Lords Sitting of 10 October 1945

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the woolsack.
VISCOUNT MARCHWOOD.
Frederick George, Baron Marchwood, K.C.V.O., having been created Viscount Marchwood of Penang and of Marchwood in the County of Southampton —Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

LORD LLEWELLIN.
The Right Honourable John Jestyn Liewellin, C.B.E., M.C., having been created Baron Llewellin of Upton in the County of Dorset —Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
Several Lords —Took the Oath.

SCOTTISH EDUCATION: SIZE OF CLASSES.
2.58 p.m.
THE EARL OF GLASGOW THE EARL OF GLASGOW moved to resolve, That in Scotland the reduction in the size of the classes in the primary and infant divisions of the schools shall have priority over other prospective educational reforms and that a Code Regulation laying down the maximum size of classes in the primary schools be issued under the Education (Scotland) Act.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I am asking your Lordships in this Resolution to consider the most important and the most clamant of educational reforms —the reduction in the size of the larger classes in the primary and infant divisions of our schools. There is nothing new in this: educationists and members of tae public have urged for many years that this handicap on education should be removed. The opinion of Scottish educationists is that this important question has received scant consideration by the Education Department in
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Edinburgh, in spite of their having advice from the Scottish Advisory Educational Council that this is an urgent need. It is probable that the former Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr. Johnston, did not wish to clutter up the Education (Scotland) Act with matters which he considered were extraneous to the chief objective, the raising of the school-leaving age: but I think that, if he had been better informed about the strong opinion which existed in favour of the reduction in the size of classes, he would have taken a different view. No one is more interested in or has been more directly concerned with the educational future and welfare of the children of Scotland than Mr. Tom Johnston, except perhaps his successor, Westwood. I earnestly appeal to Mr. Westwood to have this blot on our educational system removed at the earliest possible moment. I should like to take this opportunity of saying how glad we are in Scotland to know that Mr. Westwood is progressing favourably after his recent serious illness. I am sure that all the members of your Lordships' House will wish that he may soon be restored to his usual health.
I believe that I speak for most people north of the Border when I say that they consider that a reduction in the size of classes should take priority over every other educational reform. The Primary School Teachers' Association has pressed for this, and the Education Committee of the County Councils' Association has passed a resolution that a high priority should be given to it. The County Council of Ayrshire passed a resolution that the first priority should be given to a reduction in the size of classes, which should take precedence over every other educational reform. This resolution was moved by a Moderate member of the Council, and seconded by the leader of the very large Labour minority, who has since become a member in another place.
In moving this Resolution I have no wish to embarrass the Government. I do not for a moment suppose that I could embarrass the Government in any case, but I do not wish to do so. Education should not be a Party question, nor should such a construction be placed on the desirability or otherwise of this much-needed reform. We all want to see the raising of the school-leaving age, and we

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all want to see a reduction in the size of classes; the only difference of opinion which exists is as to which should come first. I am concerned at the fact that, unlike the English Act, there is no mention of the reduction of the size of classes in the Education (Scotland) Act. Under the English Act it is laid down by regulation that the maximum number of pupils in primary school classes should be thirty infants in senior classes, thirty in classes of infants between the ages of three and five, fifteen for classes of infants under the age of three, and forty for other classes. There is a subsequent provision to the effect that a class should not be deemed to exceed the maximum number as long as the Minister is satisfied that every effort has been made to comply with the Act, and that the inability to do so is due to the lack of teachers or of school accommodation due to war conditions, or due to difficulties occasioned by the coming into operation of the Act. Those last few words are subtle, for if they were not there, local education authorities would be legally empowered to give precedence to the reduction in the size of classes. The English authority has made a gesture of sympathy which is entirely lacking in the Scottish Bill, and I ask, in this Resolution, if the Secretary of State will see his way to bring forward a statutory regulation laying down the size of the primary school classes on the same basis as under the English Act, with the exception that in the indemnity clause these last words to which I have just referred should be omitted, thus giving the reduction of classes first priority.
I hear with impatience Scotsmen who talk about slavish imitation of England. Where English laws are sound let us use them; where we think we are right, let us strike out a line of our own. Some of your Lordships may ask yourselves: "Why is this Resolution being brought forward at this late date? Surely our educational policy has been agreed upon with a view to the main objective the raising of the school-leaving age. Plans cannot be altered now." That is what may be in the minds of some of your Lordships. But there is no reason why the plans should not be altered. It is a very small alteration that I am suggesting. All that is required is the issue of a code regulation, and a change in the instructions
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given to the local education authorities. The two questions, the reduction in the size of classes and the raising of the school-leaving age are interlocked. Both reforms require extra teachers and increased school accommodation. When, eventually, teachers are available from the training colleges, I want to see local education authorities empowered to direct them to the black spots —to those schools where exists the handicap of classes of forty-five, sixty-five and, sometimes, as many as seventy pupils. Then when the work is completed, the teachers still coming in could be sent to schools with a view to the raising of the school-leaving age. There should be no difficulty in making this alteration in the plan.
With regard to the increase in school accommodation, that, of course, is also necessary. At present the policy of the Scottish Education Authority is that hut-merits are to be allocated to schools largely from the point of view of the raising of the school-leaving age. The schools with large classes are entirely ignored. Here is a paragraph from a Scottish Education Circular, dated July 9:
"A large proportion of the building resources allocated by the Education Department has been specifically earmarked for the school meal services. The remainder covers all other works for which the Department is responsible —namely, accommodation for the raising of the school-leaving age, technical instruction for ex-Service men, pre-apprenticeship courses, training colleges, youth community centres, etc."
All these things are important, but their value to the youth of the nation, as I shall explain in a moment, will be greatly lessened unless the paramount reform of all is taken in hand first. Therefore, I ask that the first allocation of hutments be made to those schools where the classes need to be reduced. Clamant cases for the erection of school meal accommodation or, perhaps, for community centres could be left to the discretion of the local education authorities. And why should smaller classes in the primary schools be considered a paramount reform? Because without it more than a quarter of the children in Scotland are not in a fit state when they leave school to have a part in all these facilities for advanced education, for the reason that they are insufficiently grounded, not only in those qualities which make a good citizen, but also in reading, writing and simple arithmetic, which are the foundations of all learning.
Educational reform —I am speaking in platitudes perhaps but there is no harm in repeating this —should begin in the infant and primary stages. As long as children are herded together in large numbers without individual attention, the majority of such pupils will remain unattracted to school life, and will loathe the prospect of an additional year. The value of raising the school-leaving age will be largely negatived by the unsoundness of the position in the elementary stages, where the development of the child is being retarded by its neglect in the large classes which are now tolerated. An elaborate superstructure is folly if the main building is insecure. And let me remind your Lordships again that the increase in individual attention to children of the same age group possibly but with essential intelligence and temperamental differences; has been demanded by every section of public opinion and can only be achieved if the size of the classes is reduced. Anyone who goes, as many of your Lordships have done, into one of our large schools to-day must be appalled at the magnitude of the task which faces the one teacher who is endeavouring to harmonize the intellectual, emotional, and æsthetic needs of children whose only definite common feature is that they have marched along in the same age group since the law compelled them to attend school. More than one quarter of the children in the County of Ayr suffer from this handicap of large classes of more than forty pupils, and Ayrshire is essentially very largely an agricultural county with many small schools. The figures for classes of more than forty pupils must be higher for the rest of Scotland and I suggest that even forty is too many.
I could expand my remarks by speaking on the increase of juvenile delinquency in Scotland. I think, as a matter of fact, that it is better than it was, that it is not so bad as it was, but still it is a very serious problem. For instance, I could tell your Lordships how money has continually to be found by the ratepayers of a large city to replace thousands of panes of glass broken in the schools, how young offenders in another town carried out the anti-social act of breaking all the windows in a new housing scheme, and how the lieges are imperilled by the throwing fire bombs. These acts, and many others of a more criminal and immoral nature,
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are perpetrated by lads who have lately left school and it is admitted that large numbers of them have gone through their school lives in large classes where, due to lack of individual attention, they have received no moral training whatsoever.
In a statement issued so late as September 28, Mr. Fraser, the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, said that conditions prevailing in schools at the outset of this long-overdue reform (meaning the raising of the age) may not reach the standards which all educationists would desire, and he went on to say that to wait for these standards to be attained would necessitate the postponement for several years of an important educational advancement. It is my contention that this educational advancement can wait until proper standards have been attained in the primary schools. It is a wrong and cruel policy which turns out into the, world thousands of children who are unable to face life properly owing to their neglect at school, and this state of affairs is to continue not for two or three years, but for a long period of years, for that is the result of the present education policy. I shall he told, of course, that the Government is committed to the raising of the school-leaving age, which was to have been in April next year but has been postponed until April, 1947. This is a new Government. Must it follow exactly every issue of its predecessors? Must it follow exactly in the footsteps of its predecessors? Its members have, in the days of their relative obscurity, shown a deep interest in the real welfare of the children. Now that the sun shines on them, should they not tell the people of Scotland, and of England also, if necessary, that in the interests of the children they refuse to put the cart before the horse and that a reduction in the size of classes must come before the raising of the school-leaving age? They could say that they believe in that too, but there must be a further postponement as they cannot allow this poisonous sore in our education system to go on festering over a period of years.
I realize that it would cost a great deal of money and would require a large number of extra teachers, but since we are going to spend millions of money on educational reform anyway, let us begin spending on a sound basis, and when the work is done and the foundations are

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made secure let us then go forward with the superstructure. I know that a solitary Motion, a Resolution in your Lordships' House, is not likely to change Government policy, but it is possible for a Resolution to be a reflection of public opinion. If the Minister in London is unable to change the precedence (for that is all it is) of the Government education policy for England and Wales, could he not give Scotland a free hand? The Secretary of State for Scotland and his departmental officials are loyal to every ukase issued from London but they are men of shrewd common sense and devoted to the interests of Scotland. I am not in their confidence, but I say this: Give them a free hand and what may not be considered feasible in England for 42,000,000 people they may think possible in Scotland for 5,000,000. If the Scottish Education Department were to instruct the people on this question there would be nothing impolitic —and that is a word which is surely well understood by politicians —in postponing the date of the raising of the school-leaving age in order to allow large classes to be reduced to manageable dimensions.
We in Scotland are bound to carry out the policies which are laid down by the Government in London, but in a matter of this kind, which would not be a long-term departure from general Government policy, I see no reason why the Scottish authorities should not be permitted to take a line of their own and earn the blessings of the whole country. After all, in times past Scottish education was famous. Men from humble homes, from the crofts, from the farms, and from industry who had the luck to attend school and receive individual education and instruction from the dominies, distinguished themselves. They impressed the world by their industry, their perseverance and their integrity. I should like to see all Scottish children again given that personal instruction so that they will have the chance of emulating their forefathers. To have to wait over a long period of years for this badly needed reform is entirely unsatisfactory and not to be endured. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That in Scotland the reduction in the size of the classes in the primary and infant divisions of the schools shall have priority over other prospective
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educational reforms and that a Code Regulation laying down the maximum size of classes in the primary schools be issued under the Education (Scotland) Act —(The Earl of Glasgow.)
3.18 p.m.
THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: My Lords, as I was responsible for the Scottish Education Bill when it came to your Lordships' House, I think perhaps that it is only right I should say a few words on this occasion. First of all I should like to remind my noble friend the Earl of Glasgow, when he talks about a new Government coming in and altering what was agreed by the last Government, that the Education Bill itself was drafted by Mr. Thomas Johnston, who is not a member of this Government but is a supporter of it. He was entirely responsible for the wording of the Bill. I remember that when I introduced it here I paid tribute to him and stated that while I agreed with the Bill, the virtue in the Bill was his. That being the case, it is difficult really to argue that the present Government should go back on what, in the Coalition Government, was produced by a Labour member of that Government.
Like the noble Earl, I regret very much indeed the illness of the present Secretary of State for Scotland. I am very glad to know that he is well on the road to recovery and I hope that he will be with us by Christmas-time. In the meantime in your Lordshins' House, of course, we deal with another of the same name, the noble Lord, Lord Westwood, and I should like to take the earliest opportunity of apologizing to him for having called him an Englishman when I was speaking on the Address in reply to the gracious Speech. I ought to have remembered that he really comes from Dundee, but his close association with Northumberland made me think he was a Northumbrian. The ardent support he gave me in the matter of Prestwick and the Forth Bridge might have made me know that he is a Scot.
To go back to the subject of this Motion, I would like to say that I quite agree with the noble Earl that everyone north of the Border, and I should think everyone in Britain, is only too anxious to see a reduction in the size of classes in the schools. We must, however, try to get down to realities before we do what all would like. You must face facts and

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realize that you cannot reduce the size of clesses in the primary and infant divisions of the schools unless, first, you get enough teachers and, secondly, have enough buildings. As the noble Earl said, it had been intended to raise the school-leaving age in 1946 but for various reasons that has been postponed for another year until 1st April, 1947. If the noble Earl looks -at the Scottish Education Act he will see that the Government is pledged to introduce junior colleges for compulsory part-time education three years after the date of the raising of the school age. That means that it must be not later than 1st April, 1950. Therefore, far from it being an easy thing to reduce the size of these classes you could not possibly do it I think without bringing in another Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Westwood, will probably be able to tell us whether that is so, but as I read the Act it will be impossible under its provisions to postpone the establishment of these junior colleges.
We all want a reduction in the size of the classes and I know that a great many people would like to put that reduction even before the establishment of the junior colleges; but that was the agreement when the Bill passed through your Lordships' House. I am very sorry that the noble Earl was not able to be here on the day the Bill passed. It was an agreed Bill and it had to be hurried through. If it had not been agreed we should have lost the Bill and I think everyone will be with me when I say that we were glad to have this; Bill rather than no Bill at all. One very important point which has to be considered is how we are to get the number of school teachers who will be required The raising of the school age will increase the number of pupils by 50,000. Even now we are short of teachers. I believe we are short of between 6,000 and 7,000 teachers at the present moment. We are going to increase the number of pupils by 50,000, and the noble Earl wants us to reduce the size of classes, but he has not told us how we are going to increase the number of teachers. It will be difficult even to keep down the size of classes to the present number without getting mere teachers. I read the Report of the Advisory Council the other day and I gathered that, instead of the number of pupils in each class being reduced, there will have to be an increase, if only a temporary increase, in the size of classes unless we get additional teachers.
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I do not want to say more now, because I realize that others want to speak, but I thought I ought to put my view as I was responsible for the Bill. I should like, however, to mention one point which has not been touched upon. With regard to England the Government made a gesture by providing that the number of children in the classes should be reduced. That gesture was totally useless because of the addition of words —which were not repeated in the Scottish regulation —saying that if the numbers could not be reduced then they could be kept as they were. That may be all right as a gesture, but we in Scotland are supposed to be hardheaded and to put a thing in one line and nullify it in the next seems the height of futility. I do not know why it was put in the English regulation. For the reasons I have given I think the Government could not possibly do at present what the noble Earl wants, although I have the greatest sympathy with all he says.
3.28 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I should like to associate myself very warmly with what the noble Earl said about the present Secretary of State for Scotland and the hope he expressed for his recovery. This is not in any way an attack on His Majesty's present Government, and I am perfectly confident that what I have to say will find an echo in the heart of the noble Lord who will have to reply to this debate. I would like to emphasize what the noble Earl said in moving the Motion and to point out to the Government that noble Lords who are not always able to find seats opposite but who belong there, and those who are on the opposite Benches, may have hopes as well as fears from the present Government coming into office. There is no reason that I can see for maintaining the exact tenor of a measure because it was an agreed measure passed with difficulty and in a hurry. We want to do the best we can for the children and if the Act which was passed does not do that then we should alter it. It is the children who are important and not the Act.
I do not want to repeat what I said on the occasion of the Second Reading of the Scottish Bill but I would like to refer to one thing which was said by the noble Earl, Lord Rosebery, in replying to me. He suggested that I must come from a very, bad part of Scotland because I

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pointed to the failure of elementary education in Scotland. Really that is not an answer. It is in the nature of a parachute attack in the enemy's rear to cause him a little embarrassment. The noble Earl who moved this Motion has described the situation in much the same way as I did and if we are to have the same answer then there must be more than one district of the same kind in Scotland. If he will inquire where there is the greatest enthusiasm for local government in Scotland I think he will find the best places for local administration run like a saltire across Scotland from Aberdeen to Ayr. I do not know which council or local administration is the best, but that is the general opinion in Scotland. To reduce the size of the class and to increase the school-leaving age it will be necessary to double the number of teachers and to double the accommodation of the Scottish schools. That is what you are up against, and the noble Earl's proposition is a perfectly simple one. He says it is more important to reduce the size of the class than to increase the school-leaving age. In other words, to reduce the size of the class should have priority over the increasing of the school-leaving age.
The noble Earl has laid emphasis on the difficulty of providing teachers. Every one of your Lordships knows that teachers can be divided into three classes: the born teachers, the good journeymen teachers, and the stopgaps. It is going to be the hardest possible thing to get born teachers, even to put one in every school in Scotland. That is only a private opinion, but I think every one of your Lordships acquainted with education will know that the most we can get is good journeymen teachers who know their job and conscientiously carry it out. It is not going to be easy to provide them, and the proposition is that as and when such teachers become available, and as and when accommodation becomes available, those teachers and that accommodation shall be employed to reduce the size of the classes and not for increasing the school age.
When the Scottish Education Act was before your Lordships I remember the noble Earl turned round and said, "You are not really against the Bill, are you?" He left me in a situation of uncommon embarrassment. I always feel that every education Bill is passed in vacuo and hears very little relation to the real conditions
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which obtain under which it has to be worked. I expect most of your Lordships know a great deal more about elementary education than I do, but I would like just to give you a sketch of the scene as I see it. If you go into any elementary school and get the headmaster to introduce you into a class, the probability is that he will introduce you into the infant girls' class. I think that is the usual place. You are received by a charming and obviously competent woman, very much up to her job. Looking round, you see eighty little girls round perhaps four tables, twenty at each table, all very quiet, very happy and orderly. When you look at what they are doing you find at one table that they are busy stringing little square wooden beads on strings. It is a charming scene. You find how the dawning capacity of the infant mind is encouraged and interested. When they begin to string their beads into patterns they are moved up to a higher table, and so on. It is a charming scene and you are filled with admiration at the skill of the method until you begin to reflect a bit on it.
The first point about it —and it is familiar to most of your Lordships —is that the size of the class makes any effective attention to any individual practically impossible. Everything is designed so that learning is easy and effortless, and where the classes are large that must be the case throughout the whole curriculum. Where interest is excited, there it is followed on. You cannot stimulate interest, you cannot enforce attention; you engage attention by lures, and that is the keynote of education right through. I have not gone into the point that such a system is subjective and not objective. I think that is a very difficult point to argue, but it is also a very powerful criticism as I understand education. It astonishes me that this system gets as good education as it does. I attribute it only to the entirely selfless and unremitting labour of the people who have to run it —the schoolmasters and the schoolmistresses, for whom I have the most profound admiration. One of the most important points to my mind is one that will be within the experience of most of your Lordships: that just at the age when the young mind is reaching out to every form of knowledge —and we have most of us seen that happen —just at the time when it is alive to the development of every

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kind of individual capacity, it is subjected to the system of what I might call almost education by machinery. It is just at that time that the young mind most responds to individual attention, and it is just then that individual attention can least be given.
Now this system has another defect, and it is also one that appears to me very important. It makes excusable and quite natural a fault which I think runs, for the main part, through the whole of our educational system. It is a principle which I know to have been recognized in education for over 1800 years, and I strongly suspect it was recognized for at least as long before, and that is that the best teachers should always be given to the most elementary pupils. Some of your Lordships will remember that at Eton the most important master after the Headmaster of Eton is the Lower Master, and rightly so. Some of our Education Acts have recognized that. I do not know whether Scotland had the honour of hating the first Education Act in the British Isles, but the first I know of was dated 1496, if my memory serves me rightly, and in that Act the King of Scotland tried to ensure that the heir of every barony should spend three years at a university and after that should spend one year in teaching the children of the barony. You will realize that I speaking of "barony" as land tenure. That is merely another instance of the persistent policy of the early Stuart Kings for using the barony as a lever to secure the carrying out of their numerous paternal acts for the benefit of the poorer classes of their subjects. The Acts of the early Stuart Kings are a lesson in that regard. But the point I am on to-day is that this original Scottish Education Act does have that principle in view, and I do not see how that principle can be carried out under the educational system as it is today. It is when the mind of the child is beginning to open that the personality of an individual and the close attention given to the child by an individual are most effective, and I do not see how this can be secured under our present system of overcrowding.
Before we pass away from this subject I would like to emphasize this point: that it does not in the least matter what Acts have been passed in the past; what we want to secure, and what His Majesty's
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Government I know want to secure, is the best education for the children. A very long time ago the Founder of our civilization asked the question: "Which of you having children that ask for bread will give them a stone?", and it sometimes seems to me, on looking back on recent history, that successive British Governments with successive Education Acts have found an answer to the conundrum. I beg to support the Motion.
3.39 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, the noble Lord who moved this Motion asked me to support it, and I am very glad to do so, because I think it is opportune now, when we are on the verge of a very big educational reform, to consider that the element of education which counts is quality and not volume; for if there were to be accompanied with this educational reform a reduction in quality, it would be a calamity of the very first order. I think it is fair to record that in Scotland we have shown a steady decline in the percentage of the number of pupils per teacher for the last thirty years, and what is perhaps most remarkable is that even during the period from 1938 to 1945 a fractional decline is still apparent. That is the highest possible testimony to the manner in which the directors of education have carried out their work in the different districts. I am unable to follow the mover of this Motion to the point at which he says that the raising of the school age must be subordinated to it. That is a vital reform to which we, as a country, as a House and, I am sure, the Government, are committed. It has been envisaged for twenty-five years, has been on the Statute Book for nine years, and cannot now be altered in any circumstances.
I want to raise to-day the question of priorities, particularly the priorities available for the provision of teachers. I recognize that the provision of buildings is very difficult and presents a formidable task, but I am told that the real bottleneck is, in fact, the provision of teachers. Has this really been given the priority it deserves? The point I particularly want to make is in regard to university students. I believe that in Scotland we attach more importance to men graduating than they do in England, but the position is that during the next two years we shall have to accept teachers trained

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under an emergency system. I am informed that the quality is fair but certainly not up to the standard normally required of Scottish teachers. To-day only a trickle of students are allowed to recommence their studies. That means that in 1948 —the crucial year —there will be virtually no recruitment through the normal channels, and recruitment will only start in 1949 provided the students are allowed to return in the normal way next year. To-day, a student may only go to the university if he is nominated by the university, if he belongs to the release groups 1 to 49, if he has three years' service and is the holder of a bursary. These are rare in Scotland though it may be that they are commoner in England, but it means that the training in arts to-day is very slight indeed.
On that score I would particularly ask the Government to give this matter consideration. For six years now we have starved art faculties at the universities. Even in peace-time our total university population bore no comparison with that of the United States of America where, admittedly, the standard is rather lower, and was notably smaller than that in pre-Hitler Germany. The number of students was very small and, even before the war, the number of teachers was inadequate. If we are really going to give this matter the requisite priority which it should have, I would like to submit that the training of teachers should have a priority second only to that of the building of houses.
To do this —there may be many other solutions —I would suggest that releases be given from the Services to personnel who have served one year at the university, and that if they are acceptable to the university they should be allowed to return and resume their training. If they were made available now they could be trained to the point where they could take part in education in 1948, which, I understand, is the crucial year. If these men are not ready by then, we shall have to make do with fewer men of a lower educational standard who will not be able to attain the high level we had in the past. If I may, I should like to give an example by quoting from history. The standard laid down in the First Book of Discipline in 1560 was that young persons should remain at school until the talents by which they could best serve the country are displayed.
3.46 p.m.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I will only detain you for one or two minutes, but I feel that my noble friend Lord Glasgow has raised, perhaps, one of the most important questions in regard to education. My excuse for speaking on this subject is that I happen to be the Chairman of the National Joint Council of Scotland, which is the equivalent to the Burnham Committee in England. Therefore, all these subjects are of great interest to me. At the beginning of the war which has just finished, I remember one evening in another place sitting next to a Minister who had to deal with recruiting for the Army. There must have been something pretty wrong in what he said because he told me that among the new recruits joining the Army a great many of them could neither read nor write. If we are spending this enormous sum on education it seems to me that there must be something radically wrong if such a state of affairs is possible, and I believe the reason for it is entirely due to the fact that classes are too big. We must, I feel, pay great attention to that question. I have visited schools at various times, and it seems to me that it is impossible for the teacher to deal with so many children. I hope the Government will really seriously consider this question.
With regard to the raising of the school-leaving age, my noble friend who has just sat down said this could not be dealt with. I believe it can be dealt with. It has already been postponed, so why not postpone it a little longer in order that we can get the teachers to deal with the material that requires education now —the present pupils and the pupils that are coming into the educational world in the next two or three years? I beg the Government seriously to consider this matter and, if possible, to do something drastic to reduce the number of children in the classes because, if this is not going to be done, then the value of all the money spent on education will be reduced. I have great pleasure in supporting my noble friend's Motion.
3.48 p.m.
LORD WESTWOOD: My Lords, may I take this opportunity of congratulating the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, on his maiden speech in your Lordships' House. It was brief, but excellent, and I hope we shall have many opportunities of again hearing

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our noble friend the Earl of Selkirk. I would also take this opportunity of saying that I shall have the greatest pleasure in passing on the messages of sympathy to the, Secretary of State for Scotland on his illness and the good wishes for his complete and speedy recovery. He is a good friend of the people who have been advocating education. I do not know any one who is a keener advocate in asking lot the reduction in the size of classes the education policy of Scotland. But one wonders why, when the Bill was debated in your Lordships' House, the opportunity was not taken to discuss this matter before the Bill became an Act. After the Bill has become an Act, the parties who remained silent during the discussion on the Bill now want to raise the question of the school age.
LORD SALTOUN: I beg the noble Lord's pardon, but I was quite definite abut that point on the Second Reading.
LORD WESTWOOD: I was not referring to the noble Lord, but to the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, who moved the Resolution. I want to say frankly that the opportunity was missed. We feel that at that time the opportunity was given to your Lordships to discuss this matter and that it should have been taken then rather than at the present time. However, we do not mind in the least. Your Lordships will have listened with interest and with sympathy, as I have, to what has been said by the noble Earl in support of his Resolution. All those who are interested in education wilt agree that a reduction in the size of over-large classes is desirable in the interests of pupils and teachers alike. The members of the present Government have been pioneers and propagandists in advocating a reduction in the size of classes, and they took that attitude at a time when teachers were available and when builders were available to provide the extra accommodation required. Their advocacy, however, largely fell on deaf ears in another place, and their propaganda was without effect.
We have to recognize, however, that the size of classes depends on three main factors: first, the number of pupils in the school; secondly, the number of teachers available; and, thirdly, the accommodation available. None of the speakers today has informed us of where we are likely to get the extra teachers or the
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extra accommodation, or what we are to do with the redundant pupils —because pupils do become redundant if the size of classes is reduced. It would be interesting to know how these difficulties are to be overcome.
THE EARL OF GLASGOW: If the noble Lord will pardon me for interrupting him, my point is that as teachers come in from the training colleges they should be sent to the black spots, to those schools where there are these large classes. Naturally we cannot do everything at once, but I want priority for this. As the teachers become available they should go to these schools, and then, when the time comes, the school-leaving age can be raised.
LORD WESTWOOD: I think that we can agree with the noble Earl's policy, but the position at the moment is that neither the teachers nor the accommodation are available, and we have to face facts as they are. I would acid that classes ought not to be so small that pupils lose the stimulus which comes from healthy competition and friendly rivalry. It is possible to make the classes too small. I have never had the happy experience recounted by the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun; I have never visited a school where I have seen classes of girls stringing beads, and I am afraid that to advocate a reduction in the size of classes of girls stringing beads would not meet with the sympathy which the noble Lord might desire.
Since the noble Earl gave notice of his Resolution, the position has been altered, as he has stated, by the recent announcement of the Government's decision to raise the school-leaving age to fifteen on April 1947. Your Lordships will expect from me some statement of the reasons why this decision makes it impossible to hold out any hope of any early reduction in the size of classes, and some indication of the considerations which have led the Govern-to take the view that the one reform was more urgent than the other. But before dealing with these matters I propose to say a few words about the present size of classes in Scotland. The Education (Scotland) Act contains no provisions as to the size of classes, nor are there any provisions of that kind in the Education Act of 1944. In both Scotland and England the practice has been to deal with this subject by code regulation. The regulations now enforce that the

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number of pupils on the roll of any class shall not normally exceed fifty in the infant or primary division, forty in the first three years of a secondary course, and thirty in the fourth and subsequent years of a secondary course. The maximum of fifty for infant and primary divisions is substantially lower than the number permitted a few years ago. Although good notice was given of the reduction in the maximum, there were immediately before the war 165 primary classes in which the maximum of fifty was exceeded, either because the necessary teachers could not be found or because the additional accommodation could not be provided. Owing to war conditions, the number of over-size classes has now risen to 362. This, however, is not the whole story. There has been a progressive reduction -in the average size of primary classes. In 1892–3 it was as high as sixty-seven; by 1942 it had fallen to thirty-two. I realize that such averages must be viewed with caution, and the figures already given show that the present low average does not preclude the existence of some classes which exceed the maximum. But the fall in the average size of class does show that during the last fifty years there has been a marked and gratifying improvement in the general standard of staffing in primary classes.
I would remind your Lordships that the raising of the school-leaving age has for many years been regarded as one of the most urgently needed reforms in the sphere of education. I agree with the noble Earl that there has been a difference of opinion as to whether the reduction in the size of classes or the raising of the school-leaving age should have first priority. The Government have said in the Act that the raising of the school-leaving age should have first priority. It has been pointed out that young people of the age of fourteen, in the early stages of adolescence, are developing new powers and becoming conscious of new interests. To allow them to leave school at this stage means that they have to cut short their education just when they are becoming able to derive the greatest benefit from it, and that they have to enter the hurly-burly of the workaday world before they are fully equipped and able to deal with its many problems. They have acquired the tools of education, but they have not yet had time to use those tools in the
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acquisition of the knowledge and skill which would enable them to play their part in the world with the greatest benefit to themselves and to the nation.
It has also been pointed out that much of what has been acquired at school may be quickly lost unless the pupil enters an occupation which will give him an opportunity of developing his abilities and acquiring fresh knowledge and skill. Such opportunities are provided by the recognized systems of apprenticeship or learnership, but there are important industries in which entry into apprenticeship is not possible before the age of sixteen. I should like to emphasize this point, because with the present school-leaving age of fourteen many adolescents between the time of leaving school and the time of entry into apprenticeship enter into what are called blind-alley occupations. The Government feel it to be very important there fore that at least the year following the age of fourteen should be spent at school. For these and other reasons Parliament has recognized the importance of raising the school-leaving age. The Education (Scotland) Act, 1918, provided for a leaving age of fifteen, but this section of the Act never became operative. The same provision in a modified form was included in the Act of 1936, and was to have come into operation on September 1 1939, but had to be postponed owing to the outbreak of war. When the education proposals of the late Coalition Government were debated in Parliament, there was a widespread demand that a definite and early date should be prescribed for the raising of the school-leaving age. As a result, the Education Acts, both for England and for Scotland, passed by the last Parliament, provided that the school-leaving age should be raised to fifteen not later than April 1 1947, and should be further raised to sixteen as soon as practicable thereafter.
This then was the position with which the present Government found themselves faced. If the school-leaving age is to be raised by 1947 —as it must be unless Parliament passes amending legislation —additional teachers and classrooms will be needed. If the size of the classes is to be reduced, we shall require still more teachers and classrooms. The question is, will our resources enable us to introduce there two reforms at the same time? When the leaving age is raised, the num-

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ber of school pupils in Scotland, as mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Rosebery, will be increased by about 50,000. The recruitment of teachers has been greatly restricted during the war, and the arrears; have to be made good. For this purpose and for the raising of the school-leaving age alone, we shall require at least 1,800 new teachers in Scotland, on the assumption that some 2,500 married women and teachers who have reached retiring age will be willing to continue in service.
As regards accommodation, it is unnecessary to dwell upon the difficulties or any extensive scheme of building operations in the next few years, in view of the urgent needs of the housing programme. One might ask oneself: "Which should have the greatest priority —the reduction of classes in the schools or housing?" I am afraid if you put that question to the homeless people in this country there could only be one answer, and that would be that the greatest priority should be housing. I think that the noble Earl will agree with that.
THE EARL OF GLASGOW: Will the noble Lord pardon me once more? He hay referred to the reduction of classes and has pointed out that reduction of the size of classes would call for increased school accommodation. The raising of the school age also requires increased school accommodation. The Scottish Education Authority are sending along hutments almost every day, but there is nothing else they can do.
LORD WESTWOOD: The reduction of classes is, I understand, the subject upon which the noble Earl is asking his question. The raising of the school age has been fixed for April 1, 1947, and we are hoping that plenty of houses will be built between now and 1947. We trust that our hopes will be realized. The extra classrooms required for the raising of the school-leaving age, may I say, will have to be found by the use of prefabricated buildings which will be provided and erected by the Ministry of Works. It is estimated that 630 of these buildings, each containing two classrooms, will be needed. A reduction in the size of classes will also make very heavy demands. We are in agreement on that, I think. It is generally considered that the desirable maximum size for a primary class is forty pupils. At present 5,800 primary classes in Scotland contain more than forty
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pupils each, and it is clear that a very large number of additional teachers and classrooms will be required to reduce all classes to a maximum of forty.
It will be apparent from what I have said, that it is impossible to give these two reforms the equal priority desired by the noble Earl. In these circumstances, the Government had to consider how the most effective use could be made of the resources which will be available in the next few years. They took into account all aspects of the matter, including the arguments, to which I have already referred, in favour of raising the school leaving age and the view indicated in the Motion of which the noble Earl had given Notice. As a result, they reached the conclusion that a reduction in the size of classes, however desirable in itself, could not be given the same priority as the raising of the school-leaving age to fifteen. As the provision of the additional accommodation and teaching staff required for the raising of the leaving age will fully absorb all the resources likely to be available, I regret that I can hold out no hope that it will be possible, at the same time, to achieve the reduction in the size of classes which the noble Earl has so much at heart. But I can assure him, and the other noble Lords who supported him, that the Government fully realize the importance of reducing the size of classes, and that they aim at effecting a reduction as soon as the necessary staff and accommodation can be made available.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, before the noble Lord resumes his seat, may I ask him one question and make a suggestion? He put the position of the Government in this way. The Government, he said, do not wish to leave children at a loose end between their leaving school at the age of fourteen, and the time when they are ready to go into industry. That is a ground on which the raising of the leaving age is supported. We say that to put the children through an educational system which cannot be effectively applied is a waste of energy and effort. As it is stated that the Government will not reduce the leaving age to less than fifteen we would ask them to consider raising the age at the other end. I mean by that, will they consider leaving the children with

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their mothers for another year? That will avoid increasing the number of children at school, relieve pressure on the accommodation, and will give us what we want.
LORD WESTWOOD: The question of raising the school age from fourteen has been very fully and carefully considered. It has been found that boys and girls who go to secondary schools at the age of twelve are in many cases only getting two years of secondary education. The great consideration responsible for the decision to raise the school age was that we did not think that pupils going to secondary schools at the age of twelve were getting sufficient secondary education. It was felt that they should have a secondary course of at least three years. This, it was deemed, would fit them better for the aftermath of life than a course of only two years.
4.11 p.m.
THE EARL OF GLASGOW: My Lords, I have to thank the noble Lord for his courteous and sympathetic reply —I might say his sympathetic but adamant reply. In view of that reply I and my friends really feel that we are up against a stone wall. It is very difficult to know what to say about it now. We cannot, apparently, expect very much with regard to the reduction of the size of classes until the future of these things has been settled, such as the raising of the school age to fifteen, the question of the junior colleges with a date in 1951 and not 1950, and, probably, the raising of the school age to sixteen. That will be a very long time and the children are going to suffer from that handicap in Scotland during that long period of years. Some of your Lordships have seen your way to support this Resolution and as the welfare and the future lives of so many children depend upon this matter, I may ask, if I get further support, the opinion of the House.
On Question, Motion negatived.

NEEDS OF EUROPE AND THE FAR EAST.
4.13 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF READING THE MARQUESS OF READING had the following Notice on the Paper: To ask
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His Majesty's Government whether they are proposing, in conjunction with the Allied Governments, to set up any body similar to the Supreme Economic Council established after the war of 1914 –1918, to co-ordinate and control the allocation and distribution of food, clothing and other necessaries of life in Europe and the Far East; and to move for Papers.
The noble Marquess said: My Lords, I observed recently outside a cinema in the West End of London a legend, modest in content and elegant in form, which asserted of the film being shown within that "It zooms with gaiety and hits a new altitude of heart-searing romance." I fear that I can make no such claim for the picture lying behind my Motion of to-day which is concerned only to attempt to produce some rent in the chill and sombre clouds of want and the fear of want, which hang over so much of the world to-day. The proposal makes no claim to originality or novelty. Indeed, I raised it myself in a debate in your Lordships' House last February on a Motion initiated by my noble friend Lord Samuel, upon the needs of occupied Europe. In that debate my suggestion did not receive even the tribute of an honourable mention from the noble Earl who then replied for the Government, but since then there have been two major alterations in the circumstances. The war has come to an end and a new Government is in power, and I make no apology for raising the subject for a second time.
Moreover, I recall with satisfaction that in that earlier debate the noble Viscount, the present Leader of the House, who I regret cannot to-day be in his place, which was then within easier ear-shot of these Benches, received my proposal with a subdued, but none the less sensible, approbation. Indeed, earlier in the debate he himself had spoken and said these words:
"There seems to me to be a serious lack of organization taking cognizance beforehand of the different requirements of the various countries, and of sufficient authority to see that provision is made to meet the urgent necessities. …It seems to me that what we need at the present time is a sufficiently authoritative central staff between the different nations for dealing with these matters. I confess that as a separate organization I cannot see the U.N.R.R.A. organization, however well intentioned it may be, functioning efficiently unless there is between the different Governments who are conducting the war effort, an agreement that there shall be a central Inter-Allied staff with sufficient authority, working either through U.N.R.R.A. or through the Govern-

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ment of the country concerned, which will be able to make provision beforehand in concert wish the Supply Departments. … As an on-looker it does not seem to me that the necessary organization has yet been created."
That extract I pray in aid of my present Motion and indeed it goes a long way, if not all the way, to substantiate the case I am making to-day. I can only hope that the noble Viscount has not suffered a change of heart during his transit from the shady to the sunny side of the street.
I do not propose to make a case either for the necessity or the urgency of grappling with the chaotic conditions which prevail to-day. Fuel, foodstuffs, clothing fertilizers, raw materials and die transport to move them, are all required with an immediacy which can best be assessed by taking into account, in our own minds, and with winter on the threshold, the inevitable consequences of further protracted delay. In the war of 1914 –18 victory was only gained after the belated appointment of a Supreme Commander in whose hands were gathered the direction and co-ordination of all plans and operations in the military field, but that lesson was at lease learnt and when the victory had been gained a Supreme Economic Council was, appointed charged in its turn with the coordination of plans and operations in the economic field. After the last war the area affected was no doubt much smaller, but the wider the sphere of action and the more urgent the need surely the stronger the case for the appointment of a similar Council now. Yet, although the step of appointing a Supreme Commander in the field was taken at a much earlier stage in the late war, with inestimably advantageous results, the parallel example in the economic field has still been ignored.
When that original Council was appointed, its objects were stated in the official announcement on January 10, 1919, to be as follows:
"The Associated Governments have decided to establish a Supreme Council, consisting of two representatives of France, Italy, the United States and Great Britain, to deal with the questions of food, finance and shipping resources in relation to the revictualling and supply of liberated and enemy territory and to co-ordinate such supplies with supplies for allied and neutral countries."
I call particular attention to that last clause —"to co-ordinate such supplies with supplies for allied and neutral countries" —for I suggest that, if, as I hope, a Council of this kind is appointed, its terms of reference should be wide
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enough to include this country within its scope. I confess that I am not myself an advocate of the movement, however high-minded and altruistic, which seeks to persuade the people of this country to impose upon themselves a further voluntary system of rationing. I believe that we have drawn our belts to the last hole of safety and that any further contraction would be followed by a deterioration, both physical and moral, which it would be difficult to arrest and impossible to repair. This country, after all, although it has not actually been liberated from the physical presence of an invader, did for six years live under the shadow of the threat of destruction from the air and of the no less menacing peril to an island people of danger hovering over, on and under the sea. In my view at least the time has now come when this country is entitled to ask for some preferential treatment from those countries which, being more remote, have been more fortunate in this respect.
The Prime Minister in the course of last month addressed the Trade Union Congress, and he referred to the problem in these words:
"The relief of Europe is in the first place a task for statesmanship in the calculated harnessing of labour and resources by realistic agreements and plans."
One is tempted to ask without undue criticism where are those realistic agreements, where are those realistic plans, who is drafting the agreements, who is preparing the plans, where are the statesmen gathered together who are charged to consider, to accept and to implement such agreements and plans as may be decided upon? At the present moment there appears to be no overall direction, no collective forethought and no coordinated plan. On one day we read of this country sending milk to Germany. On the next day this country is clamoring for bacon from Canada. On the third day we are sending sugar to France. On the fourth clay Denmark is crying to heaven, or if not to heaven at least to U.N.R.R.A., to be relieved of 10,000 head of cattle which it has been asking for a whole month to be taken off its hands, and the Danish Government is complaining that all cold storage in Denmark is full of meat and suggesting to the Allied authorities that cold storage warehouses in Northern Germany should be filled with Danish meat until transport becomes available. That item of news must be a

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great solace to the anxious minds and empty stomachs of Europe.
At the present moment the whole proceedings, which are vital to the survival of mankind, are being conducted with the haphazard impulsiveness of small boys swapping stamps at a preparatory school. The trouble is not that there are no boards, councils, committees to deal with these matters. The trouble is that there are too many and that there is no firm centralized direction to weld them together. It may be said that the new structure, the United Nations Organization decided upon at San Francisco, provided for an Economic Council. As I understand it that Economic Council, which anyhow is not yet in being, is to concentrate on long-term planning. It is more concerned with the Utopia of tomorrow than the myopia of to-day. Then there is U.N.R.R.A., a vast inter-governmental organization; but U.N.R.R.A. does not begin to cover the whole field and, moreover, U.N.R.R.A. is itself the largest, most insistent and most thwarted competitor in the actual field of purchase of such supplies as are available.
If any of your Lordships think that U.N.R.R.A. takes the place of such a committee as I am suggesting, I would refer him to one who has been the most forcible and most persistent advocate of exactly the same scheme that I am putting forward, Sir Arthur Salter. Sir Arthur was not only intimately connected with the original Supreme Economic Council at the end of the last war but was himself the first Deputy Director of U.N.R.R.A. and was also, in the last Government, specially charged with the supervision of questions of relief. Sir Arthur Salter has dealt with this matter at some length in The Times and in the Observer during the last four months. One short extract perhaps summarizes the gist of the point which he has been making. He has written:
"The principal Allied Governments have at present no organization capable of framing a general reconstruction policy and of coordinating and directing their several contributions. The Combined Boards, the combined military system and U.N.R.R.A. exist. But there is no authority capable of using them as a single and adequate instrument for the new task of civilian reconstruction."
That is a very powerful reinforcement to the general case that I am making, as well as a special reinforcement to the point
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that U.N.R.R.A. does not, and cannot, fill the bill.
Then there are the Combined Boards, whose seat is at Washington but whose composition I confess is unknown to me, and I think may be so to others of your Lordships. During the war the Combined Boards took their directions in the main from the Combined Chiefs of Staff, and that was obviously right as long as military necessity predominated. But these Boards have recently been given a further tenure of existence, and I wonder from whom they take their directions to-day. Surely a Supreme Council of the kind I am advocating is required to give those Boards guidance in these matters. Then there is the Economic Advisory Council which is, as its name implies, advisory only and, therefore, not appropriate for the purpose that I suggest. Moreover, it is, as I understand, composed of members of the consuming and not of the supplying countries. No doubt there are many more of a similar type.
If this Council is, as I hope, to be appointed in conjunction with the Allies, I would suggest, if I may, that its seat should be either in London or in Paris, where its ear may be sensitively attuned to the shifting situation in Europe where I believe the greatest need to reside. I would suggest also that the principle of the original Council of two members for each country should be retained, and that one might be permanent, so as to ensure continuity, while the other varies according to the subject immediately under discussion. They must be men of standing, of responsibility and of authority. I realize that the Foreign Office is very closely concerned in many implications of this plan. The Foreign Secretary himself, so aptly and prophetically described by Shakespeare as "This other Eden," no doubt has his hands too full himself to undertake the task, but I would respectfully suggest that the present Minister of State, who has long and wide experience of these problems, might perhaps be made available and clothed with authority to bring into line the far too many Departments here which are at present separately concerned with the solution of the problem.
The representatives of all the countries who should be represented on this Council —and that ought, I suggest, to include the great supplying countries like Canada

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and Brazil—must be able to talk to the military authorities on at least equal terms. I read a little while ago in an official publication of U.N.R.R.A. that it is the policy of U.N.R.R.A. to procure as many relief and rehabilitation supplies as possible from surplus military stores, and now that the war in Europe is over representatives of U.N.R.R.A. are going ahead with negotiations. So does the snail go ahead with perambulation. There must be some body of persons who, when situations like that arise, have enough strength and enough authority to say: "The war is now ended; now is the moment when these things, except the minimum required for military needs, pass into the hands of the civilian population."
Again the Director-General of U.N.R.R.A., talking to the gathering of his representatives of non-paying countries in August last, said:
"It has been agreed to allot first priority to the shipment of trucks, and to make every effort to ensure their arrival before winter conditions in some areas make adequate internal distribution impracticable.
The urgency of this requirement is to be restated to the principal supplying countries, with a view to obtaining maximum allocations; and the earliest possible shipment of transport equipment."
My Lords, what are we doing, or what are they doing, filling up precious shipping at that stage with trucks to be imported from the United States when the roads and fields of Europe, including this country, are blocked and jammed with unused military vehicles, 100,000 of which—not a big figure amongst them all —would go far towards solving the whole problem of European transport overnight?
This Council ought to be in a position to say to the military authorities: "The time has now come when you have got to look over your stocks again. You have got to tell us what you have, and we will agree with you what you can keep." That is the angle of approach, to say to the military authorities: "You have got to cut yourselves to the bone, even at the cost of a little risk. The time for over-insurance is past and whatever can be spared is wanted, not in dumps and depots and stores and vehicle reserve parks, but in the stoves and on the backs and in the stomachs and on the roads of the civilian population of Europe." After all, this war came to an abrupt and unexpected
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end, and one is entitled to ask what has happened to all the immense quantities of stores that must have been accumulated for the purpose of the invasion of Japan and the re-conquest of occupied China, of Singapore, Hong Kong, Java and the rest. I have no information about what stocks of food or other things are available. Successive Governments have treated the people of this country in that matter of giving them information rather as if they were spoilt and greedy children and it was the Government's business at all costs to deflect their thoughts from such revolting questions as food. But if there is a surplus, it is not going to the right quarter; and if there is a deficiency, that deficiency is not being equally borne. I submit that only a Council of this kind can obtain the required information and make the necessary adjustments in the actual supplies available.
I hope that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will not, in his reply, produce that somewhat threadbare excuse nowadays of the shortage of shipping. Shortage of passenger shipping in this country there may well be, but I do not believe that there is at this moment a shortage of cargo shipping in the world. Indeed I have been told, and on very good authority, that at the present moment in America oil tankers are being used for the carrying of wheat, not because there are no cargo ships available but because the tanker owners have said, "Unless you give us a fair share of the whole freight that is going, we shall have to lay up our ships."
It may be argued that this is no very propitious moment to start yet another body which depends for its usefulness upon international co-operation. But if we are to despair of international co-operation, we are to despair of the future of mankind. I venture to hope that a Council of this kind, concerned as it is with a task of profound humanitarian significance, may serve, in some measure, to soften recent asperities and restore earlier harmonies. "Give me liberty or give me death," is perhaps a trite, but still a lofty sentiment which has for six years past been enshrined in the hearts, and exemplified in the deeds, of numberless inhabitants of Allied and of German- and japanese-occupied countries. It would be a lamentable and shameful irony if,

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having first by our action given them liberty, we were now, by our inaction, to give them death. I beg to move for Papers.
4.42 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am sure that none of my noble friends on this side of the House can object in any way to the subject matter of the eloquent address of the noble Marquess, or the way in which he delivered it. If he will allow me to say so, I notice a slight thread of criticism of His Majesty's present Government running through his remarks. Again, we would not complain, I am sure, but I think he will not object if I also say that His Majesty's Government is only one of a number of Governments intimately and directly concerned in this problem.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: Somebody has got to start.
LORD STRABOLGI: As the noble Marquess says, somebody has got to start. If the opposite number of the noble Marquess in the Supreme Council of the Soviets in Moscow could make a similar speech, if a prominent Senator could make a similar speech in the Congress of the United States, and if a French statesman could also use the same eloquence and sincerity in his Chamber, we might begin to get somewhere; but, as the noble Marquess says, somebody has got to start, and I congratulate him on finding so early an opportunity in the Session of raising this subject. But since he raised this matter last February, when he had my support as he does this afternoon, matters have improved, at any rate, a little. As he says, the last main excuse of the military authorities has been swept away by the sudden capitulation of the Japanese. The difficulty now is one really of machinery. U.N.R.R.A. has got some what into its stride. For example, the sufferings of the Greek people have been relieved to a very great extent and would be more relieved if there were not such a vile black market there, in Athens and other cities. The people of Yugoslavia have had help, including the provision of badly-needed lorries, which will make all the difference between starvation and survival of the people in the villages in the mountains of this sorely-tried country. This country has sent to the Continent remarkably large quantities of provisions
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From its scanty reserves We have done our duty.
Now, as I understand the noble Marquess, the complaint is that there is no supreme economic authority which will have the power of overriding the very powerful military authorities and bringing together all the producing countries in order to supply the needs which he described. There is no supreme, powerful, overriding authority with the prestige and the authority behind it to force a better arrangement of supplies and their quicker shipment to where they are so badly needed. That is the complaint. I must say I think it is a justifiable complaint, but, again, however much my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack and his colleagues in the Cabinet may wish to bring this about, we are only one nation. We have to persuade the other nations concerned to play their part. The truth of the matter is that the war in Europe —I do not speak of the Far East —went on too long. It is not certain that the fabric of civilization on the Continent has not been mortally injured, and we shall not know that till this time next year. The coming winter will be a testing time. The policy of so-called unconditional surrender prolonged the war unnecessarily, and it was in the last year of unnecessary strife that the frightful damage was done to the transport and economic systems of Europe which now present such terrible difficulties. That is the situation which has to be dealt with.
I agree most respectfully with the noble Marquess that the provision to-day of food, fuel and shelter, with the greatest possible urgency, is much more important to Europe than the altering of frontiers or the shifting of populations about, or trying to claim strategic security for this State or that, and, as he says, some Supreme Economic Council with power and responsibility seems to be needed. But, again, I must repeat that all the blame does not rest on His Majesty's present advisers. We inherited this situation. We were a minority in the last Parliament. We have many great tasks to tackle and have not had very long so far in which to tackle them. I am confident that when the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack comes to reply he will give a message of hope to the suffering millions in Europe and also a stimulus to those who will read his words.

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How difficult this situation is, I will venture to indicate by a quotation from, the Washington correspondent of The Times of September 16 last. After quoting —what all your Lordships must have read, I am sure —the appalling reports the United States Government agencies on the plight of Europe in the coming winter and the certainty, as things are of the vast amount of death by starvation and plague, the correspondent goes on to say:
"The problem is not lack of fool available for export but the absence of funds to finance shipments abroad."
As the noble Marquess has said, we were all set for the Pacific war going on for another six or nine months, and what would that have cost? But there are not funds to ship this surplus of food in the United States over here to Europe. In other words, lack of dollars in Europe means starvation for large numbers on quite innocent people, many of them our allies. Furthermore, the United States Government authorities are taking steps now to encourage the cutting down of production in meat, hogs and cereals for fear of over-production. The production machine of the United States has beer geared up to produce the greatest quantities of foodstuffs, and there is a fear tint there will be a surplus, that prices will fall, and that their farmers will suffer accordingly, and so the Government is reported to be encouraging the cutting down of production.
It is difficult to look at the situation without being appalled at the insanity of man. The noble Marquess referred to Are surplus of meat in Denmark, which is very remarkable. I have here sonic very recent newspaper cuttings about it, and I see that it still remains. On September 16 the Copenhagen correspondent of the Manchester Guardian reported that from 3,000 to 4,000 tons of surplus beef each week cannot be exported because of lack of shipping. The noble Marquess hoped that the excuse of lack of shipping would not be brought forward to-day, and, of course, he is quite right; there is a lack of troopers and passenger ships, but then is a surplus of cargo ships, though they are in the wrong place and are not being used. But this country has not a surplus of cargo ships; they are not flying the Red. Ensign but the flags of the United States and other nations. They are not British cargo ships. On the following day
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the Daily Mail correspondent in Copenhagen referred to 10,000,000 lb of surplus meat which could not be exported from Denmark owing to the shortage of refrigeration ships, and said that the slaughter of cattle had been stopped. "The next day the Daily Express referred to this matter. And so it goes on. On October 4 it was said that 20,000 head of cattle were returned to the farmers because they could not be slaughtered for food, due to the glut caused by the difficulty of getting shipping.
On September 14 —again quoting the Washington correspondent of The Times newspaper —I find a statement by Admiral Land, the Chairman of the Maritime Commission of the United States, asking the Commerce Sub-Committee of the Senate for quick Congressional action authorizing his Commission to sell Government-owned freighters. The Admiral said: "There is a world surplus of shipping, and the surplus is under the American flag. Every day we delay we lose some more of our market" —that is, the market for ships. Today I have seen the awful report in the Evening Standard from their New York correspondent, Mr. Cook, describing the terrible effects of the great strikes of dockers —they call them longshoremen —on the other side of the Atlantic, which have led to the piling up of immense quantities of foodstuffs for Europe, including this country, on the wharves, and to ships leaving empty for Europe.
We have our own troubles with our dockers here. I do not know whether my noble friend Lord Reading has recently addressed the dockers on Tower Hill. He would find it a very exhilarating experience; I have enjoyed many meetings there myself. I wish he would talk to them now about the food situation in Europe and the fact that they are also holding up foodstuffs; and when he has done that he might go to the master stevedores on the other side of the dispute. In New York the strikers have tied up 500,000 tons of cargo, of which 100,000 tons are for European relief for U.N.R.R.A., not ordinary commercial transactions in foodstuffs. The article to which I refer goes on to describe the large number of ships sailing for Europe in ballast. This is an extraordinary situation. There are in certain parts of the world, as we know, surpluses of foodstuffs, and there is in

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other parts a surplus of shipping. How can they be married? It cannot be done, with great respect to my noble friend Lord Reading, from Whitehall alone, but only by agreement between the nations concerned. But I agree with the noble Marquess that the matter ought to be ventilated, and I await the reply of the noble and learned Lord Chancellor with confidence and pleasure.
The truth of the matter is, of course, that there is a lack of one thing which is more important than shipping or food: there is a lack of moral leadership everywhere. It seems to apply in all countries. It particularly concerns us, because we became a great Power in the world not because of our territory or because of our population, which are small, and not because of our wealth and resources, which are also small; we became a great Power in the world, and can be a great Power to-day, because we have stood for what is right, and have taken the moral leadership in great questions of this kind.
I do not know how much more the present Government can do, but I think that we should make a call to the whole world —the means of human communication to-day are very good —and urge that the present state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue. It is appalling that there should be this prospect of a vast death-roll in Europe through starvation and cold when the surplus supplies and the surplus shipping exist to prevent it. I for one, despite the fact that I think that the noble Marquess has put a little too much weight on the responsibility of His Majesty's advisers, welcome and support what he has said.
4.57 p.m.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, the noble Marquess having, with his customary lucidity and eloquence, put before you the explanatory facts of his very important Motion, I should merely like, in rising at this very late hour, to emphasize two points, one of which arises out of the other. Both at first glance may not appear to be altogether germane to the question before us, and may appear to be slightly off the Motion, but they are definitely intended to be in support of it, and I think on closer inspection will be seen to be really connected with it. The primary factor in all this is that the situation is an extremely serious one —on that we
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are all agreed —and that any measures to be taken are particularly urgent. I cannot help feeling that, this being so, and the situation being such as the noble Marquess has described in detail —a situation, in other words, of appalling confusion —it would seem not only natural but imperative that in taking steps, as I trust that His Majesty's Government will see their way to do, we shall begin at least by taking them to a certain extent on our own; because whatever degree of collaboration our American friends may be prepared to offer, it would take far too long, it seems to me, to co-ordinate them with our own, to whatever extent we may be dependent on them for the actual material we need for this purpose. I say that because the coming tragic winter is almost upon us.
So far as any Russian collaboration is concerned, it seems to me that at this juncture it would perhaps be more tactful to insist on the fact that the Russians have plenty to occupy them at home and in those territories which they apparently consider as their cordon sanitaire, rather than to insist on the latest examples of their traditional mistrustfulness and hypersensitivity, a state of affairs which I am afraid does not augur well for the immediate future. One thing, however, is certain, and that is that any solid efforts which we can make, even on our own, in the sense of the noble Marquess's Motion, can serve, apart from their pressing necessity, a further admirable purpose, and that is to consolidate in Western Europe in particular the good will that is already ours, a good will which in a continent menaced with tragic scission may be of incalculable value for the future. That this scission should not, for the benefit of humanity, be permanent, is agreed on by everyone. That it need not be seems to me indicated by a very curious statement reported in The Times this morning as having been recently made by Dr. Irving Langmuir, an American scientist, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to the effect that Russia was frankly incorporating into her Communist system of government the best features of the capitalist system, whilst the United States was tending to put into its democracy some of the worst features of Communism, which has now been discarded in Russia. If this is so, we are probably well on the way to systems of government resembling each other every-

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where, and that doubtless explains the remark not long ago of Mr. Hore-Belisha, that government is increasingly exercised by functional and not by political bodies.
In that case, apart from pure power politics, which are doubtless in for a long innings yet, ideologies will gradually tend to fade out as elements of discord, and one of the basic reasons for attempting to divide Europe in two zones will be removed; but at the moment it continues to exist, and it is because of that that I feel that in this matter of organizing relief in the areas that are open to us we have a golden opportunity of maintaining our prestige, and of carrying out what after all is our business —namely, that of having a prominent, if not predominant, say in the councils of Western Europe, with, I trust —and this, to my mind, is most important —the moral and practical support of the Empire, whose statesmen, as your Lordships will remember, have, on repeated occasions, declared their full realization of the part they are expected to play in these matters. And there is one country, my Lords, a great part of whose destiny is not only as yet undecided, but must depend increasingly on our decisions and whose potentialities are all-important to us in this task of reconstructing Europe —and that is Germany. Personally, I do not much care for the report; coming from that country to the effect that everyone who is working over there is so deeply impressed with the qualities of application and industriousness that the Germans are showing in restoring what the Prime Minister has described lately as being, in comparison I with what it was, "a great void," because I live in mortal terror of the penchant that I know my compatriots so easily develop in favour of Germany which leads them to forget the worst German qualities and which led us into all those errors which we committed in the thirties.
But if it is true that the Germans are working so very hard, then it does seem to me that, for the time being, that is something for which we should be thankful; for, perhaps, in the absence of a solid co-operation between the Allied Governments, there, at least, is an area where we car organize, anyhow in our own zone, something of immediate value, in the sense of what a leader in the Yorkshire Post suggested in a September article:
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"Upon the rapid and efficient restoration of the bases of Germany's economy depends the welfare of the Continent as a whole For this reason the United Nations should co-operate at once in tackling the formidable problems of restoring production in the German mines, repairing the country's battered transport system, and ensuring that Germany makes the greatest contribution of which she is capable to the rescue of Europe from unparalleled want. As the chief coal exporting country of the Continent and as the source of trained industrial man-power, Germany has a part to play in helping forward the work of reconstruction which the Allies should not overlook. Her economy, severely damaged as it now is, should be utilized for this prodigious task. To neglect the value of Germany's productive potential to a war-ravaged Europe would be to imperil the chances of economic recovery throughout the Continent."
Here, my Lords, it seems to me, is one of the ulterior aims that the Supreme Economic Council, as suggested by my noble friend, if and when it is eventually set up, could make its own, and that, in the meantime, we could make our own. And, in spite of what the noble Marquess has said, I cannot help feeling that whatever additional privations the British public is obliged to put up with, during the difficult period in the immediate future, in order to help to achieve such aims, should be accepted, if only because, as the Yorkshire Post concludes —and this is the main point of my argument—
"if Germany suffers from starvation, disease and spreading anarchy during the coming winter months she will not suffer alone."
5.6 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD JOWITT): My Lords, there was certainly no need for the noble Marquess who moved this Motion to apologize for bringing the matter to your Lordships' attention again. It is a matter of supreme importance. Speaking on behalf of the Government, I may say that I do not view the present situation with any sort of complacency. On the contrary, I view it with very great deal of anxiety. I cannot accept some of the views which have been put forward here to-day to the effect that there are ample supplies of food and ample supplies of shipping, and that it is a mere question of marrying one to the other in order to solve the difficulty. Unfortunately that is not true, and I shall have to say something to your Lordships about it presently.
The Motion before the House contains two verbs. It indicates a wish to set up a body, on the lines of the Supreme Economic Council which was established in

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1919, to "co-ordinate and control." Now these verbs may convey very different ideas. I wondered whether the noble Marquess had quite clear in his mind the difference between an advisory body and an executive body. We were told that this body to be set up is to be able to talk on at least equal terms to the military authorities; it is to tell them not to over-insure, to cut things to the bone and even to run risks. To what military authorities is this body to talk? To the military authorities of this country, it is quite right that the Government of this country should talk in those terms. But is it really suggested that a body calling itself the Supreme Economic Council, or by some such title, should be able to issue orders of that kind to all the military authorities of all the nations concerned?
It is rather natural that the noble Marquess should have in mind the work of the Supreme Economic Council. After all, it was set up in 1919 and his father whom most of us remember —and all of us who remember him loved him —was our representative. Mr. Hoover, who afterwards became President of the United States of America, was the American representative. It was, therefore, a very high-powered Committee, and if, in the course of the few remarks I make to your Lordships, I sketch the activities of that Committee and point out some of the difficulties which it encountered, I shall not, I hope, be thought by any of your Lordships to be belittling the work which it did. I shall say something about that. I must say something, too, about the existing machinery which has developed since the war period, the existing machinery which served us, believe me, very well in the planning operations in the war. I can assure your Lordships that there was singularly little of the haphazard methods by which schoolboys swap stamps about what it did in the war.
The problem we have to face to-day is not merely, and, perhaps, in some respects, not mainly, a problem of distribution. The necessaries of life, food, fuel, clothing, and shelter —little has been said of fuel, clothing and shelter but with the winter coming on these will provide very grave and terrible problems —eventually do not depend upon distribution at all. The problem of food depends upon this.
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Surplus food cannot come from Europe. Surplus food must come from the New World and what is surplus must depend in part on the extent of current requirements. It may depend, for instance, upon the establishment of a rationing system. Is it conceivable that a Supreme Economic Council should order other countries to adopt rationing systems or tell other countries what surplus of food they have to send over to Europe? The problem is to find the surplus, provide for shipping and, when you have got it to Europe, provide for its reception at the ports and the inland transport, be it by road or rail or by means of trucks or lorries. What we have to try to do throughout the world, therefore, is to increase supplies, to render the largest possible amount of food available, and to secure equitable distribution.
The problem is complicated and complex. The machinery probably has to be complicated too, and it is easy when we contemplate this complex machinery to toy with the idea of someone in supreme authority to co-ordinate and control and to bring order out of chaos. But if you are going to provide Moses with the rod with which he can strike the rock, we must be quite sure that, when he does strike the rock, water gushes out. Otherwise Moses and the rod are not much good, and the experience of the Supreme Economic Council shows the extreme difficulties inherent in the situation. When that body was set up it was split into some six sections —food and relief, shipping, communications, finance, raw materials and blockade.
Those are the main six sections and each section had a series of committees, most of which has a series of subcommittees. Three of the sections were built up after the Supreme Economic Council had come into being; three of them existed before and were adapted. That body gave the appearance of having some executive authority at the centre but in reality its power was from the very early days circumscribed and rendered of very little effect by the concomitant disintegration of control. Then, as now, there was a cry that all controls should come off and in spite of the proposed executive powers that that body possessed it could not, in fact, control the policies of the member nations. It possessed no funds of its own. It had to try to co-ordinate funds voted by the various member

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nations, which was rendered difficult by the tact that these funds were generally allocated for special and specific purposes, so that after the Treaty of Versailles was signed the body was reorganized.
In its new form also it was not successful although, certainly, the Consultative Food Committee did some useful work in the co-ordination of food matters. There you had a body endowed, at least apparently, with executive powers. It could call spirits from the vasty deep but although it could call them by no means all the spirits came in answer to the call. We say quite frankly, having looked at this —we all learn by experience or at least I hope we do —that we do not think that this is an example to be followed. The problems are the same sort of problems, far greater and far more complex, but they are so different in degree that they almost become different in kind.
I think I might now tell your Lordships the essence of the existing machinery. It is based really on the Combined Boards and I am surprised that the noble Marquess said that he did not know who were the members of the Combined Food Board. When the Ministers cannot meet they have, of course, their officials to represent them, the very senior officials of their various Departments, and that body is responsible for determining what supplies are available, where and how they can be obtained, and recommending to whom they should be sent according to the respective needs. Some them are Anglo-American, some Anglo-American-Canadian, and they deal with food, raw materials, industrial goods and shipping. They are situated in Washington and they work closely together. The various members are responsible only to their individual Governments and they are purely advisory bodies. Yet I ant inclined to think that because of that very fact they have been highly successful, aid their advice has been very generally followed for it has been recognized that the advice which they give is in the public interest.
Recently these powers have been expanded so that other nations who are interested, whether as consumers or producers, can be represented on the appropriate commodity committees and they participate in the allocation themselves.
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They work in close touch with U.N.R.R.A. which is one of the claimants for various commodities and goods. U.N.R.R.A. has to provide relief to countries which have suffered during the war. After a very slow start it is now in operation in Yugoslavia, Greece, Czechoslovakia and China, and is authorized to operate in Austria and on a larger scale in Italy. In addition to its other problems it has been given the immense problem of displaced persons. I forbear to tell your Lordships about the Emergency Economic Committee for Europe which is a body which provides a forum for discussion on matters of common interest.
What is the machinery we have to-day? It is this. The determination of the existence of supplies and their allocation to users is made by the Combined Boards, who advise their respective Governments. Shipping and transport were originally under the Combined Shipping Adjustments Board and now it is under the United Maritime Authority. You have got the supplies, you have got the shipping and when the goods arrive in Europe there is a Central Inland Transport Organization to determine port and clearance capacities and to increase the means of forwarding supplies either by means of rail or inland water transport or, of course, by road. So far as funds are concerned, U.N.R.R.A. is charged with the duty of providing them. I do not believe that the shortage of supplies is due to the lack of funds. I believe that the shortage of supplies is caused in part by devastation and the interference of war, in part by drought and in part by the disruption of communications.
I have told your Lordships that these bodies are advisory. They each of them advise their own respective Governments. It is for the Governments themselves to ensure that their own authorities collaborate. Take the case which the noble Marquess raised, the case of the Army releasing transport. If that is required it is for the Government here, for the Secretary of State for War, or if there is a difference between him and other Ministers for the Cabinet, to issue a directive to the Army to release the necessary wagons and trucks. I maintain that any other system is impossible. If the Army are to be told not to over-insure and to run risks, it is for the respective Governments to issue the necessary orders to

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their own Armies and I hope and I assure your Lordships that this Government will do it.
That is the system on which we act. I believe that although there have been setbacks, on the whole we are learning progress in the art of international co-operation. If we add to this machine another merely consultative body, then we shall add one more body to the very full number that already exists and I do not think that would be desirable. If, on the other hand, you are to envisage the setting up of a body like this with executive powers, with the power to direct this or that authority no matter from what nation it may come to take this or that action, then you will seriously endanger the collaboration which we have got to-day, and you may find that by attempting this coercive action you will get very much less than you have got by collaboration. That is the lesson that we draw from the experience of the Supreme Economic Council of 1919. If the nations are all prepared to play and if they all work together, then we shall do best by collaboration. If they are not so prepared, we shall not he able to do these things by executive action, by issuing directions. I say this after very careful consideration, because this is much too serious a matter to stand on one's prestige or one's set opinions.
I welcome this debate. I shall consider what has been said and convey it to my colleagues, and if we come to the conclusion that the suggestion made offers any hope we shall consider it again. The problem is a terribly serious problem, but we do not think this is a useful method. There is one further answer I want to make. How big is this body to be? My experience has always been that if you want a body to take executive action it should be a small one, because you cannot get quick or prompt action from a large general meeting. Are all the nations to be represented on this body, or is it contemplated that we should set up a small executive council which represents a few nations and that that council when set up should then be able to issue directives to all the nations, even those nations who are not members of that body? We are asked by this Motion to scrap our existing machinery, which has done pretty well in the difficult days of the past, and to substitute this body on
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the lines of the body which, despite the most powerful personnel, proved a comparative failure in the much easier conditions after the last war.
There is one further step I would like to take. I have dealt so far only with the short-term problems. There are also the long-term problems to be considered, and they fall more properly to be handled by the Economic and General Council of the United Nations Organization. We hope that body may be set up early in December, and we hope that in regard to these long-term problems it may be able to get to work at once. But I realize that between now and December there is a precious period of two months and therefore I am not suggesting that we can look to that body as the body which can solve the immediate problems. Viewing this matter as I do, having just come back from Europe, having seen there the conditions of some of the people, I realize how serious this problem is but I do not believe that we should be wise at the present time to jeopardize the collaboration which we have up to this point been able to secure, by the endeavour to set up some executive authority whose decrees might not be effective but who might seriously endanger that collaboration.
5.28 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack for the long and careful reply which he has given to this Motion, but it would be idle for me to pretend that I regard it as satisfactory. He has himself admitted the seriousness of the situation, causing him and his colleagues anxiety. He then sketched for us the existing machinery which is the machinery which has, I will not say produced this state of affairs, but has hitherto entirely failed to remedy it. Then he says that is the answer to the problem. That is, I respectfully say, no answer to the problem at all. It is allowing matters to continue exactly as they are going on at the present moment in a way which is causing grave anxiety to very many minds all over the world. There was, if I may say so, a sense of anxiety in the noble and learned Lord's mind about it, but equally a lack of any sense of urgency as displayed in the speech he delivered to your Lordships' House.

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I did not put clown this Motion or make the speech I did as an attack, as the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, seemed to think, upon the present Government. As I have said already, I put it down and tried to impel the late Government into some action. I put it down again in the hope of a more favourable reception from that Government's successor. Apparently, although everybody admits the seriousness of the situation, we are going on in the same ways as hitherto. The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, said I was blaming this Government, but that, of course, other Governments were equally responsible. That is the whole point of this Motion, that you must enlist general support and have the operation carried out on co-ordinated lines. Somebody has got to take the first step, and I hail hoped, and I still hope, that the time may come when it will be the Government of this country which will take the first step towards rectifying this most serious and dangerous situation. The Lord Chancellor said that a body like this cannot give orders to Armies. It may be that this body itself cannot give the actual order to the Commander of an Army, but it surely could say to the Government concerned: "We think that your Army has got too much and we look to you to give the necessary orders to have that stock reduced." The order would then come from the Government to the individual Allied Commander. The noble Lord on the Woolsack said that it is for the Government of the particular country to give the actual order. One is tempted to ask whether the Government of this country has given those actual orders to the military commanders that their requirements must be carried out.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: The noble Lord on the Woolsack says that those orders have been given, and I hope that we may see some promising results in greater distribution.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I must he a little careful about that. I say we have given orders with regard to the provision of lorries. I do not say more than that. I do not say we have given orders to cat our requirements to the bone, or anything like that.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: The provision of lorries may mean two lorries or 200,000, but it is at least satisfactory to know that some orders have been given to the military authorities that they are to reduce existing stocks. As I have said, I cannot regard the answer as satisfactory. The fact that the original Supreme Economic Council may not have worked very well and may have had this or that difficulty, does not impress me at all. I would be quite prepared to start again and see if we could not make a better job of it. If the House had been fuller than it is I would have been tempted to challenge a Division, but in the present state of affairs I can only ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

HOUSE OF COMMONS (BOUNDARY COMMISSIONS) (APPOINTED DAY) ORDER, 1945.
Report from the Special Orders Committee, That they have examined the Special Order as required by the Standing Orders of the House; that in their opinion the Order does not raise important questions of policy or principle; it complies with the terms of Section 33 (2) of the Representation of the People Act, 1945, under which the Order is submitted for approval; that the Order is not founded on precedent; that in the opinion of the Committee the Order can be passed by the House without special attention, and that no further inquiry is necessary before the House proceeds to a decision on the Resolution to approve the said Order.
Read and ordered to lie on the Table.
House adjourned at twenty-six minutes before six o'clock.