Sitting of 19 March 1919

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Lancashire and Yorkshire and London and North Western Railway Companies Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Wednesday, 2nd April.

STANDING ORDERS.
Resolutions reported from the Select Committee:

1. "That, in the case of the Leeds Corporation [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 Llanelly Rural District Council, Petition for leave to deposit a Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with: That the parties be permitted to deposit their Petition for a Bill."

Resolutions agreed to.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  INDIA.

    LAJPAT RAI (DEPORTATION)
    Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the statements regarding the deportation of Lajpat Rai and the account of his revolutionary crimes published in the Rowlatt Report; and, if so, will he now reconsider his offer to consider the matter of granting Lajpat Rai a passport to return from America on the signature of peace?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Fisher): The Secretary of State is not prepared to give any undertaking that would impair his freedom of action in this matter.

    ARMY OFFICERS (INVALID PENSIONS.
    Colonel YATEasked whether officers of the Indian Army placed on the perma-
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    nent half-pay list before the outbreak of war, but liable to recall and actually recalled for service during the War, have been refused the revised scale of invalid pensions published in Army Instruction (India) No. 363 of 1918; and, if so, will he reconsider the question in view of the hardship involved?
    Mr. FISHER: The liability of certain retired officers of the Indian Army to be recalled to duty in India has never been considered to apply to officers on the permanent half-pay list, and no officers on that list have been recalled to duty in India, though some have offered their services to, and have been employed by, the War Office. If, notwithstanding this explanation, the hon. and gallant Member still wishes to pursue the subject, perhaps he will give me particulars of any case or cases that he has in mind.

    EMERGENCY LEGISLATION.
    Colonel YATEasked whether, considering that the Rowlatt Committee reported that the preventive measures for dealing with future emergencies must be ready for use at short notice and must therefore be on the Statute Book in advance, that to postpone legislation till the danger is instant is to risk a recurrence of the history of the years 1906–17, and that the Government of India, in proposing to limit this legislation to a duration of three years, will throw an unfair burden on their successors in office owing to the violent agitation that will certainly arise against the renewal of the legislation at the end of the three years, he will suggest to the Government of India the advisability of reconsidering their proposal?
    Mr. FISHER: The Secretary of State does not propose to take the course suggested by the hon. and gallant Member.

    HOMEWARD PASSAGES.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for India if he can announce any further reductions in the fares charged for homeward passages from India, the present rates proving in many cases prohibitive for pubic servants and their families?
    Mr. FISHER: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave on 12th March, in reply to the question on the same subject of the hon. and gallant Member for Melton.
    Sir J. D. REES: Does my right hon. Friend know that the shipping conference at Calcutta has passed a resolution which would point to the whole matter being in the hands of the Shipping Controller and to the maintenance of existing rates?

    DELHI CONFERENCE.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for India whether he can give the House any information regarding the resolution at which the ruling princes arrived at their recent Delhi conference; and whether he can make any statement regarding the speech made by His Highness the Maharaja of Gwalior at the close of the conference?
    Mr. FISHER: The text of the resolution of His Highness the Maharaja of Gwalior's address to the Viceroy, and of the Viceroy's reply, is given in full in the Indian papers. I shall be happy to place a, copy in the Tea Room. The Secretary of State cannot add anything to the Viceroy's reply.

    CIVIL SERVICE (PAY AND LEAVE).
    Sir J. D. REESasked whether any proposal has been made by the Government of India to guarantee by Statutory Order of the Secretary of State in Council the pay, pensions, leave, and conditions of service of the Indian Civil Service and of such other Indian services as are recruited in the United Kingdom?
    Mr. FISHER: The Secretary of State understands that the Government of India wish that in any Amendment of the Government of India Act the exclusive power of the Secretary of State in Council to determine the conditions of service of officers recruited in the United Kingdom shall be placed beyond doubt. Their specific proposals to that end are awaited.

    BATTLE OF JUTLAND.
    Commander Viscount CURZONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether an inquiry can be instituted into the Battle of Jutland on the lines of the Trafalgar inquiry, which shall have access to all reports from all flag officers and all ships, all signal logs, operation orders, and logs, also any reliable information from enemy sources which may be available, and can issue an authentic Report for the information of the public?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY(Mr. Long): Steps are already being taken to draw up from such sources of information as are enumerated in the question a narrative of the Battle of Jutland, showing the actual sequence of events, for the information of the Board and for purposes of record. The work has been in hand for some weeks. The question whether this narrative shall be issued to the public in advance of the Official Naval History of the War will be considered when the narrative has been completed.
    Commander BELLAIRS: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any indication as to when the narrative will be completed?
    Mr. LONG: I am afraid I could not.
    Commander BELLAIRS: Will it be at an early date?
    Mr. LONG: As soon as possible.

  NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

    NAVAL OFFICERS (ACTING RANK).
    Commander Viscount CURZONasked whether, although by a recent Army Order an Army officer who retires with acting rank, which he has held for six months or more, is entitled to retain that rank, no similar arrangements have yet been made for the Navy, and that a naval officer who retires with acting rank can retain only the substantive rank which he holds; and, if so, whether he will give an assurance that he will forthwith promulgate an Order allowing naval officers retiring with acting rank to retain that rank, and, pending the reconsideration of their pay and pension, to retain the pay and pension of their acting rank?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): I assume my Noble and gallant Friend refers to permanent officers of the Royal Navy. The rules for retirement in the Royal Navy are different from those in force in the Army, and provide for a step in rank on retirement subject to the officer possessing certain qualifications as to age and service, which ensure that the rank held on the Retired List is roughly commensurate with the rank held by officers of about the same age on the Active List. Under these Regulations practically all

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    officers who now hold acting rank on the Active List will be eligible for a step in rank on retirement, and no reason is seen for making any alteration. The rate of retired pay, I should add, depends on the length of service and confirmed rank last held on the Active List, and is not governed by the rank on the Retired List.

    LIMBLESS MEN.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that in 1915 and 1916 an Admiralty Order was issued that a man of experience, even if he had lost a limb, was to be retained and not to be invalided, the result being that many men who had lost a limb were so retained; that in 1917 a further Order was issued to the effect that ratings already invalided could be re-entered and paid their disability pensions in addition to full pay; and that, by Article 1,916 of the King's Regulations and by Admiralty Instructions, officers wounded or injured on active service are to be paid their injury or wounded pension in addition to full pay; will he consider the advisability of placing officers and men in this respect on the same footing; and will he see that long-service men, in some cases limbless, are not deprived from drawing pensions to which they are entitled?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The facts stated in the first three parts of the question are substantially correct. The matter is now under the consideration of the Jerram Committee.

    OFFICERS DISCHARGED (WAR BONUS).
    Colonel ASHLEYasked the Pensions Minister whether he proposes to add the war bonus of 20 per cent. to the wounds pensions or retired pay of officers discharged in consequence of disablement incurred in campaigns fought prior to August, 1914?
    The DEPUTY-MINISTER of MUNITIONS (Mr. Kellaway): My right hon. Friend is making inquiries into this matter.

    DENMARK AND SWEDEN (NAVIGABLE CHANNELS).
    Mr. MACMASTERasked what is the minimum depth and width of the navigable channels separating Denmark and Sweden constituting the ordinary
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    commercial route of merchantmen and ships of war passing into and out of the Baltic Sea?
    Mr. LONG: The only navigable channel between Sweden and Denmark is that passing through the "Sound," the least depth in which is 23 ft., which is situated in the "Flint Channel" at the southern end of the Sound. This channel is constantly being dredged, but this depth of 23 ft. in it can only be depended upon in its centre, the line of which is marked by leading lights; the width, therefore, is extremely limited, and probably does not exceed 100 yards.

  DEMOBILISATION.

    NAVAL OFFICERS.
    Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSONasked whether demobilised naval officers of the Royal Naval Reserve and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve are included among those who are qualified to sign the pension papers of pensioners?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes, Sir, provided the officer signing still holds an effective commission.
    Mr. NICHOLSONasked whether officers of the Royal Naval Reserve and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve are entitled on demobilisation to retain the rank that they have held in the Navy during the War; whether they are entitled to use the designation of that rank as a prefix to their names in civilian life; in what circumstances such officers will have the privilege of appearing in uniform; and whether, in future, they will be required to wear full-dress or Service uniform on ceremonial occasions?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The future of the Royal Naval Reserve and Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve is under consideration of the Admiralty Reconstruction Committee. I cannot at present give definite replies to the questions asked by my hon. Friend, but I will ask him to put the question down again later.

    WOUND STRIPES.
    Colonel ASHLEYasked the Secretary of State for War whether the wound stripes, which may now be worn for wounds received in campaigns fought before August, 1914, will be allowed to

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    count towards the three wound stripes required for early demobilisation under Army Order 55, of 1919?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Churchill): The answer is in the negative.
    Colonel ASHLEY: Why is more importance attached to wounds received in this case than to wounds received in previous wars?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I think I was responsible for raising the question of allowing officers and men who sustained wounds in previous wars to mount wound stripes in addition to those allowed for this War. The Regulations framed regarding the retention or release of men from the Army were based on the principle of two or more wounds received in this War, and we are not proposing to alter that in the direction the hon. Member desires.

    KING'S HUSSARS (1914–15 VOLUNTEER CLASS).
    Sir PETER GRIGGSasked the Secretary of State for War when the 1914 and 1915 class of Volunteers in the 15th the King's Hussars and other regiments are to be demobilised; and whether these men are entitled to receive the 10s. 6d. bonus from the 1st February until they are demobilised?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Men who joined the Colours for continuous service in 1914 or 1915 are being demobilised as rapidly as the exigencies of the Service and transport facilities permit, and a considerable number have already been demobilised. Only such officers, warrant officers, non-commissioned officers and men as are definitely selected for retention for military service are entitled to receive the bonus from the 1st February. Such as are not specially selected for retention for military service, and have not been released by the 1st May, 1919, will receive bonus from that date. The bonus will not be issuable to members of the Non-Combatant Corps or to men employed on civil rates of pay as defined by the Army Council.

    ARMIES OF OCCUPATION.
    Mr. SEXTONasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that commanding officers in the Army of Occupation are interpreting the demobilisation Regulations in the sense that a man who
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    may have enlisted in 1914, but was not sent overseas until 1916, has to wait for demobilisation until men who were sent overseas in 1915 have been released, although such men may not have enlisted until 1915; and whether he will have accurate information conveyed to commanding officers on this point?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I am not aware that this is the case. It is, however, provided that a proportion of men in each draft sent home for demobilisation will be composed of men who have had longest service overseas, subject, of course, to their being eligible for demobilisation.
    Mr. SEXTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to give special consideration to the cases of men attested previously to 1916 but not called up until that year, and whose businesses are languishing because of their absence?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir; I have distinctly said we do not consider men excluded from the provisions for retention unless they were actually called up before the 1st January, 1916.
    Sir RYLAND ADKINS: Will the right hon. Gentleman make an exception in the cases of those who were rejected medically at an earlier stage, and therefore went into the Army at the earliest date at which they were allowed to go, and who have incurred very grave injury to their business in consequence?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir; I think it would be a great mistake to mar the symmetry of the scheme and to depart from the rule which has been made. Perhaps in the course of a few months we may review it from the point of view of how to modify it.
    Colonel THORNE: Will the whole of the Orders be revised after peace is signed?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir; the proposals which I put forward on behalf of the Government are designed to cover the period of service of the Army of Occupation. When that period elapses we may then review them.

    SLIP MEN.
    Mr. HAYDAYasked the Secretary of State for War whether a soldier who was registered as a slip man before the 1st February last is entitled to demobilisation at once; and, if so, whether he will

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    take action to secure the immediate release of all such men who are still being retained in the Army?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. With regard to the second part of the question, such as are eligible for demobilisation are being demobilised as the exigencies of the Service permit, but a "slip" man is not in any event entitled to immediate demobilisation.

  SEAMEN AND ROYAL MARINES (SENIORITY).
  Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that an order has recently been issued to the effect that seamen and Royal Marines over six months' seniority are to be allowed to turn over to stokers, first class, with seniority to count; whether he is also aware that the practice has hitherto been that a man has to enter the service as a stoker, second class, and to complete twelve months' training before he can be advanced to stoker, first class, and further that a stoker is not considered efficient before he has completed at least three years of service as stoker; is he also aware that the new order is creating dissatisfaction in the stokers' branch, seeing that, unless modified, serious accidents are likely to happen for which the chief petty officers in charge will be held responsible, badges will be lost, and financial deductions made; and whether, in view of the facts stated, he will consider the advisability of reconsidering the order?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: Transfers of seamen and Royal Marines to stoker ratings have been authorised to meet a shortage of the latter ratings, and in order not to discourage such transfers men are not required to pass through the grade of stoker, second class, but are to be rated acting stoker, first class. Such men will not, however, be confirmed as stoker, first class, until they have obtained the professional qualifications for that rating. Until they are qualified their drafting and employment will be under the same conditions as have hitherto applied to stokers, second class, and there is no ground for the fears of serious accidents referred to in the third part of my hon. Friend's ques-
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  tion. I may add that orders which are being issued provide for the advancement of all stokers, second class, now serving to the rating acting stoker, first class.
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a stoker is not qualified for a first-class stoker until he has had three or four years experience?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: I say that until they are qualified their drafting and employment will be under the same conditions as stokers, second class.
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: What is the good of the rule?

  INCOME TAX.

    NAVAL PENSIONS.
    Commander Viscount CURZONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will give an assurance that Income Tax will in future be charged on naval pensions at the Service rate?
    Mr. BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury): The reduced rates of Income Tax to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers apply to the emoluments of members of the forces of the Crown only when they have served, or are serving during the year of Income Tax assessment.

    REFUNDS.
    Lieutenant - Colonel WALTER GUINNESSasked the Secretary of State for War whether Income Tax is no longer being deducted from war gratuities; and, if so, what is the reason for the refusal to refund the tax in those cases where the tax has been withheld on the payment of the gratuity?
    Mr. BALDWIN: In view of the answer on this subject given on the 13th February to the hon. and gallant Member for Ripon arrangements were made that, pending legislative sanction for the proposed relief, Income Tax should not be deducted in respect of the gratuities in question. In the case of gratuities from which tax had already been deducted repayment can be made when the necessary sanction has been obtained.
    Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: What is the distinction between having legal sanction for repaying Income Tax deductions on gratuities illegally made, and giving the full gratuity?
    Mr. BALDWIN: It is impossible for us to sanction refunds without statutory authority, but it has been possible to make the other payments by administrative order.

  ADMIRALTY ESTABLISHMENT (OVERTIME).
  Mr. LAMBERTasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if overtime is now worked at any Admiralty establishments; and, if so, upon what kind of work?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: Partial, as distinct from general, overtime is being worked in a number of establishments on work of an urgent character, and in cases where such overtime could not be avoided by employing more men.
  I may say that on 22nd February we issued an Instruction as follows:
  "While recognising the fact that it is not practicable to abandon entirely the system of working overtime on special work, it is particularly desired that every effort should be made to substitute ordinary time-work for overtime, where naval requirements permit. By this means it may be found possible to reduce discharges."
  Colonel THORNE: Is there any possibility of working the men in two shifts, which would obviate overtime?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: There is no overtime which if stopped would mean the employment of more men. What I have just read shows that we have already given instructions to avoid overtime.

  NAVAL OFFICERS (JUNIOR ACCOUNTANTS).
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked whether, just before the War, a Committee under Vice-Admiral Thursby was appointed to consider the future of the accountant rank; whether one of the recommendations of that Committee was that the promotion of junior accountant officers should be brought more into line with that of the executive officers; and will he say what steps have been taken to carry this recommendation into effect, and with what result?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: As the answer to my hon. Friend's question is somewhat lengthy, I will, if I may, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is it a favourable answer?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: I think even my hon. and gallant Friend will agree that it is a favourable answer.
  The following is the answer referred to:
  A Committee, with Vice-Admiral Thursby as Chairman, was appointed in November, 1913, to consider the conditions of employment in the Accountant Branch. The Committee's recommendations with regard to promotion were that promotion in the branch should take place as follows, subject to the officers being recommended and deserving, and passing the necessary examinations:
  After six months' training, probationary clerk to clerk.
  Clerk to assistant paymaster after three and a half years from date of entry into the Service.
  Assistant paymaster to paymaster after three years' seniority as assistant paymaster.
  Paymaster to staff paymaster after eight years' seniority as paymaster.
  Staff paymaster to fleet paymaster after eight years' seniority as staff paymaster.
  Fleet paymaster to chief paymaster by selection as vacancies occur.
  Chief paymaster to paymaster-in-chief by selection.
  All these recommendations have been, carried out, except that promotion from paymaster cadet, corresponding to probationary clerk, to paymaster midshipman is after one year's service, and from paymaster sub-lieutenant, corresponding to assistant paymaster, to paymaster lieutenant, corresponding to paymaster, is after four years' service. The question of reducing the amounts of service required in those cases is under consideration.
  The promotion of paymaster lieutenant to paymaster lieutenant-commander, after eight years' service, is approved provisionally for the period of the War, at the end of which the matter is subject to reconsideration.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    LONDON AND PROVINCIAL MARCHES.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked whether any and, if so, what steps have been taken to give the inhabitants of London and the great provincial towns similar opportunities of showing their appreciation of the personnel of the Royal Navy to those that the Secretary of State

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    for War has announced will be given in regard to the Army, beginning with the march through the Metropolis of the Guards on Saturday?
    Mr. LONG: The matter has not been lost sight of, and is being considered at the present time.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: In view of the statement made by the Minister for War, is it not time that the First Lord of the Admiralty made a similar statement to this House?
    Mr. LONG: I do not think it is. If I did I should make it. There are totally different circumstances which make it impossible for me to make a statement at this moment.

  NAVAL MEDICAL OFFICERS (WAR GRATUITIES).
  Sir R. WOODSasked the Secretary to the Admiralty if war gratuities to temporary naval medical officers will be on the same scale as those to temporary officers of the R.N.R. and R.N.V.R.; and, if not, would he state the reasons for differential treatment?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: Following the practice of the Army, the war gratuities of temporary naval medical officers holding the rank of surgeon-lieutenant are at the rates of £60 and £50 for each year or part of a year's service for officers of the medical and dental branches respectively. The war gratuities of temporary medical officers above the rank of surgeon-lieutenant are based on their pay, and are on the same scale as those of other temporary officers, R.N.R. and R.N.V.R. The reason for the differentiation is that temporary surgeon-lieutenants are on special rates of pay, whilst those above that rank are on Service rates.

  MUNITION TRANSPORT WORKERS, INVERNESS.
  Colonel THORNEasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is now in a position to reply to the letter sent to him on 13th January last by the hon. Member for the Plaistow Division of West Ham, asking for inquiry to be made with a view to increasing the wages of munition transport workers in the Admiralty Department, Inverness; if the
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  delay in dealing with the application is causing dissatisfaction among the workers concerned; and if he will state the reason no reply has been given?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: Some correspondence between the Admiralty and the Senior Naval Officer, Inverness, has been necessary in connection with this matter. A decision will be arrived at and a reply will be sent to my hon. Friend within a few days.

  MINISTRY OF LABOUR (APPOINTMENTS DEPARTMENT).
  Commander Viscount CURZONasked the Minister of Labour how many officers of the Royal Navy have applied to the Appointments Department of the Ministry of Labour for employment; and how many have secured employment thereby?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Wardle): The number of regular officers of the Royal Navy (excluding R.N.R. and R.N.V.R.) who have applied for employment on discharge from the Navy is thirty-seven, of whom nine have been placed. In addition, civil employment forms have been received from ninety-five officers of the Royal Navy who are still serving.
  Lieutenant-Colonel Sir S. HOAREasked the Minister of Labour what is the number of the applications of officers and men with which the Appointments Board has dealt?
  Mr. WARDLE: Since its establishment in April of last year the Appointments Department has received 178,531 applications, including 157,537 civil employment forms from officers and men of similar education in His Majesty's Forces. These applications by officers and men include—

  (1) Claims for priority of release to resume interrupted civil employment or training.

  (2) Applications to have appointments or training found for them.

  The total number of inquiries answered and advisory interviews given by officers of the Department is approximately 195,000.
  Sir S. HOARE: Can the hon. Member say how many of those officers and men have been found appointments by the Ministry of Labour?
  Mr. WARDLE: That is not in the question, but if the hon. Member will put it down I will make inquiries.

  OUT-OF-WORK DONATION.
  Mr. RENWICKasked the Minister of Labour whether the out-of-work donation payable to women ceases on their marriage; and, if so, is the procedure in regard to its cessation the same in all districts?
  Mr. WARDLE: Out-of-work donation payable to women does not cease on their marriage, provided that they continue to fulfil the prescribed conditions. The right to donation in any particular case would be determined by a Court of Referees, and I am not aware that there is any difference in the procedure in the various districts.
  Mr. RENWICK: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the referees are ever consulted in this matter?
  Mr. WARDLE: If the hon. Member means collectively, I would not like to say that they are, but they certainly are individually.
  Major E. WOOD: Are all the cases brought before the referees, or only the cases in regard to which there is some dispute?
  Mr. RENWICK: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in some districts they are very lax and that in others they are very strict?
  Mr. WARDLE: If the hon. Member will give me particulars, I will inquire into it.
  Mr. LAMBERTasked the Minister of Labour why £1,200,000 a week is paid in out-of-work donations while there are industries seriously crippled for want of labour, and in view of the number of situations in domestic service waiting to be filled?
  Mr. WARDLE: The vacancies notified to the Employment Exchanges do not indicate that there are industries which are seriously crippled for want of labour; in fact, in practically every occupation the number of workpeople unemployed exceeds the demand. With regard to domestic service vacancies, the demand exceeds the numbers of applicants who register for domestic work, but no opportunity is lost of offering domestic work to any applicant who from her previous record appears suitable for that kind of employment.
  Mr. LAMBERT: Does my hon. Friend really mean to suggest that there are not a very large number of employers in the country who are absolutely crying out for labour?
  Mr. WARDLE: I mean to suggest that we have not had applications for them.
  Colonel ASHLEY: Has not the hon. Gentleman heard of the very great shortage of agricultural labourers?
  Lieutenant-Colonel Sir S. HOARE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there were 30,000 applications for women in last week's statistics, and that only 7,000 were found places?
  Mr. WARDLE: It depends upon the kind of work. I said in regard to domestic service that the demands exceed the number of applicants.
  Brigadier-General CROFT: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in thousands of cases men and women have refused employment which has been definitely offered to them?
  An HON MEMBER: Is the hon. Gentleman also aware that in most of these cases existing trade union rates are not offered?
  Mr. WARDLE: I have no evidence of the thousands of cases to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman refers. If that evidence is forthcoming, I will certainly look into it.
  Mr. J. JONES: Has there been any application for employment by the unemployed rich?
  Mr. DONALDasked the Minister of Labour the number of new branches opened in Ireland for the payment of out-of-work donations; whether his attention has been drawn to the misapplication of the out-of-work donation throughout the country; whether people are leaving their employment and successfully claiming this out-of-work donation in Ireland; and will he consider the advisability of holding an inquiry into the abuse and waste of public money?
  Mr. WARDLE: In reply to the first part of the question, the number of new branch offices opened in Ireland to deal with the payment of out-of-work donation is two, but it has been necessary to take additional premises in sixteen places where Employment Exchanges already existed With regard to the remaining parts of the

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  question, I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. and learned Member for York on the 17th February last, and to the announcements in the public Press with regard to the modification of the scheme in its application to Ireland.
  Mr. DONALD: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that at one of these branches in the South of Ireland over 2,000 persons are participating in this out-of-work donation and that only 220 of these are genuine cases, and does he not think an inquiry is necessary into this abuse of public money?
  Mr. WARDLE: The hon. Member makes an assertion which I have no means of checking. If he will send me particulars, I will have the matter looked into at once.

  SALFORD BOARD OF GUARDIANS (WAR BONUS).
  Mr. TOOTILLasked the Minister of Labour whether the Salford Board of Guardians have refused an application made by their officers for a war bonus on the scale laid down by the Conciliation and Arbitration Board for Government Employés; and whether he will take steps in accordance with the request of the employés to have the matter referred to arbitration as was done in connection with a similar application of the staff employed by the Brighton Board of Guardians?
  Mr. WARDLE: The Department is in communication with the Salford Board of Guardians, and has been informed by the clerk to the board that the matter has been referred to a committee consisting of all the members of the board for consideration. Before the Department can refer the matter to arbitration it is necessary to obtain the consent of both parties to such a course of action.

  TRADE BOARDS ACT (DRESSMAKING).
  Lieutenant-Colonel W. GUINNESSasked the Minister of Labour whether a dressmaking board is being set up; what will be the functions of this body; and what will be the estimated annual cost?
  Mr. WARDLE: In agreement with the principal associations of employers and
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  workpeople concerned, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour proposes to apply the Trade Boards Acts to the women's clothing trades, including dressmaking. The functions of the contemplated boards will be to fix minimum rates of wages, to regulate conditions of employment in the manner provided by the Acts, and to advise the Government on industrial matters affecting their trades. Expenses and subsistence allowances will be allowed to members of the boards on a scale authorised by the Treasury, but the annual cost will, of course, depend on the number of meetings which the boards find it necessary to hold.
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the dressmakers in the West of London are ready to employ any number of women and cannot obtain them?
  Mr. WARDLE: I do not think that question arises out of the question on the Paper.

  GEZIRA AGREEMENT.
  Mr. FREDERICK GREENasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the date in 1918 on which the draft agreement of the Gezira concession was approved; the general reasons for approving this draft agreement while the serious charges and allegations, made in 1917 and 1918 by the responsible official concerned, were pending; if he will lay upon the Table of the House the draft of the Gezira agreement approved in 1918; and if it is proposed to ratify the agreement?
  Mr. DUDLEY WARD (Vice-Chamberlain of the Household): A draft agreement was prepared in October, 1917, but was never approved, owing to the inability of the Sudan Government to arrange terms under the conditions then prevailing. The remainder of the question does not, therefore, arise.

  COLOUR SERVICE.
  Mr. HOGGEasked the Secretary of State for War the number of men serving with the Colours whose Colour service was not completed at the signing of the Armistice?
  Mr.CHURCHILL: The total number of men with Colour service incomplete at the signing of the Armistice was 99,500. It is

  2081
  estimated that approximately 30,000 of these were non-effective so far as further useful military service is concerned. The number also included about 30,000 warrant officers and N.C.O's. At the present time the number has fallen to 89,000 approximately, including 20,000 non-effective and 21,000 due for discharge within twelve months, leaving 48,000 with one or more year's Colour service to complete, of whom 17,000 are warrant officers and N.C.O's. and 31,000 are privates.
  Colonel YATE: May I ask if the Colour service is reckoned as seven, eight or twelve years?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: It depends upon their service. Those serving on the basis of seven years would require a prolongation of one year. Others have already finished their twelve years and are continuing in the Service for a pension of twenty-one years. The periods are various.

  WET CANTEENS.

    RHYL CAMP DISTURBANCE.
    Mr. SIDNEY ROBINSONasked the Secretary of State for War if his attention has been called to the statement that, in connection with the Canadians and the Kinmel Park disturbance, the wet canteen was established in Canadian camps in direct opposition to Canadian wishes, and that had there been no liquor at Rhyl Camp there would have been no disturbance; and what steps he proposes to take to prevent a recurrence of such happenings?
    Mr. MACMASTER: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers, may I ask him whether he has seen the statement of the Bishop of St. Asaph that the conduct of the Canadian soldiers in that camp was particularly good, and that the real cause of the discontent was the failure to provide shipping in order to enable the soldiers to return to their homes?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I have not seen the Report furnished by the authorities. This matter has been entirely in the hands of the Canadian authorities, and I do not think it is my business to deal with it further than the extent indicated in my answer to the question on the Paper, which is that wet canteens are not, and never have been, instituted for Canadian troops, except on the decision of the
    2082
    Canadian authorities, and I am informed that their provision, so far from proving a cause of disturbance, is believed to have had the contrary effect, as there was much discontent before they were provided.

  MOTOR REPAIS DEPOT, CIPPENHAM.
  Mr. ATKEYasked the Secretary of State for War if he will state what number of motor vehicles the existing plant for the Slough factory provides; whether large numbers of machine tools and plant are being installed in the factory; if so, what the expenditure on machine tools and plant is estimated at; for what purpose they will be used; having regard to the manufacturing facilities already existing in this country; if they are included in the Estimate of £1,665,000 for the factory; if not, from what credits such expenditure will be drawn; what number of motor lorries, private vehicles, and motor bicycles the War Department expects to keep on its permanent establishment; and whether the plant of the Slough factory will be modified to correspond to the numbers of vehicles and bicycles so kept, having regard to the fact that many of these vehicles will necessarily be housed and maintained in different parts of the country and not at a central depot?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I will announce the decision of the Government on this matter to-morrow.

  ARMY INSTRUCTORS.
  Sir KINGSLEY WOODasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will give consideration to the claims of non-commissioned officers who responded to Lord Kitchener's appeal for instructors for the New Armies, though medically unfit for service in the field, for some recognition of their services?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I fear it is not possible to give special recognition in this case.

  SUB-PENSIONS COMMITTEE(SECRETARIES' REMUNERATION.)
  Mr. WILLIAM COOTEasked the Secretary of State for War if there are any means available for the payment of a small remuneration to the secretaries of

  2083
  sub-pensions committees over the country; and if he is aware that this office has been worked as an honorary one, but that the work has increased so much that there is a growing feeling in these committees that some small remuneration should be made to the secretaries of subcommittees who are acting under the county committee in each county?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Sir James Craig): I have been asked to reply to this question. The payment of salary to the secretary of a sub-committee is within the discretion of the county committee, and at the present time a considerable number of these secretaries are in receipt of salaries.

  BRITISH SOLDIERS' GRAVES (RELATIVES VISITS).
  Mr. GILBERTasked the Secretary of State for War whether any further progress has been made as regards allowing relatives to visit the graves of our heroes in France and Belgium; has any Committee yet been set up in order to make suitable arrangements and, if so, who are its members; and can he give any approximate date as to when the first visits for this object can be made from this country?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: As I stated yesterday the Report of the Committee set up to consider this matter has now been received, and is being considered, and I hope to be in a position to make an announcement shortly. The Committee was constituted as follows:—
  Major-General Fabian Ware, C.B., C.M.G., Director-General of Graves Registration and Inquiries (Chairman).
  Mr. F. Warren, Young Men's Christian Association (Secretary).
  The following organisations were represented on the Committee:—
  The British Red Cross Society.
  Young Men's Christian Association.
  Young Women's Christian Association.
  Salvation Army.
  Church Army.

  VICTORIA EMBANKMENT GARDENS.
  Mr. GILBERTasked the Secretary of State for War whether he can state when the temporary buildings erected for
  2084
  his Department on the Victoria Embankment Gardens will be given up, so that the gardens may be returned to their original use; and will it be possible to give them up so that the public can use these gardens during the coming summer months?
  The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Sir A. Mond): I have been asked to reply to this question. I am informed that no material reduction in the number of the staff occupying these buildings is possible in the near future. I am, consequently, unable to comply with the request in the last part of the hon. Member's question.
  Colonel ASHLEY: Can the right hon. Gentleman point out any Government Department in which any substantial reduction of the staff has taken place recently?
  Sir A. MOND: Oh, yes; there are some in that category.

  GUARDS' PROCESSION.
  Mr. WILSON-FOXasked the Secretary of State for War if arrangements have been made to give Members of Parliament and their wives facilities for witnessing the Guards' procession on Saturday next?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: By the courtesy of the Trustees of the National Gallery, seating accommodation for a limited number will be reserved for Members of both Houses of Parliament in front of the National Gallery. It is anticipated that the accommodation available for the House of Commons will be about 300 seats. Admission will be by ticket, and Members of the House of Commons may obtain tickets up to six o'clock on Friday evening from the Speaker's Secretary.
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Will there be any covering to the stand?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I hope we shall have fair weather.

  DOPE INQUIRY.
  Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Prime Minister when the Dope Inquiry is likely to be completed, and whether, if the complete. Report is likely to be delayed beyond three months, he will ask that an interim Report be issued?
  Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): This Report is of necessity postponed by the absence in Paris of Lord Sumner, but I hope that it will not be long delayed.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: Does that mean it will be issued within the next three months?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I hope so. I have discussed the matter with Lord Sumner himself, and he tells me they have made good progress.

  GERMAN SHIPPING (ALLOCATION TO UNITED STATES).
  Sir ARCHIBALD WILLIAMSONasked the Prime Minister whether the German ships in Chilean waters have been allocated to the United States; whether German ships in Uruguayan and Peruvian waters have also passed to the control of the United States; if he is aware that British ships have been withdrawn by the British Government from the South American trade, and that the United States is thus supplanting Great Britain in that important trade.; and whether a more equitable arrangement can be made?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of SHIPPING (Colonel Leslie Wilson): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply. The arrangements for securing that enemy vessels in neutral ports shall be delivered to the Associated Governments and for their management have been made by the Associated Governments in concert, with a view to the vessels being brought into use most speedily and conveniently for the prescribed purpose. Under these arrangements the United States will be responsible for taking the necessary action in regard to enemy vessels in neutral South American ports. It is clearly understood that this use of the ships is without prejudice to their ultimate disposition, and that in the discussion of their ultimate disposition no argument will be founded on their allocation for management or service in the meantime.
  Sir A. WILLIAMSON: What is the reason for allocating these big ships entirely to America?
  Colonel WILSON: It has been found that the United States is the most convenient country to have the handling of these vessels.

  LAPSED INSURANCE POLICIES.
  Lieutenant-Colonel W. GUINNESSasked the Prime Minister whether any steps are contemplated with a view to compelling insurance companies to reinstate on equitable terms all insurance policies which had been in existence for five years previous to the outbreak of war and which have since lapsed owing to the inability of soldiers, sailors, and their dependants to meet the premiums?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Bridgeman): The Prime Minister has asked me to answer this question. I am not aware of any application having been made to the Court to lapse a policy to which the provisions of the Courts (Emergency Powers) Act, 1914, apply. As regards insurance policies, which do not fall within the provisions of that Act, but have been in existence for a period of five years, and upon which the premiums have been paid, it is the general practice of insurance companies to allow a surrender value in respect of the premiums paid or grant a fully paid up policy on receiving an application from the policy holder.
  Lieutenant-Colonel W. GUINNESS: Is there any power to compel companies to give that facility in the event of their refusing it?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am not quite sure, but I will make inquiry and let my hon. Friend know.

  PROPAGANDA (UNITED STATES AND ARGENTINE).
  Mr. HIGHAMasked the Prime Minister if he is aware of the extensive German propaganda now being carried out in the United States of America; and what steps, if any, are being taken to see that the result of this propaganda does not become detrimental to British interests?
  Mr. DUDLEY WARD: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply to a similar question by the hon. Member for Acton on the 6th instant.
  Mr. HIGHAMasked the Prime Minister if he is aware of the extensive film propaganda now being carried on in the Argentine Republic by the United States Government; and what steps, if any, are being taken to see that the

  2087
  resources of the British Empire are placed before the people of this friendly Republic by the same methods as those now adopted by the United States Government?
  Mr. D. WARD: I would refer the hon. Member to the replies to him on the 20th and 27th of February, and on 3rd and 6th of March, and to the hon. Member for Nottingham (East) on 10th March, which will be found completely to cover the ground of his present question.
  Mr. HIGHAM: Is it not possible to inform this House what the Government is doing with regard to propaganda in these countries? It is a very serious question.

  ROUMANIA (BRITISH LOSSES).
  Mr. BUTLER LLOYDasked the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the Government to compensate British firms and individuals for the losses they have sustained by the destruction of property in Roumania ordered by the British Government for national purposes?
  Mr. D. WARD: The destruction of property in Roumania was carried out by the order and with the authority of the Roumanian Government for the purposes of national defence, and all claims for compensation by the owners of such property should be made against that Government.

  "NARRATIVE OF THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR."
  Lieutenant-Colonel ROBERT PEELasked the Prime Minister whether he will consider the advantage of publishing Professor Oman's valuable book on the commencement of the War in a more convenient form than that of an official Blue Book, which is inconvenient to read and unsuitable for binding?
  Mr. D. WARD: The first edition of Professor Oman's "Narrative of the Outbreak of the War, "though it has had a very wide and gratifying sale is still far from exhausted. Should the demand be such as to render the issue of a second edition desirable the Foreign Office will gladly consider the question of reprinting the narrative and issuing it in octavo form.

  PEACE TERMS (INDEMNITIES AND REPARATIONS).
  Mr. MACMASTERasked the Prime Minister whether there is any objection to stating what were the terms of the reference to the Commission appointed at the Peace Conference to report on the subject of indemnities and reparations; what were the terms of the Report of the Commission; and whether there is any special reason for departing from the precedent established by another Commission which has already reported on the subject of a League of Nations?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given on the 13th February, which was as follows:—
  "The British delegates on the Commission are definitely instructed to claim an indemnity which will include the costs of the war as well as damage actually inflicted, and the Commission are now considering the amount to be claimed, the method in which payment can be made, and the means of enforcing payment."
  As the Commission has not yet reported, the last part of the question does not arise.
  Mr. MACMASTER: Have the Commission ever asked for fresh instructions?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: No, never.

  CLUBS (RESTRICTIONS).
  Major HILLSasked the Prime Minister whether, seeing that he has now definitely refused to remove the restrictions on clubs, he can name a date when these restrictions will be removed, in accordance with his promise of 16th December last?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: No, Sir, I am sorry that I cannot name any date.

  FOOD SUPPLIES.

    OATS.
    Sir ROBERT THOMASasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether the present price of oats in Wales is 40s. per quarter, and there is only a limited market at this price; whether it is the intention of the Government to refund to the farmers any loss they sustain between the price guaranteed by the Government and the price at which they are able to sell in the

    2089
    market; and, in such cases where there is no market, whether the Government will purchase the grain at the guaranteed price?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Arthur Boscawen): No price for oats of the 1918 crop was guaranteed by the Government. The prices which appeared in the Grain (Prices) Order, 1918, issued by the Ministry of Food are maximum prices only. The market reports obtained by the Board show that in nearly all the markets of the country oats are being sold at the maximum price. I am informed that, owing to difficulties of transport, it is difficult to sell oats in parts of Wales except at prices below the maximum, but I cannot hold out any hope that the Government will undertake to purchase them
    Sir R. THOMAS: Would the Government make arrangements for these small farmers in Wales, who have only limited means, and who have been induced by the Government to grow more oats than they have been accustomed to do, thereby preventing them from having storage accommodation for these oats, so that they may get rid of their oats in order to enable them not only to get money to carry on their farms but also straw for their farms?
    Sir A. BOSCAWEN: This is really a local question. If my hon. Friend will bring to my notice any specific case, I will have inquiry made with a view to seeing what can be done.
    General CROFT: Could not these oats be sold at a very large profit to Germany, if there is no market for them in this country?
    Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I should want notice of that question.

    FARM PRODUCE (COST OF PRODUCTION).
    Mr. TALBOTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether he will compile and publish for the information of Members of the House a statement showing the average cost of producing wheat and other farm produce having regard to the rates of wages now ruling for agricultural labour?
    Sir A. BOSCAWEN: A Committee for investigating the costs of production of wheat and other agricultural produce has
    2090
    been set up by the Board in conjunction with the Ministry of Food, the Scottish Board of Agriculture, and the Irish Department of Agriculture. The conclusions reached by this Committee will be published in due course.
    Major E. WOOD: Can the hon. Gentleman give us any idea when that Committee will report?
    Sir A. BOSCAWEN: No. This Committee has only lately commenced its work and I cannot give any indication yet when the Report will be received.

    TINNED GOODS, HONEY, AND DRIPPING.
    Major NEWMANasked the Food Controller whether the supply of tinned goods, dripping, and honey in this country is now sufficient to allow of their export to Allied and neutral countries which are badly in need of them; and is he aware that the United States of America is sending large consignments of tinned goods and honey to Antwerp, Havre, and other ports to the detriment of British traders?
    Mr. PRATT: The supplies of honey, tinned meat, and tinned fish other than salmon, are sufficient to allow of export, which is now permitted. Dripping may also be exported under certain conditions; but the supplies of tinned fruit in the country are still insufficient to meet the home demands, and it is not possible in the interests of the consumers in this country to allow free export at present.
    Major NEWMAN: Is it the fact that honey can be exported? Is there any restriction at all?
    Mr. PRATT: The export is now permitted.
    Mr. FREDERICK ROBERTS: If there is enough in the country to allow of export, cannot the price in this country be lowered?
    Mr. PRATT: I must ask for notice of that question.

  FISHERIES INSPECTORS (WALES).
  Mr. HAYDN JONESasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture how many resident local inspectors of fisheries or assistant inspectors the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries have appointed for Wales; what are the scientific, technical, or other qualifications of the gentlemen appointed; whether the

  2091
  appointments are temporary or permanent; what is the salary attached to the posts; whether either of these inspectors has any knowledge of the Welsh language; and what duties they perform that could not equally well be carried out by the local statutory authorities?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Two assistant inspectors have been appointed for Wales. These appointments, which carry a salary of £250 a year, are temporary. One of them speaks Welsh, and both are intimately connected with local fishery interests. It would be difficult to give a detailed account of their qualifications and duties in an oral answer. The latter neither conflict with nor can be carried out by the local statutory authorities. I will send the hon. Member a statement on the subject.

  MUSSEL-CLEANSING TANKS (BAR-MOUTH AND ABERDOVEY).
  Mr. H. JONESasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries have declined to approve of the mussel-cleansing tanks erected by the the Lancashire and Western Local Sea Fisheries Committee at Barmouth and Aberdovey; if so, will the Board publish the bacteriological reports or evidence on which their adverse decision was arrived at; whether the Board are taking steps to prevent the sale of mussels which have been treated in these tanks; and, if not, what is the precise effect of the Board's action in this matter?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: The Board have declined to give their approval to any period of deposit for cleansing in these tanks, but they do not propose to publish the evidence upon which their decision was based. They do not consider that mussels from these tanks should be put on the market with a certificate of purity to which they are not entitled, nor do they consider that these mussels should be sold for human consumption.

  SALFORD GUARDIANS (OFFICERS' WAR BONUS).
  Mr. TOOTILLasked the President of the Local Government Board whether the Salford Guardians have refused to grant
  2092
  to their officers a war bonus on the scale laid down in the awards of the Conciliation and Arbitration Board of the 9th July and 8th November, 1918; and whether he will approach the board of guardians on the matter?
  Mr. PRATT (Lord of the Treasury): My right hon. Friend is aware of the difference which arose between the Salford guardians and their officers on the subject of war bonus. He has asked the guardians to reconsider their refusal to submit the difference to arbitration, and he understands that they have referred the matter to a committee, but he has not yet learnt the results of the further consideration given to the subject.

  HOUSING.

    LOCAL AUTHORITIES' SCHEMES.
    Lieutenant-Colonel Sir S. HOAREasked the President of the Local Government Board how many new houses have been begun to be built by local authorities since 1st January, 1919?
    Mr. PRATT: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my hon. Friend to the hon. Member for East Leyton on Friday, 7th March.

  OSWESTRY TOWN COUNCIL.
  Colonel ASHLEYasked the President of the Local Government Board whether, in the case of the assistant sanitary and water inspector appointed the week before last by the Oswestry Town Council, the Council took steps to circulate particulars of the post which was vacant through the Labour Exchange Bureaux throughout the country so that ex-Service men might have the opportunity of applying?
  Mr. PRATT: My right hon. Friend has not the information asked for, but he has communicated with the town council, and will acquaint the hon. and gallant Member with the result.
  Colonel ASHLEY: I will put down this and the next question for this day week.

  MORTALITY (MINING DISTRICTS.)
  Mr. HURDasked the President of the Local Government Board what is the death rate for miners between the ages

  2093
  of twenty-five and fifty-five; and what is the average male death rate throughout England and Wales for the same age period?
  Mr. PRATT: The hon. Member's question refers to "miners." I take it that "coal-miners" are intended. The death rate "varies for different age groups. The age group asked for is one of thirty years. Calculated on the three years 1910–12, the death rate per 1,000 for "all males" for the thirty years of age group 25–55 is 24·9; that for the age group 25–35 is only 14·4; for 35–45 it is 24·0; it rises in the 45–55 age group to 44·0. The corresponding rate for "all miners" for the 25–55 age group is 21·0 and for the three subdivisions of this age group 13·3, 20·4, 38·4. For "coal-miners" for the age group 25–55 the death rate is 20·7, and for the three sub-divisions 13·2, 20·1, and 38·0. These figures show that in the age group 25–55 years and for each sub-division of it the death rate for "coal miners" is lower than the corresponding rate for "all miners" and for "all miners" the death rates are lower than for "all males." The actual figures have been obtained from the Registrar-General's office and the calculations are based on his figures.
  Mr. HURDasked the President of the Local Government Board whether, as stated by Mr. Smillie at the Coal Commission, the infantile mortality of the United Kingdom generally is 5 per cent.—that is 50 per 1,000—while the infantile mortality in mining districts is 160 per 1,000, and what are the latest official figures under each head; and, if figures for the mining districts as a whole are not obtainable, what are the figures for some of the principal mining areas?
  Mr. PRATT: It is customary to state the infantile mortality rate not as a percentage, but as deaths per 1,000 births. The Registrar-General reports that the infantile mortality rates, per 1,000 births for the United Kingdom and for England and Wales for the years 1915, 1916, and 1917 were as follows:

  Year.

  United Kingdom.

  1915

  110 per 1,000 births.

  1916

  91 „ „

  1917

  97 „ „

  In the following administrative counties—where over 10 per cent. of the total males
  2094
  are working as miners—the infantile mortality rates for the year 1915 were, as compared to 110 for the United Kingdom, as follows:

  Nottinghamshire

  102 per 1,000 births

  Derbyshire

  98 per 1,000 births

  Durham

  133 „ „

  Northumberland

  121 „ „

  Breconshire

  112 „ „

  Carmarthenshire

  102 „ „

  Denbighshire

  109 „ „

  Glamorganshire

  115 „ „

  Monmouthshire

  126 „ „

  These figures may be taken as representative for other years.
  Mr. HURD: May I ask the Leader of the House whether, in view of the substantial difference between these figures and those put before the Coal Commission, he would not think it desirable to let the official figures be submitted to Mr. Justice Sankey.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I must confess I was not listening very attentively to the answer. I shall consider the question.

  RAILWAY ADMINISTRATION.

    FARES AND RESTRICTIONS.
    Mr. F. ROBERTSasked the President of the Board of Trade when the 50 per cent. increase on fares and other restrictions on railway travelling will be removed and all privileges restored to the people?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: As I have explained in previous replies on this subject, the whole question of the removal or modification of restrictions on railway travelling is receiving constant consideration, but in view of the present position of the railways I can hold out no hope of an early withdrawal of the 50 per cent. increase on fares.
    Mr. ROBERTS: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the President of the Board of Trade is reported to have said the time is rapidly coming when these concessions would be made? If so, can he give us any interpretation of that?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am informed by my right Hon. Friend that he gave no indication either of the time or the amount of the reduction he hoped to see made.

    SEASIDE RESORTS.
    Mr. LUNNasked the President of the Board of Trade whether local authorities in industrial districts are acquainting him with the feelings of dissatisfaction of the people at the refusal to provide cheap railway facilities to the seaside?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am aware of the desire for cheap railway facilities, but I cannot add to the reply on the subject given on the 11th March to the hon. Member for West Bromwich. I am sending the hon. Gentleman a copy of that reply.
    Mr. LUNN: In view of the remarkably healthy condition of working people as just explained, is it the idea of the Government that working people should be contented with the fresh air they get from the sea as seen on the moving pictures?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I do not know what the hon. Member means. If he means that there is any desire to prevent people from having these health facilities he is entirely wrong. We should be only too glad if we could provide them.

  INDUSTRIAL INSURANCE.
  Lieutenant - Colonel WALTER GUINNESSasked the President of the Board of Trade whether industrial insurance policies are excluded from protectection under the Courts (Emergency Powers) Act of 1914, in those cases where any arrears of premiums existed on 4th August, 1914?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The Courts (Emergency Powers) Act, 1914, applies to life or endowment policies for an amount not exceeding £25, or payments equivalent thereto, the premiums in respect of which are payable at not longer than monthly intervals and have been paid for at least two years preceding the 4th August, 1914. The question raised by my hon. Friend appears to involve an interpretation of the Act which can only be decided by the Courts.
  Mr. CAIRNSasked the Home Secretary, with reference to the Government inquiry into industrial insurance, whether he will widen the terms of reference to include the terms and conditions of service of all grades of the outdoor staffs of life offices and to secure a direct representative of the agents and collectors on the Committee of Inquiry?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. The terms of reference to the Committee to be appointed to inquire into the question of industrial assurance have not yet been finally settled. The suggestion of the hon. Member that the inquiry should include the terms and conditions of service of all grades of the outdoor staffs of industrial life offices shall receive consideration. As regards the concluding part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave on the 12th March to a question asked by the hon. Member for Wednesbury.

  IMPORT RESTRICTIONS.

    ALARM CLOCKS.
    Major Sir BERTRAM FALLEasked the Secretary to the Board of Trade if he can see his way to take off or lessen the import restrictions, at least temporarily, from cheap alarm clocks made in the United States until plans and arrangements shall have been made to make these clocks in this country?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am not prepared to accord separate treatment to these articles which will be dealt with, like all other manufactured articles, under the policy explained to the House by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Reconstruction and by me on the 10th March.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE.

    PILOT PUPILS (FLYING TRAINING).
    Mr. MOSLEYasked the Under-Secretary of State to the Air Ministry whether observers of the Royal Air Force who are now training to graduate as pilots will foe allowed to complete their course before being demobilised?
    Mr. PRATT: The flying training of all pilot pupils, whether they have been observers or not, has been discontinued in the interest of public economy.

    OBSERVERS (GRATUITIES).
    Mr. MOSLEYasked the Under-Secretary of State to the Air Ministry whether the gratuities of observers who have been returned to England to undergo training as pilots are assessed upon the

    2097
    rate of pay which they received in France while drawing flying pay, or upon the rate of pay which they are now receiving in England, where they do not draw flying pay during the period of their training?
    Mr. PRATT: Gratuities are in all cases assessed on the basic rate of pay, exclusive of flying pay, and the amount is not altered by the fact of being returned to England.

  POLICE PENSIONS.
  Major PRESCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action has been taken to deal with the application of the Retired Police Officers' Association for equal pensions for equal service, and pensions for the pre-September widows as well as for post-September widows?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Shortt): I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply which I gave to a question on this subject by the hon. and gallant Member for Finsbury on the 27th February.
  Major PRESCOTTasked the Home Secretary how many applications have been made to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police since the outbreak of war by retired police officers to be allowed to give up their pensions entirely and to rejoin the service on the grounds that it was impossible for them to exist, on their pre-war pensions; whether any of these applications were granted, and, if not, were the reasons for rejection given; and will he announce how many appeals on the question of revision of pensions have been made to the Home Office since January, 1916, and the action taken to consider the grievances referred to?
  Mr. SHORTT: A number of communications have been received from pre-war pensioners relative to the amount of their pensions, but only one case can be traced of a man who applied to rejoin on the ground that his pension was inadequate. This was an ex-inspector who was informed that he could be re-employed as a pensioner at the ordinary rate, namely, 50s. a week, subsequently increased to 63s., in addition to his pension, which was £121 15s. I have received a number of communications on the subject of revision of pensions, but I regret that I am unable to introduce legislation on this subject.

  SPECIAL CONSTABLES (RECOGNITION OF SERVICES).
  Mr. CROOKSasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the services rendered by special constables during the War and the individual inconvenience and expense incurred, he will favourably consider the possibility of recognising their services by way of a monetary grant?
  Mr. SHORTT: The matter is under consideration and I hope that some means of recognising the valuable services of the special constables may be agreed upon shortly, but I do not think that it can take the form of a monetary grant.

  NATIONAL SHIPYARDS.
  Brigadier-General CROFTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Shipping Controller whether the contracts for the national shipyards are on the time and line system; whether this entails a percentage being paid on the cost; and whether he will state what are the average wages paid in those contracts?
  Colonel WILSON: I presume that the hon. and gallant Member has in mind the contracts for housing, which is the only work of any magnitude being carried out by contractors in connection with the shipyards. The contracts are on the basis of the Government supplying material and paying a fixedsum—not a percentage—for each house completed. Outside work, such as fencing, drainage, etc., is done on a percentage basis. I will let the hon. and gallant Member know what are the average wages paid as soon as I have obtained the information from the yards. I may add that new arrangements are now under consideration with regard to the contracts referred to.

  SMALL BUSINESSES (DEMOBILISED MEN).
  Major NEWMANasked the Minister of National Service whether, having satisfied himself that the applicant is not an alien or desirous of opening a business which had been the livelihood of a soldier still serving with the Colours, it is his intention to remove the embargo on the opening of small businesses throughout the country by demobilised men and others?
  Mr. WARDLE: The Retail Business (Licensing) Order is so administered that there is no embargo on the opening of small businesses by demobilised sailors or soldiers and others, provided the businesses they wish to open do not unfairly compete with similar businesses owned by sailors or soldiers who are absent on service, or men who have just been demobilised and are reinstating their businesses.
  Major NEWMAN: Who decides the point as to competition?
  Mr. KILEY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this Department is managed by a young lady, and it takes six to eight weeks to reply to a communication?
  Mr. WARDLE: No; I was not aware of that. I will make inquiries into both points.
  Major NEWMAN: Is the young lady the arbitrator?
  Mr. WARDLE: I should say, No.

  BUILDING MATERIALS.
  Mr. HAYDAYasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware of any profiteering in the supply of building materials; and whether, in view of the high prices now being charged, any consideration is being given to the advisability of fixing fair maximum prices?
  Mr. KELLAWAY: No complaints of profiteering in the supply of building materials have reached the Ministry of Munitions. The matter is being carefully watched and the necessary action will at once betaken should it be found that exorbitant prices are being charged.
  Mr. HAYDAY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that since the withdrawal of control on the price of bricks in some areas they have gone up by 10s. a 1,000?
  Mr. KELLAWAY: I was not aware of that. It is not consistent with my information.

  NATIONAL WAR SAVINGS COMMITTEE.
  Mr. MALLALIEUasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is proposed to continue the National War Savings Committee in its present or some
  2100
  modified form; if so, what paid organising, and inspecting staff has been or is to be appointed to supervise the work in the provinces; and whether it is intended to continue the local committees, including the committees for counties and county boroughs?
  Mr. BALDWIN: It is proposed to continue the national war savings organisation with some slight alterations in membership of the committee in order to strengthen the connection between the committee and its local branches. The original county committees have been disbanded as the whole country is now covered with local war savings committees. Detailed questions of local organisation are being discussed at a series of conferences of local war savings committees held throughout the country. A few of the officers whose services were lent by the Board of Education for the supervision of the work in the provinces have been permanently transferred to the staff of the National War Savings Committee, and will continue to act as an inspecting staff.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: Can the hon. Gentleman tell the House what is the cost to the nation of the National War Savings work?
  Mr. BALDWIN: I know it is very little, but I cannot tell my hon. Friend the amount from memory.
  Brigadier-General CROFT: Is it not very much cheaper than newspaper propaganda?
  Mr. BALDWIN: Yes.

  ENTERTAINMENTS DUTY (HORSE SHOWS).
  Lieutenant-Colonel R. PEELasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in the case of horse shows held with the primary object of encouraging horse breeding, the receipts in addition to an Entertainments Tax of 2d. on a 6d. entry also have to bear an additional burden of taxation of 1s. 3d. of the annual subscriptions, or 15 per cent. of the life subscriptions to the society; and whether this is levied irrespective as to whether the subscriptions carry a free pass into the show or not?
  Mr. BALDWIN: Liability to Entertainments Tax attaches to subscriptions paid

  2101
  to any club, association, or society in so far as the subscriptions confer the right of admission to taxable entertainments, but not otherwise. If my hon. and gallant Friend will give me particulars of the horse shows to which he refers, I will have inquiry made as to the assessment of tax on the subscriptions in question.

  MINERS' STRIKES.
  Captain COOTE (by Private Notice)asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the miners of many mines throughout the country came out on strike last Saturday, and many more on Monday; and what action the Government intend to take in view of this open refusal to await the finding of the Coal Commission, and implied refusal to abide by it unless the miners' demands are satisfied in full?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I am informed that about 50,000 miners are on strike mainly in Nottinghamshire and South Wales. As far as my information goes these strikes appear to be due mainly to local issues and do not, I think, warrant the hon. and gallant Member's inference.

  PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION (IRELAND).
  Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: May I ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he intends to bring on his Bill to-night in regard to Proportional Representation?
  The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Macpherson): No, Sir, not to-night. Perhaps on Monday.

  MEMBERS' SEATS.
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: I desire to ask your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, in regard to a matter arising out of the new seating arrangements. As at present arranged, a Member can obtain a ticket from the messenger at the door, and can place his ticket upon the seat. If he turns up at Prayers that seat is his; but if he does not turn up at Prayers the seat belongs to the Member who occupies it at Prayers; but unfortunately, to-day, there were no tickets on the Table and no messenger at the door, and the Member who turns up at Prayers and sits in a certain seat cannot
  2102
  keep it, because he has no ticket to place on the seat. Could some arrangement be made to enable Members to obtain seats?
  Mr. SPEAKER: I will instruct the messenger, when he leaves the door before Prayers, to put a few tickets on the Table as usual, so that any hon. Members who are present at Prayers can sign their names and take their places.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to facilitate the administration of War Charities in Scotland." [War Charities (Scotland) Bill [Lords.]
  And also, a Bill, intituled, "An act to amend and regulate procedure under the Intestate Husband's Estate (Scotland) Act, 1911." [Intestate Husband's Estate. (Scotland) Bill [Lords.]

  BILLS PRESENTED.
  RAILWAY AND CANAL TRAFFIC BILL,—"to provide for the better regulation of Traffic on Railways and Canals," presented by Mr. MARSHALL STEVENS; supported by, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, Mr. Manville, Mr. George Balfour, Sir Richard Cooper, Mr. Atkey, Mr. Hailwood, and Mr. Briggs; to be read a second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 29.]
  DOGS' PROTECTION BILL,—"to prevent the vivisection of Dogs," presented by Sir FREDERICK BANBURY; supported by Sir John Butcher; to be read a second time upon Friday, and to be printed. [Bill 30.]
  COMPENSATION FOR SUBSIDENCE BILL,—"to provide for the payment of compensation for Damage to Property as the result of Subsidence due to underground mining," presented by Mr. BRACE; supported by Mr. Adamson, Mr. James Brown, Mr. Charles Edwards, and Mr. Frederick Hall; to be read a second time upon Friday, 30th May, and to be printed. [Bill 31.]
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES (ENABLING) BILL,—"to extend the powers of Local Authorities in matters of finance and municipal trading, "presented by Mr. NEIL MACLEAN; supported by Colonel William Thorne, Mr. Bromfield, Mr. John Davison, Mr. Robert Richardson, and Mr. Spoor; to be read a second time upon Friday, 16th May, and to be printed. [Bill 32.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  NOTICES OF MOTION.

    RESTRICTIONS ON EXPORTS.
    To move, upon this day two weeks,
    "That, in the opinion of this House, the restrictions prohibiting the delivery of manufactured goods from this country to Allied countries should be greatly modified, if not entirely removed, in order to cope with the present unemployment."—[Mr. Coote.]

    PENSIONS TO MOTHERS.
    To call attention, upon this day two weeks, to the question of pensions to mothers, and to move a Resolution.—[Mr.R.Richardson.]
    To call attention, upon this day two weeks, to the Board of Agriculture, and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Wilson-Fox.]

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Mr. G. LAMBERT: No one can view the future of this country without grave and anxious disquietude, and I think the House may well warn the Government to face the facts of the financial situation. We are to-day upon a slippery slope, and the Government appear to be taking the line of least resistance. Where there is a difficulty, they contrive to solve it with a Government Grant. It is so much easier to say "Yes" to demands than "No," and to spend money than to save it. It is not my desire in the smallest degree to criticise the Government in an unfriendly spirit. I want, if possible, to help them. The Government have control of the destinies of the country, and I trust, as every other inhabitant of the Empire trusts, that they may succeed in solving the difficult problems before them. But I must call attention to a few features which it would be well for the Government and the country to ponder over.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Budget statement on 22nd April last year, gave us to understand that the pre-war
  2122
  expenditure in this country, exclusive of the Debt, was £173,000,000. He considered that pensions and other incidental matters would take £97,000,000, and therefore, exclusive of the Debt, he put our expenditure after the War at £270,000,000, or, including the Debt, which he put at £380,000,000, it would be £650,000,000. When we look at the truly colossal estimates that have been produced by the Government this year, one cannot help being appalled at the situation. The Army is to take £440,000,000, the Air Service—I am giving round figures—£65,000,000, the Navy £150,000,000, Civil Service £495,000,000. That makes a total expenditure of £1,150,000,000 for services, exclusive of the Debt, as against what was estimated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year—£270,000,000. If you add £380,00,000 Debt charge to £1,150,000,000, we arrive at a total sum for which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has to Budget this year of something over £1,150,000,000. That is a position which may well alarm the country, especially as this expenditure is from the period 31st March, 1919, to 31st March,1920, and therefore it includes a period which would have given the Government something like live months since the Armistice to have liquidated many war charges.
  I confess candidly that I do not know how the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to meet this burden. He cannot, I think, meet it with taxation. Last year the estimate of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for after-the-War taxation was about £650,000.000. This year the Chancellor's task, if he does not resort to borrowing, would be to find something like £1,500,000,000, or two and a-half times as much as the Revenue estimated to be received for necessary expenditure last year. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to raise this enormous sum of £1,500,000,000 by taxation he will have to increase the Income Tax from 6s. to 15s. in the£. I do not think that is a very pleasant prospect. The Sugar, Tobacco, and Tea Duties, and all taxes on necessaries, will have to go up more than double. I am afraid that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will have to resort to borrowing, and this borrowing is a danger to the country. We have been warned about it over and over again, and in the Report of the Currency Committee, which was issued last year, we have this very impressive warning from the bankers and other business men who constituted that Committee:

  2123
  "If a sound monetary position is to be re-established and the gold standard to be effectively maintained, it is, in our judgment, essential that the Government borrowings should cease at the earliest possible moment after the War."
  It goes on:
  "It is essential that as soon as possible that the State should not only live within its income, but begin to reduce its indebtedness. We accordingly it commend that at the earnest possible moment an adequate Sinking Fund should be provided out of Revenue, so that there may be a regular annual reduction of capital liabilities, more especially those which constitute local debt."
  And they make this very obvious remark:
  "In view of the commitments of the Government, we should remark that it is of the utmost importance that such repayments of debt should not be offset by fresh borrowings for capital expenditure."
  These conclusions seem to me to be eminently sound, but I would like to know from the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he proposes to follow the advice given to him by this very representative and capable Committee, and meet his expenditure in the coming year out of the taxation for the year. In all these questions we are at a great disadvantage, because there is so much uncertainty in our minds. We can have no certainty until those gentlemen who are debating in Paris come to some conclusion as regards peace. To my mind, and I wonder that it has not been reflected more in this House, there has been too long delay in these peace negotiations in Paris. We do want to know where we stand with regard to Germany. I saw in the papers this morning the very welcome announcement that the Prime Minister was asked to stay two weeks longer, and that then we might have some definite conclusion or signing of the preliminaries of peace. I hope profoundly—I am speaking not politically at all—that there will be no industrial disturbance in this country that would bring the Prime Minister away from that supremely important work in Paris. I do not speak as a supporter of the Prime Minister. I have no right to do so, I was not honoured with the Prime Minister's support at the General Election; on the contrary, I was honoured with his opposition, but that does not preclude any man who has the interests of his country at heart and knows the great sacrifices that have been made by the country in the War, from hoping that the Prime Minister may be allowed to remain in Paris, free from all domestic worries, and that he may reap the fruits
  2124
  of that victory which has been won by so much sacrifice and bloodshed on the part of our country.
  4.0 P.M.
  I hope that the Government will be good enough to tell us what is to be the policy, military and naval, of the country during the next few years. We do want a little clear speaking on these matters. The Army Estimates before the War came to, I think, about £30,000,000. This year, including the Air, it is £500,000,000. What are you going to do with this great force? Who are you going to fight? We have large forces in Russia, some of them are beleagured, some of them are even in danger. Is it intended to continue these Russian expeditions? I think we have a clear right to some knowledge on these points. It is not now a question of giving information to the enemy. During the last four years we have been told over and over again that we cannot have information, because it would be giving information to the enemy. That time has gone by. The responsibility for policy must rest with the Government, and, as was stated by a very distinguished Conservative statesman, expenditure depends on policy. If you propose to engage in expeditions all over the world, our expenditure will go on. No one knows how far our expenditure will go. The question of economy is one of the gravest we have to face, and it must be the special responsibility of the Government. The House of Commons is not an economical Assembly. Whenever the House makes a proposal it generally means expenditure of public money. The Government must instil economical principles into the whole series of Departments under its control. Economy, rather than extravagance, must be the watchword. We have to repair the waste of the War, and it can only be repaired by industry and frugality. Sometimes I wish my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer would change places with the Secretary for War. Wherever the Secretary for War is, that office certainly will always hum. We do not want the War Office to hum at this moment. We want it rather to hibernate. I can imagine what would have been the feelings and language of the Secretary of State for War if the present Chancellor of the Exchequer had come to him to find something like £500,000,000 for the Air Service and the Army. It would have been very vigorous indeed.
  I come to another point of the Government policy. There seems to be a mania

  2125
  for establishing new Government Departments. Sometimes it is an old one called by a new name, but it always means a few score of extra officals appointed. Then there are many new offices coming into the field. They will all have to be staffed and manned. As was well said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) the other day, and it was echoed in all parts of the House, what we want in this country is production; but does any official or Government Department ever produce anything? [An HON. MEMBER: "Paper!"] I agree. [An HON. MEMBER: "And delay!"] Government Departments do not produce. We want houses. There is not a single Government official that will be able to set to work in the actual building of houses, but there will be plenty directing others. If you want coal, Government officials are not going to dig coal. We have had the example, quite recently, of the latest new Government Department—brand new—with a very able Scotsman at its head, a gentleman belonging to the Labour party, as the Secretary at the Labour Department. It is up to date; it is paying out something like £1,200,000 a week in unemployment donation. This is being paid out of borrowed money. As it stands to-day, it is a vast pauperising dole, for, despite what the Under-Secretary told us just now, I do know that there is, especially in agriculture, a crying need for labour. If any of us want anything done, if we go to any tradesman, he says, "I cannot do it, I have not got any men." Surely it is the right thing for the Minister of Labour to endeavour to bring the employers and the would be workers together. Instead of that, they seem to have got friction and all sorts of worries within the Labour Exchanges themselves.
  There is a great deal of futility in Government Departments when they endeavour to bring workmen together. I am saying this in no hostility to labour. There is no man who has a keener or deeper sympathy with labour than I have. We want to see workers well employed at good wages, but that cannot be done when there is a large portion of the population consuming the products of industry and only another portion of them producing. We cannot have in this country loafers and idlers, and we shall not want them. Controllers are gentlemen we can do without. There are too many controllers; they do not produce anything. Unless the Government will take this question in hand, I foresee a long and dreary vista of unemployment,
  2126
  and it is a most terrible nightmare to any worker who wants to work and cannot get it, and if he has a family he may be driven to desperation, and then there will be grave disturbances. What I want to put to my Labour Friends and the House generally is this: We have to import food and raw materials into this country. They must be paid for, and can only be paid for by industry or services rendered or manufactured goods exported. The capital of this country has been vested in foreign countries, and has been sadly depleted. The export of manufactured goods is being hindered and checked by absurd Government Regulations. We must restore the equilibrium, otherwise we shall have a continuance of high food prices, which lead to unrest and to irregularity.
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): What are the absurd Government Regulations which check export which you have in mind?
  Mr. LAMBERT: The Regulations of the Board of Trade generally preventing free export of our cotton and other goods to foreign countries—to China, to India, and other places of that description. [An HON. MEMBER: "No, no!"] My right hon. Friend will get a little information from the representatives of those towns, but it is no good to come down and say he did not know anything about it.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I beg pardon. I certainly did not intend any discourtesy to my hon. Friend by the observation to my colleague near me, which I did not intend to reach him, and I should be sorry if he thought I was intentionally rude to him. What I intended to say was that I did not think my hon. Friend's information was up to date, or that he was aware of what had been done in regard to these matters.
  Mr. LAMBERT: I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be able to satisfy the House that he has withdrawn these restrictions. If the right hon. Gentleman imagines that the statement made by the Minister of Reconstruction is satisfactory, then I think he will be gravely mistaken, for we do not know what it means. I followed him very closely, and I do not really know what his statement was meant to convey to the House. I am simply trying to explain that the high cost of production which must ensue by high food prices will hamper our export trade. That, at any rate, will not be disputed,

  2127
  and it is no good our trying to go into foreign countries to supply them with articles unless we are able to supply them with a better and a cheaper article. The financial policy of the Government has a great deal to do with it. High taxation must hamper production. If a man wants to build a new factory, to instal machinery, he has to look at the taxation of the country. If he makes a gain with the Income Tax at 6s. in the £1 he will gain 14s. in the £l. If he makes a loss lie will lose £l. Therefore every increase of taxation which the Chancellor of the Exchequer imposes is certainly a restriction on the enterprise of capitalists in endeavouring to extend our trade. Cannot the Government give us something like security? We hear over and over again about the review of their trade facilities. I believe that they are to be reviewed in September. That again hampers manufacturers in this country, because there is nothing that manufacturers fear so much as uncertainly. Let us have a clear indication of the Government policy. I appeal to them not in any critical or hostile spirit to take their courage in both hands. They have a huge majority and can afford to be unpopular if they want to restore confidence in the country, but you cannot restore confidence by promising everything to everybody. The Prime Minister told is this country was to be. "a country safe for democracy," but up to now it has been the policy to make it safe for bureaucracy, and bureaucrats will not increase the production of the country. I ask the Government now to be resolute in restoring our export trade. So far as I am concerned I am not a pessimist. I have a firm faith in the future of the British people and the British Empire, but that British Empire and our prosperity have been built up by private initiative and private enterprise. What I fear is that private enterprise may be blighted by the extravagance and the restrictions of bureacratic control.
  Sir FREDERICK BANBURY: The right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has, I think, performed a very great service in calling the attention of the House to the extravagant expenditure which is going on at present. Like the right hon. Gentleman, I have great faith in the British nation, and I believe that we shall come through the crisis safely and soundly, provided that we recognise the old principles
  2128
  upon which the prosperity of this country has been founded. It seems to me that for the moment we have completely lost sight of those principles. The right hon. Gentleman said that the most extravagant place in the United Kingdom is the House of Commons, and that to a very great extent is true, because there are always a certain number of Members who are interested in a particular expenditure and they forget the other groups who are also interested in some expenditure, and they concentrate their attention upon their own ewe lamb. That might be all very well when we have a National Debt of about £640,000,000 and an Income Tax somewhere about 8d. or 9d. in the pound. But now that the National Debt is something like £7,500,000,000 and our expenditure in times of peace—because we are now practically in a time of peace—something like £1,500,000,000, that ewe, lamb must wait until we get more prosperous. We must, in fact, cut our coat according to the cloth. There are many projects in contemplation which involve large expenditure, and it is quite impossible for us to go on in the way in which we are going unless we intend to become a bankrupt country. For the last three years I have endeavoured to inculcate economy, not only upon the Government, but when I was deputy-chairman of the Unionist War Committee I, on more than one occasion, drew the attention of the Committee to extravagance that was going on. But there were some excuses for it during war, and it might be held that, in order to get certain articles which were absolutely necessary, that it was justifiable to pay any price for them. I do not know myself that that was a very sound argument, and I believe that some articles could have been obtained at lower prices. But still, in the face of a great crisis, you have got to take any means to attain your end. But having obtained your end, and we have now attained our end, surely we ought to begin to retrench and endeavour to get back to a sound financial position. If a private individual, with an income of £1,000 a year, has for two or three years to spend £1,500 per year, and to borrow in order to do so when the crisis is passed, if he is a prudent man instead of spending £1,000 a year, he will spend £800 per year and save £200 in order to help to pay off the debt contracted. That is not what the Government are doing. We never have a Minister coming down here and telling us that though certain things are good we

  2129
  cannot afford them. On the contrary, we have Ministers coming down here and bringing in Bills day after day every one of which means a greatly increased expenditure.
  Let us look at the financial position of the country. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury will correct me if I am wrong, since the figures are so enormous and the opportunities of private Members to get them exactly are so very difficult that I may possibly make some error. I believe that the National Debt at the end of the financial year will be something like £7,500,000,000. From that you have to deduct the money which has been advanced to our Colonies and the money which has been advanced to various other countries. Some of that will take lime to recover. That amount of debt means something like £400,000,000 per year for interest and sinking fund, even if you put by only a very small sinking fund. When I first came to Parliament I remember the then Chancellor of Exchequer saying that if there was a Budget of £100,000,000, it would be a very serious thing for the country. Now we are face to face not with a Budget of £100,000,000, but we are obliged to provide £400,000,000 for the National Debt alone. The Army and Navy were alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman, and he asked "who are we going to fight?" I do not know who we are going to fight, I hope no one, but I venture to say that it would be a tall order to say that we were not going to fight at all. We cannot tell whether or not we may have to fight. There is another point which the right hon. Gentleman has forgotten, and that is as to an indemnity. It must be remembered that Germany cannot do what France did in 1870. In 1870 France paid £200,000,000 to Germany in gold and silver, spread over, as far as I can remember, a period of two or three years. Germany cannot pay anything in gold or silver because she has not got it, and all that she can pay is by goods spread over a period of years. If we are going to do that, and I hope we shall do something of that sort, it will be necessary for us to have an Army of Occupation, because if you merely get an undertaking or a treaty from Germany, as soon as Germany is sufficiently strong she will tear up the treaty if we have not got a strong Army of Occupation or a strong Army in this country so that Germany will know that if she attempts to tear up such a treaty she will be resisted
  2130
  successfully. Therefore, and in this I hope I am not extravagant, this is a matter as to which I am willing to incur some expenditure. I should like to point out that extravagance does not mean efficiency. Far from it. Most efficient concerns in private life and in business life are not those which are conducted extravagantly, but those which are conducted economically and efficiently, and the two go together. Therefore, I myself am in favour of a strong Army and a strong Navy, and I think that that is absolutely essential to the country. Whether is it essential to spend such enormous sums upon the Air Force I do not know. It seems to me to be, as far as I can remember, more than we spent on the Navy before the War. We are certainly spending an enormous sum on the Air Force, and I understood that it was in such a condition that it would not be necessary to spend much more on it at the present moment. I think we could possibly spend less on the Army and Navy than is now proposed, but I do not think we can hope for airy great decrease in the expenditure on the Army and the Navy.
  I have pointed out that the sum required for interest on the National Debt and Sinking Fund would be something like £400,000,000 a year. Then we have an expenditure, I believe, on the Army of something like £300,000,000 and on the Navy of £140,000,000, while the Civil Service expenditure reaches the huge amount of £450,000,000. What on earth they are going to do with it, or why it is necessary to have vast hordes of officials in the Civil Service, I cannot conceive. We are accustomed in these days to talk about millions as if they were only thousands or even hundreds, but a sum of £450,000,000 for the Civil Service is really enough to take one's breath away. Then, according to the statement of the future Minister of Ways and Communications, there is a deficit of £100,000,000 on the railways, which is more than the total expenditure of this country in the year 1893–4. It is true that the Minister told us that we are going to have some economics, but I do not attach any very great importance to that statement. Some no doubt may be effected, but it must not be forgotten that the railway companies during the last four years have been working together, and that all those reforms in wagons have taken place. The railways have been working under private management, and it must not be supposed that it has been done by the State.

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  It would not have been so successful if it had been. The railways were conducted by the directors and officials, and the executive committee, which is composed of the eight general managers of the eight principal railway companies. There is that sum to be added to those I have mentioned. There is an unknown sum for pensions, which will be, I suppose, about £70,000,000. There was introduced yesterday a Housing Bill, and, so far as I can understand, the State is to make up the loss or to recoup the localities. With the enormous cost of building at present, what that is going to be I do not know. I am not arguing that it is not a good thing to have houses. It is a good thing to have a fur coat on a cold day, but if you have not the money to get it you must go without it. It seems to me that on the top of our other expenditure we will be adding an enormous amount by this Housing Bill. There are any quantity of Bills all going in the same direction. I do not think there is any Member here who will challenge me when I say that I do not see the slightest indication or any action on the part of any Minister which tends to economy or to the curtailment of expenditure. The sums I have mentioned total, in round figures, £1,500,000,000 per year. The Revenue is estimated to be £800,000,000, and that includes the Excess Profits Tax, and as far as I can infer—and I think the general run of people in business and the majority in business say—if that tax is continued it will be very difficult to compete with foreign countries. As the right hon. Gentleman said, the first thing we have got to do is to increase production. Unless we do, we are, to use a slang phrase, "done," because we cannot live on bits of paper called currency notes, such as I have in my pocket. We have got to produce, and we have got to produce on such terms that someone outside this country will buy of us, and unless we can do that we cannot go on. We are a small country with a large population, which has been dependent for the last fifty or sixty years entirely upon what we have produced and upon having been at one time the foremost producing country in the world.
  I have forgotten to mention the unemployment donation, and I was sorry to see in the paper that the amount of money spent on that was put at £1,300,000 in a week, which means something like £65,000,000 a year. That is a premium upon idleness, and, human nature being what it is it is a very great premium on
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  idleness. Let us see what is going on at the present moment. I will give my right hon. Friend full particulars of the names of everybody if he requires. A person I know was written to by a man who had been in his employment before the War as a farm labourer, and he asked if this employer would write to his commanding officer and say he was willing to take him back. The employer did so, and presently received a note from the Labour Exchange saying, "We understand you are prepared to employ so-and-so as a farm labourer, and that you were good enough to say you would keep his place open for him. Will you please fill up this form." He filled up the form, and the man came back from the Army. For the first four weeks he stayed in the village and did nothing. The employer was very short of labour and wanted men, but could not get anybody. At the end of the four weeks, instead of coming back to the farm, the man took a job at a railway works. In that case there was one man for two jobs. He could have got work on the farm, for which he had been released from the Army, but he took work at a railway works. Men do not choose to take work when they can get this unemployment donation, and this at a time when, as the right hon. Gentleman says, if you go to any tradesman or manufacturer and ask for an article to be made, he says he cannot make it because he has not got the men. I may be asked, "What is the remedy for this?" One remedy is, first of all to inculcate economy in the spending Departments. I remember in the early days of the War going to a meeting at the Guildhall, where Mr. Asquith and the present Leader of the House spoke, and both of them were very strong in impressing economy on the City men who were present. I was suddenly asked to propose a vote of thanks to the Lord Mayor, which I did, and I took the opportunity of saying that I was very glad to hear that the then Prime Minister and the present Leader of the House had inculcated economy. I thought it was a most excellent thing, and I ventured to say, on behalf of the City, that when the Government set the example they would follow. But from that day to this the Government have never set the example of economy. On the contrary, they have set a bad example of extravagance. The first thing to do is to inculcate economy in the various Government Departments, and the next thing to do is to abolish all Government control and interference with trade. The

  2133
  first thing that would result from that is that you would get rid of a lot of officials and save money in that way; and, secondly, you would, allow traders and manufacturers and business men to do their own business in their own way, which they cannot do at the present moment.
  Before I sit down I would like to draw the attention of the House to a very serious feature in the financial situation. I have never said anything about it publicly, although I have endeavoured privately to draw attention to it, not to the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, but to other Chancellors of the Ex-chequer, and that is the great increase in the issue of currency notes. The "Times" of two days ago gave the figure of currency notes at £321,000,000, against which the only reserve is £20,000,000 in gold. I am not quite certain that I am absolutely accurate, but I think I am right in saying, at any rate within two or three millions, that £320,000,000 is the highest figure that these currencynotes have obtained since they were first issued. The very first thing we ought to have done when the Armistice was concluded was to reduce the currency notes. I went into the City shortly after the American Civil War, and at that time the American Government did something in the same way as we have done with these currency notes. They issued what came to be called greenbacks, and a large number of American Government securities were in those days payable in greenbacks and some of them in gold, and when I first went into the City there was a difference of about 12 per cent. in favour of the gold bonds as against the greenback bonds. That difference gradually disappeared altogether. Why? Because the American Government the moment the War was over set itself to reduce the greenbacks issue and to go back to a sound currency. We are doing absolutely the reverse. We are not in any kind of way endeavouring to reduce these bits of paper which I have in my pocket, but rather we are keeping them at the same figure and even possibly increasing them. May I draw the attention of the House to what happened in the French Revolution. They issued currency notes, which they called assignats, and finally you could buy a pound note for two francs, if you had two francs in your pocket. I commend that to the attention of the
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  Labour Members. It is very easy to have fictitious prosperity, which we have at the present moment. You see people buying all kinds of articles, furs and jewellery, you see them, going to theatres, and crowding on to the railways. One hears about increases in fares. On the Great Northern Railway last January we had more passengers than we have ever had in our lives, notwithstanding the increase in fares, and all that is going on, what on? On a little bit of paper which intrinsically is worth nothing; and there comes a day of reckoning. You cannot go on issuing a printing press if you wish to keep up the ultimate prosperity of the country. I was told on Friday, when I went home, by a man who works for me that he had been talking to a soldier who said, "There is no reason to be economical; we have not touched the Bank of England yet." There is that sort of idea about, that everybody has plenty of money and therefore you need not think about economy. The matter is really very serious, and I earnestly trust that the House, which, if it chooses, can do anything, will insist upon economy at the present time.
  Lieutenant-Colonel PICKERING: On rising for the first time in this House, I would like to say that this Debate has a very important bearing on the industry to which I happen to belong, and also on my Constituency. I am sorry that some of the Departments for which some of this money is being voted have not as yet been demobilised, and I think one of them in particular, the War Trade Department, is having a very deterrent effect on the commerce of this country. I have put down questions about facilities being offered for the exportation to neutral countries of goods that have been purchased and paid for in many cases by the people of Scandinavia and Denmark, but the goods have not been allowed to be shipped owing to the fact that the War Trade Department have insisted on licences being given and have made other requirements. That has had the effect of allowing the Americans to compete in those countries, where hitherto they have not attempted to compete in textiles and cottons, and I think it is a very unfortunate thing that these merchants should be unable to realise and clear their warehouses of these goods, which were made at probably much lower prices than they could now be produced at. That sort of

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  thing is conducive to a lack of confidence, which I fear very shortly will cause much unemployment in the woollen and cotton industries. For the time being, many of the markets of England being empty by virtue of the fact that the country has been engaged in producing military goods, they can keep the mills going to some extent, but we are getting to the time when the home market is becoming full, and we shall then have to look round and find that our other markets have been entered by the Americans. I think the time has come when we can safely remove and do away with all those unnecessary Departments, which are adopting an absolutely obstructive policy. There is one other thing which is also greatly hampering trade and penalising the working classes of this country, and I would like to illustrate the effects of the Excess Profits Duty on the working man—that is to say, the consumer. I think everyone will agree that there has been a good deal of looting and profiteering in the country even since the Armistice, and in this connection the Government has to a certain extent set the lend in many commodities. I will take the case of wool. The Government issues wool to manufacturers and takes a very handsome profit out of it. The Bradford worsted spinner then says to himself, "I am going to help my-self now to 1s. a lb. profit. The Government take 80 per cent., and therefore I will put on a 5s. margin." That pushes up the price of his yarn, which is the raw material for all the hosiery manufactures of Glasgow. Those men are having to utilise a very large quantity of capital to-day to do the same volume of business, owing to the presence of this Excess fronts Duty. The man-in-the-street, who has to buy various necessary articles of apparel, is paying a very much higher price than there is really any necessity for him to do, and the same thing applies to cloth. These are all necessaries of life, and, whilst the Excess Profits Duty was a very necessary thing during the War, and the Government being the chief purchaser it did not make very much difference, now, when we have to take it for our own markets, and also to compete with the Americans in the neutral countries, we find ourselves very much out-beaten in price. The result is likely to be unemployment.
  There is no one in industry who has any objection to paying a share of any profits
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  they are getting, but the present method of collecting it by the Excess Profits Duty merely means that it is a direct tax on the consumer. I am of opinion that there will not be any great objection by those who are making profits to any tax on profits if it is put up in some form other than this. The capitalists are loath to expend any capital at present, until there is some definite statement made from the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to what the financial policy is going to be, and where there is any lack of confidence on the part of employers and capitalists, the same thing is bound to affect very largely labour. I would strongly urge the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make an early statement as to what is going to be the future policy of taxation, in order to re-establish the confidence of business men and to enable them to realise at what period they will be safe in buying certain articles, and when we have got more or less stabilised the values of these various commodities. At present, everything is highly inflated. The whole country is, to a great extent, in a fool's paradise. If any controller of any Department has made what might appear to-day, in present circumstances, a dear bargain, which he made, thinking it was in the best service of the country, during the War, there is no one will grumble, whatever else that entails now that the War is over; but any maintenance of high prices for the purpose of not revealing these bad bargains is handicapping the whole country, and, whatever it is, let us absolutely arrive at what is the proper basis, and cut our losses here and now, instead of having a lingering illness. It is going to be a very, very serious thing for the country unless we do get on a sound basis. The shillings have been almost inflated to pounds, and this sort of thing, to my mind, can only be a prelude to a certain financial crisis.
  Sir DONALD MACLEAN: It is amatter of great satisfaction to those of us who have been rather lonely during the last few weeks in endeavouring to draw attention to economy to find that the House is now thoroughly alive to it, and that Members in all parts of the House are endeavouring to take part in the Debate to reflect a feeling, which is certainly very widespread in the country, of the serious position in which the whole nation is now placed in order to find sufficient funds to meet the demands made by the various Government Departments upon

  2137
  the Treasury. We welcome here to-day with very great satisfaction the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because hitherto we have only been really faced with the great spending Departments, and when appeal has been made to us on patriotic grounds that the safety of the Empire is at stake, it has been a very difficult task indeed to meet with any carping note the proposals which have been placed before us. But I am quite certain that my right hon. Friend, although I know nothing about it, has been passing through a very trying time in the past few weeks when these Estimates have been placed before him, and so far as the House of Commons can find it in its duty to do so, let me tell him of a certainty that it will back him up in any effort he makes to cut out unnecessary expenditure. I do not want to weary the House, after what has been so well said by my right hon. Friend sitting beside me and my right hon. Friend opposite, but there is one figure of which I will remind the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because it will carry to him in a more vivid sense than to anybody in the House at the present moment, at any rate, what the position is. For the armed services of the Crown, the Estimates amount to no less a sum than £650,000,000, which is within £1,000,000 of the total National Debt when the War broke out. I am very glad indeed that the Leader of the House the other day, in response to a request which I ventured to make to him, gave what amounted to a half-promise that these Estimates should be revised. I am hoping that my right hon. Friend in charge of the Treasury will be able to go further than that. I am inclined to press it, on recent developments, to go further than that, and give on behalf of His Majesty's Government a clear and definite undertaking that, in accordance with the precedents of the Crimean War and the end of the Napoleonic Wars, when peace has been declared they will come back to the House of Commons and submit those Estimates to us once again, so that we may know what the policy is and shape the expenditure in accordance with it.
  Let me just very briefly refer to only one of the great spending Departments. The Secretary of State for War budgeted for the large amount practically of £400,000,000 and for an Army of 950,000 men. Of that great total, 400,000 men were to be for the Army of the Rhine, and 550,000 for what I may call other
  2138
  services. Let me just say a word or two on the question of the Army on the Rhine What will that force, linked up with the other great forces of our Allies, have to face? I hope—and I am sure it is a hope which one can express with confidence—that the conditions which are now being laid down in the Peace Treaty will be carried out. Three or four months hence they will have to face an Army of 100,000 men in Germany recruited on a voluntary basis on the long-service system, with their artillery disorganised, the whole of their war material in a state which need give no unnecessary alarm to a thoroughly equipped force facing it, and a Navy which has practically disappeared. They will be allowed a few battleships later on, and some cruisers and some destroyers, but no submarines. Here is what is going to be undoubtedly a clear-cutcase for a revised Estimate. And I may add that we all know they are going so to discourage the military spirit there that they are not even going to allow Boy Scouts. If anything approximating to that is the real position in three or four months, this House should demand from the Government—though I hope it will give it—an opportunity of revising, not only the Army Estimates (including the Air Estimates) and the Navy Estimates, but also the Civil Service Estimates. The whole Estimates of the country can and ought to be re-submitted to this House not later than the middle of June next.
  5.0 P.M.
  May I turn from that to say a word or two on general expenditure and the control of the Government Departments as at present existing? After all, a concrete case, although it sometimes may be very much exaggerated, is often quite typical of a general condition. I will refer to the question of the Slough Motor Depot. Now the Secretary of State for War said to-day that, to-morrow or the day after, he hoped to announce what was the Government policy with regard to that. Let us hope that the Government have at least made up their minds to cut the loss, and stop a grave public scandal. What are the facts? Those of us who were Members will remember the discussion that took place in June last with regard to that project, and the revival of that discussion in August, and bow clean-cut it must have been in the mind of the Government Department that the House of Commons was very anxious and gravely concerned about

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  the matter. What happened? Preparations of a kind were gone on with. The Armistice was declared on 11th November, and we now know, in a letter to the "Times"—and that great newspaper has performed a great public service in connection with this particular matter—the contractors, McAlpine and Company, gave away the whole case, so far as the Government is concerned, by admitting that they began work there six weeks after the Armistice was declared. If that is indicative, as I believe it is, of a condition of affairs which is rampant in Government Departments, I say the public unrest on this matter is fully justified. No matter what decision the Government announce to-morrow or the day after with regard to that, that sort of thing should be the subject of a public inquiry, and we are going to press for it. The contractors themselves say they started on that work six weeks after the Armistice was declared, which shows a condition of mind in the Government Department which constitutes a grave public danger, and nothing but a public inquiry, where all the evidence is heard in public, will meet the case. Let us take this one thing, and have a genuine public inquiry, and I am quite certain, if that is held swiftly, it will do an immense amount of real good. The cancer is there. Let us cut it out while there is yet time to prevent it spreading over the whole of our system.
  Let me turn now to include, in what I desire to say, the question of exports and imports. I am glad to see my right hon. Friend here, who is representing the President of the Board of Trade. I regret the latter right hon. Gentleman is not sufficiently restored to health to be with us. The other day I asked what was the policy of the Government in regard to exports and imports. We wereinformed—and one is glad enough to have any sort of an answer—that on 1st September the whole position would be reviewed; meanwhile steps were to be taken in regard to taking restrictions off one industry or another.
  The MINISTER of NATIONAL SERVICE and RECONSTRUCTION (Sir Auckland Geddes): Excuse my interruption, but what I said was that the position in regard to imports was to be reviewed on 1st September. The export position is simple enough.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: Well, with regard to imports was to be reviewed—I am sorry. But in respect to the question of imports, I should like to know whether an advisory committee or a consultative council has been set up on the question, and how that advisory committee or consultative council is composed? If such a body is to be of any real use and to carry with it the confidence of trade and of business men, it ought to be as impartially selected as possible. I want to know whether that consultative council is dominantly composed of men interested in matters of import or the subject of imports? Are the manufacturers and others dominantly represented? If that be so, all I can say is that such a consultative council will not carry much weight with the public. Such an advisory committee, or whatever it may be termed, ought to be composed of men who are not vitally and deeply interested in the principal businesses which are being arranged. Obviously their interests must be individual and not wholly placed at the disposal of the great consuming public?
  As to the question of exports, every business man who has any knowledge of actual trade knows that there are millions of pounds' worth of cotton goods, cotton piece goods, yarns, woollens, and textiles lying in the Lancashire warehouses ready for export, but licences cannot be granted. I do not know what the real reason for this may be. I assume that perhaps one of the reasons—if not the main reason—is the question of the blockade. I trust we may have some information on this point. The blockade, of course, affects some countries like Scandinavia and Denmark which, to some extent, are the gateways of commerce for our enemies. That I grant. But I really want to know what reason there can be for maintaining that policy now. Surely the time has come to ease the restriction of the export of these goods lying in Lancashire, and which, by their remaining there, proves a great cause of unemployment, which to-day is rampant in Lancashire! The mills are going idle almost every other day. Thousands of men, and yet more thousands of men and women, are becoming unemployed. The time has come, I am quite certain, when these vast quantities of goods stored up and ordered, with the markets waiting, can safely be let go.
  It is said, "Will you commence to trade with Germany?" I do not know what knowledge the Departments concerned have that these goods are going to Ger-

  2141
  many. If they are going to Germany, I do not see why Germany should not be supplied with our cotton and textile goods. If in the process of sending our goods we clothe others—well, we get the neutral money, which is much better tendered to us than German money. It is all the better for our British manufacturers. I rather press this point upon my right hon. Friend. I remember a great deal about the Board of Trade Department in its early days. It may be that the trouble is there. In those days the trouble was with the Foreign Office. I quite understand these may be matters of high policy, and that they are very difficult. But I am quite certain that the view of the House of Commons would be, so far as it can, to urge a resumption of normal business, and to go where you can trade with an amplitude of certainty that the national interests are not in danger. I suggest that the time has come when we should allow these goods to go out. If we do not, we cannot hold these customers of ours to their bargains. They will—and I do not know that they are not already doing so—arrange to get goods from the United States, where they have no sort of trouble about the blockade. So far as France is concerned, they look to Scandinavia and Denmark with regard to certain classes of trade. They are not, I imagine, very energetic on the subject. The real trouble, however, about it is also this: We have borne—I will not say the major share of the burden of war—but something very near to it, and we are going to bear, quite obviously, the major portion of the incidence of the burden of peace. I put these points to my right hon. Friend as one completely outside what is going on. I repeat again we are delighted to see him on the Treasury Bench, as well as the Secretary to the Treasury who has done the work in his absence. We are thankful not only for his courtesy, but we admire his ability. After all, it is a relief to the House of Commons, and, I am sure, to the country, to find the Treasury, which is the watch-dog of national finance, represented in the House of Commons once again, and I am sure we shall be glad to have any information the right hon. Gentleman can give us on the topics of Debate.
  Mr. A. CHAMBERLAIN: I beg to express my thanks to my right hon. Friend opposite for the kindly welcome he has given to me on my return, and no less
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  for his acknowledgment of the admirable work and the great ability, as well as the uniform courtesy, of my right hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury, who has represented the Department in my absence. The Debate has ranged over a wide field and touched on topics of great importance. I am the last man to complain of an effort by Members of the House of Commons to fix the mind of this House or the mind of the country on the serious and immense financial obligation which we have already undertaken, and the burden which these obligations necessarily impose upon us, and to a scrupulous regard for economies which are imposed upon us as a first necessity under such conditions. I would not have any Member of the House think that in which I am now going to say I am in any way palliating extravagance or encouraging expenditure on even good objects of a kind, which is reckless because it is beyond our means. Let the House, at any rate, and let the country, realise what is the problem. My right hon. Friend who opened this Debate and others who have spoken, for instance my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), has spoken as if you could take the Estimates which have been presented this year to the House as being the normal Estimates for a normal year. I want to say that I almost regret that in deference to the strong wish expressed by the House of Commons last year we have brought in Estimates of this kind now instead of proceeding for a further period by Votes of Credit. It will be in the recollection of those who were in the last House of Commons how widely expressed was the desire that we should bring the system of Votes of Credit to an end as early as possible. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who then held the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, shared that desire and expressed the hope that it might be possible to see it done.
  When I took up the office, the business of preparing this year's financial programme was already proceeding upon that basis. I think it was the right basis on which to proceed, if it were possible. If, however, the House assumes that what we do in these Votes represents recurrent expenditure of normal years and nothing else, then the effect of putting it in the form of Votes instead of Votes of Credit is to mislead the House and the country as to the extent of the problem which we

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  have to meet. My right hon. Friend and others spoke about the Army and Navy and the Air Force Estimates. I should not sit here if it had been suggested to me by my colleagues in these Departments that by accepting these Votes for this year I was committing the Treasury or the Government to an expenditure on that basis for years to come. No, Sir, it is no guide to the expenditure of the years to come. It is a remnant to War expenditure. Apart from that, though it is true we are no longer engaged in active operations against Germany, peace has not yet been made. The situation over much of the world is disturbed and disturbing. It is quite impossible to get back within n few months to the normal circumstances of post-war expenditure, or even to ascertain with any precision what the normal post-war expenditure will be. I agree with my right hon. Friend who has just spoken that our Naval, Military and Air Force expenditure must be examined further in the light of the peace terms, and of the consequences which those terms involve.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: And the Air Force Estimates similarly?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I will come to that in a moment. For the present I am dealing with the Army, the Navy and the Air Force as military forces. We hope, and in other countries it is hoped as strongly as here, that as a result of the awful sacrifices in this War we may lay the foundation of a lasting and abiding peace that will admit, and not merely admit, but will cause and uphold the demilitarisation of Europe. If Europe is demilitarised our whole programme must be different from that which would be the case if the old conscripted Armies remain. But it is not possible for my right hon. Friend the Secretary for War, or the First Lord of the Admiralty, still less for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to give hon. Members post-war Estimates of the Army and Navy until we know something of the terms of peace and of the military situation thereafter of Europe.
  My right hon. Friend asked me, very fairly, to speak on the Civil Service Estimates. I do not go into the details, because that was done at length by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. It is of a special character, and we shall bring it to an end as rapidly as we can. It is not, however, part of the normal recurrent expenditure of the Government.
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  Do not let us exaggerate. The situation without any exaggeration is quite grave enough. The charges which we have to bear are enormous, and will remain enormous, and there is every reason why everyone in this House and out of this House should study economy. For my part—and I am sure I speak the mind of the Government—we shall welcome help from any quarter—friendly help and honest criticism—in assisting us to establish and maintain economy. But it is not possible during such a great struggle as we have just passed through, or indeed during any war, to maintain those checks and restrictions on expenditure which ought to be maintained in peace.
  It is very difficult in any war, and the greater the war the greater the expenditure, the more difficult it is to go back to the sober ways of peace, and to re-establish the control of expenditure which under the necessities of war have passed out of your hands. All the help that the House can give we gladly welcome. We need their support, and if they will bear in mind the need for economy not merely in discussions on Bills like the Consolidated Fund Bill, which provides the money, but also in discussions on the Votes and discussions another Bills which spend money, they will greatly facilitate the task of the Treasury, and I think that criticism will be more effective. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) said this House had never been an instrument of economy. I am afraid that my opinion to the same effect is on record in the appendix to the Report of the Committee on Public Expenditure.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: Some days ago, when my right hon. Friend was not in the House, I made a suggestion on that point, and it was that a Committee of Members of this House specially interested, and who had special experience in great businesses, might be invited by the Government to assist them in the grave financial position in which we are placed. This House contains a large number of men who are exceptionally qualified for business, and I threw that suggestion out before, and I repeat it again.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am not quite certain of the exact scope which the right hon. Gentleman would give to this Committee, but I shall be very glad to talk it over with him. I venture to say that you may also have too many committees, and

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  you do not want a series of committees inquiring into the same thing, or overlapping. The Committee on Public Expenditure is to be reappointed, and I hope that will give us some assistance. But in the House itself the trouble largely is that the House which controls expenditure is not representative of the House which meets when money is voted and spent. We have a discussion to-day which in many of its aspects is not less important than any of those that have preceded it during the Session, but you do not find when economy is the subject of the Debate that it exercises the influence or draws to the House the attendance which is brought by a great Bill like that of which we passed the Second Reading yesterday.
  There is every reason for economy. I say also that when you have exercised all proper and due economy, your expenditure may still be large, and you cannot face the great problems which now confront us in many spheres with a simple negative. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London spoke of the housing problem. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend meant to imply that the Government ought to have left the housing problem to be dealt with at some future period, when our financial difficulties had been overcome. I would have been glad if it had been possible, but expenditure of that kind adds to the complexity of the problem with which we have to deal and the difficulties in which I am placed. I would not take the responsibility in a matter of social order and stability of imposing a blank refusal to the programme of the Government in favour of better housing of the people. There must be reason and there must be consideration of all sides of the problem, and that consideration is required from the Government and the House itself. I feel confident that the House will not expect me to anticipate the Budget statement which I shall have to make later. They will not expect me to give my forecast, or any forecast of expenditure, or to say how much taxation has to be raised, or by what methods I propose to raise them. Those are matters which must be left to the Budget speech, but there are some particulars of policy which have been raised in this Debate about which I should like to say a few words, and to which the House will expect me to refer.
  The hon. Member for Dewsbury, in an interesting maiden speech, and I congratulate him upon the character of it,
  2146
  spoke of the restrictions which are still enforced as regards exports. Let me say at once, first in broad terms, the object of the Government is to get rid of control and Government interference as quickly as it is safe and possible to do so. Let me say that much progress has already been made upon those lines. I asked the right hon. Gentleman who opened this Debate to what restrictions he referred, and he said the restrictions on cotton. The export of cotton goods is free to every part of the world except the blockade countries. The hon. Member for Dewsbury who spoke of restrictions on woollen goods spoke of restrictions in the blockade countries. That is kept up for reasons of international and inter-Allied policy, for which this House would hardly take the responsibility of taking action apart from or in opposition to our Allies. He suggested that the Americans were sending their goods, and ours were refused admittance. I am informed that that is not so. The Americans have been booking orders and giving long credit for goods to be delivered when the blockade is raised.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: They are getting the markets.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: If my information is correct, the Americans are not sending any goods against the blockade any more than we are. It is open to our merchants to do what the Americans are doing, that is, to book their orders for a period when delivery can be made. It may be necessary in order to secure those orders, in competition with the Americans, to give the same credit as the Americans are willing to afford. The sooner that blockade can be raised the better we shall be pleased, and if Germany can draw some of her supplies through neutral countries, the better I shall be pleased for the reasons my right hon. Friend has put. The hon. Member for Dewsbury seems to think that the policy of the Government was, or it might be the policy of the Government, to maintain the prices of articles of which they hold stocks above their present natural level in order to make a profit out of them or to cover losses which they might have incurred. That is not the policy of the Government at all. It was necessary to buy these things, and secure supplies while the War was in active operation. If we have sometimes had to pay more in order to be certain of our supplies, and contract ahead, and if we now have stocks which are above the post-war

  2147
  normal prices, so far as I am concerned, I think it is fair to assume our first losses should be cut, and we should get to the natural prices as soon as possible, and remove the uncertainty which would continue hanging over the market if it was thought that the Government were holding up prices above their natural level in order to dispose of stocks which they have on hand.
  As fast as we can in all things, we want to get back to the normal course of business. We cannot do that everywhere at once. My right hon. Friend and other critics have hardly realised the extent of the progress made in that direction, even within the last few weeks. Another hon. Member spoke about the burdens we have to meet. Our expenditure, as has been pointed out, is going to be greater than the capital of pre-war days. How, and how alone, can the country bear the burden which it has to bear? It can only bear it by increased efficiency, increased production, and a greater export trade, and we want to do all that we can as a Government to help forward those great results. We trust, in spite of the dark clouds which hover over us at this moment, that we may not have the whole industrial community plunged into strife, and trade arrested and stopped by disagreements amongst ourselves at a moment when in the highest interests of the State, and in the interests of every individual, all parties, capital and labour, ought to be co-operating to improve their efficiency and to increase their production in order that the State may come safely through the perils which lie in its path. I say as my concluding words, as I said at the beginning, that I do not wish to exaggerate or to encourage exaggeration of the difficulties of our position, but it is difficult. It does call for economy, for strict economy, and I welcome, every disposition on the part of the House to see that such economy is secured and maintained throughout the public service.
  Sir CHARLES SYKES: I intend to follow the good example of the new Members who have spoken up to the present, and to confine my remarks within a very short time. I may say that previous speakers, and especially my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Lieutenant-Colonel Pickering) has saved me one trouble. As a rule, a Member who rises for the first time in this House sits
  2148
  down having left unsaid a good many things that he should have said. The hon. Gentleman who opened this Debate made some reference to controllers and directors. I happen to have been in that unfortunate position for over two years. I have been a controller or a director in the service of the War Office, and I stand here this afternoon to emphasise all that my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury has said—that it is high time we resumed our normal conditions. Personally, I am very dissatisfied with the reply which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made to the various criticisms, and I must gravely warn the Government—I think that is the phrase which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas) has used on several occasions—that unless they tackle this problem with regard to the removal of the restrictions upon the imports of this country, they will bring upon us very grave disaster. I speak for a large section of the population in the West Riding of Yorkshire which produces woollens and worsteds.
  At the present time the jute trade in Scotland and the cotton trade in Lancashire are in a very deplorable condition, and I warn the Government that unless something is done to restore confidence—which is absolutely the first essential in business—we shall certainly be having ruin in our industries. We must resume, and resume at once, confidence. It is quite within the knowledge of the Members of this House what confidence means. I remember, at the outbreak of war, being in an out-of-the-way place, where I was refused change for a £5 Bank of England note. That emphasises what confidence means. At the present time the Americans are taking orders in markets which we always had exclusively for textiles. I would also emphasise the fact that, in addition to a large quantity of cotton held by the makers in Lancashire, over £10,000,000 sterling worth of stuff is to-day held on behalf of neutrals. I grant that a lot of it is paid for and that the people who hold the goods have had their money, but we do not live in this country by what we sell to each other. We have had the most artificial trading for three or four years that any country in the world has ever known. We do not live and make profit by what we sell to each other, and we must give all the encouragement that we can to our export trade.
  I ask the Government, therefore, to remove at the earliest possible moment all

  2149
  restrictions and to give facilities for money to be put into business. Let us develop business in every conceivable way. I speak as a manufacturer and as one who has been interested in manufactures all my life. I am sorry, but I had forgotten the point. I want to emphasise that as business men we have been accustomed to regular channels of trade—that is the point—and whatever little success I made in connection with my Department I made by recognising that all regular channels of trade should be kept up during the War. The War is ended, and I hope that war will never return again. It is no use wasting time on platitudes; we must come down to hard, stern facts. We have got to realise that the Government must open all regular channels of trade at the earliest possible moment. If they do not, they will have in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in Scotland, and in the West of England, that terrible thing that we have got to-day, namely, out-of-work pay. We have a saying in Yorkshire, and a true saying, that "There is nothing for now and very little for tuppence." If we in this country realise that we are going to get nothing for nothing, we shall have a better country and a happier people. I am an optimist, and I believe that we have a wonderful future before us in this country. We are going to see the finest revival in trade that we have ever had in the history of the world, but we can only have it if the officials will act as business men and not as officials.
  Mr. CLYNES: The few remarks that I have to make in a discussion which has covered so many questions regarding economy and public expenditure may seem to be very much out of place, but my reason for intervening is that hon. Friends with whom I act on this side of the House desire me to refer to the subject of the railway fares of Members of this House, and the expenses incurred in connection with Parliamentary service, which received some brief consideration in one of our discussions about a fortnight ago. I would like, first of all, to offer a few observations on the general discussion. I can assure my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer that my sympathy with him is very real, and I hope he will find, as I believe he will, during the discharge of the very difficult duty which he has undertaken, that the criticisms from every quarter of the House will be helpful and constructive, suggesting ways and
  2150
  means for effecting economies to meet the enormous financial troubles with which we are faced. Heavy expenses have been inevitable. We had to incur them as the necessary means of bringing the country successfully through the great trial of the last five years, and it does not help the Ministers for any of us to talk about the swarm of Government officials and about the large number of men employed in these numerous Departments of the State in different parts of the country. We are continually asking the Government to do this and that and the other. The Government can only act through officials. They can only act through their appointed representatives, many of whom are known to be overburdened, overworked, and in arrears with their service, because it is so heavy. I do not find fault, at any rate so far as the War is concerned, with any action which I have been able to understand or investigate on the part of the Government with regard to the establishment of these numerous undertakings. They were the mere manifestations of the instruments of government, and they were called into being in response to public necessity and Parliamentary clamour.
  The larger issues of policy upon which the right hon. Gentleman has touched do, however, fill us with great concern, and I hope before long it will be announced that the policy of the Government is to be one which will establish enduring peace and give us a sense of security against a recurrence of war, because it is only by the establishment of conditions which will guarantee peace throughout the world that we can procure relief from these enormous burdens which expenditure upon preparations for war has continually entailed. Before the War the principal countries of Europe, leaving America altogether out of account, spent more than £1,000,000,000 on preparations for war, and the enormous expenditure incurred in the prosecution of the War proves that we cannot avoid these frightful costs unless the policy of the world in respect to the relationship between nations is altered from one of preparing for war to one of establishing means for guaranteeing peace. On that account I would like to express frankly what I think is a delusion in the working-class mind of this country. It is that, as we could and did spend so many thousands of millions in a few years in the prosecution of this War, we have unlimited financial means for meeting any kind of demand which maybe made upon the

  2151
  financial resources of the nation. But the fact is that we were able to spend so much in that comparaticely brief period because in that time we were able to lend so much. But we cannot indefinitely go on lending and spending at that rate, and bankruptcy for the nation will be reached unless a halt can be called in that lending and spending.
  In the course of the War we conducted an enormous volume of trade under artificial conditions, which left us seemingly in a state of wealth but did not actually provide us with wealth at all. The working classes, in their own interest, ought to understand that it is an enormous burden of debt which the War has left us, and not an enormous collection of wealth made in the period of war. A nation cannot continue to live upon its indebtedness, and I think that what ought to be in this country more of a commonplace is the accepted general fact that our escape from these conditions can be found only in a greatly increased volume of production. Without production it is impossible to provide work. We are all hoping that the crisis of the present week will end in a state of industrial peace, and I feel that if it were not so ended the dislocation of trade and the loss that would be involved, and the general burden of a severe industrial struggle in this country would ultimately fall with greater severity on the shoulders of the masses of the workers than on the shoulders of any other class of the community, with the result that the things we want to have done in respect of housing, and in respect of the provision of those amenities of life's needs which the working classes are very properly so urgently calling for—these things will be further delayed, and greatly increased difficulties will be placed in the path of the Government in its efforts to meet the demands that are being made. Whilst I would have the workers turn their minds to the really fundamental facts as to the sources of wealth and as to the causes of national impoverishment, I would also ask the House not to call upon the workers to offer to solve these financial difficulties by being alone the class in the country which must make sacrifices for their solution. In other words, if we are to have this newer social order, if we are to have the phrases of platform speeches and election addresses translated into actual deeds, we must have a mingling of
  2152
  sacrifices by all classes in the community, and a common enjoyment of the life needs which we all require.
  Ministers must make up their minds to face this problem, that the workers will not submit without some form of resistance to the conditions of life which prevailed during the War, and that they will insist on a higher standard of existence. That higher standard, I suggest, can come to us only by increasing the purchasing powers of the masses of the wage earners and, consequently, giving greater ease and contentment in their general conditions of living and, in exchange for the solution of their industrial and financial problems upon these lines, it would be a good thing for the workers to turn their minds to new ideas of development, and show themselves willing to accept changes which, while they do not make their own position worse, certainly will assist very greatly in increasing the national volume of wealth, and give them a chance of receiving a larger portion of it.
  There was one point in the speech of my right hon. Friend which I failed to follow, regarding the Government policy on the subject of the blockade. The right hon. Gentleman, told the House that much had been done to relieve the tension and, as I rather gathered, that we had reached a stage where what we termed the blockade could be raised. It is an important and very urgent matter for those who represent trade and business interests in this House to seek the earliest freedom that can be given for the free play of the agencies of trade in different parts of the world. But as I gather such has been the pressure, resting upon international necessity and the life conditions in the conquered countries, that the Government has had to raise the blockade in respect of the supplies of food. I have no information other than that which has appeared in the Press, but I see that our Food Controller has been busy visiting France and other parts of the Continent, and his representatives, I gather, are now there, together with the representatives of Food Control in the Allied countries, and steps have been taken by the Allied countries, through the medium of what is known as the Supreme Council, to feed the hungry populations of the defeated countries. If I am right in that conclusion, I want to ask how, if it has become essential in the interests of stability of government and in order to establish a state of order in those different countries, and

  2153
  to prevent the destruction of life by conditions of famine—if for these reasons it has been necessary to raise the blockade in respect of the supplies of food, how can we be justified in the retention of the conditions of blockade in regard to trade and industry? That is a question to which I should like to have some answer.
  There is another point to which I should like to refer. It has not been touched upon by the right hon. Gentleman. It is the very serious loss of wealth to the country due to the failure, partly of individual employers of labour and partly of the Government, to find fitting places in industrial and civil life for the hundreds of thousands of men who are returning from our Army and Navy. We have already from these benches strongly criticised the Government policy, or lack of policy, or, at any rate, want of statesmanship, in offering even a temporary solution of the conditions of unemployment which inevitably followed on the signing of the Armistice, by making a considerable advance of State money to a very large army of the unemployed. I believe we have 800,000 persons, mostly women, now unemployed living at a national cost of £1,200,000 a week. I have a proposal to put from this side of the House, and it is that even if that number of workers could not have been employed in commerce profitably, they could somehow have been fitted into some of the useful services at a loss less severe than is now incurred by the State in the weekly expenditure of such an enormous sum. Once you begin that sort of expenditure as an act of national policy you cannot stop where you like, because you have created more than an expectation—you have established in the idle man's mind the idea, that whenever he is unemployed he has a right to turn to the national purse for protection. We suggest it is far better so to organise your trade and industry as to make not relief but work a certainty. Guaranteed employment is far better than guaranteed doles. To illustrate my point, let me ask the attention of the House to a report which I see of the conditions existing in Manchester this very day. There a demonstration of ex-soldiers is taking place—as I understand this afternoon. Of the number of persons in Manchester who are receiving this Government Grant on account of unemployment, one-half are ex-soldiers and sailors, totalling something like 6,000 men. It is reported that some of them frankly declare that they are not going to
  2154
  begin work on such wages as they can earn—onwhat they say are pre-war terms of pay, which certain employers are offering them, when they can remain in a state of idleness, receiving for themselves and their families an income even, in excess of what they could earn if they were employed. That is a matter which requires immediate attention. The men who went out and did their duty so magnificently in all the theatres of war ought to be better treated by a higher form of State organisation than has yet been set up.
  6.0 P.M.
  As I said in the opening of my remarks, some of the comments I have to make on my last subject may seem rather out of place in a discussion which has mainly turned on the question of national I economy. I suggest that saving is not always economy. Expenditure may be wise as well as good. I ask the serious attention of Members of the House on all sides to the view which we put forward from the Labour Benches with regard to the expenses we incur in travelling to and from our Parliamentary work, and the payment we now receive for our Parliamentary services. I accept the personal statement of other Members of the House who do not belong to the Labour party that they, too, feel the burden of which I am going to speak, although they have not frequently given expression to their opinions upon it. We are not putting our case forward as a pauper point. It is not on account of personal impoverishment that this plea rests. It is on a very much higher plane. The fares and the expenses which as Members of the House we have to incur in the performance of our labours are much heavier now than they were, and that for two great reasons: first, the railway fares have been increased by 50 per cent., while everything else that is incidental as a travelling cost has gone up; and, secondly, the duties of Members of Parliament are much more exacting. The visits for all kinds of matters, meetings, and circumstances, errands to constituencies, and so on, are much more now. Our duties, as every Member knows, have enormously multiplied. Service in the House of Commons has not ceased to be an honour, but it has certainly become a very great burden, which can only be discharged by incurring considerable expense week by week. I am sure every Member of the House will agree with me when I say that it would not pay the country to have as Members of this House only those men

  2155
  here who were wealthy enough to be able to pay for the Parliamentary services they rendered. In these days, when Parliamentary institutions are subject to ever-increasing criticism, it is advisable that we should, if we can, lift the level of our usefulness and attract a greater degree of confidence, if possible, from those we represent by such assiduous attention to our duties as it is possible to give. Indeed, in these days we do not represent merely the particular constituency which might elect us; we are rather national than local representatives, obliged to consider not merely the affairs of our country but the affairs of the world. These duties require that we should travel, not merely from our homes to our constituencies, but that we should frequently go from place to place in the discharge of these ever-increasing State and Parliamentary duties.
  In face of the heavy railway charges, and of the reduced allowances for Parliamentary service on account of the increased taxation, these things have become a rather serious burden, almost an intolerable load to some—indeed, to many of the poorer men who have been honoured by being returned to this House. These expenses are always on the increase. The post-bags of some of the Members of the House are getting almost too heavy to lift in the morning, and with the increased postage there is a considerable addition to the expenditure of hon Members of the House. When I was a Minister—indeed, when I was but a Parliamentary Secretary—I can assure the House that I felt very much the relief of the payment of my weekly postage bill. Now I share with so many other Members of the House the very considerable cost which has to be paid under this head week by week, in addition to the increase of Parliamentary burdens. I trust it will be represented in the proper quarter as a subject that requires not only sympathetic attention and treatment but change.
  I do not want to leave altogether untouched the larger question of what is termed the payment of Members of Parliament. As a fact, there is no such thing. At very best it is a contribution from the State towards the payment of the expenses necessarily incurred by the Members of the House of Commons in the discharge of their duties. I am not going over the history and the whole range of the topic, but I will recall especially to the older Members of this House what we
  2156
  heard in 1911, when it was decided that the payment of £400 a year should be made. The doleful prophecies of that time were the main arguments adduced to scare those who were inclined to vote for this change. We were told that the House would be filled with adventurers; that carpet-baggers, as they are termed, would be more common than ever; that insincerity would become a dominant influence in the direction of our public affairs, and that men who were failures in everything else would be able so to inveigle the constituencies as to secure return to this House for the sake of £400 a year. Not a single one of those forecasts has been fulfilled. Even in the presence of those who hear me, I dare to say that the level of fitness demanded for public duties is not less now than it was when, the payment of Members of Parliament was instituted Every other State in the world which is governed by Parliamentary institutions, with but one exception, and that not, strictly speaking, an institution of democratic Government, pays for the services which are performed. Many of the countries with whom we have been allied in this War have paid and pay now a far higher sum to cover Parliamentary expenses than is paid in this country.
  The only argument which I recall as being used by the Leader of the House when this subject was last under discussion is that it was a highly inappropriate topic to bring before this new House, for the reason that this matter was not submitted to the electorate, and that it was not brought forward and put to the test of the opinion of the different constituencies. That is a very feeble but venerable argument with which to answer a case of this kind. I am sure this House of Commons would do little if it did nothing but what had been put to the test of the constituencies. When a little later the Chancellor of the Exchequer comes forward to make the great proposals that will have to be made, and that will be the features of this Budget, could we not answer him by saying that not one of those things had been put to the test of the electorate? Many of the things which have already been discussed and settled in this new House were never submitted to the electorate when the votes were cast last year. The Leader of the House, therefore, ought to adduce something more formidable if he is not going to lend a friendly ear to the claim that is being put from these benches. The

  2157
  public service, as it is expressed through the municipal bodies—the work of the town, city, and borough councils—is work which must be paid for to a considerable extent. The great and regular deputations visiting this House and interviewing Members rest upon the payment provided by the ratepayers. The payment for which we ask ought to rest upon the shoulders of the population generally, because it is national work in which we are engaged. In view of the increasing burden, in view of the fact that Parliamentary and public duties cannot be performed efficiently unless this burden is relieved, I suggest to the Government that the country would accept and would approve of the relief to those who feel these burdens very heavily in order that Parliamentary work might be more efficiently discharged.
  Mr. CLOUGH: As this is the first time I have addressed this House, I would ask you, Sir, and hon. Members, to be none too critical of my initial effort. I have listened with a great deal of interest to the whole of the discussion to-day, and, while I have been immensely impressed with almost everything said, the principal object of my rising is to support the plea put forward by the hon. Member for Dews-bury (Lieutenant-Colonel Pickering) and the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Sir C. Sykes) for a lessening of the restrictions on trade. Before I do that, may I say how much I appreciate and would praise the sound statesmanship of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in asking Members of this House to be a little more consistent, and to remember economy on other days than those when this particular subject is being discussed. Since I have had the honour of joining this House, I have often felt at Question Time that if every hon. Member could have his request acceded to, the taxation of this country would rise to figures altogether beyond those mentioned by the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) to-day. I listened, too, with interest to right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and was delighted to hear them say that they hoped for a peaceful solution of the industrial crisis which faces the country at the present time, and, bearing in mind the immense influence they have in the labour world, I trust that such hope may be based on inside knowledge.
  When the result of the General Election was announced I was one who fondly hoped that this Parliament would in
  2158
  future years be known as the "Business Men's Parliament," but if war restrictions are to be continued in peace time, we who represent commercial constituencies cannot possibly do ourselves justice and assist trade so as to help the workers to help themselves. The people who sent us here did so to hasten reconstruction, and not to tolerate restriction for one moment longer than is absolutely necessary. The time for the removal of these restrictions has already arrived. I have been appalled, as other Members have week by week, to hear announced in this House the ever-growing number of the unemployed, and of the consequent increase of the out-of-work pay. Is it either sound business or common sense to be borrowing money at a high rate of interest in order to pay unemployment benefit at a time when large portions of the world are urgently needing the very goods which Britain can best supply? For generations this country has been named a nation of shopkeepers. It is a title of which the business men who sit in this House have no need to be ashamed. What I fear to-day is that if our present officials are allowed to continue these restrictions, it will give our foreign customers the impression that we in Britain have shut up shop. If they once get that impression, then our foreign competitors will get such a chance of booking orders in those markets which were formerly supplied by British manufacturers as they never had before. Nothing could be more foolish than continuing these restrictions and the difficulty in obtaining export licences at the very moment when industry has to changeover from war orders to peace conditions. May I illustrate my reason for complaining of the continuance of the restrictions from the experience gained from one of my own businesses. Before the War 90 per cent. of all the goods we made were shipped abroad and only 10 per cent. were sold in the home market, whilst now, since the Armistice, the position is almost completely reversed, as we are only able to send 10 per cent. of our manufactures to customers overseas, and I think it will be accepted with absolute unanimity that this country depends on a prosperous export trade if we are to carry out all the vast reconstruction proposals to which the Government and its supporters are committed. If and when these licences for export are granted, British ships will need to be so set at liberty that they can deal

  2159
  with our trade, rather than be occupied in carrying American troops home to their own country, whilst American ships are engaged in developing American trade. I believe work is a good thing in itself, quite apart altogether from the financial benefit to be got from it, and I am equally sure the vast majority of the industrial classes in the country would much prefer to be employed at their own jobs, in either mills or workshops, rather than loaf round Labour Exchanges most of the week so as to be eligible for out-of-work pay at the end of the week. If this Parliament is to have the respect of all right-thinking people, it must insist on the rapid removal of export restrictions, and thus restore to Capital and Labour alike a chance to reconstruct the awful damage done during fifty-one months of war. I associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. Members (Lieutenant-Colonel Pickering and Sir C. Sykes) in appealing to the Government with all the force we can to take off the restrictions which are now hindering the export trade of the country.
  Mr. FRANCE: I thank the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Clynes) for his statesmanlike speech with regard to economy and production, and I should like to associate myself with him on the subject of the extra expenses which now bear upon Members of Parliament, particularly those who travel long distances to attend to their business in the House. It is not a question which is affected by the personal means of the Member under consideration. This House knows nothing of that sort of thing, and has no regard except for the personal qualities and character of the man who is a Member of the House, and in legislation or administration of this kind it is a matter of dealing equally and fairly all round. The proper way to meet this matter would be to do during peace-time for Members of Parliament what was done during wartime for all those who are engaged on Government business and give them warrants to travel upon the railways when in pursuit of the business of the State. That would not really be under existing circumstances a payment out of the Exchequer, except as in so far as the accommodation is granted upon the railways, which the Government in continuing to control for two years, and it would seem to me to be a very fair way of meeting the difficulties which press upon every Member who comes to the
  2160
  House, especially from a distance. The way to meet the other expenditure is to extend to Members of Parliament upon the letters which they have to write—and the number is increasing terribly—free postage, at any rate when they are from the House of Commons. I think hon. Members may be fairly trusted not to abuse a privilege extended to them in the interests of their public business. I should like to join with those who have expressed their satisfaction at the return to the Front Bench of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I was disappointed with his reply to the discussion, especially on the point which was raised with great emphasis by the right hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) as to the lavish and extravagant hand with which the Government is spending in every direction. Although agreeing with the right hon. Baronet in his general conclusions, I part company with him to some extent as to the direction of the economies which may be effected. He said several times that his breath was taken away, and although he had that sad experience we were glad to notice that it did not interfere with his natural flow of eloquence. His breath was completely taken away by the £450,000,000 upon Civil Service Estimates. I differ from him in detail to some extent. He would sacrifice the ewe lamb of social reform—a new massacre of the innocents—but he would swallow with only a gasp, without total loss of breath, the £660,000,000 for war services. He would sacrifice the lamb but he would not slay—he would merely turn aside from the roaring lion of the war services, which seems to roar all the louder at the prospect of peace. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer said these Estimates were only for this year and that they would be controlled and shaped by the policy of the Peace Conference, I would remind him that the policy of the Peace Conference, and of those at the Peace Conference, will probably be to a considerable extent affected by the size of the Estimates in this country this year, and by the speeches which are made in putting those Estimates before the House. Therefore one part of the speech really in that way reacts upon the other.
  The discussion to-day has gone along two branches. The House appears generally to feel that the depression, the anxiety, and the uncertainty that exists to-day are caused partly by the heavy expenditure, and secondly, by the restric-

  2161
  tions upon trade, which prevent trade from rising with its natural buoyancy to help to meet the expenditure. It has rather been the fashion lately to talk about hands, and we heard from the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Geddes) of the dead hand. I do not quite know what he meant, but I think it was something to do with Government control. I want to refer to two hands that are very much alive. There is the open hand of extravagance and there is the heavy and fatal hand of restriction, and while the open hand of extravagance is lavishing forth, the other hand is on our throats preventing us from resuming our normal activities to help to pay off the debts we have incurred. They both really affect the situation in the same way. They both give the same reason for their existence. We are told we must have these heavy expenditures for the war services because of the grave danger which may possibly lie ahead of us. They are indefinite, and hopes are expressed that they will never appear, but we have to be prepared to spend in anticipation of what may happen. Then the restrictions on trade are still to be maintained for fear that goods which go from this country may in some way assist our enemies, and therefore the same reason is given practically for the existence of both these elements which are depressing us at present. Both these weapons which we are using are very much in the nature of a boomerang, and they will very likely on their return journey do much more harm to those who throw them than to the person they are supposed to be aimed at. I should like to ask the representative of the Treasury a question about this. The increase of expenditure on the war services is £800,000,000 above the pre-war figure, and a year ago the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bonar Law)told us he expected that in the first post-war year it would be about £170,000,000. I should not complain of the right hon. Gentleman having made a miscalculation to a small extent, but there must have been some change in policy or some change in the whole situation to cause such an enormous difference as that in the balance-sheet and accounts of the nation. There is an old saying that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. I do not know what view the gods take of the Treasury Bench in a Coalition Government, but there seem to me sometimes, in the
  2162
  matter of extravagance in expenditure, to be signs of incipient madness. It may be that those mythological deities have some idea of the destruction of the present Government and an eye on the Treasury Bench themselves. We have been told recently that the League of Nations was fantastical nonsense. The League of Nations, if it were a success—and it can only be a success if those who talk about it and take part in considering it are in earnest and mean to make it a success—would, at any rate, do a great deal, if not all that is expected of it, to reduce armaments and to help to do what we thought this War was to do—to end war. That does not seem to me to be such fantastic nonsense as to go on spending vast sums of money which we cannot afford to spend in anticipation of dangers which we can easily prevent if we will pursue and insist upon a real policy of peace.
  I welcome the invitation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I was grateful to him for saying he welcomed from the House of Commons support in the difficult task of cutting down expenditure, but I wish he and responsible Ministers would take the country a little more into their confidence with regard to the serious position in which we find ourselves, not in order to encourage pessimism and not to produce fright, but to let the country, as a whole, understand really what we are doing and where we are going in the matter of financial expenditure. I should like them to take a leaf out of the book of the Finance Minister in France, M. Klotz, who, only a few days ago, expressed his sense of the seriousness of the financial situation and the terrible position of their finance unless very definite steps were taken. I think everyone agrees that this expenditure is not going to be met by taxation. The way to prevent further borrowings, therefore, is to exercise rigid economy. Now I come upon common ground with my right hon. Friend, because this tendency to extravagance undoubtedly goes through every Department. We shall have to borrow. Apparently under the present conditions that is absolutely necessary. We shall have, increased borrowings if we increase expenditure. I sometimes wonder when the Chancellor of the Exchequer is driven to that course whether we might not substitute a vowel and change "borrow" to "burrow"; because there is a tendency on the part of those who pursue this policy to imitate that wild feathered fowl of the desert,

  2163
  which, when chased or fearing approach, buries its head in the sand and refuses to look facts in the face. If we have to borrow we have either to borrow from ourselves at home or to borrow from abroad. In either case there is the same obligation to repay, and there is the same burden of interest upon the debt incurred. There in a great danger in this, for if the habit of borrowing, and the habit of borrowing to meet the obligation upon former borrowings is indulged in, we shall really revert to and adopt the methods of the spendthrift, who desires to be regarded as a well-dressed man, and who visits his tailor with the object, although he cannot afford it, of ordering clothes, and when there is painful pressure upon him to pay his bills, he assuages the ruffled feelings of his anxious tailor by ordering another suit. So he goes on and goes out and is looked upon by the world as not only a well-dressed but a wealthy man until he finds himself at last at the doors of the Bankruptcy Court.
  If we pursue the policy of borrowing indiscriminately in increasing amounts, we shall have to face the natural and definite effects and consequences of such a course. Something was said just now, and no answer was given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, about currency notes. The right hon. Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) told us that he had some in his pocket. I hoped that he would have adopted the method I have seen in this House for the last ten years of passing round specimens, so that hon. Members might have looked at them. I find the difficulty in these days is to keep them in my pocket. The question of the effect of the continued resort to currency notes is a very serious matter. I wish it were possible that the Government could in their Department of Propaganda or through the Board of Education, or in any way that may be open to them, do something to try to convey to the country as a whole information upon some of these matters, with regard to the effects of borrowings, with regard to the effect on the diminution of our exports, and with regard to the effect of the increased inflation of currency by the issue of these notes. Before the War I think the amount of notes in circulation was 46,000,000. That was in 1913. In 1918 the notes in circulation in the ordinary sense were
  2164
  122,000,000. Upon the top of that there are currency notes to the amount of 323,000,000.
  It is not a difficult thing to understand how it is that this inflation of currency must of necessity raise the price of goods and commodities. The laws of supply and demand cannot be rescinded by the laws of this or any other House. If people are rushing about with pieces of paper in their hands—which the right hon. Gentleman says they think are worth so much money and really are not worth more, but probably worth less, than the Order Paper of this House, which, by the way, is a very expensive document, because we are told that every question costs a guinea—and they are only too anxious to have more of these pieces of paper, and so long as the present standard of purchasing value exists, they must have more; and if with these pieces of paper they are all pursuing and competing one with the other to buy what is at the present moment in the world a comparatively limited quantity of goods, and if people all want one thing, whether in the abstract or actually, and they have the power and the means to obtain it, it is inevitable that the law of supply and demand will increase the price of the goods they are pursuing and lower the value of the paper in their hands. We have a proof of that in what is happening in Europe, and we see what is the consequence of that kind of thing. There is a very good object lesson as to currency, and the effect of inflation of currency, in Russia. In Russia the production of paper money is so considerable and so rapid that the printing presses are almost red hot. In the mad whirl to produce wealth it has been said that a scarcity of paper has been caused. One right hon. Gentleman, who spoke in the earlier part of the Debate, said that Government officials produced nothing, I interjected—and I hope not at all disrespectfully—the word paper. About the only thing they do produce is paper money, and some sections of the country are apt to believe that in that way wealth is being produced.
  All this comes back to the first great essential, motive spirit, which is actuating the House of Commons to-day. Without there is rigid and strict economy, which will reduce the necessity for borrowing, which will thereby help to encourage trade and cheapen the cost of production—I do not mean by paying cheap wages, because

  2165
  I do not mean that low wages mean cheap production, but by the legitimate and proper cheapening of production help to increase healthy production, help to make export trade possible, help in the redemption of our indebtedness, help to reduce the balance of trade which is against the country at the present time, and also help to reduce the necessity of the Government resorting to these artificial and unhealthy methods, which have resulted in the inflation of currency. Then prices will go down, the cost of living will be lowered, the export trade will be encouraged and we shall have a chance to meet the very heavy expenditure—which I hope will not be increased but will be reduced—and whatever burdens may properly be laid upon us.
  I should like to answer in a few words the question as to what restrictions are still on trade. There has been some valuable information given by hon. Members for Yorkshire, notably, in the speech by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Sir C. Sykes) who spoke for the first time to-day in a frank and manly fashion, and who having been a controller himself, and who knows the evils of control, advocates the abolition of all such persons in future. There are certain restrictions still being put upon imports. A question was asked as to the constitution of the Committee which is to decide these questions as to raw material and as to the manufactured articles that are necessary for this country. There are still certain interferences with trade, of which I would like to give an example, which is not of an ancient date, but only a few days old. It relates to a firm who have during the War, at the request of the Government, been assisting in the production of an article which was formerly made in Germany, and which has been developed in this country by this firm and other firms, largely at the request and with the assistance of the Government. This firm applied to the Board of Trade on 11th February—this refers to export of goods and not to import of goods—for a general licence to export. They were told and assisted by the Board of Trade to make application to the War Trade Department. They did so on 14th February and asked for a general licence. They wrote a letter explaining that it was impossible for them to give all the details, as they had not yet sold the goods, but they were anxious to proceed to get
  2166
  orders somewhat on the same lines that we have heard America have been able to do during the last few weeks.
  On 20th February they received a form, headed "Application for a General Licence." After you have read the title you would fail to recognise in the rest of the document that it related to a general licence. They asked for all kinds of details of the transaction; the name of the forwarding agent, the name of the agent abroad, the name of the firm to whom the goods were sold, the purpose for which the goods were going to be used, the price, quantity, and weight of the goods, and the description of the consignor's business; full details of the consignee, business, the postal address, and every kind of detail that could be required, if you had actually got the order and were prepared to execute it. In this particular business it was absolutely impossible to get orders on these lines. The firm were anxious and were encouraged to get from the Board of Trade a general licence to enable them in that particular area to ask for orders, to quote at a definite price and to execute order sat that price. When they explained this to the War Trade Department they were told that they must fill up as much of the form as they could. That was on the 24th February, after considerable correspondence. They applied again on 1st March, and yesterday It was told that they had received no reply from that Department in regard to the licence. That is a definite case. I do not want to mention the name, for certain reasons, but I am prepared to give it to the Minister in confidence, if he desires to have it. There is another very serious case from the same firm. We were told to-day there was no restriction on export to other parts of the world but the blockaded area. On 4th March—it may have been changed since then—the agents of this company, a firm known to be the agents of the company, and who had been working with the Government for the production of a class of article which they were told had formerly been made in Germany; a firm which has put from £40,000 to £50,000 in the development of trade with the object of securing trade formerly done by Germany, applied to the War Trade Department for the opportunity to send some of their goods to South America, and they received a reply that permission could not be granted. I invite the right hon. Gentleman's attention to those cases, of which I shall be glad

  2167
  to give further particulars. It is really playing with the House and the country, And not realising in the slightest degree the gravity of the situation, for one right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who could not possibly know the particular circumstances, to make a statement from his place to-day, with the full authority of the Ministry and the Government behind him, that there are no restrictions with regard to export trade throughout the world, and that really we are not doing anything to hamper trade.
  Sir A. GEDDES: I am sure that my hon. Friend would be only too pleased to have a misunderstanding removed. The Chancellor of the Exchequer—I was present—did not, I am sure, intend to convey that there were no restrictions. What he said was that the restrictions on export trade were those denned, it so happened by me, last week. But the point he was making at that time was that the restrictions which had been referred to by, I think, the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Lieutenant-Colonel Pickering), were restrictions upon goods going to the blockaded area. The policy, as announced on Monday of last week, was quite different—that export was free to all parts of the world other than blockaded countries, except under three heads: goods which we could not afford to let out of the country because the supply is so short, goods of a naval or military type, and goods which this country had financed or subsidised. It so happens that one of the articles referred to—we have not heard what the exact article is—belonged to a class of which there are certain members extremely short in this country at the present time.
  Mr. FRANCE: I do not want to misrepresent anybody, but I am in the recollection of the House, that in this respect the Chancellor of the Exchequer—I am not wishing to pin him to something that he may have said inadvertently—said quite definitely that outside the areas not affected by the blockade export at the present time was free.
  Sir A. GEDDES: In respect of cotton goods.
  Mr. FRANCE: I did not hear that. I am sorry if I made a mistake in that respect; but these goods are not free, and I do not think that what the right hon. Gentleman has said can possibly apply to them, because this firm complain that they have got goods and do not know what to
  2168
  do with them. They could employ 100 more men, and are anxious to do so. They have got to stop here and cannot get them away, and the answer which the right hon. Gentleman has given now only applies to a particular branch of chemical goods, and cannot apply to this case. It must be really a case of misunderstanding, and of a desire to retain powers of a Department which ought long since have been taken from them. We have heard to-day definite concrete cases from the woollen trade of Yorkshire and of the difficulties which they still have with regard to obtaining permission to export, and also as to the importing of certain goods. These are very important details, and they are given in response to a request for details made by the Government.
  There is only one more case. It is with regard to imports, and is rather serious, too. This same firm that I have been speaking of have during the War set up extra plant at the request of and with the encouragement of the Government, and have gone to great expense, but have not been allowed to export their goods, and they now find that certain goods are coming into the country exactly similar in character to those which formerly came from Germany. At present these goods come here from Holland, and the firm, with their expert knowledge, know that the raw material from which these goods are produced does not exist in Holland, and therefore they deduce from that that the raw material is coming from Germany. They addressed the Board of Trade on the subject, and the letter which they wrote is of so splendid a character that I will read an extract from it:
  "I find myself in a position of exceeding difficulty in knowing how to handle this business at the moment"—
  this is written by the managing director of the firm—
  "because my firm have gone to a great deal of expense in putting up plant to manufacture these chemicals, which hitherto have been the monopoly of Germany. We are prepared to meet any reasonable competition by neutrals, but the Government have made known their future policy with regard to the authority for the free import of these chemicals to be permitted, and the onus of proof as to whether they emanate from Germany or not is thrown on the trading community. I am afraid that the result, certainly in the case of my own firm, will be that we shall have very reluctantly to discharge from our factory numbers of men who have been taken on since the Armistice was signed and curtail the policy of expansion to which we have committed ourselves. It is with great reluctance that I am writing this

  2169
  letter. I believe absolutely in the policy of free trade so far as established manufactures are concerned, but I am totally at a loss to understand how a British industry, launched out in a new direction, will be able to meet unrestricted import in these special lines and at the are time be hampered with a system of licences for export which involves endless delays and consequent lose of orders."
  They sent that letter on the 20th January. On 27th January they wrote again. On 11th February they received a reply that inquiries were being made as to the possible origin of these goods, but that they were to continue to inquire, and if possible to give information. On 27th February they wrote to the Department to say that they had themselves purchased this particular article, and that 2 tons of it were available for inspection by the Department, so that they might send their experts to assist in trying to find out where those goods came from, and whether they had actually come from Germany. The gentleman who wrote that letter saw me yesterday, and told me that up to yesterday the firm who bought these goods, and bought them to help the Government in trying to keep out, from Germany, something which we have been trying to make in this country, had not had a reply or any further communication from the Department with regard to that transaction. That is a definite example. I do not know how far it is a fair specimen of what is going on all over the country and in all kinds of trades.
  Speaking for myself, I am absolutely in favour of as far as possible general freedom to import goods into this country, but I do not want in any sense to suggest to the Government that they should depart from the policy which they laid down in the General Election in this respect. At the General Election they did not depart, so far as I understood, from the general position of Free Trade as a whole, but they certainly made some promise that they were going to try to protect these industries, and to try to prevent what is definitely proved to be dumping. But they are not doing that. They are continually hampering exports, and they are not allowing to come into the country things which should properly come into the country, and they are allowing to come into the country the very things whose import is detrimental to the country, and which we have been endeavouring to manufacture in this country during the past four years. I know that their difficulties are very great, but I do sug-
  2170
  gest to the Government that they are not really looking at this thing with the seriousness with which people in this country look at them. There is this tremendously heavy burden of expenditure on industry, which this House, I hope, will insist shall be reduced, and I hope that they will also insist not only on the removal of the restrictions but on the removal of what a right hon. Gentleman, speaking from that bench and speaking of Government control, only two days ago described as the dead hand, and what we think is the paralysing hand of State control.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Bridgeman): I have to apologise again to the House for the absence of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Sir A. Stanley). Some points have been raised in this Debate which require an answer on the part of the Department. I will first refer to the criticism of the War Trade Department by the hon. Gentleman who spoke last. He did not mention the names of the articles to which he was alluding, so that it is not possible for me even to inquire into the correctness of his statement. But I am quite willing to take his word for it. The only thing I regret is that, if these matters occurred so long ago, he or some other Member of Parliament did not bring them to my notice, or that of the President, at an earlier date. But if any cases of that sort arise, it would be a very great advantage to our Department, or to any other, if they were brought to our notice at the earliest possible moment, so that delay can be shortened. With regard to the number of questions which, he said, were on the form for general licences, that already has been very largely reduced. With regard to the other points, I hope that he will tell me exactly what they are, and I will do my best to see that his wishes, if possible, shall be met. I ought also to say, as some other Member, I think, referred to some, criticism of the War Trade Department, that after the last day of this month that Department will cease to exist independently, as it has done up till now, and will come under the Board of Trade, and I hope that it will be easier to keep in touch with that side of the work.
  7.0 P.M.
  The right hon. Gentleman who opened this discussion spoke as many other Members did about the restrictions on export

  2171
  and he chose a particular instance which was replied to by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. One of his charges was that there was no way of finding out what these restrictions were. He said he wanted to have them in black and white. They are in black and white, but possibly not in the best form. They are published fortnightly by the War Trade Department and brought up to date. Here is a number of this publication dated the 7th March. This gives the list of articles the exportation of which is prohibited except under licence, and in front of each there is the letter A or B to show whether its export is prohibited to all countries or only to countries outside the British Empire. There is also published in the "Board of Trade Journal" a free list of exports to all countries, and any article which is not on the free list and not on this other list to which I have referred, comes on what is called C list, of which there is prohibition to the blockaded countries. But if there is any clearer way of making this known, or of drawing up a list we should be very glad to consider it. The general expression of opinion has been in favour of taking off restrictions at the earliest possible moment. Everybody has said that, and that is exactly what the Government want to do. But nobody, I think, has said that it is possible to go at once from war conditions to peace conditions in this particular matter. I do not think everybody has fully recognised the number of relaxations that have actually taken place. As was mentioned in the Debate last week a number of countries were exempted from the prohibition attaching to List C, and a considerable number of restrictions have been taken off. People have spoken a great deal about controls, as though they had all been kept on. I have here a very large list of controls which have been removed, and there are a great many others the removal of which is imminent and will be announced before very long. Among some which have been removed are: Tramways Committee Control, Horses Orders, Lighting, Heating and Power Order, Raw Cotton Order, Cotton (Restriction of Output) Order, Timber Control will end by the 31st March, except on pit wood, and that will be very much relaxed at that date though probably not taken off altogether. As every-
  2172
  one knows, the Paper Restrictions have been very largely modified, and Paper control will end at the end of April. The restrictions on tobacco are gone. There is a list of Admiralty restrictions, many of which are gone, and a certain number of controls, including railway material, have also been taken off.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: What has been kept on?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I said there are a great many others which will be taken off at the earliest possible moment, and an announcement will be made as soon as it is possible to do so.
  Mr. FRANCE: May I ask the hon. Gentleman what steps he is taking to make the alterations in the list fairly well known, because just now he said that he thought nobody realised what goods were being released? If nobody realises that, how can they act on it? It is a fact that they do not know, and they are very anxious to know. Will he tell us how the Government propose to make this known generally?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Of course, they are published in the "Board of Trade Journal." I was speaking of hon. Members of this House, who did not seem to have studied that book, and to realise what a great many restrictions have been taken off. But I quite agree that it would be advantageous to publish them if we could in a form or place where they would be more public.
  Mr. LAMBERT: Send them to the Press.
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: They were published in the Press, and the Chambers of Commerce are notified of every alteration that is made. There is one other question which was raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean), which was in regard to the composition of the Imports Committee, the Committee which is to sit and decide what restrictions should be kept upon imports, and if it is necessary to put any new ones on or to modify those which do exist. One of the instances which my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Morley (Mr. France) raised is a matter which may be considered by that Committee. He mentioned some articles, the manufacture of which have been started here during the War, and which are now suffering

  2173
  through competition from abroad. That is a subject which should be referred to this Imports Committee.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: In order to protect it.
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Well, they would settle that, but the hon. and gallant Gentleman must remember that this Committee is dealing with the transition period, when there are a great many manufactures in this country which have not got back to pre-war conditions. That is what this Committee is considering, and also other trades which, owing to the War, have started some new line which is not yet so established as to make them quite certain of being able to continue it. But the charge against the Committee made by the right hon. Gentleman opposite was that its constitution was overloaded with people whose interests were specially concerned. It is not very easy to say how a Committee of this kind could be composed, but I would like to give the House the different representatives which have been placed on the Committee. There are three to be nominated by the President from the Board of Trade Advisory Council, one of these being a Labour representative: three to be nominated from the War Trade Department; five by the Association of Chambers of Commerce five by the Federation of British Industries; one by the Advisory Committee of the Department of Overseas Trade; two to be nominated by the Board of Trade; two to be nominated by the Union of British Manufacturers; two to be nominated by the President of the Board of Trade; four to be nominated by the Ministry of Labour as representatives of the Whitley Councils; that is to say, two typical employers and two typical workmen on Whitley Councils.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: Do I understand that they all represent the vested interests?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN:I do not know what the hon. and gallant Gentleman means. I do not know what vested interests.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: The interests of the, people who are manufacturing the goods, and not the consumer.
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The Board of Trade officials do not represent any particular vested interests, and the hon. and gallant Member must be aware that the manufacturer of one kind of thing is the consumer
  2174
  of another, and that, therefore, they act with regard to each other as checks one upon another. I said there were five members nominated by the Association of Chambers of Commerce and, I think, the Committee includes at least four merchants. There is a representative of the Treasury—perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend calls that a vested interest. There is a representative of the Association of Trade Protection Societies of the United Kingdom, a representative of the Co-operative Congress Committee, and three representatives of the Trades Union Congress Parliamentary Committee.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: No representatives of this House at all?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Yes; there are several Members of this House.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: Who are they?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I think I will wait until the list is ready before it is published, because some associations who were asked to nominate have not sent in all the names. Objection has been taken that a number of these are manufacturers. It is quite true they are. [An HON. MEMBER: "Almost all!"] No; the largest part, I think.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: Would the hon. Gentleman excuse me one moment—
  Mr. SPEAKER: We cannot continue the Debate if the hon. and gallant Gentleman keeps firing these questions at the hon. Gentleman. The hon. and gallant Gentleman has not heard the earlier part of the Debate. The Minister is in possession of the House and is entitled to make his speech free from constant interruption.
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: What I was going to say was that this Committee does contain, as I believe, about a half who are manufacturers, and I do not consider that there is anything to complain of in that. After all, the manufacturers of this country put their works at the disposal of the country for war work, at great inconvenience to themselves. I consider that the Government owes it to them to see that they shall not suffer, during this transition period, because they have been patriotic, and have done good work during the War, and I am not prepared to apologise for the number of manufacturers who have been placed on the Committee. They are all well-known men, and I think they can be

  2175
  trusted to take a patriotic view of the question. Without them I do not know how you are going to get at the real facts which you want about these restrictions.
  Do not let anyone go away with the idea that because the Committee is composed as it is other interests are not to be consulted as well. The way they would probably work, I should think, would be that they would divide into sections. Provision would be made that any industry which has got an industrial council, a reconstruction industrial committee, or trade board, will have the right to be heard when the industry in which they are concerned is being considered, and the committee, or its subcommittees, will have an opportunity of calling anybody who is a special expert, either as merchant, manufacturer, retailer, on whatever the conditions in that trade are, to be heard if they have not got on their own body men sufficiently expert to go into the details of that particular branch of trade. That is the position of the Committee, and I hope very much that it will get to work soon. [An HON. MEMBER: "When?"] The sooner the better; but the hon. Gentleman must realise that if you have got to send invitations to eight or ten different associations, and have to wait to get answers from them; if you find that several of the people who answer say that they can only meet once a week or so, and that then you have to ask them to nominate somebody who can come a little oftener than that, it is impossible to do this immediataely. After all, it is not ten days since this Committee was promised, and you have got practically all except about three names. That is as good work as any Department could be expected to do in the time. I hope when the Committee get to work that they will go through the work as quickly as possible. It is to all our interests to settle these things as soon as possible, and I can only say, in conclusion, that I beg to assure the House that it is the desire of the Board of Trade, as much as it is of any hon. Member who has spoken here, to get rid of all restrictions which we can dispense with without doing harm to the country or harm to our Allies.
  Lieutenant - Colonel Sir SAMUELHOARE: I desire not to follow the hon. Member who has just spoken so much as to develop in somewhat greater detail some of the points made in the very inte-
  2176
  resting and valuable speech by the right hon. Gentleman opposite the Member for one of the divisions of Manchester. He devoted a good deal of the time during which he addressed the House to what seems to me to be one of the most urgent questions at present, namely, the question of unemployment. From every point of view that appears to be a question of the most acute urgency, first of all because of the very large sums of money that are being paid out in unemployment benefit, a sum of money already amounting to £l,300,000 per week, or almost £70,000,000 per year, which is more than we used to spend on the Navy in times of peace, and three times as much as we used to spend on public education in times of peace. But I think that the financial side of it is by no means the most serious side of unemployment. A more serious side even than that great financial charge is the side alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, namely, the demoralisation that increasing unemployment is bound to bring upon labour. I do not mean by that that many hundreds of thousands of men and women who are now receiving unemployment benefit are shirkers or prefer to be unemployed than to be employed, but I do say that to compel something like 1,000,000 men and women to spend day after day going round the Labour Exchanges looking for jobs and hanging about must have a most demoralising effect upon those hundreds of thousands of men and women and boys and girls. Thirdly, it seems tome that until the Ministry of Labour comes to closer grips with the whole problem of unemployment one of the principal causes of labour unrest will still continue to exist. If I were a member of a trade union I should regard unemployment as by far the greatest danger to the status of labour in the future.
  For all those reasons I venture to think that it is worth the while of the House to consider in some detail the various factors of the problem. First of all take the case of the increase of unemployment. On 31st January of this year there were 678,703 men, women and children drawing unemployment benefit. On 28th February, only four weeks afterwards, that number had increased to 948,620. So that what are known as the Live Registers of the Unemployment Exchanges show that whilst at the end of January there were 270,000 men's names upon them, that number almost doubled in the course of four weeks, whilst in the case of women the

  2177
  number increased from 453,000 to 549,000. That is not the whole picture. Side by side with the increase in the number there has also been a great reduction in the hours of labour. During those five or six weeks the hours of labour, according to the "Ministry of Labour Gazette," have been reduced by something like 20,000,000. That means, therefore, that without such a reduction in the hours of labour, and I am very glad to see that reduction, those figures would have been far more serious than they appear at present. Besides that I do not think that the House can assume that the evil has become stationary. It looks to me as if it will become worse, and for this reason. There are still something like 2,000,000 men to be demobilised from the Army, and between two or three hundred thousand women who are at present employed either by the War Office or the Admiralty or the Air Service or Government offices, and who will have to be demobilised probably in a very short time. I think those facts show how very serious the position is at present and how in all probability it will become much more serious in the future. I pass from that to ask what measures the Ministry of Labour are taking to deal with this very serious situation. First of all, the Ministry of Labour is continuing to pay the unemployment donation. I should like to ask the representative of the Ministry of Labour whether the present rate is to be a permanent rate, and whether the present period of paying unemployment donation without contributions is to be the permanent policy. I think the time has come for this House to know what is the permanent policy in this respect of the Ministry of Labour. I do not object at all to the payment of unemployment donation, and in fact I was so much in favour of it that I inserted it in my election address as one of the necessities for the transition period from war to peace, but I do object to it if the administration of it enables it to be used by men and women who wish to shirk employment. Secondly, I object to it if the Ministry of Labour does not concurrently with the payment of it bring all its weight to bear upon other Government offices to encourage employment, and by that means to make the need for the unemployment donation much less necessary. I should, therefore, like to ask the Ministry of Labour upon what principle the amount of the unem-
  2178
  ployment donation is based. Is it meant to be a subsistence allowance while men and women are unemployed? If it is meant to be a subsistence allowance, I do not see on what ground the Ministry of Labour has considerably reduced it during the last two or three weeks. If it is not to be a subsistence allowance, I should like to know what is the principle upon which the present amount is calculated. It looks to me very much as if the assessment of the amount has been, done haphazard. A few weeks ago it was found that the rate at that time was having a disastrous effect upon the labour markets, and apparently at haphazard the amount was reduced. I should like to know upon what principle the present amount is based, how long it is intended to continue it, and whether the Government intend to abandon what appears to me to be a temporary system of paying the donation, and instead of that to bring it into harmony with the Unemployment Act of 1911 and to put the whole system of unemployment benefit upon a permanent basis? That is the first point I desire to bring to the attention of the House with reference to the administration of the Ministry of Labour.
  I turn to the second point. It seems to me that the two cardinal organisations of the Ministry of Labour for dealing with unemployment are the Appointments Board of the Ministry and the Unemployment Exchanges. I think that neither of those organisations are at present dealing effectively with the problem. First of all, as to the Appointments Board, the information which I receive with regard to it makes me think that the considerable expenditure of money, amounting to over £400,000 per year for the Appointments Board alone, is leading to very small results. I am quite aware that the Appointments Board had a very extensive correspondence with officers and men who were searching for employment, but the information that I have received makes me think that that correspondence has led to very little, and that, as a rule, where an officer in the Army or Navy has obtained employment he has obtained it by his own exertions rather than by the exertions of the Appointments Board. Take, again, the Employment Exchanges. They have done a great deal of extremely valuable work. At the same time it seems to me that the Ministry of Labour has not realised how big and important their work is. In the winter,

  2179
  when the Armistice was signed, the Ministry of Labour delayed until the very last moment extending the organisation of the Employment Exchanges, and even to-day my impression is that they are under-staffed, that the staffs are underpaid, and that altogether you are attempting to make an organisation do an immense amount of work which, both in regard to staff and in regard to its status, is not capable of doing it. Let me give the House a single example.
  Take the question of domestic service as it relates to the employment of women. I have no wish that the Employment Exchanges should be used for foisting upon bad householders women and girls as domestic servants, but, short of that, you have, on the one hand, a universal demand for women and girls as domestic servants, and, on the other hand, you have 53,963 women who were in domestic service on the books of the Employment Registry and without jobs. That makes me think that there is a gap between the employer and the employed in one very vital part of the province of women's employment. I see, for instance, in the Report of the Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Reconstruction on Domestic Service that it has been calculated that only one domestic servant per week has been put into employment by the Employment Exchanges for each clerk employed. I see also in the evidence that a single restaurant, employing a large amount of domestic service, is still paying £5,000 a year in advertisements for the men and women that it wishes to attract to its staff. That makes me think that, rightly or wrongly, the Employment Exchange is not playing as effective a part as it should in bringing employés and employers together in the matter of domestic service. People tell me who have been following this problem closely, that that is leading to very disastrous effects, and I would commend to the Under-Secretary for Labour the recommendations made by Dame Katharine Furse in the "Times" of today. Domestic servants, in her contention, need something more personal than can be obtained in the Employment Exchanges. For instance, there is the question of character, which, both from the point of view of employer and employed, is absolutely necessary in service of this kind. Her suggestion, and the suggestion of several of the ladies who served upon the Advisory Committee with her, was
  2180
  that the Ministry of Labour should encourage the formation of, I do not know whether to call them clubs or, anyhow, associations of the women who have been working, for instance, under the War Office or under the Admiralty or other Government offices, and by means of these associations to give the members information as to openings in domestic service, to put them in the way, if necessary, of getting training, even to provide hostels in which they could live when they are without employment, and to prevent them drifting into the streets, and becoming demoralised by hanging about the Labour Exchanges, and, as the figures show, not obtaining employment. I would ask the Under-Secretary to say something about that suggestion—the formation at once, or perhaps I should say the continuation at once, of what has been done in the matter of welfare in the munition works during the War, to finance it from the Ministry of Labour, and to prevent these many hundreds of thousands of women and girls drifting into the streets and hanging about the Labour Exchanges. I think that such organisations could be kept in close touch with the Employment Exchanges, and I think that so far would they be from interfering with their work that they would really supplement them in what is admittedly one of the great deficiencies in the present organisation. I think that that suggestion might also be extended to the large number of boys who who are at present unemployed. According to the labour statistics, there are something like 30,000 boys now unemployed. It would be a tragedy if, at the most critical time in the lives of those boys they drifted away and made it much more difficult for themselves to become profitable members of the State in future.
  I pass from these two points that I have raised in connection with the administration of the Ministry of Labour to a third point, which seems to me to be almost equally important. I said just now that I objected to the unemployment donation if at the same time the Ministry of Labour are not taking every step in their power to make the chances of employment both by private employers and Government offices better. As far as I can see with the information that is available to an ordinary private Member, the Ministry of Labour is not carrying out its full duty in that respect. I am not satisfied that the Ministry of Labour is bringing its full weight to bear upon the other Govern-

  2181
  ment offices to ensure that work of public importance should be put in hand at once, and should be so spread over the labour market as to lessen the present serious state of affairs. I should like, for instance, to ask the Under-Secretary what the Ministry of Labour have been doing with the Local Government Board to hurry on the scheme of housing, purely from the point of view of labour? Hon. Members opposite could possibly calculate more easily than I could what would be the amount of labour that an extensive, housing scheme would immediately absorb. As far as I can see, since the election not a single new house has been even started to be built by either the Local Government Board or any local authority. I should like to be satisfied that the Ministry of Labour is worrying the Local Government Board day after day, from the point of view of labour and of the employment market, to get those schemes started at once. I should like to see the Ministry of Labour pressing day after day the President of the Board of Education to set on foot an extensive scheme for building more schools, and particularly for increasing the number of schoolrooms and consequently reducing the number of boys and girls in the classes. There, again, an extensive educational programme for increasing school accommodation would absorb a very considerable amount of labour; and, thirdly, to take another similar example, take the case of the amount of labour that might be absorbed by a big programme of road improvement. There, again, I should like to feel that the Minister of Labour is day after day at the door of his right hon. Friend the Minister of Ways and Communications insisting that a programme of road improvement should, from the point of view of the labour market, be set on foot at once.
  The only comfort I have had in this connection in the last few days was an answer given by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House when he said that it was proposed at some early date to embark upon the Channel Tunnel as a means, amongst other things, of employing labour. I should like to see schemes which in my view are more practical than that, such as those that I have mentioned, set in hand at once, and I venture to make the hon. Gentleman a humble suggestion. It seems to me that at the present time there is not the close connection between the Ministry of Labour and the great employing authorities, such as the Local Govern-
  2182
  ment Board, the First Commissioner of Works, and the great local authorities, that there might be; and I would suggest to him that it might be worth setting up joint committees under the Ministry of Labour with the big employing Departments of State and also with the big local authorities. Those committees would have before them all the latest statistics of the labour market. They would also have before them all the various schemes of building and employment both of the Departments of State and of the great local authorities. I believe without some organisation of that kind you will have one Department doing one thing and another Department doing another thing, quite irrespective of the conditions of the labour market. That is a very important point, because I think I should be right in saying that the orders of the big employing Departments of State and of the local authorities would have a very material effect upon the problem of unemployment. Even before the War Professor Bowley, a very well-known statistician, calculated that the amount of employment in a good year and the amount of employment in a bad year differs much less than most people would think. He calculates the difference as between 2 per cent. and 11 per cent. of the labour employed under the 1911 Unemployment Act, or to put it in another way, he calculates that even in a bad year of trade, 95 per cent. of the aggregate amount spent in wages in a good year in spent in a bad year. To put it in another way still, in a bad year of trade, according to his calculations, no less than fifteen-sixteenths of the total labour of the country still finds employment. Those statistics show that the margin between a good year and a bad year is not very great, and that if Government Departments and local authorities spread their employment orders in a co-ordinated and reasonable way, a great part of even that small margin would be reduced. That was true according to statistics before the War.
  Much more is it true to-day, when almost every Government Department is embarking upon a programme that will mean extensive employment of labour, and I am inclined to think that, if the Ministry of Labour went fully into this question, set up the Standing Committees I have suggested, and put its whole weight into insisting that employment programmes should not be entered into

  2183
  regardless of the labour market, most of the factors that now lead to bad employment in years of bad trade would disappear. It is because I feel that the Ministry of Labour has not realised the greatness of this problem that I have made these remarks, and I hope that the Ministry of Labour will act up to the very extensive powers it has got, make itself first of all the central statistical department with reference to all labour questions, and, secondly, make its power felt, so that all the great spending Departments of State, and the local authorities as well, may spread their orders so as to tide over bad times, and not drain the labour market in good times with employment which could be better used in other services.
  Major EDWARD WOOD: I am sure hon. and right hon. Members who have heard my hon. and gallant Friend's speech will agree that he has done a useful service in inviting the attention of the House to this subject, and I could wish that more Members of the House had had the opportunity of hearing what he had to say. I can assure my hon. Friend who will reply for the Ministry of Labour that those of us who have introduced this matter have not done so in any spirit of criticism, or with any other desire but to give him an opportunity of making a statement that I think is rather needed at the present moment, in view of the circumstances in which we are. We entirely appreciate, of course, the difficulties in which his Department is at the present moment, and I can say of myself and my hon. Friend that we would not have invited him to spend an evening in the House of Commons if it were not for the fact that opportunities of discussing these matters in the House are so few and far between, that one has to take them when one can. I do not think my hon. and gallant Friend exaggerated when he said that the situation was an anxious one. He referred us to the numbers who are at present in receipt of the unemployment donation, and I suppose every one of us has had information—I certainly have had from various sources in my part of the country—all going to show that in various trade centres of population there is a reasonable expectation of an increased measure of unemployment over what we have today. It is not necessary to remind the
  2184
  House that, at present, unemployment is one of the danger points of the country and of society, and, therefore, I consider there is no question upon which it is more vital for Members of this House to seek for information. Nor can I conceive any subject in which it is more important that, the Ministry, as the hon. Member said just now, should take the country frankly into its confidence.
  But this would not be the occasion, nor I the person, to discuss the large causes at work which are producing this state of affairs. I leave on one side—although, of course, they are vital causes arising from the War—questions of policy like the continuance of the blockade, the arrival of raw material in this country, the effect of labour unrest, to what extent labour unrest is the parent or the child of unemployment—those matters I leave on one side, and I want to direct my hon. Friend's attention to some aspects in which his Department is more closely concerned, and ask him, if I may, a few questions. First of all, let us keep clear what we expect the Ministry of Labour to do. It is not responsible, as I see its functions, for the existence of unemployment, nor can it provide employment, but, as my hon. Friend said, it can very well act as a controlling and a driving force of all the energies of organised labour. Now, the Ministry of Labour depends for its success upon two factors. The first is that that central administration should be well and intelligently directed; and, in the second place—and this is not less important—it should be able to enlist, and utilise and inspire the local knowledge and the local effort on which at must always largely rely. As to the first—the intelligence of the central administration—I would only suggest, in passing, that I am not sure the time is not coming when those responsible for our affairs will have to consider the question whether it may not be desirable that the Ministry of Labour should take over a large part of the work of the Board of Trade, and that for this reason. As is becoming more and more apparent to every one of us, each day the whole question of our trade, especially our foreign trade, depends, and will depend, more and more directly upon questions of labour here at home, and I am inclined to think that it will not long seem satisfactory to have what is really one subject divided between two Government Departments. That I only suggest in passing, but, with regard to the second

  2185
  point, I think my hon. and gallant Friend was perfectly right when he said it was possible for the Government to give quite definite assistance to the labour demand. I do not suppose that many of us before the War realised how elastic the labour demand of a nation was. We can apply, I think, to the conditions of peace a great deal of what we haves learnt under the conditions of war, though we shall not use the same methods.
  It really comes back every time to this: Is the knowledge, which the Ministry of Labour has got, and collects by a unique machinery through the country, pigeonholed in a Government Department, or is it really made effective and given to Departments? I happened four or five days ago to meet at a mutual place of entertainment a Northumberland miner, whom I sat next at dinner, and I showed him round the House of Commons the other day, and, among other things, took him to see the Coal Commission sitting. While we were there, what was going on was what happened not infrequently on the first two or three days of that Commission, namely, a Government official being turned inside out by one of the miners representatives. My friend and I watched this for a few minutes, and, after coming out, I asked him what he thought of it. He said, "the only impression that it leaves upon me is this, that these Government officials have been busy all their lives poring over figures and never thinking about them. We have been busy thinking, but have never been able to get the figures to think with." I am not sure that that is not going on too much in Government Departments. I hope my hon. Friend will be able to assure me that the figures his Department collects—and I think there are no better figures collected than his—are put to an effective and a practical use. Therefore, I would ask him, is it anybody's job in his Ministry to see that something is done to make the information really effective? I am not sure that in this matter, perhaps, as in others, the suspension of hostilities did not catch us a little bit unprepared.
  8.0 P.M.
  With regard to one other matter which my hon. and gallant Friend has touched on—the question of unemployment donation—I think that every one of us must have complete sympathy with the demand that was made, I think, at a large meeting at the Albert Hall, and has been made at several other meetings up and down the country, for work instead of doles. We all
  2186
  admit the necessity of the policy at the moment, but I am convinced, as was my hon. Friend, that it is a bad permanent policy. It is as low a conception of the policy of the Ministry of Labour as the advice to "feed the brute" is a low idea of the state of marriage, and it is not enough as a permanent policy. In this, as in many other matters, I am convinced that laissez-faire, as understood years ago, is dead and will not return, and in this, as in other matters, the State must be prepared to intervene at an earlier stage than hitherto it has-been willing to do. Up to now the State has been willing to provide some doles for those unable to work; now it must intervene before it gets to that stage. One word more and I have done. Let us all recognise, what is an obvious truth, that unemployment is, and is going to be, more and more a national problem. In that connection may I suggest this to my hon. Friend. The present practice is to pay unemployment donation. During the War there were various schemes to which, as I very well know there were, on various grounds, great objection, and by which it was possible to transfer a man to work in another part of England. In return for signing some form of contract such a man got subsistence allowance. That, as a great many hon. Members know, was on several grounds objectionable. But I would put this to my hon. Friend: Would he not consider the possibility of introducing into our peace system permanent machinery by which a man who wished to go to work away from his home, and to where work was, should not draw his subsistence allowance himself—because that makes trouble in the place where the man is working—but that the subsistence allowance should be sent out direct to his dependants in the home from which he has gone? From the point of view of the State it would be infinitely cheaper than paying unemployment donation because the man would be producing. I should be very glad if my hon. Friend will say that he is prepared to consider that policy as a permanent part of our peace machinery. When he has done that it is not less important to enlist the sympathy, co-operation, and support of the people on the spot who have to do the work. The Department has got invaluable machinery in the shape of local advisory committees and in the shape of divisional councils. If the Department desires good work to be done by that machinery it must get the best

  2187
  people to serve on these committees and councils, as I believe it has, but it will not get the best people to remain on them unless it so decentralises its work that those concerned will feel that the work they do is really effective, and of a responsible nature.
  I have heard many complaints from responsible people serving on these committees that they are rather too apt to be considered as only of an advisory nature. Resolutions that are passed are, it is said, turned down at Whitehall. They feel that it is really too much to ask a busy man to waste time, and to come, it may be, a long way to attend committee meetings unless rather more weight and authority is given to the work and to the resolutions carried when they have done that work and carried those resolutions. Uniformity of administration is, however, a thing very dear to the official mind. Still, it should be remembered that it has a tendency to cramp and paralyse local initiative and local effort. Therefore, I think what is needed, and what on every ground is essential, is that the Ministry should be content to reserve for Headquarters merely the widest questions of policy, while transferring in fact to the provinces as wide a control of administration as it is found practicable to do. In conclusion, let me ask my hon. Friend to answer the two questions put by my hon. and gallant Friend on my left, and—if I may do so—I would ask his especial attention to one to which I have directed his attention: Whether he can give an assurance that he will be able, as he gets his machinery developed and extended, concurrently with that to carry still further the process of decentralisation outside in order to give the fullest possible scope to the energy, interest, and initiative of those whose services on the outside are desired and are invaluable?
  Lieutenant - Colonel MEYSEY-THOMPSON: The hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just sat down, and others, have drawn attention to the disadvantages of unemployment pay. I agree with them to a very great extent. But there is one aspect of the question to which I have not heard attention drawn. I should like hon. Members on this side of the House to study the few remarks I am going to make. Firstly, I would endeavour to show how unemployment leads to unemployment, and how
  2188
  the reverse is the case. Take the coal mines as a first instance. Suppose the hewers were all receiving unemployment pay. You would have no loaders, no pony boys, no surface men, and a large number of other men would be thrown out of employment, because those at the head of the department were receiving unemployment pay. Take the instance of a small town or village where there are a very large number of people receiving unemployment pay. What greater benefit could there be than for some good organiser to start, say, a brewery or a cocoa manufactory, or some other business? The first result would be to employ those people now receiving unemployment pay, and the further result would be that not only those people would be employed but a vast number of other people—carpenters, saddlers, box makers, barrel makers, and so on. Therefore, the mere fact of the employing of people now getting unemployment pay would not only keep them in work but would prevent others, as I have pointed out before, from coming on the State or encouraging those people to remain unemployed; it would also be causing a large amount of remunerative employment for a great many other people in the district who otherwise would find it difficult to get that employment which is so necessary in times of demobilisation.
  A great strike, or strikes, will cause unemployment for the time being to enormous numbers of people all over the country. I wish I could make hon. Member realise this point as well as I myself realise it. I have been in the Colonies. I have travelled in almost every part of the British Empire. I wish I could bring it home to all what a danger there is in driving trade permanently out of this country. I do not think it is half understood how sensitive trade is, and how important it is to this country to preserve our trade and to have sound finance. A strike here lasting any length of time would not only result in people being thrown out of work, but there would be a very grave danger of driving our manufactures and our trade overseas to our Colonies and to America. While we may wish our own Colonies to succeed—and none of us, I am sure, wish otherwise—and they do not themselves wish to succeed at our expense—yet they do want to succeed and develop alongside the Mother Country. When we talk lightly of fixing rates of wages and of fixing one con-

  2189
  dition after another upon our trade here, let us think. And I am one of those who wish to see wages kept up as far as it is possible to keep them up to a standard which shall ensure comfort and well-being for all our workmen. Still, we must remember Æsop's fable of the Dog and the Shadow. Do not let us grasp at the impossible and lose the real.
  America, as we all know, has come forward during this War and has lent us very large sums of money. If it had not been for that we should have had very great difficulty in financing ourselves during the latter days of the War. When I lived out in New Zealand and Australia I can very well remember what was the argument always used when it was a question of financing the country: "Go to England and borrow some extra millions." That money was the means of keeping, in very many instances, the wages of, say, a particular trade above the standard which that trade could justly bear. The result was, as I have seen over and over again, industries started in New Zealand or Australia which had every prospect of success, but were so overburdened by expenditure that they came down, and those concerned had to emigrate to America, where they found a better market for their labour. It was not so bad perhaps as it might have been, because the Colonies borrowed from the Mother Country, and they had a sympathetic parent to nurse and look after them; but do not let us borrow from America to such an extent that we burden our industries here to a point which they are unable to bear. If we do, the inevitable result must be to drive our trade and our manufactures from this country to America. Our working people will then have no choice but to live on a very much lower rate of wages or run a very grave risk of constant unemployment, or emigrate to America, which, I am sure has the wish—as it is the wish of all of us—to keep them here, and to keep them well employed, and to improve their condition to that certain standard which all of us wish to see. I would urge upon the Minister to keep this point in view. I would ask that, as soon as possible, he should get those who are now receiving unemployment pay profitably employed, to remove as speedily as possible all those restrictions on our industries which are now going to be so heavy a tax on them, and which make us run a very grave danger of driving trade out of this country. I am certain what I have
  2190
  said will be received in good part by hon. Members on this side of the House. I can only say, in conclusion, that I hope and trust, bearing these things in mind, we will not delay taking the necessary measures which I have indicated.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY Of LABOUR (Mr. Wardle): I must apologise for the Minister of Labour not being able to be present to take part in this Debate. Neither he nor myself have the slightest cause for complaint in regard to what has been brought before the House. On the contrary, we welcome the discussion that has taken place. We agree that the question of unemployment is a very grave problem at the present moment, and it is growing. Therefore, I am very glad indeed that this discussion has been initiated. I do not think anyone can accuse me or the Minister of Labour of any want of sympathy with the unemployed, or any want of desire to see this problem solved in as complete a fashion as possible. There are, however, some indications that show something is being done, and much more than has already been suggested. We have at present 992,000 unemployed donations. Of this total 495,000 are women and 435,000 are men. Of the men about 165,000 are soldiers and 227,000are civilians. The House will be interested to know that out of the soldiers already demobilised 79 per cent. have been actually placed in employment. No less than 637,000 have been so placed and of the civilians 45 per cent. have so far been placed in employment. In regard to the women we cannot say that we have been quite so successful, but I will deal with that point in a moment.
  The questions which have been raised in this Debate are exceedingly important, and they are mainly with regard to the question of the administration of the Ministry of Labour and unemployed donations. Some larger points have been raised, but first of all I should like to deal with the question of the administration of the unemployed donation, and answer the questions put to me so far as I can. First of all let me say that the problem of unemployment has undoubtedly largely arisen as the result of turning over from war to peace, and large numbers of women who had never been engaged in industry in the same way before were brought into employment, and the difficulty of putting them into other employment was very great. The largest percentage of unemployment is just exactly

  2191
  in those centres where the munition factories were placed, such as Birmingham, Glasgow, Sheffield, and districts of that kind. The largest percentage of unemployment in regard to the men is in the engineering trade, and this has risen to 14 per cent. Those are the only figures with which I desire to trouble the House, but I think they prove that the Ministry of Labour so far as machinery is concerned is doing a great deal to settle and solve the problem.
  With regard to the question of the unemployment donation. I have been asked, first of all, whether the policy of donation is a permanent policy or not, and whether the present rate is a permanent rate, and whether the present non-contributory policy is permanent. The whole question, including both these points, is now being considered by the Sub-committee appointed by the Provisional Joint Industrial Conference which was held the other day, and a satisfactory settlement depends on the acceptance by both employers and employed of whatever policy may be adumbrated by that Sub-committee, and eventually accepted by the Ministry of Labour. Therefore it would be premature for me to announce a policy when the matter is being considered by that Committee.
  Sir S. HOARE: Will this Committee report before the expiration of the thirteen weeks? I believe the present rate of donation goes on for thirteen weeks.
  Mr. WARDLE: I think we are expecting a Report by the 6th of April. That is the expectation, and then there will be a further large Conference. The Reports of the Sub-committee will be given at that Conference, and then, I presume, they will be made public.
  Mr. CLYNES: May I ask whether it is intended that the Sub-committee will make recommendations to the hon. Gentleman's Department which will affect the financial relief now being given?
  Mr. WARDLE: I do not think the Subcommittee is considering the present rates which are being paid. They are considering the question of the policy which ought to be pursued with regard to this question of contribution, and the question of the permanent policy of the donation pay. I do not think the Committee is considering
  2192
  the present rate. I have been asked a question about the amount of the donation and how it was fixed, and whether it is a haphazard figure. It certainly is not a haphazard figure. It is difficult to say exactly that it was fixed upon any particular cost of living in any particular area. It must be remembered that it is a flat rate. I think the House will agree that the policy which had to be pursued had to be somewhat hastily improvised. No machinery which the Ministry of Labour could set up in the time at its disposal when the Armistice came so suddenly could have dealt with any other system but a flat rate.
  Major WOOD: The War has lasted over four years.
  Mr. WARDLE: Yes, I know; but I am speaking now of what has been done since the Armistice, and when that came about this matter had to be dealt with in this form. The policy was to make a flat rate because no other measure could deal with so big a problem as that at the moment, and therefore it was fixed. I have been asked whether the rats fixed was a subsistence allowance. Certainly it was considered a sufficient allowance for the time being, and this seemed to the Ministry at the time to be the best system which could have been devised and put into operation quickly. My hon. Friend then asked with regard to the machinery of the Appointments Branch and the Employment Exchanges. I think his criticism of the Appointments Department was rather harsh. The Department was created after the Armistice, and it has had to deal with a tremendous problem. In my opinion it has been dealing with it very effectively. While it is perfectly true that a great deal of correspondence has taken place, a great many appointments have beet, made, and I gather from the information which I have received that many of these appointments have been the result of the correspondence. According to the information which we have received, the Appointments Branch of the Ministry, in dealing especially with officers and men of exceptional educational qualifications, is doing really good work and is proving very effective.
  Major MORRISON-BELL: Can the hon. Gentleman give the number of these appointments?
  Mr. WARDLE: I cannot give the number at the moment, but I have given them from time to time in answer to questions, and I shall be very glad to give them again. They are changing from day to day, and it is impossible for me to give them at this moment. It is perfectly true that there was great difficulty in expanding the Labour Exchanges to deal with this problem in it, fullest capacity as it ought to be dealt with, but my hon. Friend knows perfectly well that the whole machinery of the Ministry of Labour has had to be largely created during the War, and it is not so easy to get a suitable staff for this purpose as some people imagine. These Employment Exchanges have to be staffed by people with certain qualifications, and certainly by people possessing sympathy and tact, and it is not easy to improvise a service of this kind during such a period as we have been passing through. In addition to unemployment itself, they have had to deal with this unemployment donation, and you must make some allowance for the difficulties under which they have had to work. I quite agree that in some of these exchanges there has been a little too much overtime, but that has been because of the difficulties. The matter is being gone into thoroughly, and we hope before long that the exchanges will be put on an effective foundation.
  My hon. Friend referred rather critically, and perhaps sarcastically, to the work that the Exchanges are doing with regard to domestic servants. Before the War the Exchanges were prohibited from dealing with domestic service and during the War there was little or no business of that kind doing. The whole work with regard to domestic service has, therefore, practically had to be built up since the Armistice. Arrangements are in hand at the present moment for developing this work in certain directions. I could not agree, as the hon. Member seemed to suggest, that one clerk has secured only one servant, because, as a matter of fact, during January, 13,750 were placed in domestic service by the Employment Exchanges, and certainly the clerk at the particular Exchange through which one servant secured a job would have many other things to do. I quite agree that the problem of domestic service is a very difficult one. It has been receiving the consideration of various committees of all kinds, including the local advisory committees which have been set up
  2194
  by the Ministry of Labour, and a great many reports which have now been received will be considered, so that we may get some policy which, it is hoped, both from the point of view of the domestic servants themselves, the country as a whole, and the employment of women as a whole, may bring this problem to a satisfactory solution. Surely the House realises that girls or women who before the War were in domestic service were during the War transferred to munition factories and to other industries in which they had more freedom, and in which they secured very much larger wages. The disposition to go back into domestic service is not very great, and there is no wonder that we have this problem as acute as we have it at the present time. I believe it to be a passing problem, and I believe that the measures that are now being considered, and that will eventually be taken, will be found to do something to mitigate the worst effects, and to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. I will consider the suggestion which the hon. Member has made. I will see how far associations of the kind he suggests can be fostered. Already throughout the country in the advisory committees this thing is being considered, and I know from my own personal knowledge that in many parts of the country meetings are being arranged by the advisory committees between mistresses and maids, or those who desire to be maids, with the object of seeking a reasonable solution of the problem. We are therefore doing something to bring together the people who are concerned in this great problem.
  I share my hon. Friend's view as to the seriousness of the position in having a large number of boys unemployed. We are, through our local advisory committees which we have set up to deal with juveniles, doing all that is possible on our part to solve this very great problem. In certain districts the local advisory committees are sending both the boys and the girls to attend schools rather than that they should be walking the streets and doing nothing, and they are receiving extra education in that way. The other main point of criticism was the question of the Ministry stimulating other Government Departments and bringing them into touch with the problem of unemployment. It will be generally agreed, in fact it must be agreed, that it is not the business of the Ministry of Labour

  2195
  itself to develop industry directly. That is not its business or its policy, but it is constantly and regularly pressing the other Departments of the Government concerned to vigorously develop schemes such as housing and works of all kinds for the provision of employment. That is being done constantly, and the local advisory committees are asked for, and are constantly sending in, schemes of employment in their particular districts. We have sought, as my hon. Friend has suggested, to bring the local advisory committees and the town or county council together so that they can work in harmony, and that pressure can be brought to bear upon the council actually to start work and develop opportunities for employment in their respective districts. I look upon the local advisory committee to which reference has been made as one of the most valuable pieces of machinery connected with the Ministry of Labour. It stimulates local interest, and has very large powers now. At first its powers were only advisory. One of its main businesses was to deal with the Employment Exchanges. It exercised a certain supervision over them, and itself directly approached the Ministry if it considered there was anything wrong with the local Employment Exchange. Therein it performed a very valuable duty. In addition to that, it has had to deal with the question of demobilisation and with pivotal men.
  Now it will have the duty of dealing with all renewals of the unemployment donations. After the original thirteen weeks to which people out of work are entitled to receive the donation have expired, everyone who desires to have the benefit of the unemployment donation for a second period must send his or her case to the local advisory committee, where it will be considered. There are no keener critics than those who live in a place and have local knowledge, and therefore it may be expected that the advisory committee on this question will be able to do good work. I think I have dealt with almost all the points which have been raised. But I should like to add a word about the stimulation of local authorities in the provision of works to tide over the time of difficulty. The provision of works is a palliative and not a cure. The great thing we want in this country at the present moment is a
  2196
  revival of trade and an expansion of our industries. I will not enter into this in any detail however. I will only say that for my part I hope we may see confidence restored and an end put to that unrest which undoubtedly exists, so that people may be satisfied in some reasonable form, that wages may be improved high prices decrease, and unemployment vanish. But nothing will bring that about so quickly as a complete revival of our trade.
  Mr. KILEY: I rise to express a certain amount of dissatisfaction with the speech to which we have just listened. I was looking for something of a constructive policy to be announced to deal with what must be regarded as the appalling problem of unemployment. As far as I can gather there is not the slightest suggestion in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman that his Department has any definite or tangible proposition to put forward in order to cope with it. Surely there must be some thinking people in the Department of the right hon. Gentleman who are looking round to see what can be done. Let me suggest one matter which came to my notice a week ago. A very large manufacturer in my district wanted a number of women accustomed to machine labour, but was unable to get them. He could obtain 300 women, but he was not prepared to pay them the full standard rate of wage, although he was quite willing to pay them something for their services while being taught—a process which would occupy some weeks. He wanted assistance, or, rather, these people wanted assistance in order to enable them to live while they were learning this particular industry. The suggestion has been placed before the Ministry of Labour. There may be some trade union objection to this policy being pursued, and if there is objection then, I think, some action should be taken to get over an obstacle of that kind. I understand that in Ireland, when the Government wish to cope with the unemployment problem in any part of that country, they do not set up technical schools, but they go to an employer of labour and arrange with him that, if he will take a number of untrained people into his factory, they will pay these untrained people a small amount per hour for the time they spend in the factory, and I believe they also contribute something to the cost of management, and,

  2197
  instead of engaging a professor to teach the students, they pay the manager of the factory a certain amount so that lie may teach the people a trade or business and thus relieve the unemployment problem. One would have liked to have had some suggestion from the Department in this direction.
  We are told that these matters are being dealt with by advisory committees. I know a little of these committees, and I think if the right hon. Gentleman will inquire into the constitution of some of them he will not be quite so satisfied as he expressed himself a little while ago. In my own district the merest fraction of the members of the advisory committee live in the district. I do not know who appointed them. It was certainly not the local authority, which was absolutely ignored when the committee was set up. I am glad to know the right hon. Gentleman now contemplates consulting local people. I can assure him if he does that they will be able to give far greater assistance than they have done in the past because they have local knowledge as to the best methods of providing work for the unemployed in their district. If they had the responsibility of appointing the committee, or of controlling it, and dealing with the unemployment difficulty they would in turn feel some responsibility for looking after the committee. Hitherto the local authority has not regarded the Labour Exchange as coming within its province. This is the only part of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in which he stated something tangible as to what he is going to do, and I am sure that if he does consult the local authorities his action will have nothing but beneficial results. The hon. Gentleman might consider the suggestion I have just outlined of taking unemployed women, if they are unskilled or have had only one experience, and letting them be taught. I am sure that many manufacturers would be quite willing to take these women provided that all the responsibility of their pay did not rest upon them while the women were being taught the industry.
  Mr. CAPE: I am rather disappointed by the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour. I quite believe that what he said with regard to what the Department has done in trying to get work for people who are unemployed in their own particular
  2198
  localities is to a large extent true. He pointed to the fact that all the efforts of the Ministry of Labour and of the Board of Trade had been directed to making arrangements through the Employment. Exchanges to get employment for these people with private employers. Looked, at in that aspect it is to be admitted that the Ministry of Labour has undoubtedly done a good deal of work. But I would suggest to the hon. Gentleman that during-the War, because of necessity, the Government created gigantic works. I am not complaining of that having been done because it was absolutely essential to the prosecution of the War that every effort should be made to produce as much munitions of war as we possibly could. The Government organised all these large establishments and employed hundreds of thousands of people, who were paid for the results of their labour out of the National Exchequer. That work was not of a conscripted character, but, because the necessities of the country demanded that it should be done, the Government put all its energies into it and consequently these people were employed. If they did that for these legitimate purposes, I would suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that they Ministry of Labour might direct its attention to utilising some of these works and employing some of the unemployed in a productive manner for the well-being of the nation. I believe that industries could be commenced in some of what I might call the derelict factories and workshops belonging to the Government which would be of a productive character. That would give employment to the unemployed, and would be spending the country's money in a better way than in paying unemployment benefits. The 25s. or 29s. allowed to people who are unemployed is nothing like an adequate sum to meet the requirements of to-day. It is quite true that it is higher than anything that has ever been given in the history of this country; but, notwithstanding that, it is nothing like adequate to meet the demands of these people. The money which is being spent by the Government in that way is practically bringing in no return. It would be far better for the Government to spend more money with a view to bringing in some return, and besides enabling the people who are so employed to get more money for themselves it would give them a chance of obtaining a higher standard of life.

  2199
  One hon. Member this evening referred to the housing question. The Parliamentary Secretary, in his reply, did not give us any outline of what the Ministry of Labour was doing towards pressing forward a housing scheme. I believe that if a housing scheme were inaugurated on a large scale it would absorb a great number of our unemployed people. There is a national necessity, not only to employ these people, but to house those that are employed. Housing is a crying evil throughout the length and breadth of the land. Every town and every village is crying out for powers to commence a housing scheme. Under a housing scheme you would not only employ the people who build the houses, but also the people who produce the necessary commodities to build the houses. One can hardly calculate how many people would be employed in the building of houses on a large scale. I suggest that the Ministry of Labour should do all they possibly can to urge upon the other Departments the absolute necessity of inaugurating this housing scheme at the earliest possible moment. I would also respectfully suggest that the Ministry of Labour should turn its attention to commencing industries under State control with a view to absorbing men and women at present unemployed. If a country like this, which has shown beyond shadow of doubt that it is the richest country in the world, could finance this gigantic War, and if it could spend a huge amount of money such as it has spent, and yet cannot find ways and means to create national industries in order to absorb the people who are unemployed to-day, then something has gone wrong with the thinking powers of the Ministry that now controls the government of the country. I suggest that these things might be given attention to, and a real genuine effort made to try to relieve this pressure of unemployment, not merely by paying so much per week unemployed benefit, but a genuine endeavour to employ people who are now unemployed.
  9.0 P.M
  Mr. ROBERT M'LAREN: The question of unemployment is one that, I am sure, exercises the mind of every man who values the interest of his country. My purpose in rising is to bring before the right hon. Gentleman an instance whereby the direct result of the policy of the Government is bringing about unemployment. Like
  2200
  the other supporters of the Government who received the coupon, I insisted in my district, which is a very large industrial one, that the Government would protect certain industries, especially key industries. The Prime Minister, in his letter to the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bonar Law), initimated that these things would take place, and I was perfectly entitled at my meetings to say I was quite satisfied that the Government would carry out to the letter all the promises they had made. I have here some letters received last night and this morning from a very important industry in my district, namely, the paper milling industry. It appears that matters have come to a crisis there, because recently the Prime Minister has decided to allow free imports in connection with paper manufacture. The result is, that instead of these people receiving the protection they expected, the price has been reduced 40 to 50 per cent., and the statement given to me is that things are so alarming in the various paper milling districts that a question will arise in a very short time as to whether or not they will be able to keep on the persons at present employed, and the result will be that a large percentage of the people there must go without employment. During the War these mills were taken over by the Government, and they did very good work. They were crippled, like other people, in having to send away a large number of their men to the War, but notwithstanding that, with the shortage of labour, they were able to keep their supplies pretty well up. Before the War the mill I refer to, which is situated in Lanarkshire, between Airdrie and Calder Cruix, used to put out 219 tons per week of paper, but during the War they had to reduce their output to 36 per cent. They employed 784 people, and now they employ 633. Things have become so alarming that they have recently had a meeting of all the paper manufacturers of the district, and they are asking, that a deputation shall be received by the Board of Trade to try to see if matters cannot be settled. I am told, on this great question of unemployment, the Government cannot afford to do anything with any industry which will bring about the state of matters that they want to avoid. It is perfectly true that the trades-people are very much alarmed. The trade unions have taken up the matter, and they have asked me to bring it before the House

  2201
  to see if a remedy cannot be obtained at once before it is too late. The supplies of paper come to us through Scandinavia, and it is believed that a good deal of it comes from Germany, so that, after all, I think the Government must adopt such a policy as will prevent these people dumping their stuff down as was done in pre-war times. We have heard from Ministers that we cannot revert to the old pre-war conditions. I trust we shall never return to them but shall do things far better, for it is feared that, having given that promise, we are now faced with the fact that if any difficulty occurs the Government is perfectly ready to start a different policy, and thereby the country will suffer. I want to impress on the right hon. Gentleman that this matter should be dealt with at once. Already some of the mills have been closed, and unless it is dealt with quickly many others will be closed and we shall have a large body of decent men, who have done good work during the War, who have returned from the Army and who are expected to be started at work again, thrown out of employment, and it will be a very sad business for many parts of the country. Throughout Scotland there are very large paper mills, in Edinburgh, in Linlithgowshire, and in the West, and it will be a sad business indeed if, through a mistaken policy on the part of the Government, without thinking very much of what they are doing, by reducing the price of paper they produce the result that so many men will be thrown out of employment through no fault of their own. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to get the matter put right at once so that
  2202
  this decent body of men will not be thrown out of work and cause more unemployment, the very thing the House is anxious to see abolished as soon as possible, and that the country may go on to prosper.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.

  PRIVILEGES.
  Ordered, That the Committee of Privileges do consist of seven Members.
  Committee accordingly nominated of Sir Gordon Hewart, Mr. Brace, Mr. Evelyn Cecil, Sir Ellis Hume-Williams, Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, and Sir Thomas Whittaker.
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
  Ordered, That five be the quorum.—[Colonel Gibbs.]
  The remaining Orders were read and postponed.
  Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 12th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now Adjourn."
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at Five minutes after Nine o'clock.

  AMERICAN BANKS, CROWN COLONIES.
  AMERICAN BANKS, CROWN COLONIES.
INCOME TAX.
  MANSES (SCOTLAND).
  MANSES (SCOTLAND).
  CRICKET GROUNDS.
  CRICKET GROUNDS.
  CIVIL SERVICE (PAY AND CONDITIONS).
  CIVIL SERVICE (PAY AND CONDITIONS).
  COAL COMMISSION (EVIDENCE AND REPORT).
  COAL COMMISSION (EVIDENCE AND REPORT).
NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
  NAVAL FORCES (GRATUITY).
  NAVAL FORCES (GRATUITY).
DEMOBILISATION.
  APPLICATIONS FOR RELEASE.
  APPLICATIONS FOR RELEASE.
  ORDER OF RELEASE.
  ORDER OF RELEASE.
  OFFICERS AND MEN (PERCENTAGES).
  OFFICERS AND MEN (PERCENTAGES).
  PASSAGE MONEY (REFUND).
  PASSAGE MONEY (REFUND).
  SOLDIERS' LEAVE.
  SOLDIERS' LEAVE.
  GERMAN PRISONERS(EMPLOYMENT).
  GERMAN PRISONERS(EMPLOYMENT).
  MEN ATTESTED UNDER DERBY SCHEME.
  MEN ATTESTED UNDER DERBY SCHEME.
  VICTORIA STREET HALL, KIRKWALL.
  VICTORIA STREET HALL, KIRKWALL.
  WAR TROPHIES, WOOLWICH.
  WAR TROPHIES, WOOLWICH.
  COURT-MARTIAL (SENTENCE).
  COURT-MARTIAL (SENTENCE).
  ARMY PENSIONS (COMMUTATION SCALES).
  ARMY PENSIONS (COMMUTATION SCALES).
ROYAL AIR FORCE.
  DEMOBILISED MEN (DELAYED PAYMENTS).
  DEMOBILISED MEN (DELAYED PAYMENTS).
  AIR MINISTRY (STAFF).
  AIR MINISTRY (STAFF).
  NATIONAL FACTORY (COST).
  NATIONAL FACTORY (COST).
  SURPLUS EXPLOSIVES (BLASTING).
  SURPLUS EXPLOSIVES (BLASTING).
INDIA.
  PERSONS INTERNED.
  PERSONS INTERNED.
  ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION.
  ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION.
  HOUSING BILL.
  HOUSING BILL.
  COPPER TRADE, SOUTH WALES.
  COPPER TRADE, SOUTH WALES.
  COAL (EXPORT).
  COAL (EXPORT).
FOOD SUPPLIES.
  COMPULSORY PLOUGHING (LOSSES).
  COMPULSORY PLOUGHING (LOSSES).
  ALLOTMENTS (TENURE).
  ALLOTMENTS (TENURE).
  PEACE CONFERENCE (BALKANS).
  PEACE CONFERENCE (BALKANS).
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (OFFICE ACCOMMODATION).
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (OFFICE ACCOMMODATION).
Preamble
Several Lords—Took the Oath.

REPATRIATION OF TROOPS.
THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE EARL OF LYTTON): My Lords, I desire, with your Lordships' permission, to make a personal explanation with regard to an answer which I gave to the noble Viscount, Lord Midleton, on Wednesday of last week. Owing to the fact that I was unable to consult with the Ministry of Shipping before I came down to the House, one statement in my answer gives, I think, a misleading impression, which I desire to correct. The noble Viscount asked me what tonnage of British shipping is employed in the repatriation of American troops, and I stated, in reply, that at the present time only one ship is being used by the Americans for the repatriation of their troops. The noble Viscount probably gathered the impression from that statement that only one ship had been allocated to this particular service, and that only one ship would be so employed. That was my own impression when I made the statement, and this is the point which I desire to correct.
I find that in fact ships are allocated for repatriation of American troops from time to time after all other Imperial needs have been considered, and therefore the number of ships used in the repatriation of troops to America varies according to circumstances from time to time. When I made this statement last week it was verbally correct to say that only one ship had been so allocated, because at that moment only one ship had been definitely allocated to the American service. I find, however, that since then three more ships—the "Aquitania," with a gross tonnage of 15,000 tons; the "Ulua," of 7,452 tons; and the "Pannonia," of 9,858 tons—have been allocated to the Americans for the month of March. This correction, my Lords, does not affect the general purport of the answer I gave last week. It is true, as I then stated, that the ships on the North Atlantic work which are suitable for other military transport have been withdrawn. It is also true that all the military requirements for the purposes of the transport of troops have been met by the
768
Ministry of Shipping. It is only in respect of that one sentence that I feel my answer was misleading, and I desire, therefore, to correct the impression. It is not the case that only one ship is permanently allocated to the American service. Any ships which are not required for other Imperial needs and which are not suitable for service in other parts of the world are from time to time allocated to the American service. In addition to the two which I mentioned last week there are three which will be so used in the month of March, and in subsequent months this number may be either increased or diminished according to the needs and the circumstances of the work. I hope I have made the point clear to the noble Viscount.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, I am sure the House will be much obliged to the noble Earl for correcting a statement which might otherwise have seemed to be misleading. May I ask, Is it quite clear that only ships are lent to the American service at this moment if the War Office really do not require them for the convoy of our own troops?
THE EARL OF LYTTON: Yes, my Lords. It is perfectly true that the American claim comes last, and it is not met until all Imperial needs, including business needs, of our people have been met, and only such vessels as are not suitable in other parts of the world and are not required for Imperial needs are allocated at any time for the transport of American troops.

CAVENDISH CLARKE'S DIVORCE BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).

THE MINISTR OF FOOD.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN VISCOUNT CHAPLIN rose to ask for a Return of the cost of the Ministry of Food since its inception, showing the payments made upon the one hand, and all receipts arising from margins on the sale of commodities or otherwise up to the end of February, or as late a date as can be given, on the other; and to move for Papers.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I rise not so much for the purpose of initiat

769
ing a long debate upon the questions which I am about to raise, but rather in order to elicit information which I have tried to obtain before in respect of the conduct of the Ministry of Food and the gigantic cost at which it is being conducted. When I last obtained information on this subject it was very little short of the rate of £100,000,000 a year; and this, it may be well to bear in mind, is only one. of the numerous Departments that have been created since the present Government came into office. I have made this statement before—on July 10 and July 16, 1918, in the debate, on the Parliament and Local Elections Bill, and during the present year, on February 20, in a debate initiated by Lord Devonport—but so far I have failed altogether in the object which I have had in view for a very long period, and with regard to which I should have moved long-ago but for illness which prevented me from doing so.
To make quite clear the case which I desire to submit to the House, I must ask your Lordships to allow me to go back to February 19, 1918. Then you will find this statement from the Controller of Food—
"I have no close estimate of what the food consumption would amount to in value for the whole country, but it probably exceeds £700,000,000, or at the rate of over £60,000,000 a month.… It is hoped—and I trust this is not merely the expression of a pious wish—that all direct and indirect administrative costs will be covered by margins received in connection with the sale of commodities."
you will observe that £60,000,000 a month is exactly £720,000,000 per year, and that is the estimate which at the time I mentioned was presented by the Controller of Food, although he stated at the same time that he had no close estimate to offer of what was to be the cost of the Department.
I must ask you next to come to July 10, 1918, when I asked two Questions, which, but for the reason I gave just now, I should have asked long before. The first was as follows—
"What has been the amount expended during the months of January, February, March, April, May, and June respectively? What has been approximately the total cost of that Department since the end of December, 1917?"
The reply to this was explicit. It was £185,184,268 for the six months, while the estimate given on February 19, 1918, for the twelve months was £700,000,000. I think that is a very remarkable statement. It. is on record in the volumes of
770
Hansard. That is the information which I have elicited up to the present time.
Over and over again—certainly more than once I have asked to be informed how far the pious wish expressed by the Controller of Food when the first estimate was given has been fulfilled, and what there is on the other side in the nature of receipts—and I have put this explicitly in the Questions standing in my name upon the Paper—to show against this amazing expenditure on the part of the Ministry of Food. I began by saying that I have no desire on this occasion to raise a prolonged debate on the subject. What I want is to obtain information; and I may say that, unless the facts which I have put before your Lordships this afternoon can be effectively contradicted, both Parliament and the public generally have a right to know how we stand in this respect, and why it is that we have never been favoured up to the present with information regarding the receipts on the part of the Ministry of Food as against the enormous expenditure upon the other side, which has so greatly exceeded the estimates that were put before us. I do not think it is necessary for me to say anything further at the moment, and I shall be glad to have the information so far as the noble Earl who represents the Ministry of Food in this House is willing and able to give it.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD BIRKENHEAD): I do not understand whether the noble Viscount moved or not.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: Yes, I move for Papers.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (THE EARL OF CRAWFORD): My Lords, the accounts of the Ministry of Food are closed on March 31 in order to coincide with the Government financial year. The trading account and balance sheet of the Ministry of Food which have been prepared for the year ended March 31, 1918, show a surplus on the trading account—after debiting all expenses of administration, including rationing, rents, rates, taxes, expenses to the Commission in America and financial agents in America—of £133,363. That surplus has been carried forward as a reserve against losses in the liquidation of stocks. The total sales of the Ministry of Food for the period up to March 31, 1918, amounted to £45,564,611, and the stocks held at that date stood in

771
the books at £20,974,116. The administration expenses amounted to £1,249,375, or approximately 2 per cent. on the total transactions, including stocks purchased. The foregoing figures exclude the operations of the Wheat Commission and Sugar Commission, to which I will refer in a moment, but they include a debit of £549,883, rationing expenses, a proportion of which has been incurred in rationing sugar. If, as I think may reasonably be claimed, this outlay upon rationing were deducted as being in the nature of extraordinary expenditure, the percentage as above would be reduced from 2 per cent. to a fraction over I per cent.
With reference to the noble Viscount's request for the position at the end of February, even in the case of the biggest commercial undertaking it would be quite impossible at short notice to submit any exact statement of the undertaking's financial position at an arbitrary date. It would be hopeless to expect them to submit accounts at odd periods. If the Ministry of Food were purely an administrative Department it would be quite possible to submit a fairly accurate statement of the financial position at short notice, but the House must remember that the Ministry of Food is perhaps the largest commercial undertaking in the United Kingdom, and as in the case of every other trading concern the stocks vary constantly from day to day. Account sales are not and cannot be received from its agents immediately, especially considering the fact that accounts are open in every exporting country in the world. The House must also remember that the position of commitments of purchases oversea, and heavy liabilities for outstanding charges, such as freight, storage, rebates to distributors, have to be obtained in order to show an accurate financial position. The same course, therefore, has been adopted as in every other commercial undertaking—namely, accounts are not completely closed and prepared except on a definite date, which in this case is March 31 in order to coincide with the Government financial year. The only result, therefore, which could be given now would be in the nature of estimates and even these estimates, to be fairly accurate, would involve a very great deal of work which, in view of the shortage of staff due to continual resignations following upon changed conditions since the Armistice, it is impossible to undertake except at a serious detriment to current
772
work. The accounts of the Ministry will be prepared as on March 31 next, and I think I can promise a provisional summary of them after the Whitsuntide recess. As regards the sugar—operations, to date they show a margin of profit sufficient to enable the Royal Commission to maintain the present prices, which are substantially below the price that would have to be charged if the sugar now coming in, and to come in during the rest obf this year, were to be sold without loss.
With reference to wheat supplies, I regret that the question as to profit and loss cannot be accurately stated at the present time. There is considerable delay in drawing up these accounts. The cause lies mainly in the impossibility under which the Commission lay of obtaining the necessary clerical and technical assistance to enable them to keep their accounts up to date. This difficulty existed in an increasing degree up to the signing of the Armistice, and to a large extent still continues. During the whole of that time it will be found that the actual staff of the Wheat Commission has been considerably below the establishment authorised by the Treasury. This is one special cause of delay. But even if the Commission had been fully equipped with the necessary staff it would still have proved impossible at the present time to produce accurate accounts even for the first cereal year, and in the case of the Wheat Commission the financial year is the same as the cereal year ending on August 31.
I should like, if I might, to explain to your Lordships the intricacy and complication involved in the work of the Wheat Commission. It is not, as people are apt to believe, a purely domestic matter, but it has allied and international obligations of a very extended nature. The Wheat Commission is the executive body of what is called the Wheat Executive, which purchases grain and breadstuffs and feeding-stuffs for the Allies—for ourselves, for France, and for Italy. It also does the provisioning of our smaller Allies such as Greece, Belgium, and Portugal. It is responsible for victualling various parts of the Empire—Malta. Gibraltar, West Africa, Egypt, Mauritius—and has very largo transactions with India, and I dare say other places also. It is responsible, too, for victualling, within the agreed rations, of a number of neutral countries with whom the Allies have commercial

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agreements -Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Holland, Switzerland. Occasionally also it is necessary to victual other countries—small countries—who have no official connection with the Allies. Finally it has considerable responsibility with regard to the relief of Rumania, Serbia, and Esthonia, and that particular obligation is increasing and in the future will continue to increase. The scope of its operations is, therefore, very large. It has to buy in every exporting market in the world—twenty or more; it has to deal in eight or ten different currencies, quite apart from domestic matters exclusively concerning ourselves, such as tins Flour Mills Control Committee which manages upwards of 1,300 flour mills in this country for each of which an excess profits standard has to be assessed, and in many cases where the business is mixed the standards in turn have to be split. There is consequently an immensely heavy strain upon the finances of the Accounting Departments of the Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies. I have only referred to a fraction of the commercial procedure and intricacies which are involved. The result is that the accounts are not up to date by any means.
One further reason. I may state that the actual cost to each Ally on cereals winch are within the scope of the Wheat Executive agreement can only be calculated when a definite account has been made between the group of Allies concerned. These accounts will take a considerable time to draw up, even when an agreement: on the accounting method has been arrived at. Unfortunately this agreement is still in futuro, as the method has not yet been agreed between the respective Treasuries, and until the year 1916–17 is out of the way it is clearly impossible that final accounts for the following cereal year can be dealt with. I need not refer to a variety of other outstanding questions—freight, accounts, insurance, arbitration, and so on—which make it impossible to render any exact account at the present stage. Generally speaking, considerable losses will have to be faced on various commodities, such as meat and potatoes. But it is estimated that these and other losses, apart from the wheat subsidy which will be covered by the balance standing to the credit of the existing insurance fund and reserve credit in respect of other commodities, will be covered. In conclusion, I will point out that the operations of the Ministry are
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already subject to criticism by the Treasury, by the Public Accounts Committee, and by the Controller and Auditor-General.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: My Lords, I am sorry to say that I hear so badly that it is impossible to follow everything that fell from the noble Lord. He has told us that the accounts are by no means complete, and what the excuse or the reason is I did not altogether gather. I do not know whether I am to understand that by March 31 he will undertake to give to the public a complete statement of the accounts of the Department. If he is willing or able to do that I should not move for the Return, but at present I am so much in the dark upon the subject that I really do not know how long we are to wait to obtain the Returns that have been received by this Department which has undertaken this enormous expenditure. I cannot pretend to say that I am satisfied with the reply of the noble Earl, and unless I learn a great deal more than I have learned from his reply to-day I shall certainly hold myself entitled to raise this question again upon another occasion.
I should like to know whether we can count upon ever having anything in the nature of a complete Return of the financial situation of the Department, showing the expenditure upon one side and what they have received on the other. We were told distinctly that they would receive margins arising from the sale of commodities, and that these were to pay the whole of the administrative costs of the Department, direct and indirect. Upon that point I am as completely in the dark at present as I was before I asked the Questions which I have put to the noble Earl. Is there anything that he can tell us further? Can be give us more reasons for this total absence of accounts of receipts? I understand that they have sold an enormous quantity of food, and I suppose there must be receipts. I do not quite understand in these circumstances why the accounts should be so very greatly in arrear.
There is one impression that the reply of the noble Earl has certainly made upon me. He has frankly admitted that the Ministry of Food is a trading Department. He said something of that nature in a debate not more than three weeks or a month ago, and I took the opportunity of taking exception to the view that it was to become the custom for British

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Governments to enter into commercial and trading occupations. I contend that it is something entirely new. There might possibly be some excuse arising from the fact of the, great war, but it is earnestly to be hoped that this is not to be contemplated in the future as a permanent right or duty on the part of the British Government. I can conceive nothing more injurious than that it should come into competition with private enterprise all over the country—upon which, after all, you must depend for the gradually increased production which is absolutely vital to us. I shall be very glad to hear if the noble Earl can hold out any hope that by March 31 we shall be in a position to judge fairly what the expenditure has been and what the Government have received in return.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I have stated, I think pretty clearly, that there is no chance whatever of the accounts of the Wheat Commission up to March 31 of this year being in the hands of the public for many months to come.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: But apart from the Wheat Commission?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: As regards the accounts of the Ministry of Food, they will be prepared as at March 31, and I think I can promise a provisional summary of those accounts after the Whitsuntide recess.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: After that reply, I will not press the Motion. I understand that we are to have the information referred to—I think it was after the Whitsuntide recess?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I do not wish to leave the noble Viscount under any misunderstanding. The statement I made was that I think I can promise a provisional summary of the Ministry of Food's figures after the Whitsuntide recess. I am not in a position to give any more concrete pledge than those guarded words contain.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: Quite so. But "after the Whitsuntide recess" might mean anything. Are we to understand they mean shortly after?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Yes, shortly after.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: Then I ask leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

INCREASE IN CRIME.
THE EARL OF MALMESBURY THE EARL OF MALMESBURY rose to call attention to the serious increase in the number of daring burglaries, thefts of motor cars, and robberies with violence reported in the Press; and to ask for information.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, possibly there may be some members of your Lordship's House who will question the wisdom and expediency of raising a question which may seem unimportant at a moment when the time of Parliament is fully occupied in discussing important problems, and the time of your Lordship's House is so severely restricted. But I can assure your Lordships that nothing but the very gravest necessity and a real sense of seriousness would persuade me to occupy even a few minutes were I not convinced that possibly some good may be done by doing so. Having myself been to a regrettable extent a victim of burglary, not only has it given me a very great fellow-feeling for others, some of whom own well-known houses in this country, but, moreover, it has compelled me to take a closer interest in these matters, and—may I say?—to spend a more considerable time in the society of the Police.
It is a well-known fact that after nil great wars there is a period of lawlessness, which varies in degree according to the magnitude of the war. After the Thirty Years War we know that a period of lawlessness continued for a very long time; after the Napoleonic Wars the same thing went on for three or four years; and, within our own recollection, after the South African War there was a considerable period of lawlessness also. This war, which I believe will probably be called the greatest war the world has ever seen, has left in its train a wake of lawlessness which is not fully understood. In my Question you will notice that I have alluded merely to the reports which have appeared in the Press. Those of us—and I am afraid there are a great many of us—who have had occasion to go more deeply into the subject, know that the Press has not reported one-thousandth part of the crimes which have been committed.
Now, what are the causes of these crimes? The noble Lord who will reply

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to this Question will probably find himself in agreement with me in this. First of all, men have undoubtedly become careless. They have risked their lives, and, provided they can see their way to having a good time, they are prepared to get what represents to them money and gain, even at the expense of breaking into houses or stealing that which does not belong to them. In spite of the writings of distinguished German soldiers and philosophers, it is generally admitted that war has a most demoralising effect on the community at large. Then there is the depletion of the Police Force: I propose to deal with that in a moment. There is the dislocation of employment, and, as a consequence, the temporary employment of men and women whose character is probably not above suspicion from the point of view of honesty. There are also the deserters; I mention that particularly because I shall recur to it.
There is another cause which, probably more than any other, is responsible for this increase of crime, and that is the invasion of aliens and undesirable characters from other countries as the result of the war. This is somewhat delicate ground, but, after all, it is true that we have had criminals from America and from distant parts of the Empire dumped into these islands in addition to those criminals who already inhabited it—we have had a considerable reinforcement of criminals, to use a military expression. And moreover, there have returned to us very large numbers of criminals who, because they were too well known in this country, had gone further afield, and the war has brought them back to us. Then there is the increased cost of living, which has given a very great temptation to people whose ideas of living were perhaps considerably above their means, and they were determined to improve it at all costs.
With regard to demobilisation, I think it is generally admitted that during the war the figures for crime dropped very considerably. I have noticed it stated frequently that civilian crime had enormously decreased during the war. But all of a sudden some months ago one began to notice an increase in crime with the signing of the Armistice. What struck me at once was—and I think I am correct—that the burglars and other professional gentlemen had demobilised themselves, or had been returned to civil life as pivotal
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men. I believe the burglar's trade is a very skilled one, and perhaps the burglar got out of the Army as a skilled man, or was applied for by the Honourable Society of Burglars, or some kindred society. At any rate, the fact remains that the burglars and thieves were certainly very much at large in this country while policemen were still retained in the Army. What made it more serious was that a good deal of the time of the Police Force, already depleted, was taken up by making inquiries on behalf of the military authorities. One knows oneself, having served during the whole of the war, that when questions arose about men, excuses for leave, and so on, one always had to apply to the civil Police at home; therefore this depleted Police Force was taken up almost entirely by making inquiries on behalf of the military authorities instead of being able to attend to its civil duties.
There is another cause, of course—namely, that the Intelligence Branch of the Police Force in London and elsewhere was very largely transferred to overseas, France, and other parts; and these gangs—I am speaking more particularly of the skilled gangs—of burglars could move all over the country without being traced or watched, and without, any fear of discovery once they got out of the county where they had committed a robbery. In connection with, these robberies have been thefts of motor-cars,. and I believe the number of motor-cars stolen in the streets of London and elsewhere has been very considerable, and these cars have been used in connection with the burglaries to which I have already alluded. Then finally there is the kind of theft which has taken place from poor people—which I hope will commend the subject to your Lordships—attention; thefts in the way of robbing small shops, stealing the bicycles of working-men, and soon, which means that dishonesty generally has been enormously on the increase. I might say that this matter is one which is of interest not only to the so-called well-to-do, but it is also of vital importance to the poorer classes, because the thieves have not confined their activities to miniatures and plate, or to the rich collector; they have extended their activities (as in one case recently) to the lonely house of a lady who was not only robbed but murdered.
There is another aspect of this case which I might mention. I allude to the addi-

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tional difficulty in finding houses under the conditions that have been already mentioned so often as being serious at the present time. Only the other day I heard from a friend of mine, in a neighbourhood not far from home, that although there were empty houses in that place it was impossible to get people to live there because they were too lonely. In one part of Wiltshire I believe there are a number of houses to let because people have vacated them owing to their becoming alarmed by the undesirable characters wandering about Salisbury Plain. Another cause has been that most of the reliable and able-bodied men were called up, and whole districts were denuded of their strong and intelligent manhood, practically the only males left being either very old men or boys.
It has been said that in the old days no well-conducted district was without its gibbet. I am not going to suggest to the noble Earl who will reply that these men should be strung up on a gibbet, because it might start a very unpleasant campaign. But I am going to suggest that very severe measures should be taken against these people on the information which no doubt the noble Earl possesses. I am not sure that I may not say that the trouble in Ireland is somewhat responsible for this lawlessness in England. I was told the other day that a man who was accused of stealing a bicycle had replied—and very suitably too: "I have to go to prison for stealing a bicycle, although I have been fighting for my country in France; whereas men in Ireland, who have not fought at all, are allowed to go free."
I think this practically covers the whole question of these burglaries, except the suggestions I shall respectfully submit. First of all, I should like to say that these various headings I have raised concern the whole of the Police Force and do not apply merely to the London Police or to the Provincial Police. I think I explained that to the noble Earl yesterday, or the day before, when I had a chance of a conversation with him; and I hope the point is quite clear. There is one thing, however, that I wish to say emphatically, and I should be sorry to conclude without saying it—namely, that until the war broke out and our Police Force was so sadly depleted, I do not suppose there was a finer Police Force in the world than ours. The Police Force of this country has
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always been the admiration of the whole world, not only because of its intelligence but because of its good temper and efficiency. Consequently I do not wish to suggest that the Police Force is in any way responsible for the crimes I have mentioned. I think the state of affairs to which I have drawn attention is almost entirely due to the absence of the police.
Besides organising a special campaign against these people who so seriously disturb the whole country, I would suggest that the Police at Scotland Yard should have greater control over the Provincial Police so far as criminal investigation is concerned. I will tell your Lordships why I suggest this course. A friend of mine told me that he thought there was delay—he had suffered the same as myself, if not more so—owing to the fact that the Provincial Police were somewhat inclined to resent what they thought was undue interference with their duties, although it is really quite impossible for them to carry out their duties completely. For instance, if a gang of burglars steal a motor-car and use that motor-car for the purposes of committing a burglary in, say, Hampshire, Kent, Berkshire, or wherever it may be, they are out of the county in which they have committed the, burglary long before their crime is discovered; and the consequence is, as the criminals are merely passing through the county, the assistance which the local Constabulary are able to give is extremely small, and by the time you have got in touch with the detective department of that Constabulary you find that they can do nothing more than go to Scotland Yard. Therefore I respectfully suggest that Scotland Yard should be given some greater control over provincial Constabulary, and also that there should be some closer co-ordination generally between all the Police in this country. There is another thing which is a rather difficult subject to raise, because of course it is well known that the Provincial Police have different authorities over them. I refer to the provision of motor bicycles for the Police. In my own neighbourhood the Superintendent of Police asked me if I would interest myself in the matter, because he had only a rather ancient horse and a rather ancient cart, and therefore it took him a good deal of time to move about.
There is another matter on which, perhaps, the noble Earl will be able to give

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me an assurance, and that is that policemen in the Array shall be demobilized as soon as possible. I was told the other day by a police official, that while he was trying to do all his work—and he did a good deal of work on behalf of the Army—with one or two constables, his police, were playing football. They were awaiting demobilization, and playing foot ball; and he said that, even if the demobilization papers had not got through, the authorities might let him have the men at once. No doubt that question will be dealt with, but I should like to see the police demobilized as soon as possible. After all, what is there to prevent the military authorities from training a special force of military police from among the men in the Army, and allowing the police to get away to their civil duties at home.
Only two more points, and I have done. The first is that no doubt a large number of these valuables are being taken abroad. They are being taken, I am told on the best authority, over to the Continent and to America. Therefore I respectfully suggest to the noble Earl who will reply to my Question that the ports of embarkation should be closely watched, and that thereby it should be made impossible for the thieves to get things out of this country. There again comes in a difficulty. I heard only the other day from a policeman, that he had to get into touch with the police at a particular port. That is a matter over which Scotland Yard should have control.
Finally there is a question of the receivers in London. I do not suppose there is any city in the world that has at this moment a larger number of undesirable people than London. They have been accustomed for so long to regard London as an asylum and pleasant place for hatching plots that they have increased in number, and a I great deal of the trouble which is going on to-day in this country is due to the evil influence of these people. Therefore I suggest, in conclusion., that all these receivers, who are probably well-known to the Police, should be carefully watched, and that nothing should be left undone whereby they may be detained. I do not suggest that anything has been left undone. As I said before, our Police Force has always been the finest in the world, but all the same the war has brought a great many undesirable people over here, of all nationalities. Therefore I am convinced that it would be a very good thing, and probably
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bring something to light in regard to these burglaries and robberies of all sorts that have taken place, if these people were closely watched.
THE EARL OF JERSEY: My Lords, I observe that the noble Earl, in calling attention to this question, concludes the Notice on the Paper by asking for information. I think you will agree with me that this is a somewhat comprehensive request, and I may say that the noble Earl very courteously told me in advance of certain specific matters to which he proposed to refer. I am very much obliged to him for doing so, because it enables me to answer some of the points. I hope I may be able to do so to his satisfaction, but I think he will agree that it is quite impossible for me to deal in detail with every topic on which he has touched, in a reply of reasonable length. As regards the first point, in which he detailed what he considered to be the causes of the increase in the burglaries and thefts and robberies to which he refers, I agree with him that if you seek a remedy it is as well to consider the cause. But he will, I am sure, forgive me if I do not discuss those causes in detail.
I hope I may be able to reassure him on certain points. I will not suggest that he overlooks it, but I should like to emphasise one distinction which it is necessary to bear in mind in considering this question, and that is the fact that whereas certain of these matters, so far as they affect the metropolitan area, are under the direct control of the Home Office, in the counties these matters are under the control of the Standing Joint Committees and the Chief Constables of the counties. That must be borne in mind in considering a great many of the observations which the noble Earl has addressed to your Lordships. I understand that he himself has had the misfortune to be the victim of a burglary, and I am sure that all your Lordships sympathise most cordially with him in this misadventure, and that we appreciate the public spirit which prompts him to bring this matter forward, in the hope of saving others from meeting with a similar mishap.
I understand that the noble Earl refers to the metropolitan area as well as to the Police Force generally throughout the country. He apparently relies on the Press for his statement that there has been a serious increase in the dumber of burglaries. No doubt the Press has mentioned a great

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many such cases recently; but may I suggest that it is not safe to rely upon this evidence, for this reason—that the prominence given in the Press to these matters varies from time to time. The Home Office have statistics for the metropolitan area only, but perhaps these may be taken roughly as an indication of the state of affairs in the rest of the country. These figures show that there has been an increase in the number of burglaries and thefts of motor-cars, but not of robberies with violence. This fact, perhaps, is not remarkable when we consider the conditions produced by the war and especially the depletion of the Police Force to which the noble Earl has referred. The increase, however, is not a serious one. The actual number of cases of house-breaking from September 1 to December 29, 1918, is greater than in the earlier years of the war, but it is less than in the pre-war year, and, though the figure has not reached its pro-war rate, the number of apprehensions has been greater both proportionately: and in the aggregate, which I think say much for the credit of the Metropolitan Police Force. The noble Earl, no doubt, has mainly in mind the Police Force in his own county, at any rate in country districts. Therefore, may I point out to him again that the Police Force in the counties is not under the control of the Home Secretary but is under that of the Standing Joint Committees, and any representation as to the inefficiency of the Force should be addressed to the Standing Joint Committee concerned.
I should like now to deal with some of the special points which the noble Earl raised. He rather suggested—I think he actually stated—that most of the Intelligence Police officers have been sent over to France, and that they have not yet been released. Possibly he has in mind the members of the Criminal Investigation Department who are specially concerned with the detection of crime in London. A very small proportion of these latter officers were sent over to France, and most of these have already returned to duty. I am very glad to note that the noble Earl pays a testimony, and a very well-deserved testimony, to the Police Force generally, and that he does not in any way think that the Police are lax in their attempt to trace criminals or that they do not care whether or not they succeed in doing so. This certainly is not true as regards London, and the facts which
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I have mentioned show that the number of arrests for house-breaking has risen since the war. I am sure your Lordships will agree that the London Police Force possesses a body of officers highly skilled in the detection of crime and under very able officers, and that there is really no reason to think that they have shown any falling off in keenness or in energy. If the noble Earl has in his mind a provincial Force, the matter should be taken up with the Standing Joint Committee of the county concerned. The noble Earl, I think, complained somewhat of a want of co-operation between the various Police Forces, and he also suggested that Scotland Yard does little or nothing to promote co-operation between the various provincial Police Forces.
THE EARL OF MALMESBURY: May I interrupt the noble Earl? I did not suggest that Scotland Yard did nothing to bring about co-operation. What I meant to convey, and what I thought I had conveyed, was that the power which Scotland Yard had over the provincial Constabulary was comparatively small, that time was lost, and that the power of Scotland Yard should be increased.
THE EARL OF JERSEY: I am sorry I misunderstood the noble Earl. I should like to say that it is believed that under the present administration, that of Mr. Basil Thomson, there is much greater co-operation between the London and provincial Police Forces than there used to be. New Scotland Yard is inconstant communication with the provincial Police. Forces by telegraph, by telephone, by letter, and by the circulation of the Police Gazette, and the provincial Forces have shown great willingness to help in every way. The provincial Forces now issue any undetected cases on forms provided for the purpose and the Metropolitan Police are often able to make suggestions as to the identity of a criminal from the information given as to his manner of operating or his appearance.
The noble Earl went on to make a few suggestions which he thought would promote efficiency and assist in the detection of criminals and the diminution of the various crimes to which he refers. I think that the first point he raised was that of demobilisation. I am informed that representations to the effect that it is desirable that this should be expedited have been made and are constantly being

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made, and that every possible measure is being taken to secure that the police should be returned to the Force at the earliest possible date. He also suggested that it would be desirable that they should be provided with motor bicycles, especially in the country districts. I entirely agree with the noble Earl. But there, again, it is a matter which can only be dealt with by the Standing Joint Committees of the counties concerned. He further added that he thought it very desirable that the ports should be watched so as to detect any attempt to remove stolen goods out of the country. The ports are, as a matter of fact, most carefully watched at the present time by the aliens officers, and I am sure that there is no lack of zeal or of effort on the part of those officers to detect any criminals who are attempting to leave this country. The noble Earl also dealt with the question of receivers. As we can well imagine receivers are very difficult to trace, but every effort is made to identify them, and, when they are detected and apprehended, to take suitable action in dealing with them.
I think I have touched on almost every point which the noble Earl raised, but I do not know if I have been able to do so entirely to his satisfaction. There is one other suggestion which he made, and that was that much more drastic measures should be taken when the criminals are detected. That, I think, is a very large question, which would no doubt require special legislation, and I venture to submit that it is a little bit outside the Question which appears on the Paper. The noble Earl will forgive me if I do not discuss that matter now. In conclusion, I will say that it is, of course, very easy to make statements I do not suggest that the noble Earl made such statements—that the Police are not doing all they should, that they are lax, and that these burglaries ought not to be allowed to continue; but it is very difficult to refute them unless one knows specifically on what evidence they are based. If there are any particular cases which the noble Earl has in his mind, or which he has had brought to his notice, I shall be very pleased to transmit them to the proper authorities if he cares to inform me of them.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, the value of these debates is, I think, this—that a noble Earl, like my noble friend Lord Malmesbury, who has
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made himself acquainted with matters which pertain to a difficult question of this kind, is able to make suggestions which lead to an answer from the Government and to the ventilation of the subject in all parts of the country. The suggestions as to the treatment of receivers and the better equipment of provincial Police Forces are of the kind that I have mentioned. There is one particular suggestion made by my noble friend which I should have ventured to urge more particularly on the noble Earl who represents the Home Office. It is the suggestion that the demobilisation of policemen should be expedited. The noble Earl opposite representing the Home Office said, in reply, that he was informed that the matter had been urged upon the necessary authorities on several occasions. I am afraid this did not give me much comfort, and I do not suppose that it pave my noble friend very much comfort. It is a reply, my noble friend opposite will allow me to say, which is one that I have heard very often, and which I am afraid means next to nothing. No doubt it has been urged upon the authorities, but the authorities in the matter of demobilisation are very hard to move; and the reason is obvious. The business of demobilisation is an extremely difficult and complicated one, and it is very hard upon those who are responsible for it that they should be called upon to make special arrangements in special cases. Therefore they always give, a civil answer and pay no attention to the matter whatever. There, I am afraid, the matter must rest unless the cases are very special.
What I suggest to the noble Earl and to the Government is that this is not only a special case but a very special case. These policemen,. who were enlisted for the purposes of the war, are absolutely useless in their present position and immensely required in their civil capacity. The Police Forces throughout the country have been depleted. These trained men who are in khaki have nothing to do. They have no Germans to fight; they are not even occupying foreign countries. What they are doing, according to my noble friend, is kicking about a football. I do think when we are dealing, especially in these times, with the peace and good order of our country, that a very special effort should be made to get back the police. I am glad the Under-Secretary of State for War has just entered the House, because it is to him that my remarks ought

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to be addressed. We are anxious to help my noble friend who represents the Home Office in pressing upon the War Office that policemen in khaki should be demobilised as quickly as possible, and I venture to represent that my noble friend Lord Malmesbury is well advised in urging this upon the Government. The policemen in the Army are doing no particular good there, and they are greatly wanted in the counties. What I would urge on my noble friend Lord Peel, who is very influential in a matter of this kind, is that he should do his very best to get these policemen returned to the Force. I do not suppose there ever has been a time when policemen were more required, or, I should say, may be more required, and I think no time should be lost in carrying out the request of my noble friend.

FOREIGN HOPS.
VISCOUNT HARDINGE VISCOUNT HARDINGE rose to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture—

1. If there has been lately a considerable speculation in foreign hops on English accounts, and if there has been a large appreciation in the values of hops which have been the subject of speculation.

2. If the Government or Hop Controller have been approached with a view to any of these hops being admitted into this country by licence or otherwise, although the importation of foreign hops is prohibited; if so, whether the Government will refuse to grant or permit the granting of any licences to import foreign hops before the complete reconstruction of the English hop acreage is accomplished, unless it is first conclusively proved that the total quantity of hops held in the country by all holders is insufficient to produce the total quantity of beer allowed to be brewed.

3. If any foreign hops have recently been shipped to any British port or ports, although the importation of such hops is prohibited; if so, have they been landed, and what has become of them.

The noble Viscount said: My Lords, the reason I put these Questions to the noble Lord who represents the Board of Agricul-
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ture is that I have been credibly informed that thousands of bales of Pacific Coast I hops have been sold to brewers over here, and they have done this with the hope that ultimately they will be imported into this country. May I read an extract from the Market Report of New York to emphasise this point. The Report says—
"Three-year contracts for Oregons destined for England were reported, and a number of—dealers have resold their contracts. Ocean transportation continues difficult to obtain, and several thousand bales are waiting shipment to English exporters, who are holding the bulk of stock on this side of the water."
The date of that is February 28, 1919. If this is to be permitted and the present prohibition on imports rescinded, it appears to me that it can have but one result—that it will spell disaster on what has always been regarded as the greatest of all industries in agriculture—namely, the hop industry.
I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will be able to assure us that my information is not correct. If it is correct I greatly fear—in fact, I feel convinced—that the hop-growers in Kent and other hop counties will have a great grievance against the Government. Your Lordships are aware that during the war they were ordered under the Defence of the Realm Act to scrap and "grub up" half the hop acreage in order to produce food for the people of this country in its time of stress, more especially during the submarine menace. This order, as your Lordships also know, was loyally carried out by the hop-growers, although they incurred very serious losses to their capital. In my opinion, therefore, in common justice to the hop-growers, their loyalty in those bad times should not be easily forgotten by those responsible for the agricultural policy of the country at the present time.
I am well aware that some of your Lordships who do not live in hop-growing counties do not know that the hop acreage of this country in 1914 was 36,661 acres. This total was reduced in 1918 to 15,666 acres, more than a one-half reduction. I quote these figures in order the better to illustrate how much acreage was "grubbed" during the war, and how great were the losses it entailed on the hop-growers. Now that the war is virtually over and we suffer no danger from submarines, the Hop Controller has given permission to the hop-growers to plant up to within 25 per cent. of the 1914 acreage. I fail to understand

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why only 25 per cent. Why should it not be 50 per cent.? Perhaps the noble Lord will be able to inform us why that figure was fixed. Whether it is 25 per cent. or 50 per cent., unless some encouragement and better security are accorded to the hop-growers I am very doubtful whether they will, take advantage of this permission. And for this good reason. They have a keen recollection of their treatment in the past, when the Government some years ago allowed foreign hops from Germany and other countries to be imported into this country free of duty and without being compelled to carry out the marking regulations which the home growers had to comply with.
In 1878 the hop acreage in this country was 71,789 acres, and it is now reduced to 36,666. What was the reason of this vast drop during that period? No doubt the hop-growers gathered that they could not make hop-growing pay as long as foreign hops were dumped on to the English markets. Therefore I fail to see why this order of prohibition should be rescinded after the war. At the same time I am well aware that it may be said by the Board of Agriculture that next year, or before the next plucking of hops, some growers will be short. Even if here and there some brewers are short, others, I believe, will have a very large surplus and could easily supply their less fortunate fellow brewers. In any case no one can say that at the present time there is any likelihood of a shortage or famine in hops, and if only hop-growers will make a strenuous effort this spring to plant all the hops that may be required for the present estimate of brewing, it seems to me (if they can only have good weather during this planting) they will have every opportunity of producing a bumper crop; but with this proviso—that they must have some assurance from the Board of Agriculture that the Hop Controller will not allow any licence to be granted for imported hops until the whole of the hop district is thoroughly reconstructed. In conclusion I would like to say, speaking of the people in my part of the country, Kent, that they thoroughly believe in the noble Lord who represents the Board of Agriculture, they know that the best interests of agriculture are well in his hands, and they were, therefore, very pleased that he was retained in his position of President of the Board of Agriculture.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD ERNLE): My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble Viscount for the way in which he has brought this question forward, and, if I may say so, for the personal reference to myself. The question is one which cannot be answered without some reference to what has happened in the last two years. The noble Viscount gave the figures of the hop acreage in 1914; roughly speaking, I think it was 34,000 acres. The point of departure is, however, the 31,550 acres which were planted in 1916. The ordinary produce of hop is, I think. 10 cwt. to the acre, I and when in February, 1917, the Government cut down the barrelage of beer from 35,000,000 to 10,000,000 barrels it was quite evident that the acreage crop for hops in 1916 would have produced nearly double the quantity of beer which the Government allowed. That would have resulted in such an accumulation of stocks in this country that there would have been no price at all to the growers of hops, and there would have been a great waste of their commodity.
It was therefore, not entirely in the interests of food production, but rather in the interests of the growers themselves, that we decided to reduce the acreage under hops. First of all we appealed to the hop-growers, in view of the situation, to cut down their acreage, pointing out that if they grew their normal amount they would not be able to sell more than half of it. At first it was entirely a voluntary appeal, and they responded to it with great patriotism and at a great sacrifice of their own capital. Ultimately, however, in order to secure real equality of sacrifice, we made the Order compulsory. There were a few men who stood out, hoping to obtain some profit by not doing what their neighbours did. By 1918, as the noble Viscount has accurately stated, the area under hops was reduced to something like 15,500 acres, which is half the amount that was in cultivation in 1916. There is no doubt that we also felt that this rich highly-manured land would be of the utmost value for food production at a very critical period in the national history, and we recommended the hop-growers to plant on the area which they "grubbed"—and even between the rows of the area which they retained—potatoes, vegetables, beans, and roots; and they did so. And although

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their sacrifice of capital in "grubbing" their hops was very considerable, it is some satisfaction to know that they did obtain a crop which may not have been as remunerative but which certainly proved far more remunerative than their surplus hop production would have proved.
We had also to help them out of a very difficult situation, and what we did was to create a Committee composed of growers, merchants, factors, and brewers, together with representatives of the Board of Agriculture, and with the consent of the Government, backed by a Treasury guarantee, we bought up the whole stock of the 1916 crop and the whole crop for 1917, and paid remunerative prices to the growers for those crops. We sold the produce to the brewers at prices which necessitated no drawing upon the Treasury guarantee. We did the same in 1918, so that we had secured the growers in this country a market for their crops and a price which has been a remunerative one. The crop in 1918 was a very short one, and we had to adopt a system of rationing the brewers in accordance with the amount of beer allocated to them.
I think that great credit, if I may venture to say so, is due to the Hop Controller, who is the Chairman of that Committee, for the way in which a very difficult situation has been handled, and a great loss to the hop-growers has been prevented. We have now allowed the hop-growers to return to their former acreage. In the first instance they are allowed to return to 75 per cent, of their 1914 acreage. The reason for that is that we do not know at the present moment what the policy of the Government is likely to be with regard to brewing. If we encourage the hop-growers to return at once to their former acreage the same position will be again reproduced, and the hop-growers will not be able to find a market for their produce. We have, however, also said that they may afterwards revert to their 1914 acreage. Of course, no great amount of planting can be done this year. The noble Viscount rather held out hopes that we might re-create the hop acreage in a year's time, but, as he knows, the usual practice is to take cuttings of the hops, plant them out in nurseries, and bed them out the following year, and I am very much afraid that there are very few bedding setts available for the coming year's planting. Therefore it will be a slow pro
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cess. During the whole of the time when we were dealing with the hops there was an absolute embargo on the importation of foreign hops. No hops were allowed into this country unless they had already been bought forward and consigned before the Proclamation was in force, and that embargo exists at the present moment.
It I may now turn to the specific questions that the noble Viscount has asked me, I may say that, though I have no doubt that what he has quoted from the paper is accurate—namely, that some brewers have bought hops in America on the off-chance of a licence being obtained for their importation—and it is likely also that some traders have done the same, there is at present no licence for the importation of any hops at all. As between the brewer and the grower the question of the import of hops has been very much discussed. The brewer says he wants to be allowed to import a sufficient quantity of hops to brew the beer allocated to him after exhausting the whole of the home-grown crop. The grower's answer is this: you have already got stocks in reserve, some of you; you ought to be compelled to disclose what stocks you have, and, until those stocks have been distributed among all the rest of the brewers, so that they can be utilised, you ought not to be allowed to introduce any foreign hops. Now, the big brewers have always been accustomed—and it is a practice in the trade—to carry large reserves. Those who have them strongly object to having those reserves taken from them and distributed to their competitors who have not shown the same foresight, or have not provided against this particular crisis.
What we propose to do is to effect what I believe would be, on the whole, a satisfactory compromise. We have asked the Hop Controller, and. in fact, we have agreed with the Hop Controller, to act in this way: to permit importation to such brewers as could prove a shortage of hops for their requirements up to November, taking into account the hops they had been allowed to buy this year, and their quota of beer. Let me comment on that fact by saying that every hundredweight of home-grown hops has already been disposed of by ration. What we want to get at is—Have they got any stocks in hand? If they have a stock in hand then they cannot get importation. The second point in the agreement is this, that we

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refuse all speculative imports, or imports that will have the effect of adding to the stock already held by brewers. If the Government decide to increase the barrelage from the existing figure to anything approaching the figure of previous years then it is quite obvious that, to meet that extra demand after using up every scrap of home-grown hops, some importation will be wanted. But no importations are to be allowed of a speculative character, or such as will increase the stocks held in reserve in this country.
The third question which the noble Viscount has asked me is whether any foreign hops have recently been shipped to any British port or ports, although the importation of such Lops is prohibited; if so, have they been landed and what has become of them? The practice is this. The prohibition is against the importation of any hops at all, and that stands. If any hops come into the country without a licence they are liable to seizure, but I believe the practice is not to resort to that extreme unless the contravention of the Proclamation can be proved to have been contumacious and wilful. What we do is this. We put stocks which have been consigned to any consignee in bond, and the consignee cannot get them out and use them without the consent of the Hop Controller; therefore if they do come into the country we still retain absolute control over them.
What the future policy of the Government in, say 1921, may be as to hops I am afraid I cannot give any indication, but there is no doubt that licence for importation will be maintained so far as the 1919–1920 crops are concerned. If I could give the noble Viscount the guarantee that no importation of hops would be allowed for a still further period I should be glad to do so, not only because of the industry itself, but of the influence of the industry upon agriculture. There is no industry which is conducted by more skilled and intelligent men, or men who will spend more money upon their land. And they do their land extremely well; they raise from it very large crops, they carry a large head of cattle and live-stock in addition to their hops, and they give to the British farmer one of the best examples of what intensive farming can do in this country. On all these grounds I should have been glad to give the noble Viscount a guarantee, but I am afraid it is impossible to go so far ahead.
LORD HARRIS: My Lords, I should be glad if my noble friend would make it quite clear as regards the brewers who will be permitted to import. He told us that there are some brewers who have always held excessively large stocks. Do I understand that they will not be permitted in any circumstances to import, but that only the brewers who have no stocks at all or insufficient stocks for the amount they are allowed to brew will be allowed to import?
LORD ERNLE: Only those brewers who are short will be allowed to import; and those brewers who have stocks will be allowed to import provided they do not add to their quantity in reserve or in stock—that is to say, if they want hops for use, or if they want; their existing stock for use, then they will be allowed to fill up their reserves to that extent.

INSTRUCTION IN THE ARMY.
EARL STANHOPE EARL STANHOPE rose to ask the Undersecretary of State for War—

1. How many officers and men are at present patients in hospitals and convalescent homes in the United Kingdom.

2. How many of these patients are receiving technical and other instruction likely to prove of value to them on their return to civil life.

3. What is the nature of the instruction being given.

4. Whether this instruction is linked up with the instruction provided for officers and men after they have been discharged from the Army; and to move for Papers.

The noble Earl said: My Lords, several debates on the subject of the training of disabled soldiers have taken place in your Lordships' House. I think on every occasion they have dealt almost entirely with the training which is given after men are discharged from the Services. Your Lordships will observe that in the Question which I have put down on the Paper I deal entirely with the training which is given before men are discharged from the Army, and I ask what is being done in military hospitals.
Your Lordships will often have read in the Press of late accounts of the education scheme which has been launched in the Army. It is dealing with vast numbers, and it is doing a great work. The articles which appear in the Press are almost unanimously favourable, but the effect of them is a little bit discounted because I think many of them are from the same pen, and I regret to say that my information is perhaps not quite so favourable. In many places the scheme is going on extremely well; in others it is not going on quite so satisfactorily. That, of course, is due to the education officer on the spot, to his being perhaps less keen or less able, and has nothing to do with the scheme in general. But I am afraid that as a whole I rather find with both officers and men that they say they think the men are not getting quite, so much good out of it as they might; that the scheme is, perhaps, too pedagogic (if I may use the expression), and not sufficiently practical. We do not all of us want to become Oxford Dons, but in these days we have all of us to earn our living. If that criticism is true of the scheme in general, it is abundantly true of the scheme when it is applied to hospitals.
I must tell your Lordships that when I came home from France in May of last year I began to take up this scheme purely in regard to the training in hospitals for a military reason. I felt—as I think every soldier in France felt—that men who had been wounded several times, or men who had been at the Front throughout the whole war, should be allowed to come home and to earn the high wages which were being given in the turning out of munitions, and aeroplanes, and other things required for the war; and that the "Cuthberts," who had taken refuge from military service by scrambling into protected occupations at the beginning of the war, should be dragged out and made to go and serve in France and elsewhere. I believe that something like 70,000 men have been wounded twice in this war, and over 10,000 wounded three times and more. It is obvious that the feeling both in the Army and in the nation was strong that these men should be allowed to work at home, and that those who had not been out at all should take their places in the front line. That scheme became impracticable because the demand for men was so severe that it was impossible to spare either the men from the Army long enough after they had recovered from; their wounds to become sufficiently trained
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to do munitions, or to take away men from munitions to train them to become soldiers. In neither case, of course, were the men available for changing places until they had been fully trained in the other man's job.
It may be asked, Why was not this scheme of substitution started a long time ago and not merely last year? It was due to the opposition of the then Secretary of State for War, Lord Derby, and to Sir Alfred Keogh, who was head of the Medical Services. They held the view very strongly that if you began to give training in hospital men would be retained in hospital in order to complete their training, and not discharged as soon as they were cured of their wounds. The objection to this was, of course, that we had a great shortage of beds, and it was not possible to keep men in hospital one day longer than was really necessary. They also felt, I think—in fact, they said, so—that if you trained a man for a civil occupation the man would desire to become a civilian. I can prove that both those views were absolutely wrong, and, as a matter of fact, did a great deal of harm. As regards the time being lengthened that men were kept in hospital by their undertaking training, the scheme has been in operation for a considerable time in New Zealand hospitals and there it is the unanimous opinion of doctors and nurses that men recovered very much quicker from their injuries if their minds were occupied in hospital in any form of education, particularly some form of technical education.
If any further proof of that were required, I may say that, even though our Forces in Egypt in 1917 were extremely small, it was estimated that we increased our strength in the field that year by not less than one Division by the adoption of this scheme. It is a remarkable fact, but it is given on the authority of an officer who is very much in a position to know. Now, of course, it was absurd to think that if you train a man as a civilian he should only then wish to become a civilian and to cease to be a soldier. It appeared to be forgotten that practically nine-tenths of the Army were civilians before the war began. Perhaps your Lordships may question that this opposition to training in hospital was as definite as I have stated; but when I tell you that the Director of Education, when he began his scheme for training in hospitals, found it necessary to cancel an Army Council Instruction before he could begin,

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I think the proof of my assertion is maintained.
It may be said that there is no great need for men now, and therefore why should you press for the training of men in hospital in order to get them discharged quicker? Apart from the moral point of view of trying to get a man cured as speedily and as effectively as possible, there is a new consideration which has arisen. On every side we see the question of production put forward. We are told that everybody has to produce more than lie produced before the war. Well, keeping men doing nothing day after day, week after week, month after month, in hospital is not a good way of teaching them to become better producers than they were before. If you train a man to loaf he becomes a loafer whatever he was previously; and you train a man not to become a greater producer but to cease to be a producer at all. Many and many a man has left hospital and drifted into a "blind alley" occupation because he has not been prepared, after many months in hospital, to take up work. The noble Earl the Chancellor of the Duchy will agree with me that the difficulty with regard to training under the Ministry of Pensions scheme has been that when the men are discharged from hospital they are unable to take advantage of the training offered to them by the Ministry of Pensions. We are told—and I think the noble Earl himself, and anyone in the Ministry of Pensions will agree—that by the time they manage to get hold of the men it is almost too late; and even if it is not, there is a great deal of leeway to make up before the men really begin to make progress. That is why it has been found better in the New Zealand Forces—as I am sure it would be elsewhere—to take up this training as soon as a man gets out of bed and becomes what is known as a walking patient.
It may be asked, Do the men want it? Yes, unquestionably they do. I have seen a considerable number of letters—some of them more forcible than polite—demanding that this training should be given. I have seen others that are extraordinarily pathetic in their appeals, saying that owing to injuries received in action the writers will be unable to return to their pre-war occupations; that they are anxious to take up such and such a trade, but they feel that it will take a long time to learn;
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they wonder how they will get the necessary training, and whether they will be able to support themselves and their families until they get satisfactorily started in a new line of business. Under the Ministry of Pensions scheme they can. But after being many months in hospital the desire to take up anything new evaporates. The term—which I think probably the noble Viscount himself knows very well, and certainly every doctor and every nurse knows it—is that a man becomes "hospitalised;" which means that he gets a sort of hospital standpoint and loses interest in life and in things generally.
Then I come to the question of what is being done now. I imagine—I do not know—that the noble Viscount will tell me that we have something like 150,000 men still in hospital. I do not know what figure he will give as the number of men actually taking up trades of a definite character, but I hope he will be able to differentiate between the men who merely have put down to get this training, and the men who are actually receiving it. Even since I put this Motion on the Paper there has been quite an awakening in some of the hospitals in London, because I find that men have been asked what they desire to do only within the last few days.
Under the scheme one education officer was appointed to each central hospital. I put it to your Lordships what that must mean. The central hospitals have anything up to 2,000 beds, and twenty or thirty hospitals affiliated to them, scattered all over the country. One single officer appointed to give training on every conceivable thing which men in each of these central hospitals, and other hospitals, may require! Obviously, if he was to find out only what the men wished to learn, he would be as fully occupied as anybody could possibly desire, and would certainly earn every penny of his pay. There are, of course, difficulties. The fact that these hospitals are scattered all over the country, and vary from six or perhaps twelve beds up to quite a large number, makes the provision of technical training more difficult. We now have an opportunity of making the scheme much better, because many of the smaller hospitals are being closed, and it is possible to concentrate the men in the larger hospitals. I believe an offer has been made by the New Zealand Force that we should take over three of

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their hospitals each having accommodation for 2,000 beds.
It will be obvious to your Lordships that technical education is much more easily arranged where you have a large number of beds concentrated in a comparatively small number of hospitals, but I am bound to add that I think a great deal more might have been done. After all, in London you have innumerable technical classes. You have trade schools and you have workshops; yet if you go round the hospitals in London you will find that very few if any of the men are really getting training in the military hospitals. I exclude, of course, such special institutions as Roe-hampton and St. Dunstan's. If necessary, the men should be taken from the hospitals to these schools and workshops and given training which would enable them to compete in the labour market as soon as they leave the Army. Can nothing really be done in the areas outside London?
I hold here in my hand the scheme of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. I shall have something more to say about that later. I have seen that scheme in operation in several of their hospitals, and I can hardly describe to your Lordships the difference between the demeanour and the outlook of the men in those hospitals as compared with the demeanour and the outlook of men in our hospitals. The men are walking about in those hospitals with an object. They have not lost interest in life. They are learning things which interest them. In the New Zealand Hospitals the men are given an opportunity of learning things which they have wanted to learn all their lives. I am bound to add that a large amount of the success of the New Zealand scheme is due to the extraordinary personality of General Richardson, who commanded the Forces in England, and who has an extraordinary gift for interesting men, and who is filled with great enthusiasm. If you go to our hospitals, if you find the men at all—as a rule they are out in the streets from 10 o'clock in the morning till 7 o'clock at night—you will find a sort of lack-a-daisical walk, because the men have no object in getting from one side of the hospital to the other till some time in the afternoon. They have nothing to occupy their day, and therefore with the best will in the world it is a thing that necessarily grows when men are kept compulsorily in idleness.
It may be said, If you take this view why did not you do it when you were at the War Office? That is a perfectly fair argument to make. In the first place the scheme was younger then than it is now, and therefore it was less easy to put into operation. Secondly, I had not the advantage of being a member of the Army Council, and therefore it was rather more difficult for me to get things put through. I have now had more opportunity of seeing, the business end—of seeing the men who ought to be getting this instruction, and of finding out what they think of it, instead of reading the reports from the other end. I bring forward these suggestions which I am going to make in the hope that the noble Viscount will be more successful than I was. It may be asked. What is your plan? I am glad that my noble friend the Director of Education is here, because I can say what I should not have said had he not been present, although I dislike saying it. He has been of enormous value to the scheme. His knowledge of educational matters and acquaintance with people who have long taken an interest in education has been invaluable, and the Army and still more the country owe him a great debt of gratitude. In my humble opinion, however, he has now done all he can for the scheme, and I think others will be better fitted to carry it on.
What I would propose is that the scheme should be maintained under General Staff as it is now, but I do not see why a proper directorship should not be now established as it existed in pre-war days. I propose that a Director of Military Training should be appointed, and the scheme should be divorced from the Staff duties directorship, with which it had nothing whatever to do until some time after the war began. Thirdly, I would adopt the New Zealand scheme, which teaches men what they want to know rather than following a system which does not appeal. It is more practical than our scheme, and I think on the whole it is better. Fourthly, I should appoint General Richardson as my Director of Training. He is a man who has made a great success of the New Zealand scheme, and I do not see why he should not be able to attain the same success in a wider sphere. Of course it entirely depends, supposing that suggestion met with approval, whether the New Zealand Government would be prepared to give him up.
Fifthly, I would ensure that the lip service of the Army Medical Service should be translated into a genuine effort to give the technical instruction in hospitals which is necessary. The scheme is approved, and we are no longer tied down merely to giving bedside occupation. Nevertheless, nothing is really being done and bedside occupation is still going on. Only last week I saw three men, who, thank God! are going to be perfectly well shortly, doing embroidery. They were doing it extremely well and seemed to think they were going to make a living out of it when they were discharged from hospital. Ladies will give a good many shillings, perhaps, for embroideries when they buy them from men still in hospital, but they would not give pennies if they were sold to them by a civilian later on. I think your Lordships would agree that a man who is well and fit should not be trained, or encouraged to become an old woman, because that is what this embroidery really means.
Sixthly, I should group men into larger hospitals, and endeavour as far as possible to group them according to their disabilities. Where lung cases, such as gas cases, and so on, have to be dealt with, obviously more open air pursuits and open air training have to be given. If it is possible to group men by their disabilities it simplifies the training which can be given. Lastly, I should ensure that the training given prior to discharge is on lines which can be continued by the Ministry of Labour. As your Lordships know, the, training which used to be given by the Ministry of Pensions has been, or is about to be, taken over by the Ministry of Labour. Therefore, it is necessary to co-ordinate that, and to ensure that the man, when he leaves the Army partially trained, should be able to get that training continued and completed under the Ministry of Labour. Your Lordships have often heard of the Rothband scheme. It is a scheme by which employers are asked to engage soldiers because they have been soldiers. I am bound to say that that scheme does not appeal to me in the very smallest degree.
As a soldier I object to men being employed purely and simply from a charity standpoint, because that is what it means. What I want to see is that men who have been in the service are trained so as to become, experts in various trades and are taken on by employers not from a charity
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Standpoint, but because they are the best men who can be found. Then they will be able to command a proper scale of wages; they will be able to choose their employers and get the conditions which they deserve. I have not the smallest doubt that a man who has been in the Army is a better man mentally than either a Cuthbert or a conscientious objector. What I want him also to be is a better man physically and by his training. That can be, achieved if this training is given in hospitals and in the Army. I have one final reason for this scheme. Ask any doctor or any sister or any visitor to a hospital what is thought of the men. All will unanimously tell you that the men are splendid, and particularly so when they first arrive; but they will also tell you that the men do gradually become "hospitalised," and that then it is much more difficult to do anything with them. They lose their keenness and their energy, as I have already stated.
Eventually, these men, after discharge from the Army, become a curse to themselves and to the country. They are unwilling to work because they have become unaccustomed to work. They are unhappy because they cannot find work, and yet they do not look for it or require it. They drift into some blind-alley occupation and become totally unfitted to hold their own in civil life. They merely develop into objects of charity instead of being men who ought to be able to command the best wages in the labour market. It is obvious that they then become very suitable ground for ideas which are those of anarchists and Bolshevists, and therefore they become a danger to the State instead of the support; which they ought to be. From that point of view, as well as from the point of view of justice, from the point of view that it is a benefit to the State as well as to the individual, this training should be given. I hope that the noble Viscount will be able to give—I do not say a very satisfactory answer at the moment—but that at any rate he will give this matter his attention, and I wish him greater success than was given to me when I held the office lie now holds.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT PEEL): My Lords, this is a subject in which my noble friend has taken very great interest, both when he was at the War Office and subsequently when he has examined it from what he

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calls "the business end." I am rather sorry that he should indicate by inference that the business end was not at the War Office. But with the general propositions that he has put forward I think every one will agree. We all admit that it is very important that the men who have served their country and have been wounded, who are leaving these hospitals, should, be possible, go out into the world well equipped in some particular trade, so that they may not, as he said, drift into any blind-alley occupation, but should be able to get some well-paid and well-skilled occupation and carry it into civil life. No one, I think, who has any acquaintance with hospitals will doubt for a moment the curative value of occupying the minds of men, especially when they are in the convalescent state, or of occupying, perhaps, their hands as well in some technical training. No one who has observed the influence of this training upon men doubts for a moment that it very much assists to re-establish their health.
I do not think my noble friend took a very cheerful view of the methods that are now being carried on at the War Office under the Director of Education. I must take some exception to the term? that my noble friend used about the present Director, who is a member of this House. I think he paid him the compliment of saying that he discharged the work well, but that somebody else would do it very much better. I confess that if I wished to pay him a compliment I would express it in some more complimentary terms. I wish to make some observations upon that point. Let us remember, first of all, what the work of my noble friend is. It is quite true that the noble Earl opposite did make some more general reference to the education of the Army itself, but the greater portion of his speech, and in fact the questions he placed upon the Paper, are entirely directed to education in hospitals and convalescent homes. But the work which my noble friend the Director of Education has to control is very wide. It embraces both subjects, and, important as is the work in hospitals, it really is a small portion of the work over which my noble friend has control. I should like to say, considering this criticism which has been passed upon him, that so far as my observation goes he discharges his duty with great energy and ability, and lie has attained a great measure of success in the work he has done.
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My noble friend made some reference to the work of General Richardson at the New Zealand hospitals. I am not familiar myself with the precise nature of that work, but I understand that it has been very well done. Again, I must point out that the work of the New Zealand hospitals is not comparable with, and it is not one-fiftieth part of, the work which my noble friend has been doing for Army education, and our own hospitals. Admirable as it may be, the question whether that system could be transferred bodily to our own hospitals and our own system of education is another matter, on which one might have a good deal to say. My noble friend asks some specific questions, and before I deal with one or two more general propositions, perhaps I ought to answer them. His first question was—
"How many officers and men are at present patients in hospitals and convalescent homes in the United Kingdom?"
The figures are rather larger than he suggested. They are 9,921 officers and 173,527 other ranks in hospitals, including of course convalescent hospitals.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: There would be some more abroad?
VISCOUNT PEEL: Yes. That is in the United Kingdom. The question is confined to the United Kingdom. My noble friend's second Question is—
"How many of these patients are receiving technical and other instruction likely to prove of value to them on their return to civil life?"
We must remember that this educational scheme is comparatively young. It was only extended to embrace patients in military hospitals in November, 1918. The training facilities provided by the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Pensions were not available for the soldier until after his discharge and demobilisation, and the object of the extension of the Army educational scheme was to give the utmost assistance possible to the schemes of these Ministries by extending to the patients while in hospital facilities for general education and for vocational instruction. Educational facilities for officer patients were already provided by the Appointments Department of the Ministry of Labour, and they were therefore not dealt with under the Army scheme.
My noble friend referred to the fact that in these sixty large hospitals one officer

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had been appointed for each, and he asked how could one officer in one great hospital with a number of auxiliary hospitals deal with the large range of subjects which must be dealt; with if these men are to get vocational and educational training. He entirely omitted to state that, in addition to this one officer for each of these large hospitals, there are no fewer than four other officers and twelve non-commissioned officers appointed for every 1,000 mm in the hospitals. It makes a considerable difference to the staff engaged on this system of education. I point out the difficulty, and my noble friend must make allowance for it, that these sixty large hospitals have a number of auxiliary hospitals, and the patients in them number from something like ten to twenty. In these scattered hospitals it is, of course, far more difficult to make arrangements for definite educational training that it would be if they were assembled in these large central hospitals. It is obvious, and I only mention it as bearing on the difficulties of the question, that the instruction must come to the patients in the hospital; the patients cannot, of course, go to the instruction. The question, therefore, of dealing with local education authorities and giving them facilities is a. very difficult one, because the patients cannot go to the regular schools and colleges which are so well arranged for the healthy population.
EARL STANHOPE: Does the noble Viscount apply that statement to London as well?
VISCOUNT PEEL: I certainly apply it to London because the education must be brought to the hospitals.
EARL STANHOPE: The men themselves are out in the streets every day.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I am not talking of the men who are convalescent. I am talking of those men who are in hospitals. The convalescent patients, who are out in the streets, are a shifting population and rapidly move away from the hospitals. I will give my noble friend the actual figures. He speaks as if these men were kept in hospital for months. The stay of the average patient in one hospital is, as a matter of fact, seldom more than a few weeks. It is not at all an average of months, and it is therefore far more difficult
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to give a standardised syllabus and a regular course of education.
Another difficulty is that a large number of those who were to be kept to give education, or to occupy pasts as educational instructors, are withdrawn owing to the early demobilisation of Group 43, which consisted of educationists. Every endeavour is being male to secure the assistance of voluntary instructors both locally and through the medium of the National and other societies, and I am told that a great deal has been done to secure these voluntary instructors. I have detailed some of the difficulties in the way of giving instruction to these men in hospital, but in spite of that the Army educational scheme has brought facilities for education within the reach of between 80,000 and 100,000 men. It is not all these men that can be taught. A number of them are not well enough, and they do not want to be disturbed. There is also this difficulty, which we have tried to exorcise out of the mind of the soldier but which still exists. They appear to think they are going to fit themselves for some vocation in life with high technical qualifications, and that this might have some adverse effect on their pension. It has been explained again and again that it is not so, but it is a belief which dies hard, and to some extent is an obstacle in front of those who are desiring to train them for some technical work. My noble friend rather suggested that, a great improvement had been male in the education given in these hospital's in the last few days, and rather indicated that the placing of his Question on the Paper had had a vigorous and stimulating effect. I must tell him that great changes aid much greater activity have been developed during the last two months. It is the natural evolution of the system, and substantial increases will be shown when the next figures are produced.
The next question lie asks is as to the nature of the training that is given. Up to the middle of Februay—I have not later figures—there was something like 6,000 men who were taking vocational work, but of course that number is very largely increased if you take into consideration those who are studying commercial matters. The education given can be classified under general heads, such as vocational training, general and commercial, and occupational, which of course is work mainly done in the

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bed and the cot. My noble friend rather sneered at those who were studying work of embroidery. I think he was a little unjust, because men can obtain great skill with the needle, and I see nothing prejudicial to the character of a man who has been severely wounded if he is able to learn some of this move decorative work. Other instruction resolves itself into lectures on history and economy, very largely done by the Victoria League. Here again my noble friend was rather inclined to sneer, and rather suggested that this education only turned people into Oxford Dons, and was not of a very practical kind. I do not know how much experience my noble friend has of these lectures. I am informed that without turning people into Oxford Dons—and Oxford Dons are highly educated persions—they do give them a very good simple and clear elementary education both on historical and economic questions. That, I think, is a general description of the kind of education that is being given.
My noble friend asks later on, How far is the instruction or training given in these hospitals linked up with the subsequent training to be given by the Ministry of Pensions, or, as he suggests, the Ministry of Labour? That is done by Committees at headquarters on which there are representatives both of the medical officers of the Army and of the Ministries, and these Central Committees are strengthened, by Committees in all the Commands who are similarly composed. They are trying to continue as far as possible the education given in the hospitals into the subsequent training to be given by the Ministry of Labour. I think that something may be set down to the credit of the Army education that in some cases the Ministry of Pensions has actually invited the Army Education authorities to undertake education for pensioners who are not really within their province because they are so well satisfied with the way in which the work is being done. Not only that, but the education officers in the hospitals are invited to give every sort of assistance, by advice and encouragement, to men leaving the hospitals, and in the way of instructions as to the lines of work that may be open to them in civil life. It is no exaggeration to say that shoals of letters come showing how very valuable this advice and suggestion has been to the men who are passing out into civil life. I have only been able to give in this short time a very brief account of what is being done. But there
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are two points which I should like to dwell upon. I think that my noble friend rather treated the subject as if it were much more permanent than it is, as if the life of the soldier in the hospital is longer than it really is, and he seemed inclined to undervalue or under-estimate some of the difficulties in the way of giving a regular standardised syllabus of education. Experience is always showing new ways in which education can be given, and I shall be glad to bear in mind many of the useful and interesting suggestions made by my noble friend.
LORD BURNHAM: My Lords, I think that the noble Earl has done a great service in calling attention to this subject here. There is no doubt that, in spite of the speech which has just been made by the Under-Secretary for War, the State has fallen very far short of its duties in regard to disabled officers and men. It started too late, and it has done very little to coordinate the methods of their instruction and treatment. The present facts are that among the registrations at the employment exchanges throughout the country disabled men are there in far too great numbers and out of all proportion. That means that the scheme for training them both while they have been in the Service and after they have been discharged has largely failed. I am persuaded that a great mistake was made, as my noble friend pointed out, in not commencing to refit these men for resettlement in civil life while they were in the hospitals and convalescent homes.
There was a reason, however, which he did not give, and which I have been able to find out, sitting as a member on the Resettlement Committee. The reason put forward by the military authorities for not allowing the training to commence while the men were in hospital was that they said it was impossible, while the war was going on, to divide hospital patients into two classes—those who were put down for reentry into civil life, and those who were to be got right as soon as possible to go back to their units at the Front. It was said that by so doing a distinction would have been created which would have been prejudicial to discipline, and would have done a good deal to diminish the number of effectives from the military point of view. I cannot say whether that was a good reason, but I think a great deal more was made out of it than was necessary.

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I believe that a great deal of difficulty in persuading discharged men to accept special training was because, as my noble friend says, the foundations of it were not laid whilst the men were under hospital treatment. It is not as if this was a matter that only related to the past. The figures given by the Under-Secretary show the vast number of men at present in hospital, and I do not think that the number who are under any sort of training is at all satisfactory.
It seems to me that it is technical and professional training which is the master key for solving the terrible problem of dealing with disabled officers and men. Training is the main influence for their satisfactory readjustment to the conditions of industrial life, and I very much doubt whether it will be successful if it is not pursued on a more co-ordinated plan than the present. There is not sufficient linking up of the education given in the hospitals with the training given subsequently to the men discharged. The noble Earl has not dealt with the training of men after their discharge from the Army, and it is an alarming thing to think that recently only 2 per cent of the disabled men were given special training. I believe that this figure has been raised to 4 or 5 per cent. One reason was that by some extraordinary perversion of official ideas no man was allowed to take special training unless he was unable to follow his own trade, and no grant was made and no facilities given. That I believe is now done away with, yet very little has been achieved to link up the two parts of tin system, and until that is done the results will remain unsatisfactory.
But there is a greater difficulty than that. The Government has done hardly anything to make arrangements with the trade unions concerned. Unless that be satisfactorily arranged it must be evident to the House that men are not likely to apply for training either in hospital or outside unless they have some prospect of getting cards or tickets of membership to trade unions afterwards. I am not underrating the difficulties that the Ministry of Labour has had in dealing with this matter, but I know that up to the present hardly in any trade has a satisfactory settlement been arrived at, while in some trades there has been an actual refusal to admit men so trained. I hope that my noble friend the Under-Secretary of State for War will see that every effort
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is made to come to an understanding with the various trade societies. It is little use providing educational training unless this difficulty is overcome, and it would be foolish to assume that in all trades they are prepared to meet the Ministry of Labour to any great extent. It is mainly because the theory upon which the trade unions act is that there is only a certain amount of work to go round and that if you increase the number of skilled journeymen in any one trade you also increase the amount of normal unemployment; but all these things have been dealt with as if they were in separate compartments. The last thing that has been applied has been the scientific method of dealing with a great economic question.
The result is that the position of the disabled man in the country at the present time, both from the moral and industrial point of view, is very far from what anybody would wish it to be. The committees of re-settlement have tried to find a solution of the problem, but they cannot do it at all satisfactorily unless the military authorities would co-operate more fully than they have yet been able to do with the civil side. You cannot treat as separate subjects the treatment of men in hospital and the treatment of men after they have been discharged. When the change which is impending is carried out the whole of the training of disabled men will, except in some few cases, be under the Ministry of Labour. That makes it the more necessary that they should also have a greater say than they have as to the preliminary work that is done before the men leave the Army.
I am quite aware that things are improving, but at the same time, unless there is a greater amount of special training given, and unless there is a full agreement made with the various industries concerned, this country will have to deal with a problem which will make, a satisfactory return to normal conditions almost impossible. And therefore I urge the noble Viscount to do all he can to secure—what has been so often thought of in this war as between the various Departments of Government—a thorough co-ordination both of aim and of method in the work that is now being done.
LORD GORELL: My Lords, I feel that you will expect me to say a few words upon this subject, and I have the permission of

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the noble Viscount, which, of course, is necessary for me as an officer. I think the noble Earl who raised the question devoted the greater portion of his speech to dealing with the reasons which led us to adopt educational training in hospitals. They are absolutely undoubted, and I think are conceded, not only by your Lordships, but by everybody in the Army, and most certainly by the Royal Army Medical Corps. On their behalf I object most strongly to the expression which fell from the noble Earl—the "lip-service" of the Royal Army Medical Corps. With the earlier history I have nothing to do, but from the moment that General Goodwin became Director-General of Army Medical Services we have had absolutely nothing but the fullest support from the medical authorities. Without them it would be quite impossible to carry out any form of educational training in hospitals. The education officer and his assistant instructors must naturally be under the command of the commandant of a hospital. They work to his order, and I would remind your Lordships that, though now educational training is no longer a secondary consideration in the Armies which are being retained, it must always remain a secondary consideration in hospitals. The medical treatment, must be first, and the educational training must come second. But we have it from all sources, from the report of the Commands, endorsed by the reports from General Headquarters, Great Britain, that the moral benefit and the recuperative effect of educational training cannot be too strongly emphasised.
I rather gathered from the noble Earl that he advocated the system for the whole of the hospitals of Great Britain, not to speak of the Armies in the field, which has been adopted by the New Zealand Expeditionary Force—that is to say, I take it, that he would advocate in the hospitals, to which one might confine oneself in this debate, compulsory educational training. I think that is a matter which deserves great consideration. We have it on evidence from all the Commands that the greatest difficulty which our education officers Lave to combat is the apathy of the men, and to force education upon them is very doubtful wisdom. In one report recently received from a Command, it is stated that the great majority of patients know that they will remain in hospital for a short period only, and feel that the little knowledge that they could acquire in
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the time at their disposal would be of insignificant value to them. Education officers are endeavouring to combat this belief by pointing out the facilities which exist for the continuation of any training commenced in hospital, after men have been demobilised.
The greater part of the educational work of our officers in hospital is to bring the men into that frame of mind by which they may best profit by the training provided by the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Pensions. I entirely endorse for myself everything which the noble Lord, Lord Burnham, said about the necessity for linking up whatever training we can give with the work of those Ministries. It is a very important side, and we have, as I think the noble Viscount mentioned, committees in each Command on which are represented the military authorities, the medical authorities, the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Pensions, and the various local authorities and societies which are assisting in this work. It is the same at the War Office in a Headquarters' Committee, of which I have the honour to be chairman, with the view especially of linking up the whole work.
But whatever can be done in hospitals must be regarded as preliminary to the later training which with much greater facility can be given by the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Pensions. The noble Earl spoke of the academic side of the work. I venture to remind him that the lines upon which this training should go were very fully discussed with him whilst he was still at the War Office, agreed with him, and have not since been altered. In one report recently received from another Command they lay special emphasis upon the technical side of the work. In the Army at large there are no fewer than 163 different vocational subjects being taught. In one Command alone in the hospitals there are no fewer than forty-four, and they range from carpentry and salesmanship to science and many other strictly vocational sides. We have succeeded in obtaining from the Treasury a grant, for allocation to the various Commands by which they may engage the assistance of the local educational authorities, and great assistance has been received from them in the way of laving places open at the technical institutes for the men in hospital.
It is not always the case that facilities

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must be brought to the men. We have been able, especially for that class of patient to whom the noble Earl referred, who are able to walk about, to arrange with the transport authorities for the transport of the men to the work. But I think the noble Earl did not lay sufficient emphasis on what we may call the fluctuating nature of the population. I am informed that 80 per cent, of the patients are changed each month, which makes it excessively hard, indeed almost impossible, to get either a long, systematised course, or anything that would take an undue length of time. It is obvious that we must not for educational purposes retain men who wish to be demobilised, and who are entitled to be demobilised.
There is one other means by which we are able, I hope, to bring more assistance to the men—that is, by means of informing them of all the facilities that exist, both local and national, in the way of Ministries of Labour and of Pensions; and the various Commands report that the greatest help can be given by setting up information bureaux. We ourselves from the War Office issue what I call education circulars, which contain all the Ministerial information on education and on resettlement questions, and also bring to the hospitals all the separate, individual publications of the Ministries of Labour, Reconstruction, and so on, which may be of most help to the men. We do not claim that it is a perfect educational system, or that it can be so in hospitals; but we claim that we sire able to rescue a great many men from that "hospitalized" frame of mind into which they would otherwise have fallen, and so facilitate the work of the Government Departments upon whom their ultimate responsibility must rest.
EARL STANHOPE: My Lords, I imagine there, are no Papers to be produced; therefore I shall, of course, withdraw my Motion. I must, however, make a few remarks. I am glad to hear that the staffs in the hospitals have been increased; but I must remind the noble Viscount that the results of these increased staffs are still small, because, if I understood him correctly, out of the 173,000 in the hospitals 6,000 are doing vocational work.
VISCOUNT PEEL: That is if you do not include some kind of commercial training. If you include commercial training, it is much larger.
EARL STANHOPE: If the noble Viscount could give us those figures I should like to move for Papers in order that they may be produced. I am very anxious not to give extra work at the War Office, because I know that the noble Lord's section is having a great deal of work, and I do not want to press for figures which are hard to get; but if they are not hard to get they would be valuable.
It is all very well to say that the men are only a few weeks in hospital. I grant that the hospital population is a movable one, but if the scheme is well organised—as it is in the New Zealand hospitals, and that is why I have put forward New Zealand ad nauseam—the training follows the man from one hospital to another hospital, then to the convalescent depôt, and eventually back to his unit. Therefore to say that the moveability of the population makes the giving of education impossible is not true, and it can be proved to be not true by reference to what has been done with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. I grant this is a very small Force, and provided only one Division against the many Divisions we have; but if a thing works well with a small Force it can be made to do equally well with a large one, unless the scheme is on faulty lines, and I think it has been running long enough to be able to say that it is not on faulty lines. I approve of the scheme as drawn up. The scheme was meant to be both a general and a vocational scheme; and I cordially agree that they must be complementary But the vocational scheme has disappeared in the background, and it is the general educational scheme which is now holding sway—at least, that appears to be the general impression.
When I mentioned consulting the business end, that meant that I consulted the men for whom, after all, this education scheme has been produced; it is not, of course, for the benefit of the noble Lord himself and his Department. I hope that the noble Viscount and the noble Lord will insist that the scheme shall be developed still further. If the medical authorities are as keen about the scheme as the noble Lord suggests, obviously there is ample room for considerable development in the near future. I would point out that we are now four months after the signing of the Armistice, at which moment men ceased to become wounded, although, of course,

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the flow from abroad continued for many weeks; therefore it ought to be simpler, and should be simpler, to develop this scheme. This incidentally also shows that to talk of the sojourn in hospital being short, as the noble Viscount implied, is not the case.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

HOUSING.
EARL GREY: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government, with reference to the Local Government Board Circular of February 6 to local authorities on the subject of housing of the working classes, whether for the purposes of the final adjustment local authorities will be allowed to include provision for a sinking fund in their future annual changes, and, if so, over what period should the sinking fund be spread; and further, how soon will the Memorandum embodying the terms to be offered to public utility societies hi laid upon the Table.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: My Lords, I should like to say how grateful I am to the noble Earl for having postponed his Questions to suit my convenience, which enabled me to attend to some other rather important public business. The Questions of my noble friend are three. In answer to the first, I have to say that for the purposes of the adjustment of the subsidy the future annual loan charges, both for interest and for repayment of capital, will be included whether the capital is to be repaid by equal annual instalments or by the creation of a sinking fund. They will, in fact, form the chief item of the expenditure, and will be the annual amount necessary to provide for the redemption of the loans in the period prescribed by the Local Government Board for repayment.
In reply to the second Question, in regard to lands the period will be eighty years, and in regard to buildings sixty year? In answering the third Question I have to say that I very much regret that this Circular has been delayed. It has be in prepared by the Local Government Board in conjunction with the Treasury, and I hope to be able to lay it on the Table very shortly. The real reason why the delay has occurred—which reason I regret very much—is that the President of the Local Government Board has been a serious victim of the prevailing epidemic; other-
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wise there is no doubt that it would have been before your Lordships earlier. I trust that I have answered the Questions, of the noble Earl.
EARL GREY: I thank the noble Viscount for his answers.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My noble friend opposite is of course, aware that the Housing Bill is before Parliament. I see that this measure was introduced into another place yesterday, so that the time is getting a little late for having some of the main conditions under which housing is to be carried out presented to Parliament.
VISCOUNT SANDHURST: I will do my utmost to hurry the Circular up.

OCCUPATION OF MUSEUMS.
VISCOUNT HARCOURT VISCOUNT HARCOURT rose to ask His Majesty's Government at what approximate date they hope for or contemplate the evacuation of—

1 The British Museum by the Registrar of Friendly Societies, Statistical Branch of the Medical Research Committee, and the effects of Prisoners of War from German Colonies.

2 The National Gallery by the Finance Branch of the Ministry of Munitions.

3 The National Portrait Gallery by Separation Allowances Department of the War Office.

4 The Wallace Collection by the Special Investigation of Accounts Department of the Ministry of Munitions.

5 The Victoria and Albert Museum by the Education Department.

6 The London Museum by the Allied Maritime Council, the Shipping Intelligence Section; the Allied Maritime Transport Council; the American Shipping Mission and Italian Shipping Mission.

7 The Imperial Institute by the Army Pay Section of the Machine Gun Corps; the Ministry of Labour; and the Effects Branch of the War Office.

8 The Tale Gallery by the Ministry of Pensions (Widows and Dependents).

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The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I beg to put the Questions which stand in my name upon the Paper, and to add that in paragraph 7 I am happy to say that the words "the Ministry of Labour" can now be deleted.
LORD STANMORE: My Lords, I am afraid that I shall not be able to give the noble Viscount very hopeful answers to his Questions. With regard to the first four institutions he mentions—the British Museum, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Wallace Collection—I regret to say that there is no immediate prospect of the vacation of the space occupied in those buildings being carried out; but it is hoped that the position will be very much improved after the declaration of Peace, when a considerable diminution of staffs is confidently anticipated.
As regards the space in the Victoria and Albert Museum now occupied by the Board of Education, the situation is a little more hopeful. A scheme for the return of that Department to Whitehall is now under consideration. In fact, at the end of this week twenty rooms in the Education Office are to be restored. That is a little beginning. As the noble Viscount is aware, a large part of the museum is, of course, still open to the public.
The next one on the list is the London Museum. This is the one bright spot in my answer, because the First Commissioner of Works is now engaged in negotiations for having this building restored to its original use. Apart from the desirability of re-opening the museum to the public, the accommodation used for Government hospitality functions will doubtless be urgently needed in connection with the peace celebrations. I hope that the museum may be restored within the next few weeks. I trust that this will be gratifying to the noble Viscount, as the creator of this museum.
As regards the Imperial Institute and the Tate Gallery, schemes have been approved by the War Cabinet Committee on Accommodation for the erection of temporary buildings in the suburbs for these staffs, but the new accommodation cannot be available for at least six months. The work, however, will be pushed on with the utmost possible speed. A portion of the space in the Imperial Institute has
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already been released are being reinstated.
I should like to emphasis very strongly the fact that the Office of Works has done and is doing everything in its power to hasten the return of these museums to the public, but the fact on which the return depends is demobilization, which is, of course, beyond its control. At present no fewer than 8,000 members of the staffs of the various Departments are lodged in the buildings mentioned in the Question. In some cases there has been a considerable diminution in the total number employed, such as in the Ministry of Munitions and the Food Departments; but, on the other hand, there has been a corresponding increase in the Departments dealing with demobilization> and pensions, and the new Ministries

WAR CHARITIES (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a and passed, and sent to the Commons.
INTESTATE HUSBAND'S ESTATE (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a and passed, and sent to the Commons.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Your Lordships are aware that the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Bill is down for its Committee stage tomorrow. I want to suggest—I make no final proposal to the House at the present stage—that the Report and Third Reading, be taken on Friday next. It depends, of course, somewhat upon the nature of the Amendments made, if any; and if they are substantial Amendments it may be necessary to revise that proposal. But should we finish the Committee stage tomorrow and the remaining stages on the following day, the House of Lords will have occupied exactly the same time as the House of Commons found it necessary to devote to this Bill. I hope, however, that all stages-will, if possible, be concluded during the present week In that case, if any Amendments were made here the House of Commons would take them on Monday afternoon, and either return the Bill to us or accept the Lords Amendments, in which; case the Royal Assent could be given on Tuesday. Tuesday is Lady Day, and on, the general ground I understand it is de

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sirable that the Bill should receive the Royal Assent by then. I would also remind your Lordships that on Tuesday there is the debate, which I expect will be of very marked interest and importance, about finance, on which a number of noble Lords have given notice that they desire to speak. That makes a further reason for our finishing this Bill before that date, if possible.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I only have to say, in reference to what has fallen from the noble Earl, that it is, of course, quite impossible to foresee what the course of events will be tomorrow. That must depend upon the wishes of your Lordships, and the result of the discussion. But I would most earnestly deprecate the idea that legislation of this kind ought to be hurried through. The noble Earl has said that the House of Commons took only four days about it. It is not our practice to criticise the conduct of members of another place, and I know of none of the circumstances in which that course of action was adopted. All I know is the intricacy of the Bill upon your Lordships' Table, and I know that it cannot be dealt with hurriedly. It raises very intricate points which involve the livelihood of hundreds of people. Is it really to be said, because the Government have as usual run things much too fine, that certain people are not to enjoy the occupation of their houses which they would have enjoyed but for this unfortunate occurrence. It really is an incredible way of managing business. Your Lordships' House is here in order to see that good Bills are passed, and we must give proper time to them.
The noble Earl has said that it is very important that the Bill should be got through by Lady Day. I do not myself believe there is any very great importance in that. No doubt it is the end of the quarter, when certain notices of termination of tenancy mature. But in the event of legislation actually impending no magistrate would enforce ejectment notices. Therefore the difficulty is largely technical; and on the other side stands the convenience of numbers of poor persons. I am certain that if it turns out that we cannot pass legislation properly except by a reasonable delay between Committee and the Report stage, the noble Earl would be the first to advise your Lordships to postpone the Report stage for a brief period.
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It may be, of course, that when we come to discuss it to-morrow, it will be possible to finish the Bill on Friday. If it is, so much the better. If it is not, I venture to hope that the noble Earl and the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will use their great influence with their colleagues, in order to see that legislation passed in this House in time of peace is proper legislation properly considered.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I will not enter into a discussion as to whether we can with propriety describe ourselves as enjoying a time of peace, but I am in complete agreement with the noble Marquees when he says that the proper time for decision is not to-night but tomorrow. I believe he underrates the difficulties of postponing the decision of this House in regard to this Bill; and I think he gives inadequate weight to the fact that a new House of Commons, fresh from contact with the constituencies and knowing intimately their wishes—and if not knowing them, reminded of them by every post—is not likely to have shown any undue acceleration in handling this measure or any excessive inattentiveness to their wishes. It is, of course, true that we must give the utmost time that is reasonably available, laving regard to the difficulties of the case. Let us to-morrow by all means approach these subjects and see what. demands they make on your Lordships' time, and, when we have appreciated their seriousness and difficulty, how far a longer postponement is really necessary.

PRIVATE BILLS.
[From Minutes of March 18.]
BLYTH HARBOUR BILL.
BRISTOL CORPORATION BILL.
DUBLIN PORT AND DOCKS BILL.
MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL BILL.
MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BILL.
NEWPORT HARBOUR COMMISSIONERS BILL.
SWANSEA HARBOUR BILL.
TEES CONSERVANCY BILL.
TYNE IMPROVEMENT BILL.
WEAR NAVIGATION AND SUNDERLAND DOCK BILL.
BELFAST HARBOUR BILL.
CORK HARBOUR BILL.
DOVER HARBOUR BILL.
Message from the Commons that they have ordered that the Committee appointed by them to join with the Committee of this House, to consider the said Bills, do meet the Lords' Committee in the Royal Gallery on Thursday, the 27th
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instant, at eleven o'clock, as proposed by their Lordships.

CLOWES SETTLED ESTATES BILL. [H.L.]
Judges' Report received: Bill presented, and read 1a.
House adjourned at half-past seven o'clock.