Sitting of 21 May 1910

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Electric Lighting Provisional Order Bill, Gas and Water Provisional Orders Bill, Read a second time, and committed.
Waterford Harbour Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  INDIA.

    DEFENCE OF KUT
    Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for India whether the reply of the Government of India regarding the question of awards for the defence of Kut has now been received, and when a statement may be expected as to what steps it is proposed to take to give due recognition to the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men, both British and Indian, who were engaged in that gallant defence?
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Fisher): The Secretary of State has not yet received a reply from the Government of India.

    FURLOUGH ALLOWANCES (CIVIL SERVICE).
    Sir J. D. REESasked whether it is necessary for the Government of India to retain the maximum figure of £1,000 a year for the furlough allowance of members of the Indian Civil Service]
    Mr. FISHER: No proposal on the subject has been made by the Government of India. They will have an opportunity of considering it when they deal with the leave recommendation, of the Indian Public Services Commission.

    DEPORTATION (MR. B. J. HORNIMAN).
    Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Secretary of State for India whether he will lay Papers in connection with the deportation from Bombay of Mr. B. G. Horniman, editor of the ''Bombay Chronicle"; has Mr. Horniman been told specifically the charge that has been made against him; and will he explain the reasons for this action being taken by the local government against this Englishman?
    Mr. FISHER:I understand that the Secretary of State proposes to deal with the matter in the Debate on the Indian Budget to-morrow.

    COINAGE.
    Mr. GWYNNEasked what is the object of the Government of India in keeping their mints closed against the free coinage of rupees when famine, as now, threatens, and the permission to coin bullion and ornaments would be useful famine reserve fund?
    Mr. FISHER: The reopening of the Indian mints to the free coinage of silver would be a reversal of considered policy based on the findings of three important commissions. It could not be resorted to as a temporary expedient in the manner suggested by the hon. Member. More over, a better price could to-day be obtained for silver bullion or ornaments in the open market in India than by tendering for coinage into rupees.
    Mr. GWYNNEasked the Secretary of State for India whether a gold coin, the mohur, is now being coined at India mints; if so, how many have been coined; what is its exchange in rupees; what inscription it carries; and, with silver at its present price, how many rupees is the mohur worth?
    Mr. FISHER:The mohur is not now being coined. It was coined to meet a temporary emergency. The total number coined and the number issued have not been reported, but the Secretary of State will inquire. Its legal ratio for the purpose of internal exchange is fifteen rupees and it is so stamped. Its gold content is the same as that of the sovereign, and it is worth twelve rupees at the present rate of external exchange.
    Mr. GWYNNEasked whether the last commission on currency advised against the minting of any other gold coin in India except the sovereign?
    Mr. FISHER: The answer is in the affirmative.

    BRITISH GOODS (PREFERENCE).
    Commander Sir E. NICOLLasked whether, following upon the introduction of preferential treatment as a definite factor in the relationship between Great Britain and the Overseas Dominions, His Majesty's Government will consider the advisability of making representations to the Government of India that some measure of reconstruction of Indian trade policy should be adopted so that British manufactured goods entering India might enjoy reasonable preference as against competing foreign nations?
    Mr. FISHER: The Government of India have been made aware of the preferential treatment established by His Majesty's Government, and will consider the bearing of this on their present tariff arrangements.

    PASSENGER ACCOMMODATION.
    Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for India whether, considering that the Government of India is satisfied with the amount of accommodation available for passengers from India to England, he will state exactly what is the number of A, B, and C passages, respectively, reported by the Controller of Passages to have been provided up to date; how many more have been arranged for before the monsoon sets in; and how many more remain to be provided for after that?
    Mr. FISHER: The figures asked for by the hon. and gallant Member are not available; but the Controller of Passages notified in April that all A applicants would be provided for by the first week in May,. and all B applicants by the end of that month.

  PEACE TERMS AND CELEBRATIONS.

    INDIAN TROOPS.
    Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Secretary of State for India if he will say what steps, if any, have been or are being taken to give the capital of the Empire the opportunity of showing its feeling for the part that Indian troops played in the War; and whether there are still in France a sufficient number of Indians to enable the authorities to arrange for a proces-
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    sion similar to the one of Colonial troops, who came to the western theatre of war later than the Indians?
    Mr. FISHER: The Secretary of State has already taken steps to ensure that the Indian Army shall be represented as adequately as in the circumstances may be possible in the peace celebrations. There are not sufficient Indian troops in France for the suggestion in the second part of the question.

    ELEMNTARY SCHOOL HOLIDAYS.
    Mr. BRIANTasked the Prime Minister if the Peace celebrations are to be held on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th August; and, if so, will he reconsider the question, in view of the fact that the elementary schools close a week previously, and that in consequence, as regards the children's celebrations, it will be very difficult to organise the entertainment of the children, as the teachers will not be available and many of the children will be in the country?
    Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): No decision has yet been taken in this matter, and the point raised in the question will be considered.

    REPARATION.
    Captain LOSE BYasked the Lord Privy Seal if Section 8, Sub-section (d), of the summary of the Peace terms published on Thursday, 8th May, which states that reparation will be demanded from the enemy for damages to the Allied peoples represented by pensions and separation allowances capitalised at the signature of this treaty, actually represents the text; and if this reparation will include the whole of the estimated cost to the country of pensions and separation allowances incurred owing to the recent war?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I hope my hon. Friend and the House will be satisfied with the summary in the interval until the full terms are made public.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    PAY DISCHARCE GRATUITY.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the First. Lord of the Admiralty whether the thirty days' pay discharge gratuity is being deducted from the war gratuity of Royal Naval Reserve ratings

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    On demobilisation; and, if so, whether he will consider the refund of this money to the men concerned?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): It has been decided that the war gratuity in the case of Royal Naval Reservists shall be inclusive of the Royal Naval Reserve discharge gratuity of thirty days' pay where issuable. This is in consonance with the general rule respecting war gratuities in the fighting Services; for example, the war gratuity to soldiers of the Special Reserve and to those serving under attestations for the duration of the War is inclusive of the Service gratuity issuable under Articles 1117–1119 of the Army Pay Warrant.

    NAVAL CADETS.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will state what is the annual expense to the parents or guardians of a naval cadet at Osborne and Dartmouth in respect of such cadet; and what is the provision existing or contemplated to enable the sons of poor parents to enter the Navy as cadets?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The annual expense to the parent or guardian of a cadet is—

    (1) The training fees of £ 75 a year, which the Admiralty have discretion to reduce to £ 10 a year in 25 per cent. of the cases, should the pecuniary circumstances of the parents be considered to call for it.

    (2)Initial cost of outfit, approximately £65; and

    (3)Personal expenses, varying in individual cases, but amounting, on the average, to somewhere about £ 20 a year.

    As regards the last part of the question, I may recall my hon. and gallant Friend's attention to the reply I gave him on 7th May, to the effect that the Admiralty is considering the institution of special facilities to enable bluejacket boys and young sailors to train for commissions.

    RETIRED OFFICERS (ACTIVE SEEVICE).
    Viscount CURZONasked how many retired officers of the Royal Navy, in each rank, are still retained on active service?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The list is a considerable one, and I shall be glad if my Noble Friend would allow me to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    The following are the retired officers at present employed on the Active List:

    Admirals

    4

    Rear-Admirals (Including 1 Engineer Rear Admiral)

    10

    Captains (Including 47 Engineer Captains 1 Paymaster Captain, and 4 Surgeon Captains)

    99

    Commanders (Including 7 Engineer Commanders, 2 Paymaster Commanders, and 7 Surgeon Commanders)

    138

    Lieutenant-Commanders (Including 9 Shipwright Lieutenant-Commanders, 7 Engineer Lieutenant-Commanders)

    130

    Lieutenants (Including 14 Shipwright Lieutenants, 7 Honorary Lieutenants (Coastguard), 15 Engineer Lieutenants)

    99

    Sub-Lieutenants

    1

    Commissioned Warrant Officers

    45

    Warrant Officers

    32

    Chief Officers (Coastguard)

    8

    Total

    566

    In many cases, I am informed, officers are about to revert to the Retired or Emergency List.

    MERCANTILE MARINE (LOSSES).
    Viscount CURZONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can have a Return published giving full details, as far as they are known, in each case of "the losses suffered by the Mercantile Marine during the War from ail causes; if so, if the Returns can include the times, dates, and positions in ouch case; and whether, in cases where enemy attack was known to have taken place unsuccessfully, the same particulars can also be given?
    Dr. MACNAMARA:The information desired has already been compiled to the 31st October, 1913, except that it includes only British merchant vessels lost by enemy action, not those lost by marine perils, and does not specify the time of day when the attack took place. It is intended

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    that the information shall be completed at the conclusion of peace and published then, subject to the above exceptions. Full particulars of vessels lost by marine perils are not available in the Admiralty; these would be a matter for the Board of Trade. If my hon. and gallant Friend so desires, he can see the compilation to which I have referred.

    ARMY AND NAVY CANTEEN BOARD (PROFITS).
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked what are the total profits at present available for the Royal Navy from the Army and Navy Canteen Board; how this money will be dealt with; and will the men of the Royal Navy participate in any way?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: In addition to the proportion of profits paid over in the form of rebate to tile respective ships' and barracks' funds which are administered by the canteen committees, the net trading balance on the first year's operations, namely, up to 31st December, 1917, of the Navy and Army Canteen Board was £531,095 8s. 8d, of which the allocation to the Navy side was £ 33,141. The balance sheet for the second year of trading, namely, to 31st December, 1918, has not yet been completed and audited. The annual trading balance has to be applied, in the first instance, to the repayment of the original Treasury loan on which the organisation was started, and these surplus profits will not be available for disposal until this loan has been cleared off. This has been notified to the Fleet in Admiralty Orders. At present, therefore, there is no sum at the Admiralty's disposal, but when any sum is available it is the intention of the Admiralty that the views of the men of the Fleet shall be obtained in the matter of its utilisation, and no steps will be taken to allocate the money until their wishes have been consulted. This will be explained clearly to the Fleet in a further Admiralty Order showing the results of trading for the first six months of the year 1918.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will the men who joined for hostilities only be considered when this matter is discussed?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: It is difficult to give an affirmative answer to that because they will not be with the fleet which will be
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    consulted. I do not see very well how that could be done. Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend would put a question.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will their lordships consider the case of the "hostilities only" men?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I will put that.

    ROYAL DOCKYARDS (BONUS).
    Sir T. BRAMSDONasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, whether the 12½ per cent. bonus paid to established men in the Royal dockyards was so paid pursuant to the Order of the 13th October, 1917, signed by the then Minister of Munitions; whether Clause 1 of such Order does not, in effect, state that workmen to whom those directions apply should receive the bonus mentioned on their earnings, which should not alter or become part of their time rates; whether the bonus was not therefore properly payable to the established men upon their earnings from the date of the Order, the 13th October, 1917; and whether, as he has arranged for it to be calculated in the future on the hired rate (i.e., upon their earnings) instead of the established rate, he will give directions for the calculation of payment to be made restrospective to the date of the Order of the 13th October, 1917?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The bonus referred to was paid to established men in the Royal dockyards, in pursuance of a decision by the Board of Admiralty, although the Order of the Ministry of Munitions affecting other employment led to the Admiralty decision. The bonus was properly payable in accordance with the Admiralty instructions, and it is not proposed to give retrospective effect to the decision to calculate the 12½ per cent. for established men on hired rates, which was announced in reply to my hon. Friend's question of 9th April.
    Sir T. BRAMSDON:Does my right hon. Friend admit that the facts and references stated in the question are correct?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I have said that the Ministry of Munitions Order led to our Order.
    Sir T. BRAMSDON: Are the facts correctly referred to in the question?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: As regards the Ministry of Munitions, as far as I know, yes.
    Sir T. BRAMSDON: Does it not necessarily follow that the men are entitled to the pay?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: It is a question of the retrospective effect of the 12½ per cent. for the period mentioned on the difference between the higher pay and the established pay. We have not made it retrospective.

    PAYMASTERS AND BARRACK MASTERS.
    Major Sir B. FALLEasked the Secretary to the Admiralty if he is aware that the war bonus is not being paid to pay masters and barrack masters, Royal Marines; and if he is aware that these gentlemen, are not in receipt of the 25 per cent. bonus on salary?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Instructions have recently been issued for the payment of the interim pay bonus to paymasters and barrack masters, Royal Marines. These officers are not entitled to the 25 per cent. bonus unless they are retired officers called up for service. The one officer who was so called up is in receipt of the bonus.

    ROSYTH NAVAL BASE (TRANSFERS).
    Mr. NEIL M'LEANasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that many of the men who were transferred from Southern dockyards to Rosyth during the War are anxious to return to their native districts, where the climate and customs are more suitable; whether he is aware that a large number have already had to leave Rosyth for health reasons and have had to meet the expense of removal, in some cases by selling their homes; that they have had to sacrifice increases in pay secured whilst working at Rosyth, and have lost their positions on the establishment, thereby for feiting all weekly deductions from their wages towards their pensions; whether he can state the number of men who were, transferred to Rosyth and the number still there; and whether, now that the War emergency has ceased, he will favourably consider the possibility of transferring to their native districts men who so desire, without prejudice to their position as established servants?
    Dr. MACNAMARA:Large numbers of workmen were transferred from the Southern dockyards to Rosyth as volunteers on the distinct understanding that
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    the transfer would be of a permanent character. The men transferred were offered certain advantages, including transfer to the permanent pensionable list, after twelve months' service at Rosyth, subject to eligibility under the Regulations. In. addition, the cost of removing the men's homes, amounting to considerable sums in some cases, was defrayed out of public funds. As regards retransfer to the South, this has been permitted on the grounds of health in a number of cases, but in fair ness to the general body of men, we have been bound in those cases to withdraw the establishment which was secured on the preferential terms conditional upon service in Rosyth. As regards the last part of the question, I am afraid that, in view of the necessity to keep Rosyth fully manned, it is not practicable to adopt my hon. Friend's suggestion.
    Sir H. CRAIK:May I ask whether the Admiralty accept the account of Rosyth and the inference in the question, seeing that Rosyth is in the neighbourhood of a number of health resorts peculiarly conducive to good health?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: My hon. Friend put the question on behalf of another hon. Member, and I do not know whether he is a party to the same.
    Sir H. CRAIK:I hope we shall have the assurance of the Admiralty that they will not take the account of the healthiness of Rosyth from the question.

  NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

    INVALIDED NAVAL OFFICERS.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if naval officers invalided during the War, for causes due to the War, will benefit by any increase of retired pay that may be made as the result of the Halsey Committee?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I regret that I am unable to anticipate the announcement which will be made as soon as the proposals of the Committee have been considered and the Government has come to a decision on them.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: When will a decision become to?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: We are urging all the expedition that is possible.

    OFFICERS' PAY AND PENSION.
    Commander Viscount CURZONasked when the decision of the Admiralty with reference to officers' pay and pension will be promulgated; and if they will, in making known the decision, put the recommendation of the Oliver and Halsey Committee side by side with the decision of the Admiralty?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: As regards the date when the decisions will be promulgated, I must refer to the reply given to the hon. Member for Portsmouth North on the 19th instant. It is the intention of the Board, as in the case of the Jerram Committee, to lay a White Paper giving the recommendations of the Jerram-Halsey Committee side by side with the decisions of the Government.
    VISCOUNT CURZON: Has the right hon. Gentleman any idea when the Halsey Committee's Report will be available? Will it be before or after Whitsuntide?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: When the Government are in a position we shall lay a White Paper giving the recommendations of the Jerram-Halsey Committee, and side by side with them the decisions of the Government As I have already said to the hon. Member for Devonport, we are urging all the expedition that is possible.

    INCAPACITATED OFFICERS AND MEN (ROYAL NAVY).
    Commander KINGasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will state what steps are being taken with regard to increasing the pensions of officers and men who were totally incapacitated while serving in the Royal Navy previous to the present War and otherwise than on war service, in view of the fact that the increased cost of living renders the pre sent amounts insufficient to provide the recipients with the necessaries of life?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: On the assumption that the question of my hon. and gallant Friend refers to pensions which have been granted on account of disablement directly due to the Service under peace conditions, I can only say at present that the matter is now under consideration between the Ministry of Pensions and this Department.
    Commander KING: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that many of these men within the last four years have been
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    forced to seek assistance from the rates and from charity in order to exist, and will he recommend the grant of a bonus while the matter is under discussion?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: It is not necessary to say that I sympathise fully with these gentlemen, and I regret to say that the matter was before the Soldiers' and Sailors' Pay Committee this week, and I have no authority to carry it beyond that.

    EXTREME COMPASSIONATE GROUNDS.
    Sir R. NEWMANasked the Secretary of State for War whether in Army Council Instruction No. 287, the expression, extreme compassionate grounds, could be extended in order to include cases of men serving in His Majesty's forces whose wife, father, or mother is dying from an incurable complaint like cancer, and whose life, humanly speaking, cannot be prolonged many months?
    Captain GUEST (Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury): I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given yesterday to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Finsbury (Lieut.-Colonel Archer-Shee). I regret I am unable to extend the scope of compassionate grounds. In such cases as those mentioned by my hon. Friend an application duly certified should be made to the commanding officer of the man's unit, who has power to grant a period of leave if he considers that it is a case of extreme urgency.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman not aware that the present Regulations exclude cases of the very gravest hardship?
    Captain GUEST: The very best has been done to cover as many cases as possible.
    Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: The very best is very poor then!

    WAR GRATUITY.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. HOPEasked the Postmaster-General whether the sum. of £ 25 10s. as war gratuity was, on 29th January, 1919, placed in the Post Office Savings Bank, London, by the regimental paymaster, Royal Operating Department, Royal Engineers, to the credit of Sapper John Downie, No. W.R. 126866, of Slate-ford, Midlothian; whether the Controller, Post Office Savings Bank, has received several letters from Sapper Downie, and

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    the money is still unpaid; and whether, in view of the delays that many soldiers are experiencing in obtaining payment of their war gratuities, he will take some action to improve the system and accelerate payment?
    The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Pike Pease): Sapper Downie's address was incorrectly furnished to the Post Office by his paymaster, and it was not possible to get into communication with him until he wrote to the Savings Bank Department on the 6th May. Arrangements have now been made for payment of the gratuity. In regard to the general position, as I stated in reply to the hon. Member for Salford (South) on the 8th of this month, the war gratuity books are being despatched up to time in accordance with the lists furnished by regimental pay offices, but in some cases incorrect or insufficient particulars furnished on the lists have caused delay. Steps are being taken with the co-operation of the War Office to remedy this defect.

  SUBMARINE WRECK FOR SALE.
  Viscount CURZONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what action the Admiralty propose to take about U118?
  Dr. MACNAMARA:As the position of the wreck of U 118 precluded any hope of salvage except at great expense this sub marine has been offered for sale under the usual conditions on behalf of. the Allies.

  AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS, CLYDE WORKS.
  Mr. N. M'LEANasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that certain Clyde employers in the electrical industry are engaging Australian soldiers as apprentices and are discharging bonâ fide apprentices; and whether his Department are aware of and encouraging this practice?
  The MINISTER for LABOUR (Sir R. Home):I am not aware that any Clyde employers in the electrical industry are engaging Australian soldiers as apprentices and are discharging bonâ fide apprentices; but if the hon. Member will bring to ray notice any specific cases in which this is being done, I will cause inquiries to be made immediately.
  Sir E. CARSON: Is there any disability on an Australian soldier?
  Sir R. HORNE: No, there is no disability. I understand that certain arrangements were being made between the Australian authorities and some of the trade unions in this country, but of the particular arrangements that have been made I am not aware at the moment.
  Major-General Sir NEWTON MOORE: Is it not a fact that these arrangements were made with the view of making these men up-to-date in their work, so that they might become more useful citizen's when they return?
  Sir R. HORNE: I think that was the idea—that pending repatriation a period of training should be taken advantage of in this country.
  Sir N. MOORE: Rather than loaf about the country doing nothing.
  Mr. JOHN DAVISONasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that men of the Australian forces are being employed in engineering establishments in this country; whether he has been party to any arrangements made in this direction; whether he is aware that men in the engineering trades are unable to find employment and that the engineering trade unions have never been consulted regarding the introduction of the Australians; and whether he will have-inquiries made into this matter with a view to the removal of the friction which is now arising?
  Sir R. HORNE:In the month of January the Ministry of Labour was in formed that the Repatriation and Demobilisation Department of the Australian Imperial Forces had arranged for the temporary employment in the shipbuilding and engineering industries in this country of a certain number of Australian soldiers, pending their repatriation. The Ministry of Labour did not take any part in the arrangements, but was informed of what was proposed and was led to understand that this had been negotiated by the Australian authorities with the Employers' Federation and trade unions concerned. It was not until a day or two ago that I was made aware that this arrangement had resulted in any friction, and I am now inquiring into the whole matter with a view to endeavouring to remove any trouble that exists.

  GERMAN PRISONERS (GOVERNMENT WORK).
  Mr. JOHN DAVISONasked the Minister of Labour whether a county employment committee is competent to consider and to make representations regarding the employment of British military and German prisoner labour on work for which civilian labour is available; and whether the policy of his Department is to press for the employment of available civilian labour on Government work wherever possible?
  Sir R. HORNE:I assume that the hon. Member's reference is to the county war agricultural committees. Instructions have, I understand, been issued by the Food Production Department that military and prisoner labour must not be employed where civilian labour is avail able, and these instructions embody the policy of my Department.

  HOURS OF LABOUR (GOVERNMENT BILL).
  Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Minister of Labour whether he will arrange so that the Bill to limit the hours of labour to forty-eight per week, introduced by several hon. Members, be either adopted by the Government or given facilities for its passage into law at the earliest possible opportunity?
  Sir. R. HORNE: The Government proposes to introduce at an early date a measure dealing with the same matter and the suggestion of my Noble Friend accordingly cannot be adopted.
  Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK:Will the Government Bill be introduced before Whitsuntide?
  Sir R. HORNE: I cannot give an assurance that it will be introduced before Whitsuntide, but it will be introduced as soon as possible.

  ABERDEEN FIRM AND EMPLOYES.
  Colonel THORNEasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that Mr. William Ramsay, managing director of the Caledonian Oatmeal Milling Company, Aberdeen, has asked their employés to sign a guarantee that so long as they
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  are employed by the company they will not join a union of any kind, and if any one wishes to be taken on on the terms suggested they are asked to go to the mill and see the management and have the agreement signed; if he is aware that the firm in question are Government con tractors; and if he will take action in the matter?
  Sir R. HORNE: Yes, Sir. The firm in formed me of the position and I have instructed my local officer to call on Mr. Ramsay and point out to him that this attitude is not likely to facilitate the satisfactory settlement of any disputes that may arise with his employés. I have no information that the firm are Government contractors.

  UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT FOR WOMEN (PROSECUTIONS).
  Mr. ALFRED SHORTasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that Maud Bayley, of Old Moxley, Wednesbury, was prosecuted on 13th May for attempting to obtain a woman's policy; whether she produced her birth certificate for examination by the Exchange officials; whether her age was therefore known to the officials; whether the case was dismissed by the Court; whether the Court were of opinion there was no-attempt at fraud; whether the decision to prosecute was made by the manager of the Wednesbury Exchange; if not, by whom; and whether he will take steps to prevent such vexatious prosecutions being undertaken in the future?
  Sir R. HORNE:I am making inquiries into the circumstances which led up to this prosecution, and will communicate the result to my hon. Friend as soon as possible. I am, however, in a position to say that the prosecution was undertaken through the Director of Public Prosecutions.
  Mr. A. SHORTasked the Minister of Labour whether May Sheldon, of 40, New Buildings, Queen Street, Wednesbury, has had her unemployment benefit stopped; whether she was asked to take domestic service; whether she was sent on 2nd May to the St. James's Rectory, Wednesbury, and the mistress declined to engage her on the ground that she was not strong enough; whether she was sent through the Aston Exchange, on 2nd May, to 54, Frederick Road, Aston, and the mistress

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  declined her employment on the ground of her ill-health; whether, in both cases, the mistresses supplied her with letters to the afore-mentioned effect; whether she is still attending the tuberculosis dispensary, Wednesbury; whether the medical officer recommended light outdoor employment; whether all these facts were within the knowledge of the Department; and whether he will institute searching inquiry and, if confirmed, remedy this grave injustice?
  Sir R. HORNE: I am causing inquiries to be made into this case, and will communicate the result to the hon. Member in due course.

  CONSULAR SERVICE.
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. HOAREasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether applications for posts in the Consular Service may still be made or, if no: whether there is any likelihood that they may again be made in the near future?
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND(Department of Oversea Trade): There are at present no vacancies in the General Consular Service, and therefore further applications cannot at present be entertained. There are still a very few in the Levant and Far Eastern services for which candidates between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-five are being considered by the Selection Committee. A few more vacancies will be available in the general Consular service if and when the re organisation scheme comes into being.
  Mr. PENNEFATHERasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will state the total number of officers now employed in the Consular service; and how many of them are whole-time salaried officials?
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND:The number of regular salaried Consular posts is 352. There are in addition about 120 temporary salaried posts which have been created to deal with circumstances arising out of the War. There are also 540 un-salaried Consular officers.

  SERBS AND ALBANIANS.
  Sir B. FALLEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can say if
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  the Serbs have any right to occupy Gusinje; if they have occupied Vermoshi, the summer grazing ground of the Albanian tribes; and what will be the result of such occupation?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY Of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): The first part of the question is a matter for the Paris Conference. The latest information in my possession is that the Montenegrins arc in occupation of Vermoshi. I am not, in present circumstances, in a position to foretell what will be the results of such occupation.
  Major Sir B. FALLEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware that the inhabitants of Gusinje appealed to us for protection in January last; if since that date the Serbs have expelled part of the population and are I reported to have killed the rest; if a i British officer sent to Gusinje to report I was arrested by the Serbs and treated with ignominy; and what have become of his native interpreter and guides and horse boys?
  Mr. C. HARMSWORTH:The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. With regard to the second part, His Majesty's Government have no recent information. As to the third, a British officer went on his own account to Gusinje to investigate the situation, and, the Serbian authorities being, unfortunately, without information as to the nature of his mission, he was arrested. The arrest was admittedly due to a misunderstanding, and as soon as this was cleared up the arrest was cancelled Similiarly, on representations from the British Legation, the release of the interpreter was ordered.
  Sir B. FALLE: Does that include the guides and horse-boys?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: I am sorry that I have no specific information about that.
  Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK:Can the Government take no steps at all to safeguard the Albanians from ill-treatment on the part of the Serbians?
  Colonel WEDGWOOD:Is it not the duty of the British Government to protect the Moslems in Albania against ill-treatment of this sort, in view of the fact that the British Government is the greatest Moslem Power in the world?

  ANGLO-EGYPTIAN CIVIL SERVANTS.
  Captain ORMSBY-GOREasked the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Anglo-Egyptian Civil servants who have been temporarily employed in the Army in Egypt have been given indulgence passages free to come home on leave, while their colleagues, who were retained in the employ of the Egyptian Government because their services could not be spared, and who have spent four and a half years in Egypt with out leave, have had to pay the full cost of their passages home on leave; and, in view of the small pay received by Anglo-Egyptian Civil servants, especially in the middle ranks of promotion, he will communicate with the Treasury, with a view to a. part at any rate of their leave pas sages being paid for by the public?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: I understand that in certain cases indulgence passages were granted by the military authorities to British officials of the Egyptian Government whose services had been lent to them, but I have no precise information on the matter.
  I regret that I should not feel justified in suggesting to the Treasury that the cost of passages on leave for servants of the Egyptian Government should be made a charge on British funds.
  Captain ORMSBY-GORE: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the alternative of re presenting to the Egyptian Government that some assistance should be given; seeing that the fares have been increased without any corresponding increase in pay?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: That opens up a very big question, but I will consider the suggestion the hon. Member has made.

  RUSSIA.
  Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the many charges and counter-charges levelled, not only against the Bolsheviks but against Admiral Koltchak, General Denikin, and the White Guards in Finland, the Government will appoint a committee of Members of Parliament to investigate these charges and to issue from time to time impartial and trustworthy statements as to the position of affairs in Russia?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: I have given careful consideration to the hon. Member's proposal, but, as at present advised, I have grave doubts whether any useful purpose would be served by the appointment of a committee of the nature he suggests.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is it possible for the Government to issue a White Paper detailing the results of the White Terror in Finland and the Ukraine as a parallel to their White Paper on the Red Terror in Russia?

  POLAND.
  Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether massacres and ill-treatment of a large number of Jewish persons recently took place at Vilna and Pinsk; and what influence is being brought to bear by the Allied Governments to safe guard the Jewish population in Poland?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: With regard to both the first and second part of the question, I would call the attention of the hon. Member to the answers returned to the hon. Member for Whitechapel on l5th instant, and to the hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme on the 20th instant.

  SILK (JAPANESE CONDITIONS).
  Mr. REMERasked the Parliamentry Secretary to the Oversea Trade Department whether he is aware that Japanese operatives manufacturing silk in Japan are paid l0d. for a day of thirteen hours; and whether, before making commercial treaties with this or any other foreign country allowing free imports into this country, he will specify that foreign - operatives must be paid British trade union wages and factory conditions on the same basis?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Bridge-man): I have no knowledge that l0d. is paid to silk operatives in Japan for thirteen hours work. With reference to the last part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the Labour Clauses of the Peace Treaty.
  Sir E. CARSON: May I ask, Do the Government ever take any pains to ascertain the cost of production in other countries by means of cheap labour?
  Mr. BR1DGEMAN:Yes, Sir, they do. All I said was that I could not vouch for the accuracy of this particular statement.
  Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY:May I ask if the Japanese Government is a party to the Labour Convention of the Peace Treaty?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: That is a matter for the Foreign Office.

  DEMOBILISATION.

    RELEASE APPLICATIONS.
    Colonel ASHLEYasked the Secretary of State for War if he will state why Gunner F. Woodgate, No. 21640, 115th Heavy Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery, France, has not been released from the Service, in view of the fact that he was recalled to the Colours on 7th August, 1914, and became time-expired in October, 1917; and, if it is claimed that he is a pivotal man for the purposes of Army demobilisation, what is his pivotal employment?
    Captain GUEST:Gunner Woodgate is not retained by the War Office as a pivotal man; he is probably temporarily retained by his unit owing to his having some specialist qualification. Senior officers have been appointed to inspect registers of units with a view to ensuring that no officers or men who are eligible for demobilisation are being retained without good and sufficient cause.
    Colonel ASHLEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the commanding officer told Gunner Woodgate that he was kept on because he did not want the unit to fall below the paper strength, and is that a correct reason for retaining a man who has served since August, 1914?
    Captain GUEST: Until the hon. and gallant Member supplied me with that specific reason for retention I was not aware of it.
    Colonel ASHLEY: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman please communicate with the officer commanding on this fact, and ask for his considered reason why this man is being retained?
    Captain GUEST: Most certainly.
    Mr. CHARLES EDWARDSasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will reconsider his decision in the demobi-
    372
    lisation of Lance-Corporal R. T. Brown, No. 106115, Royal Army Service Corps (Mechanical Transport), 5th Auxiliary Petrol Company, British Expeditionary Force, seeing that he joined the Army in 1915, that he is not now engaged in motor transport work, that being secretary and manager for his father who has a large hauling and contracting business, and that he owns a quarry which will be required to supply stone for building about 2,000 houses, he could, if released, employ a large number of men, the business at present being practically at a standstill
    Captain GUEST: Corporal Brown is not registered by the War Office either as pivotal or for special release. If he joined for continuous service prior to the 1st January, 1916, he is eligible for demobilisation, unless he is serving under pre-war conditions of service and his term of Colour service is not completed. If he is eligible, he will be released as soon as the exigencies of the Service permit. Senior officers have been appointed to inspect the registers of units with a view to ensuring that no officer or man who is eligible for demobilisation is being retained without good and sufficient cause.
    Mr. RENDALLasked the Secretary of State for War if he will state why Private F. D. Webb, No. 190951, 242nd Labour Company, after serving in Italy and France with the 48th Division, is again being sent to France; whether he is aware that Private Webb is the only man of the detachment that he was with in Italy who has not been demobilised; and whether, as this man's physique unfits him for combatant service, he will give instructions for his discharge in spite of the fact that he joined the Army in February, 1916?
    Captain GUEST: Private Webb is pre sumably being sent to France for duty with the Labour Corps and not with a combatant unit. He is apparently liable for retention, and his discharge cannot there fore be authorised.

    ARMY TELEGRAPHISTS.
    Colonel THORNEasked the Secretary of State for War whether the telegraphists attached to the 54th Divisional Signal Company have presented a petition to the Director of Army Signals drawing attention to their employment as strike breakers on civilian telegraph work; whether six telegraphists have been ordered from the demobilisation, camp,

    373
    Kantara, because of the pressure of civilian work due to the strike; whether there are twenty-two sounder circuits at Tanta with four or five stations on each which are mainly used for civil traffic; and whether, as the Army telegraphists concerned have had no home leave for four years, he will order their demobilisation at once?
    Captain GUEST:I have cabled to Egypt for a report regarding this question, and will let the hon. and gallant Member know as soon as a reply is received.

    REPATRIATION (CANADA).
    Mr. RENDALLasked the Secretary of State for War if he can state why Private A. Jefferies, No. 342153, Royal Engineers, and Private G. P. Jefferies, No: 342154, Royal Engineers, of 219th Field Company, Royal Engineers, 32nd Division, France, British subjects and Canadians who joined the Army in the United States in January, 1918, and have been on active service in France since August last and desire to return to their farms in Canada, have not been discharged although their papers were sent through more than a month ago?
    Captain GUEST: Instructions have been issued that all men who are serving in France who claim repatriation are to be sent to Winchester Repatriation Camp, and if their claims are allowed they will be repatriated as soon as passages are available. Where, however, a man is willing to remain in the Army of Occupation he is retained.

    AGRICULTURAL COMPANIES.
    Captain COOTEasked the Secretary of State for War whether he has received any resolutions from county councils to the effect that the retention of 10 per cent. of soldiers of agricultural companies is quite inadequate; and whether he intends to take any notice of these resolutions and is prepared to make any further concessions?
    Captain GUEST: Yes, Sir; representations have been received from various sources as to the inadequacy of the 10 per cent. allowed for retention, but, as my right hon. Friend stated in the House on the 13th instant, this percentage has recently been raised to 20 per cent., and, in addition, any men whose applications for demobilisation as pivotal men had
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    been sanctioned by the Ministry of Labour before the 1st February last, may be allowed to remain at their work if required.

    SPECIALLY RETAINED MEN.
    Sir F. YOUNGasked the Secretary of State for War, seeing that the demobilisation of those eligible is nearing completion, if he will state what steps are being taken to enable the early release of those who, whilst eligible, have been specially retained?
    Captain GUEST: All men who are eligible for demobilisation are being released as rapidly as the exigencies of the Service permit; but where men are performing special duties that cause them to be temporarily retained as part of the military machinery of demobilisation, they are being released as soon as they can be replaced or their services dispensed with. In the majority of cases men have to undergo a course of training before they are capable of carrying out the duties that will enable the demobilisable men to be released.

    DISPERSAL ARRANGEMENTS.
    Mr. HINDSasked the Secretary of State for War whether, in the interests of public economy, soldiers, when sanctioned for dispersal, can be demobilised without the necessity of travelling to their depots.
    CAPTAIN GUEST: Soldiers whose demobilisation is sanctioned do not travel to their depots, but are sent to the dispersal station nearest to their homes. It is considered that this arrangement is the best in the interests alike of the soldiers' personal convenience and economy of railway transport.

  VISCOUNT FRENCH'S NEWS PAPER ARTICLES.
  Captain ORMSBY-GOREasked the Secretary of State for Was (1) whether, with a view to laying at rest doubts which have been expressed in the public Press as to the conduct of the late Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener in France during the operations which preceded the victory of the Marne in 1914, he will arrange to lay upon the Table of this House copies of the instructions given by the then Government to Lord Kitchener when they sent him to. Paris to see Field-Marshal Lord French, together

  375
  with a copy of the letter written by Lord French after the meeting of the two Field-Marshals in Paris;

  (2) Whether, in the opinion of the legal advisers of the Army Council, the articles recently published in the "Daily Telegraph" dealing with military operations in 1914, contain in formation and statements, the publication of which constitutes an offence against the Official Secrets Act or the Army Act, or both; if so, whether legal proceedings will be taken against the proprietors and publishers of the "Daily Telegraph";

  (3 Whether the articles recently published in the "Daily Telegraph" on the conduct of the War in 1914 contain statements at variance with the official dispatch of Lord French on those operations, more especially in regard to the conduct of General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien; whether Lord French's official dispatch was in any way altered by the War Office before publication; and whether the Army Council will now give permission to General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien to publish a reply to such charges now made against him in the "Daily Telegraph" as were not made in the official dispatch referred to above?

  Captain GUEST:In my right hon. Friend's absence in Paris, I have had no opportunity of consulting him with regard to these three questions. They appear to me to raise matters which cannot suitably be dealt with in the form of an answer to a question, more particularly in the absence of the Secretary of State. Mean while, I am not in a position to add any thing to the statement which my right hon. Friend made on Monday, the 12th instant.
  Sir E. CARSON: May I ask whether there will be any opportunity given to discuss this?
  HON. MEMBERS: Ormsby-Gore!
  Captain ORMSBY-GORE: Am I to understand that these questions will be put down when the Secretary of State for War returns from Paris?
  Captain GUEST: I shall be very glad if the hon. Member will do so.
  Mr. WATERSON: May I ask the Leader of the House, as a result of this question, if the publication of these secret Acts is not an offence against the Defence of the Realm Act?
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should give notice of that question, which is a question of law.

  BLOCKADE (INTERNATIONAL LAW).
  Mr. ARNOLDasked the Prime Minister whether he can state any authority in international law for the continuance of the blockade after the Armistice?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: So far as I know, such questions are not in any way regulated by international law, but depend upon the terms granted in the Armistice, and these terms are contained in Article 26 of the terms.

  COMRADES OF THE GREAT WAR (SHEFFIELD CASE).
  Colonel ASHLEYasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that on the 9th May eight members of the Sheffield branch of the Comrades of the Great War who were employed at the Royal Army Clothing Depot, London and North Western Railway goods warehouse, Sheffield, as storemen, were handed in their notice of dismissal for the 16th; whether the officer in charge, Captain Horley, stated that these men were given notice because of untidiness in the offices, etc., of the depot; whether at least forty men used these offices in all; why these eight men were selected for dismissal and what proof there was against them; whether Captain Horley admitted in an interview with the secretary of the Comrades of the Great War in Sheffield that there was no complaint of inefficiency on the part of these men, and also admitted that he had advised men not to join the Comrades; and whether, unless the officer can justify these dismissals, he will re place him by another officer, as Captain Horley states that, as far as he is concerned, no reinstatement will take place?
  Captain GUEST: I have no information as to this, but a report on the matter has been called for.

  HAY PURCHASES.
  Mr. HURDasked the Secretary of State for War whether county distribut-

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  ing committees have ceased to buy hay for the Government; what profits, if any, have accrued from their operations; what stocks of hay are in their hands, and what is to be done with these stocks?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): County distributing (forage) committees still continue to purchase hay for distribution to civilian consumers. No profits can accrue to them from their operations. The stock on the 10th inst. amounted to 125,800 tons, which are being allotted to hay traders for registered customers at approximately 19,350 tons per week.

  REGULAR OFFICERS' PENSIONS.
  Major M'LEANasked the Secretary of State for War if he will say when a decision may be expected with reference to the increase of Regular officers' pensions?
  Mr. FORSTER:I am afraid that I can add nothing to the answers which I have given to similar questions recently.

  1914–15 STAR.
  Lieut.-Colonel ARTHUR MURRAYasked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that the 1915 Star has been awarded to many men who were never in the fighting line or under fire, he will consider the advisability of recommending its award to the troops who were in Malta during 1915?
  Captain GUEST: It was decided, after careful consideration, that Malta should not be regarded as a theatre of war for the purposes of the"1914–15 Star," and I regret that the matter cannot be re opened.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman give any reason why this decision was made, and is it not, the case that these troops, who were in Malta, are being deprived of this 1915 Star owing to a mere technicality?
  Captain GUEST:First of all it was decided that Malta could not be regarded as a theatre of war.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Why?
  Captain GUEST:Very many questions have been asked and answered in the House, and I am afraid I cannot add any thing to those replies.

  SOUTH AFRICAN MEDAL.
  Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAYasked the Secretary of State for War whether the troops in Malta at the time of the South African War received the South African medal?
  Captain GUEST: The answer is in the negative. Certain troops in Malta at the time of the South African War received the Mediterranean Medal, which was of different design to the South Africa War Medal, but with the same riband.
  Colonel ASHLEY: Is it not the fact that troops in St. Helena received the South African Medal, and were they not much safer than the troops in Malta during the War?
  Colonel GUEST: I would ask my hon. and gallant Friend to give notice of that. question.

  LONDON TRAFFIC FACILITIES (MOTOR OMNIBUSES).
  Mr. GILBERTasked the Secretary of State for War whether any steps are being taken by his Department to return motor-omnibuses no longer required for war purposes in France and Belgium, so that they may be returned to the motor omnibus company in London for traffic purposes here?
  Captain GUEST: The War Office offered in. February last to withdraw omnibus chassis from France, but were-informed that they were not required.

  SOLDIERS' GRAVES.
  Mr. GILBERTasked the Secretary of State for War whether he can now make any statement as to what arrangements have been made to allow the relatives of soldiers whose lives were lost on the Western Front to visit the graves in France and Belgium; and can he state if there is any prospect of such visits being allowed during the present summer months?
  Captain GUEST: As recently announced in the Press, it is not yet possible to grant general permission to relatives to proceed to France or Belgium to visit graves or cemeteries. Large areas under the British Army of Occupation are entirely closed to visitors, as the work of exhumation and concentration to central cemeteries of all isolated graves is taking place within these areas, and, until this is much further advanced, it is unlikely that the present restrictions can be removed. The removal of restrictions is also dependent upon such other factors as transport and accommodation, facilities for which in the areas in which most of the cemeteries are situated are still quite inadequate.
  My hon. Friend is no doubt aware that the Minister of Transport recently announced in the French Chamber that it was not possible to grant travelling facilities at the present time for those wishing to visit the graves of soldiers who have died in France- A similar state of affairs exists in Belgium. As soon as conditions improve and it becomes possible to open up parts of the country, public announcements as to the areas accessible for such visits will be made from time to time.

  NON-COMBATANT COMPANIES.
  Brigadier-General Sir O. THOMASasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will state how many Labour and Agricultural Companies, non-combatant, there are in France, Belgium, and Germany, and the nature of the work they are performing?
  Captain GUEST:The number of Labour and Agricultural Companies in France, Belgium and Germany is as follows:—

  France and Belgium

  germany

  Labour Companies

  74

  11

  In France and Belgium Labour Companies are employed in "clearing up." In Germany, Labour Companies are employed in loading and unloading stores and supplies and in performing the general labour duties of the Army. Inquiry will be made regarding Agricultural Companies.

  WAR OFFICE CONTRACTORS (FAIR WAGES CLAUSE).
  Mr. ALFRED SHORTasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office
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  whether Messrs Maconochie Brothers, Limited, are still contractors to the Wax Department; whether he is aware that this company is violating the Fair-Wages Clause embodied in Government contracts; whether he is aware that, in con sequence of an attempt by the motor-lorry drivers in the employ of the company to obtain the wages and conditions agreed to between the National Transport Workers' Federation and the three principal employers' associations covering the whole of Great Britain, these men have been dismissed and their places filled from the Labour Exchanges; and whether he will give an assurance that every attempt will be made to enforce the Fair-Wages Clause and to ensure that the men dismissed will be reinstated, and the wages and conditions recognised in accordance with national agreements and awards shall be granted by the company while they remain. Government contractors?
  The DEPUTY-MINISTER of MUNITIONS (Mr. Kellaway): I have been asked to answer this question. No complaints of any violation by the firm of the Fair-Wages Clause embodied in Government contracts have reached me, but I am making inquiries into the matter and will communicate with my hon. Friend on the subject in due course.

  ENLISTMENTS FROM OVERSEA (PASSAGE MONEY).
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir F. HALLasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he is aware that Pioneer P. R. Gilson, No. 23671, came from Canada on the 20th December, 1914, for the purpose of joining His Majesty's Forces, and that he enlisted on the 26th February, 1915, in the 156th Brigade. Royal Field Artillery; if he will say whether application has been made by this soldier for a refund of his passage money if so, whether it has been granted; and if not, what are the reasons for such refusal'
  Mr. FORSTER: Under the terms of Army Order 275/1918, a copy of which I am sending my hon. and gallant Friend refunds of passage money are admissible only in cases in which application to join the British Army was made within a certain interval from the date of arrival in the United Kingdom. The period fixed in the Order, after much consideration, was two months, and this excludes Pioneer Gilson.
  Sir F. HALL: Is it not a fact that this man was only two months and six days, and considering the early period at which he joined cannot something be done to refund the amount of his passage money?
  Mr. FORSTER: I do not think it is unfair that where a refund is asked it should be laid down that there should have been no undue delay between a man's arrival in the country and his enlistment. If there are any special circumstances of which my hon. and gallant Friend is aware, I shall be glad to look into them.
  Sir F. HALL:If I can point out to my right hon. Friend that this man was desirous of joining one specific regiment, which was only formulated at that date, will he consider the matter?
  Mr. FORSTER: Yes. What I am anxious to protect the Department against is the indiscriminate use of the Order to which I have referred. I do not think there ought to have been any undue delay between a man's arrival and his enlistment. If my hon. and gallant Friend can bring any special circumstances connected with this case to my notice I will be very glad to look into it

  ROYAL COMMISSION ON AGRI CULTURE.
  Captain R. TERRELLasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture if he can state the reasons for the delay in the appointment of the Royal Commission on Agriculture and the publication of the list of Commissioners and the terms of reference; and whether he can now make any statement on the subject?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Arthur Boscawen): I have nothing at pre sent to add to the answer I gave to the question addressed to me by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Faver-sharn Division (Lieut.-Colonel Wheler) on the 13th instant.
  Captain TERRELL: May I ask for an answer to that part of my question which asks if he can state the reasons for the delay in the appointment of the Royal Commission?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I have nothing to add to what I have said before.
  Captain TERRELL:May I ask the hon. Gentleman if it is true that there is a difference of opinion amongst the unions concerned, and that they are unable to appoint their Commissioners on that account?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I can really add nothing except this, that I have never heard that given as a reason.
  Captain TERRELL: May I ask if he will ever be able to add anything?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I hope so.

  ALLOTMENTS (OXFORDSHIRE).
  Captain TERRELLasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture if he will state the number of allotments which have been created in Oxfordshire since the Armistice?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: The Board will endeavour to obtain the information, but the difficulty of obtaining it is increased by the arbitrary date adopted in the question-

  LAND SETTLEMENT (EX-SERVICE MEN).
  Captain COOTEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether the category of ex-Ser vice men includes men who have served in previous wars; and whether these will be granted the same facilities for settling on the land as men who have served in this War?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Clause 10 (4) of the Land Settlement Bill provides that preference shall be given to men who have served in the present War, but the Board would be prepared to consider amendments extending the scope of the preference to men who served in previous wars.
  Mr. T. GRIFFITHSasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture if l.e will state how many applications have been received from ex-Service men for small holdings; what percentage of those applications have obtained small holdings; what means have been taken to ascertain the number of men who desire small holdings; and what means have been taken to make known the Government settlement policy as declared in election pledges?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: As the answer is rather long, I propose to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  The following is the Answer referred to:
  County Council Holdings.—The total number of applications received by County Councils from ex-Service and Service men is 16,810, many of the applicants being not yet demobilised. The number already provided with holdings is 349.
  FARM SETTLEMENTS ADMINISTRATED BY THE BOARD.—The total number of applications received from Service or ex-Service men for small holdings at one of the Board's Farm Settlements, is 834. Of these 186 have been received from men who are still serving, and 234 have withdrawn their applications, or been referred to the Council of their respective counties. The number provided with holdings is 56, the number at the Settlements still on probation is 62, and a further 35 ex-Service men are also at work at the Settlements, making a total of 153 out of 414 (net) applicants.
  As regards the latter part of the question I am sending to the hon. Member a pamphlet entitled "Land Settlement in the Mother Country," which has been distributed by the Board, the War Office, and the Admiralty to any officer or man who desired information as to land settlement.

  BRITISH FARM PRODUCE (GOVERNMENT CONTROL).
  Major HOWARDasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether he will, for the information of the House, have a statement printed and circulated to Members showing the moneys diverted from British farmers out of cereals, meat, and wool, in comparison with the price paid for similar articles from overseas, during the time which the above-mentioned articles have been under the control of the Food Department?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: The Board are not in a position to provide the information required by my hon. Friend. The Ministry of Food fixed the prices for cereals and meat, and the Contracts Department of the Ministry of Munitions is responsible for the purchase of wool.
  Major E. WOOD: Would the hon. Gentleman not be able to get this in consultation with his Friend the Food Controller?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Yes, I thin it might be possibled, but it would not be possible to give it in a very full or detailed from. If there is a general wish that we should endeavour to get it, I will try to do so.
  Major HOWARD: Will he try and get all the information he possibly can, because it is very valuable?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Yes, certainly.

  SMALL HOLDINGS ACTS, 1908–1916.
  Mr. GRIFFITHSasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether he will consider the immediate issue of a Report of Proceedings under the Small Holdings Acts of 1908 and 1910 during the years 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918, bringing up to date the information given in a similar Report for 1914 (Cd. 7851, 1915) and completing for these years the tabular statements A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H contained in that Report; and if he will add to such Report a Summary of Proceedings under the Small Holdings Act of 1916?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: In view of the pressure of work arising out of the land settlement scheme it is not possible to re quire local authorities to provide the de tailed information asked for by the hon. Member for the years 1915–1918, but the-Board will endeavour to meet his wishes as far as possible in the preparation of their next Report. As regards the last part of the question, a Report was issued for the year 1917 in March of last year, and I am sending a copy to the hon. Member. A similar Report for the year 1918 is now in course of preparation.

  FORDSON TRACTORS.
  Sir FREDERICK YOUNGasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture what is the landed cost at Liverpool of the Fordson tractors; at what price are they delivered to farmers in the locality of Swindon; and what are the items which go to make up the difference between those two amounts?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: The Board are no longer importers of tractors, and so have-no information as to the first part of the question. The Board are informed that '£280, plus cost of carriage from Liverpool,.

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  is the price at which tractors are now de livered to farmers in the locality of Swindon by Messrs. H. Ford and Son. On the last part of the question the Board have no information.

  HAMPTON COURT PALACE GARDENS.
  Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAYasked the First Commissioner of Works whether any expression of opinion has reached him from public bodies or individuals urging alterations to the pond garden or other gardens at Hampton Court Palace; whether any scheme of alterations has been submitted to him and, if so, by whom and for what reasons; whether he has considered any scheme of alterations and, if so, what is its nature; whether any alterations at all to the Pond Garden or other gardens are either necessary or desirable; and, if so, what alterations has he in mind?
  The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Sir Alfred Mond): No suggestions for alterations to the Pond Garden or other gardens at Hampton Court Palace have reached me from public bodies. Inasmuch as a large number of beds had to be suppressed during war-time, on ac count of scarcity of labour and public economy, I have had certain suggestions for improving the general lay-out of the gardens submitted for my consideration. Before actually adopting any of the proposals, I have decided to appoint a small committee of horticultural and landscape garden experts to advise on the whole question.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Do any of these suggestions apply to the Pond Garden?
  Sir A. MOND: No.
  Major LANE-FOX: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the very great and strong feeling on the part of all sections of the community against any alterations?
  Sir A. MOND: I have seen a very large number of inaccurate statements in the Press. I suggest you had better wait and Bee what the proposals are.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Before any alterations are carried out, will the right
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  hon. Gentleman place a plan of the suggested alterations in the Tea-room of this House?
  Sir A. MOND: I shall be delighted.

  RECRUITING (ST. MARY'S HALL BUILDINGS, SHREWSBURY).
  Mr. LLOYDasked the First Commissioner of Works whether lie is aware that St. Mary's Hall Buildings, Shrewsbury, were taken over by his Department on 1st October, 1918, notwithstanding protest by the mayor and other residents, who anticipated inconvenience to the military, charitable, and social business of the town, as these buildings contained the only room of any size not then in the occupation of Government officials; whether he is aware that I he big room in these buildings was not used. from 1st November, 1918, till 5th May, 1919; whether, owing to no caretaker being in charge, the boilers and radiators were burst by the action of the frost in February, and will he, seeing that this large room is not required now, at once order the damage caused by his tenancy to be repaired and the buildings restored to its owners?
  Sir A. MOND: I am informed that these premises were taken at the end of September last for recruiting purposes after ex haustive search, in deference to the representations of the mayor and other residents, had been made for other accommodation. The change in the military situation has been responsible for a temporary suspension of the medical services, and this, together with the breakdown which occurred in February of the heating apparatus, has been the cause of non-occupation of part of the accommodation. The heating apparatus is, I understand, now repaired, and the whole of the accommodation in use. Further inquiries are being instituted as to the possibility of arrangements being made which will enable this accommodation to be released.
  Mr. LLOYD: Is the right hon. Gentle man aware that these rooms were never used at all from the 1st November until the end of April, when I wrote a private letter to him, when there was. great activity shown and is he aware that, not only in this district but many other districts there is great discontent that these

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  rooms are kept, when really it is not necessary, and it causes great discomfort and difficulty?
  Sir A. MOND:I am not aware of these facts. I will have the matter further looked into.

  VICTOKIA TOWER GARDENS (HUTMENTS).
  Mr. GILBERTasked the First Com missioner of Works for what Department the Victoria Tower Gardens, near Lambeth Bridge, have been partly covered with huts; how many clerks occupy these huts; for what space of time he proposes to retain them; and if it was not possible to obtain other accommodation without utilising this further open space in London?
  Sir A. MOND:The hutments referred to have been erected for the Ministry of Pensions; the number of staff in occupation is 320. It is impossible at present to say for what space of time it will be necessary to retain them. It would only have been possible to obtain other accommodation for this staff by requisitioning further space in hotels or in premises occupied by business firms.

  UNIVERSITIES (SALARIES OF TEACHING STAFF).
  Mr. WATERSONasked the President of the Board of Education whether he will grant a Return showing, as regards each university in receipt of national aid, the staff engaged in teaching, and the salary paid in each individual case?
  Mr. FISHER: The Board of Education do not possess the details required for the issue of such a comprehensive Return as is suggested, and I do not consider it desirable at the present moment to address a special request to the universities to supply them. The university authorities are fully alive to the importance of providing adequate remuneration for their staff, and are, I understand, now actively engaged in the process of revising salaries. I hope that the payment of the increased Grants for university education which are provided for in this year's Estimates will enable the universities to deal with the matter satisfactorily.

  PUBLIC GIRLS' SECONDARY SCHOOL, SUDBURY.
  Major HOWARDasked the President of the Board of Education whether his attention has been called to the strong desire which has been expressed by per sons living in Sudbury and the neighbouring districts in West Suffolk for the establishment by the local authority of a public girls' secondary school in Sudbury; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?
  Mr. FISHER: My attention has been called to this matter; and I am advised that the establishment of a public girls' secondary school in Sudbury is very desirable. It will be the duty of the Local Education Authority to submit a comprehensive scheme for the provision of education in West Suffolk, and in considering that scheme the Board will certainly not overlook the claims of Sudbury. I hardly think, however, that the matter is sufficiently urgent to justify me in pressing the Local Education Authority to make proposals for the purpose in advance of the programme which they will submit in their scheme.

  INDUSTRIAL INSURANCE COMMITTEE.
  Mr. C. EDWARDSasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he will include in the terms of reference of the Insurance Committee the question of increase of salary to superintendents and assistant superintendents as well as agents of the insurance companies?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. The Committee to inquire into Industrial Life Assurance has now been appointed, and I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given on the 5th May by my right hon. Friend to the question addressed to the Prime Minister by the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham and Worthing, in which the composition of the Committee and the terms of reference were stated. The terms of reference would certainly not exclude the consideration of salaries of the officers mentioned in the question, and if an application is received from any of the associations which represent them to be allowed to give evidence, such application will be submitted to the Committee.

  REGISTER OF VOTERS.
  Mr. GILBERTasked the President of the Local Government Board whether a circular has been issued by his Department to registration officers ordering the preparation of the next register to be advanced by one month; will he state the reason why such an order has been made; and will he now give the consequential change of dates for publishing the lists and issuing the new register?
  Mr. PRATT (Lord of the Treasury): My right hon. Friend is sending my hon. Friend a copy of the circular recently issued which indicates the dates determined on for the preparation of the next register of electors. It was found essential; to allow for that register a longer period for the processes of preparation and printing than the Act permits in normal times, and as the date for the coming into operation of the new register could not be postponed beyond l5th October in consequence of the municipal elections in November it was necessary to anti-date the end of the qualifying period.

  SPORTS GROUNDS.
  Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the President of the Local Government Board whether, in view of the fact that the shortage of sports, grounds and playing fields which existed before the War has been accentuated by the acquirement of land for allotments and will be still further accentuated by the housing programme, ho will organise a separate branch of his Department, to be known as the sports recreation Department, charged with the duty of securing an adequate supply of sports grounds and playing fields and facilities for the people to reach them?
  Mr. PRATT: My right hon. Friend cannot undertake to set up a special Department to deal with this subject, but I have no doubt that the matter is one which is fully appreciated by the local authorities, and in any town-planning scheme full consideration will be given to the need for reserving suitable areas for recreation.

  MAILS FROM AMERICA (DELAY).
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. HOAREasked the Postmaster-General why the mails which arrive from America on the "Aquitania" on 10th May were not de livered in London until 14th May?
  Mr. PEASE: The delay in the delivery of the mails brought by the "Aquitania" was occasioned by a sudden strike of the dock porters employed by the Great Western Railway Company at Plymouth, who refused to handle the bags. The mails were in the tender from 3 o'clock p.m. on the 10th until 3.15 p.m. on the 13th instant before they were transferred to the train for conveyance to the delivery offices.

  MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT (TRAVELLING PRIVILEGES).
  Mr. SPENCERasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can take any action to secure for Members of this House travelling on railways and holding season tickets the privilege of travelling on alternate lines?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Regulations, of which I am sending the hon. Gentleman a copy, are in operation in. regard to the interavailability of season tickets, and I am afraid that I cannot secure their modification in favour of Members of Parliament.
  Major WOOD: In view of the desirability of hon. Members being able to keep in close touch with their constituents; will the hon. Gentleman consider the desirability of giving them free passes?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I will represent to the proper authorities the desire expressed by my hon. and gallant Friend.
  Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY: Will the Leader of the House give it his personal consideration?
  Mr. INSKIP: Has the hon. Gentleman's attention been called to a statement in the papers to-day that the Government have arrived at a decision in this matter, and free passes will be granted? Is that correct?
  Colonel THORNE: I see the Leader of the House shaking his head. That means "No."
  Lieut -Colonel MURRAY: Will the Leader of the House give this matter his personal consideration?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Yes, I cars promise that

  JAPAN (EXPORTS TO UNITED KINGDOM).
  Sir RICHARD COOPERasked the President of the Board of Trade the total value of imports of all manufactured goods from Japan into the United Kingdom during the first four months of 1914 and 1919?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The value of merchandise (classed in our Trade Returns as "articles wholly or mainly manufactured") imported into the United Kingdom and registered as consigned from Japan amounted to £l,092,666 in the first four months of 1914, and to £7,210,055 in the corresponding period of 1919. In this connection the great rise in prices between1914 and 1919 should not be overlooked.
  Sir R. COOPER: Is the Department of the hon. Gentleman taking special steps to protect both British industry and British labour against these growing in roads?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The Government are considering that question. It is a matter perpetually under consideration.
  Sir F. HALL: Does the Department of the hon. Gentleman attribute the enormous increase from 1914 to 1919 to the very low amount that is paid in wages in Japan compared with the wages that have to be paid in this country; and does the hon. Gentleman appreciate the difficulties of the situation and the way this is going to prejudice British manufactures here?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Yes, Sir, I am quite aware of the difference between the cost of labour in the respective countries, and also appreciate the difficulties of the situation.
  Sir F. HALL: Are the Government going to take any steps to protect British manufactures here?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: That is another thing.
  Several HON. MEMBERSrose—
  Mr. SPEAKER: Further questions had better be put on the Paper.

  MEDICINE BOTTLES (SHORTAGE).
  Mr. SPENCERasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware
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  that the retail chemists of Nottingham shire are experiencing a shortage of medicine bottles; whether such shortage is due to his Department insisting upon bottle-makers exporting 75 per cent. of their output; and, if so, what steps, if any, he pro poses to take to secure a sufficient supply for home use?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am aware that there is a shortage of medicine bottles, which is due to a large extent to shortage of coal and labour for their manufacture. British makers are not required to export any portion of their output, and the actual exports at the present time are very small. Importation is being allowed at the rate of 50 per cent. of the imports of 1913.

  RAILWAY ADMINISTRATION.

    RAILWAY FACILITIES (MANSFIELD AND NOTTINGHAM).
    Mr. SPENCERasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that on Wednesdays and Saturdays the trains running between Mansfield and Nottingham are greatly overcrowded; and what steps, if any, he proposes to take to avoid the same?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am in communication with the railway companies concerned on this matter, and I will write to the hon. Gentleman as soon as I am in, a position to give him a reply.

    CONGESTION OK TRAFFIC.
    Mr. REMERasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the congestion on the railways; that complaints are being made by traders; and that the reply being given by railway goods managers is that there is a short age of railway wagons and rolling stock generally; whether he is aware that very few orders are being placed by the rail way companies and traders for new rail way wagons; and what action he proposes to take to relieve the situation?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am aware of the position referred to in the first part of the question. I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer, of which I am sending him a copy, given on Monday last in reply to a question on this subject asked by the hon. Member For North Salford.

    COEDELY, LLANTRISANT.
    Mr. T. A. LEWISasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that owing to the lack of a railway station on the Great Western Railway at Coed Ely, Llantrisant, many miners have to walk daily several miles to and from their work; whether he is aware that the whole population of this industrial centre have to walk long distances to the nearest railway station; and whether, to meet the needs of this district, the Railway Executive Committee will give instructions for the provision of a temporary halt platform at Coed Ely pending the erection of a suitable permanent station?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am making inquiries into this matter, and will write to the hon. Gentleman as soon as I can.

    PROVISION DEALERS, CARDIFF.
    Sir WILLIAM SEAGERasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the difficulty experienced by provision dealers in the city of Cardiff by reason of the refusal by the railway companies to carry traffic to that city from London; and whether, in view of the in convenience experienced, he can take some action in the matter?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: My attention has not previously been called to this matter, but if furnished with particulars I shall be happy to look into it.

    EXCURSIONS FOR CHILDREN.
    Colonel YATE(by private Notice) asked the President of the Board of Trade what arrangements, if any, the Railway Executive Committee have been able to make to facilitate excursions for children into the country?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am glad to be able to say that the Railway Executive Committee are offering the following terms for recognised school excursions: Present day single fare for double journey to adults and to children over fourteen years of age; half present day single fare for double journey to children up to fourteen years of age. Such concession to be limited to one outing per school during the season. It is most important that when ever possible the excursion should be arranged for days in the middle of the week.
    Mr. BRIANT: Will that be extended to boys' brigades and boys' camps?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I cannot answer that. I knew the moment any concession was made a great many more would be asked for, but I cannot give an answer to that without consulting the Railway Executive.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE.

    SURPLUS AEROPLANES.
    Colonel ASHLEYasked the Under secretary of State to the Air Ministry whether he will offer to the Overseas Dominions and Colonies some of the surplus aeroplanes now in the possession of the Air Ministry with a view to their being used for postal and similar services?
    Mr. PRATT: My hon. and gallant Friend has asked me to reply. The question of the form in which assistance can be rendered to British Possessions over seas for the purposes referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend is under consideration and I hope to be able to announce a decision very shortly.
    Colonel ASHLEY: Is the hon. Gentle man aware that the Dominions would appreciate not only the gift, but the spirit in which it was offered?
    Mr. PRATT: Yes, Sir.

    CYPRESS FOR AEROPLANES.
    Mr. REMERasked the Under-Secretary of State to the Air Ministry the name of the official responsible for allowing the use of cypress on aeroplanes; the date he left the service of the Air Ministry; whether he was dismissed or demobilised; and whether he is now able to state the names of his present advisers as to the use of suitable woods on aeroplanes?
    Mr. PRATT:As regards the reasons and responsibility for the temporary use of cypress for aeroplanes, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to him on 1st May. I am sending him to-day the names of the members of the Timber Committee of the Conjoint Board of Scientific Societies.

  FOOD SUPPLIES.

    BACON.
    Sir R. COOPERasked the Food Controller what quantity of bacon has been sold or allocated to Holland during the

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    last two months; at what price sales have been effected; and what quantity was agreed shall be exported from Holland to Germany?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Mr. McCurdy): No bacon has been sold or allocated to Holland by the British Government during the last two months. The remainder of the question does not therefore arise.

    FOOD CONTROL COMMITTEE, BRISTOL.
    Mr. INSKIPasked the Food Controller what is the number of the staff occupying No. 8, Woodland Road, Bristol, and what are the duties they are now per forming; what other premises in Bristol are occupied by the local food control committee; whether the functions of this committee will continue beyond 30th June; and whether, in view of the great scarcity of houses in Bristol, he will arrange that the above-mentioned and other residential houses occupied by the local food control authorities shall be vacated by Midsummer Day?
    Mr. McCURDY: The premises to which the hon. Member refers are occupied by the Divisional Food Commissioner of the Ministry of Food for the division comprising the counties of Gloucester, Somerset, Devon, Dorset, and Cornwall. The staff employed in these premises is at present forty-five in number. The Divisional Commissioner is charged with the administration, under the Ministry of Food, of all measures of food control within his division. The Bristol Food Control Committee occupies No. 8, Victoria Street, and No. 8, Bridge Street, neither of these being residential premises. The former premises cannot be dispensed with at the present time, but I am informed that the Committee have arrived at an understanding with the land lord that they will be vacated at the earliest possible date. The tenancy of No. 8, Bridge Street, terminates on 29th September, but the landlord has been in formed that the premises will be vacated as soon as they are required. The work both of the Divisional Food Commissioner and of the Food Control Committee will have decreased considerably by the end of June, and it is probable that it will terminate, so far as can at present be foreseen, about the end of September.

    POTATOES.
    Lieut-Colonel A. MURRAYasked the Food Controller whether he is aware that some weeks ago potato growers in the North-Eastern Counties of Scotland expected to get their surplus stocks of potatoes away and were told to put them into sacks; whether lie is aware that these potatoes had already begun to sprout in the pits; whether it is the case that orders were given to any railway company in the North-East of Scotland to refuse to carry potatoes, and, if so, what was the reason for this order; and whether he can see his way to make arrangements for the immediate disposal of these stocks of potatoes which will soon be unfit for human consumption?
    Mr. McCURDY: I am not aware of the circumstances to which the hon. and gallant Member refers, but I am having inquiries made and will communicate the result to him.

    WHISKY.
    Colonel THORNEasked the Food Controller if he is aware that a number of wholesale whisky merchants, importers of American whisky, have purchased and paid for a good deal of whisky this year and that they are prevented from importing the same into this country; and if he will take action in the matter?
    MR. MCCURDY: It is not yet possible to modify the present restrictions on the importation of whisky, which were imposed both because of the prohibition of distilling in this country and owing to the shortage of freight. I can, however, assure the hon. and gallant Member that, so far as my Department are concerned, the restrictions will not be maintained for a day longer than is necessary.

    FISH.
    Colonel THORNEasked the Food Controller whether sound fish is destroyed and converted into fertiliser at Billings gate, Grimsby, and other places which might have been sold for human consumption; if so, what steps have been taken by his Department to deal with the offenders; and if he can give any statistics of the fish landed at Billingsgate in April and the proportion condemned or destroyed?
    MR. MCCURDY: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative-.

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    The second part does not, therefore, arise. The total weight of fish landed in Billingsgate during April last was 13,342 tons, and the total weight condemned during the same period was 300 tons. The latter consisted mainly of herring, mackerel, and skate, coming from the North of Scotland and Ireland, which on account of the hot weather, arrived in a condition unfit for human food.

  HAWKER-GRIEVE ATLANTIC FLIGHT.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY(by Private Notice) asked the First Lord of the Admiralty how many additional vessels have been sent to reinforce the ships of the Irish Command in searching for Mr. Hawker's machine?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: One flotilla leader and eight destroyers have been sent out.
  Captain W. BENN: Have any seaplanes been sent—a much more suitable way of searching?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: I cannot say. I shall have to inquire.
  Lieut.-Colonel W. GUINNESS: May I ask whether the responsibility for the tragedy does not really rest with those who, by organising prizes on a competitive instead of on a qualifying basis, encouraged Captain Hawker to fly in bad weather and without adequate preparation [HON. MEMBERS: "Quite right!"]——and will the right hon. Gentleman——
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Member can hardly expect an answer to a question like that without giving notice.

PRIVATE BILLS.
  GROUP A.
  Sir HARRY SAMUEL reported from the Committee on Group A of Private Bills; That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Friday next, at Eleven of the clock. Report to lie upon the Table.

  Group B.
  Captain STARKEY reported from the Committee on Group B of Private Bills; that, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Thursday, 29th May, at Eleven of the clock.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

STANDING ORDERS.
Resolutions reported from the Select Committee;

1."That, in the case of the Birmingham Corporation Tramways [Lords], Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill.

2.That, in the case of the London Electric Railway [Lords]. Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill.

3.That in the case of the Dover Gas [Lords], Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill.

4.That, in the case of the East Ham Corporation [Lords], Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill.

5.That, in the case of the West Hartlepool Corporation [Lords], Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill.

6.That, in the case of the Shoreham-by-Sea Urban District Council [Lords],Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill.

7.That, in the case of the Newcastle-upon- Tyne Corporation (Rites) [Lords], Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill.

8.That, in the case of the Middlesbrough Corporation Bill [Lords], Petition for additional Provision, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to insert their additional Provision if the Committee on the Bill think fit."

Resolutions agreed to.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

  STANDING COMMITTEE A.
  Sir SAMUEL. ROBERTS reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee A: Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen, Sir Peter Griggs, Captain Hacking, Mr. Dennis Herbert, Mr. Lorden. Major M'Lean, Mr. Donald Murray, Lieut.-Colonel Raw, Mr. Robert Richardson, Mr. Sitch, Sir Robert Thomas, Mr. Trevelyan Thomson, Mr. Tillett, Mr. Waddington, Colonel Wedgwood, Colonel Penry Williams, Mr. Thomas Williams, Mr. Charles White, and Sir Kingsley Wood.
  Sir SAMUEL ROBERTS further reported from the Committee; That they had added the following Members to Standing Committee A: Lord Hugh Cecil, Captain

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  Foxcroft, Mr. Inskip, Mr. Lyle-Samuel, Mr. MacVeagh, Major Godfrey Palmer, Sir William Pearce, Mr. Reid, Mr. Sitch, and Mr. Aneurin Williams.

  STANDING COMMITTEE B.
  Sir Samuel Roberts further reported from the Committee; That they had transferred from Standing Commit lee B to Standing Committee A the following Fifteen Members (in respect of the Aliens Restriction Bill): Mr. Bottomley, Sir John Butcher, Colonel Raymond Greene, Colonel Sir Hamar Greenwood, Mr. Joynson-Hicks, Lieut.-Commander Ken-worthy, Sir George Croydon Marks, Sir Herbert Nield, Mr. Secretary Shortt, Mr. Solicitor General, Mr. Tillett, Mr. Waterson, Sir Ernest Wild, Mr. Tyson Wilson, and Sir Alfred Yeo.
  STANDING COMMITTEE C.
  Sir Samuel Roberts further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee C: Mr. Barrie and Sir Albion Richardson; and had appointed in substitution: Major Guest and Mr. Sturrock; and had added the following Members to the Committee: Mr. Arnold, Captain Bowyer, Captain Edge, Captain Elliot, Sir Park Goff, Major Hills, Mr. Irving, Major Kerr-Smiley, Sir Joseph Larmor, Lieut.-Colonel Malone, Major Newton, Mr. Onions, Captain Ormsby-Gore, Mr. Rae, Mr. Waterson, Lieut. Colonel Dalrymple White, Brigadier-General Wigan, and Captain Stanley Wilson.

  SCOTTISH STANDING COMMITTEE.
  Sir Samuel Roberts further reported from the Committee: That they had discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills: Mr. Aneurin Williams (in respect of the Housing, Town Planning, etc. (Scotland) Bill); and had appointed in substitution: Sir Thomas Bramsdon.
  Reports to lie upon the Table.

ANIMALS (ANAESTHETICS) BILL.
Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee E.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 98.]
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No.98.]
Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill83.]

BILLS PRESENTED.
CORN PRODUCTION ACTS REPEAL) Bill.—"to repeal The Corn Production Act, 1917, and The Corn Production (Amendment) Act, 1018," presented by Sir FREDE RICK BANBURY; to be road a second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 84.]
House of Commons and Municipal Corporations (Qualification of Clergymen) Bill,—"to remove the disqualification of clerks in holy orders and ministers of religion as Members of the House of Commons and as municipal councillors," presented by Lieut.-Colonel Burgoyne; supported by Mr. J. F. Green, Captain Moreing, Mr. Reginald Nicholson, and Colonel Yate; to be road a second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 85.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  FINANCE BILL
  Order read for resuming adjourned Debate on Question [20th May].
  "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Question again proposed.
  Mr. HOGGE: Last night the House of Commons had a Division on an Amendment moved from these benches dealing with the question of a capital levy, Preference, etc., in which a majority of Members voted for the Motion. The voting rather surprised some of us who for a long time have been associated with certain, hon. Members, both inside and outside this House, on the question of the trade of the country. We saw many of our Free Trade colleagues going into the Lobby in favour of Preference, and finding very readily and easily arguments why they found themselves in that particular Lobby. Be that as it may, there are one or two other points in connection with this matter which, I think, we must have cleared up before we agree to the Second Reading of this Bill. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in dealing with arguments which were adduced from this side, criticising the policy that he has incorporated in this Bill, made a statement in which he said that this is not in itself a very large affair, but part of a larger policy. Those were the words used by the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday in defending the attack that was made upon Preference from this side of the House. If that be so, I think we are entitled to ask my right hon. Friend what is the larger policy upon which he proposes to embark. [AN HON. MEMBER: "He told you yesterday !"] I think we are entitled to go further, and get some specific information upon his proposals, because there are colleagues of my right hon. Friend who sit on the bench opposite who have described in rather caustic sentences the kind of Preference which my right hon. Friend proposes in this particular Finance Bill, and I have two of them in front of me now. I remember the very same proposals being described by the Secretary of State for War (Mr. Churchill), who at that time was an ardent Free Trader, and this right hon. Gentleman told us at Dundee the other day that he stood precisely where he stood before, and he described the same proposals as are now being made as "Prefer-
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  ence by hypodermic syringe." That was the criticism made by the Secretary for War. The Prime Minister, dealing with the same point, used this phrase:
  "It was like reduciug the duty on Tintarn and floating the Empire on pippins.''
  That was what the Prime Minister said. The right hon. Gentleman says that what is in the Budget now on this question is simply a fingerpost to a larger policy, and I think he will agree that those who profoundly disagree with Preference of any kind are entitled to know what the policy is, and whether that policy takes us any further than what is laid down in the letter written by the Lord Privy Seal to the Prime Minister on the eve of the General Election, on the basis of which he collected into his fold a large number of Coalition Liberals, who were not wide enough awake on that particular occasion. I think we are also entitled to know whether that letter represents all the arrangement that has been made with regard to Preference. We are entitled to know whether there are any secret treaties between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House with regard to Preference. After all, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is an honest man, and if he says deliberately at that box that this is part of a larger policy, he is committing not only himself, but, presumably, the Cabinet to which he belongs.
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): The hon. Member has really discovered a mare's nest. If he will read the next two sentences of my speech, he will see that I went on to explain the larger policy. I said, for instance, that we intended to inform our whole policy by this principle of Preference, and that where we had a control of capital issues we had directed that is preference should be given, caeteris paribus, to issues intended for the development of the Dominions and the overseas territories of His Majesty, and that similarly we had directed in contracts for purchases made outside the United Kingdom that a Preference should be given to the products of His Majesty's Dominions. That is the explanation of the sentence which the hon. Gentleman has quoted, and, if I may add a further word of reassurance, there are no secret treaties with the Prime Minister. His letter to the Leader of the House was public and open, and was a statement of the policy of the Government.
  4.0 p.m.
  Mr. HOGGE: I do not want to do my right hon. Friend an injustice, but I remember him standing at the box opposite on the day he introduced the Budget, thumping the box with all the energy of which he was capable, and declaring that now the day had arrived for putting into operation the policy of his distinguished father. My right hon. Friend seemed to suggest that he had his foot on the ladder of Preference, which the Prime Minister was then holding, and he was ready to scale that ladder to the extreme heights of the policy dictated by his illustrious father. If the right hon. Gentleman does not mean that, and if he means it simply as rhetoric and confines himself to the interpretation of the sentence in his speech which he has now corrected, then we know where we are. But I think we are entitled to ask what limits are going to be placed on the policy. as applicable to the trade conditions of this country. If it means nothing more than that we are to go the length of the sentence, he has just given us, we know a little better where we are. Whether that be true or not, we have a right to say what it means by implication, And I would like to remind the House of a particular reference to this subject made by the Secretary of State for War in which he points out the real road that this policy is going to lead us on to. It is a fairly long quotation, but it will not take. long to read. I think, however, that it is worth reading, because it will save a long speech. The Secretary of State for War said:
  "The second objection is that it introduces into our fiscal system an entirely new, and, as the Government think, the wholly vicious feature of discriminating between one class of producer and another. The whole basis of our financial and fiscal policy—a policy which has been pursued for so many years by this country, and which has been supported by the practice and precepts of so many great and distinguished men—is that it draws no distinction whatever between different classes of producers, whether they reside here or abroad, whether they live in foreign countries or in our own Colonies. I am quite prepared to state that proposition in its simplest form. That is the fundamental principle of our fiscal principle, and there is no discrimination. We have but one measure to give to those who trade with us, the just measure of equality, and there can be no better measure than that. That is the fundamental principle of the Free Trade position, and if it is challenged by the party opposite the whole of the great controversy is again raised between Free Trade and Tariff Reform. I do not believe that the Opposition will be acting with candour if they say, We have abandoned the proposals which the right hon. Member for West Birmingham has made.'
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  I believe his proposals are still their policy, and any lesser proposal put forward is only designed to lead up to them."
  4.0 p.m.
  I venture to suggest that is the position in which we still find ourselves by the introduction of these reference duties into this Budget. So much for the Secretary of State for War who, I may remind the House again, told us that when he supports the Government in these proposals he stands precisely where he did. The Chancellor of the Exchequer made an extraordinary capture yesterday afternoon in my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea (Sir A. Mond), who protested that the introduction of these Preference Clauses meant a wider and better Free Trade. With his hand upon his heart, he declared that he had never had this put up to him before. As a matter of fact, proposals identical with those contained in this Budget were voted upon in this House in 1909, and my right hon. Friend then was in the Lobby against my right hon. Friend the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. Just as my right hon. Friend's illustrious father saw the promised land, and did not enter it, but chose a younger man to lead the children of Israel into it, so my right hon. Friend has made an extraordinary capture in my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea. I wish therefore to put it on record that as far as we are concerned we regard these duties as the thin edge of the wedge. We do not believe in them. We believe in the dictum of my right hon. Friend's illustrious father, that if they are persisted in there is going to be both blood and trouble. It is the blood and trouble that accompany restriction of trade throughout the world. that create war, and the finest peace maker in the world is freedom of trade. The more free that trade can be the less difficulties there are between the nations of the world in the interchange of trade, and the less likelihood anywhere is there to be war. I look forward personally with disappointment to entering upon a long struggle again on questions which in the immediate future will promote wars and woes.
  I want to refer to the capital levy. A great deal has been said about the fact that those who sit here are not prepared to act up to the principle which we tried to establish yesterday in our Resolution. No greater mistake can be made by any body in any part of the House than to imagine that we did not mean business

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  by that particular suggestion in that Amendment. It is quite true that we were beaten last night by a large majority, but it does not matter now what this House does in the Lobbies. This House doe3 not represent the people outside, and we do not care—and there have been other minorities who have said so quite as frankly—about the decisions of this House, although we respect those in which we take part. We go beyond the Division Lobby of this House, and, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer imagines for one moment that he has disposed of the principle of a capital levy by the jejune argument which he advanced yesterday afternoon, he is making a colossal mistake. There is one argument and one only that I will pursue on this subject, and it must be taken into account by this House and by my right hon. Friend. There are more men being demobilised from the Army to-day than have been discharged at any period of the War. I do not know how familiar hon. Members are with the feelings of those men, but I would like to remind the Committee that men, when entering the Army, whether voluntarily or compulsorily, were compelled to surrender not only capital but frequently life. The average man who went into the Army was a working man. and he took into the Army his hands and his brains and his ability to earn his lining outside the Army by the combination of those things. If he were killed, it was a tragedy, and if ho were wounded it destroyed his capacity to work. Apart from that, many of those men had to surrender their homes, and to-day there are thousands of demobilised men in London who not only surrendered their homes when they went into the Army, and many of whom lost little businesses and gave up capital, but who to-day cannot get houses in which to live. At the same time, one highly placed Minister in connection with this Government found an opportunity to build a house with many bath rooms, though restrictions were placed upon materials for building. You may take it from me that those men's attitude on the question of a capital levy is governed by one fact, and it is one that must be taken into consideration. It is what you call the "equality of sacrifice." W have talked ever so much about the equality of sacrifice in this War, but what really happened was this: We—all of us are responsible—have carved from four
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  to five years of the most potential period out of the lives of men, particularly the young men. We have prevented those men getting access to the success which might have been theirs had there been no war. While we have done that, those men have had to run the risk of death and wounds during the War. If they comeback and interest themselves in politics and read my right hon. Friend's Budget, they find it a Budget which gives advantage to the rich, and which penalizes the poor, a Budget which divides the excess profits made out of the War by two while they are tramping the streets of London and the provincial towns trying to get house room for their wives and children.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Not excess profits made out of the War; they have already been taxed.
  Mr. HOGGE:That is true; but, as an alternative, why not continue them? I suggest to my right hon. Friend that there is that danger among large bodies of opinion in the country. He will agree that those men have made considerable capital sacrifices. Therefore, there is not so very much in the argument that people who have made large profits out of the War—and there are many of them in this country—should not be called upon to surrender part of those profits in order to relieve the country from taxation. If my right hon. Friend had even in his Budget a suggestion that those who have made profits out of the War should have those profits taken from them, it would help to allay public opinion, because I believe a. large body of opinion in this House and in. the country would certainly support the theory that profits made as a direct result of the War and through association with war work does not belong to those who have made them, and ought to be sacrificed similarly to the lives of men who joined our Forces. That is why my right hon. Friend found himself in the difficulty in which he was placed yesterday afternoon. His colleague, the Leader of the House, speaking only a few months ago on the question of a capital levy, said that his mind was perfectly open, and that he thought it was a matter of expedience. After all, he is an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, for whom, I suppose, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer had some economic respect. Who closed his mind, or is his mind shut, on this particular topic of a capital levy? It would

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  be rather interesting to discover why one Chancellor of the Exchequer only a few months ago thought that it was a possibility and expedient enough to consider it, and why now, apparently, his mind is closed. So far ho has not told the House why that is so. It would be an interesting contribution to the Debate if the Lord Privy Seal would tell us if ho has changed his mind, or if he does not sec some reason for maintaining the attitude that he took up before.
  There is one other question which has not been touched upon, and it is the present inflated currency. I remember in the days of the last Parliament, when some of us who sat on the benches opposite, used to make little speeches to Under secretaries trying to prove that inflated currency would eventually ruin the country, and we quoted all kinds of economists whom we had been taught by our universities were in favour of this proposition. Still currency went on being inflated. Speaking from memory I think my right hon. friend said that at the moment he was introducing his Budget there was something like £940,000,000 of legal tender in paper. I am perfectly certain my right hon. Friend wants to look at the question of inflated currency from the point of view that it is an underlying cause of high prices, and the more we can get rid of the inflation the more quickly we can reduce prices and secure greater economic cheap-ness.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Swansea (Sir A. Mond) laid down the doctrine last night that it was not a bad thing to have a large debt—a most extra ordinary doctrine. He said there was less extravagance with a large debt than other wise, and he put that forward as a reason for supporting the Budget. I do not suppose the Chancellor of the Exchequer adheres to that proposition, for if it were true that the larger the debt the less extravagant should be, he would only have to encourage the many extravagances which this House is investigating in Committee upstairs in order to ensure an increase of the debt, and thus get rid of extravagance. On the question of Preference I want to tell my right hon. Friend that he will meet with the most deter mined opposition on our part. No doubt we may be snowed under before the Committee stage is over, but we shall fight the matter both in the House and at every opportunity outside. On the question of
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  the capital levy, we may be twitted from all corners of the House with regard to the position we have taken up, but apparently our chief fault is that we have taken up a new position for ourselves, a position not thought of by anyone else as a practical means of solving existing problems. We believe in a capital levy. We believe in reducing our liabilities now that conditions in the country are settled, and we are prepared to address ourselves to the problems as we find them. We want to see the country getting back to its proper place in the great race between the peoples of the world that will come after the declaration of peace, and we want to see this country maintain its commercial supremacy. That is our faith, our programme, and our belief, and on those grounds we intend to fight my right hon. Friend and the Coalition Government.
  Sir E. CARSON: I think the speech to which the House has just listened was a very regrettable one. My. hon. Friend started with the statement that it does not matter what this House docs. To say that a few months after this country has declared its view as to the Government which ought to be in power, to say such a thing when everything both in foreign and in home affairs is in a critical condition, is to lay down an extremely dangerous doc trine. I believe the hon. Gentleman is really trying to do a little bit of cheap electioneering, and anything of that kind at the present moment is very regrettable. The hon. Gentleman went on—and I am sure he was quite sincere about it—to speak of the sacrifices that many men have made in the War—one-man business men, men owning small businesses, who have gone into the trenches, and who now find themselves without a home. Does the hon. Gentleman think we are forgetful of that fact? Does lie think the Government is forgetful of it? It is a cheap sort of thing to say in relation to a Budget which, is to afford the means of providing the finance, because if there is any reality in the statement it means there are opportunities of doing something more for these men, and that it can be done merely by a wave of the wand, call it, if you like, a capital levy, and that you will be studding the whole country with buildings which these men can inhabit. It means, too, that the only people in the world who do not care about these men are His Majesty's Government, while the only people who do care are my hon. Friend

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  and his Friends. I could make that kind of speech as well an my hon. Friend—per haps not quite so well.
  For my own part I can assure him, whether he believes it or not, that as regards these men who have sacrificed everything, there is no length I would not go if I thought it Bound. I would not think of my own pocket in this matter. You can take anything you like if it is sound. I can live on very little if I am put to it. But I do say this, if there is one thing the country wants more than any other, it is that you should restore confidence in the country, financially, economically and commercially. Then you will be able to get money to build houses, and to give greater compensation to these men—a compensation which they ought to have. But to put forward an unsound proposition for the purpose merely of making an electioneering speech of this kind is to threaten the very foundations of the stability and future of these men who, we all agree, have done so much, and to whom we owe everything. I have said over and over again, and I repeat it now, there is nothing that you can do for these men that is too good for them, and for this simple reason, that if it were not for these men, there would be nothing for anyone of us. We should have had every thing taken away from us had Germany been in a position to dictate peace terms in London. We ought, therefore, to approach this subject, realising that the country owes everything to these men, and that within reason anything we can do ought to be done, not merely in providing them with homes, but in also providing them with what I think they would far more prefer, namely, employment at good wages and under good conditions. To utter in this House such statements as have been given expression to by my hon. Friend can only tend to deter these men, who are already anxious and nervous whether they ought to strike out on new lines of trade and commerce; from entering upon this work of reconstruction. Whatever your intentions may be, and I do not impute anything dishonourable to my hon. Friend, I say you are doing the worst thing for them, even although the object you have in view is to improve their position.
  My hon. Friend has said that his party is in favour of a capital levy. If I thought that a capital levy was possible or practicable, or that it could be made
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  with any equality of sacrifice, if I thought it could be done without shaking the confidence of this country to its very foundations, I would not be opposed to it. Personally I have no objection to bearing my share of taxation. The question when you want to raise money is what is the soundest way to do it. What is the best way to keep up confidence, which after all is your greatest asset? Why has England been greater than any other country in its finance? I say the greatest asset that England ever had was its credit—its credit in America and all over the world. It was because of that, that by a mere bit of paper, as it were, vast transactions could be carried through without bullion and without the transfer of money at all. We have, in consequence, been able to carry through our finance on a scale which has been the admiration of the world. I am a very old Member of this House. I have listened to many of these Debates, and I do beseech hon. Members in all things to avoid claptrap. Do not put your selves in the position of the man who tells his friends he is going to cut a dash for a year or two and who knows that at the end of that time he is going to become bankrupt because he has been spending his capital. We do not want to do that. I listened with very great attention to the very able speech of the hon. Gentleman opposite who put the question of a levy on capital in about as plausible a way as it could be put, but who when he came to-the practical application of it, utterly broke down. It would be all very well if everybody had the same amount of ready money, for then you could say, "We will take a quarter from each of you," and business could accordingly be regulated for the future. But there are many men who are apparently well off whose wealth is merely upon paper, and they cannot give you the money which you require. Let me take two instances. Take first the case of a business established at a cost of £200,000. It has paid no dividend, and is only just paying its way. Are you going to value that business with all its machinery at £200,000 and to take £50,000 out of it when, it is not even able to pay its way? What would be its chances for the future? You would literally destroy it. This principle of a levy on capital, no matter how you try to carry it out, must end in the destruction of a certain amount of the business of this country.
  Mr. ARNOLD: Will the right hon. Gentleman permit me to say, in the first place,

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  that no levy would be paid by a limited company. He referred to dividends, therefore, I suppose he has limited companies in mind. In the second place, in the case of a private concern, where the partners have all their money locked up in the business and no securities outside it with which to pay the levy, they would be allowed to pay the levy over an extended period of years out of income. Therefore, there is nothing in the proposal which would take out of any business the capital which it needs to carry it on.
  Sir E. CARSON: I understand the argument is that if you have not got the money you are to go on paying the tax. Then one man is to pay out of his capital and the other is to pay out of income. That is a levy on capital! That is a reductio ad absurdum.
  Mr. ARNOLD: It is a question of proportion.
  Sir E. CARSON: I heard my hon. Friend make that statement, and that is one of things I meant when I said that when he come down to practical application he entirely failed. Take the case of a man who has land with a large mortgage on it. You go to him and say, "Your land, after the payment of that mortgage, is worth £100,000; give me £25,000." He says, "Where am I to get it?" Will you take it in lumps of clay or in fields, and if so, what are you going to do with it? Will the State become the landlord of it?
  Mr. ARNOLD: It will be dealt with as in cases of the deferred Death Duties.
  Sir E. CARSON: It is the Death Duties that have reminded me of this, because I have known the difficulties that many people have been in who were quite willing to sell their land to pay their Death Duties but who have not been able to find a soul to buy it. Will you take some of the hind? Is that the proposal? No. That is; not the proposal of the hon. Member. He would say there again, "We will take it in instalments out of the rents as they come in." What are you doing now? I had the pleasure of practising my profession this morning for a very considerable fee, say it was £5. At what amount do I enter it in my fee book? £2 10s. Why? Does not the Government get half of it? Is not that a levy? I put this to my hon. Friend (Mr. Hogge): Is it right with the affairs of the country in their present condition, with all the trials the people are going through and with all they have suffered
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  to preach as he preached here to-day, and as I. have no doubt he preaches in the country when he goes among the people, to tell them, "There are the wealthy classes making a great deal. You are in this condition, without houses and every thing else, and they are not paying Is. to help you." The people who pay Super tax are paying 10s. in the £, and it is your duty to tell the people so. Let us not be mealy-mouthed about this thing. There is great reality at the back of it. There may be revolution at the back of it and we know it. If I were not paying my fair share now I should be ashamed to meet these men whom I see limbless and arm less coming along the streets as I go to my work. If it had not been for this War I should have been very glad to retire from my profession and devote myself to other things, but I gladly go to my work day by day, because I know that one-half of what I am earning is going to help these people. I work to help these people and I am glad to help them. I decline to say it is fair play, or playing the game in this crisis of our country's history, which may lead to the most terrible con sequences, to go out and tell these people that I am doing nothing, but that I am accepting myself the fruits of the sacrifices which they have made up to the hilt in the War, which they have won to their great glory.
  Mr. HOGGE: I never said that.
  Sir E. CARSON: I heard the speech, and it was very like it.
  Mr. HOGGE:I do not want to be unfair to my right hon. Friend, because during the War we have worked together to help these people. I never suggested in the course of my speech that men like him self, pursuing their ordinary profession, gained any particular advantage out of the War. What I did say was that there were hundreds of people in this country who have made profits ad hoc from the War, who are not contributing in a pro per way to the resources of this country as against the men who gave their lives and whose lives were taken.
  Sir E. CARSON: I was coming to that point. I have it on my notes. Before I do that, let me make one other observation about this levy on capital—I do not know whether it has been made before. Let hon. Members consider what the War has done to the capital savings of men like myself. I only take myself as an

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  example. All my life I have tried to save enough, so that when I became old, or if I became infirm, which I am glad to say I have not yet become, I should be able to live long in peace and in a certain amount of comfort. What has the War done, when you talk of taking away capital? A prudent man in a profession ought never to look at a Stock Exchange list; he ought to put what he has earned by the sweat of his brow into a Government Loan or something of the kind which will give him no more bother. That is what I have done. I have tried to get 2 ½or 3 per cent. What has become of my capital? The War has taken away half of it, in addition to charging me an Income Tax of something like 10s. in. the ½ of course, I go to work. Is that my fault? No. People seem to forget. They seem to think that the men who have made money or tried to make money by prudence have it all still. They want to take another quarter of it away by the levy on capital in addition to the half I have lost already. I do not believe that, if that was understood, any man would say it is fair or right, or that it could tend to the encouragement of a man trying to lead a decent life with a view to not being a burden on the State afterwards. There fore, when you arc considering the question of a capital levy, do not forget that the War has already taken away from many of us one-half of our capital, and that the Income Tax is taking away half of our income
  The hon. Gentleman did not deal quite fairly with the Excess Profits Duty. He said that in the middle of this great crisis, when we want money, you should not re duce the Excess Profits Duty. Does the hon. Gentleman think for a moment that the Chancellor of the Exchequer did that out of any favour towards the men who pay Excess Profits Duty? Does not the hon. Member know very well that the right hon. Gentleman did that with a view to the expansion of business? Does he not know perfectly well that there are hundreds of businesses in the country which, in consequence of the Excess Profits Duty, have been unable to renew their machinery, to keep up their equipment, and to have the usual expansion which is necessary? Unless you are going to lay down that the standard of profit to be made by a business is what it made in 1914 or 1913, what is the justification for keeping it on after the War is over? There
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  is none whatever. I do not believe for one moment—if I did I should take an entirely different view of the matter—that my right hon. Friend had any other idea in view in reducing the Excess Profits Duty than that of increasing, keeping up, and reconstructing the trade and business of this country and, so far as possible, restoring that confidence and credit of which I have already spoken. My hon. Friend wont on to say that there are men in this country who have amassed great profits directly out of the War. So far as I am concerned, I should like to see them dealt with drastically. For any man—I am talking now of profits made directly out of the War—to take advantage of the War to enrich himself at the price of the blood and of the treasure this country was shed ding, is one of the most abominable things that could be contemplated by any decent citizen. For my own part, I should be sorry to make Is. out of it. All I can say is, that if there are these people, and if you require different, legislation to get at their profits, the hon. Gentleman and my self might very well renew some of our efforts to do things for those men to whom we have promised so much, and for whom we have not done nearly enough.
  1 pass from that question and come to the. hon. Gentleman's dealings with the question of Preference. I found it very difficult to follow him. Apart from the quotations which he has dug out of the dustbins—I think that was Mr. Asquith's phrase—of what arc now antiquities and speeches that were made under entirely different conditions, what I understood him to say was that it is really a miserable thing, there is nothing in it, it is not worth doing, and it is hardly worth counting, this little concession made here and that little concession made there. He quoted a speech made by the Secretary of State for War ridiculing the smallness of the concession that would be made. I desire to make two observations upon that. The first is, that at all events the Colonies are grateful for it. Sentiment in these things cannot be weighed by mere pounds, shillings and pence. The sentiment and the feeling in Canada, in Australia, in South Africa, and elsewhere, after a long struggle against a Preference, which, remember, they had all given us. and which we had refused to give to them—the sentiment that the Mother Country is taking the only way she has at the present moment of showing her great gratitude for the rush

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  to the Colours at the moment the country was in danger and her appreciation of what she owes to them, is worth millions of money, but it cannot be weighed, and that, at all events, my right hon. Friend has effected by his Budget.
  When my hon. Friend is making these quotations docs he really not see that the conditions now are entirely different from what they were in 1909 and 1910?Has he learned nothing from the War? Does he really think we stand towards our Colonies now in the same position that we were in 1910? Does lie think there is no greater cohesion now in looking upon the Empire as one great whole than there was then? The hon. Member went on to quote Mr. Chamberlain as saying that if these duties were persisted in there would be blood and trouble. That is not what was ever said. What was said was that they would not come till after blood and trouble. We i have had the blood and trouble, and our Colonies have helped us. That is what he j said, and that is what I heard my right hon. Friend quota in a pathetic passage in his speech. The hon. Member gave the go-by to the whole of that which has happened, and he would say calmly to the Colonies, who in Imperial Conferences i under two Governments have passed this with the assent of the Governments here as a proper and necessary step to bind closer to us those who have fought for us, "I am sorry. We are deeply grateful for the sacrifices you have made, but we can do nothing even to satisfy the sentiment of your country in relation to these matters." At all events, I am glad my right hon. Friend has made up his mind to make a beginning in this matter. The hon. Member is very anxious to see where that will extend. Time and experience will show—time and experience, the two great things which must regulate all the policy of the future. But to represent to the country that in some way or other you are breaking through the principles of. Free Trade, or that you are doing some thing uneconomic to their disadvantage be cause you have made a reduction in their favour on existing duties, and thereby are really lowering the duties, is a perversion of the real facts which ought not to take place when an effort is being made to show the gratitude which every man in this House is prepared to show in some way or /mother to those men who have come across the seas to help their kith and kin.
  I should very much like if the Chan-
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  cellor of the Exchequer—I am afraid I shall not tempt him to do it—would let us a little more into the secrets of the Government as to the future policy of the country. I agree with the hon. Member opposite I that that is an essential matter. I believe the sooner that is done the more it will make for the stability of the country and the promotion of greater confidence and security. I believe there are many things kept back because we do not know. All we know is that in the announced policy on which this Government was returned there was a promise to protect key industries and to save us from dumping. I have not yet seen any sign of the fulfilment of that policy. Time is going on, and September will come when the restrictions, we hope, will all be off. The sooner we get back to normal conditions the better, and whatever is the policy of the Government it ought to be openly declared and well understood, without reference to War conditions and based on peace conditions. As regards dumping, I am not very much encouraged -when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade told us to-day that he was not even able to say whether goods were at present being dumped into this country which were made by the Japanese at a wage of 10d. a day. I think the Government has a difficult and anxious duty in this matter, and that is at the earliest moment to take the country into their confidence. The matter has to be discussed openly and frankly with all the conditions surrounding it brought home as far as possible to the people. What ever may be our differences and discussions in the future upon this subject, I lay down this one proposition with all the earnestness I can for the consideration of the House, that we ought to try, in the circumstances of the country, to be perfectly frank one with the other as far as it is humanly possible and take care that we do not leave realities in what we put forward
  Lord HUGH CECIL: I listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member (Mr. Hogge), and I felt, like my right hon. Friend, that on the two points which he selected for criticism his treatment of them was not wholly satisfactory. I have always been deeply interested in the question of how far you can modify the fiscal system of this country in the interest of the Dominions without departing from the general principle of free exchange, and I heard with great interest and satis-

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  faction the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because it brought home to me that he defended this innovation mainly on the ground that it was part of a policy of Imperial co-operation; that is as one may say, political policy, and only subordinately because of its economic value. Speaking of it purely as a question of economics, I still believe that the less you interfere with the natural course of commerce and industry the richer you grow, but no one can pretend that this is more than a most trivial interference with the natural course, and I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer made out a strong case for believing that there were considerable political advantages in adopting it at present. It is said it is so trivial that it does not advantage the Dominions, and therefore its political importance, like its economic importance, is only slight. I think a good deal depends on the circum stances of the time. If I were going to be married, which I hope will not happen to me, I should, in accordance with custom, make a gift of a suitable ring to the young lady of my affections. No doubt the ring would cost some money, perhaps less than I should have paid for such a present before the War.
  HON. MEMBERS: More.
  Lord H. CECIL: My economic motives are much more operative now than they were before the War. I should not expect the young lady to value it entirely because of its pecuniary value. It would rather be as a testimony of my affection. These reductions in duties, small as they are, and comparatively insignificant as they must be in their economic effect, are, I believe, acceptable to the Dominions as homage to the services they have rendered to the Empire during the War, and as a sign that we are in all possible ways going to promote co-operation between the Dominions and ourselves. An economic policy so conceived as part of a larger political policy is not, I think, susceptible to serious attack from the point of view of Free Trade. Perhaps it would have been otherwise before the War, and before we had, with the common consent of Liberals and Conservatives alike, trodden under foot every possible principle of freedom of ex change during the War. The hon. Gentle man speaks as if we were still in the year 1903, or even 1895. I first got into Parliament when the principles of free
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  exchange were generally respected in ordinary legislation. During the War we have paid not the slightest attention to them. We have regulated industry, commerce, prices, and production in every possible way, nor is it apparently the common policy of the House to abandon that system altogether now in time of peace. How in significant is this small departure from the principle of allowing commerce to follow its natural path compared with the Corn Production Act, which is a most gigantic system of Protection, if by Protection you mean changing the national course of industry and commerce, that has ever been carried out, certainly since 1846.
  Mr. HOGGE: In spite of opposition.
  Lord H. CECIL: It was carried, and a great many Liberals voted for it. That was a far more considerable method, and I hope we may say in that respect the fiscal controversy, if it be still a controversy, has changed, its character. The future of Protection in this country really depends on whether such interference as the Corn Production Act turns out to be successful or unsuccessful. I mention it because it is the most considerable, and not the only one, amongst recent measures. If it is a success and it turns out that that policy fulfils the intentions of those who put it forward, let us be sure that in one way or another you will spread that system bit by bit over the whole range of industry and commerce. It is by that path that we shall enter upon Protection, a path which will, of course, involve our amply safe guarding and securing the position of the labourer as well as of the capitalist. If, on the other hand, the Corn Production Act breaks down, and there is a reaction of opinion against it, it will certainly take something a great deal more considerable than these small preferential duties to induce us to depart from the general system of freedom of exchange. I therefore attach no importance now to the suggestion that this is opening the way to something much more important. I think we must judge preferential duties on their own merits, and on their own merits it seems to me that the political advantage would far outweigh whatever economic disadvantages can theoretically be attributed to them.
  5.0 p.m.
  I pass to the question of the levy on capital. I do not think anyone has said this, obvious though it appears. If a levy on capital on a great scale is possible at all, we need not make it in this country.

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  It will be quite easy to make it in Germany. If it is really possible to make on a great commercial and industrial country a great levy on capital amounting to thousands of millions of pounds, we shall get the cost of the War by indemnity out of Germany. Therefore we shall not have any need to do it in this country. If, on the other hand, we cannot get it out of Germany, by a levy on capital, if it is too onerous, too difficult, or too complicated to be imposed upon our enemies, then it is too onerous, too difficult, and too complicated to be imposed upon this country. I believe that what upsets the minds of those who recommend a levy on capital is on of the most common and dangerous errors of our economic discussions. I mean a misconception as to the nature of values. When we speak of bringing certain re sources into the Exchequer we contemplate something in the shape of or calculable in terms of currency—that is to say, we contemplate making a levy on the value of the utilities that exist in our country. Value does not reside in commodities at all. It does not inhere in commodities at all. Value inheres in the human mind. For example, take a well-known story of the seventeenth century, when travellers in the Highlands found that people there would not take gold, but preferred white money. They had no value for gold. Accordingly, it was only the white money that had any value or use. That instance illustrates the general truth that value depends on what people think, on their desire, their demand for the commodities in question. It follows, therefore, that you cannot at any given moment realise or make available for the Exchequer a vast quantity of values of the utilities in a community, because the minds of human beings do not operate in that way. They do not want great quantities of land at the same moment, or great quantities of shares in various commercial enterprises, or any other utility or symbol of utility you can name. The moment you come to try to realise these utilities their value disappears, because you flood the market, as the phrase goes.
  What alternative have you in a levy on capital. Only this, that you take away the value of the utilities themselves. You take part of a certain company or part of a certain landed estate, or certain shares, and the State would be in the position, on a quite colossal scale, of having to deal with an estate which has to be wound up.
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  Take, for example, that great financial enterprise which was successfully under taken when Messrs. Baring fell into financial difficulties, and in order to prevent a collapse of their business their affairs were taken over by a syndicate and slowly realised over a period of time. If I recollect aright, the figure was about £21,000,000. That was a very difficult commercial enterprise, but it was success fully carried out. That enterprise was to-realise £21,000,000. The State, under the present proposals, would have to realise £6,000,000,000 sterling in the same way. They would have a vast accumulation of shares in land, and shares in various commercial enterprises, and they would have-to slowly put them on the market over a-great period of time. I do not believe it could be done. I believe it would be wholly unworkable, and it is for that reason that I am not sanguine that we shall get anything like an amount to pay for the War out of the German people. I do not believe you can realise the values-of the utilities of a country at any given moment. The moment you attempt it you-upset the whole standard of values, which, resides in the human mind and not in the things themselves.
  I do not think this proposal for a levy on capital is recommended by calling it the conscription of wealth. Conscription is a most odious resource which the country-was driven to because of urgent necessity. Assuredly, we could never have carried, conscription and we could never have imposed it, and all that it means, on the population except that it was the only alernative to national destruction. If you. can show that a levy on capital is the only alternative to our country being totally destroyed there would be some analogy but to suggest that because under conscription a vast number of people of all. classes have suffered terribly, therefore,, in the name of equality of sacrifice you are to impose something as unpleasant as you can on those who have not suffered is. surely grotesque.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: And on those* who have suffered.
  Lord H. CECIL: Yes. A great many-people have suffered very severely in the War by terrible bereavements and terrible disablements, and they would come under the operation of the conscription of wealth. But surely it will not be con tended that having gone through a great

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  war in which many people have suffered severely we are to take measures to make all the people who have not suffered Buffer as much as possible, and to call it equality of sacrifice. Equality of sacrifice is not to be pursued as a sort of ascetic communism, by which for everybody suffering is to be. an object in itself and by which everybody is to be a sharer in a common inheritance of anguish. My feeling is not so much in regard to the larger capital levy as recommended, but it is that the levy on capital which has been actually in operation under the Death Duties is open to serious criticism. I accept the proposition that a graduated tax on inheritance, if you are to have an inheritance tax at all, is the justest way of imposing it; but if you have the principle of graduation, and if you make the graduation as severe as it is now proposed to make it, you ought to ensure that the graduation corresponds to the capacity of the taxpayer to pay the tax. The person who pays the tax in the case of Death Duties is undoubtedly the person who receives the inheritance. In former discussions we have fallen into a lamentable and, in my view, muddle-headed attempt to pretend that the person who pays the tax is the testator. The testator has gone to another world beyond the reach of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and it is to him personally a matter of indifference what the Chancellor of the Exchequer may do in the matter of taxation. It is the heir who pays the tax both in fact, and in theory. Therefore, I say that if you are to have graduation, however heavy the graduation, the tax should be paid according to the amount that the heir receives. If a man inherits from a millionaire £100,000, he should not pay on the graduated scale appointed for £1,000,000, but he should pay on the graduated scale appointed for £100,000. Whatever the man receives, that he should pay on. The contrary theory of supposing that the inheritance pays the tax is a fallacy in the first place, because it is people and not things who pay taxes; and in the second place it makes nonsense of graduation. Commercial stocks and shares suffer no hardship. An inheritance is an inanimate thing, and there can be no equality of sacrifice between inanimate things.
  Quite plainly, if you are to carry out the principle of graduation you must make it operate on what the person receives.
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  Therefore, the first thing my right hon. Friend should do should be to make his graduation so as to abolish the principle which has always been attacked in the Death Duties, the principle of aggregation and of levying the tax on the whole estate. I think he ought to have regard to the consideration that the principle of graduation should be confined to the varied capacity of the taxpayer to pay. Nobody has ever sugested that taxes on amenities or luxuries should be graduated. No one suggests that the very rich man should pay more on his cigar or his champagne than a man of comparatively moderate income. No one suggests that the cigars of the First Commissioner of Works should cost him more than the Chancellor of the Exchequer pays for his cigars. That is a principle of taxation that has never been introduced. Accordingly it does seem to me unreasonable and, in fact, a hardship if the graduated tax is levied, not on the income-bearing part of an inheritance, which is quite reasonable, button those parts which are non-income bearing amenities. It is reasonable that there should be a tax on the amenities of an inheritance, but it should be a flat-rate tax. and there is no more reason for saying that the amenities belonging to a very rich man ought to be more heavily taxed than the amenities belonging to a moderately rich man. If the right hon. Gentleman accepted the principle, that would in itself remove a good deal of grievance which is felt in regard to these taxes. I heard the right hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Clynes) make a statement, which was a just and true one, that a tax should as little as possible vex those on whom it is imposed. You ought to make your taxes as little vexatious as possible. It. is notable that though the Death Duties bring in a vastly smaller revenue than the In come Tax, and though the higher rates of Death Duties seem to be, on paper, less onerous than the higher rates of Super tax, they have always been felt as a grievance and have occasioned much more complaint than the heavy Income Tax. That seems to me a very remarkable fact, well deserving of the attention of my right hon. Friend.
  Why is it that the Death Duties are, as a matter of fact, much more disliked by those who have to pay them than, apparently, the greater and more burden some Income Tax which is vastly more remunerative to the Exchequer? One of the reasons is that the Death Duties press

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  very hardly at the time of accession. The theory of the tax is that the time of accession is an exceptionally unfavourable time for paying the tax. I believe it is an exceptionally unfavourable time. These Death Duties ignore the plain truth that the widow and the children of a testator have already in the lifetime of the testator enjoyed the full benefit, or almost the full benefit, of the estate that passes. There fore it very often happens that, except in the case of the main heir, the death of the testator means, not enrichment to these people, but impoverishment. It is particularly hard in the case of a widow, because in almost every case the widow is left poorer by the death of her husband, who may have been a wealthy man; but according to our theory she receives a bequest, and accordingly has to pay Death Duties. You constantly find very hard cases. The widow, on the death of her husband, has to make all sorts of retrenchments that are vexatious, and particularly vexatious to those persons advanced in years who have got accustomed to certain ways of life. She has to make reductions and abatements in her style and cost of living, and, at the same time, she has to pay very heavy Death Duties.
  That is one of the reasons why these taxes are felt to 'be so onerous. Undoubtedly they operate harshly on landed property. At any rate, they occasion a sense of hardship to owners of landed property. I think the reason for that is that landed property sells at a higher value than its income-bearing value. Certain amenities are still supposed to attach to the owners of land. People still prefer to buy land at a rather higher value than would be reasonable if it were considered merely as an article of commercial production. That increases the selling price of land, and, accordingly, a duty levied according to the selling price of the land, which is the theory followed, is excessive when compared with the income derived out of the land, out of which the tax must be paid- The landowner, on succeeding to a landed estate, has to pay Death Duties out of the income derived from the landed estate; but those are levied not according to the income received, but in proportion to the selling price of the land. I am not at all sure whether the Exchequer might not get all the money which it gets now from that source, and get it with much less friction, by having a separate independent Income
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  Tax levied on the profits of landed estates instead of Death Duties. The Treasury could see how far that could be made operative, but I believe that if there could be a special Income Tax levied on landed estates, in virtue, of which they would be-exempted from the payment of Death Duties or Estate Duties, it would bring in more money with much less dissatisfaction to owners of landed estates than results from the present system, and would, be equally remunerative to the Exchequer. That is a point which it would pay my right Hon. Friend to inquire into.
  I have heard it suggested that the-Death Duties, as now proposed to be graduated, will consume capital, and that in the higher rates of graduation the-Government will actually lose, because the capital will be consumed so quickly that they will lose out of the reduced receipts from Income Tax more than they will gain. I do not know whether that is so or not. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will look into it, but I certainly say that when you get to the rate of 40 per cent. capital tax you consume capital so-quickly that Income Tax, with the rate of Income Tax now levied on large incomes, would give you more. All those are points for inquiry. My right hon. Friend might-very well appoint, not a Select Committee of the House of Commons or a very elaborate Royal Commission, but have a small Treasury Inquiry by persons in whose judgment he has confidence, who are expert in these matters, to discover why the Death Duties excite so much discontent, whether there is any modification of them which would remove discontent without undue sacrifice of revenue, how far they really are remunerative a compared with Income Tax, and how far they are comparable with the productivity of the Income Tax, and whether it is not possible to distinguish between income-bearing property and property which does not produce an income. It might also report what loss of revenue would result from the abolition of the principle of aggregation, which does seem to me in face of the high graduation now adopted to be indefensible and unjust. My right hon. Friend's original Budget speech referred to these taxes as an illustration of taxes intended to be levied on those who are not actively engaged in the production of wealth. I forget what his exact phrase was, but he spoke of them as being-illustrations of the very heavy burdens now thrown on those who enjoy posses-

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  sions without making any exertion in respect of them. And of course it is the most common thing in the world, and it is made a sort of criticism on all sorts of people who live on their own means, and are not engaged in any form of business exertion. It is, therefore, worth while to traverse the proposition that an acquirer of wealth is a more valuable person to the community than a possessor of wealth.
  It appears to be a fashionable opinion now that one ought always to be engaged if you area citizen of the world, in acquiring wealth as otherwise you belong to what are called the idle rich. Of course it is very undesirable that anyone should be idle, and the attribute of idleness be longs to a person because he is human, and not because he has property, and in any rank of life idleness is equally mischievous to the community and equally discreditable to the individual. But if the idle rich is a bad citizen there is a class of acquirers of wealth who are at least as bad citizens. There are what may be called the predatory class—per sons who are making money by taking it out of the pockets of other people, such as certain classes of speculators and certain classes of usurers. Then there are persons who are acquiring wealth by exertions which the community would be very much better without. For example, the whole of the periodical literature. Beginning with the highly respectable "Edinburgh" and "Quarterly" Reviews, and coming down to the least respectable newspaper published, you will find a vast difference in merit in those engaged in these enterprises. Some newspapres are subject to criticism on these benches, and sometimes one might be inclined to think that Ministers themselves thought that those newspapers were not very valuable. But there are lower classes of papers -which make large profits and which nobody disputes are mischievous. That is only one illustration by which it can be shown that the acquisition of wealth is not in itself morally superior to the possession of wealth, and therefore I earnestly deprecate, whether on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer or any other Member of this House, any suggestion that the State ought to favour one class of owners of wealth as against the other. Any such theory would be mistaken.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: My Noble Friend will forgive me if I remind him that I ex pressed no moral judgment whatever. I
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  made a distinction in the Income Tax between what is called "earned" and what is called "unearned" income. I said that I always disliked these differences, be cause they suggested a moral judgment, and that they were an accurate statement of fact.
  Lord H. CECIL: I would suggest that the proper distinction is sure income and precarious income.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am afraid that income from securities is very precarious.
  Lord H. CECIL: Where a man earns a professional income which dies with him it is obviously not a matter of complaint because he saves something from that in come in order to leave it to those whom he leaves behind him. I am not sure that the legal distinction in the Income Tax Acts does really correspond with the true distinction of equality of sacrifice which ought to be made. It will be a thousand pities if, whether it is advocated by my right hon. Friends who are moderate men or by a future Labour Government, who will perhaps not be so moderate, it be comes the doctrine that the State ought to eradicate leisured people from the community. There are a great many things which I do not think will work at all if you have no leisured classes. One of those things is the House of Commons. I do not believe that you could really work the House of Commons merely in the spare time of business and professional men, and what applies to the House of Commons applies generally to representative government throughout the country. You must have classes of people who have time to devote themselves to public work. If you are going to have all your public business done in the time which a lawyer or a business man can spare when they retire from business, and they no longer enjoy the highest vigour, or at the end of the day, when they have spent all their best energy, then assuredly you will not have public business very well conducted. They may add a very useful clement by their experience and knowledge of affairs, but they will not be able to do the work of public government in this country which must necessarily always fall into the hands of those who have leisure to attend to it, and therefore have their own means of living.
  It would be well if we had the advantage of hearing those who are able to speak on the drawbacks on the inflation of currency

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  and the consequent depreciation of its value. That is in itself a most heavy tax on those who are possessors or acquirers. But acquirers get paid on the higher scale, while the mere possessor living on his own means, quite apart from taxation, is almost half as poor exactly as he was before the War began. The depreciation of the currency practically means that he is only receiving the same nominal income, and he has to buy everything at double or very nearly double its former price. That is a peculiarly inappropriate moment to put an additional burden on his shoulder. We ought to recognise now, at any rate, that the mere possessor of wealth is already suffering under the economic pressure of the War a very heavy loss indeed. I know of no remedy for all these difficulties except the remedy which my right hon. Friend preaches—the remedy of economy. Obviously, if you do not have economy the awkward question always arises. Who will pay? Can you sugest a more appropriate class of victims than a particular class of tax payer? That is not indeed unanswerable. One can often make an answer, but it does not stand in the way of obtaining particular additions of taxation. May I repeat what is indeed a platitude which seems to be commonly forgotten in these matters—you will make very little progress an economy if you are satisfied merely with putting down waste. It is not waste that keeps the situation as it is. It is useful and wise expenditure, expenditure which, considered in itself, is wise and useful. Therefore, when we say we are in. favour of economy, we must be honest with ourselves and say that that means that we are going to give up some particular branch or branches of expenditure of which we should approve.
  I often wonder where we are to begin to economise. If we were to propose economy in education, I suppose that even in this comparatively tranquil House we should "be met with a great burst of indignation from all benches. Everybody will agree that we should not spend less money on education. There are other things necessary, like housing, as to which the suggestion of economy would produce even greater indignation. I believe that if we went through the national expenditure point by point, if we had a sort of litany in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer read out point by point the different headings of the expenditure, there would be a chorus of anathema from all benches
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  when he proposed a reduction in any branch of expenditure. If that is so, we shall not economise, however many times we speak in praise of it. Let me say, then, that while economy is in the interest of the great body of the British wage-earning class not at all less than in that of any other, there is, I am afraid, a view that as long as taxation mainly presses on the rich it docs not matter to the poor. That is a delusion. The difference from the poor man's point of view between taxing the rich and taxing the poor directly is very much like the difference between being beaten with your clothes on and being beaten without them. If you are without clothes the blow falls on the bare pelt. If beaten in clothes, the blow first falls upon your clothes, and gradually wears and tears them to pieces, but it bruises the flesh underneath all the time. I believe that you cannot really impose taxation on any part of the community without making all parts of the community suffer. National possessions and national wealth are in that sense one. The resources of all the different citizens are constantly operative on one another, to the benefit of each, by commercial interchange, by growth of business and wages and the like, so that if you are extravagant in the national finance everyone feels it, and it is the poor who feel it the worst, not because the blow falls the heaviest on them, but because they can least afford to bear any blow at all. Therefore, do let us believe that economy is the interest of the poor man.
  I am very much opposed to the raising of the level of the exemption from Income Tax which is now so much complained of, because I think it is so important that the great body of the electors of this country should really understand that truth—which whether you put the exemption on one level or another remains true—that poor people suffer from national extravagance. Unless they feel in some way or other the burden of taxation we shall not have the necessary pressure of public opinion excited to make economy effective. I should like it to be a rule of this House that whenever any Bill comes to Second Reading, if in the opinion of Mr. Speaker it involves or will ultimately involve any national expenditure, it should not be in order to read it a second time until the Treasury have laid on the Table a note showing how much the Bill is likely to cost, and what taxation—taking typical taxes like the Income Tax and the Tea Tax—it will eventually involve in their

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  judgment. I think that would be an ad vantage. Then I think there ought to be an effort to compare the national expenditure with some remotely standard year, a year quite far back. My right hon. Friend said yesterday that there had been no effective Treasury control since the days of Sir William Harcourt. Let us take a standard year of the time when Sir William Harcourt was Chancellor of the Exchequer, for the purposes of comparison, and then let us show exactly how the expenditure, detail by detail, exceeds what it then stood at. That may enable us to see in what particular items you can effect a reduction. Then, thirdly, I am now convinced that we must have a Second Chamber that has financial control. I endeavoured—my right hon. Friend was not so sanguine as I was—to find means by which we could maintain some fragment of the Second Chamber in getting over that difficulty, but I believe that now you must have a completely fresh Second Chamber, and I believe you should set it up side by side with the existing House of Lords and leave it to this House to determine whether it will send Bills up to one Chamber or the other, but Financial Bills must go to the new Second Chamber. Unless you have a Second Chamber more independent of the extraneous influences of this Chamber, you will not get a really effective economic policy. I make these suggestions to my right hon. Friend, but the principle which I most want to insist upon is that we must not have in this matter what in the region of ecclesiastical controversy is called sectarianism. You cannot divide the community, you cannot say that expenditure is in the interest of this class but not of that, that economy will be advantageous to this class and not to that. The interests of all classes are dominantly the same. You cannot really make a distinction between nation and nation. That is my great objection to all the Protectionist theories in international trade. The interests of the whole world are the same. Human prosperity is indivisible through out the world, in the community as well as throughout the world. What we must pursue, therefore, is plenty and abundance here, throughout Europe, in Germany, as well as amongst our Allies. We must pursue plenty and abundance as an economic ideal. If we do that, I am earnestly hopeful that we may effect reductions in the taxation which now presses so heavily
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  upon all, that we may eradicate poverty in this Island without confiscating wealth, and may do far more lo inaugurate that general prosperity and that general tranquillity which social reformers of all opinions and all shades of political thought alike sincerely desire.
  Mr. LUNN: I desire to offer a few general observations upon this Bill. I do not claim to be a financial expert, but I do understand the views of working men and women who will be so heavily taxed by this Bill. I realise the difficulty of following two of the most highly educated men we have in this House—two hon. or right hon. Members whose eloquence always impresses, but whose views rarely penetrate me at all. What I may have to say will be at the uttermost extreme to the views that they have given, so I suppose I shall be subject to the taunt that what I am saying is balderdash. That does not concern me at all. I simply desire to say that any observations I make will be made with all sincerity in my capacity as a workman, and as one who is desirous of raising the standard of life of the class to which I belong. It is something of a mystery that, six months after the fighting is over, the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be budgeting for an expenditure of nearly £1,500,000,000, and that we should be continuing to borrow money. I find that the average daily expenditure during the last month has been £4,330,035, which is two-thirds the average for the twelve weeks immediately before the Armistice. I submit that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has no right to keep us to war taxation unless he can assure us that everything is being done that is possible to reduce unnecessary expenditure. That is not the case. Let me give one or two instances. We are spending £1,000,000 a week on unemployment doles—that is, we are paying people not to produce wealth when it is urgently needed, and when the Government and others are telling us that the way out of our financial difficulties is to increase production. In my opinion the Government are to blame in this matter in not having organised an employment scheme. My second objection is to the enormous expenditure upon the Army, the Navy, and the Air Services. I suppose this is because the Government's peace policy is at variance with their aims during the War. Or is it because we must have another war to destroy the Republics and the objects of revolutions in other countries?

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  We have to raise this enormous revenue because the policy of the Government is not one of peace, but is absolutely militarist and imperialistic. By this Bill we are to raise taxation to find money to help dictators like Koltchak to defeat the Russian Revolution. There is also no serious attempt to economise in home ad ministration. Wartime staffs are largely maintained in Government Departments. I agree with suggestions that have been made from various parts of the House that these ought to be considerably reduced at a very early date. I oppose this Bill also because it proposes to tax the country for purposes of which we, of the class to which I belong, disapprove, and for expenditure which is wasteful and unnecessary. It further proposes to continue the vicious system of borrowing money. We have a National Debt of something like £8,000,000,000, which will require £400,000,000 a year for a generation or two to pay interest and sinking fund. I submit that if the war profits had been fully taken from the beginning the debt to-day would have been very small. The Government have been too cowardly to make the country meet its obligations.
  The really honest thing to do now is to find out where the war profits are and to take them for the reduction of this debt. The other night I had pointed out to me a man who had made £900,000 during the War. I suppose he is not alone; it is possible there are many more. This war debt largely represents war profits; it is monstrous that the Government should have to pay interest on what should be its own money. I heartily support the proposal for a capital levy, which was so admirably explained to this House by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone, and which I think has never yet been really attacked from any part of the House. I support it because I believe it will get back the war profits, because it will relieve the taxpayer, because it will release money for industry, and because it will make those pay who have stayed at home and done well out of the War, as against the proposals of this Bill to make those pay who have already suffered and bled and fought during the War. I oppose this Bill because it gives no relief of taxation to the poorer classes. I would not ask for that if fairness had been shown to all classes by the Bill. This Bill gives over a period of years hundreds of millions to the rich by reducing the Excess Profits Duty, and by the promise to abolish it
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  altogether. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his own words, is giving them £50,000,000 this year. Well might they leave the House exultant, as they did when he had explained his proposal with regard to the Excess Profits Duty and the removal of the Petrol Duty and that the Income Tax should remain where it is. There is no relief for the worker in this matter of Income Tax. He has to pay Income Tax to-day on a wage of 24s. per week pre-war value. Is that a reasonable position after a war such as we have gone through, and after what has been done for the rich is it unreasonable to ask that some consideration should have been given to the poor. How is it possible to raise the standard of life of the people whilst taxes like that remain on the workers? The workers at present are taxed out of all proportion. Take the Tea Tax. The Tea Duty of Is. in the £ is heavier on the working man's family than Is. on the £ Income Tax to a very rich man. [AN HON. MEMBER: "There is 2d. off tea!"] On very little of the tea will there be 2d. taken off to the worker. The tax of Is. a lb. on tea is, I submit, indefensible in peace time, and this tax alone means Is. per week tax on a working class family. Then the Sugar Tax is not to be touched by this Bill, and that is a tax upon a prime necessary of life. Both the Tea Duty and the Sugar Duty should have been reduced or abolished before the Excess Profits Duty was reduced. The reduction of the Excess Profits Duty, in my opinion, is a gift to the profiteers, and companies appealing for new capital may now take the opportunity of stating that this reduction will enable them to pay a higher dividend. It is monstrous to me that the Chancellor should have given first consideration to those who are making more profits out of the poor.
  I submit to this House that our hopes lie more at the other end of this building in the Royal Commission which is exposing the hollowness of our industrial system, and not only the mining system, but the whole of our industrial system, and which is exposing the rottenness of our land owning system, and which is laying the basis of future legislation. Robert Smillie and his colleagues have won the undying gratification of the workers of these countries in what they are doing in that Com mission. I submit that the Government might have given some consideration to the workers in this Budget when they had to submit to heavier taxation in every

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  way. There is a tax on everything they buy through higher prices. I further oppose this Bill, because it proposes the beginning of Protection under the camouflage of Imperial Preference. To bribe the people, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is giving the country £3,000,000 of revenue, and is borrowing money to do so. He frankly admits this is only a beginning. His father did tell the country what Imperial Preference would demand from them, namely, taxes on food, and logically on all raw materials from foreign countries in competition with the Empire. When we admit the beginning, the rest, I am sure, will follow, if it is left in the hands of this Government. But I hope that we are not prepared to raise a memorial for the late father of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the poverty, starvation, and unemployment of our people. I am a constitutionalist when it suits me, like most Members of this House, but I am sure, after the imposition of Conscription by this Government on the people, with the threat to use the military in trade disputes, and then now a Budget like this, which is absolutely in the interests of the rich man, the cup has gone full, and I' hope, i! our position in this House is not sufficiently strong to break down the policy of the Government in this matter, and I speak as a loyal member of the Labour party in these things, desirous to be loyal to my party, that we will withdraw from the House, which I know has been scoffed at and laughed at by hon. Members opposite, and join hands with that organised industrial body in the country, to take whatever means are considered necessary to destroy the imposition of taxation and restrictions such as this Government is trying to force upon us. For those reasons I oppose this Bill—first, for what it does not do, and, secondly, for what it does. It does not face the financial situation in a courageous way. It puts off the evil day. It does not face the question of reducing duties, but continues borrowing, while abolishing taxation on profits. It does not relieve the intolerable taxation on the masses, or do any thing to reduce the cost of living. Further, I oppose tins Bill because the Chancellor has evidently done nothing to compel the spending Departments to reduce extravagance, and because it abolishes the Excess Profits Taxes without imposing new taxes on profits, and because it introduces Protection into our fiscal system.
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  I am, as I have said previously, prepared to take any means to destroy its possibility of becoming law, because I am satisfied it is a menace to the future happiness, comfort and well-being of our people. At the same time, I do wish, and I would rather these matters could be done in a constitutional way. I would rather it could be brought about through the Government understanding not only what are the feelings of Members on these benches, but what are the feelings of the masses of the people outside, and, instead of introducing a rich man's Budget like this, at this moment when the position is so critical as it is, that they might have given consideration to the things which I have mentioned. But if it is passed, I am convinced that the sacrifices of the last five years will have been in vain.
  Mr. MACKINDER: The hon. Member who has just spoken will, I hope, forgive me if I do not follow all his arguments and give them that reply which I feel was given to them, or at any rate to the latter portion of them, in the very powerful speech that was made a short time ago by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Duncairn Division of Belfast (Sir E. Carson). There was a veiled ox hardly veiled threat in what the hon. Member said. If that threat had been uttered by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Clynes),who spoke yesterday afternoon, it would have been a serious matter. I cannot help feeling that the vast masses of the citizens of this country repudiate any such course as fatal and suicidal to the very interests of the country, for which they fought with such noble valour. I would only say one thing on one point, with regard to which the hon. Member spoke, and that is in regard to war profits. I think he very greatly exaggerates the amount of war profits that have been made. We must not forget that as regards reputable companies you have still to get to the end of this year to see whether a great deal of those temporary profits are not wiped out by depreciation of stocks. Trade is by no means good at the present moment, and you cannot make certain what the profits are that have been made in the course of the War by reputable companies, who keep good accounts, until a considerable period has elapsed after the War. But, apart from that, the worst cases of war profiteering would be very difficult to follow and detect. Let me give a single illustration in a small way of the difficulty

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  I foresee. Last night I was in the Under ground Railway, and sitting opposite to me there was a man who wore upon his fingers a series of diamond rings of immense value. That man was quite obviously in clothing, appearance and speech not a Member of the idle-rich class. [AN HON. MEMBER: "A diamond merchant?"] He may have been a diamond merchant, but ho. did not look it, and there were many circumstances against. such a conclusion. I venture to think that it is quite probable those were war profits very deftly put into a form in which they could be carried into other countries where they could evade the tax gatherer, and where you would find it extraordinarily difficult, with probably no books kept, to bring home to the man the fact that he had made profits out of the War. We are all agreed if you could only get a practical scheme for extracting war profits, they should be extracted. I do not believe they would be so great as some hon. Gentle men think. But when you have got to meet practical difficulties I notice that hon. Gentlemen who bring forward these suggestions are very rarely very helpful in the way of construction.
  6.0 p.m.
  I desire to make one remark in regard to certain speeches that have been made in this Debate yesterday and to-day. To some of us who remember the old fiscal controversies in previous Parliaments, it has been a matter of extraordinary interest to watch the very different roads by which different minds have arrived into the position in which they now stand, a position which will enable them to help forward the great policy which the Government have in view. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Swansea (Sir A. Mond) spoke last night. I should not myself take the same line of argument as chat which he took, but he arrived at the same conclusion that I arrived at long before, and whom men join the ranks and are ready to fight in the same line with me I am not going to inquire too closely whether they have come as volunteers or as conscripts. But I was still more interested in the. speech that was made by the Noble. Lord opposite (Lord H. Cecil). He has arrived by a very characteristic road—intellectual honesty—and he is willing to see the question tested by experience. If long ago we could have had the same intellectual frankness and friendliness over this issue I believe we
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  might have been a long way further to wards unanimity to-day than we are at this moment. There is only one remark I would venture to make, in this moment of agreement, on the economic portion of the Noble Lord's speech. He said that he still believed that by a policy of Free Trade we should be the richer.
  Lord H. CECIL: By a policy of free exchange.
  Mr. MACKINDER:I do not want to discuss the subtleties of the question, but he said that by a policy of free exchange we should be the richer. Even in time of peace I should be prepared to deal with that argument and to show that I was not completely ready to agree with the Noble Lord, but I know that the argument would soon take us into subtleties suitable for another arena rather than this. I have ventured to express some of that argument in book form, not in periodical literature, and the Noble Lord will recognise that it is the result of a certain amount of thought therefore. But let me, for the sake of argument, sweep away these subtleties and for the moment agree with the Noble Lord that you might be the richer by a policy of free exchange. I could only agree on one condition, and that is that you are arguing economically on the assumption that you leave out of your economics war. That was the great difference between us, and I believe that is one of the great reasons why we now are coming together. You argued that you were the richer because you allowed, for instance, tungsten to be manufactured, to all intents and purposes, wholly out side of this country. What was the result? The result was that in the early months and even years of this War this country suffered untold loss in lives, and if you leave them out in the matter of economics, then in wealth also. This War in all probability was prolonged because we had allowed trade to take its own course, the course which, in accordance with the classical scheme of economics, would make us the richer nation. Are we the richer to-day? We have had war, and. my contention is that the big difference between us and those who differ from us was that they insisted in thinking all the time, in their process of economic thought, as though war were not, whereas we insisted that war was a danger, and it was to avoid war, to equip ourselves for war, that we wanted the larger thought, the thought that took all human contingencies

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  into account and refused to think there was such a being as an economic and not a fighting man.
  The Debate has been interesting from another point of view. Usually, I think, it has been a sound dictum in politics that an Opposition should oppose. Usually, old hands in the leading of Oppositions have refused to table an alternative policy. I have listened since I have been in Parliament to a certain number of these Debates on Second Readings of Finance Bills, and I have seen some Amendments tabled, but, as a rule, they were destructive Amendments. On the present occasion the Opposition, perhaps because some old heads are away in Newcastle and elsewhere, has adopted a different course, and it has put forward a policy, in negative form, I agree, but I assume it is a responsible Opposition, and, if it is a responsible Opposition, even though it puts its policy in negative form, we must assume that it means the statements that it makes. It tells us that this Budget makes inadequate provision out of revenue; then I assume that if those Gentlemen had been on the opposite bench they would have made adequate provision. It tells us that it fails to deal with the War Debt by means of a capital levy; I assume, then, that if they had been in power they would have made their adequate provision by means of a capital levy. We are told that the Government have taken 40 per cent. off the Excess Profits Tax, and I assume that, as a responsible Opposition criticising the Government, if they were put on the Government Bench they would propose to maintain the Excess Profits Tax at 80 per cent. Finally, they condemn the introduction of Preferential tariffs, and, there fore, I assume they would not have introduced them. They have among them an astute electioneer, the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge). The hon. Member knows perfectly well that a policy, to have much electoral value, must have some lifting power in it, and therefore we have to look, not so much at these pro positions, as at what it is he is driving at. He has got two methods in view. On the one hand you are going to tell the poorer portion of the community that this is an inequitable Budget, and on the other hand you are going to try and alarm the richer portion of the community.
  I want to deal for one moment with that matter of alarming the community. There was an interesting speech made last night
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  by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Platting Division (Mr. Clynes). What he says always commands attention, and it is always interesting. One can often agree with it, but last night he was in a pessimistic mood. He spoke of the immense burden left upon this country as the result of the War. He said that it was a burden which could not be carried, and by that phrase he left us to infer that he would wish to write off the burden by some taxation of capital or otherwise. If it were not that he is a man of such commanding position now in this country, I should not have taken hold of a phrase such as that, but what he says will be quoted. That burden must be borne, can not but be borne, and to the very last half penny. We have spent in this War goods, things. It is not a mere question of bookkeeping and of writing debts down. We have destroyed wealth, and unless their country is to face decay, this country must restore that wealth, and that means that we must bear to the very last penny the burden which the War has thrown on us. The real issue is not whether we can bear the burden, because it is inevitable that we must bear the burden, even though it crush us. The real issue is how you will adjust the bearing of the burden, on whose shoulders it shall fall. Shall it be equitably divided? There will be differences of opinions as to what is equity in that connection. Shall it be divided with posterity? These are all book keeping questions immensely important within the State, but do not let us mix them up with the real essence of the position, which is that we have got a burden that we cannot throw off unless we commit suicide as a nation. If we are to bear that burden and bear it easily, we must go forward with courage, and one part of courage is hope. It is incumbent on every public man at this moment, if he sees reasons for hope that we can reconstruct and reconstruct without too-much difficulty in the future, to express the faith that is in him, because in ex pressing that he is lifting the souls of others and breeding courage in the community, and it is courage and confidence-which at the present moment can make all the difference between a" few years of work and a century of suffering.
  The complaint made in regard to this Budget last night, and the complaint made by Mr. Asquith at Newcastle, is that it has given a false impression, an impression that things are not quite so bad as-

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  we thought they were likely to be, and, it is insinuated, as they really are. That is how you raise the alarm. It is essential not to regard the position as less serious that it is, but not to regard it as more serious than it is. We want to take the compass of the difficulty in front of us. I suggest that Mr. Asquith himself was painting a false picture, an alarmist picture, and therefore a harmful picture, an unhelpful picture at this moment, when he arrived at the conclusion that we were spending at the present time eight times a day as much as before the War. His words will be repeated, his words will be printed in pamphlets, his words will be circulated as election literature. That is one of those statements which is all the more false because it is a half-truth. Mr. Asquith never went on to say that the purchasing power of that money was one half what it was before, and that, measured in goods and services and not merely in counters and account-keeping, the position was only half as bad as the position that he represented. There is a very interesting and a very valuable book which has lately been published by Professor Bowley, Professor of Statistics in the University of London, on the question of the division of the proceeds of industry, and in that book I think it is generally admitted, as far as I have been able to hear among economists, that you have got the most careful and probably the most nearly accurate estimate of what was. immediately before the War, the total of the national income. Professor Bowley put it at £2,250,000,000 a year. In these things one cannot in the very nature of the thing, be accurate to a few millions, and I will say £2,300,000,000. Basing ourselves on those figures, I have, in consultation with others, tried to form some sort of idea of what the national revenue is at the present moment. On the assumption—and I ask the House to notice that—that the output of goods and services remains unaltered, that is to say, that when we go back to the normal year we shall not increase our power of output, on the assumption that it is for the same quantity of goods and services, what now is the book value, as measured in these Treasury Notes, at the present time? I find a general consensus of opinion that it is probably somewhere between £3.500,000,000 and £4,000,000,000. Let me put it for the moment at very nearly the bottom—£3,600,000,000. The value put
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  upon the same quantity of goods and ser vices which were produced immediately before the War, and after the most careful investigation by a skilled statistician, is £2,300,000,000 a year, and as far as we can see at the present moment, it is certainly not less than £3,600,000,000. Take £400,000,000 as the charge for the National Debt which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to put before us for a normal year. That is, 17 per cent. of the £2,300,000,000 before the War, but it is only 11 per cent. of the £3,600,000,000 to-day. In other words, a large part of the alarmist statements made are merely due to a change in the counters in which you keep your accounts, and have no relation whatever to what is the really important thing—the supply of wealth, food, raw materials, work within the country.
  That is the first point, and as the House has been good enough to listen to me, I specially wanted to make it in that form, because there are many who suspect the statement that prices have gone up 70, 80, or 100 per cent., and that we must write down values by 50 per cent. I want to put it in the form of total national in come, and I want to measure the total vast sum of the debt charge against those two methods—the prewar method and the post-war method—of measuring identically the same real values of goods and services. But there is something to be added to that. By common consent of all the great captains of industry with whom I have been able to talk, once we have been able to repair our productive machinery, then the productive machinery in the pos session of the country at this moment is capable of far greater output than before, and—I make this further statement—of a far greater output for the same amount of labour. If only the labour is kept as it was before the War, owing to your repetition methods, owing to the reorganisation, during the War, of all your methods, all your machinery, you are capable of a far greater real output, and not merely output in inflated values as measured by the money of to-day. If you add that to the output; if you consider, first, the in creased nominal value owing to our present depreciated currency; and if you further consider the vastly improved machinery of production we have now in this country, then I venture to say that when Mr. Asquith tries to raise alarm by speaking in terms of so many pounds a day, when he tries to make us thank in

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  pre-war terms of post-war facts, he is playing the part which the hon. Member for Edinburgh would like him to play.
  Before you can get this increased production, it is essential that you should make the necessary repairs. And, in order that you may make the repairs, you must not at this moment tax up to the hilt. I believe that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has done the very wisest possible thing in the interest of the working-classes of this country in setting free 40 per cent. of the Excess Profits Duty, be cause at this moment what every firm producing wants is fluid capital, in order that it may re-adapt to peaceful methods the machinery which has been diverted to war purposes, and in order that it may do more than that—in order that it may adapt its whole productive machinery to the changed conditions of to-day. Everyone who has ever had to deal with the reconstruction, of a derelict company knows that the first thing you have to do when you take over is to spend with both hands. What usually brings a company down is the fact that it requires alterations and it cannot get the credit in order to spend the money to make those alterations. You can buy it for an old song and proceed to pour money out in order to make it efficient, and you trust to its efficiency to give you a return for the money you have spent. That is our position to-day, and I only mention one single point in regard to it. At the present moment we owe money abroad. That is the most onerous portion of our debt. That is the one thing that is not simply a matter of book-keeping within the State. That is a real debt in things due to other countries. That means that we must in crease our export trade. But if you are going to have an export trade with the countries of the world in their present condition, you must be prepared to finance that trade.
  What has been the Liberal contention in the past? That when you invested capital in foreign countries—Argentina, for instance—you were causing a demand for manufactures in this country. That was quite true. How was it you got the making of locomotive engines, and of rails for the construction of the whole railway system of Argentina, to all intents and purposes? It was because, not merely were you ready to make and sell the goods, but actually to advance the money
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  to Argentina to whom those goods were-sent. How was it Germany drove us out of the trade of Roumania? Because she established a bank in Roumania which financed the Roumanians with money borrowed from us. The position is that you want fluid money at this moment, and if I had a criticism to make against the Chancellor of the Exchequer it would be that, instead of remitting 40 per cent. of the Excess Profits Duty, it should have been 80 per cent. and I believe the result to the wage earners of this country would have been pound for pound in wages. What is their alternative? It is a capital tax. I do not want to follow all that argument, but merely to make one observation in regard to it. They come in an insinuating way to the property owner. They say, "This means no more than an Income Tax. You pay now and lose interest in future. If you defer payment, you will have to pay a heavy Income Tax in the meantime." I have seen indications, not merely on one side, but on both sides in this Debate, of a tendency to say that, after all, the distinction between capital and revenue is an artificial distinction. Yes, if you are talking in economic fundamentals, it is a conventional distinction. At any given moment there is a certain amount of wealth in the country. Some of it—wheat, for instance—you will eat in the next few months, and machinery, if not kept in repair, will wear out in the course of two or three years.
  If you choose to reason in that way, there is no fundamental difference between capital and income, but the economic experience of all civilisation shows-that the very basis of probity, of honesty, of successful economic policy, lies in maintaining that continual distinction—the distinction between capital and in come. Look at the difference. In the first place, you bring in a fresh moral quality, that of saving instead of consuming at once—a vastly important quality to emphasise, unfashionable it may be, but therefore more important. Secondly, your capital is always being consumed, and every accountant knows that he has to struggle with owners of businesses from time to time to insist on adequate depreciation and adequate repairs. The whole basis of the vast commercial success of this country in the past has lain in honesty, and no small portion of that honesty lay in insisting on the accounting difference between, capital and income. Consider the position of a board of

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  directors who are paying dividends out of capital and not out of profits made. That distinction is fundamentally concerned with the maintenance of any secure system of trading with joint stock companies. Mr. Asquith sees that. That is why Mr. Asquith—not some of these Gentlemen here; he is a purist in these matters—says that the National Debt must be paid off. It is a charge on your capital, and you must hot finance the country by borrowing longer than is possible, because in borrowing you are merely living upon capital. He, like Mr. Gladstone, both a financier and an expert politician and statesman, thinking, not as a partisan, but as a national leader, knows that it is essential in a great democracy to maintain these purisms of finance, this distinction between borrowing and paying your way out of your income, this distinction between capital and income.
  These Gentlemen go on to tell us, the moment we speak of Preference, that trade is very complicated. They then tell us, the moment we say it would be a complicated thing to levy a capital tax, "Oh, you can get out of that." Have they ever reflected on the difference of possessing wealth, even though you pay something a year for it, and paying away that wealth? If I have a block of National Debt securities, I can borrow on that; I can finance business on that. That, ultimately, is the very basis of our vast system of credit. If you begin to tell practical business men that it is the same thing to have parted with your securities as to have retained your securities, even although there is a charge on them, you will find they will give you a very different answer. If you have got debentures on your company, at any rate you have got the use of that money; but if you pay off those debentures you may not be able to raise fresh debentures. You may have adequate capital for your business with the debentures on your business. I do not say there are not times to pay off debentures, but foolishly pay them off, and you will find yourself short of capital to manage your business.
  You treat trade as a complicated thing where it is a question of Preference, but where capital is in question you touch it lightly. When it is a question of a capital tax you will find that, after all, trade is, in fact, most complicated. There is one. great reason—and I put it to the Labour party that it is a matter which, honestly, they ought to put to their own people in the
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  country—why we ought to be scrupulously honest in the matter of the accumulated capital of the past. This War has been won. by the sacrifice of young lives—true; but it could never have been won unless the ancestors of those young men had saved money in the years before the War and had invested it. How was this country saved during the early stage of the War? By borrowing, and by financing on a basis of the investments which had been made in foreign countries—in North America, in South America, by credit instruments taken up from this country which were utilised in New York in order to borrow the necessary money so that we could give advances to our Allies and hold them up that they might be able to fight alongside of us. You cannot exaggerate the debt we owe to the men who in the past laid money by. These men rendered it possible for us to come through this War with success. The savings of the past—in many, many a penurious way it must have been saved up by people who saved it! Those people should be reckoned as worthy of credit alongside the spilt blood of the people who fought during the War. Therefore we should treat this capital saving as something, after all, that is sacred.
  I have only one other point. I believe this is a sound Budget, rightly conceived because it contains a constructive scheme; on. the one hand, by refusing to adopt these policies of despair in relation to a capital tax, and the rest of it; and on the other 'hand, by a constructive scheme for the future. I put on one side the discussion in regard to India. Mr. Asquith's discussion on the tea from India is, after all, not a very large matter. Does any body believe that the people of this country would consent to adopt a policy and not extend that policy to India and give our fellow subjects in India what we believe to be the right thing? If incidentally we lose a certain amount of revenue, if incidentally our citizens gain a certain amount, that only makes the matter all the better. We must treat India as we have treated India during the peace negotiations. Take the case of Canada. "Oh," says Mr. Asquith, "I remember the sabre of Mr. Chamberlain's father. We live in degenerate days." Yes, Mr. Chamberlain's father had a sabre in his hands, and my belief is that if you had allowed him to wield it it might have gone a long way to avoid this War. It was not much to the advantage of Mr. Asquith's case to

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  cross swords with that weapon. I am, however, not going on arguments of sentiment. Will hon. Members recognise this: That Preference is important just in proportion as it does not now bring in a large revenue? Preference is the seed of the mustard tree. If you have faith sufficient from that seed you will get the tree. That is the difference between our faith and those who hold the opposite. Take the Preference in regard to Canada. Canada, sooner than we perhaps think, is going to be one of the biggest manufacturers of the world. To-day you can do a great thing for Canada, more than is suspected by those who rely merely on the statistics of the moment. Canada has contributed her 600,000 men to this War. Canada to-day has her unemployment problem involved by demobilisation just as we have. If you give a Preference to the Canadian motor car and you induce American capital to cross the frontier and establish itself in Canada, you give employment in Canada. You are helping Canada to meet that unemployment problem due to her demobilisation. I say that when Canada has become one of the great industrial portions of this Empire it will be a thing remembered to the credit of this country that we did that something that was within our power to promote that movement in her country in this present time of difficulty.
  This Preference, however, regards tropical countries mainly; it relates to sugar, coffee, and tobacco. The hon. Member for Central Edinburgh, who made a very interesting speech yesterday, spoke of this country as a little island. If hon. Members will think in terms of this little Island, then there is very little future for the working classes of this country. If, however, they will think of this Island as part of a vast estate containing hundreds of thousands of fertile square miles, in Africa say, capable of raising sugar, coffee, tobacco, then you are thinking in quantities which will put the working men of this country on a par with the working men of the United States. You tell me that sugar, coffee, and tobacco are not raw materials. They are not. But do you realise that once you get a community going, no matter on what, it will be active for other purposes? In Australia they discovered gold. What was the chief value of that gold? That you got immigration. Australia was going in a way it had never been going before. Once Australia was a going
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  concern, then you got the population on the spot; and then you had the live leadership and intelligence on the spot which could be applied to producing food and all other matters.
  I believe that this little Preference to day, limited to the articles it is, may do things that some of us little dream of in the course of the next ten or twenty years. If as a result of it you start our Protectorates going you may get amongst the incidental results those which are not directly calculated as results of the Preference. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that within the policy of Preference you are to have, besides matters of tariff, also issues and contracts. Will the House allow me to remind it, in a very few words, of something many hon. Members read in their school days. It is from ancient history, but it is so closely similar to the situation in which we stand to-day that the experience of mankind then may be helpful to mankind now. I am referring to that period of reconstruction in the Athenian democracy after the great sea battle of Salamis had been won. Athens was triumphantly victorious over the Persian despot. She had won battles on land and sea. There never was a nation with greater triumphs than she in the ten years which included Marathon and Salamis. But the Athenian city was burnt to the ground at the moment when she had paid, relatively to her size, even a greater penalty than we have paid for victory. There came forward a leader with a constructive economic policy. He dared to put it before the democracy. That policy was a policy suited to that time. There were, said this great leader, the silver mines of Laurium. "Take," he said, "that silver which you formerly distributed amongst yourselves and with it bought the good things of life from other places; take that silver, treat it as capital, build ships, launch out with a great commercial policy." The Athenian democracy took their leader's advice. They took their leader's imagination as a guide and followed him. They created within one generation that flowering of civilisation which has been a school for civilisation ever since. To-day we have won a great victory. We have won it at a terrible cost. Our city is not burnt down around us. But we have a vast debt to-day. In the presence of that it is for us to see whether the British democracy will be content with less imagination than

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  was the Athenian democracy. If so, history will judge us. We also have our mines of Laurium. We have vast tropical areas, in which hundreds of thousands of square miles of fertile soil are to be found. Will this great people now by an imaginative arid constructive policy help development? Or shall we construct for the future some old house into which to retire? Or will this great democracy of active workers base themselves on a sound economic and daringly constructive policy and so, out of the death penalty—though a. glorious penalty—enable us to bring forth a Britain such as even our fore fathers never dreamt of?
  Sir R. ADKINS: In the opening sentences of that profoundly interesting speech to which the House has just listened the hon. Gentleman opposite referred to the fact that many hon. Gentle men in their speeches and by their votes have shown that they have come to the name conclusion by different paths and from various starting points. In the few remarks which I shall venture to make to the House I shall make them from a, starting point different to that of the hon. Gentleman, and although he and I will probably meet in the same Lobby in a few moments, we do so as people who may come from one place, and, it may be, go to another. When the country is governed not by one party but by a Coalition party, it is obvious that the strength of that Coalition party is not to be measured by she decrees, or even by the ideals common to one party in the State. In the very important discussion that took place yester day, and has been continued to-day, the House is asked to express: an opinion on the Budget, the great importance of which necessarily raises issues of the deepest controversy. These deserve, and I am sure will receive, the most careful and most thorough consideration from all parts of the House. I speak as one of those Coalition Liberals whose position is obviously open to attack from more than one point of view. The House will not hear from me any of those dithyrambics in favour of Tariff Reform, such as we have heard from the hon. Member fox Brighton, nor will the House expect from a sincere supporter of the Coalition the use of those miscellaneous missiles, or any of them, which my right hon. Friends on the opposite side of the House take hold of on any or every opportunity they can in Parliamentary Debate.
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  I support this Budget on political rather than on economic grounds. Much of it I support on both. We have heard from Members of the Labour party sincere and forcible statements as to the importance of not having in peace time Budgets appropriate to a time of war. Are we in peace? The whole difficulty of the situation lies in the fact that though hostilities are over peace is not here, and the conditions which in peace time should be supreme are conditions which are not with us now. There may be one way of walking in the night and another in the day in those climates where the twilight is long and misty, and who is to be blamed because they then adopt methods which are inappropriate to the days to which we look forward? In the manifesto issued by the Prime Minister and the Lord Privy Seal there is a sentence of great significance which I ask the House to bear in mind in voting on this Budget. After a reference to fiscal policy, which is substantially the same as the reference which was read yesterday with regard to Colonial Preference, the manifesto proceeds:
  "Until the country has returned to normal industrial conditions it would be premature to prescribe a fiscal policy intended for permanence."
  I noted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that none of the preferences given in this Budget are to be taken as proof of the permanence of the taxes to which they apply, and therefore into whatever Lobby we go, or from what ever point of view we approach these problems, we are not dealing with permanent fiscal policy of one kind or another, and our speeches and votes would be misinterpreted and perverted if they were taken as an adhesion to one or other kind of fiscal policy, which the country must decide when we return to times of peace. With regard to the economic aspect of these proposals, one is not altogether sorry to see their minute character on one side attacked by those who are so detached from responsibility. Pictures of the romantic possibilities of these proposals have been painted in this Debate by persons who naturally think they are the beginning of a system which has passed through very chequered times during the last fifteen years. I would submit to the House that it may well be the duty of any of us, at critical and exceptional times in the history of our country, to put political considerations before economic theories.

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  Last November, when the Coalition Government was formed and an appeal to the country was made, those of us who were candidates had to decide whether we would support the Government whose policy was contained in the letter of the Prime Minister and the joint manifesto issued by the Government, or whether we would not. It seemed to me that it was supremely necessary for the country to have a Government wider than any party if it was to speak with due weight in the councils of Europe at a time of extra ordinary difficulty and consequence. In order to do that we had, to use a well-known phrase, to pay a certain price. We had to agree to support that Government, as I have supported other Governments, upon their manifesto and programme, and I say deliberately that under these circumstances those of us who chose to support that Government are not to be judged by our likes or dislikes of any particular items which we then accepted. The question is whether we were acting as men of honour in the discharge of our duty in the position we then took up for the sake of our country. Having looked at these proposals, I confess the preference ones I do not like, because they appear to me to be economically unsound, but nevertheless they are well within the manifesto that was then issued. So far from this being the turning point of one's action in economic controversy, whatever turning point there was arose when for political reasons we chose to support the Government and their manifesto six months ago.
  We have the highest authority for putting political considerations during a crisis before economic considerations. Reference -has been made to the Paris Resolutions. Those Resolutions are, in deed, a most striking example of recent years of the supremacy of political over economic considerations. My right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) said we have to look at the Preamble. What was it? It was that such action was being threatened by the Central Powers that it justified the Allies and the Entente in altering their fiscal policy, and doing all kind? of things which were economically bad because of the exceptional international situation which arose. We have the authority of those great Liberal statesmen who have been specially identified with that school of
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  economic thought to which I belong, that you have to put political considerations before economic at particular times. The application of that principle, or rather of that view of political perspective, leads me and many others to support from the point of view of lifelong Free Traders the Budget on this occasion.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: The Preamble, as I read it, laid down that the conditions should not only be anticipated, but fulfilled in Middle Europe, entirely, and if that happened, then the subsequent propositions of the Paris Resolutions would come into operation, but not until that was an accomplished fact.
  Sir R. ADKINS: I am much obliged for the right hon. Gentleman's interesting intervention, but it is quite irrelevant to my argument. My point is that the Paris Resolutions stated as part of the Preamble:
  "They declare that after forcing upon them the military contest in spite of all their efforts to avoid the conflict, the Empires of Central Europe are to-day preparing, in concert with their Allies, for a contest on the economic plane, which will not only survive the re-establishment of peace, but will, at that moment, attain its full scope and intensity."
  I agree with what the right hon. Gentle man said on this question, but my point is not that the Paris Resolutions ought to be carried out to-day under conditions quite different to those contemplated, but that it was sound and right, in a moment or great international danger, to enter into undertakings which from our point of view were economically bad, because of the special crisis which was threatened. In other words, the political considerations overrode economic considerations. The defence I am putting up for Coalition Liberals is that we support this Budget not on economic grounds but on political grounds, just as our great leaders were parties to the Paris Resolutions.
  May I deal with one other point which has arisen in the Debate. We are told, and very naturally, by those who are not supporters of the Government, that this is the thin end of the wedge, and that you cannot have the proposals of this Budget without leading on to a full-blown system of Protection, and that is anticipated with pleasure in some parts of the House, while it is viewed with horror by other hon. Members. Those who are filled with horror, and those who are entranced with hope on this question are going beyond the facts of the case. There is a good

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  deal of difference between a Coalition Government and a homogeneous party Government. Whenever a homogeneous party Government propose any item in their programme, friends and opponents know that the desire of the Government is to carry that programme as far as they possibly can, but when you are dealing with a Coalition Government it is stronger than the party Government within the limits of the alliance, but it does not carry within it a promise of the special development of the ideas of one school of thought which would be the case in ordinary government by party.
  7.0. P.M.
  Within the limits of those famous letters the Coalition is solid for a Budget like this, and if future Budgets develop either in one way or the other beyond the limits of that concordat, there would be no such guarantee for the solidarity of a Coalition, and I sincerely represent to the House that it is neither right nor wise to build upon the proposals of this Budget brought forward at this time on the basis of a Coalition, support either for the hopes or fears which have formed so large a part of the Debate to-day and yesterday. It is from that point of view that I have no. hesitation in supporting these proposals, but if I had any hesitation I should be more confirmed in doing it by the alternatives which have been suggested to the House. Yesterday we had for the first time a proposal for a capital levy arriving at the dignity of filling an interstice in an Amendment of the official Opposition. I congratulate the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Arnold) on his personal success, because even the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles, who in his public as in his private life is such a charming blend of caution and attractive ness, after coming here and pouring a shower bath of tepid water upon these proposals, actually oscillated into the Lobby in favour of the proposal of the Member for Penistone at the close of the evening. Is that the alternative presented to this House and the country at a time of great crisis like this? Who are the statesmen in this country who have taken the most leading part in the great fiscal controversies of the last fifteen years, those I mean who maintain the principle and practice of Free Trade? Surely they are the present Prime Minister, the pre sent Secretary for War, Mr. Asquith, Mr. McKenna, and Mr. Runciman. Two of those five statesmen are in the Govern-
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  ment—one of whom is at the head—and; they have nothing to do with this capital, levy. Why was there no mention of this capital levy in the great speech at New castle? Why is there no support for it from those who rightly carry most weight in the country among Free Trade states men? The significance of these real leaders on this point is of more con sequence than the more or less melodious-echo on those benches of other utterances which have been made by those leaders outside. Those of us who are called upon, to-day as Liberals, as Free Traders, and as supporters of the Coalition, have, of course, first to satisfy ourselves that our support of this Budget is within the terms of our honour and in the interest of our Empire, but we have next to look, and we do look, to see what alternative is suggested which can have weight or assistance in a time like this. The fact that the only alternative suggestion has already had a chequered and variegated career in the thirty-six hours that it has been present to the House would confirm us, if we needed confirmation in the attitude. that we are now-taking up. I, and I believe not a few Members of this House whose political traditions and principles I share, support this Budget, because, on the whole, in the time of transition and crisis, we think it is sound; because we believe those parts of it which we personally dislike and to which we do not. adhere on economic grounds to be within the concordat and alliance to which we are parties; because this is no matter of committee detail which can be decided one way or the other by the House without any effect upon the fortunes of the Government, and because that at this moment, when peace is delayed, when Europe is disturbed, when, international problems are more and not less acute than they have been for years past, we would not lift a finger to weaken the authority or power of that Government and that Prime Minister who at this time we believe to be indispensable to the-welfare of the Empire.
  Mr. SEDDON: I had intended making a suggestion to the Chancellor of the Ex chequer how he could increase his revenue, but, owing to the narrowness of the discussion in Committee, under your ruling, and to the seriousness which the position has assumed in the country, I shall have to postpone any remarks on that particular question to the adjournment of the House

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  to-night. I have risen, therefore, more particularly to take part in the general discussion, and I am exceedingly sorry that the hon. Member for Rothwell (Mr. Lunn) should have delivered himself in "the language that he used. If he thinks that I am wrong, I can assure him that I am just as honestly wrong as I think he is honestly wrong. What was the burden of his speech? He said that he was a constitutionalist when it suited him. I under stood that the Labour party and all other people in this country supported the War, to make the world safe for democracy. According to the hon. Member, the Labour party are prepared to thrust it into revolution if they cannot get their way by constitutional method's. There was recently a by-election in Aberdeen. The Labour nominee—a personal friend of my own, and one of the ablest men in the Labour party, was rejected, proving that the people of that part of the country were not prepared to return a Labour Member on the programme which hon. Members opposite represent at the pre sent time. Are the members of the Minority party in this House, who sup ported the War to make the world safe. for democracy, because they cannot get their way, going to plunge this country into revolution? I would warn the hon. Member that those who project revolutions are very often the first to suffer by them. If he wants a concrete example, I would refer him to our great leader, Kerensky, who is in hiding at the present time. I am convinced that the great mass of the people of this country are sound democrats, and, although they may suffer by and object to what is done in this House, they are not prepared to bring the whole system down in ruin and chaos simply because a minority in the country -cannot get their own way.
  I have been amazed at the arguments presented to-day. The Noble Lord's interesting speech was appreciated by every body, although many may disagree with its conclusions. He pointed out a very significant fact. He said that the Corn Production Act was Protection in excelsis. I happened to be a member of that Committee, and whether hon. Members believe or disbelieve me, I can assure them that I went through many anxious moments, and that my support was given on an honest conviction that it was the only way to meet the difficulties that confronted us
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  at that time. The Corn Production Bill cut right across all my pre-war political ideas and theories. I supported it because I felt it was the only way to save us from starvation and defeat. The Bill came to the Cabinet. It was then a blend of various fiscal ideas, and nothing was done. I am not blaming Mr. Asquith; probably he had to take the course that he did, on behalf of his friends in the Cabinet. Be that as it may, the Bill was hung up. It was pigeon-holed. Then the German submarines became more menacing, and almost hurriedly the Bill was produced from the pigeon-hole and placed upon the Statute Book. Is there a single Member who raised his voice against the Corn Production Bill as a war emergency measure? It was carried with the good will or at least with the support or acquiescence of all sections and parties in the country. That Bill. having been passed, has created responsibilities. The agricultural labourer has been lifted in a year or two higher than he could have been in a quarter of a century by any other means. I may say that when I gave my support, on the Milner Committee, to a guaranteed price for corn, I laid it down that as a sine qua non that there should be a minimum wage for the agricultural labourer. He wants to keep that minimum wage. Is he going to keep it if we go back to pre war conditions in agriculture? I can understand some of my hon. Friends saying: "Oh, but the great incubus preventing the agricultural labourer getting a living wage is the landlord." As a matter of fact, the agricultural rent of this country is £50,000,000 per annum, and at this moment we are paying more than £50,000,000 per annum to secure the agricultural labourer his minimum wage and the farmer a, fair return on his corn. Therefore, if you nationalised the land and you wished to keep the farm labourers wages at their present standard, you would have to give a subsidy. I do not suppose any country can live by taking in each others' washing. We already know that the railways are costing more than their revenue, and that the Post Office is exceeding its income. If you go on, and each industry is going to be subsidised by the State, I want to know from where the subsidy is coming?
  The agricultural labourer cannot be saved unless something is done to make agriculture prosperous in this country. You may say that it means a charge upon

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  the food of the people. Let us argue it out. The miners—and my hon. Friend belongs to that section of the community—ara privileged by a natural monopoly, and I venture to say that if the same thing happened in other industries as has happened in the coal industry, there would be an outcry within a very short time.. If Japan with its cheap labour and its subsidised mercantile fleet could import coal into this country at 30 per cent. less than the cost of production in this country, there would be a revolt on the part of the miners. I appeal to the position. There are other workers who are not in a privileged position. I take the major industry of the district that I represent at the present time. Pottery ware is the chief industry of Stafford. When the War broke out the United States were carrying out a very exhaustive inquiry in this industry in every country in the world. The inquiry had taken place in America, France, Germany, Austria, and England. Up to the out break of the War the average wage in the Potteries was less than £ per week. To-day, because the home market has been secured for the pottery workers, it is double that amount. It was not the wicked employer who was responsible for the low wages in the Potteries, because the average return upon the money in vested in the pottery trade was only 5.2 per cent., and I am sure that there would be a hue and cry among the great co-operators—and many of my hon. Friends are members of co-operative stores—if only 5 per cent. were paid by that great institution of the country. Why were they unable, with those low wages, to compete against Germany and Austria? Compared with America, wages were 50 per cent. higher in this country, and there was no American competition. Wages in Germany, however, were 30 per cent. less than in this country, and it was that which impoverished the pottery worker and rendered the return on the capital invested in the pottery trade so meagre.
  We hear a good 'deal about the dead hand upon land. Let us remove the dead hand upon our economic system if it is out o? harmony with the experience of the last four and a half years. What is the position to-day? If we return to pre-war practices—and apparently it is the intention of many people in this country that we should take the Germans to our breast? again, and renew the old commercial relationships—you will have wages tumbling
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  down in the pottery districts, and you will have them in a worse state than they were under the miserable conditions I have described. After all, no body of workers can live to themselves; if general industry suffers in this country by unfair conditions, then the miners as well, who are in a privileged position, will suffer also. There is, further, a moral side to this. It is mean for one section of tbe-workers to merely look after themselves. and not give a hang as to what happens to their fellow workers in other industries. I am not tied to any "ism," I am trying honestly to apply the lessons of the War to the reconstruction of this country. Would hon. Gentlemen who profess to be Free Traders, hide-bound and immovable, would they, as a protection to the pottery works of this country, accept a 30 per cent. tariff against pots coining into this country? That represents only the difference-in wages. I am saying nothing about transit. It is the duty of the Government to give facilities for transit equal to those-which the German Government give. I say nothing about the methods of manufacture; those are matters for the manufacturers themselves. I am narrowing my point down to wages. Here is an un fair competition. One country is paying 30 per cent. less wages, and thereby destroying an industry in this country. I therefore ask Free Traders if they are pre pared to levy in this particular instance a 30 per cent. duty on the commodities coming into this country?
  I make that request as an ardent Free-Trader. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton (Mr. Hodge) has certainly had no easy passage in his relationships during the last few months. I think I am right in saying that one of the questions-on which he at least disagreed with his colleagues, was the question of our future fiscal policy in this country. He was approached by a late Member of this House, Mr. Arthur Henderson, and, in answer to his objection, Mr. Henderson said, "It is universal Free Trade that the Labour party is after." So am I, and that is. the-reason I am making the suggestion of a 30 per cent. tariff to meet the difference in wages between Germany and this country. My proposal is made in order to protect the workers of this country from unfair competition, and I would place the 30 per cent. tariff immediately upon these goods coming into the country. If the Germans increased their wages by 10 per cent. I would reduce the tariff by 10 per

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  cent. If they increased their wages by r20 per cent. I would reduce the tariff by 20 per cent.; and if they gave the same rate of wages as in this country, I would allow their goods to come in free. That would be real Free Trade between one country and another, instead of the one sided Free Trade which obtains today.
  I am very anxious that we should examine this question in the interests of the country. It has been said time and time again, and it cannot be too often repeated, that our very national existence has been the price of the richest blood of our race. Not only our Colonists, but the sons of the Homeland, have made it possible that we should gather here in stead of being under the iron heel of Prussian militarism, which I hope has been forever destroyed. But this price throws upon us obligations and responsibilities. We have heard something about repudiating the National Debt. That would be dishonest in the extreme. You would not only be robbing the rich, but you would be also robbing 13,000,000 of the working classes who have invested their money in war savings. To repudiate obligations thus entered into would not only be unjust, but it would also be non-moral, and a system or nation which has a non-moral basis is bound to fail. Trade is necessary. There is no love in trade. Each country is out for its own, and I find that President Wilson has got his eye on the main chance. The almighty dollar has not lost its potency, notwithstanding the high and noble sentiments which he has expressed during the Peace negotiations. In sending his message to Congress, President Wilson said:
  "There is, fortunately, no occasion for under taking in the immediate future "——
  I ask hon. Members to carefully note these words "immediate future"—
  "a general revision of our system of Import Duties. No serious danger of foreign competition now threatens American industries. Our country has emerged from the War less disturbed and less weakened than any of the European countries which are our competitors in manufacture. Their industrial establishments have been subjected to greater strain than ours, their labour force to a more serious disorganisation, and this is clearly not the time to seek an organised advantage. The work of mere re construction will, I am afraid, tax the capacity and the resources of their people for years to come. So far from their being any danger of new or accentuated foreign competition, it is
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  likely that the conditions of the next few years will greatly facilitate the marketing of American manufacturers abroad.
  America is alive to the position, not only of this country, but of every belligerent country on the continent of Europe. What is our position? Industry is disorganised; we are trying to get back at this moment to pre-war conditions. I have the pro-profoundest sympathy with the hon. and fight hon. Gentlemen who are charged with the tremendous task and responsibility of converting us from a war state into a peace period. Instead of gibing at them, and thus making their task more difficult, it would be really patriotic to give them all the support possible, so that we may pass by a peaceful process from war to the industrial conditions which existed before the War. How are you going to do it? Here you have Japan, husbanding her resources for the markets of the world. You have the United States, who too, during the last four years, has been adding to her store of wealth, and whose factories and various undertakings have been flourishing alongside with the munitions of war which she had been providing for the Allies on this side of Europe and in other parts of the world. She is ready. She is not only prepared, but she has already taken advantage, if rumour is not a lying jade, for she has obtained an order for 1,000,000 tons of steel rails for Europe. I would just like, in passing, to call the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to this point. I am told on good authority—perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will inquire into the matter—that steel rails coming from the United States are being carried at 20s. per ton freight. The freightage for general merchandise is 60s. per ton, and I fail to see why the shipowners of this country, even for their own gain, should give a difference of 40s. To American steel maufacturers in competition with the steel manufacturers of this country. Here you have the United States stripped ready for the industrial race. Not only is she ready with her factories, but she has got the German ships. She has already taken control of 660,000 tons of German shipping—the best shipping that crosses the Atlantic. That shipping, consisting of big Atlantic liners, is ready at once to pounce upon the South American and the European markets. Let us at "east examine the proposal in front of us, and instead of the dead hand of Cobden paralysing us, and sinking us

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  more deeply into the mire, let us see how far we can get over the changed conditions.
  Much has been said about the help of the Colonies. I do not think the most rabid Free Trader will take any exception to the loyalty and devotion the Colonists have displayed to the Mother Country. They have asked us to join hands in a closer and more intimate bond than has ever existed before. We were told in days gone by that the door had been slammed, banged, and barred. Now that door has been opened, not for mere gain, but to give the Colonies what they asked for. Are we not prepared to meet them half way, and to enter into a closer bond than ever existed in pre-war days? I, like many other Members, have had to sever friend ships because I have been trying to follow the lessons of this Armageddon. I have been, I w ill not say privileged, because it was a sad experience, but I have had the opportunity of visiting Northern France, and have seen the nameless graves that do appeal to me, if they do not appeal to some hon. Members. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!" I say "if," and when I see a man sneering at that I have my doubts as to whether he is sincere. After all, we. may have our differences, but we have all got our responsibilities to these men, and the only thing I ask is this, that instead of being concerned with mere party war fare we should realise that we are the trustees and guardians of the most critical period in our Empire's history, and if we take a false step now we shall be undone as a great people. Let us be honest with ourselves and to our convictions, even if they be contrary to our party programmes. If every man acts conscientiously and with honest intentions, I am quite sure that much of the criticism directed against this Budget will be withdrawn, and that there will be greater unanimity in believing that if the British Empire is to be what it can be it must be brought about by a change, and that change must come as quickly as possible.
  Mr. CHARLES EDWARDS: I have listened with much interest to the various speeches delivered yesterday and to-day, and have been surprised at the burden of some of them. I listened also to the very interesting argument put forward by the Noble Lord (Lord H. Cecil) this afternoon. He told us that the Death Duties were collected at the wrong time and at an in convenient time. I have yet to learn that
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  the collection of taxes from anyone is ever done at the right time. He told us another thing. He said that the only difference between taxing the poor and the rich was that in the one case the man was being beaten with his clothes on, while in the other case he was being beaten with his clothes off. But I would like to suggest the difference is something greater than that, because the taxation of the worker means that something has to be taken out of his supply of necessaries of life. In the other case possibly some luxuries might be restricted, but more often than not it is simply the banking account that shows any difference at all. The difference between the two is that the one is getting the actual beating, while in the other case it is an imaginary thing. Imaginary things are sometimes pretty hard, and it may be so in this case, but it is not more than imaginary. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Duncairn Division of Belfast (Sir E. Carson) spoke of going to any lengths to support the men who have fought in defence of this country. We agree with him on that point. But the Government he is supporting have not gone very far to help these men, who have often come back many of them to no work, many of them to no homes, while many of them who are permanently injured are expected to live on one-half of what the lowest paid man who is able to work gets. The widows of the brave men who have died are expected by this Government to live on 13s. 9d. a week, which is an impossibility, while for the children who are born to the men permanently injured they refuse to make any provision whatever. The Government the light hon. Gentle man is supporting on the ground that it is generous and acting honourably to the men who have fought in defence of the country is not playing a very creditable part.
  The question of a levy on wealth is a very serious matter. I suppose it is very sinful for anybody to have raised it. One hon. Member who spoke yesterday had four points against it, one of which, that it was dishonest—I forget the others, but they are not of much importance. He re minded me of an inveterate smoker whom another tried to argue out of that habit, and he said, "If you can prove to me that I do not like it I will give it up." And the people who argue against a levy on wealth are in that position. If we can prove to them that they do not want to keep what they already have, they would agree. I

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  do not believe this proposal is impossible or impracticable. We have done a lot of impossible things during the War, and have got over them all right, and this difficulty could be got over if there were a disposition to attempt it. The result would be that taxation in the future would be greatly relieved because of it. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke the other day I listened to him with great disappointment. He has relieved the profiteers of this conutry of £50,000,000 or more taxation, but he refuses to relieve the workers of the country who are taxed on an income of £120. One hon. Member said to-day that this was done out of consideration for the workers. I should like him to go before a working-class audience and prove that it was to their interest to relieve them of £20,000,000 and that they should have to pay Income Tax on an income of £120. The Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke of £3 10s. a week as if it were a fortune. How far does that amount carry one in these days? He meant to prove how little a man had to pay out of his £3 10s. a week. The right hon. Gentleman knows nothing at all about it. His position is such that he has never been called upon to understand how the workers live on £3 10s. a week. I do not suppose he would know how to start out for a single day on that sum. Yet when the point was put from this side by speaker after speaker that the basis of the Income Tax ought to be raised from its present amount, he said in effect, "I know what they can do and what I am going to make them pay." He did not use the same language other hon. Gentlemen have used in this House and say, "We must show a firm hand and take all the means at our disposal to get it." The £120 limit is an unfair basis. No hon. Member could argue that that is a proper standard of living. If it is not, why not raise it?
  There is a movement outside to refuse to pay Income Tax under a limit of £250. Without a doubt that is going to succeed. One hon. Member has spoken to-day about constitutionalism. You are killing constitutionalism by these methods. If hon. Members do not know the position of the workers—they do not, because they have never been among them—that is a reason why they should listen to those who have lived among them from day to day, but who, as a matter of fact, are totally ignored. From the time the Budget was
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  brought in we have been facing the opposition of the workers at every meeting that has been held. We have been telling them that it is the law of the land and that we must take constitutional methods to get it off. Constitutional methods have been tried over and over again. The Leader of the House has on more than one occasion received deputations and possibly the Chancellor of the Exchequer has also done so. We have stood up against the agitation and kept things going until the pre sent moment, but when every man who speaks from these benches is ignored, I have come to the conclusion that so far as I am concerned I would not stand in the way of any movement to enforce that opposition. That movement will go like wild-fire throughout this country, and every low wage earner will jump to the conclusion that it is only fair and reason able, as I believe it to be. I do not object to the Income Tax at all. I do not object to a higher Income Tax, once the basis is properly fixed. The basis is now too low. £250 a year represents between £4 and £5 a week, not a large sum by any means. I am not particular what the Income Tax is. None of us like to pay it, and I am the same as other people. But once the basis-is fixed at a proper standard of living, then I shall not complain if you raise the Income Tax. It ought to be graduated more steeply from that point upwards, be cause the higher it goes we are the better able to pay it. That is a point to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to pay more attention. How he is going to save the Government in this matter I do not know, because I am certain of the success of this movement. The only thing I would advise him to do is. to tell the Commission at present considering this matter to make the £250 the standard. That might get the Government out of the difficulty. You are forcing us to adopt these methods all the time. We have had the same thing from employers. We have met them with a reasonable, commonsense proposal, but the reply has been, "No." The men have asked what is the good of negotiation, and have said that direct trade union action is the only thing that counts in these days. It is the only thing that is understood. There has been bred from this treatment Syndicalism and all the other outside movements, because they are looked upon by the working class as the only things that have any effect whatever. We are forced to them by the action of the employers and of the Gov-

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  ernment. In regard to this Budget we axe forced into the same position. That movement must succeed. Therefore I suggest that more attention should be paid to what is said from this side of the House. We know the workers. I worked for twenty years in the same pit—it is no disgrace to say so. We have lived among the men and know them and how far £3 10s. a week can go. Many hon. Members opposite do not know and have not been called upon to know. If more attention were paid to what is said from these benches, there would be less trouble and fewer unconstitutional things in the world than there is at present.
  Mr. BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury): I should like to say a few words about the subject which was dealt with at some length by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) in his opening speech yesterday. I do so because it is the subject of Treasury control, on which a great. deal has been said to-day and which excites a grout deal of interest in a new House of Commons. It is rather important for the House to realise what Treasury control means and what it does not mean. I want to remind the House that there is undoubtedly an opinion widely held that the Treasury has power to investigate, to criticise, and to control the expenditure of all the Departments. It has been blamed very much in the Press and on the platform for either letting this control go altogether or exercising it in an inadequate manner. There is no better evidence of what the powers of the Treasury are and of what they are not than the evidence which was given before a Select Committee many years ago by the greatest and most powerful statesman of the last two generations who presided at that office, namely, Mr. Gladstone, who combined the offices of Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am not going to weary the House with the evidence he gave, although it would be well worth the study of every Member of the House. I would only call their attention to two replies given by Mr. Gladstone. He was asked by Mr. Childers:
  "Is there no statutory power in the Treasury to compel reduction if they think it necessary in any public Department?"
  Mr. Gladstone said:
  "I have not that power. I can refuge an increase and I can make myself generally disagreeable, but I have no power to enforce reduction."
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  He was asked later on:
  "Then it is a popular delusion to believe that the Treasury does exercise control, and effective control, over the expenditure of the different Departments?
  Mr. Gladstone replied:
  "I do not know that it is popular, but it is a delusion."
  The reason I venture to call the attention of the House to these statements is that I want hon. Members to realise what control the Treasury does have. It has control over staffs to a certain extent. It has a control over new expenditure. It has the power of putting all the Departments on their defence, and that power it exercises. I would remind the House that in the many cases where the Treasury objects to expenditure and succeeds in upholding its objection, the House never hears of them. But there is a great difference between the condition of things to-day and in Mr. Gladstone's time. It is true to-day, as it was in his time, that when expenditure in a new Department is proposed there comes ultimately to be a fight between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Minister in charge of the Department, and in the event of the Minister not being satisfied with the Chancellor of the Exchequer's decision he can appeal to the Cabinet. In Mr. Gladstone's day the subjects of expenditure of public money were few and limited, and if a Minister was turned down by Mr. Gladstone and appealed to the Cabinet he knew that he would have, a hostile Cabinet against him, which in nine cases out of ten would back the Treasury.
  The whole outlook to-day is changed, and every man in public life believes that an amelioration of the condition of the people can be obtained by the expenditure of money, and all large items of expenditure are controlled, not by the Treasury but by the policy of the Government of the day—such questions as the money to be found for the fighting forces, money for education, national health insurance, housing, and a hundred and one things of that kind—and in almost any one of those subjects if the Chancellor of the Exchequer raises" objection and the Minister whom he opposes takes the matter to the Cabinet, it does not matter what Government is in power the natural bias of every member of the Cabinet will not be against the expenditure but in favour of it. That feeling is in the mind of every Minister and of every Member of Parliament, and it is in the mind of the electorate, that the

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  House of Commons will have the ultimate control of expenditure. So far as that expenditure is controlled by policy the House of Commons itself would in nearly every case support the Government which was spending the money on purposes of social amelioration. The Treasury then has to sanction these large amounts, and when once sanction is given to a Department for expenditure the responsibility for the expenditure in "detail" really rests on the Minister in charge of that Department. It is his responsibility to see that the policy is carried out, and he is in an impregnable position if he takes up the line that without being permitted to spend his money in such and such a way he cannot give effect to the policy which has been sanctioned by the Government and the House of Commons. There is the essential difference between the position of the Treasury a generation ago and its position to-day, and the office to which I belong is often criticised for not exercising a power which it has no right to exercise, and its faults are not faults of will but faults arising entirely from lack of power. I think we shall best attack this problem of control ling expenditure in the innumerable Departments that now exist by strengthening the power in the Departments them selves, by strengthening the position of the accounting officer and giving him more support than he has to-day in exercising financial control inside the Department, and with the sympathy and support of the Minister in charge.
  We have had a protracted and interesting discussion, and the House has given my right hon. Friend a number of very interesting suggestions, and possibly if they had been given in time he might have modified his Budget, but at this date I am afraid it is too late for him to incorporate in it the main suggestions which have been put before him. He has been recommended to impose a capital levy for the first time in the history of the modern civilised world. It would have been a large task to take that in hand in time for this year's Budget. Apart from the capital levy, he has been asked to raise £450,000,000 additional taxation; he has been asked to abolish all indirect taxation except on alcohol, and I am quite surf-had he seen his way to do that a school of thought would have arisen which would have desired the exemption of alcohol; he has been asked to abolish all Income
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  Tax on incomes below £250, and apart from this, to recast the whole existing basis of Income Tax assessment, and to revolutionise the basis of the Death Duties. Moreover, he has been expected to find a substitute for the Excess Profits Duty, which will produce as much money as the Excess Profits Tax produced with out any of the disadvantages of that tax. I am sure the House will not expect me to criticise every one of those measures which have been urged upon us, but rather to direct myself towards one or two of the most salient features of the criticism which has been launched against the Budget itself. It has been called a rich man's Budget. I do not think that is at all an unfair description of it, because it is charging higher rates of taxation on the rich man than any Budget which has ever been introduced in this or any other country. The gravamen of the charge against the Budget, as comprehended in the Motion which was before the House yesterday and as has been repeated on the Labour Benches, is that my right hon. Friend is taking off a considerable amount of taxation from the wealthy and that he is not giving any relief to the poorest classes of the present income Tax payers. The first point we have to remember is that the Excess Profits Tax and the Income Tax are not comparable. They are two taxes on a different plane. When working men pay Income Tax, whatever the basis may be, they are paying a tax which is common, at varying rates, to every class in the community. it was recognised by Mr. McKenna that it is no light tax on the lowest class of income, but he took the view, when he reduced the limit, that to-pay off the expenses of a war on such a gigantic scale, that every class, except the very poorest, should be asked to make a contribution to the Income Tax, and the hardship has been so far to this extent recognised that in each Budget, notably in the Budgets of the Leader of the House in the last two years, fresh exemptions have been given to lighten the burden falling on those with the smallest incomes. To that extent the hardship has been met—I do not say all the way, but some of the way.
  But when you come to the Excess-Profits Tax you come to one of an entirely different nature. You came to one which was put on for a specific purpose and under a distinct pledge of limitation as to time. The Chancellor of the Exchequer

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  could do no other than he has done, in view of the pledges which were given to Parliament on the introduction of this tax, and it may be pleaded with some justification that to fulfil those pledges in their entirety ho should have removed the whole of the tax at one time. He has not done that. He has recognised that we are only passing out of a state of war, and I think he has met the case very fairly by reducing the tax by one-half. But, after all, hon. Members who are opposed to this reduction speak as though there had been no taxes on profits during the War. They forget that the Income Tax and the Super tax have been going on the whole time, just as well as the Excess Profits Tax and that the Excess Profits Tax would only apply in those cases where profits exceeded a certain datum line as it stood in 1913-14. That in itself constitutes one of the bad features of this tax continued year after year. It tended to stabilise the position of businesses, and it tended to penalise new businesses. It helped the old-established businesses, and there is one more point which has struck me, and I think must have struck anyone familiar with the working of the taxes. We have heard a great deal about the way in which men's incomes are reduced because the Purchasing power of money is so much less. Logically we can apply that all the way up and it will be quite possible to argue that there are no excess profits to-day, because 20 per cent. dividend to-day is no more than 10 per cent. was before the War. But I do not want to make any point on that.
  Income Tax on businesses—and I say businesses because the Excess Profits Tax applies to businesses—is not a tax on income. It is a tax on profits computed in accordance with statute, which is a very different thing. In other words, the amount of money paid out by any business for Income Tax represents a tax on a great deal larger amount than is ever paid away. It means that a considerable amount of the liquid assets in the shape of cash are taken out of the business and transferred to the Exchequer every year. The Excess Profits Tax continues that process, and when you had an 80 per cent. Excess Profits Tax it was found in practice that the 20 per cent. which was left of the excess profits was not enough to meet the extra cost of running the business and in meeting the higher prices that had to be paid for
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  labour, for goods and for all commodities. Eight per cent. of these excess profits had to be paid out of the business.
  Mr. HOLMES: Until the business had made its costs there could not be any excess profits.
  8.0 P.M.
  Mr. BALDWIN:I am afraid I have not made my point clear. I am speaking of the amount of cash a man has in business which is quite a different thing. A man may have good profits but may not have much cash in his business. He may have to borrow to pay his dividends. What I am trying to explain is that both by paying the Income Tax, and by paying the excess profits, all of which have to be paid out in cash, many businesses in this country, although making large profits on paper, have been so completely denuded of liquid assets that they have not enough cash left to pay the taxes demanded by the Inland Revenue. That accounts very largely for the amount that is still out-standing, and in many cases the only way in which this extra cash can be provided is for these businesses to raise extra working capital to enable them to meet the higher cost of working to-day and to find, the actual cash necessary to pay their taxes. My hon. Friend opposite who has first-hand knowledge of these matters, and whoso speech I listened to last night with interest, knows as well as I do, and I am not inexperienced in business, that a great deal of the profits that have been made during the War are profits that have arisen in many cases almost entirely on the enormous increase in the values of stocks. That puts no more money into the coffers of the business. It leaves the coffers where they were. I think the bon. Member now sees the point I am trying to make. Given that position, you find it is a matter of vital importance to industry that there should be enough working capital to carry them on through the time of transition upon which we have now entered. I think we ought to bear this in mind.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer has to look at the industry and the life of the country as a whole, and he has, to the utmost of his ability, to diffuse its taxation as equitably as he can among all classes as they can bear it, and it is to help him to do that that he has set up this Commis

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  sion on the Income Tax. At the same time, it is essential that in this country industry shall be in a position to carry on profitable business. We have to look at the environment in which we live and work. This country has one of the most highly developed industrial systems in the world, and it lives on industry—industry which has been built up on the credit and hard work of three or four generations. It is industry alone that enables the population of the size that inhabits these islands to live in them. It is a population that can not feed itself. It has to draw the bulk of its food from overseas, and it can only pay for that food by industry and its export trade. If ever the trade of this country fails the country will starve; its industry cannot be maintained, and our lifeblood will be drained away. It, there fore, follows that the first essential for the sound financial position which the Chancellor of the Exchequer and this House desires is, that at the earliest moment the industry of this country should get on its legs and should proceed in its normal way to produce. Every day that we spend in this country in quarrel ling among ourselves and in debating how this and that is to be done, and every delay that takes place before we set to work, delays the task of production and makes the difficulties of our financial position greater and greater. There is no better service which Members of this House of all parties can render to the country to-day than to explain these facts which I have tried to explain to the House to the people in the country.
  The Government has the heaviest task to face to-day that any Government has ever had. It knew quite well when it took office that in endeavouring to carry through legislation which normally would take years to pass within the limits of a single Session, or two Sessions, it would be brought up against many interests, it would tread on many people's toes, and it would be bound to come in for criticism from all classes of the community. I have no doubt that many elections for many months to come must and will go against the Government, because it is impossible, for many months after the close of war, for the industry of the country to resume its normal course or for the lives and habits of the people to resume their normal
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  course, and in the excitement that always and necessarily follows such times of trial as we have been through nothing is easier, by harping on the failures of those who are trying to do their best, than to increase the feeling of dissatisfaction and discontent and to stir up a feeling that men are being treated unjustly. That is the last thing which the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget desires to do. He has made a genuine and a fair attempt to meet this transition year by a transition Budget which shall deal out even handed justice, consistent with Parliamentary pledges that have been given by previous Governments, and I think the general sense of the House is that he has succeeded very well.
  With regard to the particular point that has been raised from the benches opposite, I would remind them that that matter comes up for discussion naturally on the Committee stage of this Bill, and arguments can be used on both sides and met in detail. Then will be the time, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer thinks fit, to make such concessions as at that time may seem advisable to him. But I do hope most earnestly that we have so far escaped from the militarism of war-time that hon. Members who have taken up a position strongly opposed to the right hon. Gentleman, as did the hon. Member for the Rothwell Division (Mr. Lunn), may not see fit to convey their objection to matters in the Budget by veiled threats of what they will do outside this House. A very great responsibility rests upon this House. There is no alternative in this country between this House and anarchy, and with that sense of responsibility before all Members, collectively and individually, I feel quite certain that when the Budget goes into Committee it will not be impossible that we may reconcile our differences there and that hon. Members who have been but a short time in this House may possibly regret having used such language as was used this afternoon. I hope the House will be willing now to take the Second Reading of the Bill, in view of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said last night.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next.

  PREVENTION OF ANTHRAX [EXPENSES].
  Considered in Committee.—[Progress, 13th May.]
  [MR. WHITLEY in the Chair.]
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of any expenses that may be incurred by the Secretary of State in carrying out the provisions of any Act of the present Session to control the importation of goods infected or likely to be infected with anthrax, and to pro vide for the disinfection of any such goods."—[Colonel Sir H. Greenwood.]
  Amendment proposed, at the end, to add the words,
  "Provided that such payment in any one year stall not exceed twenty-five thousand pounds."
  Question again proposed, "That those words be there added.
  Mr. HOGGE: Has the Memorandum been issued?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir H. Greenwood): Certainly. It has been in the Vote Office for several days.
  Question put, and negatived.
  Original Question put, and agreed to.
  Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

  FOREIGN, DIPLOMATIC, AND CONSULAR SERVICES.
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. HOARE: I beg to move,
  "That, in view of the time that has elapsed and the. changes that have taken place since the Report of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service with reference to the Foreign, Diplomatic, and Consular Services, a Committee should at once be set up for carrying into effect such of their recommendations as are still practicable, and for introducing a single graded Foreign Service recruited by open competition in the examinations of the Civil Service Commission, supervised for the purpose of promotion by representative Boards, and paid at such rates as to disqualify no candidate on the ground of inadequate financial means."
  Hon. Members will see that I ask the House to do two things. First, to appoint a small Committee to bring into operation at once such of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Civil Service as are still practicable, and, second, by their terms of reference, to instruct the Committee to introduce into our foreign
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  service one single graded service. If the House agrees with my Motion, there need be no delay in carrying out the objects which I have in view. It would not be necessary for the Committee to contemplate spending any large period of time in taking evidence or making any detailed examination. All the material is ready to hand. The Royal Commission on Civil Service, of winch I was a member, accumulated an immense amount of material, and since then other inquiries into the Consular Service and other branches of our foreign service have also been held, with the result that at the present moment material is quite ready upon which the Committee that I ask the House to appoint could act without delay. I have taken a very close interest In this question, both on the Royal Commission which reported in 1914, and during the four or five years of the War, and I say at once that the experience I have gained during the War, by seeing at first hand, the problems and difficulties in most of the European Embassies and Legations and many of the European Consulates, has made me modify in several material respects the opinions which I held in 1914, and the House will see in the course of my few observations how in many respects I go considerably beyond the Report that I signed then and how in certain respects I have altered the opinion that I then held.
  I do not think that any apology is necessary for introducing this subject to the attention of the House. The last Debate of this kind, directed explicitly to our foreign service, took place in the year 1877, and the House will agree that when we are considering all the many problems of reconstruction, one of the most insistent problems is the reconstruction of our foreign service. On that account it is not, I think, taking up the time of the House unnecessarily if I ask it to concentrate its attention upon what I believe to be one of the most vital parts of our national reconstruction—the complete re construction of our various foreign services. At the present moment it seems to me that there is widespread dissatisfaction with our foreign service, felt by the public outside for the service, and felt within the service among members of the service itself against the conditions under which they serve. As to the dissatisfaction which the public feel, I believe that a certain phase of it is justified and that a certain phase of it is not justified. For

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  instance, I think that it is altogether un just to blame the Foreign Office for policy and acts which have been the policy and acts not of officials in the Foreign Office, but of Ministers and Governments. Secret diplomacy, for instance, which we often hear attacked, has on several important occasions, particularly during the War, been the result of decisions taken, not by officials of the Foreign office or our diplomats abroad, but by Ministers of the day and directly or indirectly by the Parliaments which failed to maintain control in foreign politics over the Ministers. The feeling of dissatisfaction felt against our foreign service in that respect, I think, is not justified. But the criticism which I think is justified against our Foreign Office—and by our Foreign Office I mean all our various foreign services—is the reeling 'hot the Foreign Office has shown itself on many occasions remote from the big events and the great currents that have come to the surface in different parts of the world.
  It seems to me, looking back over the events not only of the last five years, but for many years before, that for some reason or other our Foreign Office—and other Foreign Offices perhaps have been equally to blame—has been remote from the really big currents that have been showing themselves in Europe. Take two or three examples from the War as to which there does seem to be cause for justifiable criticism against the officials of the Foreign Office. At the beginning of the War our Diplomats at Constantinople were apparently totally ignorant of the fact that Turkey had taken sides against us. Again I think that there is cause of criticism that the officials of the Foreign Office—I do not include in this charge our diplomats in Russia—did not realise the immensity of the Russian Revolution; and to take another instance that was mentioned by the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs only this week, I think that it is cause for criticism that the Foreign Office from their own admission were totally ignorant of the state of affairs in Egypt that led to the unfortunate out breaks during the last two or three weeks. That makes me think that there is cause for the criticism, that for one reason or another. the officials of the Foreign Office have not shown themselves sensitive to the big events and the great currents that we have seen in Europe and in the world during the last five years. There is the other phase, the other side of
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  the feeling of dissatisfaction—the feeling within the Service itself. I believe that I am within the mark when I say that at present there is a very general feeling of dissatisfaction within the Service against the conditions under which its members are serving.
  In the Service you have excellent material, men of really distinguished ability and very high training, and yet you find them, whether they hold higher positions or lower positions, profoundly discontented with the present conditions of the Service. They are discontented with the fact that much of their ability, owing to a faulty division of labour, is at present wasted upon purely routine work. They are discontented because certain branches of the Service—for instance, the Diplomatic Service—are altogether in adequately paid. A Service that for the first two years gives the man no pay at all, and further demands from him that he should have an income of his own of £400 a year, suffers from conditions that to my mind are absolutely indefensible. I am aware that in these two respects, under the new Regulations, the Foreign Office is making great improvement, but to me it is incredible that conditions of that kind should have gone on so long. Take another reason for discontent. The diplomats feel, and always have felt, that the men on the spot do not receive the attention that they should receive at home. Take, again, the fact that, for some purpose or other that I do not understand, the Consular Service is held to be inferior to the Diplomatic Service. The fact that Consuls, many of whom have a unique knowledge of the countries in which they are serving and of the languages of those countries, many of whom are doing work of the first importance—the fact that these men see themselves inferior in status to the Diplomatic Service, seems to me to be not only a justifiable cause for discontent within the Service, but an absolutely indefensible position. There, in a few sentences, are the problems connected with the Foreign Service that I have in mind—a Foreign Service that at the present moment, in spite of the excellent men that it has as its members, does not possess the full confidence of the country; a Foreign Service that is administered in such conditions as to leave the officials in London, the diplomats abroad, and the Consuls in the various countries in which they serve justifiable causes for discontent and irritation.

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  With that problem in mind, I ask myself how it is possible to regain for the Service the general confidence of the country and to introduce into the Service conditions that will remove the existing causes of discontent and irritation. I believe that no little measure of the discontent of the country is due to the existing conditions of admission. I am quite aware that, owing to changes that have been made during the last few years, the Foreign Service is no longer the close borough that it was ten or fifteen years ago. I am quite aware that the criticism of the Service in that respect has sometimes been ill-directed and some times exaggerated. None the less, I do feel that some measure of the lack of confidence the country as a whole feels to wards the Foreign Office is not a little due to the fact that it is a service apart, with rules of its own for admission, and that it is not open to all the talent as other Government offices are.
  Although so many restrictions have been removed, there is still a provision that it is necessary, before competition for admission to the Service, to obtain the approval of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and of a special Foreign Office board of selection. The defence to this exceptional treatment is that every precaution—exceptional precautions, in fact—must be taken to ensure that our representatives in foreign countries are trust-worthy men of really first-class ability. I acknowledge the importance of it. You must have men of a high standard of education. You must have men who are not susceptible to any kind of improper influence, political or financial. You must have men upon whom you can absolutely rely as worthy representatives of the nation in foreign countries. But, granting all this, special limitations, the limitation of nomination and approval by a special selection board, I have come to the conclusion that really does more harm than good. They do harm by leaving the impression upon the public outside that the Service is still a close borough, restricted to a particular class, and on that account they shake the confidence of the country in the Service. I do not Relieve that they are really necessary.
  Of course we want men whom we can trust as the country's representatives abroad, but so also do we want men whom we can trust as the country's officials in the Government offices in this country. Let us ask ourselves this question, Which
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  office on the whole has gained the better men, the Treasury, after forty years of open competition, or the Foreign Office with these limitations, modifications and exceptional treatment? From the experience of the War I draw this further conclusion. I look to Paris and I see that the two most successful British delegates in the Peace Conference, the Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for the Gorbals Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes), would neither of them have been eligible to be even third Attaches in a South American Legation with the limitations and conditions which have been in force in the foreign service during the last thirty years. On that account I say that the time has come to merge for the purposes of administration the foreign service into the general organisation of Government offices. I mean by that that candidates for admission into the foreign service should sit for the ordinary Civil Service examination. Probably in future there will be three such examinations, an examination at the age of sixteen or seventeen, an examination at pre-graduate age, and another examination at post-graduate age. I want candidates for the foreign service to enter those examinations just like any other candidates. It is possible that a candidate might pass creditably in a Civil Service examination, but that there might be no office open for him in the foreign service. If he entered for the general examination he would not have wasted his time, because he might then obtain an appointment in one of the other Government offices. In addition to examinations I think it is quite possible in the future, and this was one of the subjects which the Royal Com mission on the Civil Service considered at some length, that there should also be a personal interview of the candidates Mho had sat for examination. I am quite ready to say that those candidates, having had their written examination, should also have a personal interview to see if there was any reason why they were not suitable for the foreign service. But what I want to emphasise is, that any kind of selection board must not be a special board for the foreign service, but a general selection board working either on rota or one single board, as the case may be, for the whole Civil Service. I do not want the examination for the foreign service to be a different examination from that for any other service. I have consulted many

  495
  people well qualified to speak, and they tell me it is perfectly possible to ensure that the special qualifications—for instance, an accurate knowledge of foreign languages, should have their full weight in the ordinary Civil Service examination and that it is perfectly easy to organise the first, second and third division examination by a system of groups in which every candidate for the foreign service, whether he be a candidate for the Diplomatic Service or the Consular Service, could compete and could give the examiner an adequate opportunity of testing his qualifications. That is my first point, that the foreign service should be brought into the general swim of the whole of the Civil Service, and that, candidates should enter by the ordinary Civil Service examination and that if there is to be any board of selection that the board should be for all Civil servants rather than a special board for the Foreign Office or Consular service, or any other branch of the Foreign service.
  I come to the second point to which I desire to draw the attention of the House, and here again I feel that it is one of the ways in which we could improve the ad ministration of the Foreign Office. I want, as I have said, candidates to be admitted by the ordinary Civil Service examination and to be admitted into a single graded service. At the present moment the Foreign Office, although it is a small service, is divided up into a number of water tight compartments. I say watertight compartments advisedly. I know that in theory there is interchangeability between them, but in actual practice the inter changeability is so rare that for the purpose of general argument I think I may well ignore it. You have got now, first of all, the Foreign Office with a staff of 121 officials. You have got the Diplomatic service with a staff of 120 officials. You have got the General Consular service with a staff of 165. You have got the Far Eastern Consular service with a staff of 101, and that service is again divided up into three more or less watertight compartments, the China service, the Japan service, and the Siam service. Then you have got the Levant service, also more or less a watertight compartment, with an establishment of ninety-seven. And lastly, you have got the Department of Over sea Trade, the exact position of which I
  496
  do not understand, as it is under two Ministries at once, and has a staff of 561. In other words, you have a personnel that amounts to about the strength of an Infantry battalion divided up into nine more or less watertight compartments. It is my conviction that no service organised on those lines could be properly administered. Hon. Members will see at once the difficulties and anomalies which must arise in a service which, though nominally a single foreign service, is actually divided into nine more or less, watertight compartments. I say at once, take the first step, and a step which I believe is regarded favourably by the Foreign Office, and amalgamate the Foreign service and the Diplomatic service. I do not think I need labour that point. It is probably obvious to every Member of the House this evening that that would be a step in advance. But I go further than that, and I say not only amalgamate the Foreign Service and Diplomatic service, but amalgamate both with the Consular service. I know that up to the present there has been an opinion very widely felt that the Consular service and the Diplomatic service differ materially, and the Consular service has been regarded as an inferior service It was urged on the Royal Commission on the Civil Service that a higher standard of education was necessary for the Diplomatic service, and moreover, it has been urged frequently that the functions of the services differed so much that it was impossible to amalgamate them. To these objections I say this. I say, first of all, that as far as an educational standard goes the Foreign Office themselves admit that as high a standard is necessary for the Consular Service as for the Diplomatic Service, for I understand that they are in the act of assimilating the examinations for admission into these two services, so that that objection is wiped away. Then there is the objection that the functions of the two services materially differ. I have seen during the War something of the work of the diplomats and of the Consulates at first hand, and the more I have seen of it the more convinced I became that, although in many details the work of the two services differed, materially it was very much the same, and that the whole course of events in Europe was making it more and more the same. I am aware that there is the other school of thought which says that the Consular Service in its functions is so distinct from the

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  Diplomatic Service that it ought to be cutaway from the Foreign Office altogether and put directly under the Board of Trade, or under the Ministry of Commerce that perhaps we shall see in the future. I would regard any such proposal as that with great regret, and for this reason. I believe that it would be disastrous to the Diplomatic Service to be cut adrift from all the great questions of commerce and economics. It would leave the Diplomatic Service in a more stagnant backwater than it often finds itself in at present. In the future, economic questions are bound to play an even greater part in the country's life, and to me it would be an act of unpardonable retrogression if, with economic questions playing so large a part in our national life, we cut the Consular Service away from the foreign service and put it under the Board of Trade; and I believe it would also have this further disastrous effect.
  I believe that one of the lessons that we have learned during the War is that in a foreign country the nation can only be represented in face of the foreign Government by a single Department. The Germans tried a different principle, the principle of leaving their military Attachés, their naval Attachés, and their commercial Attachés practically independent of their Ambassadors, and the result was that you had the Ambassador with one policy and you had the Attachés with different policies, and very often diametrically opposite policies, in the same country. Let me give the House one example. There was a moment in the War when the German Minister in Christiania was carrying on some extremely delicate negotiations with the Norwegian Government. At that moment the German Naval Attaché, who had an entirely different policy, was spending his time in smuggling dynamite bombs through the courier's bag. The House will see at once how hopeless is adminstration in a foreign country when you have the Ambassador with one policy and some other British official very likely with a totally opposite policy, and I believe that to put the Consular Service under the Board of Trade would mean that the Consular Service, with the Commercial Attaché possibly at the head, would have one policy and the Ambassador very likely would have a divergent policy. On this account I take the opposite view, that, so far from removing the Consular Service from the pur-
  498
  view of the foreign service, I go the length of saying that the two services ought to be one single foreign service, that every diplomat ought to have an economic training, and that to many diplomats it would be a great advantage if at some time during their career they had served in one of the great and important Consulates of the world. Incidentally, that, of course, means that the Department of Oversea Trade must come directly under the Foreign Office. I believe, rightly or wrongly, that the divided control of the Department of Oversea Trade has been most unfortunate, and I say it for this reason: There is my hon. Friend (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) on the Front Bench. Anyone who has been in this House for some time will know that with his abilities no one was "better fitted to make a great success of that Department, and I am convinced that the fact that with all his ability he has not been able to make a greater success of the Department of Oversea Trade shows that the present divided system of control is quite impossible. There are my two first points in the reorganisation of the foreign service—the amalgamation of the Diplomatic Service and the Foreign Office, and the amalgamation also of the Consular Service.
  The third point that I desire to make is that when those two changes have been made the service must be one single-graded service. A man, whether he enters at seventeen or eighteen or twenty-three, will enter a single service with a definite place in the hierarchy of that service. At the top, to give two or three examples, you will have the first or second grade, with certain Ambassadors in it, with the Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office, with the Secretary-General of the League of Nations—because one wants to work that all in the same organisation; lower down, you will have a grade with Ministers, assistant secretaries,. British representatives upon international commissions, of whom there probably will be many in the future, and one or two of the Consuls General; lower down still,, you will have the lower division clerks,, whatever be their designation in the future, certain of the Consular posts, officials such as archivists, officials such as King's messengers. Everyone will have some definite post in this single unified service. The pay of the various grades will be uniform. A man in such and such a grade will know that whether he is serving

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  abroad or whether he is serving at home lie will receive a uniform rate of pay. If he serves abroad there will be a definite amount attached, to the particular post as a living allowance or as an allowance for an establishment of an office in that foreign country. No man, therefore, will lose or gain financially by remaining at home or by going abroad. Every man in the service will have a chance, not only of pro motion, but of variety of work. One of the difficulties that I remember being emphasised in the Royal Commission on the Civil Service was the difficulty of finding promotion for the second division clerks in the Foreign Office. Under my scheme, there would be a number of posts graded in the same grade, or in the grades immediately above the grade to which second division clerks would look for pro motion in the ordinary course of events. My system, therefore, I urge, would re move one of the great difficulties in finding promotion in these numerous small services. By having one big service there would be a much more open career to every man in it.
  With reference to the foreign posts, I would draw a very clear distinction between the salary attached to the post, and the foreign service allowance that would also be attached to the post. At the pre sent moment—to take a single instance—.you have the Ambassador in Rome who, nominally, has a salary of £7,000 a year, but of that salary no less than £2,100 goes in Income Tax and Super-tax, and a great part of the rest goes in expenses that ought to be office expenses borne on the Votes of the general foreign service. My scheme would mean that a post like that would have a salary, say, of £l,500 or £2,000 a year attached to its holder, and the rest of the expenses would be office expenses based upon a definite establishment, sanctioned by this House, and in no way involving the occupant of the office in any personal expenses. Further, with this big uniform service, I believe that if merit is to be kept to the fore, and if the best people are to rise to the top, you must have in the Foreign Office at home, committees or boards dealing with promotion. I know there is a great feeling in the ser vice abroad that the further a man lives away the less likely he is to obtain promotion. He is lost sight of. I believe, with this big service of a thousand odd members, if you had two or three representative
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  committees—certainly two representative committees—in the Foreign Office, with all the various interests represented upon it, there would be less likelihood of the merits of men in distant places being lost sight of, and I believe one of the great causes of discontent with the conditions of the service at the present moment would be removed.
  9.0 P.M.
  There, in general terms, is this scheme of a uniform foreign service that I have in my mind. I may be asked why I am not satisfied with the changes that the Foreign Office are already undertaking. I am aware, for instance, that both the Foreign Office and the Department of Oversea Trade are in the Votes, which are now before Parliament, increasing the salaries of many of the Diplomats and Consuls, and that some of the causes of discontent will be consequently removed. I understand, for instance, that the hon. Member who directs the Department of Oversea Trade has ready to bring into operation a very important scheme under which the conditions in the Consular Service will be considerably improved. I am grateful. At the same time, it does not meet my contention. I do not want to see the various branches of the foreign service treated separately. I want to see the whole problem treated as a whole, and I can quite believe that, however excellent is his scheme, and however necessary are many of the rises in the salaries of the Consular Service he proposes, it may complicate, rather than simplify, the solution of the whole problem, because by treating the Consular Service as a separate service from the diplomatic and the other branches of the foreign service, you will be getting further away from uniformity rather than nearer to it. And what I want to see is a single-graded service with uniform pay throughout every single one of its grades.
  My Motion, I venture to think, is necessary for this further reason. I am aware that the Foreign Office are considering various reforms. I am aware that they are proposing certain improvements in the conditions of the service. But so they have been for forty or fifty years. The history of the Foreign Office during the last fifty years has been a continuous history of reluctant and very overdue agreement with reforms that were long over due. Time after time, years have passed before reforms, about which there was no controversy whatever, were adopted. For

  501
  years—to take one or two instances—the Foreign Office insisted upon conditions for its examinations that put a premium upon bad education and cramming. In 1886 Lord Ridley's Commission recommended that the Diplomatic and the Foreign Office personnel should be amalgamated. It has only been done this year. Commission after Commission, inquiry after inquiry, recommended that the condition that a man in the Diplomatic Service must guarantee an income of £400 a year should be abolished. That ridiculous condition Is only being abolished this year. And with the Consular Service for the last generation men of every party, and in every walk of life, have been clamouring for drastic reforms, and it is only now that any kind of substantial reforms are being introduced. Lastly, the Royal Commission on the Civil Service five years ago recommended that promotion boards should be set up, such as those that I have outlined during my speech this evening. So far as I know, those boards have not yet been adopted.
  Because of this continuous policy of delay in adopting reforms, in the face of strong public opinion in the country, I urge the House this evening to support my Motion, which would result in this: A Committee would be set up that would bring at once into operation the reforms which I have suggested this evening, and, by its terms of reference, would insist upon introducing into a service of water tight compartments a single uniform system. That need, in my view, is urgent. I see a machine which is out of date. I see a machine which, at any rate, to me seems to be working badly. I see magnificent material in our Diplomatic, Consular, and Foreign Office Services being wasted, because the machine is so out of date and working so badly. It is because of that, and because I wish to see the foreign service representative of all phases of our national life, because I want 'to see it not in. a backwater, but one of our central offices, that I ask the House to pass this Resolution, and ensure by passing it that the reforms that we have in mind shall be immediately carried out.
  Mr. CLYNES: I beg to second the Motion.
  I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman has rendered a real public service in selecting the topic covered by the terms of the Motion. I hope that the high value of the advice and information covered by
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  his speech will not be lost upon the Departments affected, or upon those representatives of the Government who later on will answer. I was privileged to work on the Civil Service Commission, whose labours, if they did not cover very much else, covered a very long period, as that Commission sat for between two and three years. It dealt with the whole range of our Civil Service. Finally it came to the Diplomatic and Consular branches which are dealt with in the Motion. That Civil Service Inquiry did very considerable good. Many of its recommendations have been the cause of improvements in several branches of the services. Unhappily, however, soon after the Commission completed its work the War broke out. Much of what no doubt would have been immediately taken in hand was thrust into the background by the larger events which consumed our attention, and that of most of the State Departments. Now that the War is over, it is fitting that this very large branch, and most important section of the work of the Commission, should again be brought to the public notice and some effective action taken to give full effect to the recommendations of the Commission. Not one of us can look at any part of the subject which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has brought before the House from any party standpoint. We can approach the subject without the influence of any class or party consideration whatever. It is a subject in which all classes are equally interested, no matter to what party or creed they belong. We are all, I hope and believe, equally anxious to spread and improve the reputation of our country abroad, and in any way to assist, as well as we can, those who are charged with these very heavy obligations—as they often are—of acting for their country, and sustaining its interest and good name in different parts of the world.
  As I understand the functions of our various representatives abroad they may be stated simply under three heads. They have to safeguard, and, when necessary, defend, our reputation and our good name in foreign countries. They have to assist, on occasion, to develop the trade and commercial interests of our country—not as paid or unpaid commercial travellers, or to pursue or advance in any way the interests of particular trading firms—but what we know broadly as the commercial name of Britain is to be sustained and upheld so far as possible by those who represent

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  it abroad. Thirdly, these representatives in these various offices are frequently called upon to look after the family and individual interests of British subjects who are serving or working in different parts of the world. For all these offices I am sure the House will agree there ought to be, if it can be secured at all, the highest possible quality of individual ability. There is no guarantee of securing such ability through the agency of any such property qualification as has been so properly censured by the Mover of the Resolution. If we are not prepared for any other revolution, I hope the House is in favour of completely turning down any kind of property qualification relating particularly to these appointments. We can well understand that in former years how it seemed to every party in the country to be the right thing that only those who had land, property, or a private in come of some substance should have the opportunity of serving their country abroad. We have learned in recent years that comparatively poor men can be men of high capability and of such qualifications as worthily to act on behalf of the country in the remotest parts of the world.
  I do not know whether the recommendations of the Civil Service Commission have been, or are to be, completely carried out by the Foreign Office or by the Oversea Trading Department. I shall be interested later to hear how far the Government is going in giving effect to these recommendations. I am also interested in trying to extract from the right hon. Gentleman opposite some amplification of the answer given to me in reply to a question. The answer to that revealed the fact that we have abroad some, I think, 540 unsalaried Consular officers. Just as on the one hand one reasonably objects to service of this kind resting on a property qualification, so we, on the other, should object to this service being a mere matter of ornament. Surely it can be no more than that in the case of these men, or most of them, who are serving without salary, and who therefore cannot be regarded as feeling fully the responsibility of the position they occupy. I can well imagine a number of instances where there may be no need for the appointment of a salaried official, where no one of the three branches of the service, Consular, Diplomatic, or Commercial, can be put in any jeopardy whatever "by
  504
  not having a salaried official. But in these 640 cases it seems to me we are seeking too much to run these services on the cheap, and we might well spend a little more State money in order to get a far better return than we may hope to get with such a number of unsalaried officers. I suggest to the House that the need of drastic reform in these matters has become more urgent and greater as time has gone on, and that we are fully justified in de parting altogether from both the practice and the traditions through which we have secured and sustained these appointments in the past. We cannot have too high a standard of efficiency in this branch of the service, and in view of the establishment of the League of Nations there is all the more reason for having the most efficient men we can obtain in our Colonies. We are looking to the League of Nations to help us to solve inter national questions, and we should feel far more confidence if we were assured that all these appointments were secured by accomplished and competent men. It is often very difficult, if not impossible, to give effect to all the recommendations of a Commission. They do not settle questions of principle or policy, and more frequently they deal with questions of method. Thousands of pounds have been spent on Commissions, whose labours after wards have been put upon shelves and their Reports have rested there without anything being done.
  I want to draw attention to what are precisely the recommendations, and the proposals of my hon. and gallant Friend in the Motion he has submitted to the House. He suggests four definite lines of action. First, that there should be a Committee appointed to carry into effect the recommendations of the Civil Service Commission in relation to the Consular and Diplomatic branch of the service. I sup port that proposal because the Report of a Commission can scarcely bear the full fruit of its work, and that full fruit can not be gathered by leaving the Report on the doorstep, so to speak, of any particular State Department which may be affected by it. It may be that the particular State Department concerned may not desire to be reformed, and may be well content with the state in which it is. We know that State Departments at time hare had to be propelled and forced for ward by outside pressure. The improvements suggested by the Civil Service Cora-

  505
  mission have not yet taken place, for which I do not blame any State Department, in view of the interruption of the War, but I think it would be better to have a Committee charged with the duty of applying those changes, and not leave the initiative to the Departments them selves.
  In another part of the Motion there is the definite statement that the positions should be secured by the test of examinations. We are well aware that in this, as in other respects, an examination may not be a perfect test. It is defective, as any other practice would be, but on the whole I think it is the best test, because it commands the greatest confidence, and though you may not secure by any process of examination absolutely the man who has all the qualifications required to fill a certain post, yet the fact that you have at least got that great element of confidence goes far to justify the House in accepting the view that these positions should be filled on the basis of a test examination. I have already dealt with the question of the complete abolition of any property or money qualification for the filling of any of these posts.
  Lastly, there is the very important point, which I was glad the Mover argued at some length, that there ought to be a single-graded service. I put it to the hon. Member that unless he can accept this almost revolutionary suggestion, it rests upon him to prove the contrary case. Certainly I think a case has been made out for the establishment and practice of this single-graded system, and I shall be greatly disappointed if my hon. Friend opposite cannot see his way to accept the Motion now before the House. I want to associate myself and my colleagues with both the terms and spirit of this Resolution, and I trust that hon. Members on all sides will see that we have a common cause to serve abroad, and that we have our reputation and goodwill and prosperity to maintain in all those lands. Therefore, regardless of personal questions or party, I think we ought to unite in doing something to advance the interest of our country abroad.
  Sir PARK GOFF:As a new and humble Member I crave the indulgence of this House. My only reason for presuming to intervene is that I have for many years had some personal knowledge of some of those parts of the world which I think come within the orbit of this Debate. As honorary King's Messenger during the War I have had the
  506
  privilege and opportunity of visiting our Embassies, Legations and Consulates in Europe and also beyond. From my youth upwards I have always had the most pro found veneration for this House, for its ancient history and privileges and customs, and this has been enhanced since I have had the honour of becoming a Member of Parliament. I have tried to prove my devotion by attending regularly every after noon, except upon those rare occasions when my Whips have sent me elsewhere to assist in losing by elections.
  I had not been many hours in this House before I appreciated and realised the kindly advice and assistance of old Members and officials. An old and distinguished Member in giving me advice said, "Do not speak more than you can help, and if you do try to know something about your subject." When I asked him the respective merits of oral and written questions he said, "It is entirely a question of whether you want things done or you want to advertise yourself." There is one point which has struck me as a new Member, and that is, when we realise that the population of the British Empire is 815,107,000, each of the 707 Members is legislating for1,152,000 souls. It is a serious responsibility, and I think it is germane to the Debate this evening. I admit that in. our endeavours
  we may be handicapped by those Departments of State which have always been proverbial for being so tightly encircled with that cordon of roseate hue. I have always tried to interest myself in foreign affairs, because I believe the conduct of our foreign policy is the pivot upon which the whole Empire turns, but when advocating this from any platform in the past I have found that it has fallen upon deaf and un interested ears, because for the most part people then were not quite sure whether Budapest was an Indian god or some new plague.
  I have no intention of criticising any person or persons. In my official capacity I have always received the greatest courtesy and consideration both at home and abroad. The stacks of my diaries may be of some interest to my executors as to men and matters, but now I merely reserve to myself the right to criticise the system. Personally, I do not believe that it would be either wise or practical to blend the two Services, although doubt-loss there are Consuls who would make good Ministers and diplomats who might

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  make useful Consuls. Modern diplomacy, to my mind, is an attempt to ingraft the archaic traditions of the Middle Ages on the modern customs of to-day. It was different in the Middle Ages, when an Ambassador was sent abroad to persuade some Royalty for reasons of State to marry a lady with a hump or with the face of an angel and a Satanic temper, or when Earls of Holland and Carlisle went to Paris to arrange the marriage of Charles and Henrietta and to conclude that treaty. Hon. Members are familiar with the famous dictum of Sir Henry Wotton:
  "An ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for the good of his country."
  To my mind, the fiction of all modern diplomacy is to cultivate good relations between nations and to find out their intrigues and to circumvent them. This War has proved the absolute fallacy of both. In 1914, twenty-five days elapsed between the assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, and yet, with the exception of the German and Austrian Ambassadors, not a single Ambassador knew anything about it at all. Of course, there have been and there are extraordinarily able diplomats. These men were remark able in spite of and not because they were diplomats. One reason why diplomats are at a great and serious disadvantage is that they live and move in such a narrow circle, and are therefore ignorant of current events, whereas a Consul can know everybody without loss of dignity and so gain an enormous amount of valuable information. During the War I formed a very high opinion, with very few exceptions, of our Consular Service. They did their work extremely well, especially in the sea port towns, where they were hard at it from six o'clock in the morning till ten o'clock at night, and often much longer. The new strain which was introduced during the War was also a very good one indeed. The men selected had not only a public school or a college education, but, what is much more valuable, they had along with that a sound practical experience of some business or trade. That is the class of man that we want in our Consular Service to-day. That is the man that we must have, and at the same time that is the man for whom we must be prepared to pay handsomely. Both services have been starved in this respect in the
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  past. We must lay down once and for all as the law of the Medes and Persians as-far as our Consuls are concerned, "Only British need apply." When you have not already a man exactly fitted or suited for a particular post, the remedy is to select the best Englishman resident there with an established business, with some real stake or interest in the country, a man who knows the language of the country, and, what is much more important, who also knows that he cannot be transferred to-morrow to some other part of the world altogether. A man may be a great success in the East and a hopeless failure in the West. It is our duty to see, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will see in the future, that there are no square pegs in round holes in our Consular Service.
  Personally, I should like to see the Consular Service, if possible, under and immediately responsible to some central control in London acting under the-Foreign Office. This would avoid those tortuous channels of communications between Legations and Embassies. At the risk of being egotistical, I will illustrate what I mean by stating what happened to myself in September, 1917, when I was arrested as a spy and a revolutionary owing to German propaganda. I asked my Consul to wire to London, and he said he could not do so without getting leave first of all from the Ambassador. I then asked him to wire to the Ambassador, and he said he was very sorry but he could not do that without first getting the leave of his Consul-General, who was resident 150miles away. At that time Spain was under martial law, and they were in the position of dreading the outbreak of peace. In my judgment, the two countries that we have got to look to in the future from a trade point of view are the new Russia and South America. In the thirty-four journeys that I made across the North Sea I never travelled once without there were some Americans or some Scots men who were on their way to Russia and Siberia both with their bumps of acquisitiveness abnormally developed. Spain is the jumping-off ground for South America, and immediately the United States came into the War all the sea ports of Spain and Portugal, and all the towns, were flooded with Consuls and Vice Consuls, and so-called Naval Consuls from America, but if you scratched any one of these men; you found a most astute and thoroughly capable commercial traveller. There was-no lack of money either for themselves

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  or their propaganda. They always selected the best and most prominent sites for their Consulates.
  As regards our Consulates, I am very sorry to say that for the most part they are a perfect disgrace to the dignity and prestige of the British Empire. I should like to take hon. Members with me to four points of the compass in Europe—to Moscow and Odessa in the East, to Oporto and Lisbon in the West, to Bergen in the North, and to Brindisi in the South. I feel sure they would all agree with me that some of them would shame even one of Mr. Smillie's best. The reason is not far to seek. The Consul, with inadequate housing and office allowance, cannot afford to keep up a house commensurate with the great position which he ought to hold as a Consul of the British Empire. Our Consulates, like out Embassies and Legations, ought to be bought by and kept up by the State. It is not the Foreign Office that is to blame. It has nothing to do with the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office has had enormous demands made upon it during the War, and those demands have been met in the most generous spirit that it was permissible to meet them. No, it is not the Foreign Office. It is that universal departmental scapegoat, the Treasury, an abomination unto many, but departmentally a very pleasant help in time of trouble. The War is now presumably over, but the great commercial war is merely in its in fancy. We are face to face with the keenest competition in the- world. We are face to face with the most zealous and the most jealous competitors. The interests, as far as trade is concerned, of the British Empire are at stake to-day. Now is our opportunity and our chance, and if we miss it, it is gone for ever. We must grasp the nettle firmly. We must remember that to spare the purse is to spoil posterity. It is not sufficient for us in these days that Britannia should rule the waves; Britannia must rule the roost as well. I thank the House for the patience and courtesy which has been extended to me. If I have spoken somewhat strongly it is because I feel strongly. I do feel deeply upon these matters, concerning as they do the prestige of our trade abroad. I love my country. My one sole aim and object is to see that country once again in the forefront of every nation in the world, a position which she has held, and proudly held, for
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  centuries in the past, and which, with God's help, she will hold for centuries to come.
  Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: The Motion before the House to-night is one which must be, of course, of very great interest to all parties, and, although I do-not personally quite agree with everything in it, I should like to say a word or two about the Foreign Diplomatic Service. Let me state, in the first instance, that, in my opinion, the Diplomatic and Consular Services should not be joined together; they should be kept apart in the future at they have been in the past. The Diplomatic Service has, at any rate, with all its faults, served the country well. No one can say that the service has been inferior to that of any other European country, at any rate for a hundred years—which is about the period of its existence as an established Diplomatic Service—it has kept us out of war, with the exception of the Crimean War; at any rate, it has kept us out of any serious war. I quite agree with everything said by the hon. Baronet who moved this Motion as regards the remuneration of our Ambassadors abroad. His suggestion that we should pay our Ambassadors a fixed sum and give them an extra allowance on the French system is a very excellent one, and might very well be followed out. But the principal, subject I wish to deal with is the Consular Service. Before the War there were many occasions when hon. Members raised the question of our Consular Service. They were always put off with evasive replies, and practically nothing was done to improve it. In the Foreign Office List for 1914 there were 489 British Vice-Consuls, of whom 245 had alien names, and even in 1918 there were 436 British Vice-Consuls, of whom 168 had alien names. With regard? to the Vice-Consuls, it is quite true that a very large number are unpaid and unestablished, and, therefore, as there was probably no suitable British citizen in the neighbourhood, we had to appoint foreigners to represent our interests. But I think the War has Shown us the tremendous value of having British people to represent British interests. We should, therefore, establish a Consular Service of a very much larger size than the one we? have at present, and it should be graded, as the hon. Baronet suggested, in different grades, with chances of promotion and adequate salaries. We know that a certain-

  511
  amount has been done lately towards that end, but I do not think anything like sufficient has been done.
  I was very glad to hear the remarks of the last speaker. He spoke about the ill impression caused by the way in which our Consulates are housed abroad. That has been one of the greatest scandals. Before the War, in Africa Germany had magnificent Consulates, which produced a great effect on the native mind and undoubtedly secured them a great deal of trade; whereas our Consulates were always dingy and of a very poor description, not only in Africa but also in other parts of the world. The reason of that is that we have never yet spent nearly enough on our Consular Service and have. starved our representatives so that they have not been able to keep up their positions. I hope that in the reply which will be made by the Government we shall receive some assurances that that is going to be remedied. I do not see why our Dominions should not be asked to help us from a financial point of view in keeping. up an expensive Consular Service, be cause if we were to work the Consular Service of the British Empire properly it would bring trade to every part of the Empire, as it already does. Therefore we ought to ask for some support from our. great Dominions. They are growing enormously in wealth and strength and have shown themselves -so eager to join us in every way, in trade and in promoting the interests of the Empire, not only from a commercial point of view, but also from a naval and military point of view, that I am sure they would help us in that way in treating the commercial interests of the Empire as a unified service instead of one that represents the United Kingdom alone. The pay of Consuls has been exceedingly inadequate in the past. According to the statements which are made frequently at meetings which have been held protesting against our Consular Service, their training has not been sufficiently of a commercial character. I believe it is the fact that under the German Consular system they trained all their Consuls, particularly giving them a thorough grounding in commercial law, banking, and the requirements of manufacturers. I do not see any reason at all why we should not adopt a better policy in that direction. If we get a very much larger service, with adequate pay and chances of promotion, a thorough grounding in commercial knowledge, with
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  proper allowances made fur the expenses of the position and for the rents or the purchase of the offices, then I feel quite certain that the financial return to this country in trade and in prestige would fully repay whatever expense it may be necessary to incur.
  Major WARING: I desire to associate myself generally with the terms of this Resolution so ably moved by the hon. and gallant Member for Chelsea. There are two or three points I wish to emphasise. The hon. and gallant Member spoke of a single-graded service. I agree that there should be a single-graded service, if by that he means that the. Status of our Consuls should not be subordinate to the status of the diplomats, as it is at the present time. The state of things at present is such that the Consuls cannot be come members of St. James's Club, which is the diplomatic club. That is absurd. I believe it is the fact that Consuls are not called on by diplomats. That is ludicrous. At the same time I agree to certain ex tent with the last speaker that the two Services should not be actually amalgamated. I would not like to see our Consuls become diplomats. They must be trained business men, and must be interested in trade. To a great extent now our Consuls are not interested in trade. One instance occurs to my mind in which a Consul was approached on some subject connected with business, and he said in an airy sort of way, "I suppose that Consuls are sup posed to take an interest in British trade." We do not want that sort of thing any longer. We must get business men, and their status must be such that they can represent Great Britain adequately in foreign countries in connection with business. My second point is in regard to the unpaid Consul. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Clynes) mentioned that there were 540 of these gentlemen. He said the number was too large. I say that the trading Vice-Consul ought to be abolished altogether. The system of employing trading Vice-Consuls is absurd, parsimonious, and absolutely fatal. It is impossible for a man to forget altogether his own business. A man would naturally be very chary in coins? to consult a Consul in a foreign town who may be, for all he knows—or possibly ho does know—actually a business competitor. That is what hap pens at the present time, and it should be changed.
  Another point I wish to make is that it is important, now that the War is over,

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  that every Consul who has held his post throughout the War should be changed. It is a very difficult thing for a Consul who has been in one place throughout the War to carry out his duties by reason of his being concerned in the black list. That would make it very difficult. All Consular appointments should be changed now. Fresh men should arrive with new ideas and view the whole situation from a new point of view. One word about pay. We all listened with the greatest possible interest to the speech of my hon. Friend below me (Sir P. Goff), and we all hope that his interventions in Debate in this House will be frequent in the future. I cannot speak with the same authority that he does, because my travels were not so extensive nor were my experiences so great. I did travel about to a certain extent during the War, and, as my hon. Friend will remember, we met in a distant part of the world on one occasion, and I think we motored together for a consider able distance. I do not know whether my hon. Friend favours oral or non-oral questions, but at all events I can find a taxi more easily since he came into this House than I could have done a few months ago. I am sure my hon. Friend will forgive me making these few personal remarks. I wish to associate myself with the re marks that fell from him with regard to the pay of our officials overseas. Take, for instance, the case of Commercial Attachés. The appointment of new men as Commercial Attachés is the one thing that has been attempted 'by the Department of Overseas Trade. There is one case that has come to my knowledge where a Commercial Attaché has been appointed and his pay, what with Income Tax and so forth, is actually less now than it was when he was a Consul before the War. He is no longer in a provincial town. He has been moved to the capital. His pay is actually less and the cost of living and upkeep of his position has immensely increased. You must pay an adequate salary if you want to get the results which we all want to see. You should have a good office. I know of one chancellery in which you go up a little tortuous staircase and axe ushered into a waiting room where there is no room at all. There is one arm chair there, and you must sit down in it because you cannot stand. There is no room for yourself and the chair as well. That is a thing that must be changed. You must have a decent office and waiting loom so as to impress foreigners with the
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  importance of our Empire. Of course, the men who have undertaken the duty must be paid a good salary in order that they can keep up their position. I associate my self wholly with the Motion, and I trust the reforms which we all desire will be carried into effect soon. This reform of the Consular Service was actually included in the Coalition programme and we are here to see that the Coalition programme is carried out, and I would urge the Government to carry it out with the utmost speed.
  10.0 P.M.
  Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY: This is a most important Debate, and I am only sorry that, instead of having inside three hours, we have not a longer time in which to discuss the question. So far as it has proceeded it must have delighted the heart of the hon. Gentleman who is going to reply, because on the most important portion of the Resolution there has been some division of opinion, which is always, so far as I am aware, a matter for gratification on the Treasury Bench. But the hon. Members (Sir P. Goff, Lieut.-Colonel Archer-Shee and Major Waring) seem to me, in their objections to the unification of the Diplomatic, Foreign Office and Consular Services, to have missed the point made by the hon. Baronet (Sir S. Hoare). I was very glad to hear him lay particular stress upon the necessity for unifying these three services. Ho did so for several reasons, to which the hon. Members to whom I have referred made no allusion whatsoever. His argument was that it was necessary to amalgamate these services in order that in the future diplomacy and commerce should walk hand in hand, which they have been unable to do in the past. The hon. and gallant Gentleman (Lieut.-Colonel Archer-shee) was quite content-with the Consular Service that it is pro posed to introduce within a short space of time, but that is not sufficient. If the Government will amalgamate the three services, all the other reforms to which hon. Members have referred will follow in their wake. To my mind the most important part of the Resolution is that it would amalgamate these services, and I say so as having had some considerable experience of the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service during my Parliamentary career and having seen the. work of Embassies and Legations at close quarters during the later stages of this War. If a scheme of amalgamation which would prevent the working of these three

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  services in watertight compartments were put into operation by the government it seems to me that it would hinge very largely upon the position of the Department of Oversea Trade.
  The hon. Baronet very rightly said that Department had not achieved what it was hoped it would achieve, and the reason for that was quite clear, that there was joint control. In one sense it was responsible to the Board of Trade and in another to the Foreign Office. It is rumoured that the Board of Trade, or the Ministry of Commerce as it will be, would like the Department of Oversea Trade to be wholly responsible to them. But in the scheme which has been suggested by the hon. Baronet, it seems to me that the Department of Oversea Trade might be the responsible head in London of all of what are now the Consular Services abroad. It would collect from what are now called the Consular Services, from the officials of the amalgamated services, all commercial intelligence, it would be a fountain of supply for the Foreign Office itself, it would pass on to the Board of Trade such commercial intelligence as was necessary to the Board of Trade for home affairs, and the Commercial Intelligence Department of the Board of Trade dealing with home affairs would be in close connection with the Department of Oversea Trade. I cannot myself see any reason why it should not be done. It would be of great assistance to the Foreign Office, and it would ensure co operation between the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office and the Department of Overseas Trade. I hope the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office will not be allowed to disintegrate. I have some experience of the great value to the country of the Political Intelligence Department during the War. It was created during the War and it did great work, but there are signs that it will be allowed to fall to pieces unless some very strong action is taken in the immediate future. I hope that will not foe done, and that the hon. Gentleman will be able to give us an assurance that it will continue as one of the most active branches of the Foreign Office.
  There are several other matters, but I will limit myself to one matter which has not been referred to, and that is that in any scheme of re-organisation I hope that every encouragement will be given to our
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  Overseas Dominions and Colonies to enter candidates for the foreign service examination. I believe that there is one—I speak subject to correction—member of the Diplomatic Service who is a resident of one of our great Dominions over seas. If the Government would encourage the Dominions to enter candidates for this service it would serve as a bond of unity within the Empire and would undoubtedly be a great accession of strength to the service itself. I hope the hon. Gentleman when he replies will be able to say that he is prepared to set up the Committee called for by the hon. Baronet in his Resolution, and to lay down as to the terms of reference the Resolution, and as it appears upon the Paper. I hope he will not pay too much attention to the speeches which have been made in opposition to the proposals of the hon. Baronet. It is quite impossible in the short time at our disposal to examine this subject at any length. Were it not so, I feel perfectly sure that other hon. Members would be able to bring forward added and stronger arguments in favour of an amalgamation of the three services. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to inform us at least that the Government are prepared to set up the Committee asked for.
  Mr. GRANT: This subject is one of great and far reaching importance with regard to our future relations with foreign countries, and it is especially of importance in regard to the future of our overseas trade on which so much depends. No one is satisfied at the present moment with the arrangements for our overseas trade. Our financial situation consequent upon the War demands the fullest development of our trade in all parts of the world, and to attain this it is surely necessary that all the assistance possible should be given by the Government to traders at home and abroad. To do this, we must have machinery of the most perfect nature that we can fashion. I think the importance of this cannot be over-estimated. The hon. and gallant Member who moved this Resolution gave his conclusions as to the best machinery to be adopted. I think that much that he said is already in contemplation by the Foreign Office. He suggested, and the hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken agreed with him, that there should be an amalgamation between the Diplomatic and Consular Services, and he rather preferred the Foreign Office. There I must differ. I think all trade matters ought to be

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  divorced from the control of the Foreign Office. If my hon. and gallant Friend desires to extend the sphere of operations of the Foreign Office, I desire to curtail them so far as trade is concerned.
  It is of the utmost importance that we should have the fullest commercial development at the present time, and it seems to me almost elementary that if we are to have the fullest development we should have a great Department of State whose sole duty it is to look after our commercial interests. I do not think that we can divorce one portion of the trade of our Empire from another. It is all interdependent. It is one and the same thing—our trade in foreign countries, in our Colonies, and in this country. You cannot divide it. I cannot see how you can have two controls over the same thing. If you have the Foreign Office looking after one part of our trade and the Ministry of Commerce looking after another part of our trade you will inevitably introduce different methods, and you will introduce friction and will not obtain the best results. What you require is a great Department of Commerce presided over by a Minister of first rank, subservient to no one, whose sole interest is to look after the whole trade of the Empire. Our rival commercial nations spare no efforts to assist their trade. They do what they can to gain our markets, to gain markets which we formerly held successfully—and never more successfully than they have been during the War—and to obtain new markets for their trade. We have no weapons to successfully counter that attack. I desire to make no criticism of the work of the Foreign Office, but trade has never been the business of the Foreign Office. It is traditionally incapable of dealing with it.
  I quite agree that in foreign countries the representative of the Crown, the Minister, must be at the head of the affairs of his fellow-subjects, and that would seem to argue the necessity of Foreign Office control in that country. But that control need not be of a real character. I do not think it need be of a more real character than is the control of the Crown over the. Departments in this country. Of course, the Minister should be cognisant of all that goes on, and be able to communicate with the Foreign Office as to what goes on; but ho should not interfere locally with the representatives of trade. The representatives of what would be the Ministry
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  of Commerce should work under and work through their chief at home, a Minister who would be on an equality with, the Foreign Minister, and if it was necessary to apply to the Foreign Office for assistance the instructions should come from home from the Minister of Commerce and it should not be done locally by interfering with trade. What we want is to get the best results, and I do not believe that you will ever obtain the best results by amalgamating trade and diplomacy. "You will never get the finished diplomat to be a trained commercial expert any more than you would get a man whose mind is saturated with the complications of trade to understand the niceties of diplomacy. The two turns of mind are contradictory. It is the business of the diplomat to study, interpret, and report upon political matters in the country, in which he lives, and to confine himself to that work and become expert in that science it takes a man's whole time. I do not think you will obtain the best results or get the best diplomacy if you require of such men that they are at the same time to deal with business. On the other hand, if you are to have your trade assisted in foreign countries, it should be by a class of man who have from their schooldays been trained in business affairs. Broadly, these men should be specialised in certain industries in the country where they are to be employed, and get an intimate knowledge of the products and requirements of that country, and they ought to be equally well informed as to the capacity of manufacturers at home to meet these requirements, and to be able to explain to them what is required and how best they can meet these demands. That is the life work of a man, and it could not be successfully accomplished unless you had cordial co-operation between traders in other countries and those at home. A diplomatist, I think, would become more efficient by gaining experience in different countries, whereas a commercial expert would become more expert by spending his whole life in giving attention to one country and its industries, and I cannot see how you are to gain the best results if you amalgamate the two duties.
  Our commercial colonists in foreign countries have long ceased to have any hope of assistance from any Department that we have at home at present. They have no faith in the Foreign Office assisting them, and it will take time to build up such a faith. If we could give them such faith, it would be an enormous

  519
  impetus to them to make further efforts. It would give some hope that you had Departments at home who had their interests at heart, whose sole duty it was to assist them in every way. They could feel that they were on an equality with rival nations, and get the assistance which their rivals get. It would give them hope. It would give them an impetus which they deserve, and would add enormously to the prosperity of this country. Last year I had the opportunity of realising, in South America, what this feeling was with regard to Departments in this country. Hope was revived in traders when you established the Department of Over sea Trade. They thought, "At last the people at home will take some notice of what we desire, and will give us that help which our rivals have," but I am sorry to say, and I say it with no discourtesy to the hon. Gentleman, for I associate myself with what has been said, that the hopes originating from the Department of Over sea Trade have not been realised. The Department of Oversea Trade might surely form a nucleus for some great State Department of trade, which would have a status commensurate with the great interests with which it had to deal. I hope that we may have some indication from the Government to-night as to what conclusion they have come to. The time is long since past when action should be taken, and I only hope that to-night we shall hear that the Government have determined to take some action and to take it without further delay.
  Major BAIRD: No doubt the changed situation with regard to the Foreign Office in consequence of the establishment of the League of Nations will necessitate a revision of the whole of our mechanism for dealing with international relation, and it is right and proper that we should examine the organisation which we have for dealing with foreign affairs at this moment. I think that I am in agreement with what my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea said with regard to the amalgamation of the different branches of the service which deals with foreign affairs. In particular is that necessary with regard to interchangeability between the members of the service who serve at home and those whose duty takes them abroad. I think the House should not be under any illusion on one point, and that is that it-is going to cost a great deal of money. It will be money well spent, but we shall have
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  to find it. The present situation really is ridiculous. We find a man in the Diplomatic Service of the same rank serving in Paris, in Brussels, in Washington, or in Buenos Ayres. The coal of living in all these places is widely different, yet a man's salary is the same. It is physically impossible for a man to take his wife and family out to Buenos Ayres and to live there on pay on which ho could live perfectly well at Brussels. Everyone who has been in the Diplomatic Service has experienced these difficulties, and it really is time that something was done beyond talking to put matters right, because the present system is having a very serious effect in discouraging the kind of man who is required in the service to deal with our international relations. The service is a small one; it must necessarily be a small service. Consequently, we want the very best men we can get. But so long as the terms of service are such as obtain at present, there is no inducement for a man to put his son into either the Consular or Diplomatic Service, unless he happens to be rich. That is a point made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Manchester (Mr. Clynes), who objected, quite rightly, to the limitation in the selection of members of the Diplomatic Service, imposed now in regard to the necessity of a private income of £400 a year—a qualification which does not indicate any merit whatever on the part of the individual in question. But do not let us talk about taking away the limitation unless we are prepared at the same time to find adequate-salaries for the men to do the work. That is the first thing that must be done.
  Then there is the question which has been widely touched upon, of how the members of our Diplomatic and Consular Service can best render assistance to our commercial interests abroad. There are two sides to that question. I think anyone-who has had experience—it fell to my lot to be twelve years in the Diplomatic Service—of dealing with these commercial matters abroad, knows that, in the past at any rate, our business men have shown a deplorable lack of enterprise as compared with their foreign rivals in themselves exploring these fields of commercial enterprise. I remember that in the Argentine it was the rarest thing in the world to find a British commercial traveller, mere were numberless German, French, and American commercial travellers there investigating the situation. We used to get at the

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  Legation inquiries, cuttings from news papers, and so forth, but there was no organised effort to exploit the country in the interest of the commercial community, such as was made by our German and American rivals. I think that ought to be remembered when people expect, and wrongly expect, that the Consular or Diplomatic representative could take the place of a commercial traveller. That is an impossibility. What is possible is that it should be understood—there should be strong instructions issued to our representatives in foreign countries—that their first business is to push British interests and to push them in the way that the Germans and representatives of other foreign countries pushed their interests. There, again, you come back to the question of money very largely. There must be a local allowance for these posts. In the aggregate it is a small sum, but it makes a vast difference to the individual. Unless you put the Consular or Diplomatic representative in a position to entertain, to keep open house, to be a personage in the town, it is futile to expect him to do the work lie is sent there to do. That entails undoubtedly the. grant of an adequate local allowance, which would vary according to the cost of living and importance of the post to which the man is sent. Those are a very few points in connection with this very important topic, but most important of all is the frank realisation that it is the business of the British representative abroad, be ho diplomat or Consul, to push British interests to the utmost of his power. In the past we have been rather apt to stand aloof and to rather take the line that those who went in for commercial enterprises in foreign countries did so on their own responsibility and at their own risk, as there is plenty of room inside the British Empire, and if people chose to go outside the Empire to exploit their business they must look after themselves. That is putting the matter rather crudely, and I do not suppose it was intentional, but that was the effect. I believe that the best thing we can do, and the most important thing to be done in connection with the matter of our position abroad and the encouragement and assistance of our trade in foreign countries, is the realisation here at home of the necessity of affording every possible assistance to our business men in foreign conutries, which they cannot claim to have received in every case in the past, by a proper local allow-
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  ance and the raising of the standard and status of our foreign representatives in such a manner as to encourage the best men to go into the service.
  Mr. BETTERTON: I desire to support this Resolution, and I think the House is under a very great obligation to my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare) for bringing the subject forward. I think that one of the conclusions to which we have been drawn in this War is this, and it is strictly relevant to the discussion to-night, that in future the tendency will be to increase the importance of economic intelligence and possibly to decrease the importance of political intelligence. It is idle to suppose, as was pointed out by the right hon. Gentleman who spoke, that we have come to the end of trade competition, and, therefore, a policy resting on economic intelligence is more important than ever before. Policy, whether it be economic, commercial, political, naval, or military, depends on information and intelligence, and at present this aspect is even more important by reason of the League of Nations. I have got here the draft agreement and, as the House will remember, if arbitration fails the next weapon to be brought into operation is the economic weapon, and Article 16 provides the precise way in which that weapon is to be brought into action. As everybody knows there is, perhaps, no weapon which requires more accurate information and intelligence than the economic weapon, because it is a weapon which, while it may hurt our enemy may, if used in this country without sufficient intelligence, hurt ourselves a great deal more. There force in so far as this is concerned, complete and accurate intelligence is absolutely and vitally necessary. It seems to me that to divorce the sources from which we get this information, Diplomatic and Consular, is at the present time absolutely indefensible.
  How you can imagine that that information is going to be more valuable because you get it from two different sources I cannot imagine. As I said a moment ago, no greater responsibilty rests upon our representatives abroad at the present time than the sending of this economic information to this country. I have read a good many of these Reports to which we have been referred to-night, and I think that all of them fail to recognise the difference between what I may call economic information and commercial information. If you get this information from two different

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  sources, you may have your diplomat in the same town or city, on the same set of facts, reporting in favour of one policy, while you may have your Consul, on the same set of facts, supporting an absolutely different and possibly mutually destructive policy. I cannot imagine a greater evil than that that should happen, but that it is likely to happen, and I think has happened in the past, is beyond doubt.
  I am well aware of the great debt which the country owes to my hon. Friend the Member for Erdington (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) for what he has done for the Consular Service. He has improved its organisation almost out of recognition, and he has done a great deal to secure the better pay which was absolutely necessary; and whereas in the old days it was not unusual for a Consul to be sent from one end of the world to the other, from Odessa to South America, or from Japan to Spain, I believe now that he has done much to prevent these absurdities happening in future. But it seems to me that the hon. Member for Kincardine (Lieut. -Colonel A. Murray) went to the whole root of the matter when he said it was of very little use having a good Consular Service or a good Diplomatic Service unless you make good use of the information when you get it, and so, as a necessary corollary to any reorganisation or any improvement or blending of the Consular and Diplomatic Services, it seems necessary that you should have this under some central Department or part of a Department into which this information can flow. This economic information would be the information upon which the Foreign Office would act, it would be available to the Board of Trade in so far as it is commercial information, it would be available to the War Office in so far as the information is useful to them, and it would be available also to the Admiralty; but I do not myself believe that any Department of that kind will be either efficient or sat is factory unless it is practically independent of all existing Departments, and that the information which flows into it is available to all. I think a Report which has, perhaps, received too little consideration is a Report to the Ministry of Reconstruction of a Committee over which Lord Haldane presided, and which included amongst its members the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas), the hon. Member for Knutsford (Colonel Sir A. Sykes), and various other
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  people. This is one paragraph from the Report, which, I think, supports the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman:
  "We have come to the conclusion, after surveying what came before us, that in the sphere of civil government the duty of investigation and thought, as preliminary to action, might with great advantage be more definitely recognised. It appears to us that adequate provision has not been made in the past for the organised acquisition of facts and information, and for the systematic application of thought, as preliminary to the settlement of policy and its subsequent administration."
  I believe that, until you have some such department as I have indicated, where all this information and intelligence can be assimilated and used, to deal merely with the reorganisation of the Diplomatic and the Consular Services is to touch only the fringe of a vitally important question.
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND (Department of Oversea Trade): I am quite sure everyone in the House this evening will agree that we have had a most interesting debate within the limits which time has made possible, and, if I may say so, the speech of the hon. and gallant Baronet who opened the debate showed a grasp of the subject of the services as a whole, certainly unequalled by anyone who has-not been actually serving in those services. I think the occasion is the more fortunate, because at this time in all subjects of administration we are in the mood really for a national stocktaking, and it is-perhaps just as well that in a subject of this kind, which is not always a matter of common knowledge, and not very often, a matter for debate in this House, that stock should be taken of the present state of affairs, and, through such a debate as this, the knowledge should be disseminated to the public at large as well of affairs as they actually exist.
  As the time is short, and there is considerable ground to cover, I am sure hon. Members will not mind if I go straight to the point with regard to the various questions that have been raised. First of all, I would deal with the points raised, with regard to the conditions of the-Diplomatic Service and the Foreign Office. The hon. and gallant Member first of all drew attention, as did the right hon. Gentleman opposite, to the conditions of entry which were the subject of inquiry by the Royal Commission before the War. I am happy to be able to tell the House that, in the first place, the property qualification has been, done away with, and that is no longer in existence. In the next place,

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  what was considered as one of the causes which made it easy to speak of an exclusive service—that is, the necessity for a prior nomination by the Secretary of State before anyone could sit for examination—that has also been done away with and is no longer in existence. So also is the separate examination for the Foreign Office. At the present time, as of course everyone is aware, you cannot have the ordinary Civil Service examinations as they obtained before the War. During this interregnum there have to be special arrangements made, but at any rate a system has been quite definitely adopted, and will be brought into force as soon as possible—probably the year after next is the first year in which it will be possible—in which candidates for the Diplomatic Service and Foreign Office will sit in precisely the same examination as is held for the rest of the Civil Service. To that, perhaps, I ought to make just one exception, which, I am sure, will command the approval of everyone in the House, which is that special qualifications in languages are necessary, and therefore among the subjects which candidates will be required to take up is one or two special foreign languages. That, however, will not disenable those who have sat for this examination from passing into any other office if they do not happen to enter the Foreign Office or Diplomatic Service, but it is just one special qualification which will quite properly be demanded of those who enter those two services.
  Sir S. HOARE: Does that mean—this is a very important point—that anybody can enter for examination, under exactly the same conditions as for the Foreign and other offices?
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: Precisely the same. It is a Class 1 examination.
  Sir S. HOARE: That is not my point. My point is: Is any other condition necessary? Can anyone enter for the examination without selection or nomination?
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: There are just these two special points—there is the strict rule in regard to nationality——
  Sir S. HOARE: Yes, but that applies to everybody.
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: There is a stricter rule for the Foreign Office than
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  in the other services. The other point is that, after passing, the candidates come before a Selection Board.
  Sir S. HOARE: I am sorry to interrupt you, but the point is an important one. Is that Selection Board common to the whole service or peculiar for the Foreign Office?
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: If the hon. Gentleman would curb his impatience, I am just coming to that. In this case the Selection Board for the Foreign Office, Diplomatic and Consular Services will be a special one. The reason for that—and, I think, quite a right one—is that you do need to have those on the Selection Board who are not officials but who are acquainted with the special kind of duties of the Foreign Office and diplomatic officers. In precisely the same way the Consular Service will be dealt with by a Board possessed of such knowledge of the Consular subjects as will enable the members to give a first-rate opinion of the candidates that come before them. In order to avoid misconception, may I illustrate what is really intended by the composition of the Selection Board, which is even at present sitting, before the permanent system comes into force. That Board consists of the Chairman, the Chief Civil Service Commissioner, two members representing the Foreign Office, also four others, the hon. Members for Monmouthshire and Cam bridge University, Sir R. Maguire and Colonel Herbert, from the War Office. That is a Selection Board to which I do not think any hon. Member can take ex ception—the type of Selection Board in tended for the future.
  I come to the question of pay and grading. Here, again, I think the credit of it is very largely due to the initiative of the Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil), when he was Minister of Blockade and Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. The whole of that question is largely settled. The only parts of it not actually settled are details outstanding in relation to war bonuses, and other cognate matters. As regards pay, in the first place, the pay for both the Diplomatic and Consular Services is to be calculated on a scale which will enable the holders of offices in those two Services to live and maintain their position properly, and in addition—and this is a point upon which I have best laid stress—the remuneration they will receive is really divided into two parts, the

  527
  regular scale of pay which they will receive, and then a house allowance and local allowance, which will vary according to the expenses and other obligations incurred by their locality in. the country where they serve. The grading will be uniform right through out the whole service. Similarly with regard to the question of routine, of which a great deal too much was done by regular officials in the Diplomatic Service, and that will largely devolve on the subordinate staffs in the various missions abroad.
  Lastly, a Committee on promotions such as these ought to be has already been set up and is already at work, and it has passed the last promotions for the Diplomatic and Consular Services. All those re forms have actually been brought into effect. The only thing outstanding with regard to these questions is the actual settlement with the Treasury and the rates of pay, not that there is any disagreement as to the amount, but it has to be brought into correlation with the war bonus introduced during the War. I may say, broadly, that the whole of the recommendations that were really made in the fifth Report of the Civil Service Commission have been actually and definitely decided upon with those adjustments which the War has necessitated with one exception, and that is the recommendation dealing with the Second Division Service and the scheme for that is actually under consideration at' the present moment. Those are the conditions with regard to the Diplomatic and the Foreign Services. It has not been possible to bring those into force during the War because the conditions abroad have been anomalous, but it is not a question of waiting and considering. A Committee, like the Committee on pomotions, is already at work, but the rest of the points have actually been decided upon, and are being brought into force as rapidly as circumstances and returning peace permit.
  The second portion of the subject was what may be called the water-tight compartments into which the foreign services are divided. In the first place, the Foreign Service and the Diplomatic Service have already been amalgamated for this purpose. The staff will for the future be interchangeable, and indeed, one and the same. In fact, all the recent candidates that have been selected by the Selec-
  528
  tion Committee are now ready for either service, 60 that these two water-tight compartments have been merged into one. I turn now to another series of the Consular Services, originally divided into five services—the General, the Levant, China, Japan, and the Siam services. The China and Japan services, so far as the recommendations are concerned, will, I trust, remain separate services. And for this reason: I would have been glad to recommend that they should have been united with the others, but everyone conversant with the extraordinary differences of conditions in China and Japan, linguistic, racial, and others, knows that they present a case so peculiar that they have to be considered by themselves. On the other hand, as regards the case of the general service and the Levant service the recommendations have been accepted and have been merged into one, and I am considering the merging of the Siam service into this also. On the one hand, the desirability is recognised of having one large service without a water-tight compartment. Hon. Members may say, "Are you going to take a man from Northern Russia and move him down to the south of South America. The real answer is to have one service as a whole and no actual barrier between them, but within the one general service there will inevitably, with wise administration, be a quite natural selection, so that the officers who are accustomed to Latin languages, Latin mentality, Latin customs, habits of thought, habits of trade, and the rest of it tend to circulate in the Latin and Latin-American countries. and similarly with the Slavonic and Teutonic countries.
  Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY: Does the hon. Gentleman mean one general service to include the Foreign Diplomatic?
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: No, I have left the Foreign Diplomatic alone for the moment and am dealing with the Consular Service. Therefore, with the exception of China and Japan and conceivably Siam, the whole of the Consular Service will be made one big general service. With regard to the last amalgamation which has been suggested, namely, that of the Foreign Office and Diplomatic with the Consular Service and the Department of Oversea Trade, as all Members in the House may know it is an uncommonly difficult question to settle whether Over sea Trade ought to be a matter of foreign importance, and therefore go to the

  529
  Foreign Office, or ought to be a matter of trade and go to the Hoard of Trade. The present constitution of that Department was the result of the question having been considered very nearly two years ago. The Government have now come to the decision that they should go into the question again in the light of what has passed during the past two years, and consequently a Committee has been set up and will, I trust, begin to take evidence during next week.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Will it be a Departmental Committee?
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: I am just coming to the composition of it. Viscount Cave will be the Chairman and Sir Horace Munro, Mr. Dudley Docker and Mr. Kenneth Lee will be the other member Far from being departmental, the hon. and gallant Member will realise that there is not a departmental member upon it.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: I was only asking for information.
  Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: With regard to the two members who came from commerce and industry, I fancy every Member of the House knows that in the engineering world Mr. Dudley Docker is, if not possibly the foremost industrialist in the country, at any rate among the foremost, and Mr. Kenneth Lee, of the firm of Tootal, Braodhurst, Lee and Company, is one of the best known and most respected men in Lancashire and in the whole of the textile trade. The question is being gone into by the Committee, and the future of the Consular Service rests to a large extent on its findings. Consequently, hon. Members will realise that it is not possible to give any positive answer with regard to the further amalgamation that has been suggested. May I now deal with the question of the service and the conditions in the Consular Service. One or two hon. Members have alluded to the fact that perhaps we have not enough posts in the salaried service, and that that is the reason we have un paid Consuls. I think it is possible to increase the number of paid posts in the salaried Consular Service. In regard to the list of such increased posts, I have personally consulted men with intimate experience commercially and officially of the different countries, so that the allocation of the posts will, I believe, stand criticism as well (as any list that could be drawn out. On the other hand, I would
  530
  ask hon. Members to realise the difficulty that there is—and it is a complete differ ence—between the salaried and unsalaried Consular Services. They should not con fuse the two. There is no one who is not a British citizen in the salaried service. Hon. Members may ask why should there be an unsalaried service. The answer is clear. Even if you are willing to spend more money, there must come a limit some time to the number of salaried posts created, and then what are you going to do with the quite considerable number of towns abroad where you have no salaried representative. Is it not better to have a representative in those towns who even if he is unpaid, is not asked to contribute the same service as a paid Consul, but who will, at any rate, be able to help British citizens who may be stranded there in distress. I think the answer is obvious. But in every single case where there is a suitable British citizen available he is appointed. That is now the rule.
  I will pass very briefly to the pay and grading of the Consular Service. That, I trust, will again be improved. In any suggestions that are brought forward on these points, regard is had to the similar grades in the Diplomatic Service, so that the position in regard to future amalgamation should not be prejudiced. To that point I have paid special care. Proposals are also in hand to deal with housing and staff, and, incidentally, I may say that within the last fortnight a Canadian has been appointed to Washington to be attached to the Commercial Service there. What is desired is that they should have a commercial training which will enable them to understand the ideas of people with different kinds of interests in industry and commerce, and therefore included in the new training scheme, after candidates have passed the Foreign Office examination, they will for two years go through a special course in currency, financing, industrial organisation, transport, commercial geography, and commercial industrial law. I have endeavoured to explain the situation, and I hope the hon. Baronet will not press his Motion for a Committee. The real fact is that everything has been done that is possible, and the appointment of a Committee would really delay matters instead of pushing them forward. The machinery is already there, and I think it will be found to be really efficient.
  It being Eleven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

  531
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

  BEER SUPPLIES
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That this House do now adjourn."
  Mr. SEDDON: I wish to call attention to a matter of grave importance affecting the public life of this country and a situation which is fraught with danger. Last night I hoped to call attention to the very serious unrest and danger that is arising from the shortage of the beer supply in this country. Since then I have had the opportunity of meeting a very important and influential deputation from Lancashire, and from the statement made the matters that have happened in one city during the last few days are certainly menacing and of a very grave character. I see my right hon. Friend the Minister of Food in his place, I assume to answer any criticism I am about to make. Although I have the highest regard for him, so far as his reply is concerned, I anticipate that it will be just as effective as if Boadicea were brought in from the Embankment and given the power of speech to answer, because it is not my right hon. Friend's Department which is responsible, but something much more important—that is, the Cabinet itself. I am rather surprised that the Leader of the House, who was here up to the last moment, has not found it convenient to remain in his place. I am profoundly convinced that, unless the Cabinet change their attitude, this shortage of beer is not only going to be a menace but a great danger to civil order and will be a prolific motive of disturbance in a very short time.
  What is the position? If the whirligig of time had placed the Food Controller where I am sitting and had placed me where he is sitting, he would be doing what I am doing, criticising not only his Department but the Cabinet on this question. We are told that the Department responsible for this shortage of beer is the Food Department. My right hon. Friend stated yesterday, in answer to a question, that the cereal supply, potential and immediate, was not sufficient to re store the prewar supply of beer. I demur from that statement. He may have more information than I have, but I have been told by gentlemen in the country closely associated with agriculture that there is any amount of cereals that remain, un-threshed and that many farmers are in a
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  state of perturbation as to what is going to happen to their crops. Therefore, I want to enter this caveat against the information given me yester day, and I make this statement, on ex parte evidence, I admit, for the right hon. Gentleman to answer, that so far as the cereal supply is concerned it is enough both for the bread supply and the supply of beer approximate to the supply in 1914.
  Then the right hon. Gentleman must shield himself behind the fact that this is a question for the Cabinet. We have a Liquor Control Board. If I am to take it upon its actions and Its methods, I should come to the definite conclusion that it is in the pay of the Bolsheviks or that it is the creature of teetotalism, which is playing a very un-English game. This question has nothing to do with temperance at all. If fanatical teetotalism is the guide and philosopher of the Liquor Control Board, it is playing a very un-English game. If they want to make this country dry, let them come out flat-footed and meet their opponents and not take advantage of an organisation which is the creature of war and has been brought about by war conditions. Therefore the Liquor Control Board can not be attacked in this House. There is not a man to attack. It is a nebulous body so far as the House is concerned. It has drastic powers, but the Cabinet has fathered its decisions, and my charge is against the Cabinet. I want to give this warning. We have lived through four and a half years of war. The great mass of the people have worked strenuously and laboriously, not withstanding here and there an ebullition, an outbreak or a strike. After the Armistice was declared there was a relaxation, and people became irritable, and certainly susceptible to many influences which were not in the interests of peace, order, progress, and good government. One of the greatest irritants has been the curtailment of the beer supply. It was curtailed as a war measure. One hopes the War is at an end, except that the terms have to be signed, but during the last few months the people have been waiting for as increase in the supply of beer. There has been a small increase agreed upon, but it is not going to the consumer. On the other hand, I see I have been criticised for raising the question, because it has led to drunkenness, and it is said there has been an increase of drunkenness amongst women. One of the most prolific causes

  533
  of this increase, if it exists, is the control of the beer supply. The ordinary house wife, trained in the traditions of her race, looks upon her beer as an adjunct to her ordinary daily requirements. I have heard it said in Lancashire that bread and cheese is the staff of life, but bread and cheese and beer is life itself. The ordinary housewife, who believes a glass of beer at night helps to sustain her, has hitherto been able to go to the the nearest public-house, get a gill of beer in. a "bottle and consume it at her leisure over her supper. The publicans get more customers than they can supply over the counter, and, therefore, the woman who wanted a gill of beer to take home cannot get it, and she goes to the public-house and meets Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Jones. They say, "How do you do?"; begin to talk about their losses in the War, and the result is that, instead of having one gill of beer, she gets some times two or three gills. If there is an increase in drunkenness amongst women, it is caused because they cannot take their gill of beer home. In the interests of true temperance, there ought to be a larger supply of beer. So far as cereals are concerned, it is a possibility, and I warn the Government as to the position. In Lancashire they are getting near to the great holiday of Whitsuntide. In Manchester last night the trams were held up as a protest against the shortage of the beer supply. If that continues until the. Whitsuntide holidays, without being a dismal prophet, I warn the Government that, instead of there being passive resistance, there will be active resistance. If that takes place, the responsibility will be upon the heads of the Cabinet, because they have not taken cognisance of the real resentment against the shortage of beer, which has not arisen out of the shortness of supply, but because of some individual who is advising the War Cabinet at the present time. I am told that one of the advisers of the War Cabinet is the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas). He speaks with great authority,
  534
  but if my information is correct—I do not say that it is—and if he goes to the War Cabinet and says there is no unrest amongst the working classes because of the shortage of beer, then I would ask him to take the platform and make the same statement in Derby, and he will soon find that he has made a colossal blunder. I have brought this question forward purely in the interests of law and order, and un less something is done speedily there is going to be great unrest, which may lead to consequences, the effect of which no man in this House can conceive.
  Mr. HAILWOOD: The hon. Member has just spoken of the unrest in Manchester, and as a Manchester Member I feel it my duty to substantiate the arguments which ho has brought forward. I am quite convinced that the people of England in the past on whom we have relied have been people who have eaten beef and drunk beer. It has been one of our greatest assets as a nation that these people in the time of war have stood by the country. I am not an advocate of intemperate habits in any shape or form, but I am quite convinced that temperance reform is progressing slowly and surely in this country; but at the same time if we read of the old days we shall see that a gentleman. then was not considered a gentleman unless he kept two sorts of wine and swore. Happily those days have gone by, not in consequence of the Liquor Control Board but through the education and better feeling amongst the upper classes. I am-convinced that amongst the working-classes the progress of temperance is-making a forward move in the same way; but there is no reason why the working man should be absolutely deprived of a glass of beer if he requires, it. It is hardly necessary to bring forward the evidence which has been submitted.
  Notice taken that forty Members were not present; House counted, and forty-Members not being present,
  The House was adjourned at Sixteen minutes after Eleven o'clock till Tomorrow.

  PREMIUM BONDS.
  PREMIUM BONDS.
  CAPITAL ISSUES COMMITTEE
  CAPITAL ISSUES COMMITTEE
  EXCEPTIONAL PROFITS.
  EXCEPTIONAL PROFITS.
  LAND VALUATION DEPARTMENT (MR. W. D. LITTLEWOOD).
  LAND VALUATION DEPARTMENT (MR. W. D. LITTLEWOOD).
  CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS (IMPORT DUTY).
  CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS (IMPORT DUTY).
  ROYAL PARKS (EMPLOYES' SICK PAY).
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  UNESTABLISHED STATE SERVANTS (PENSIONS).
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  BEER PRICES.
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  MAIZE (COST OF SHIPPING).
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  POTATO PITS (ASSESSMENT OF DAMAGE).
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  REDUCED TO THE RANKS.
  REDUCED TO THE RANKS.
DEMOBILISATION.
  APPLICATIONS FOE RELEASE.
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  SIGNALLERS IN INDIA.
  SIGNALLERS IN INDIA.
  ARMY OF OCCUPATION (MACHINE GUN CORPS).
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  WOUNDED SOLDIERS (BONUS).
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  GUN FACTORY, BURTON-ON-TRENT.
  GUN FACTORY, BURTON-ON-TRENT.
NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
  CASE FOU INQUIRY.
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  SEPARATION ALLOWANCE (WIDOWED MOTHER).
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  PENSION COMMITTEKS (OFFICE ACCOMMODATION).
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  REGIONAL AREA (LANCASHIRE).
  REGIONAL AREA (LANCASHIRE).
  REGULATIONS (HAMDKOOK).
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  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (LEAVING AGE).
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  CYCLING, TOOTING COMMON.
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  BOLSHEVISM.
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  MINES INSPECTOR, NORTH WALES.
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  HOUSE-LETTING (BONUS).
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  LEA VALLEY (FLOODING).
  LEA VALLEY (FLOODING).
  PINE MILL COMPANY, OLDHAM.
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  DEPUTIES' ASSOCIATION (GRIFF COLLIERY).
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  FISHERY CRUISERS, SCOTLAND.
  CHEMISTS AND DRUGGISTS (REGISTER).
  CHEMISTS AND DRUGGISTS (REGISTER).