Lords Sitting of 25 April 1950

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

Prayers
The Lord Bishop of Truro—Took the Oath.
The Lord Bishop of Rochester—Took the Oath.

PUBLIC UTILITIES STREET WORKS BILL [H.L.]
2.35 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to enact uniform provisions for regulating relations as to apparatus in streets between authorities, bodies and persons having statutory powers to place and deal with apparatus therein, and those having the control or management of streets and others concerned in the exercise of such powers; to render such powers exercisable in land which abuts on a street and is destined for use for road purposes; to make further provision for regulating the closing or restriction of use of roads for the purposes of works and as to the use of alternative routes; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)
On Question, Bill read 1a; and to be printed.

CEMENT SUPPLIES
2.37 p.m.
LORD FAIRFAX OF CAMERON: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
[To ask His Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the acute shortage of cement for domestic house building; and, if so, will they take immediate steps to give a better allocation to this side of the industry, otherwise
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serious unemployment will arise, with a further delay in the housing programme.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF WORKS (LORD MORRISON): My Lords, I wish first to make it clear that deliveries of cement are higher than they have ever been at this time of year. The production of cement in 1950 is expected reach 9,600,000 tons, compared with 3,200,000 tons in 1949 and 7,650,000 in 1938. Three new plants will come into operation this year, with an annual capacity of nearly 600,000 tons. From the total production exports are expected to take this year about 2,000,000 tons, compared with 1,858,000 tons in 1949, and 688,000 tons in 1938. I should add that cement can also be imported from many countries without licence but, of course, at a higher price.
Demand for cement was exceptionally high during the winter, when the mild weather caused little interference with site operations, so that the usual seasonal stocks were not accumulated, and orders are at present higher thin ever before for the time of year. The effects of the reduction in capital investment decided upon last October haw not yet made themselves fell. The increase in production and the effect of the reduced level of investment taken together do not suggest any serious or lasting shortage of cement, but an illusion of shortage can only too easily be created by unnecessary fears and consequent double and treble ordering of supplies. There is reason to think that this has been happening and I hope that your Lordships will use any influence you have to discourage it.
The Ministry of Works are in constant consultation with the manufacturers upon the best distribution of supplies. No serious difficulties have been reported on housing sites outside the London area, but I am aware that there have been shortages in London, and steps have been taken to deal with them. As a result, deliveries to work in progress, including house building sites, are improving.
LORD FAIRFAX OF CAMERON: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. Will he satisfy himself that during the present shortage the smaller firms receive their fair share of supplies?
LORD MORRISON: Certainly; and if the noble Lord has any specific cases in mind and will bring them to my notice I will give them my personal attention.

PUBLIC REGISTERS AND RECORDS (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
2.40 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD MORRISON: My Lords, I rise to move that this Bill be read a second time. As your Lordships will already have noted, this is a very short Bill—unusually short for a Scottish Bill. It arises from the Public Registers and Records (Scotland) Act of 1948, which I remember as one of the first Bills I was privileged to bring before your Lordships' House. Fortunately, so far as I know—although I have learnt to be very careful in matters of Scottish legislation—this Bill raises no political controversy of any kind, and I need not detain your Lordships more than a moment or two in explaining its provisions.
Section 4 of the Public Registers and Records (Scotland) Act, 1948, provides that the Court of Session may, by Act of Sederunt, make provision prescribing the forms of certificates of recordings to be endorsed on writs. Accordingly, the Court of Session passed an Act of Sederunt (Register of Sasines Procedure, 1949) providing inter alia that the form of certificate of recording to be endorsed on writs should be in the form of Schedule B appended thereto. This form does not provide for any signature on the certificate, and since it came into operation no signature has been appended to such certificates. The validity of this Act of Sederunt, and of certificates issued in conformity with its provisions, has now been challenged, on the ground that by virtue of the provisions of Section 14 of the Land Registers (Scotland) Act, 1868, it is necessary to have on such certificates a signature by the Keeper of the Register, or a depute duly commissioned by him. The argument advanced is that the Act of 1948 did not repeal, and was not in-
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consistent with, the provisions of Section 14 of the 1868 Act and that, accordingly, the form prescribed should have made provision for the signature of the Keeper of the Register, or his duly commissioned depute. Section 142 of the Titles to Land Consolidation (Scotland) Act, 1868, also provides for certificates of registration of conveyances, et cetera, to be subscribed by the Keeper of the Register.
Already, over 60,000 writs have been passed with a certificate in the form prescribed by the Act of Sederunt, and it is manifestly desirable to have the legal position placed beyond the realms of doubt or challenge. Accordingly, subsection (1) of the Bill provides that it shall not be necessary for a certificate on a writ recorded in the Register of Sasines to be signed by the Keeper of the Registers or by any other person. Subsection (2) repeals the provisions of the Land Registers (Scotland) Act, 1868, and the Titles to Land Consolidation (Scotland) Act, 1868, which require certificates of registration to be signed. Subsection (3) provides that the Bill shall have retrospective effect as from July 30, 1948, the date on which the Public Registers and Records (Scotland) Act, 1948, received the Royal Assent. I hope that with this explanation the Bill will commend itself to your Lordships. I beg to move that it be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Morrison.)
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I would add only one word to what the noble Lord has said. This Bill provides for a small amendment of the 1948 Act, and has a retroactive clause, which in this case is excusable, since it fulfils what the original Bill was intended to do. It is in no way an alteration of that Bill as it originally stood. In these circumstances, I have nothing further to say except that, although this is a small Bill, it affects the Register House in Scotland and, therefore, must necessarily be very carefully scrutinised in this House and elsewhere.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

COLONIAL AND OTHER TERRITORIES (DIVORCE JURISDICTION) BILL [H.L.]
2.47 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The LORD TERRINGTON in the Chair]
Clause 1 [Extension of principal Acts to persons domiciled in Northern Ireland]:
LORD LLEWELLIN LORD LLEWELLIN moved, in subsection (1), to substitute "principles and rules" for "rules and principles." The noble Lord said: This is a very small Amendment. I seek to alter the order of the words "rules and principles" in line 9 of page 1, so that they comply with line 22 on the same page. I referred to this matter on Second Reading, and it is the only point of dispute that I can see in the Bill. I beg to move my Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 9, leave out ("rules and principles") and insert ("principles and rules").—(Lord Llewellin.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT JOWITT): I have great pleasure in accepting the Amendment. I feel that I must congratulate myself on the proof which it offers of the scrupulous care which is shown by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, over our proceedings. It also makes me realise that, if ever I do get a Bill through without any Amendment, it is proof positive that the Bill is almost perfect. In these circumstances, I have much pleasure in accepting this Amendment. In future I will try to abide by the rules and principles—or is it the principles and rules?—which the noble Lord lays down!
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
House resumed.

HIGH COURT AND COUNTY COURT JUDGES BILL [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

ARMY AND AIR FORCE (ANNUAL) BILL
2.50 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Pakenham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The LORD TERRINGTON in the Chair]
Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN moved, after Clause 2 to insert the following new clause:
. In Section 85 of the Army Act (which deals with continuance in the Service) for the words "or will within one year complete" there shall be substituted the words "or will within seven years complete."
The noble Viscount slid: The Amendment which stands in my name is prompted in general by a desire always to do anything we possibly can to encourage the recruiting or, in this case, the extension of service of Regular soldiers. I move this Amendment because under the, present Army Act it is not possible for a soldier to give notice to extend his service after twenty-two years, except by giving notice in the last year. As a result of that provision, we think that a certain number of useful soldiers are lost because, through having to wait so long a time, they decide to take up a civil career; whereas if they had been allowed longer in which to give notice valuable warrant officers and other N.C.Os. might be saved to the Army for a further period of useful service. It is for that reason that the Amendment which stands in my name has been tabled. The effect of it is to give a soldier on a term of service lasting for twenty-two years a full seven years from the fourteenth year onwards to decide whether or not be wishes to extend his service beyond twenty-two years.
This Amendment has been drafted in broad terms because we realise that a matter of this sort is not one which can be legislated for in detail in the Army Act, but must be left to administrative action by the War Office. Conditions in regard to soldiers extending their service vary from time to time and from one corps to another. They also vary in accordance with the fitness of the individual soldier. All we are proposing

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here is that it should be possible for the War Office to make regulations which by law they cannot do at present, whereby under suitable conditions a soldier can elect to extend his service within seven years of the termination of his engagement. I think I have made myself clear to the noble Lord opposite and I need not take up the time of the Committee any longer. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 2, insert the said new Clause.—(Viscount Bridgeman.)
THE MINISTER OF CIVIL AVIATION (LORD PAKENHAM): This proposed Amendment illustrates the constructive attitude that the noble Viscount exhibits towards all these matters. The Government are sympathetically inclined towards the objects of the noble Viscount's new clause. However, considerable research into the age and promotional structure of the various arms of the Service will have to go forward before any change of this nature can be put into practical effect, and as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State may wish to make other similar or consequential changes in the Army Act next year, I hope that the noble Viscount will be content with the assurance that I can give on behalf of my right honourable friend, that the intentions of his proposed new clause will be embodied in next year's Bill.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: I thank the noble Lord opposite for the way in which he has met this Amendment. I realised that as the Army Bill has to become law by the end of this month if there is to be any Army at all, it would be difficult to go into the matter as fully as it deserves. In the circumstances, therefore, and in the light of the assurance given to me by the noble Lord, we shall look forward to seeing a reference to this matter in the Army Bill of next year; and in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3:
Amendment of s. 91 as respects Northern Ireland
3.—(1) In paragraph (a) of subsection (3) of section ninety-one of the Army Act (which, as respects soldiers with homes in Northern Ireland, provides for their reception into mental hospitals in Northern Ireland on the
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order of the Army Council or an officer deputed by that Council) for the words "by order direct that the soldier shall be received" there shall be substituted the words "apply for the soldier's reception."
(2) In subsection (4) of the said section ninety-one for the words "an order under paragraph (a) of subsection (3) of this section" there shall be substituted the words "an application under paragraph (a) of subsection (3) of this section," and for the words "as if it were a reception order" to the end of the subsection there shall be substituted the words "as if it were an application made under section seven of the Mental Health Act (Northern Ireland), 1948.".
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN moved to omit Clause 3. The noble Viscount said: It seems to me that here we have struck some slight anomaly in the arrangements for dealing with soldiers suffering under a mental disability who are to be admitted to mental institutions in Northern Ireland. The words which the Bill proposes to strike out provide that the Army Council shall direct that a soldier "shall be received," and so forth, into a mental institution. The new words provide only that the Army Council shall apply for the soldier's reception. It seems to me—though I may be wrong in this—that whereas under the old arrangement there was a certainty, so far as the War Office were concerned, that a mental soldier would be received in a proper institution, the only thing that is certain now is that the War Office can apply for such reception. You may "call up spirits from the vasty deep," but do they come when you call them? In other words, if the War Office have a mental soldier for disposal in Northern Ireland, and apply for that soldier's disposal, is it certain that the proper authorities in Northern Ireland—or indeed, elsewhere—will receive that soldier and give him proper attention? It would be a terrible thing if the War Office, who have the responsibility for dealing with sick soldiers, were not able to be absolutely certain that the soldier would be cared for by the Ministry of Health. Perhaps the noble Lord opposite can give an assurance on this matter or, at any rate, can say what is being done in this direction. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 3.—(Viscount Bridgeman.)
LORD PAKENHAM: I hope that I shall be able to reassure the noble Viscount to a considerable extent. I under-

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stand that he is not satisfied that an application on the part of the Army Council for the admission of a soldier of unsound mind to a mental hospital in Northern Ireland, necessarily means that a soldier would be admitted, because, he argues, there is no actual obligation on the hospital to do so. I and those who advise me do not think there is much in this point in practice, as the same arrangements have proved satisfactory in the United Kingdom, both for civilians and soldiers. However, if the noble Viscount wishes to press the matter and still considers it to be of importance, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is prepared to go into the point, in relation to both the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, with the Minister of Health and the Government of Northern Ireland. I may, however, be forgiven for pointing out to the noble Viscount, that there may be some reluctance to impose a statutory obligation of this kind on mental hospitals because it would mean discrimination between soldier and civilian. Moreover, in our view, it would have no practical effect, because if there was room a hospital would never refuse admittance to a soldier; and if there was not room, the existence of a statutory obligation would not create additional room for him to be admitted. In view of that answer, perhaps the noble Viscount may see his way to withdraw his Amendment.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: I am grateful to the noble Lord opposite for having gone into the matter so carefully, and for the suggestion that it should be gone into still further. I am quite unable to argue against the noble Lord, that this point has any practical effect—I do not know. But I feel that a case has been made out for asking the noble Lord's right honourable friend to look into the matter a little further, and if that can be done I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD SALTOUN: Before the Committee leave this Amendment, I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he will consider this: that while a particular hospital may not always be able to find a bed, it is always possible to find a bed in an area.
LORD PAKENHAM: I will gladly see that that is considered.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Remaining clauses and Schedules agreed to.
House resumed.
Bill reported without amendment.

THE "PELEUS" TRIAL
3.0 p.m.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY rose to call the attention of His Majesty's Government to the result of the recent review of sentences of imprisonment passed by a British Military Court upon the two survivors of the five men who were tried in what is known as the "Peleus" trial, three of whom were shot; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, the subject of the Motion which I wish to bring before your Lordships' House is connected with what is known as the "Peleus" trial. The point with which I wish to deal is the validity of the excuse for a war crime that the person committing the crime was acting under superior orders. It is a difficult subject with which to deal, and I must crave the indulgence of your Lordships for two reasons. First, I feel that I am standing on rather delicate ground, in view of the high legal authorities who are now sitting in the House. Secondly, I have to confess that, when I came up from the country to-day, I left behind me the carefully-drawn draft of my speech. Your Lordships will, in consequence, he spared a good deal, but I shall have to strain my memory—which is now failing, I am afraid. I trust, however, that I shall be able to make my point.
As your Lordships know, international law as it now stands does not allow for the plea, in war-crimes cases, that the person charged was acting under superior orders. It says quite clearly that a member of the Armed Forces found guilty of a war crime must be punished for it, whereas up to April, 1944, there was a note in the British Manual of Military Law, and in the United States Manual, which clearly stated that a member of the Armed Forces acting under superior orders was not punishable by the enemy, though the giver of the order was. That was a fair proviso, but I am not suggesting that that is the law now. During a debate in your Lordships' House in May of last year, in which the noble and

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learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor, and the noble and learned Lords, Lord Simon and Lord Wright, took part, it was clearly stated that that was not the law as it now stands. Ever since 1921 it has been the law that a man in the Armed Forces has to obey only a "lawful order"—those are the words used. That places on the individual the onus of deciding whether or not an order which he receives is legal. In a great number of cases he will be incapable of forming a judgment on this point, because he will not know why in fact an order has been given, or what makes it necessary.
The Manual of Military Law, as I say, gave these excuses for the member of the Armed Forces concerned, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wright, speaking in the debate in May of last year, supplied an explanation concerning the whole of the law which now relates to members of the Armed Forces. He explained how it was that this law, which had existed since 1921, and was stated in the Military Manuals of both this country and the United States, was wrong. As therein set out, the law excused members of the Military Forces if they had acted under superior orders. I am not questioning Lord Wright's explanation; I am sure that what he said was correct. But I think your Lordships will agree that it is a remarkable fact that an amendment which ought to have been included in the Manual of Military Law in 1921 did not appear there until April, 1944. That is a long time for an amendment to take to reach the Manual.
This is a matter which vitally affects people who have to be instructed from the Manual. As I say, I am not in any way making an attack on the explanation which was given, but I suggest that for a long time a great number of lawyers and officers accepted that the order as it stood was correct. I suggest that there must have been a number of people whose duty it was to handle these books and bring them up to date and others who had to teach from them. There must have been many who had to lecture to officers of the three Services on military law, and it is extraordinary that the law could remain stated like that, and that none of them should question it. Even if the accuracy of the Manual was not acknowledged, I suggest that in this case tacit
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consent gave agreement. It is natural that it should be so. One of the cardinal principles of military discipline is that an officer who gives an order takes full responsibility for that order, and in return for his taking that full responsibility he expects unhesitating obedience to his orders. I suggest that if you start tampering with that understanding you tend to undermine military discipline, which is a very dangerous thing for any Government to do. There is no knowing what the repercussions may be. It may prove a boomerang when there is need to rely on the Armed Forces for if every individual feels that he has to consider whether an order given to him is legal or not, it may lead to unreliability.
I am citing the case of the "Peleus" as an example. I do so because I think it is a rather flagrant case and because it is simple to understand. The events took place in a small space; few people were involved; and the episode lasted only a few hours. The "Peleus" was a Greek steamer of 9,000 tons, and at the time of the incident she was on a voyage from Freetown, West Africa, to the River Plate. On March 13, 1942, when she was about 300 miles from the African coast, the German U-boat 852 put two torpedoes into her. She disintegrated, and it is stated that all traces of her were lost within a matter of two minutes, except for some rafts with survivors on them. Two men from the rafts were taken aboard the submarine, and were submitted to the usual questioning by officers. They were then put back on their raft, and the submarine disappeared in the darkness. She is alleged to have moved off for a distance of about 1,000 metres and then to have returned and opened fire with machine guns and grenades upon the survivors of the "Peleus."
The declared intention of the captain of the submarine was to remove all signs of wreckage, so that an air patrol in the morning would not notice anything which would lead to the idea or to the discovery that a submarine had been or was in that particular area. At his trial the captain pleaded "operational necessity." Of course, in certain circumstances, "operational necessity" must be a valid excuse. It is the first duty of any officer to attain the object which he has been ordered

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to attain, and to do it with minimum loss of life to his own men arid, if possible, without damage to the ship for which he is responsible. If he is going to make the excuse of "operational necessity" he has to prove that the necessity was immediate and pressing so that he had to take the action which he did take.
In this case, the captain of the submarine did not make good his case. He was found guilty of a war crime, and was shot. It was stated that he told his officers and men that he was doing what he did so that all traces of the submarine might be lost. He maintained that he followed the course of action which he did follow for the safety of his crew and of his vessel; that his object was to prevent any trace of the submarine's whereabouts being left visible. That was the captain's excuse. He did not plead that he was acting under superior orders. He said clearly that it was a case of the lives of the survivors of the steamer, as against the lives of his crew and the safety of his ship. If he could have made good his excuse, his order for the firing on the survivors would not have become illegal. Those who carried out his orders could not tell what the pressing need was. He was their leader, the most experienced officer on the submarine, and it was he who formed the view of the absolute necessity for the order. He died, and died well. He did not attempt to hide under the plea of superior orders. He took full responsibility for the order given, and he supplied the names of those to whom he had given a direct order to fire on the raft.
The next officer was a young man named Hoffmann, a sub-lieutenant who had just been promoted lieutenant, who was in charge of the machine guns and small arms. It was to him the captain gave the order to have these brought up on the bridge. That boy was one of the officers who had interrogated the survivors, and when he parted from them he said to them that the English would be able to pick them up in the morning. He knew nothing about what was intended. Afterwards, he went on the bridge and was ordered to mount the guns, and he did so because it was his duty to do so. An officer took a gun and by the captain's direct order opened fire on the raft. The captain admitted that when he gave that order he knew that at the time it was the last hope for the survivors of the wreck, but he thought it was necessary. One of
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the guns jammed, and this young officer came forward to clear the gun, which was in the hands of an amateur. It appears that this action was held against him. But what young officer would not do that? He was in charge of the guns, and when he saw one of them was jammed he went forward to clear it, because it was a reflection on him. Any young officer worth his salt would have done the same. The captain, seeing him with the gun in his hand, then ordered him to fire on the wreckage, which he did. He told the court:
"I received a direct order from the commandant that I was to fire. I had full confidence in the commandant, who had great experience through the whole war. I could not brine myself in any case to disobey orders and set such an example to the crew of my ship."
I think those answers did the boy credit. He was sentenced to death, and was shot.
The next officer to be tried was the doctor. I shall not say much in his case. He was, of course, protected by German laws front using weapons of offence, and he could have taken shelter under that fact and excused himself. There was no apparent reason why the doctor should have been on the bridge at all at that moment. But he received the order and opened fire with a machine gun. It was his gun which jammed, and it was he whom young Hoffmann relieved of his gun. After all, a doctor is not trained to arms and any young lieutenant who had seen him making a mess of the gun would have jumped forward to put it right. The doctor was sentenced to death, but he might have been spared the homily on the protection which the Geneva Convention gives to doctors. There is no apparent protection in naval battles, and in submarines it does not exist at all. It would have been much more human to consider that the doctor was one of sixty young men cooped up in a submarine.
The next officer was an engineer lieutenant. When the captain first gave the order, this lieutenant went to him and objected. The captain said, "I am determined to eliminate any wreckage and will have my order carried out." The engineer accepted that as an order and went on with his own work. Later in the night he came on the bridge and saw a blue-jacket using a gun. He pushed him aside and took the gun from him and fired. He was on the bridge of his own volition;

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there was no direct order to fire; and he gave in court the fantastic reason for having taken the gun from this young seaman that the young seaman had an illegitimate child. This officer was condemned to imprisonment for life.
The last man was a boy still younger, of nineteen years of age. He went on duty on the bridge at midnight, and found himself close to the captain and among a group of officers. The captain told him to start firing, which he did. The boy was on the bridge because he went there on his duty and he obeyed the orders of the captain when he was there. Firing had been going on for some time before he got to the bridge; it went on about two-and-a-half to three hours in intermittent bursts, so that he might have thought, if he had thought about it at all, that there would be nobody left on the raft. In any case, there is no proof at all that he did shoot anybody. He had his gun taken from him by an officer. He made no attempt to go back to the gun but went to his duty on watch. He was sent to prison for fifteen years. I suppose that might be considered rather a "let off", when three others had been sentenced to death, but those were older men and officers, with better education at naval colleges and they must have heard something about the Geneva and The Hague Conventions. I am perfectly sure this boy had heard nothing about those things. He was trained militarily in a country where great stress is laid on obedience to orders, especially in the presence of the enemy. Yet this boy received a sentence of fifteen years' imprisonment. I was interested in what the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, said during the debate held in this House not long ago on the flogging of criminals, about a young man of seventeen years of age sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. The noble Viscount said that when that man came out his whole life would be spoiled. There is a difference between fifteen years' imprisonment for a German boy trying to do his duty as he sees it by his country at war, and some of these young brutes who attack an old man or an old woman with a cosh and take their savings. In this case, I prefer the German boy.
That is how it stands. This boy has been given fifteen years' imprisonment, the engineer-lieutenant imprisonment for
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life, and three others have been shot. I suggest that it would have been quite enough to have shot the captain who gave the order and rightly took all the responsibility for it, and not pursued this further down the scale. Consideration should be given to the conditions under which these men acted, particularly young Hoffmann and the boy seaman, who were on their first voyages, who were serving for the first time on a submarine, and who were taking part in action for the first time and were naturally rather excited. Of course, there must be a trial to find out the guilt; but could not these young men who were acting under military orders be placed in a different category from those who commit brutal and beastly crimes like those on the list read out not so long ago by the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor? The tortures and punishments given in concentration camps are of quite a different character from the actions of these young men acting under military orders. Of course, if they are found guilty of exceeding orders, then they have "had it"; but these young men carried out orders when there was no alternative but to obey. In cases where a man merely carries out orders directly, I would suggest that, if he has to have a punishment, it should be a light one, to mark the displeasure of the authorities, and nothing else. If, however, he goes to the extreme; if a young officer were told to take some men out and shoot them and, like one Japanese officer, gives his men bayonet practice on them, then that is a different matter. I put this matter forward as I feel I am acting in the interests of young officers and other ranks and ratings who receive orders in the stress and strain of battle and in an emotional atmosphere.
The rules that govern the laws of war must be overhauled soon—many of them are as dead as the Dodo. For instance, it is still said that a military target in close proximity to military operations is not to be bombed if it cannot be done without hurting the civilian population. Further, a submarine is ordered to come to the surface to warn a ship that it is going to be torpedoed. It has to see the crew taken out and put into a place of safety—and ships' boats in most cases are not places of safety. With submarines acting under the water and aeroplanes in the air now forming the primary weapons

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of war, how can one expect those rules to be carried out? My purpose now is merely to ask that when the rules are overhauled the situation of young men belonging to the Armed Forces should be given consideration. After all, every country now has to send the flower of its youth to war. Ought it not to be one of the chief objects of international law to see, so far as possible, that they are protected from fortuitous dangers? I do not know who is responsible for international laws, but I feel that if the British and Americans again came together they could probably get these rules altered to suit their wish; and the fair law would be as laid down in the Manuals originally—namely, that the men who give the orders shall be punished, but not those who serve under them and carry out those orders faithfully. I beg to move for Papers.
3.23 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am bound to say that I find myself in complete and absolute disagreement with the noble Earl who has just spoken. It seems to me that the doctrine he enunciated is nothing less than the fuehrer prinzip. Suppose that the commander of this U-boat had said: "Well, I was given my command to do this by Admiral von Doenitz, and I did exactly what he told me to do." The noble Earl's reasoning would lead him to say that the commander of the U-boat was responsible. If Admiral von Doenitz had said: "I was given my command directly by Hitler," the same reasoning would inevitably lead to the result that Admiral von Doenitz was not, and Hitler was, guilty. As I understand it, that is the fuehrer prinzip. That is the doctrine whereby you lay down yourself, all your moral ideas and everything else, absolutely to the control of one man, rendering to him, not merely "those things which are Caesar's," but those things which every man must in the last resort judge for himself.
The actual details of this crime were, to my mind, absolutely deplorable. A ship was torpedoed in the middle of the Atlantic, and no doubt it sank very shortly afterwards. Two survivors were taken on board the U-boat for interrogation. They were both put back on a raft afterwards, one of them having been deprived of the lifebelt with which he
1118
came on board the U-boat. The U-boat then went away but came back and hailed the survivors on the rafts through its hailer to come closer. So they came closer. Thereupon the men on the U-boat started lobbing hand-grenades upon these unfortunate survivors and machine-gunned and killed all except three; two of them managed to survive on the raft in the most extraordinary way, although by that time their wounds had become gangrenous, and one later lost both his legs. There was some commotion and disturbance on the U-boat, as the men were obviously horrified by the order which they were given. The commander of the U-boat had to address them through his loud-speaking machine to explain to them that, hard though it seemed, it was inevitable to do these things, and that, after all, our airmen were bombing women and children in Berlin. Those are the circumstances of the case.
The various people who took part in this shooting were tried. As to the law, the rule of law is quite plain. In the year 1907 the Geneva Convention provided:
"After every engagement the two belligerents shall, in so far as military interests permit, take steps to look for the sick, wounded and shipwrecked, and to protect them, as well as the dead, against pillage and improper treatment."
In the year 1921 the same question arose at the Leipzig Trials. They were trials for war crimes of the First World War, tried before German Courts, in regard to a ship called the "Llandovery Castle." In that case the U-boat attacked and sank a hospital ship, and then attacked and drowned the survivors. The German Supreme Court—I stress the word "German"—convicted the two officers of homicide, and in its judgment laid down as follows:
"The firing on the boats was art offence against the law of nations. In war on land the killing of unarmed enemies is not allowed; similarly, in war at sea the killing of shipwrecked people, who have taken refuge in lifeboats, is forbidden."
In complete disregard of that doctrine, in the case we are now considering, the U-boat came up and spent something like five hours among the unhappy survivors of that wreckage. At the trial there was called for the defence of the captain a

1119
U-boat officer named Schnee. He was asked this question:
"What would you have done if you had been in the captain's position?"
His reply was:
"I would under all circumstances have tried my best to save lives, because that is a measure which was taken by all U-boat Commanders. But when I hear of this case, then I can only explain it as this, that Captain Eck, through the terrific experience he had been through, lost his nerve."
He was then asked:
"Does that mean that you would not have done what Captain Eck did if you had kept your nerve?"
His reply to that was:
"I would not have done so."
These men were tried before a court-martial, the composition of which, in part at any rate, was of distinguished and gallant naval officers, and were found guilty. It is not part of our task to re-try that case. I would say here and now that it was inevitable that they should be found guilty. I think three of them—certainly two—were ordered to be shot, and they were shot. Two of them are in prison at the present time. One of those two who, in the first instance, declined to have anything to do with the shooting, was sentenced to penal servitude for life. Penal servitude for life means twenty-one years; and twenty-one years, assuming there is good behaviour, means, in practive, fourteen years—he has one-third remitted. This sentence dates from 1945, and the fourteen years will run from then. The other and younger man had a sentence of fifteen years. All these sentences have recently been reviewed by the United Kingdom High Commissioner in Germany. That on the last man that I mentioned has been reduced to ten years, and he also, assuming that he earns his remission, will come out after two-thirds of that time—that is to say, some time in 1952.
I want to add only this word. It has often been said: "What a difficult position the soldier has been placed in, because if he disobeys the order of his superior officer he can get into trouble, and if, on the other hand, he shoots when there is no proper occasion for his shooting and kills somebody, then he is guilty of murder." That is the law, and that has always been the law. Of course, that law is applied—as I hope all our laws
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are—in good sense, and I should like to read to your Lordships what the Judge Advocate said with regard to this young man in the course of summing up this case on this very point. He said:
"It is quite obvious that no sailor and no soldier can carry with him a library of international law or have immediate access to a Professor in that subject who can tell him whether or not a particular command is a lawful one. If this were a case which involved the careful consideration of questions of international law, as to whether or not the command to fire at helpless survivors struggling in the water was lawful, you might well think it would not be fair to hold any of the subordinate accused in this case responsible for what they are alleged to have done. But is it not fairly obvious to you that if in fact the carrying out of Eck's command, involving the killing of these helpless survivors, was not a lawful command, and that it must have been obvious to the most rudimentary intelligence that it was not a lawful command, those who did that shooting are not to be excused for doing it upon the ground of superior orders."
That was the direction which the Judge Advocate gave to the Court, and I think we may assume that the Court, composed as I have indicated, applying their common sense to the matter, came to the conclusion that this was no nicely or finely balanced question of international law. This was a gross and obvious breach of international law and, if I may say so, shocks one's idea of the great traditions of the sea.
I have nothing more to say. It is not for us to review these cases. It is for us to see that the trials are conducted in the most scrupulously fair manner, as this trial was. It is for us to be satisfied that there is ample reviewing machinery. There is such machinery, and a review has taken place. I venture to think that if we do more than that we are stepping outside our province, and we are not really assisting the administration of the law. For those reasons I am bound to say that I cannot accept the Motion of the noble and gallant Earl. It only remains for me to add this. I do not know at what time this peccant paragraph got into our Manual of Military Law, but I am pretty certain that no one ever suggested that Eck, the Commander of the U-boat, had ever seen or consulted our Manual of Military Law. However, this paragraph was taken from one of the early editions of Oppenheim—the great authority on international law. When Oppenheim brought out a new edition

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correcting the previous error, a corresponding correction was made in the Manual of Military Law. The Manual of Military Law is in no sense an authoritative work, and that which I have described to your Lordships as the law has been the law ever since I was born, and a great deal longer than that—there cannot be any question about that at all. In those circumstances, I cannot accept the Motion of the noble and gallant Earl.
3.35 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I should not like this debate to go by without saying that I stand by my noble and gallant friend Lord Cork in the principle that he has advocated. I was once ordered to be shot myself for no reason at all, but the last thing that ever entered my head was to blame the unfortunate subaltern who was required to carry out the duly. That subaltern, by a trick which I do not think I would have ventured to play had I been a subaltern, managed to save my life, for which I was grateful; although I never had a chance of expressing my gratitude. It seems to me that the principle for which my noble and gallant friend is speaking is a sound one. It is hard to apply difficult parts of English common law to international law, and I do not know how we really stand in the matter. If my memory is correct, we tried a young officer and broke him for refusing to carry out an order which he thought was an improper order. If we do that, it seems to me that we cannot have it both ways. That is all I wish to say to your Lordships, but I wish to go on record that I stand by my noble and gallant friend Lord Cork.
3.37 p.m.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My Lords, after having heard the speech of my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack, there is only one thing which I think it necessary for me to say. After all, this is a matter which is entirely nonpolitical, and which must touch a chord in everybody's breast, because it is perfectly plain that the younger members of the Forces have no moral choice as to whether they obey an order or not.
The point upon which I venture to think my noble friend's memory has misled him is about the length of time and the circumstances attached to the inclusion of the positive rule, in very clear language, in the Manual of Military Law.
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It was not, I think, by an accident that it got in. I think it was carefully considered and it was certainly in, if I may trust my memory, for over twenty years. This matter was brought to the attention of the Birkenhead Committee, which sat quite a long time ago. I have not brought any papers with me, and I am afraid that my memory is not as good as it once was, but I am fairly sure that the substantial facts are these. The Birkenhead Committee objected to the rule which we are now discussing, and I am almost certain that it was in the year 1942 that it was struck out of the Manual. I am so inclined to be confident that I have stated the facts rightly on this point that I am a little surprised that my noble friend on the Woolsack has not a recollection of those curious facts. They were much discussed amongst jurists, and a full account appears in a recent book. I will not go into the details because I have not brought them with me and I am afraid of misleading your Lordships.
In the circumstances which I have mentioned—assuming they are right and, of course, they can easily be checked—I venture to think that it would be a fair thing to reconsider the position of the prisoners who have not lost their lives. A principle of that kind, which seemed right to so many people here—namely, that a man was bound to obey the order of his superior officer, and that therefore the rule did not apply in cases where there was a direct order—leads one to suppose that there is a strong feeling in favour of the principle as it stood, even though it was wrong and most dangerous. While condemning, as I think my noble friend Lord Cork condemned, in the strongest possible language the behaviour of the captain (I say nothing about his officers of commissioned rank, who were perhaps able to stand up to the order of their captain) I think that when it comes to a newly-serving officer in a ship it is rather strong to inflict on him such a punishment that his life is entirely ruined, if the circumstances that I have mentioned with regard to our original view of the appropriate rule are correct.
3.41 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I had not intended to intervene in this debate, but in view of what has been said by several noble Lords I feel that I must express my own views, which I

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believe represent those of the great majority of your Lordships' House. I would say to the noble and gallant Earl, Lord Cork, that I deeply respect the high motives which have inspired him in bringing this matter forward. There is no doubt that what he had in mind was the traditions of the great Service in which he played so distinguished a part, and the very difficult position in which sailors serving in a naval force must often be placed. I am sure that nothing but that was in his mind in raising this subject.
But I must say how profoundly I disagree with him. If he will allow me to say so, I was deeply shocked by what he said. After all, what was this case? The ship was a merchantman; it was not a ship of war. It was going about on its lawful occasions in the very centre of the Atlantic, on the high seas. It was sunk by a submarine. It may be said that in total war there was no such thing as peaceful occasions; but this was as near to one as you could possibly get. And these unhappy merchant sailors were slaughtered. The noble and gallant Earl, in the whole of his speech, never mentioned the people in the water. His whole attention was devoted entirely to explaining what were the difficulties in which the commander and his subordinates in the submarine found themselves; but there was no word about the men in the water. Surely we must think of them too. If he will allow me to say so, he excused the position of the captain by saying that he acted no doubt from what he regarded as military necessity; and he seemed to suggest that that was a very real reason which must be taken into account. There might, for instance, have been danger to his ship, and so on, and one must recognise that. But a plea of military necessity might be held to justify the most appalling actions. Take, for instance, the case of an army advancing into a hostile country, the commanders being very anxious to deal with any rebellion behind their lines. This plea might be held to justify taking a thousand men, women and children and shooting them out of hand, to terrorise the rest. Anything might be justified by the plea of military necessity, if that be regarded as the paramount consideration.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: May I be allowed to interrupt the noble
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Marquess? I did not excuse the captain. I said it was a flagrant act and I agreed with the punishment he received; but I pointed out that that punishment should have expiated the crime.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I am very sorry if I misunderstood the noble Earl. I have no desire whatever to misrepresent him. But supposing a sadistic commanding officer or soldier ordered his subordinates to torture a dozen children: can anyone conceive that that would be justified? It is not merely military or international law which would prevent them from committing such a crime, but the very basis of our civilisation itself. If these men were in doubt I think they would have been right to have faced being shot themselves rather than take any action of the kind which they did take. Whether any of us would be able to stand up to that test it is not for us to say; but there is no doubt that morally that would have been the right thing. It is not the same as the killing of innocent persons by bombing, for instance. It is different because the objective of bombing is usually a military one, and you cannot destroy that legitimate objective, without destroying also what is not military. But when you can differentiate, then it is an obligation in honour and decency to do so. It is for that reason that international law exists at all. It is the very basis of civilised life. If we lower that standard I believe that all civilisation would soon pass away.
3.46 p.m.
LORD WRIGHT: My Lords, I am very reluctant to intervene in this debate, and I have little to say after all that has been said already. I well remember the "Peleus" case because I attended as an observer at the greater part of the trial; and hearing the evidence and observing the general attitude made a deep impression on my mind. What happened, reduced to simple terms, was simply a case of cold-blooded, unjustified and irrational murder. These wretched Greeks and a few Englishmen swimming about in the water were machine gunned and destroyed with grenades in a most bloodthirsty way, which shocked even the crew of the U-boat, for the bulk of them, according to the evidence, went down below when they heard what was going to happen. I do not want to go into that now. We have heard the summary of the

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position given by the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack. I need not add to it, and I do not desire to qualify it in any way. I merely want to point out that in the interests of civilisation—so far as there can be civilisation in war time—it is essential that conduct such as that of Captain Eck and his subordinates should not pass unpunished. It is essential that international law should be justified and upheld. Although I sympathise with the manifest and laudible desire of the noble and gallant Earl to treat everybody as reasonably and kindly as possible, there are limits. Justice must be done, and the instincts of law and the rules of international law must be vindicated. I do not know what course is suggested by the noble and gallant Earl. The matter is, of course, in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief, who, I understand, has already reconsidered and reduced the sentence, and, strictly speaking, we have no jurisdiction to express any view at all about it. I must say that, on the whole, we should be ill-advised to intervene quite gratuitiously in this matter.
3.50 p.m.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I feel I must say a word in self-defence. I stated at the beginning of my remarks that I felt I was on dangerous ground. I knew that I should be misrepresented, or at least that there was a possibility of that happening, although I hoped not. However, I feel that I have indeed been very much misrepresented. I do not excuse the act. I wanted the captain shot, and I was glad to see it done. I pointed out that it was a case in which the excuse of "operational necessity" might be taken. However, the court was not convinced and, quite rightly, the captain was shot. In my opinion, in spite of what I have heard, I think that that death should have expiated the crime, that the boy of twenty-one should not have been shot, and that the boy of nineteen should not have been sentenced to a long term of imprisonment—fifteen years. It has now been reduced to ten, so there was something wrong about the sentence.
I am sure that the noble and learned Viscount on the 'Woolsack did not mean to misrepresent me, but I feel that he did so very much. As for that edition of Oppenheim, I never did consider that
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it had any bearing. I said that the dictum that the giver of an order was held responsible, and not the men who carried out the order, was acknowledged by a great many lawyers and other people for many years, so they must have believed it to be correct. They never pointed out the mistake in the past. A great many members of your Lordships' House have seen active service. If you can imagine yourself on that submarine at the age of twenty-one, standing up and arguing with your commanding officer about what was said at The Hague in 1921 and 1926, you are very much braver than I was at that age. I feel that the law in that respect requires alteration.
My object was to plead on behalf of the young officers and men who are placed in an impossible position. What may be done during and after a great battle in the jungles of Malaya or Burma, or in Africa, or even in a submarine, where everybody is against you and you are a long way from home, is vastly different from what may be contemplated in a comfortable council room at The Hague, discussing what should be done if a man misbehaves himself. I have heard two opinions which as a rule I value very much, but I am not in the least convinced by them to-day. I think it is a grave injustice that a man of twenty-one or twenty-two should be given fifteen years' imprisonment, or something like it. I ask that the law should be reconsidered. As for saying that I approve of the action taken, I do not approve of it. I beg to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (GRANTS) REGULATIONS, 1950
3.54 p.m.
LORD LLEWELLIN LORD LLEWELLIN rose to move to resolve, that an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying that the Town and Country Planning (Grants) Regulations, 1950, dated January 19, 1950, a copy of which was laid before Parliament on January 20, be annulled. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it is unusual to find a Prayer on the Order Paper of this House, yet we have as undoubted a right as another place to pray against a Statutory Instrument, and, indeed, in appropriate cases to reject an affirmative Resolution placed before us.

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One of the difficulties inherent in this procedure is that neither House can amend these Regulations, and one has to pray for the annulment of the whole or hold one's peace. The Regulations to which I am drawing your Lordships' attention to-day are the Town and Country Planning (Grants) Regulations, 1950. I am not at all desirous of having the whole of these Regulations cancelled. I desire to draw attention to only one portion of them.
It is interesting to note that the Regulations, which were promulgated on January 19, are headed "Statutory Instruments: 1950, No. 88." My comment on that is that in the first nineteen days of this year there have been laid no fewer than eighty-eight Statutory Instruments, each having the force of law. That means that we are turning these things out, or were in those nineteen days, at an average rate of more than five in every working day. Such has been the trend of modern legislation. How on earth those who have to advise on the law can manage to keep up with this spate of Statutory Instruments beats me. To revert to these particular Regulations, I would point out that one of the provisions is that it shall be a condition of grant that the Government's Valuation Office, the district valuers, shall undertake negotiations for the acquisition of all land for local authorities, however good the local authorities' own valuation officers are. In some cases, of course, local authorities are only too glad to make use of the services of the district valuers. But these Regulations make it compulsory in every case for every local authority to use them if they are to qualify for a grant.
On January 25, six days after these Regulations were laid, the first Report of the Local Government Man-power Committee was presented to Parliament by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the notification that the Government had accepted its recommendations. This Report said, amongst other things, that local authorities
"should be recognised as responsible bodies, competent to discharge their own functions and exercising their responsibility in their own right."
It further said that:
"irritation and waste of man-power could be eliminated by getting rid of a detailed examination
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by the professional staff of the Government Department concerned of similar work already done by the professional staff of the local authority."
Of course, the compulsory use of the district valuer is a complete negation of these principles which have been accepted by the Government. Perhaps that is not a very good instance of perfect internal planning in the Government itself, but I will pass that by with just that comment.
Suffice it to say now that the County Councils' Association, the Association of Municipal Corporations, the Urban District and Rural District Councils' Association, the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee and the London County Council are all opposed to this compulsory use by them of the district valuer in all their negotiations. I am glad to notice when it is sought to apply this compulsion to them, that they are all now dead against the idea that the Valuation Office should have the last and only word and there should be no appeal. I am glad to have these powerful bodies as allies in the plea which others of your Lordships and I have made for an appeal tribunal to be set up under the Town and Country Planning Acts.
I do not intend to take up any more time to-day because I am given to understand that this matter was raised last night in another place. Unfortunately, the next day's OFFICIAL REPORT nowadays does not always cover the proceedings until the rising of the House, and the House of Commons OFFICIAL REPORT for yesterday stops just short of the Prayer that was moved in another place last night. I am given to understand, however, that an undertaking was then given by the Minister of Town and Country Planning. Therefore, all I would say is that if that undertaking is to the effect that as soon as practicable the Minister will bring in new Regulations altering the provision to make the use of the district valuer compulsory in every case, however good the local authority's own valuation staff may be, then I shall have achieved all that I set out to do. In that case we shall be standing shoulder to shoulder with another place in keeping, as I think we should, a watchful eye on the Executive, and helping the Government to keep these Regulations in line with their own declared policy. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying That the Town and Country Planning (Grants) Regulations, 1950, dated 19th January, 1950, which were laid before Parliament on the 20th of January, be annulled.—(Lord Llewellin.)
4.2 p.m.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR): My Lords, I am never happier in your Lordships' House than when I am able to go a long way, if not all the way, to meet the request of the Opposition, especially when that request is put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin. It is quite correct that a similar Motion, almost in identical terms, was moved yesterday in another place, and it is also quite right that the Minister made a rather important statement. I do not think I can do better than read the statement, or the gist of the statement, made in another place.
The Minister intimated that the representatives of the local authorities had urged him in the case of those authorities who already have their own qualified staff, to waive the requirement to which objection had been taken, and further that, as regards the remaining local authorities, he should open discussions immediately as to the form in which new Regulations should be framed, so as to empower him to require the use of the district valuer in negotiations in such individual cases as he may from time to time decide. My right honourable friend said he was prepared to accept this proposal, but that on further reflection over the week-end he had decided to go further: he now proposed accordingly to expunge from the Regulations altogether the requirement that as a condition of payment of grant use must be made of the services of the district valuer in negotiations for the purposes of acquisition and assessment of compensation.
I am happy to be able to repeat that undertaking to your Lordships. My right honourable friend would wish me to make it clear that the use of the district valuer will continue for the purpose of valuation as distinct from negotiation; that is to say, that in every case the district valuer will be asked to give a certificate as to the price which in his view would be reasonable. If a local authority should decide to go beyond that certificate, it is understood that grant would
1130
not be paid. I am informed that the local authorities have accepted this condition without reservation and, indeed, have made it plain that they welcome the fullest possible co-operation from the district valuer. I am happy to say that they have made it plain throughout that their objection to the requirement is in no way on the footing that district valuers have not co-operated on every occasion, or that there has been any question of incompetence. My right honourable friend has asked me to say that he hopes to give effect to his undertaking as soon as possible, and that the result will be before Parliament in the course of next week. I hope that, with that assurance, the noble Lord will not press his Motion.
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, I am extremely obliged to the noble Lord for his answer. In my speech I anticipated slightly this undertaking, which meets the point which I wished to be met. As I said before, we were disturbed on only one point, and not upon the whole of the Regulation. I am delighted that the Regulations are going to be amended and in so short a time; and on the undertaking given I beg leave of the House to withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

QUALITY OF FLOUR
4.6 p.m.
Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion moved on Thursday last by Lord Hawke, That there be laid before the House Papers relating to the present quality of flour for bread-making.
LORD SEMPILL: My Lords, as the one privileged to reopen this debate, may I take this opportunity of thanking the noble Viscount the Leader of the House for arranging on Thursday of last week that this debate be adjourned until today? I join with those of your Lordships who have already spoken in congratulating my noble friend Lord Hawke, not only on initiating this important debate, but also on the clear, moderate and amusing way in which he outlined his point of view to your Lordships. As he made amply clear, the noble Lord is very dissatisfied with the "national loaf," and I entirely agree with him; it is insipid and it does not keep.

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My noble friend Lord Horder, in a carefully thought out speech, emphasised many important points of which we must not lose sight. Among the points that he put to your Lordships, he said (referring to bread):
"There are millions of people in this country who depend on it as their main source of nutrition."
The noble Lord, Lord Hawke, said:
"If man depends almost entirely on bread for his nourishment then his bread should be made of flour of a high extraction rate.…"
My Lords, with this statement I am in complete agreement, and I would join with the noble Lords, Lord Teviot and Lord Hankey, in recommending 100 per cent. extraction flour. It is no good leaving those who live largely by bread alone, or those of us who want real bread, to do as Lord Hawke suggests—namely, "buy brown bread or go without." The noble Lord, Lord Hawke, is rightly anxious to help farmers to obtain their protein feeding stuffs. I think he will agree that the supply condition of such feeding stuffs is good at the moment; in fact, all the available supplies on the market are not being taken up. Farmers are growing more animal food. Some, in fact, look so well after the feeding of the livestock they carry as to grow 80 per cent. of their requirements.
The solution of this problem of feeding livestock, referred to by the noble Lord who initiated this Motion, does not, I feel convinced, lie in lowering the extraction rate of the "national loaf" from 85 to 80 per cent., as has been suggested. Surely there are other means of meeting this requirement and these should be advanced with far greater rapidity. We could and must rapidly reach a point at which we become self-supporting in cattle, pig and poultry food. The answer to this problem, I suggest, lies in the more effective use of marginal and waste land well suited for growing crops of which sunflower is but one, and from which suitable cake of high protein value can be made.
I believe that the Ministry of Agriculture still hold the view that the sunflower is not a crop suitable for growing in this country. Increasing evidence to the contrary is available, however, and shows that such a crop may be grown on land which at the moment is serving no
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useful purpose, so that the products from land already under cultivation would not be interfered with, As your Lordships will be aware, weight for weight sunflower contains higher vitamin properties than wheat. Particularly is this so in respect of fertility vitamins, a point of considerable importance to both the stock and dairy farmer. We should not lose sight of the great record of Sweden in the production of food when entirely cut off from the outside world during the war. Circumstances forced her to "get down to it," which she did. She increased her food potential by utilising dormant vegetable resources. Surely we must do the same.
It would be interesting to learn, and perhaps the noble Viscount who is going to reply to this debate on behalf of the Government will inform your Lordships, just what constitutes the "national loaf." We know that it is made of 85 per cent. extraction flour, but what is added, and why? To what process is the flour subjected, and why? We now know the truth about the spurious claim, at one time advanced, that lower extraction flour or bread, being whiter, keeps better than high extraction flour or bread. The real reason is simply that it has been chemically bleached. We are naturally suspicious. As your Lordships will remember, the effects of the agenising process were demonstrated by Sir Edward Mellanby who fed some dogs for a short period on "national bread" made from agenised flour. This process had a disastrous effect on the dogs. They suffered from acute hysteria, and were only rescued from this dreadful condition by being fed on wholemeal bread without additives to the flour. Surely, that great artist, Noel Coward, visualised something of this kind when, some thirty years ago, he wrote that famous song:
"Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun."
I entirely agree with what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, with regard to the very poor keeping qualities of the "national loaf." When at home I bake my own bread, and it will last for several weeks if need arises. I would say, in answer to a question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hawke—I think it was specifically addressed to my noble friend Lord Teviot—that the wheat which I grow is mechanically sown and

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reaped. What is very important, however, is that it is grown on compost-fed land in accordance with the technique worked out by the Soil Research Association at their experimental farm at Haughley near Stowmarket, which is administered by Lady Eve Balfour, a descendant of that famous statesman, the late Lord Balfour. Therefore I cannot support the noble Lord's plea for a reduced extraction rate of flour. I would ask him to bear in mind what was said by my noble friend Lord Teviot last week, referring to the statement made by Lord Balfour of Burleigh in the previous debate in February, 1945. This statement indicated that an increase in the cases of anæmia in this country might be expected to result were the extraction rate reduced from 85 per cent. to 80 per cent. This dictum from Lord Balfour of Burleigh, one-time Chairman of the Medical Research Council, cannot lightly be thrown aside. As the noble Lord, Lord Horder, has emphasised—and I quote his words:
"It is time that we re-surveyed this important matter of the bread of the people."
With that remark I entirely agree, and let us proceed to do this.
As ever, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and your Lordships will have noticed that in the Daily Mail yesterday there appeared an excellent picture of my noble friend Lord Teviot, preparing to make his weekly supply of bread. I felt sure that the noble Lord, of whose solicitude for us all we are well aware, would not have any of his handiwork left over for your Lordships' nourishment, and I have therefore taken the liberty of bringing some bread of my own baking. As a mere cross-Bencher I feel that I must be careful in distributing these loaves—they are samples of the real "staff of life"—fairly between all Parties, and I will take the opportunity of so doing in the tea room after this debate. We are looking forward to hearing the reply of the noble Viscount who is going to speak on behalf of the Government, and since many of us wish to inspire him to lead us nearer to the ideal, a loaf of compost-grown, stone-ground 100 per cent. extraction flour, with the permission of your Lordships, I will ask him to accept a sample of my own baking so that when telling your Lordships just what His Majesty's Government propose to do, he may keep his eye on the loaf
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that we hope will one day become universal.
4.16 p.m.
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, I think that the noble Lard, Lord Hawke, has done a service in raising this matter for debate in your Lordships' House. I am sorry that the noble Lord who has just sat down was not able to make his speech before we adjourned on Thursday, because I fancy that the loaf which he has just presented to the noble Viscount who is going to reply on behalf of the Government might have been three or four days fresher if only the noble Lord had been able to speak then. It was, clearly, a carefully prepared gesture. Before the war, the average rate of extraction for flour used for baking in this country was about 72 per cent., and one of the first things done during the war by the Ministry of Food was to get the millers to produce a national wheat-meal flour. From this was baked the 85 per cent. extraction rate loaf. This included as much as possible of the wheat germ and excluded as much as possible of the coarse bran. Loaves made of this national wheatmeal flour were sold alongside ordinary pre-war loaves, and consumers could, in those early days of the war, take their choice of one or other. They were the same price. While the voluntary scheme was in force, only 9 per cent. of the total sales were of this national wheatmeal bread. This was clear evidence that the consumers preferred the whiter bread. I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, say on Thursday that he was all in favour of people having the bread they wanted, and therefore I could not quite understand the concluding words of his speech which were to the effect that he thought the extraction rate ought to remain at 85 per cent., and he pleaded with the Government to that effect. Of course, the extraction rate is now enforced by Order in Council. This means that, so long as that Order in Council is in existence, the consumer who might choose to have bread of a lesser extraction rate than 85 per cent., cannot get it.
LORD TEVIOT: I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend, but what I meant to convey, and what I thought I did convey, was that I am all for people eating 72 per cent. starch if they want to do so. What I do want to see is that

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higher extraction rate flour and bread is available for everyone who wants it. Since speaking last week, I have had many letters asking me where flour and bread of higher extraction rate can be bought. If the noble Lord opposite would like me to do so, I will hand over the letters to him, expressing my hope that he will be able to do something in that direction.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I find myself in complete agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, because it was one of my aims when I was Minister of Food to see that the 100 per cent. extraction rate bread was available in sufficient quantities in all neighbourhoods in this country. In fact, I may say that I myself much prefer 100 per cent. extraction rate bread to the present 85 per cent. extraction rate article.
LORD TEVIOT: I should like to offer the noble Lord a present of a loaf.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I shall be happy to receive one, and then I shall be all square with the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough. The first thing we can be fairly clear about is that, if it is left to them, the consumers would choose a whiter and less soggy loaf. Certainly the whiter bread keeps better—I have no doubt that I shall have the support of the noble Viscount for that contention. However much successive Ministers of Food tried during the war to get everyone to eat 85 per cent. extraction rate bread, the Board of Admiralty, over which the noble Viscount successfully presided during the course of the war, always resisted the requests of the Minister of Food. They said that the higher extraction rate bread did not keep and therefore would not serve the needs of the Royal Navy. So the Royal Navy sailed along on 72 per cent. extraction rate bread throughout the war, and, so far as I know, they do so at the present day. When I went to the United States on the aircraft carrier "Victorious" I wondered why I was eating so much bread and butter at tea, and I came to feel obliged to the noble Viscount for the stand he and the Board of Admiralty had taken against the uniformity which the Minister of Food tried to impose. When it comes to the question of how nutritious this bread is, I fancy that the Royal Navy show much the same results as the children in Germany instanced by the
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noble Lord, Lord Horder. I have not noticed that the health of the Navy has deteriorated while they have been living on 72 per cent. extraction rate bread in contrast to the rest of the population who have had 85 per cent. and, for a time, 80 per cent. extraction rate bread.
It is easier to make good bread out of an extraction rate flour of 80 per cent. than out of flour of 85 per cent. When I was Minister of Food I had the opportunity of going round a large number of bakeries. One of these was the efficient bakery of the Co-operative Wholesale Society and another that of Huntley and Palmer. I was looking round to see whether the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, was here to-day, because I wish to congratulate him on his well-informed speech, which was the kind of speech on such a subject that one would expect from a man of the name of Palmer. There is no doubt that bakeries, whether small or large, prefer the lower extraction rate to the 85 per cent. rate. I am glad to see that the present Minister of Food has taken a line similar to that which I took when I assumed that office. I tried to give the people of this country variety. I see that the Minister of Food has started with the motto,
"A little of what you fancy does you good."
I think that is a relief after the somewhat strict Stracheyisms under which we have been living for nearly four years. If we want to give the consumer what he wants, so far as we can, and if we are convinced that flour of an 80 per cent. extraction rate keeps and bakes better and gives less waste, then what is to prevent our going back to an 80 per cent. or even lower extraction rate now?
A Minister of Food, whoever he is, has to do a number of unpopular things, but I count the three most popular things I did during my 21 months of office as, first, to give the old people a permanent extra tea ration; secondly, to introduce bonus rations at Christmas, which I am glad to see has been done ever since; and thirdly, to reduce the extraction rate from 85 to 80 per cent., which ruled the loaf until, unfortunately, it had to be departed from. If we are convinced that the consumer likes the whiter bread better and that it keeps and bakes better, there can be only two grounds on which the Government or the Minister of Food stick to an 85 per cent. extraction rate. The first is

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the ground of nutrition. We do not all need the coarse husks of wheat to enable our stomachs easily and efficiently to perform their daily tasks. It may be right for some to have them, but others can well do without. I was interested to hear the three noble Lords who spoke last explain their "back-to-nature" ideas. I thought it would be interesting to see them all chattering round the nut bushes, pulling off nuts and cracking them up with their extremely efficient teeth—that efficiency preserved by the 100 per cent. nut.
LORD TEVIOT: What the noble Lord has said seems to suggest that this bread must be made of coarsely ground flour. I can assure your Lordships that my bread is made of flour as finely ground as any white flour there is, and it has no roughage at all. Some time ago I asked my noble friend Lord Horder what was the meaning of "roughage"—was it a question of how fine the flour was ground and not one of extraction, and he said, "Yes." If coursely ground, whole wheat has a roughage effect, but if it is finely ground one can eat it with as much impunity as one eats white flour.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I think the noble Lord is confusing digestibility with utilisation by the human disgestive system. The point is that the only animals who are known to utilise fully all the husky parts of wheat are the pig population. However much we try, and however finely we grind the wheat before we eat it, the rest of us cannot digest the fibre. This fibre may give the noble Lord great satisfaction, but it does not do him very much good, and it passes through without doing him any great harm.
I will now get back to what I was saying. By all means, let anybody who wishes be able to buy the wholemeal bread. On the nutritional point, I would say this. During the war we altered the extraction rate from 85 to 80 per cent. The noble Lord, Lord Horder, was with me in the Ministry of Food in that step. It is true that as Minister of Food I was the prime mover, but I did it with the sanction of my colleagues in the then Government—I did not do it without its being a full Government decision. From the nutritional point of view, we were all convinced that, with the new methods which had been invented of grinding the wheat, amply sufficient nutritional qualities were left in the 80 per cent. extraction
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rate flour. We had as much vitamin B1, nicotinic acid and iron as we thought necessary. If I may say so, the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, was wrong on the question of the iron content. The difference in iron content between the 85 per cent. and the 80 per cent. extraction rate is the difference between 6.8 and 6.1 milligrammes—namely.7 milligramme. I quote those figures from the admirable report of the B.M.A. committee, on which the noble Lords, Lord Teviot and Lord Hankey, relied in part—and which, incidentally, recommends that on nutritional grounds we should continue with a loaf of 80 per cent. extraction.
The high authority quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, was probably Sir William Jameson. He was a member of this post-war loaf committee, as also were Sir Edward Mellanby and Dr. Andrew Davidson, both of whom the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, quoted with approval. All these gentlemen were on the committee which I set up, under the able chairmanship of Sir Henry French, and they agreed that the 80 per cent, loaf had in it adequate nutritional qualities. My colleagues and I were convinced that we were not in any way damaging the nutritional value of the loaf.
Many people do not realise that during the course of the war a new milling technique was evolved in the Cereals Research Station at St. Albans, which at that time was taken over by the Ministry of Food. That enables us to get more of the germ into the final flour than was possible by the method previously used by the millers. I have no connection with the millers, nor do I own any of their shares, but I should like to take up one remark made by (I think) the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, as to the millers obtaining extra profits from the sale of the by-products. It is just as well to remember that since 1939 the flour milling industry has been under control by the Government, and is on a fixed remuneration basis. Therefore, the level of the flour extraction rate has no relation whatever to the millers' profit. The price of flour is fixed by the Government, as also is the price of the by-products—and, incidentally, the price of the by-products is lower than that of the flour. In present circumstances, it makes no difference to the millers whether they grind 80 or 85 per cent. extraction rate flour.
LORD TEVIOT: I must apologise for interrupting again but, as the noble Lord has mentioned me so frequently, perhaps your Lordships will excuse me for replying. I was then referring to the time before we reached the higher extraction rate, when it was 70 or 72 per cent. The 28 or 30 per cent. produced Bemax, wheat flakes, and all the cereals we are offered for breakfast, which are very expensive to buy. I should have liked to be in the milling trade when that was going on, because I should have made a lot of money.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I was dealing with the case at the present time. I do not intend to go back to those pre-war times, nor have I sufficient facts available to do so. However, I do know that when I was Minister of Food and was responsible (and it is the same to-day), there was no question that the millers made any more or less by an alteration of the extraction rate. There is little doubt in my mind that with an 80 or 82 per cent. extraction rate we could get all the nutrients we could wish to have.
What, then, prevents an alteration of the extraction rate from 85 to 80 per cent., which was agreed upon by the members of the Government at the time when I was Minister of Food? I do not know, but I suspect that the noble Viscount who is to reply will say something about the shortage of dollars. Before he does so, I should like to put a few figures before your Lordships. We are at present buying from Canada some 60,000,000 lb., or 26,000 tons, of bacon every year. That contract comes to an end at the end of this year. I believe that costs us about 17,400,000 Canadian dollars. At the present rate, 17,000,000 Canadian dollars would buy us 208,000 tons more Canadian wheat. If we bought that extra 208,000 tons of Canadian wheat we could lower the extraction rate of our flour from 85 per cent. to about 82 per cent. I remember that to take it down to 80 per cent. would need about 340,000 tons, but 208,000 tons would enable us to bring it down to 82 per cent. Correspondingly, of course, we should have 208,000 tons more feeding stuffs. With that amount we should be able to produce 34,600 tons—this is an average figure—more pig meat here. That is to say, the money we at present spend on Canadian bacon, for which we get 26,000 tons, would, with the
1140
right use of it by our own farmers, produce 34,600 tons. At the same time, of course, we should have our whiter and rather better bread.
If we devoted the whole of the extra feeding stuffs to pig production we should get more bacon and better bread. I do not wish to receive a direct answer to the figures I am putting this afternoon, but I should like the new Minister of Food to have his attention called to them. He cannot alter the situation while the present contract is in operation, but the present wheat and flour contract comes to an end at the end of July and the bacon contract at the end of the year. We are having this debate at a most appropriate time, and I am only putting forward the way I should go about it were I still holding the office of Minister of Food. When the Government enter into discussions, in Canada or here, upon what other new foodstuffs we are going to obtain from Canada, they must have in mind, in the light of the dollar shortage, that we must buy as much as possible of the less finished articles and as little as possible of the more finished articles. In the war, of course, it had to be the other way round, because the limiting factor was shipping space. Now it is dollars which limit us.
Another matter that I suggest should be looked into when these new contracts are considered is whether we need take as much flour from Canada as we do now. That uses up more dollars than would be required if we were to buy the wheat and bring it over here ourselves. I know that the Canadians were very keen on that when these contracts were negotiated, and I know that we have agreed to take a specified amount in flour. But we are taking much more in flour from Canada than we took in pre-war days. In 1938 we took 180,000 tons; in 1946–47, 640,000 tons; in 1947–48, 750,000 tons, and in 1948–49, 450,000 tons. Under the contract the minimum we are bound to take this year is 300,000, but that flour is costing us more. I believe that with our big milling organisations—Ranks, Spillers and the Co-operative Society—together with the smaller millers, we could mill all the flour we need, except perhaps for this odd 100,000 tons. The more we can bring over in the form of wheat, the more feeding stuffs we shall have to feed our own pigs and poultry. I hope

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that when we go into this question again we shall take more wheat and get more of the good protein-content feeding stuffs for our own pigs and poultry, thereby giving our own farmers and smallholders the extra 'feeding stuffs they need to produce more of our bacon and pork.
I could not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, more—and I am going to quote him once again—than when he said that he rates the feeding of human beings higher than the feeding of animals. But "man does not live by bread alone"—I know the rest of that quotation, though it is not what I am referring to to-day. If we could get more bacon and eggs, we should provide a far better supply of extra vitamins for the human being than we are getting out of the wheat grain. That is what I want to see our farmers in a position to do. I welcome this debate because when we have these negotiations with Canada in the future I should like to see that we bring over the maximum possible supplies of the cheaper actual wheat—as much as we can afford with our dollars—and not so much of their finished products, the bacon and the flour, which prevent our getting feeding stuffs for our own poultry and pigs. That is why I am glad the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, has instigated this Motion, and I hope the Government will approach it in the spirit in which it was moved, which was a helpful one. I have tried myself, in the speech that I have made to your Lordships, to be as helpful and constructive as I can.
4.48 p.m.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH): My Lords, may I say at once that I concur entirely with the concluding sentence of the noble Lord who has just sat down? Every noble Lord has tried to be most helpful in this debate. Personally, however, I suffer from two embarrassments. The first embarrassment I had better try to get rid of at once. The noble Lord, Lord Sempill, made a public presentation to me just now, and I am wondering whether, as a Minister, I ought to obtain the full approval of your Lordships before accepting a gift of that sort and before I pronounce judgment on the debate which has been initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Hawke. Otherwise, there might be a
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transgression of the laws and practices to which we are supposed to adhere.
The second embarrassment I found was that to most of the noble Lords who spoke so adequately, if I may use the word, about the possibility of reducing the rate of extraction of the wheat, I found myself almost reiterating all the arguments that I used over a quarter of a century with regard to the milling business with which, of course, I had some slight connection in advocacy. Whether in reference to bread or to biscuits, I could recognise, in the humorous and very plain speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, and in the quite technical references to biscuits made by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer—who made such an excellent maiden speech, and whom I am sure we shall all be very happy to hear again; he has sent me a short personal letter saying that he could not be here to-day—all the technical arguments that I used to use; I remember using some of them before the Royal Commission on Food Prices in 1925, when the subject of flour was under examination. But I am now speaking, as a member of the Cabinet for the time being, on behalf of my right honourable friend the Minister of Food and must address myself to the facts to which the Government have to pay attention at present.
As I have, perhaps, indicated, the debate has shown that what I have been told is true: that there are always some noble Lords in this House who know at least a little about nearly everything. This question of flour and of bread and biscuits has shown that there is here a great repository of knowledge. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, spoke almost with the knowledge of a first-class housewife about the manufacture of bread in his own household from 100 per cent. extraction flour. I feel that we should all agree that tie longevity and the fine physique of the noble Lord—whom some of us knew so well during his long service in another place—must be regarded as a tribute to the quality of the nourishment he takes whether it be a solid type, in the form of the bread he eats, or in some other forms of which he might partake. But there are other noble Lords who, though they have not made similar claims for bread of a lower extraction, have proved by their remarks about the quality of our present-day flour that there must be seine people who are nourished by food which is, so to

1143
speak, someone else's "poison." Part of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, seemed to indicate this. It is clear that the only way to satisfy everybody in the matter would be to let each person, if we could, have the kind of food that he prefers. My right honourable friend the Minister of Food said in another place on March 27, that that is what he would like to do. But there are many things which from time to time Ministers would like to do to meet the importunities of different sections of the community but which, unfortunately, they are not always able to do.
There have been a good many references to the quality of the loaf that we are using to-day, and especially to its keeping qualities. One noble Lord thought that I was fair game, having been at the Admiralty. While I was there during the War, I did in fact make it my business to go to some of the depôts and find out what was going on in this matter of bread. There were two different kinds of shipping units which were concerned. Nearly all the larger ships argued, and argued very successfully, because they baked their own bread, very much in favour of the 72 per cent. extraction. On the other hand, a very large number of small ships that were engaged on such jobs as anti-submarine and similar work did not do much baking of bread on the ships but took their bread from depots. One or two used to grumble occasionally, and I had a look at some of the bread in the depôts from which they loaded their bread—this was on the ships' return after being away for some time. And on the whole, I found that the war-time loaf stood up very well indeed. I do not think that in present conditions the naval argument put forward this afternoon could be used with any force as applying to the civil population.
Last year was a very exceptional year in the way in which the home crop of wheat was harvested, and in the introduction of the combine. Therefore, wheat was rushed more quickly to the market because there was not enough storage room on some of the farms. So much home-grown wheat was going straight to the home market that there was a much higher percentage of home-grown wheat than of hard Manitoba and the like. For some months, there was a larger percentage of home-grown wheat than there is
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now. I think at one time last year, millers' grist was 40 per cent. Canadian, 40 per cent. home-grown, and 20 per cent. of other wheat. It is now 65 per cent. Canadian, 15 per cent. home-grown and 20 per cent. other wheat. And the whiteness and hardness of the wheat which is used at the present time gives, I think, a somewhat better quality loaf than would otherwise be the case.
Lord Hawke said that the time has now arrived when we should revert to the 80 per cent. extraction. From my own knowledge of the baking industry for many years, I believe that a case could be made out for it. But I imagine that, once we got to the 80 per cent. extraction, there would be a move towards a 77.5 per cent. extraction, followed, when that was achieved, by a further move for a 72 per cent. extraction. Whatever decision we may make at the present time we must keep that point in mind. But there are two other very important considerations which stand in our way. One is whether we can buy the extra wheat which is needed to alter the quality of the flour by lowering the extraction, bearing in mind that it is likely that a high proportion of the charge would be in dollars. The second consideration is whether the milling offals which would be available as animal feeding stuffs would be dearer than imported feeding stuffs. It is the price as well as the use of feeding stuffs which has to be taken into account.
The current rate of extraction of wheat has been in force since September, 1946. It was also in operation for a large part of the war, and, as Lord Hawke pointed out, we must remember that for a few months during 1946 the extraction rate was as high as 90 per cent., without its having any adverse effect on the nation's. health. That is a concession to the view of Lord Teviot. We now have a rate of 85 per cent. That, from the point of view of those who like a whiter bread, is a better rate than 90 per cent. It has not yet been possible to decide what should be the permanent post-war extraction rate, so the requests of the noble Lords, Lord Teviot and Lord Hankey, who made such nice speeches on Thursday, and others, have not gone by default. The whole matter is under consideration. The noble Lord, Lord Horder, who not only spoke so well on Thursday but has always been ready to give help and advice

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on these matters and has given much of his valuable time on committees and discussions on these and allied questions, has suggested that now is the time to reconvene the conference on the post-war loaf. That is a suggestion to which my right honourable friend the Minister of Food will give consideration.
I can assure the noble Lord that the closely related question of the extraction rate does receive the continual attention of my right honourable friend. But as to whether it will be necessary to re-convene the conference as a whole, I can make no statement this afternoon. That will be subject to whatever consideration my right honourable friend gives to it. I can say, however, that a sub-committee has been set up to examine what progress has been made in the investigations which were recommended by the post-war loaf conference, especially as detailed in paragraph 65 of the report of the conference. No doubt when that sub-committee has looked into the progress that has been made in the investigations, the matter will be further considered by my right honourable friend. The real difficulty is not so much the recommendation that a conference or committee might make—the Government are always glad to receive such recommendations—but the simple fact that any proposal to reduce the extraction rate to, say, 80 per cent., or down to a level of 70 per cent. or 73 per cent. which was used for the white bread of pre-war days, needs to be very carefully weighed in view of the substantial portion of the United Kingdom wheat supply which is paid for in dollars. In 1949 the dollar wheat content of the flour distributed was, in fact, about 58 per cent.
I should like now to come to some of the points raised by the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, especially regarding the contribution which the farmers could make to our food supplies if only additional animal feeding stuffs were available. The noble Earl mentioned in the course of his speech the waste of bread which goes on. That there is waste is certainly true. There has always been a good deal of bread wasted, and I do not think that there is any evidence that waste of bread is now greater than in pre-war days. Certainly, from the point of view of consumption, the use of bread is not always finished at the table; there is much greater use than was formerly the case of bread which has been partly used and
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then regarded as waste, either in the home or in restaurants or for feeding stuffs. Therefore, I do not think the amount of national waste in that respect is so large as it used to be.
The Government entirely agree with the noble Earl's view that it is important to try to avoid this waste. But when he speaks of the extra food that can be obtained by an increase in animal feeding stuffs, we think he errs a little upon the side of optimism. Estimates of 215,000 tons of bacon, and many other desirable things, assume the lowering of the extraction rate to the pre-war position of 72 per cent. Let us take something that is nearer to the later figure which he took—that is, the lowering of the rate to 80 per cent. Your Lordships may be interested to know that for every 2½ per cent. by which the extraction rate is reduced, an additional 170,000 tons of wheat would be required each year. I can tell from the speech which the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has just made that he has checked that figure exactly. When he spoke of reducing the rate from 85 per cent. to 82 per cent. upon the figure he worked out, that proportion is right. If the present extraction rate of 85 per cert. were reduced to 80 per cent., nearly 350,000 tons of wheat offal would become usable as animal feeding stuffs. But the effect of that, when translated into terms of our food, would be quite small. It would amount to an extra half a pint of milk per week, or one more egg per month, or half an ounce of pigment per week.
EARL DE LA WARR: The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, says that we could certainly do with that, but I do not rise to make that point. I should like to ask the noble Viscount, for the purpose of clarification—because it is important in this discussion that we should get our record in agreement on figures—this question. I take it from what he said that we are in absolute agreement as to the amount of extra offal feeding stuffs that would be produced by a reduction of the rate from 85 per cent. to 80 per cent. That is 350,000 tons. So far we are working on exactly the same figures. Does the noble Viscount agree that this would give us 60.000 tens per year extra pigment—that is, taking a ratio roughly of 6 lb. of rations to produce 1 1b. of pigmeat—or 80,000,000 dozen eggs? Does he agree with those figures?
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: The noble Earl was kind enough to give me notice that he might raise this question and I made some inquiries. I put it now upon a different basis so that he can check up his information with ours. We consider that the figure of 350,000 tons which I have mentioned would give us 38,000 tons of bacon per year, or 61,000,000 dozen eggs (not 80,000,000 dozen eggs but 61,000,000 dozen eggs), or 54,000 tons of pigmeat (not 60,000 tons). If there is to be any sort of technical argument between representatives of the Ministry and the noble Earl as to how those figures are arrived at, or whether they are looked upon as the actual meat-feeding capacity of those foods, the noble Earl had better argue it out with the technicians of the Department and not with me.
EARL DE LA WARR: Certainly I will. As an explanation, I suggest that at present the rations are rather badly balanced. It may mean that it takes more to feed a pig to produce a pound of pigmeat than in fact it did. Could the noble Viscount answer one other question? He gives this figure of half an ounce of pigmeat per week or one egg per month. Are those figures for the whole population—that is, including infants even before they have reached that state of eating?
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I understand from the questions I put that the figures were calculated upon the whole of the population. It was in order that I might produce a correct answer, from which the noble Earl could make comparisons, that I turned it into the mass tonnage figures of pigmeat, bacon and dozens of eggs which I gave him.
EARL DE LA WARR: I should like to thank the noble Viscount very much.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: That is as far as I can satisfy the noble Earl in that connection this afternoon. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, to whose speech I have already referred, spoke of the quality of flour which is available for biscuit-making. I felt a great deal of personal sympathy with him, knowing what the biscuit trade is. They have not only the difficulty of providing biscuits for home consumption but the laudable objective also of providing biscuits for the export
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trade, where they have to compete in manufacture, in keeping qualities and in general make-up with the perhaps unrestricted position of biscuit-makers abroad. It is quite true that for some years we have not been able to let them make biscuits of pre-war quality. On the other hand, the reduction of the extraction rate from 90 to 85 per cent. improved the position a little. Having regard to the general requirement that we must conserve our dollar resources—I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, in spite of what he said about the Canadian position, would be in general agreement that we must pay great attention to the dollar question—we must pay serious consideration to exactly what it would cost us on balance. I looked at the figures very quickly as he uttered them. I shall bring the Canadian figures closely to the attention of the Minister of Food, and no doubt he will consider them. But although he put, very fairly and cleverly, what the set-off would be as between the two, it seemed to me that there would still be a net loss as between Canadian bacon and home produced bacon, and that we should be rather down on the course that we want to pursue. We believe that if we can make the dollar purchase position right and at the same time, with the bringing into production of more of our marginal land, pursue the policy of growing more and more of our foodstuffs on our own farms, we shall then be able to achieve his desire particularly with regard to home produced bacon, pig-meat and the like.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I am obliged to the noble Viscount. I went rather carefully into the position, and all I tried to prove—and I hope I did prove it—was that if you take the labour content in producing the pig paid for in sterling and not in dollars, then this country will be able to get more pig-meat and, at the same time, a lower extraction rate too. Perhaps the noble Viscount will have that matter looked into.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS BOROUGH: Certainly. I can only say that, listening to the actual estimates the noble Lord was making, it seemed to me that there was a little gap in between and I will certainly have that examined.
My Lords, I should now like to say something about the nutritional aspects

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of this problem, on which most speakers in this debate have had something to say. The choice is between a loaf based on a high extraction rate and good nutritional content, or one based on a low extraction rate to which synthetic vitamins can be added.
LORD HAWKE: May I interrupt the noble Viscount for one moment? That was not at all the request I made of His Majesty's Government. I asked them for a minimum extraction rate without synthetics added.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I willingly concede that that is the noble Lord's case but, listening to the general debate and also following some of the arguments that appeared elsewhere, I do not think that I have unfairly stated what is the general issue to be taken into consideration by the Minister. It is the opinion of the Government's nutritional advisers that the high extraction rate, whether 85 per cent., as now, or as high as 90 per cent., as it has been, may well be one of the contributory factors in the great improvement that has been shown in recent years in statistics of the nation's health. At the same time I do not wish to imply that there would be any deterioration in the nutritional value of our diet as a whole if the extraction rate were lowered to 80 per cent., because we are bound to consider the whole range of foodstuffs which is available, and not just a single commodity. Within the framework of the increased supplies of food that are now becoming available it may well be possible to reduce the extraction rate without lowering the average nutritional intake. My right honourable friend the Minister of Food will continue to watch closely all these changing factors, at the same time taking into consideration the economic factor.
The noble Lord, Lord Teviot, referred to the presence of agene in bread, and he went so far as to refer to it as a "definite poison." I should like to assure your Lordships that the present methods of treatment of bread, which have been widely used for twenty-five years, have not been proved injurious in any way to human beings. But recent evidence has become available such as that quoted this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Sempill, of the possible toxic effects of this commonly used improver. Because of that evidence coming to light, certain
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experiments have been carried out, particularly on dogs. For this reason a committee on which the Medical Research Council is represented has looked into the matter and has recommended in future that, instead of the improvers which have been used, and upon which these experiments have been based, chlorine dioxide should be used. This recommendation has been adopted in the United Kingdom, but I ought to warn your Lordships that it will take a little time to change over the necessary plant to give full effect to the decision.
The addition of calcium to flour has also been mentioned. I felt that that was in the mind of Lord Teviot when he was talking so much about chalk last Thursday. This was first added in 1942, and was made compulsory in 1943, to offset a serious deficiency of calcium in our diet. This deficiency was well-known to nutritional experts before the war. Even with the better diet that we now have, if We consider the people as a whole there would not be enough calcium if it were not added to bread. The amount added is 14 oz. per 280 1b. sack, and from that point of view no great harm seems to be done.
The noble Lord, Lord Sempill, referred to this matter this afternoon, and asked the pertinent question as to whether I could tell him what was in a loaf, and how this flour was made up. He said that he would like to see ordinary flour made up to the standard which has enabled him to present this loaf to me, which I am certainly not going to try alone by myself in the tea-room, or even to share with noble Lords; I am going to take it home and discuss it with my wife, who knows more about these things than I do. I think I had better give the noble Lord the particulars this afternoon for which he asked. He will find that there was a reply the other day to a Question in another place, which I think answered the question which he is putting With 85 per cent. extraction, the following are the weights of the contents per ounce: protein, 3.3 grammes; fats, 0.5 grammes; iron, Of milligrammes; calcium. 46 milligrammes; phosphorous, 54 milligrammes; vitamin B.1 (aneurin), 0.082 milligrammes; riboflavin, 0.037 milligrammes; nicotinic acid, 0.57 milligrammes. If that information is now included in your Lordships' OFFICIAL REPORT the noble Lord, Lord Sempill,

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will be able to let loose all his hounds upon it and see whether he can prove anything against it. Personally I think it will be found all right.
May I say that I was intensely interested in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin? He always displays great knowledge in these matters, and great courtesy in advancing that knowledge, which is based upon his own long service. If he will not mind, I should prefer not to go more into detail than I have already done in replying to his speech. I will, of course, request my right honourable friend the Minister of Food to pay attention to the whole debate, not only to the points which, if I may say so, were so skilfully detailed by the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, in the course of the speech which he made in presenting his Motion, but also TO other speeches, particularly that of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, which, of course, gains in importance by reason of the fact that he is an ex-Minister of Food.
I have to say that I can hold out no promise in this matter. We have to be bound by the facts of the economic situation. Within those limitations I am sure that my right honourable friend the Minister of Food will wish, so far as lies within his power, to give weight to his remark which the noble Lord quoted in this connection: "A little of what you fancy does you good." But, as I have said, the overriding factor is bound to be the general economic position, which we must tackle, and tackle with success.
EARL DE LA WARR: I hope that the noble Viscount will not lose that piece of paper, which shows that my figures are more nearly right than his.
5.26 p.m.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, truly we learn more every day of the perils of modern life. It is not many months since the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, was telling us what dangerous stuff milk was. Now, we have heard all about the dangers of bread. Bread and milk, the food of innocents; who could guess what hidden dangers lurk therein! We may find that
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"a crumb over the eight" may be a term of opprobrium in time to come.
This debate, clearly, rests on two completely different legs—nutrition and dollars. In connection with the nutritional side, I am glad to hear that a subcommittee have been appointed to consider the investigations which have taken place as to how far fortification can or cannot be justified. On the dollar angle—which I confess was the one on which I expected to be blocked—I find that the noble Viscount has adopted an attitude of non possumus, tempered with promises of consideration. I understand that he will call the attention of his right honourable friend to certain points in the debate, and perhaps he will point out that he did not, on the floor of this House, reply to my noble friend's point about the proportion of our wheat contract with Canada which we take in flour. I hope, too, that he will see that my point about the importance of keeping our claim on the pool large is not ignored.
On the question of waste, I trust that the noble Viscount will realise that, although this was admitted, the subject was not fully ventilated. There must be something wrong, because flour consumption has gone up almost 25 per cent. since before the war. I think that if the noble Viscount makes careful investigation of the rules, regulations and prices affecting the small domestic poultry keeper he may come upon facts which will provide him with a clue to the answer in this connection. The noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, is on record as having produced wrong figures, but I believe that he has satisfied himself, and the noble Viscount's advisers, that his figures are more correct than theirs. I feel, as the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has already said, that this debate has taken place at an opportune time, seeing that the new contract with Canada is coming forward for negotiation. Ministers never like to take action as the direct result of pressure from the Opposition. They like to browse over the matter in quiet and, at some suitable time, produce a suitable rabbit out of the hat. I hope that this is what the Minister of Food will do in due course, and I now beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

DONCASTER CORPORATION BILL [H.L.] PRESCELLY WATER BILL [H.L.] DOVER CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bills was withdrawn. The Orders made discharged, and Bills committed.