your Lordships that that is not so. The Government are fully alive to the importance of this trade. They know that some manufacturers are getting in touch with their opposite numbers in Russia and they hope that others will follow that example as soon as possible. I hope I have answered to his satisfaction all the points raised by the noble Lord.
  LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am very much obliged to my noble friend for his reply, the greater part of which dealt with the second part of my question as to the Government plans for future trade with Russia. If I may say so, that was satisfactory. With regard to the part of his reply which dealt with the first question, I think I have a grievance and I think your Lordships have a grievance. These reports of American trade credits have been very widely made in the newspapers and there has been much printed about this enormous credit of two and a half billion dollars for American trade with Russia. Apparently a great deal of the goods to be sold are for immediate delivery. That is a very large sum indeed. I quoted to your Lordships a figure showing that about £65,000,000 worth of American goods would be supplied in the next six months. That has nothing to do with Lend-Lease but was apparently in the way of legitimate and ordinary trade. The only answer I get is to refer me to what Mr. Dalton said in another place. What he said was this:
  "I have seen references in the Press to discussions between Soviet representatives and United States manufacturers, but I understand the United States Government have taken no part in them."
  So apparently all the information the noble Lord can give me here is that he, too, has seen references in the Press.
  Is that all he can tell us about it? Either the Government are withholding information, which I can scarcely believe, from your Lordships' House, or else their intelligence service is adrift in some way. I did expect more information about this matter. It is of the greatest importance to our future trade and employment and I think

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  we ought to have had more information. If the Government have not got it, well there it is. Perhaps my noble friend will give me an opportunity at a future date of asking him for further information. May I make one passing reference to what fell from the noble Lord, Lord Rennell. He reminded your Lordships of the roaring trade done in the City of London between the two wars by people who had sense enough to know that Russian credit was good, and who made money by discounting Russian trade bills.
  LORD RENNELL: I was referring to the Department of Overseas Trade transactions.
  LORD STRABOLGI: I am also referring to other Russian trading operations on credit. There were other discount transactions over oil and money bills for shipments. This, I was glad to hear the noble Lord say, is not going to happen again. It was a disgraceful ramp. May I also say this? Lord Rennell spoke of the Russian Governmental agents buying machinery in Italy and Germany or wherever they wanted to get it. Surely a good deal depends on what we buy from Russia in our turn. I have always been brought up to believe that in the long run trade is exchange and that if we buy the Russian products, such as they can let us have in the future, I imagine it will be easier for us to sell our goods to them. Despite the unsatisfactory nature of a part of the reply, I am grateful to my noble friend for the rest of his statement and beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

  ALLOWANCES FOR OFFICERS' CHILDREN.
  THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY had given Notice that he would ask His Majesty's Government, when the statement promised to this House on March 14 last, upon the subject of the allowances granted for the children of officers who have lost their lives on Service, may be expected; and move for Papers.
  The noble Earl said: My Lords, it will be in the recollection of the House that the subject with which this Motion deals, allowances for the children of officers who have been killed on Service, was discussed by your Lordships for the third time on
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  March 14 last. The Motion was subsequently withdrawn at the request of the Minister of Reconstruction who, in the absence of the Leader of the House, was answering for the Government. He asked that it should be deferred for a short time on the ground that conversations were still in progress on the subject, and the noble Lord went on to say:
  "I think your Lordships will understand that the statement of Government policy on an issue of this nature should be made in both Houses at the same time."
  He continued:
  "I will undertake, on behalf of my noble friend, that this shall be done, so far as your Lordships' House is concerned."
  He concluded his remarks by saying:
  "I trust the House will be good enough to defer any further consideration of the subject until these conversations have ended. The delay for which I am asking is not a long one."
  Surely this remark, if it meant anything at all, meant that there would be opportunities of further discussion in your Lordships' House.
  I am perfectly well aware that a White Paper was issued on the result of these conversations. In fact I have that melancholy document in my hand, and I appreciate that it may be said that the White Paper was issued instead of a verbal statement being made in both Houses, but surely something more than that is due to your Lordships. You were asked to suspend further consideration until you had heard the result of conversations in progress. Then, instead of being given a chance of further discussion on the subject, you are presented with a fait accompli. You will remember that on December 8 last your Lordships adopted this Resolution:
  "That, in the opinion of this House, the rate of allowances for children of officers killed on service is too low, and should be raised."
  So far as I am aware, no official notice of that Resolution has been taken at all inside or outside this House. When I withdrew my Motion on March 14 at the request of the Government, I used these words:
  "I have, all along, fully recognized that if the wives and the children of the officers were to have pension allowances increased, it would follow that the wives and children of other ranks and ratings would have theirs increased, and that was what I hoped would be the result. I felt quite sure that if the officers obtained this the men would do so too, but I was not so sure that if the men obtained it the officers would do so."

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  I was not so sure that if the dependents of the men obtained an increase those of the officers would do so also.
  That doubt has proved to be well founded, for what has happened? The White Paper announces certain increases in the allowances for the wives and children of ranks and ratings in all three Services, and I am perfectly sure your Lordships will be glad to hear of them, small though they are. As regards the widows of the three lowest ranks, Subaltern, Captain and Major and their equivalents in the other Services apart from minute increases if they have children or are over 40, children get nothing because as the White Paper explains the rate of children's allowances is already £36 a year. How many of those who concocted that precious reason for refusing any increase intend to limit their expenditure on their children to 2s. a day, which is the equivalent of £36 a year? Of course if the rise in the pensions of officers was on a generous scale it might be argued that by giving the mother more the child would benefit, but what are the increases? The widow of a Major gets 6½d. a day, of a Captain 9d. and of a Subaltern 1s. 1d. The widow of a Lieutenant-Colonel, a Wing-Commander or a Commander will get no increase. The widow of an officer in any one of these important ranks—for they are important ranks, they are the leaders of the men on land, at sea and in the air—will continue to get a pension of £210 which is liable to tax and an allowance of £36 for each child, no education allowance being obtainable until a child is eight years old. So that a widow with two children will get about £5 a week. But officers of these ranks may be drawing £18 a week until they die, so that on the day of their death the family income falls by 70 per cent.
  If it was impossible to increase allowances for the families of officers living and of those who are dead, surely it would have been better to expend money in giving allowances to children of fallen officers who have little prospect of betterment in the future. This method of increase, levelling up from the bottom, is reminiscent of the Porter award, but in that case there was a strong body of men well organized and able to force the Government to reconsider the position. In this case to which I am referring there are only a relatively few unorganized
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  people scattered up and down the country with no political value, just the sort of people who left to themselves are helpless and who must look to your Lordships' House for support and help. Is it merely a coincidence that the one point on which your Lordships have expressed a decided opinion is the one point upon which nothing has been conceded and is turned down out of hand? I must leave the answer to those more experienced in this matter than myself.
  This alteration in pensions does little to decrease the discrepancy between the widow with children and the childless widow. In the case of the widow of a man, say, of Captain's rank, with two children she will get £165. per annum subject to tax and will get another £72 per annum for the children. Owing to the existence of these children her chances of another marriage are reduced, she cannot go out to work to obtain any employment that will help to eke out her income of £4 odd a week. The widow without children will get £150 to herself. She has no encumbrance and can go out and double that income with little trouble and have reasonable relaxation. Which of the two is the more valuable to the country? I have in my pocket a letter from the widow of a pilot officer who has been left with two young children. It is a typical case. The husband was killed over Dusseldorf two years ago. He was a Territorial officer before the war, served in the Army and then transferred to the Royal Air Force. Before the war he was an engineer making a comfortable income from his profession and finding time to train for the defence of his country at a period when the Territorials were derided and received scant encouragement. His widow now has to face the future on £4 a week because no allowance for education is paid until the child is eight years of age. That man was one of the sort who neither expected reward nor asked for it, but that does not absolve the nation from doing what it can to pay the debt it owes to the fallen, and I suggest that the best way of paying that debt is to be generous to the children.
  I am not asking for help for the children of any one class, as the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, seemed to suggest the other day when he said that men serving in other ranks often came from precisely the same class as officers in the past and were equally anxious to send

  913
  their children to public schools. I am not appealing on behalf of people who want to send their children to public schools but for those who are now officering our Fighting Services, the best of our men of all classes, those who had the spirit to come forward and accept the additional risk, work and, above all, responsibility which are the lot of junior officers under active service conditions. It is these men who, in the great majority of cases have no money but have qualities of ambition, initiative and enterprise which, had their lot been cast in happier times, might well have brought them to the front in every branch of the public service, in politics, industry, trade, science, art and every activity of life. Should not their widows and children be provided for, on a scale that bears some resemblance to the might-have-been? As it is, the long future before the widows shows little light. The position as regards the children of these officers should they be killed remains exactly as it was when you expressed the opinion that the allowances for their children were too low and should be raised. I therefore beg you to record your vole this afternoon so as to show that your opinion remains unshaken and unchanged. I beg to move.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT CRANBORNE) (Lord Cecil): My Lords, I would first of all like to make my most sincere apologies to the noble Earl if he feels that there has been undue delay in bringing up this subject for discussion. I must say that I had imagined that the noble Earl, who has, he says, read the White Paper, would have raised the question again if he felt that there was more which he desired to say. I do not wish to make any criticism of him whatever. Very likely it was the Government who were wrong in this matter. I only desire to offer him my most sincere apologies and to say I am very glad he has raised the matter now.
  The question of allowances for the children of officers killed in the war, which the noble Earl has raised on numerous occasions in your Lordships' House in the past, and to which he has returned to-day in the very moving speech to which we have just listened, is, I confess frankly, one of the most difficult and most painful with which any Government
  914
  may have to deal. I do not suppose there is anyone in any part of this House who does not feel the deepest sympathy for the cause which the noble Earl has pleaded so eloquently. The fathers of these children have died in the service of their country, and there is, clearly, a moral responsibility on us to do what we can to relieve the difficulties of their widows and families. I am quite certain that the House will believe me when I say that I should feel very happy if I was, myself, able to deliver the speech which the noble Earl has made this afternoon. I do not think there is anything we can do for these unhappy people which any of us would regard as too much.
  But I still do not think that the noble Earl appreciates (certainly lie has not entirely exposed it in the speeches he has made) the full complexity and width of this problem. The question of allowances for the children of officers who have been killed is not one which can be dealt with by itself in isolation. The noble Earl has dealt with only one aspect of what is, in effect, a very wide, almost a vast, problem. The problem presented by pensions schemes, military and civil, in this country, after all, is one single problem. It is a problem that arises from the death of the breadwinner and it affects all sections of the population. It is a closely knit problem and it involves vast expenditure of public funds. Each aspect of it is more or less closely related to the other. The noble Earl pointed out with great truth and force that the death of an officer with children brings about a terrible crisis in the finances of his family. That is profoundly true. We car all of us recall from our own experience cruel examples of that fact. But, unhappily, that is a misfortune which is not confined only to the Armed Forces. It does not merely apply to soldiers, sailors and air-men. It is one of those calamities inseparably connected with the very uncertain life we all live. Hardly a day passes—even in time of peace—but we come across a case of the death of a breadwinner. It leads to a complete alteration in the circumstances of his family. It is not to be hoped, I say frankly, that any action of the State will entirely protect individual members of the community from such a catastrophe. This is a hard fact, which, I am afraid, we

  915
  must all recognize, even in the case of those who may be killed in the war. All we can aim at and strive to accomplish is to some extent to ease the blow that falls on these unhappy people.
  The existing provisions for allowances for officers' children form part of the War Pensions Code. As noble Lords have been told before now that Code in its present form is based on the Report of the Select Committee of 1919. This Committee fixed a basic pension of 40s. a week for a totally disabled private soldier, or his equivalent in the other Services, and it was to this basic pension that the disablement scales, and other scales, for officers, N.C.O.'s and men have been linked. I should add that this key figure of 40s. a week for a totally disabled private soldier was related to the cost-of-living figure at the time. That was the structure around which the present Code was built. These figures, I believe, were given by my noble friend Viscount Clifden in an earlier debate, but I feel sure that the House will forgive me for giving them again, for they are the essence of the matter.
  Some years after the war, the cost of living fell, and, by the terms of the original scheme, pensions and allowances in respect of members of the Forces who lost their lives should have fallen with it. But in 1928 the Government decided, for reasons with which I am sure we shall all be in the fullest sympathy, that the rates of pensions should not fall with the cost of living, and that they should not drop below the rate in operation at that date. Since then, the cost of living has risen and pensions have risen with it. To-day, the children's allowance of £36, to which my noble friend has referred, is in fact slightly higher in relation to the cost of living than was the rate in 1919 when it was originally fixed. To alter this rate does not merely mean making a small adjustment, as we should all wish to make, in the allowance to officers' children—that, I think, might have been gathered from the noble Earl's speech. It has repercussions on a very much wider field. The House should be under no illusion as to this. The issue the noble Earl raises is a very big one. I do not complain of his raising it, but it must be examined by the House on the basis I have indicated.
  916
  I would now turn for a moment to the other additional allowances to which my noble friend referred in earlier debates, and in particular to the education allowance. As I understand, from what he said, he is in agreement in principle with that regulation. He described it as an excellent regulation in principle.
  THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I am not quite clear to which regulation the noble Viscount is referring.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: I am referring to the Order in Council which gave the education allowance to the children of officers killed in the war. What I am going to say will, I think, make clear to the noble Lord what I have in mind. He felt, I understood, that the purpose of this regulation was vitiated by the proviso that the allowance should not exceed £50 in any one year. (I think it will now be clear to him which regulation I had in mind.) He has pointed out this afternoon, and in earlier debates, that that sum would not enable children to have a first-rate public school education, the sort of education that their fathers had had—I think that was the way he put it. I am afraid that that is undeniably true. The Order in Council does not and cannot guarantee that the children of these officers will have exactly the same education as their fathers had, and I am afraid that it is idle to suppose that Parliament would in fact guarantee that the children of officers killed in the war should have exactly the same education as their fathers had, an education which in any event must vary from case to case, because their fathers will have had different standards of education.
  What the regulation does do is to go some considerable way to help the widow towards the provision for her child of such education as his father had, or as the child might have had if the father had lived. In some cases—I do not say in nearly all—this allowance will be enough for that purpose; in others I agree with the noble Earl that the gap will be too great, and in those cases it must be bridged by other means, such as the schemes which are already being initiated by many public schools to meet the case of the poor widow of an old boy of the school in question. At any rate, however, the State education allowance will afford material assistance to the widow in

  917
  her difficulties, and I think that it would be wrong for the House altogether to deride it.
  I have tried briefly to put the difficulties of the position frankly before your Lordships. I know just as well as any of your Lordships the hardships which will be created for the widows and children of officers killed in the war; all of us are aware of tragic cases. I would emphasize to your Lordships, however, that what the noble Earl is asking for could not be done without a very great disturbance to the whole basis of pensions in this country. Only last year, the Government reviewed the wt ole system of war pensions, and improvements were announced in a White Paper which represented a settlement which was intended to stand, failing a material change of circumstances. As such, the White Paper was approved by the He use of Commons. I quite agree that there has since been a vote in your Lordships' House; I do not think that I was here at the time, but I read about it. The noble Earl has suggested that no notice was taken of that Motion. I beg him to take it from me that that is not the fact. Indeed, as a result of the Motion I myself took the matter up again before my colleagues in the Cabinet for further consideration, and the Government, as I think the House already knows, decided to include this aspect of war pensions in the recent review of Service allowances. As a result of this review it has been found possible to make some further adjustment of pension rates, on the same basis as had been adopted for that review—namely, that of giving help where it was most needed.
  In accordance with this principle, improved rates have been introduced for the benefit of certain widows with children in the lower grades both of officers and of other ranks, the idea being that the families of officers in the lower grades need the money more than the families of those in the higher. In the case of a Subaltern's widow, the increase, as I think the noble Earl has already said, is £20 a year, from £130 to £150. The additional allowances for officers' children have not been thought, by those who examined the question, to justify an increase above the Great War rates, because they must be considered in conjunction with the widow's pension, and the whole family necessarily shares to some extent in the benefit of the increase under this
  918
  head. It must be remembered that, as has been previously explained, the children's allowances may be suplemented by education grants; and, though the combined maximum of children's allowance and education grants—namely, £86 a year—has been criticized, and although I fully understand the force of the noble Earl's criticism, there is no doubt that it is sufficient to ensure reasonable maintenance and to make provision for a good education, although not of the most expensive kind.
  In total, the widow of an officer of the lowest commissioned rank with two children can receive £322 a year—namely, a pension of £150, children's allowances of £72, and education grants up to £100. Particular account has therefore been taken of the point made by the noble Earl in the last debate, as to the difference in the measure of sacrifice between the widow with children and the childless widow. This has been met among the junior ranks, where it is most necessary, by the increase given to the widow with children. I quite realize that the noble Earl feels that not enough has been given, but an attempt has been made to meet him in that respect. After very full consideration, and with every desire to help in what they recognize to be a real problem, the Government have not felt justified in going further than they have.
  I quite recognize that the noble Earl would have desired larger increases in these allowances. So should we all. I do not think that there will be any difference of opinion about that in any quarter of the House. Your Lordships' House, however, is a responsible body, and it is not enough to make a gesture of sympathy and to show in that way the real sympathy which we all feel. We have to look not only at what is desirable but at what is practically possible. That is the crux of the whole matter, and that is the reason why I believe that your Lordships, if you think the matter over objectively, will come to the conclusion to which the Government have been brought in considering this difficult and, I fully agree, most painful question.
  In conclusion, I would assure the noble Earl of one thing. If this question of a further increase in allowances for the children of other ranks is raised again, I will personally see that the allowances for the children of officers killed in the war also

  919
  come under consideration in that review. I cannot say anything further to-day. The noble Earl says that he will press this matter to a Division. I hope that he will not do so. I do not think that he will gain any advantage by it. He has made his position absolutely clear. He has established the deep sympathy which I am sure we all feel, on the Government Bench just as much as anywhere else. If he takes that action, it is only going to produce more difficulties than it cures. I can assure him, as I have said, that if this matter should come up for review I will see that the aspect which he has brought forward—and f have a great deal of sympathy with him—is taken into full examination.
  LORD RUSHCLIFFE: My Lords, I do not want to detain your Lordships for more than a moment. With a great deal that my noble friend Lord Cranborne said everybody must agree. He referred, however, to the Committee of 1919. I was a member of that Committee, and I remember very well the conclusions at which we arrived, and which we thought at that time were fair, equitable and just. When Lord Cranborne and the Government come to consider this question, as he says they will, I would ask him to bear in mind however that that was twenty-five years ago, and that the whole conception of the obligation of the State to the unfortunate and the needy has entirely altered during the interval. Think of what has happened since then—family allowances, unemployment allowances, increases in every direction. What the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, says is that insufficient consideration has been given to the children of officers and others who are affected by the death of their father. I beg my noble friend Lord Cranborne not to rest himself upon conclusions reached in 1919, because I am certain, having been a member of that Committee, that if that Committee sat again and had to bear in mind the situation as it is now, their conclusion on this matter might be very different from those contained in this Report.
  LORD CHATFIELD: My Lords, as one who spoke and supported the noble Earl on the first occasion on which he raised this question, I should like to say that, while greatly appreciating the kindly and sympathetic tone of the answer which the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House,
  920
  has given, and which one would have expected from him, I do not think that his answer is one which can be accepted as satisfactory. He has, of course, gracefully apologized for any feeling of ill-treatment that the House might have for having been ignored in consultations over the increases that have been made in other respects, which have not included those for which we particularly stand at this moment. I gather from what the noble Viscount said that we cannot afford it, that what we have been asking for—an increase of pensions and allowances for these widows and orphans—is more than the country can afford, and he used the argument that the sword of fate hangs over all our heads, that it is not only soldiers and sailors and airmen who die and leave widows and children partly unprovided for, but it applies to everybody in these islands.
  That, of course, is quite true, but there is this factor which comes in, which I indicated at some length when I spoke on the matter last December. The civilian is a man who expects to be more highly paid for his work on shore than does the fighting man in the Services, because the fighting man in the Services is a servant of the State, and he knows that he will not be thrown out of employment unless he misconducts himself, and when his time of service comes to an end he will be paid a pension which is guaranteed by his country. Therefore he accepts a much lower rate of pay for the responsibility that he holds than does his brother who is employed on shore. Nobody would accept on shore the responsibility of a Captain of a ship for the salary that is paid to the Captain of a ship. The salaries that are paid to men in the Services are altogether out of proportion to those paid for equally great and responsible positions on shore. But the man on shore, getting a greater rate of pay, is able to save. He does not necessarily get a pension, but he is able to save money, and therefore if he dies there is something in the family bag. The serving man has not got that, and if he dies the bag is empty, because he is only just living and keeping his family and his children educated within his means. So it is not an accurate analogy that the Leader of the House drew.
  If you accept this principle which the noble Viscount puts forward, that if an

  921
  officer is killed in action there should be a special award to the family for the sacrifice that he has made which will satisfy the nation that his family have not been left in want, you are not doing something which affects the whole country in its national life. I cannot believe that the amount that would be added to the national bill if a generous increase to the allowances were made, in the circumstances for which they are now asked, would be an amount that the State would not be able to afford. I believe the State could well afford it. As the noble Lord, Lord Rushcliffe, has just said, our full standard of what is done now in the way of increasing monetary provision, in many ways under pressure, providing that Parliamentary pressure has been sufficient, has changed. Pressure is always given, and therefore we shall only get this improvement of the lot of the fighting man's widow and children if we provide pressure and continue to apply pressure. Your Lordships applied pressure on the last occasion when this Motion was brought forward. The answer, though not so sympathetic, was in effect the same as has been given to-day. I hope your Lordships will support the noble Earl in the pressure that he applies, and show the Government, as you showed them a few months ago, that you are of the same mind as you were then.
  VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER: My Lords, I hope I may be forgiven for putting in the shortest way before your Lordships a point which I do not think has hitherto been mentioned. We have now a Commission sitting to examine the causes of the decline of our birth-rate. We want, I believe, to maintain the population of this country. Surely if we want that we must want to maintain it from those who, many of us feel, are among the finest of our race. How can we expect these men to take on this responsibility of parentage when they know perfectly well that their children cannot receive the education which their fathers had?
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My Lords, I do not want to enter into a debate on this question, because I think it is a very unsuitable subject for the cut-and-thrust of debate. We all feel the utmost sympathy with the widows of officers, and therefore in answering the noble Lord, Lord Chatfield, I do not want him or your Lordships to think that I am going
  922
  to enter into the kind of ordinary discussion that we might have on a less painful subject. But you cannot think that all civilians are colossally rich people.
  VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: No, but many of them are.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Some of them, but by no means many. What would be the position of a clergyman, for example? Very few clergymen are as well paid as Captains. I will give another case—what is the position of a country doctor? I do not think this is a matter on which you can debate and prove the other side wrong. My analogy was not so false as the noble Lord, Lord Chatfield, suggested to your Lordships. The other thing I wanted to say was this. Lord Chatfield said that supposing it was merely a question of giving a little bit more, or even a considerable amount more, on all these pensions for widows and orphans, that would not break the State. That is quite true; I do not want in the least to dispute that. But I do warn your Lordships that if what the noble Earl, Lord Cork, has put forward were accepted by your Lordships and accepted by the House of Commons—though I am quite certain it would not be accepted by the House of Commons—there would be immediate repercussions with regard to other pensions. It is no good your Lordships ignoring that. It is no good your rushing into the Lobby and saying, "Well, I think that on principle this is the right thing, and we ignore the repercussions." Your Lordships may ignore those repercussions; the Government cannot ignore them, and I feel bound to utter this warning to your Lordships if you are going to press this to a Division.
  VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My Lords, the noble Viscount says he rather objects to a cut-and-thrust debate on a matter of this kind. Well, I think there is a great deal to be said for that, but the cut which he has just delivered at the head of my noble friend Lord Chatfield is really very badly aimed in my opinion, and I hope I am justified in saying in a very few sentences why it has entirely missed its mark. The proposition that what we are discussing to-day is absolutely the same sort of proposition as that of a Motion for the increase of pensions or for the granting of pensions or allowances to

  923
  children of civilians, is without foundation and in my belief is wholly false.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: That was not the argument.
  VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: It was very like it, but if the noble Viscount will listen it may be he will not fail to admit—he must admit—that the things are wholly different. Civilians do not die as a rule in youth. They do not die because the Government have sent them into battle. Civilians in their service, whatever it may be, are open to the ordinary things that happen to mankind which end their lives—ordinary civilian diseases and ailments, and in many cases old age. But the case of the young men for whom my noble and gallant friend Lord Cork is arguing is totally different. These are nearly all young men. The vast majority of them go into battle without anything but a paltry amount of money which they have been able to earn or which they have been given by their fathers. Most of them have nothing to leave to their children except what the Government choose to give them, and nearly all die in youth. The lads who are flying over to the Continent now probably die at the average of twenty-two or something like that. That is not the average age at which a civilian happens to die, leaving children.
  I cannot understand the argument which the noble Viscount has put forward when he said that we must consider this problem on precisely the same footing as we consider the problem of the dependants of civilians. It seems to me different. The Government have made these men expose their lives for their country and they have, as I have already pointed out, nearly all died in youth. That is not the case with the country doctor of whom the noble Viscount has spoken or the other civilian people we know. When a barrister comes to the Bar he knows he may die, and he may die in youth, but that is not the ordinary thing that happens. These people are exposing themselves to risks which are not those of civilians at all. I would add this. Civilians, if they are in receipt at an early age of some income, and if they are wise, insure their lives; but these poor fellows have not got a chance of insuring their lives. What sort of premium would be charged by an ordinary
  924
  life assurance company to any young man who was going to fly across France twice or thrice a week? Of course they cannot afford to insure his life. The result is, in my judgment, that the case which my noble and gallant friend Lord Cork has put before your Lordships is not on the same footing as that of ordinary civilians. It stands by itself, and up to the present I have heard absolutely no argument to say that this problem cannot be treated as one in a compartment by itself and which does not in the least affect the position of the ordinary civilian population of this country.
  Having regard to what my noble friend Lord Cork has said with regard to the enormous change in the sums allocated to people since 1919, and to the point which has been made by my noble and gallant friend Lord Chatfield, and I hope to some extent by what I have said, I earnestly entreat the Leader of the House to consider whether something cannot be done for these people. I am absolutely convinced that, if nothing can be done, it will reflect great discredit on the Government.
  VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, I am bound to say that the speech made by the Leader of the House did not seem to me convincing. If it were the case that the adoption of this Motion would have a vast financial effect, and would have to be made effective also over the whole range of civilian pensions, that would be a strong argument. If the two were really on a par, and if that were not done, there would be a great feeling of injustice among all civilian pensioners. But the reasons given by the noble Viscount who has just spoken are conclusive that that does not follow. It is not the case that if this were done for the children of officers who have fallen in battle it would also have to be done for the children of Post Office servants or servants in Government offices. In the case of the civilian I was about to make this point, but the noble Viscount, Lord Maugham, has anticipated me. A person in civilian life who has not any considerable sum of capital, but who has young children, is in the normal course expected to insure his life. If his children are left in poverty while he has spent the whole of his income on his personal needs and the immediate needs of his family, he is regarded as being blameworthy for not

  925
  having made provision if he were able to afford to do so.
  The life of an officer who goes to war is uninsurable. No insurance company could possibly accept the risk; and he is not able to make provision in that way against his falling in war. Consequently his case is entirely different, and I am bound to say, having listened with great attention to this debate, that the case of the noble Earl, Lord Cork, has been made out and that the case of the Government has not been adequate. This House would wish to be assured that if an officer or a soldier in any of the three Services is called upon to go into battle, and if he is a married man with two or three children, at that moment he may at all events feel that, if he falls, his country will look after his wife and chilren adequately. I trust, therefore, in view of the feeling of the House, that the noble Viscount will take this matter back to the Cabinet and make further representations, particularly on the line that it does not necessarily involve a general review of all pensions, both for the Civil Services and the military Services. I feel sure that if he can return to the House in a few weeks or a few days and say that the case made by the noble and gallant Earl, Lord Cork, with so much persistence and force has been established, the announcement will be received with gratitude and approval by the vast majority of your Lordships.
  LORD NATHAN: My Lords, I wish to add one sentence, on behalf of my noble friends, to what has been already said in support of the Motion placed before your Lordships by the noble and gallant Earl. The only sentence I would add is this. Subscribing to the arguments put forward by then, and in particular to the arguments put forward just now by the noble Viscount, Lord Maugham, and the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, I would say that when State calls upon young men to perform at its behest, for its purposes, under compulsion, exceptional services, then the State must expect to make itself responsible for exceptional safeguards and rewards.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My Lords, perhaps it will be useful if I said one word. I should like first of all to put my noble friend Lord Samuel right on one point. He seemed to be under the impression from what I said—perhaps I
  926
  gave a wrong impression—that if your Lordships insist on these increases there would be immediately a rise in all our pension rates throughout the country. I did not intend to say that it would be inevitable, but what I did say was that it was extremely probable—and I think your Lordships will recognize that to be so—if you increase pensions in respect of everybody who has been killed in the war. It is not merely the officers. If you make a special exception, then you get an appeal on behalf of the other ranks of the Army, Navy and Air Force. The noble Earl recognizes that and would like that to come about. That will also, in turn, give rise to an agitation by the other parts of the population, and you will then be confronted with a very considerable problem which will have to be faced. I do not say that that is convincing against the noble Earl's case, but I think it is a fact that should be recognized.
  At the end of his speech the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, made an appeal to me in which he said he hoped I would take the matter back to the Cabinet. I am quite ready to take the matter back to the Cabinet in view of the very strong feelings which have been expressed here to-day, but I do not want the House to be under any illusion in this matter. I have always tried to be frank with the House. I have taken this to the Cabinet before and the whole matter was very carefully considered. It was not thought possible to go further than the proposals I announced to-day and I have no reason to suppose my colleagues will alter their view. I will, however, take it back and I will put to my colleagues the strong views which have been expressed in this House so that at any rate your Lordships will be able to feel that the case which has been argued so powerfully and movingly here to-day has had the fullest consideration from the Cabinet.
  VISCOUNT BENNETT: My Lords, unfortunately I have had some experience in matters of this kind and while I very warmly support everything said by the noble Earl, Lord Cork, and I believe every member of your Lordships' House would like to see the allowances increased, I do suggest that there is a practical side of the matter which we should consider. This House has no jurisdiction to introduce legislation increasing pensions. That

  927
  rests with the Government of the day. No private member can do it as is the case in the Congress of the United States. It must originate with the Government, and I do say to your Lordships that I can conceive of nothing that is worse for the case than that there should be a political agitation with respect to a matter of this kind. I lived through one and I know exactly what it means.
  Your Lordships have power to do no more than record a vote merely indicating that the sympathies of this House are in favour of increased pensions, but that is not going to accomplish what is desired, because it must be from the Government that the legislation arises. The Government must consider it and take the responsibility. It was a great political philosopher who said that under democracy every one of these questions is settled at the ballot box. I am one who has had an unfortunate experience with respect to it, for I saw an agitation carried on asking for increased pensions and saw it come to the ballot box. I saw the results and I did not see any great increase in pensions in the end. The fact is that the Government, in arriving at conclusions, have to consider factors that are very often unknown to the average member of either House of Parliament. Before a decision is come to many considerations have to be taken into account and the ramifications of any action taken have to be measured. Regard must also be had to the implications of any decision upon these matters. All these things are in the minds of Governments who have to have regard to revenue and expenditure.
  I doubt not that every member of the Government, without exception, would like to increase the pensions payable to all the widows and children whose husbands and fathers have been killed in the war. I do not think there is a member of the Government who would not like to do that, but the Government have a responsibility which the individual has not. I must say I was greatly impressed by the very luminous exposition which the Leader of the House gave of the situation. If ever there was a Leader of this House who was anxious to say he was in entire sympathy with a speech by the mover of a Motion, it was the Leader of this House this afternoon in regard to the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Cork. I think he feels this matter as strongly as the noble
  928
  Earl, Lord Cork, feels it. The Government, however, feel that they cannot take the necessary action and I do press your Lordships not to drive this matter into the constituencies and the ballot box. That is what has happened in other countries with very dire results.
  The people here have shown a very fine disregard of personal interests in dealing with many problems and I have this suggestion to make. It is one to which I have given some consideration on more than one occasion, and it might be carried out in this country readily. My suggestion is that something might be done to ease the burden of taxation. Why should we not say that a pension up to say £300 a year should bear no tax or only a nominal tax? That would ease the burden and make available to the pensioners a larger sum of money and get over the difficulty to which the noble Earl, Lord Cork, referred in the phrase "subject to tax." Might not the question be considered from that angle by the Government to see if something could not be done to make a certain portion of the pension, or the whole of it in some cases, free from tax? I believe such a proposal would receive the approval of the great masses of the people of the country. The sorrow that comes into homes by reason of the loss of men of twenty-two and twenty-three years of age is so very great that it seems to me we might ease the burden by providing that tax should be remitted, or no tax imposed up to a certain rate of pension. Thereby we should make what is now inadequate wholly adequate without taking any further steps that would involve the repercussions to which the Leader of the House referred.
  I think he has some doubt about the word "inevitable" but my experience in politics has taught me that it would be inevitable (and not probable merely) that the repercussions to which reference has been made would follow. I believe that, having regard to the ultimate appeal to the ballot box, we should be well advised to allow the Government to reconsider the matter and see if anything might arise from an adjustment in the taxation basis. That would ensure to the officers a more adequate sum which they so rightly deserve and which every member of your Lordships' House, including members on the Government Bench, are fully convinced they do deserve, but which the

  929
  Government have been unable to give hitherto owing to the ramifications involved it granting the request.
  LORD MOTTISTONE: My Lords, I must congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Cork, or having so completely won his victory. He and I have hunted in couples so often that I must be allowed to congratulate him. In putting the matter to the Government, may I suggest that the Leader of the House should say: "I do this, not only because it was apparent that the overwhelming majority of members of the House of Lords thought that Lord Cork and other speakers had made a good case, but also because a new fact was brought out which does not seem to have been appreciated before." This fact is that people other than those in the Services can insure against risks but those in the Services cannot do so. This completely differentiates their case from that of other people. Therefore, this new fact being emphasized, I should venture to hope the Government would agree.
  I am assuming in what I am saying that my noble friend Lord Cork does not propose to ask us to go to a Division now, because if he did so I should not in the least know what I was voting about. He shakes his fist and says "Take this to the Cabinet." The Leader of the House replies "Yes." Well, that being the situation, there is nothing for us to vote about. What I should like to say is that when it does come back, and if the Leader of the House says—I hope he will not, and I do not think he will—that the Cabinet have not changed their mind, then I will not only vote with my noble friend but I believe every friend I have got will come to the House on purpose to establish a principle which seems to me to have been so admirably phrased and appropriately put to this House, that persons who take these non-insurable risks and die for their country ought to know that their families will be properly compensated.
  THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I have to thank the Leader of the House very much for the terms in which he replied to my statement. I can assure him I do not want his personal apologies because I am quite sure he never does anything he need apologize for. I think rather too much Las been made of what I ask. I cannot believe
  930
  that what I have asked for could cause repercussions elsewhere. As I pointed out, an improvement in the allowances and pensions has been granted to other ranks and ratings but they have stopped short of the officers. When the matter was considered, if it had been stated by the Cabinet, "We will raise all these allowances and pensions by 20 per cent." then the relation of one pension to another would have been exactly the same. I am perfectly sure that in the Services they fully understand that an officer who bears a great responsibility does get a larger pension than others who have not quite so much responsibility to bear, and it has been pointed out by the noble Viscount, Lord Maugham, that there is all the difference in the world between dying in your own bed or going to put out a fire that is endangering your own house or town and being ordered to go to Italy or elsewhere and having no option as to whether you go there or not.
  I ask that these allowances should be improved. It is the most economical way in which we can give more money. You will only have to give the money to children between eight and eighteen years of age and in nineteen years after the end of the war the whole thing will be finished. What can you do better for a boy or girl than provide a good education? I want to defend myself against the suggestion that I am appealing to send boys to public schools. I did not go to a public school myself and I have no particular interest in public schools. As I have tried to point out, the cut is vertical not horizontal. I am far keener about the man who has worked his way up—particularly if he is a Regular—and has got a Commission. He should not have to put his children back to where he started. He has raised up his family; let the country keep them there. If your Lordships really believe in the hereditary principle then you will agree that the children of those who have become officers are worth cultivating. I have been urged not to divide the House which I propose to do unless the noble Viscount says he will take the matter to the Cabinet and let us know their answer.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: I have already said that I will take the matter to the Cabinet, and I suggest the best thing would be to adjourn this debate. I will take the matter to the Cabinet and see what is the view of my colleagues.

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  Then I will tell the noble Earl so that he can put down the question again.
  THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: Then the debate is adjourned. I do not withdraw my Motion.
  Debate adjourned sine die.
  House adjourned during pleasure.
  House resumed.

  ROYAL COMMISSION.
  The following Bills received the Royal Assent:

  Consolidated Fund (No. 3),

  Pensions (Increase),

  Police and Firemen (War Service),

  Edinburgh Merchant Company Endowments (Amendment) Order Confirmation,

  Connah's Quay Gas.

  House adjourned during pleasure.
  House resumed.

  MIGRATION WITHIN THE EMPIRE.
  LORD BARNBY LORD BARNBY had the following Notice on the Paper: To ask His Majesty's Government whether they are yet able to indicate any plans with regard to migration within the Empire:

  (a) For conference at official level on means for capitalizing in the United Kingdom and transfer to destination of intending migrant accumulated contributions to social welfare schemes.

  (b) For supplementary additions, as migration grants, to war gratuities for men who have in this war served in the Forces.

  (c) For reception and training centres in the United Kingdom for juveniles likely to become candidates for migration.

  The noble Lord said: My Lords, it is to be assumed, indeed it would seem to be obvious, that the whole question of Empire migration, in its varied aspects, will have recently been the subject of discussion at the Premiers' Conference. It was because of the expected inability of the Government to make any announcement when this question was first put
  932
  down, that it seemed reasonable that it should be postponed. It is a curious coincidence, and one not intended by me, that the day on which it is restored to the Order Paper happens to be Empire Day, and the fact that it comes to be discussed in Parliament on Empire Day gives it an importance which I had not foreseen. It is natural that it should be the subject of interest in a wider sphere than would otherwise have been the case, and it will doubtless be referred to in the Press throughout the Dominions.
  I want to make it clear that when I put this question down I was prompted so to frame it that it would deal with matters of migration of concern to His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom only, as far as their initiation is concerned. I am grateful for past answers by the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, who has been in this House, as elsewhere, so very sympathetic towards this matter and so anxious that it should be kept prominently under consideration, and I felt that it was appropriate to frame my question in the way to which I have referred. I will repeat, however, that it has been endowed with a wider significance through the coincidence of its coming forward in this House on Empire Day. I therefore ask the indulgence of the House to refer to one or two aspects of the question of migration which it had not been my intention earlier to raise.
  Empire migration can properly be based on considerations of defence in the Dominions, and particularly in Australia and New Zealand. So far as our own situation is concerned, it is impossible, however, to dissociate this matter from general postwar plans. While I pay a tribute to the gracious way in which the noble Viscount has referred to this matter before, emphasis has always previously been laid on the fact that the prime movement must come from the Dominions, and in that way effective action by us is hampered. That is why I have worded my inquiry in the way that I have. I am sure that there must have been preparation for the Conference of Empire Prime Ministers which would permit of full consideration of all aspects of this subject. I can hardly expect, nor would it be reasonable on the part of this House to expect, a comprehensive statement at this moment, covering all points affecting migration; the best for which we can hope is some indication from the noble Viscount that at some

  933
  future date, when the matters arising out of the Conference have been considered, he will welcome a general discussion in this House.
  It is because the interest in the country in matters affecting migration in all its aspects is so deep that I am pressing for some statement at this stage—not, I hope the noble Viscount will think, with undue haste. With regard to Australia and New Zealand, I hope the noble Viscount may be able to give us an assurance that the position there is now somewhat different. The official attitude of those two Dominions towards immigration was based on a fallacy; it was thought that immigration meant less jobs, but now it is realized that more consumers mean more employment. If he can give us some assurance on that point that would be an encouragement to many in this country who have been unhappy to think that the development of migration in British Dominions should be delayed by views based upon a fundamental fallacy.
  I revert to the point that I cannot hope for a general statement now, but I do not want to embarrass the Government. I would only repeat my hope that in the answer that the noble Viscount will give, whatever it may be, he will see fit to give some indication of a date when he would welcome a general discussion on the matter of migration, in the course of which information can be given to the House about the result of the present discussions. I think it is a fortunate coincidence that this question should be raised on Empire Day. I see here the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, who exercises much influence and has made repeated appeals on this question, and I hope he may see his way to say something on this matter.
  VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: My Lords, it would appear to be peculiarly appropriate that this question of Empire migration should be railed in your Lordships' House on Empire Day. But there is an atmosphere of unreality about this debate, seeing that the Benches opposite are empty, and bearing in mind that if there is one feature in connexion with cur outlook on the British Commonwealth and Empire which is more impressive than any other it is that members of all political Parties are to-day united not merely in demonstrating their respect, and indeed their affection, for the fellow subjects of His Majesty in oversea British countries,
  934
  but also in demonstrating a real and vital interest in the promotion of the industrial and social welfare of their kinsmen overseas. It is quite obvious that under present conditions—with, by the way, many other engagements for those who want to celebrate Empire Day in other parts of the Metropolis—a full-dress debate cannot be regarded as taking place to-day.
  No one can be more keenly enthusiastic about reasonable and continuous migration of suitable people to our over-sea Dominions than I am. We have to recognize that this is primarily a matter, so far as the Dominions are concerned, for themselves to decide as self-governing communities, and it has already been made clear, at least from the Antipodes, that in the case both of Australia and New Zealand—and both those countries, incidentally, badly need a very considerable augmentation of their present population—they are anxious first to provide employment for their own nationals who are to-day fighting for freedom in various parts of the world, before even they look to the Mother Country to make up their population deficiencies. That, I am sure, we should regard as nothing but reasonable. In that connexion I should like to emphasize the point that Lord Barnby put, that population is vital to both these Dominions, and to some extent to the other Dominions, if they are going in the future adequately to provide a sense of security against aggression. They must make up their population. They are already indicating that they will be prepared to look to other countries friendly to ourselves, and likely to be loyal and patriotic to the British Commonwealth, for a large number of the new recruits who will be needed to make good their present population deficiency. We should all deprecate the future defence of any part of the British Empire depending preponderantly upon people of other than the British race. At any rate I should deprecate it very much indeed. Certainly let the Dominions welcome wholeheartedly to their shores Scandinavians, Dutchmen and others who make excellent settlers, and who are very friendly disposed to ourselves. But do not let us leave it preponderantly to them—as may happen if we are not careful about our migration policy—to be responsible for the defence of any important part of the British Empire.

  935
  I only want to add a word in regard to the three specific questions which my noble friend has put down on the Paper. The first relates to a matter which I found to be one of vital interest in New Zealand during the period when I was Governor-General there, and that is the question to what extent those who have paid contributions, or who have had contributions credited to them, in respect of social welfare in this country—to what extent they can have credited to them in the country of their adoption those payments, capital payments in a sense, to which contribution has been made on their behalf in the Mother Country. This is a matter that vitally affects the incentive to our own people to go overseas for their livelihood. I suggest to His Majesty's Government that whatever may stand to the credit of these people on leaving this country should be credited to them under any social security plan in operation in the countries of their adoption. This applies very particularly to the Dominion of New Zealand, which has, whether we agree altogether with its progressive policy or not, pointed the way for the whole English-speaking world in the matter of an extensive scheme of social security.
  The second question refers to migration grants. I am not quite sure what my noble friend means by migration grants. What has long been a difficulty has been the payment of passage money, ever since, some years ago now, passage assistance money ceased to be given by the country receiving migrants. This applies particularly to New Zealand. These assistance grants are not available to-day, and I can imagine no greater benefit for intending migrants than the provision of the cost of their passage to the country of their adoption.
  With regard to the third question, there is one thing I look upon as even more important than reception and training centres in the United Kingdom, and that is reception and welfare organization in the countries overseas to which the migrants go. Quite a considerable number of our people find themselves in a strange though friendly country, with no one to look to for guidance as to the customs of the country, or the best way of settling on the land, or obtaining remunerative employment in some other way. There is a good deal to be done, and it can best be done by those who have
  936
  gone out from this Old Country themselves and made a good livelihood overseas. Something could be done to organize a better system of welfare and assistance to migrants on their arrival in overseas countries. As to training, there is one sphere of training I should particularly like to emphasize, and that is manual training. I do not care to what class the man or woman belongs, if he or she seeks a livelihood overseas for goodness' sake let them be trained to use their hands as well as their minds. During the prolonged period of economic depression that existed in New Zealand and Australia from about 1932 to 1935 nothing was more pathetic than to see a considerable number of men who had received a university education in this country, some of them wearing patent leather button boots, trying unsuccessfully to wield a spade or pick on relief work owing to their inability to make a living at their ordinary vocation.
  Another thing I would say is this. Comment has been made, certainly in the countries at the Antipodes, regarding people going out from this country, occupying fairly comfortable social positions here, who have expected, for some reason or other, other people to do what they call their menial tasks for them. I hope that no one will go to New Zealand at any rate who cannot clean his own boots. After all, many of us are learning to do that to-day during the present scarcity of labour, and it is a very wholesome and salutary occupation. I heard only the other day that an eminent Field-Marshal, whose name I shall not mention, every day not only cleans his own boots but the boots of everyone under his roof. It is a very good thing to be able to do that. I only instance that as the sort of task to which anyone who seeks his livelihood overseas should be prepared to put his hand, and will feel none the worse for doing it. I most earnestly wish that members of the Labour Party were here to show their sympathy with Empire migration. I know that they have sympathy, and I should like to feel that the subject is of interest not to one section only but to all sections of this House at the present crisis in the history of the British Commonwealth.
  LORD HAMPTON: My Lords, I do not propose to detain your Lordships for more than a very brief while. I only

  937
  wish to speak to the general idea of Lord Barnby's Motion asking whether the Government are yet able to indicate any plans with regard to migration within the Empire. I sincerely hope if it cannot be done to-day we shall have a fairly general indication of what plans are in being, or are likely to be made, in the near future because it seems to me the time is getting on. The time when a large number of our fellow subjects will want to settle their plans for the future, and possibly to emigrate, will be immediately after demobilization. I quite agree with my noble friend Lord Bledisloe that, of course, the Dominions must have a choice of time. They must have time to settle their own returning soldiers and sailors, but I hope that the Dominions will take into consideration the fact that our own people will be in the very best state immediately after demobilization, when they have not yet settled down and are making up their minds as to what their future lives are going to he. That is the time to get them to think of the possibilities of emigration to the Dominions. For that reason I hope there will not be too much of a time-lag between the Dominions making up their minds and settling their own people, and migration from this country on a good and sound plan.
  I just want to mention one other point. One has seen in the papers with regard to Australia the enormous increase in facilities for travel necessitated by putting a large portion of that country into a state of defence. One cannot help thinking that this great increase in the building of roads and aerodromes, and no doubt the digging of wells, the provision of much larger water supplies, and the expansion of the railway system, will aid enormously in the development of the country if only immigrants can be found suitable to help in such development. No doubt this point has occurred to His Majesty's Government and to the Dominion Government. There was great isolation in these vast spaces in Australia which I saw for myself just before the war, and in view of these developments this isolation will not be so great. Probably the same can be said of parts of Canada as yell. That isolation will not in future be so great, and it may prove a far more attractive proposition to men going from this country and seeking new
  938
  lives for themselves and their families overseas if that is so.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, in the speech with which he introduced his Motion, said he hoped he had not shown undue haste in raising this question after the meeting of the Dominion Prime Ministers. I can assure him he has certainly not shown too much haste. Indeed, my view is his view, that this is a subject which cannot be discussed too fully in your Lordships' House. My only regret is that there is not a larger House to hear this discussion and perhaps take part in it. The noble Lord is one of those who believes in striking when the iron is hot, and naturally he has taken the earliest opportunity, after the meeting of Prime Ministers, which fortunately coincides with Empire Day, to raise this question of inter-Imperial migration which, as your Lordships already know, is extremely near to his heart.
  He has asked me—I cannot remember now whether publicly or privately, but I remember he did ask me, whether this subject was likely to be raised at the Prime Ministers' meetings. I told him at that time that I was pretty certain that it would be raised, and, in fact, it was; and it led to very full and encouraging discussion. The object of these discussions, so far as His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom are concerned, was not so much to enable us to expose our own views, because after all, as your Lordships know, our policy on migration has been fully and frankly stated many times both in your Lordships' House and elsewhere. We have made it abundantly clear that, notwithstanding the fact that our own population in these islands is tending, perhaps, rather to decrease than to increase, yet, on broad Imperial grounds, we do feel that we, should encourage and assist, as far as is practicable, inter-Imperial migration if that is desired by the Dominion Governments themselves; and, of course, on the assumption—the very necessary assumption—that those Governments of the other Empire countries are prepared to make their own contribution to schemes of assisted migration.
  What was important at the recent meetings—at least, so I thought myself—to us from whom the main proportion of the migrants have to be drawn, was to know

  939
  what were the views of the other Empire countries themselves. That was what we were anxious to find out; and in this respect, in my view, the talks which have just concluded were extremely valuable. It is idle to say—and I do not think anyone would pretend to say—it is not a problem which presents very real difficulties to the Dominions. After all, at the end of this war, they will be faced with the problem of demobilization of their own troops, in very large numbers in comparison with their total population. We know by our own experience at the end of the last war how difficult a problem that is. In addition, it is, of course, impossible for any Dominion Government to know at the present juncture exactly what will be the economic position of their country in the years immediately following the war.
  These are considerations which must naturally and very properly have been in the minds of the Governments of all countries of the Dominions as well as other countries. They must compel these Governments to proceed with a certain measure of wise precaution. At the same time, there was abundant evidence that all the Dominions—and I would instance, in particular, Australia and New Zealand, about which Lord Barnby spoke—would like to take British migrants, so far as it was in any way possible. That to my mind was a particularly encouraging feature of the meetings. It was not to be expected in the nature of things that it would be possible on this occasion to reach final decisions. What was essential, as the end of the war draws nearer, is that we should hear their views and that they should hear ours, and that an interchange of information and opinions which took place should facilitate further advance. That was the important thing.
  I quite agree with Lord Hampton, who spoke just now, that this is a matter of urgency as the end of the war comes nearer, for that may well be the vital moment when people will wish to migrate, if they wish to migrate at all. I can say this afternoon that it was definitely agreed at our meetings, that the Dominion Governments should give early consideration to the position directly after the return of their Prime Ministers; after which, I understand, they will communicate with us as to the further steps that should be taken. The noble Lord, Lord Barnby,
  940
  mentioned in his Motion certain individual aspects of the migration problem. He referred to the transfer of social security benefits which might have accrued to an intending migrant from one country to another. He also referred to the question of juvenile migration. I understood him to say that those aspects only affected His Majesty's Government.
  LORD BARNBY: May I make an explanation to the noble Viscount? Lord Bledisloe in his remarks did not seem to be aware of my real intention as it is set forth, necessarily in very limited words, in my question. It has been thought in many circles that the Government might take steps to institute training centres into which orphans—juveniles and others—might be directed with a view to giving them training of a specialized character that would particularly fit them for ultimate migration if that should be desired. That is really entirely a matter for His Majesty's Government.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: It is so to a certain extent, but even His Majesty's Government must have some sort of idea of the prospect that there would be for these orphans to go to the Dominions, when the time came for them to do so. Any migration problem must obviously affect the country from whom the migrant comes, as well as the country to which the migrant goes.
  LORD BARNBY: Or territory under Colonial administration.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Yes, or territory under Colonial administration. At any rate, Lord Barnby will be glad to know that both these aspects, to which, as he knows, a great deal of thought has already been given here, were raised and discussed; and I can assure him that these and other points which appear in his Motion will be fully taken into account in any further joint exploration of the position which we hope and believe will now take place. I will see that his third point is properly stated.
  LORD BARNBY: That includes No. 2 —supplementary additions?
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: That is one of the three that I have not mentioned already. The House will not expect me to say any more to-day. We all of us want to make progress on this question. We all want to see definite schemes for

  941
  mulated, and we all recognize the urgency of the matter. But on this particular question decisions upon general policy are not, as the House knows, for His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom alone. They do affect yet more closely those countries to which migrants go. But the Governments of those countries have promised that there shall be consideration of this subject and that the consideration will be pressed on as rapidly as possible. That, I think, is an extremely satisfactory feature of the talks.
  In conclusion may I say how grateful I am to noble Lords personally for the interest which they continually show in this most important question? I think the debate this afternoon, though it has been a short one, has been a helpful debate, and noble Lords can rest assured that the points which have been raised in the speeches made to-day will be taken into full account. I may add that I will let Lord Barnby know, at a later date, when I think there is anything further to be told him on this particular question.

  HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
  Order of the Day for the consideration of the Second Report from the Select Committee read.
  The Committee reported as follows:
  1.—Resignation of the Counsel to the Lord Chairman of Committees.
  The Chairman of Committees informed the Committee of the resignation of his Counsel, Lord Kilbracken.
  The Committee authorized a pension and additional allowance to Lord Kilbracken under the Superannuation Act, 1935, as from the date of his retirement.
  The Committee expressed their desire to place on record their appreciation of Lord Kilbracken's long and distinguished service to the House as Counsel to the Chairman of Committees.
  The Chairman of Committees informed the Committee that he had appointed Mr. Arthur Capewell to be his Counsel.
  2.—Retirement of the Receiver of Fees and Accountant.
  The Clerk of the Parliaments informed the Committee of the resignation of the Accountant, Miss H. F. M. Court, O.B.E., and the Committee authorized a pension to Miss Court under the Superannuation Act, 1859: the Committee desired the Clerk of the Parliaments to convey to Miss Court an expression of their deep appreciation of her long and valued service to the House.
  The Clerk of the Parliaments informed the Committee that he had appointed Mr. P. Johnson, the Assistant Accountant, to be Receiver of Fees and Accountant on Miss
  942
  Court's retirement and Mr. G. W. Stevenson as Assistant Accountant.
  3.—Civil Service War Bonus.
  The Committee sanctioned the application of Treasury Circular No. 4/44 for payment of War Bonus to the staff of the House of Lords to whom it applies.
  4.—Reckoning of the Civil Service War Bonus for Superannuation Purposes.
  The Committee sanctioned the application of Treasury Circular No. 9/44 under which War Bonus is to be reckoned in Hit assessment of pensions, additional allowances, and death and compassionate gratuities as from 1st February, 1940.
  5.—Gratuity to Legal Personal Representative of Doorkeeper.
  The Committee sanctioned payment of a gratuity under the Superannuation Act, 1909, to the legal personal representative of William Frederick Allies, a doorkeeper in the Department of the Black Rod, who died on 9th March, 1944, after 16 years' service.
  6.—Civil Defence Rates.
  The Committee authorized the application of the new rates of pay for Civil Defence workers to the Firemen on Fire Guard duty in the Palace of Westminster and an increase in the rates of pay to the auxiliary custodians.
  THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD STANMORE): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be considered and agreed to. I do not think there is any special point to which I need call attention, but I should like to mention two resignations—those of Lord Kilbracken, after 21 years' distinguished service as Counsel to the Lord Chairman of Committees, and of Miss Court, the Accountant and Receiver of Fees. The Committee express their appreciation of the services of these two officers.
  Moved, That the Report be now considered and agreed to.—(Lord Stanmore.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  DERWENT VALLEY WATER BILL. [H.L.] LOUGHBOROUGH CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.] ASCOT DISTRICT GAS AND ELETRICITY BILL. [H.L.]
  Report from the Committee of Selection, That the following Lords be proposed to the House to form the Select Committee for the consideration of the said Bills—namely:

  V. Wimborne,

  L. Ellenborough,

  L. Kenilworth (Chairman),

  L. Ammon,

  L. Courtauld-Thomson:

  943
  Agreed to, and the said Lords appointed accordingly. All Petitions referred to the Committee with leave to the Petitioners praying to be heard by counsel against the Bills to be heard as desired, and also counsel for the Bills.