Sitting of 11 May 1926

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Private Bills [Lords] (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with).
Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bill, that in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:—
Leicestershire and Warwickshire Electric Power Bill [Lords],
Bill to be read a Second time.
Birkenhead Corporation Bill [Lords],
As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.
London County Council (Money) Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Friday.

AYRSHIRE ELECTRICITY ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL,
"to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Ayrshire Electricity, presented by Sir JOHN GILMOUR, and ordered, under Section 7 of the Act, to be considered To-morrow."
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  INDUSTRIAL CRISIS.

    ELECTRIC POWER, STEPNEY.
    Mr. GATES(by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that manufacturers and business houses in Stepney are still without
    802
    electric power during the daytime, and whether he will make arrangements that will enable such manufacturers and business houses to continue their business and avoid throwing their employés out of work?
    Captain Viscount CURZON (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. My right hon. Friend's attention has been called to this case, and he is making inquiries.
    Mr. HARRISON: Is it not a fact that the action taken by the Stepney Council means that the electric energy in two hospitals has been put out of action?

    MILK SUPPLY, METROPOLITAN AREA.
    Miss LAWRENCE(by Private Notice) asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will state the area to which the London Milk Order applies, and whether retailers are forbidden to sell milk at less than 8d. a quart?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Burton Chadwick): The area is the Metropolitan Police area of London. In reply to the second part of the question, the Government have issued no Order regarding the price of milk. All milk in the Metropolitan Police area has been required to be placed at the disposal of the London Milk Pool Committee, and the Government have issued a statement that the cost involved by the arrangements for the maintenance of supply justifies an increase in the price of 2d. a quart in London.
    Mr. W. THORNE: Exploiters!
    Mr. LAMB: Can the Minister say whether it is also competent for the local milk authority which has been set up to say that milk shall not be sold at less than 8d. a quart?
    Sir B. CHADWICK: I must have notice of that question.

    ARRESTS, BLAYDON.
    Mr. WHITELEY(by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that it is reported that Mr. Henry Bolton, J.P., Chairman of the Blaydon Urban District Council, and Mr. Wiliam Lawther, County Councillor, and a member of the National Executive of the Labour party, both resident in the Blaydon Parliamentary Divi-

    803
    sion, have been arrested; whether such report is correct, and whether he can state the charge made against them.
    Major Sir HARRY BARNSTON (Comptroller of the Household): I understand that this question has not beer received at the Home Office.
    Mr. WHITELEY: It was sent at half-past eleven to-day.
    Sir H. BARNSTON: It has not reached the Home Office; I have just made inquiry.
    Mr. CONNOLLY: Was not the Home Office made acquainted with this matter two days ago, when they promised to give information, and have not yet sent it?
    Mr. WALLHEAD: Will the Minister also consider giving some information in regard to the case of Mr. Noah Ablett, who has also been arrested?
    Mr. STEPHEN: May I ask whether we are to have any statement from the Home Secretary, seeing that he said he would give the House a definite statement day by day? Perhaps the Prime Minister could help us.
    Mr. WHITELEY: As the information in reply is not to hand, and there has been some delay in the question reaching the Home Office, may I ask whether I can put the question again to-morrow, in order to obtain the information?
    Mr. SPEAKER: Certainly I will make a note of it for to-morrow.

    PRIMATE'S APPEAL.
    Mr. THURTLE(by Private Notice) asked the Postmaster-General if an official communication was made to his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury prior to the broadcasting of his sermon on Sunday evening last, to the effect that if he included in that sermon the terms of peace which he had suggested on behalf of the United Churches, his sermon could not be broadcast?
    The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Viscount Wolmer): I only received notice of the hon. Member's question five minutes ago, on entering the House. I have no information as to any such communication. The House is aware that all broadcasters submit a précis of
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    the words they are going to broadcast. That is probably what the hon. Member has in mind.
    Mr. B. SMITH: Is the noble Lord aware that on the wireless it was stated that this speech won d be made by the. Archbishop of Canterbury at 9 o'clock at night, and it was not so made? Are we to presume that, prior to giving the public that information, a précis of his speech had been submitted?
    Viscount WOLMER: The hon. Member is mistaken. The Archbishop's sermon was broadcast.
    Mr. THURTLE: In view of the shortness of time which the noble Lord has had in which to answer the question, will he be good enough to make inquiries and let me know to-morrow what is the reply?
    Captain ARTHUR EVANS: Will the noble Lord tell the House that it is a fact that the recommendations of the church body were broadcast at one o'clock to-day by wireless?
    Viscount WOLMER: That is so.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the Prime Minister aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday undertook that the "British Gazette" should contain those peace terms, if he could do it? As the latest cricket scores at 6 o'clock last night were published in the "Gazette" to-day, why does it not contain this information
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): I am afraid I am not aware of that.
    Mr. W. THORNE: Is the Prime Minister aware that in the House yesterday the Chancellor of the Exchequer made a definite statement that the Archbishop's terms would be printed? [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] he made a definite promise. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Then I would like to refer to the verbatim shorthand note which was taken.
    Mr. WALLHEAD: Will the Ministers tell us of what they are informed, so that we may know how to frame our questions?
    Mr. SPEAKER: There is necessarily some delay in communications.
    Sir JOSEPH NALL: May I ask the Prime Minister whether the Government will not attach undue importance to the opinions of irresponsible bodies, however eminent the authors may be?
    Mr. WALLHEAD: Tell that to the Bishop of Manchester.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: May I ask the Prime Minister whether he agrees with the statement just made by one of his back-benchers? Will he tell the House whether or not he agrees or disagrees with the substance of the communication of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: On a point of Order. Is it in order to
    describe members of another place, Spiritual Peers, as "irresponsible persons"?
    Mr. SPEAKER: I am not prepared to give a definition of "irresponsible."

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Motion made, and Question put,
'That this day, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 15, Business other than Business of Supply may be taken before Eleven of the Clock, and that the Proceedings on other Government Business be exempted at this day's Sitting from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prince Minister.]
The House divided: Ayes, 246; Noes, 79.

Division No. 216.]

AYES.

3.0 p.m.

Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

Cooper, A. Duff

Haslam, Henry C.

Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.

Couper, J. B.

Henderson, Capt. R. R. (Oxf'd, Henley)

Albery, Irving James

Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islington, N,)

Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)

Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)

Craig, Ernest (Chester, Crewe)

Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.

Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby)

Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

Henn, Sir Sydney H.

Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.

Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)

Herbert, S. (York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by)

Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)

Crookshank, Cpt. H.(Lindsey, Gainsbro)

Hills, Major John Waller

Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

Curzon, Captain Viscount

Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.

Barclay-Harvey, C. M.

Davies, Dr. Vernon

Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)

Barnett, Major Sir Richard

Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)

Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy

Beamish, Captain T. P. H.

Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)

Holland, Sir Arthur

Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)

Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)

Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)

Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.

Dawson, Sir Philip

Hopkins, J. W. W.

Been, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)

Dean, Arthur Wellesley

Hopkinson, Sir A. (Eng. Universities)

Bennett, A. J.

Dixey, A. C.

Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.

Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish.

Drewe, C.

Howard, Captain Hon. Donald

Bethell, A.

Edwards, John H. (Accrington)

Hudson, R. S. (Cumberland, Whiteh'n)

Betterton, Henry B.

Elliot, Captain Walter E.

Huntingfield, Lord

Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)

Ellis, R. G.

Hurd, Percy A.

Blundell, F. N.

Elveden, Viscount

Hutchison, G. A. Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's)

Boothby, R. J. G.

England, Colonel A.

Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)

Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.

Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)

Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.

Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.

Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith

Jackson, Lieut.-Colones Hon. F. S.

Brass, Captain W.

Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)

Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)

Brassey, Sir Leonard

Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)

Kindersley, Major Guy M.

Briant, Frank

Everard, W. Lindsay

Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

Briscoe, Richard George

Fairfax, Captain J. G.

Knox, Sir Alfred

Brocklebank, C. E. R.

Falle, Sir Bertram G.

Lamb, J. Q.

Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.

Fermoy, Lord

Lane Fox, Col. Rt. Hon. George R.

Broun-Lindsay, Major H.

Fielden, E. B.

Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)

Browm, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y)

Finburgh, S.

Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)

Buckingham, Sir H.

Foster, Sir Harry S.

Looker, Herbert William

Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James

Frece, Sir Walter de

Lowe, Sir Francis William

Bullock, Captain M.

Fremantle, Lt.-Col. Francis E.

Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere

Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Alan

Ganzoni, Sir John

Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman

Burman, J. B.

Gates, Percy

Lumley, L. R.

Butler, Sir Geoffrey

Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton

Lynn, Sir R. J.

Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward

Gilmour, Lt.-Col. At. Han. Sir John

Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)

Caine, Gordon Hall

Glyn, Major R. G. C.

McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus

Cautley, Sir Henry S.

Goff, Sir Park

MacIntyre, Ian

Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth. S.)

Grace, John

McLean, Major A.

Cazalet, Captain Victor A.

Grant, J. A.

Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm

Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)

Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John

Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton

Greene, W. P. Crawford

Macquisten, F. A.

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. Sir J. A. (Birm., W.)

Gretton, Colonel John

MacRobert, Alexander M.

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)

Grotrian, H. Brent

Malone, Major P. B.

Christle, J. A.

Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F, (Dulwich)

Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn

Churchman, Sir Arthur C.

Hall, Capt. W. D'A, (Brecon & Rad.)

Margesson, Capt. D.

Clarry, Reginald George

Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)

Marriott, Sir J. A. R.

Clayton, G. C.

Hanbury, C.

Merriman, F. B.

Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.

Harland, A.

Meyer, Sir Frank

Cohen, Major J. Brunel

Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)

Milne, J. S. Wardlaw

Colfox, Major Wm. Philip

Harrison, G. J. C.

Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)

Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)

Hartington, Marquess of

Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)

Conway, Sir W. Martin

Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)

Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.

Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)

Tinne, J.A.

Moore, Sir Newton J.

Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)

Titchfield, Major the Marquess of

Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)

Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.

Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement

Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive

Salmon, Major I.

Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.

Murchison, C. K.

Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

Waddington, R.

Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph

Sandeman, A. Stewart

Wallace, Captain D. E.

Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)

Sanders, Sir Robert A.

Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L.(Kingston-on Hull)

Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)

Savery, S. S.

Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.

Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld.)

Shaw, Capt. W. W. (Wilts, Westb'y)

Watson, F. (Pudsey and Otley)

Nuttall, Ellis

Shepperson, E. W.

Watts, Dr. T.

Oakley, T.

Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)

Wells, S. R.

O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton)

Slaney, Major P. Kenyon

Wheler, Major Sir Granville C. H.

Oman, Sir Charles William C.

Smith-Carington, Neville W.

Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Smithers, Waldron

Williams, Corn. C. (Devon, Torquay)

Pennefather, Sir John

Somerville. A. A. (Windsor)

Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)

Penny, Frederick George

Spender-Clay, Colonel H.

Wilson, Sir C. H. (Leeds, Central)

Perkins, Colonel E. K.

Sprot, Sir Alexander

Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)

Perring, Sir William George

Stanley, Lord (Fylde)

Winby, Colonel L. P.

Pets, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)

Steel, Major Samuel Strang

Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

Philipson, Mabel

Streatfeild, Captain S. R.

Wise, Sir Fredric

Pielou, D. P.

Strickland, Sir Gerald

Wolmer, Viscount

Pilcher, G.

Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C.

Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde)

Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton

Styles, Captain H. Walter

Wood, Sir S. Hill-(High Peak)

Price, Major C. W. M.

Sugden, Sir Wilfrid

Woodcock, Colonel H. C.

Raine, W.

Tasker, Major R. Inigo

Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.

Rawson, Sir Alfred Cooper

Thom, Lt.-Col. J. G. (Dumbarton)

Remnant, Sir James

Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

Rice, Sir Frederick

Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)

Colonel Gibbs and Sir Harry Barnston.

NOES.

Attlee, Clement Richard

Kennedy, T.

Shepherd, Arthur Lewis

Barr, J.

Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.

Slesser, Sir Henry H.

Batey, Joseph

Lansbury, George

Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)

Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.

Lawrence, Susan

Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip

Buchanan, G.

Lawson, John James

Stamford, T. W.

Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel

Lee, F.

Stephen, Campbell

Charleton, H. C.

Lowth, T.

Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)

Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.

Lunn, William

Sullivan, J.

Connolly, M.

MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)

Sutton, J. E.

Cove, W. G.

Mackinder, W.

Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)

Dalton, Hugh

Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)

Thurtle, E.

Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

MacNeill-Weir, L.

Tinker, John Joseph

Duncan, C.

March, S.

Viant, S. P.

Donnico, H.

Montague, Frederick

Wallhead, Richard C

Garro-Jones, Captain G, M.

Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)

Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen

Gillett, George M.

Murnin, H.

Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney

Gosling, Harry

Naylor, T. E.

Wedgwood. Rt. Hon. Josiah

Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent)

Palin, John Henry

Whiteley, W.

Greenall, T.

Paling, W.

Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)

Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)

Ponsonby, Arthur

Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)

Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

Wright, W.

Henderson, Rt. A. (Burnley)

Riley, Ben

Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)

Hirst, G. H.

Rose, Frank H.

John, William (Rhondda, West)

Salter, Dr. Alfred

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

Scrymgeour, E.

Mr. Warne and Mr. Benjamin

Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

Scurr, John

Smith

Kelly, W. T.

Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.

PETROLEUM BILL [Lords].
Read the first time; to be read a second time to-morrow; and to be printed. [Bill 109.]
PUBLIC HEALTH (SMOKE ABATEMENT) BILL [Lords].
Read the first time; to be read a second time to-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 110.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY.
  [6TH ALLOTTED DAY.]
  [MR. JAMES HOPE in the Chair.]
  Considered in Committee.

  SUPPLY.
    CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1926–27. 1926–27.
      CLASS VI.

        MINISTRY OF PENSIONS.
        Motion made, and Question proposed,
        "That a sum, not exceeding £39,504,900, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1927, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Pensions, and for sundry Contributions in respect of the Administration of The Ministry of Pensions Act, 1916, the War Pensions Acts, 1915 to 1921, and sundry Services."—[Note: £24,000,000 has been voted on Account.]
        The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Major Tryon): The estimated expenditure for my Department for the current year, 1926–27, is £63,504,900. This brings the total expenditure of the United Kingdom on war pensions up to the end of the present year to no less than £725,176,986. The total expenditure on war pensions in this country is larger than that of any other country engaged in the great war, and to give the Committee some idea of the scale of this national effort, I may say that the sum I have mentioned exceeds our total pre-war debt by over £60,000,000, and that, if it were divided equally between the whole population, it already amounts to a contribution of £15 11s. per head from every man, woman and child in the country. The effort, as I shall show, is being maintained with only slight reductions, due to normal causes. Compared with the estimated expenditure of last year—167,518,000—there is a fall of £4,013,100, but more than £1,000,000 of this decrease is due to an accident of the calendar. In the estimated expenditure for the year that is just passed, we had to provide funds for the weekly payment of pensions or allowances on certain extra days which by the acci-
        814
        dent of the calendar fell into the year that has just passed. This made the expenditure of last year larger than would have been incurred in a normal year. This year, 1926–27, is a normal year with a normal number of weekly pension pay days. The decline in expenditure on pensions, taking the two years together, is at the rate of slightly more than £2, 500,000 a year. This, as 1 shall show, is due to quite normal causes.
        Taken in the order in which they appear on the printed Estimates, the principal items of expenditure, I would like first to draw attention to the cost of administration. The total cost of administration which falls in this current year, will amount to £1,962,900. I have included in this figure not only the amount shown in the printed Estimates under sub-heading A to B.3, but also the cost of medical administration under subheading 0.1 to 0.4 and the administrative expenditure of War Pensions Committees. This figure of nearly £2,000,000 represents a decrease on last year, in the cost of administration, of no less than £464,700, or a decrease in cost of administration of 19 per cent. I am glad to say that the cost of administration has been the item in the Ministry's expenditure which has, shown the largest proportional decrease. In 1920 the expenditure on administration was 1s. 3d. in the £for every £1 of benefit expenditure. For the current year it will be only 7½d. in the £1, a reduction of no less than one half. The decline in the expenditure on administration has much more than kept pace with the normal fall in the total expenditure. It is now only three per cent. of the total Vote compared with nearly 6 per cent. in 1920, so that 97 per cent. of the money voted to this department by the House goes in direct benefit to the pensioner, and the proportion is rising.
        This reduction has resulted from the progressive policy of stabilisation and simplification of administration which successive Governments have carried out. Let me illustrate this by a few figures drawn from different branches of the Ministry's work. First, there is the Ministry's correspondence. In 1923, the total number of letters, forms and other documents despatched from the London offices alone was 13,500,000. This figure did not include the heavy correspondence of the regions. But in the year ending

        815
        March, 1926, the number of letters and other documents despatched from the London Offices was 5,500,000, and it must be remembered that in this year the greater number of the regional offices which existed in 1923 had been or were being absorbed in the London offices. In other words, there has been an enormous falling off in the correspondence. The number of men medically examined has fallen off greatly. In the six months ended 31st December, 1922, there were 279,700 men medically examined by Medical Boards. In the corresponding six months of 1925, the number had fallen to 63,000, a great reduction. As I have said, the staff employed in transacting the daily work has declined in numbers much more rapidly than the expenditure. In 1920 the Ministry were employing 32,000 persons. On 31st March last, the number was 11,358—a reduction of over 20,000. The figure of 11,358 includes 3,000 staff employed in Ministry hospitals. Of the total male staff of the Ministry, 97 per cent. are ex-service men, and nearly 60 per cent. of them are men who have in some degree been disabled by War service.
        The Committee will be interested to hear what has been done in the matter which has often been raised in this House, namely the security of employment for the ex-service staff of the Ministry. As a result of arrangements made by the Government last year, both by way of special examination, which enabled those candidates who qualified to get established pensionable posts, and by the institution of another class of permanent but not established men in the Department, 1,393 men have obtained established posts in the Civil Service and 200 have obtained permanent unestablished posts as salaried officers. More permanent unestablished posts will in course of time be created. The attendance at their work and the convenience of the staff have been seriously interfered with in many cases by the present stoppage of means of communication and in the case of many of them who have been disabled by war service the stoppage has meant real physical distress. But they have responded splendidly, and I could give many instances of their loyalty and courage. We are making all the arrangements that we can in the circumstances for the transport of our
        816
        staff. The effect of the stoppage on pensions administration generally is also a matter about which the Committee would like to know, though I shall not go into it in detail. The Committee will be anxious to hear how the pensioners will be affected. There must, of course, be some cases of hardship owing to the failure of the ordinary means of transport. For instance, the facilities for reaching hospitals or clinics, and attending for medical examination, are affected. I have made arrangements for providing transport where it is essential, and I am glad to say that so far the food supply of the hospitals has worked satisfactorily,
        On the important question of local administration I will refer to the changes which have been going on in the last few years and which are now being brought to completion. The administration of war pensions is based upon both a central and a local organisation. The local units of administration are the area offices, and their dependencies, the sub-offices. On 31st March, these offices numbered 368, distributed throughout the country in the chief centres and sub-centres of population. Through the area offices come the claims for pension or allowances of every kind, and complaints about individual cases come through them also. They are, in short, the sensory nerves by which the pensions administration is kept in touch with the pensioner or claimant. Allied to them are the War Pensions Committees whose function, as laid down by Parliament, is to hear all complaints from individuals who have reason to be dissatisfied with official decisions of the Ministry, and after investigation, if they think fit, to represent them to headquarters.
        I now turn to the question of the closing of the regional offices throughout the country. Intermediate between the local offices and the headquarters of the Ministry there has been in existence since 1919 a series of branch offices of the Ministry known as regional offices. These were set up during 1919 and 1920, which was the period of demobilisation of the Army forces enlisted for the late War, and they were started in order to deal with the enormous number of claims and with the award of pensions involved immediately after the conclusion of hostilities. Altogether eleven regional offices were constituted, and to these was

        817
        transferred the work of sifting and adjudicating upon the claims to pension, authorising awards of pensions in the majority of cases, and, in addition, the duty of supervising the local offices of the Ministry working under the control of the local War Pensions Committees. Gradually, as the large volume of work declined the regional branch offices of the Ministry have had to disappear, and the remainder of their work has been transferred to London. This process began at the end of 1923; it was continued during the administration of my predecessor the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bromwich (Mr. F. Roberts), whose absence to-day we all so much regret, and it will have been brought to a conclusion by the disappearance of the last regional office next month.
        Some of those associated with the Ministry's work who have been accustomed to the system of the last six years have naturally regretted the disappearance of the regional offices; but it was inevitable. With the rapid decline in the work of the Department which has occurred during the past four years, the continued maintenance of large provincial offices, doing only the work of certain limited areas, became wholly unjustifiable. In each case there has been a substantial saving in the cost of administration without detriment to efficiency by the closing of the regional office. At its height the regional system was costing £2,000,000 a year. In the case of the Wales region, for example, the closure of the regional office brought about a saving of £16,000. In the case of the North Western region a saving of not less than £20,000 was effected and in the case of the Scottish region, the last to disappear, I anticipate a saving of £19,000. Along with the disappearance of the regional system the Advisory Councils which were associated with it must also disappear and this is a new announcement which I take the opportunity of making to the Committee. While the system of delegated administration represented by the regional branch offices was in operation, Advisory Councils composed of representatives of the, War Pensions Committees in the region were not without their uses. The regional director was chairman and other chief officers of the region were members, and it was helpful to the administration that these officers should meet represen-
        818
        tatives of the War Pensions Committees and talk over with them from time to time any local administrative difficulties that might arise. But the official regional administration was the basis and the raison, d'etre of the Advisory Council.
        At the present stage in pensions administration eight general deliberative assemblies are not necessary. The essential work before the Ministry now, is not the alteration of the fundamental principles of war compensation which have been laid down by Parliament in the various Warrants and War Pensions Acts, but the adjustment here and there of administration to current needs as they arise. For this purpose the organisation contemplated by Parliament in the Act of 1921 is sufficient. Under that Act—unanimously passed by the House of Commons —side by side with the official machinery of the Ministry, there were set up two bodies to represent the persons in direct touch with the administration as it affects individuals, namely, the War Pensions Committees, numbering 170 in their various areas all over the Kingdom, and the Central Advisory Committee at the headquarters of the Ministry. It is my intention to make both these factors as effective as possible in co-operation with the official administration.
        As regards War Pensions Committees, I have, as I have already stated, carried out the policy which I promised the House in May of last year to adopt. With the assistance of my hon. and gallant Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, the area offices in more than one-third of the whole country have been visited; we have met the Chairmen of the War Pensions Committee, the responsible medical officers and the chief area officers and their assistants. We have discussed with them the practical working of the many branches of work that fall to be dealt with in the locality and I find, generally, that the administration is working smoothly and satisfactorily and its principles are accepted as just. At the same time, I have learned much in the matter of the detail of administration, as to practical difficulties which arise in the localities, and these difficulties I have taken and am taking steps to meet, It is my intention to pursue the policy of visiting the areas and to extend it. In addition I propose to make a new departure. I propose to hold group meetings of the

        819
        chairmen of War Pensions Committees at suitable centres from time to time and with the help of my hon. and gallant Friend ale Parliamentary Secretary and the principal officials of the Ministry, to discuss with the chairmen at these meetings any points of difficulty and any suggestions that from their practical experience they have to make.
        I believe that by this method I shall make the War Pensions Committees and the local offices of the Ministry effective units of the administration of War Pensions. In this connection I should like to say how much the administration of pensions owes to the voluntary workers, members of committees and others who, in their several districts, quietly and unostentatiously, are working with the object of helping ex-service men and their dependants and in doing so, are working for the successful administration of the great work of war compensation. There are, I believe, some 17,000 voluntary workers attached to the War Pensions Committees, men in business, people in public positions serving on local authorities, men and women in private life and members of the British Legion all over the country. I am glad to recognise with gratitude the help that they give me, and to feel that what was a national levy in the Great War has evoked a national response of voluntary help in assisting the sufferers from the war.
        The counterpart of the War Pensions Committee in the local area is the Central Advisory Committee at Ministry headquarters. As I informed the House in December last, I was not satified with the composition of this body. My experience during 1925 made it clear to me that the delegate system under which a large number of Members were nominated by the Advisory Councils, was not calculated to give the best results for the purpose of advising the Minister. I have reconstituted the Committee therefore, and in doing so I have endeavoured to secure the services of persons having direct and intimate acquaintance with the principal phases of the work of the Ministry. I have increased the representatives of the War Pensions Committees on the Central Committee; I have increased the number of women members, and I have obtained the services of persons with practical knowledge of
        820
        education and the welfare of children. I have already held a meeting of the new committee, at which a most useful and practical discussion took place, and I hope to hold another before the end of the present Session.
        I now turn to another important part of our work which does not appear in the title of the Ministry, namely, the medical side. It is classified under the title of "Medical Services" and will he found under Sub-heads 1 to 8. The expenditure foe the current year in this respect is estimated at £3,141,600 representing a decline of £347,000 by comparison with the previous year. The decline is due to several factors. In the first place, fewer men are asking for or are being required to undergo medical examination for pension purposes, as I have already shown. This means that the fees and expenses of the medical staff and the cost of travelling are reduced and this alone accounts for £132,000 of the decrease. In the second place, the medical and surgical treatment required by disabled officers and men is steadily and quite naturally becoming less. There will, of course, always be a certain number of fresh cases arising from time to time where the old wound or ailment breaks down and recourse must be had to a course of surgical or medical treatment, but we are being to an increasing extent left with a residue of old cases which have not yielded to treatment or are in a condition constantly needing medical and surgical attention. These cases account for the upkeep of inpatient treatment and of the number of in-patients.
        The number of in-patients maintained at the charge of the Ministry is 15,000, as will be seen from Page 43 of the Estimates. This number includes 6,000 cases of certified insanity and 2,000 cases of tuberculosis in sanatoria, and the balance of about 7,000 cases of all kinds are in hospitals belonging to or controlled by the Ministry, with the exception of something under 1,000 who are in civil hospitals. As regards the Ministry's hospitals, we have continued the policy of previous years and aimed at concentrating the institutions as the numbers claiming treatment fell off. During the past year 16 institutions, either entirely belonging to the Ministry or at the disposal of the Ministry, were closed, leaving

        821
        53 hospitals in working order at the present date. In these 53 hospitals there are 7,700 beds, of which between 6,500 and 7,000 are normally occupied. My medical staff are fully alive to the importance of applying and developing the latest methods and appliances in medical treatment. During the past year the treatment of diabetes by insulin has been rendered considerably more effective, and attention has been given to the treatment by light, particularly artificial sunlight, in the cure of a variety of complaints. There is a decrease of £33,000 estimated in the cost of artificial limbs and appliances. This is largely the result of the change in the arrangements for the supply of artificial metal limbs, which I was able to make on the advice of the Departmental Committee presided over by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Sir G. Collins), which considered the whole matter towards the end of last year.
        I now turn to the largest item in the whole of our expenditure, which is, of course, the cost of pensions and cash benefits of all kinds to all classes of pensioner. This item accounts for 58,772,900 for this year. This figure represents a decrease of £3,177,000 on the previous year's expenditure, which, as will be seen from the printed estimates, amounted to £62,035,400. The expenditure I am referring to may be roughly divided, for the convenience of the Committee, into three groups, namely, the expenditure on disabled officers' and men's pensions and their children's allowances, £31,562,450; officers' and men's widows' pensions and children's allowances, £19,397,500; and adult dependants' pensions and gratuities, £7,812,950. In each of these items of expenditure there is some decrease on the expenditure of last year. One cause of that decrease, as I have already pointed out to the Committee, is a mere accident of dates, because there were more pay days for pension last year than normally fall in any given year. Eliminating this cause, which accounts for over £1,000,000 of the difference between the Estimates for the two years, the remaining decrease is the result of causes which must at this stage and with the lapse of time steadily operate to reduce expenditure.
        The chief causes of this normal and steady decline are, first, the death rate
        822
        among pensioners. Among disabled officers and men there are about 9,000 deaths a year, and among dependants the death rate is about the same number. Secondly, you have the disappearance of children from the pension list at the rate, at present, of about 50,000 a year, as they grow beyond the age of dependence and cease to be eligible for allowances. Thirdly, there are what I may call exceptional factors making for decrease, such as the remarriage of widows and dependants, or the payment of gratuities on various occasions, all of which are necessarily a declining quantity as time goes by. These factors of decrease are, to some extent, offset by new claims which are still coming in, though in diminishing quantities, largely from widows and dependants.
        The Committee will, I am sure, wish me, to say at all events a little on the pensions policy underlying these figures. The record of the last year is a record of the steady pursuit of the same policy as regards pensions that my predecessors carried out, namely, the policy of giving the maximum possible stability and security to the pensioner. My predecessors and I have gone very far—farther perhaps than many Members of this House or the public realise—in securing stability of pensions. At the present time—and this is a new figure—out of the whole, body of a million adult beneficiaries of the Ministry, there are no less than 750,000 disabled officers and men, widows, and adult dependants who are in receipt of final awards or other forms of life pension and for whom practical stability of tenure as pensioners has been secured. There are two elements in this matter of the security of pensions. The first is the security of title to any pension at all, that is to say, security with regard to the question whether the disability is due to war service or not. The second element is security in regard to the amount of pension when it has been properly determined That a pension is payable.
        On the problem of security of title, it has, of course, always been the duty of the Ministry to be sure that a pensioner was properly entitled to the pension in issue to him, and for some years awards of pension, many of which had been hastily adjudicated during the war and in the demobilisation period, were under regular review in order to determine

        823
        that entitlement had been correctly accepted by the Ministry. This process of regular review has now been brought to an end as regards all cases of current pension or award more than a year old, and, subject to the discovery of an actual error of fact, misrepresentation, or fraud, in an individual case, old awards of disability pension will not be questioned on the score of entitlement, that is to say, as to whether the ailment or injury was in fact due to or aggravated by war service. This applies to all classes of disability awards.
        With regard to the stability of the amount of pension, the present Government has given a far-reaching measure of security to existing pensioners. As Members of the Committee are aware, the Royal Warrants, when last settled in 1919, at a time when the cost of living was greatly inflated, gave a considerably enhanced rate of pension to all classes of pension, with the proviso that the rates were to be liable to a decrease of 20 per cent. if and when the cost of living fell to that extent. The cost of living, judged by the index figure of the Ministry of Labour, has fallen by considerably more than 20 per cent. The Government has, however, already announced the details of a settlement which gives stability for at least three years and so far as can be seen for a considerable time longer. This settlement has involved tile taxpayer in the considerable charge of £6,500,000 a year. Every class of case has benefited by the policy of stability.
        For widows, there has always been stability of award in so far as the rates of pensions are flat rates. For dependants equally, now, there is in the great majority of cases a similar stability of award The review of the two classes of parents' pensions, namely, those based on pre-war dependence and on a flat rate, which became necessary in the years 1923 and 1924, has been completed, and the amount of these pensions will not be liable to any further regular review, subject, of course, to the discovery in any individual case of an actual error of fact, misrepresentation, or fraud, of which account has to be taken. There is a third class of pension for dependant parents, namely, that based on a permanent condition of
        824
        need. For this class also I have during the past year succeeded in securing a substantial measure of stability. These pensions were formerly liable to periodic and fairly frequent review, involving slight changes, in many eases by way of reduction. A large number of them have now been freed from this constant review, and the majority of the pensioners will continue to draw their existing pension without further periodic revision, subject only to automatic adjustment as and when other statutory benefits, such as those under the Old Age Pension Acts, take the place of the war pension.
        In regard to final awards, for disabled officers and men the system of final awards laid down by the War Pensions Act of 1921 is achieving as far as possible similar stability in the case of awards in respect of disablement.
        At the present time very nearly 300,000 officers and men are drawing awards of life pension at various rates for which they have an absolute security of tenure. Rather less than 200,000 officers and men still remain in receipt of conditional pensions, but final awards are being made every week by the Medical Boards and by the tribunals on appeal in many hundreds of these cases. There are, of course, a proportion of both officers and men whose condition is serious and even deteriorating, and in whose cases it would be unfair to make a final award; but, apart from these cases, the relief from anxiety and security which is given by a life pension, and which ex-service men are asking me for now, will be given in every case in which it can equitably he given. I have endeavoured, very briefly, to state the position of the Ministry to the Committee so as to give the fullest opportunity to other Members to take part in the debate. I would only end by saying, as I have endeavoured to make clear throughout my speech, that our policy is stabilisation and security for the pensioner.
        Sir ROBERT HUTCHISON: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman make some statement on the position of the Special Grants Committee?
        Major TRYON: The position of the Special Grants Committee is that a considerable number of the Committee resigned, although I had asked them to carry on for a time to solve certain diffi-

        825
        cult problems. We have secured the services of a number of other excellent members, who are carrying on the work.
        Mr. R. MORRISON: Why did they resign?
        Mr. T. KENNEDY: I rise to make a few observations of a general character, in the first place, on the interesting document which the Minister of Pensions has read to the Committee. I regret exceedingly, as I am sure the Committee does, that the right hon. Member for West Bromwich(Mr. F. Roberts) is not present to speak on behalf of the Opposition in the matter of pensions' administration. I think it will be a very remarkable thing if the Committee is able to-day to detach itself from events which are happening outside, and to give that detailed criticism and consideration to this Vote which the Vote deserves. I think there is no department upon which we might more usefully concentrate our attention than the Pensions Ministry, and no issue has more sympathetic consideration from Members on all sides of the Committee than the interests of ex-service men and the dependants of service men who fell. The Minister has expressed himself, naturally, as being completely satisfied with the conduct of his administration. I think the Committee would not have expected him to speak otherwise; but in this matter I would like to suggest, without offence I hope, that the administration of pensions is a much more vital matter to those whose statutory rights are involved, that is ex-service men, disabled ex-service men and their dependants, than it is to the administrators of those statutory regulations which we are considering to-day.
        I am not going to raise on this occasion the general isues which were debated in the House only a very few weeks ago. I do not wish, for instance, to discuss the matter of continuity of pensions' administration policy referred to by the right hon. Gentleman. I am not quite so sure that the right hon. Member for West Bromwich, had he been here to-day, would have quite agreed with what the Minister said with regard to this matter of continuity of policy. Pensions' administration is a changing quantity, and I am sure no ex-Minister of Pensions is prepared to say that principles laid down two, three or four years ago as general principles of administra-
        826
        tion, must necessarily hold good for all time. The whole eld, of administration in the matter of pensions has changed, and I am certain that were my right hon. Friend here to-day he would agree with me when I say, that there is abundant reason for searching inquiry into, the whole matter of pensions' administration, in order that not only the Hon but a very large volume of informer opinion outside may be satisfied that the best is being done to day that can be done for ex-service men and their dependants. I am, personally, with some knowledge of pensions' administration, uneasy about the matter, and it is a fact, which no Member of this House would care to dispute, that the British Legion, which is representative of a vast body of ex-service opinion, is not quite so satisfied with the present situation as the right hon. Gentlemen opposite.
        I do not wish to raise controversial issues at, this stage, because I do not rise to move a reduction of the Vote, understanding that this Vote will not be pressed to a division to-night. Under happier circumstances, perhaps, we may be able to give the Vote the consideration it deserves. But I do wish at this stage to safeguard, at any rate, our position with regard to the general conduct of pensions' administration by saying this. When a few weeks ago we were told that the Pensions Ministry was following out a settled policy, which, in regard to its fundamentals, was going to remain unchanged, I say that is a proposition to which we cannot agree. The policy of centralisation which the Minister of Pensions has been urging on the House for the last year or two is, in our judgment, a policy which is not effective, useful, or beneficial from the point of view of the pensioner and his dependants, and while we have been told to-day that there is complete satisfaction in the country with regard to the dissolution of the regional councils, the advisory councils, and the setting up of central bodies in London for the conduct of pensions administration, I am perfectly certain that a large body of voluntary workers, upon whom the administration has depended in years gone by, would not agree that the situation has been improved by that centralisation, but rather that it has been worsened.
        I want to-day—and this is all I am going to try to do—to direct attention

        827
        to what, I think, is it any rate an important feature of policy of centralisation reflected in the Estimates before us. I think the police of centralisation is bad from the point of view of the interests of the ex-service man, but I think it is equally bad from the point of view of nancial considerations. I have never quite been able to understand how far the pension Minster agreed in his heart with this policy of development towards a centralised bureaucracy in London, as against the setting up of efficient local administration. I have always had a suspicion that in this matter the right hon. Gentleman was the instrument of people who do not sit in this house. When I say that I make no reflection upon any section of civil servants. I wish to bring out and which I think can be mote effectively brought out when we come to close quarters with the Estimates which are now before the House.
        These Estimates present a general feature to which I am going to call attention. First of all, it may be noticed that for the current year there is an expenditure estimated, of something like £4.013,100 less than last year. Last year's Estimate was £67,518,000. This year the Minister asks for £63,504,900. This reduction, I assume, is very largely due to natural causes: that is, a reduction and diminution in the number of cases dealt with by the Pensions Ministry. But I have a suspicion, borne out by my own experience which I think is the experience of every member of this House, that a very great part of that reduction is due to a reduction in the rates of pensions, and the cessation of pensions under the system of final awards now being administered, and that if we had not got really accurate details of these reductions we should find that they could not be justified upon any reasonable ground. I think we are entitled to say, as a general principle, that eight years after the cessation of the War the vast majority of pensions cases have reached a point of stability.
        The volume of business being done by the Pensions Ministry to-day is very much less than it was 12 months ago. On this matter of centralisation, as it is reflected in the Estimates, I want to bring to the notice of the Committee this very signify-
        828
        cant fact: that while thee volume of business is decreasing the headquarters staff of the Ministry has actually been increased since last year from 4,412 to 4,432. This, doubtless, is due to the change from local administration to central administration. The total expenditure for headquarters has increased, as shown in the Estimates, from £899,286 to £952,057, an increase of over £52,000. When we come to regional administration, of course it is true we find an explanation of this increase in the headquarters expenditure. The total expenditure for the regions has fallen from £363,000 odd to something like £40,000 in the current year, whilst the staff has been reduced from 1,776 to 212. Obviously, that is due to, and is a direct consequence of, the centralised administration, and the headquarters costs have necessarily increased. When we look inside this centralised machine that has been set up in London, which has absorbed and taken over all these useful functions performed in the past by the local committees and the local machinery, what do we find? We find that every branch of the headquarters administration seems to be top-heavy, so for as its expenditure is concerned.
        The branches seem, in my judgment, to be excessively overstaffed, especially in the matter of senior officers. For instance if hon. Members look at page 27 of the Estimates, they will find that in the general staff administration 14 officers are engaged in the supervision of 28 clerks—14 officers of high rank. There seems here a suggestion of waste. That brings me to state what I hinted at a few moments ago, that the zeal for centralization which the Minister has been pushing on the House at recent times is not quite disinterested. When I look at the Estimates, for instance, I find that the reductions in the staff are reflected far more amongst the temporary civil servants and the lower grades, than in the higher grade officials. There may be a sound administrative reason for that, but looking at the Estimates before us, I think we put up a perfectly reasonable request when we ask the Minister for some detailed information of the disproportion in the number of higher-paid and higher salaried officials to the lower paid. There may be, I say, a sound administrative reason which has not yet been revealed to the House of Commons.

        829
        When, however, I look at the general staff of the Department what do I find? We have a principal assistant secretary who receives £1,700, two principals who receive £2,121, an assistant principal who receives 1492, a staff officer who receives £789, three section heads who receive £1,797, four higher grade clerks who receive £1,971, two temporary officers who receive £892, and fourteen higher grade officers who receive 19,762 in salaries, and for what? For the supervision of twenty-eight subordinate clerks? These twenty eight subordinate clerks receive £5,722. The headquarters general staff is diminished by two since last year, and —this is a paint worthy of note—while the general headquarters staff has decreased numerically by two since last year, the cost has gone up from £15,521 to 115,544.
        4.0 p.m.
        I do not suggest that the staff are not fully engaged, but when I find a large department, a large branch of the administration, with these chief officers, controllers, superintendents and so on, I feel bound to ask the right hon. Gentleman if it is not as I have suggested, that the headquarters administrative staff is just a little bit top-heavy? I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he can explain why, in view of the fact that the detailed routine work of the pension's administration is a constantly diminishing quantity, he has found it necessary to increase his headquarters typing staff by 75 additional temporary typists? I pass on to the Accounts Division, and this is what I find. The Committee will find it on Page 29 of the Estimates. Since last year's arrangements terminated the following appointments have terminated. The Director of Accounts, two Deputy Directors of Accounts, two Inspectors of Audits, and one Senior Auditor have been dispensed with, but, to compensate for those dismissals or rearrangements, we have the new appointments of an Accountant General and a Deputy Accountant General, and, in this connection, the interesting fact emerges that while we have this diminished work in this Accounts Department the salaries of the branch have increased from £142,649 to 1144,177. I should like the Minister, if he can find time, to explain the increase. In the Pensions Issue Office we have a Controller, two Deputy Controllers, two Deputy con-
        830
        trollers, five principal clerks, nine higher executive officers, seven executive officers, six staff officers and thirty-seven senior grade clerks, and here the same fact emerges as I have already indicated. We have 67 higher officials in this branch of headquarters administration looking after 400 subordinates. The 67 higher officials receive something like£113,820 in annual salaries and the 400 clerks get£79,860. Coming to the Statistical Division, another branch of headquarters, we have a Director of Statistics with £1070 a year, and he is supported by a higher executive officer, a staff officer, and a higher grade clerk. May I ask exactly what the duties of this statistician is and what is his business mainly? This is all the information that I have been able to get up-to-date. His business is to receive reports of the results of the automatic checking machines at headquarters. This is a very expensive institution, and in view of the higher grade supervision for every other branch of the pensions administration, the services of this division might very well be dispensed with.
        I also find another interesting feature in the Estimates, and I should like to ask the Minister a specific question. The Committee is asked to vote £23,000 for the Ministry's representatives in Canada. That sum is for the salary of the chief officer and his subordinates, and for their expenses and allowances in Canada. This is a new feature and I. should like to ask how many actual pension cases in Canada are covered by this part of the administration. I now come to an even more interesting feature of headquarters administration. There is in the temporary ranks in the officers branch a reduction of 74, but in the higher grades, including the director, the Deputy Director, principal clerks, and 11 higher executive officers, we find no reduction in personnel notwithstanding, as I have already said, the vastly diminished work of the branch. I should like the Minister to explain how that can be justified on any sound business ground. Another branch of headquarters administration is the Officers' Friend Branch. Who is this official who is described along with his staff as the "Officers' Friend?" What are the functions of this branch? Is it simply engaged in soliciting voluntary aid for disabled officers? May I also

        831
        ask if there is any equivalent to this branch so far as the interests of the noncommisioned officers and men are concerned?
        I have not raised these matters merely in order to raise debating points or points of mere factious criticism, but I have raised them in order to show a general feature which I think is bad in the present pensions' administration, namely, that this centralised administrative machine in London is over-weighted so far as these highly-paid officials are cone irned, and the destruction of the local machine was prompted and mainly effected in order that the Minister or those who favour this policy might have a more obedient machine than they had when the local administration was more effective than it is now. The Minister has already told us something about the Special Grants Committee, but I do not think he has quite satisfied the Committee with regard to the reasons for the resignation of the members of that Committee, and I hope, if he returns to the subject again to-day, that he will tell us how the Committee is actually constituted, who are its members, how many there are, and whether there are at this moment any officials doing service on the Committee, and, if so, on what part of the Vote their salaries are borne?
        On pages 35 and 36 of the Estimates the pensions, gratuities, and treatment allowances to disabled officers are shown. I find that they are practically stationary. They do not show the natural reduction that you find when you look at the pensions allowances and gratuities of the lower ranks. I find also that in supplemental and special allowances to officers' widows and dependants the Special Grants Committee spent something like £112,000, but the amount spent for all other ranks by this Committee was only £39,000. I should like the Minister to explain the disparity between the figures, because they clearly indicate a class bias. The number of officers and their dependants is relatively small when you compare it with the large number of noncommissioned officers and men and their dependants. If one finds the amount given to officers through any agency, whether this Committee or any other, vastly in excess of the amount given to
        832
        the relatives of the rank and file, I think a question in order to elicit an explanation is perfectly legitimate. In the same way, I find that the educational allowances to the children of disabled officers amounted to something like £14,000, to the children of officers' widows to £61,000, and, through the Special Grants Committee, to £r3,000, a total of £88,000, whereas the amount paid out to the children and dependants of non-commissioned officers and men works out at £83,000. The Minister shakes his head. If he disputes my figures, I hope he will give us the exact figures. I had intended raising in more detail other matters, but I think I have said enough to show that all is not well so far as the internal administration of pension matters are concerned, and I hope I have said one or two things which will induce the Minister of Pensions, in order to satisfy the uneasiness that prevails, to grant the House, the country, and the ex-service men that inquiry into the Able pensions adminiatration which alone can satisfy us.
        There are two matters on which I should like to ask the Committee to allow me, before sitting down, to say a few words. The first is in regard to final awards. I know that the Minister stands by the principle of final awards. I want, again, to suggest to him that in this matter grave injustice is -being done to very large numbers of ex-service men. Medical science never has been and never will be an exact science. It is impossible for any medical man to say that 12 months or two years hence a man will be in a certain condition, and that his pension can be dealt with on the ground of what he may predict his condition will be. That is a sheer impossibility. A man who, for instance, has been receiving a pension on a 14 to 19 per cent. basis, having been given a final award which will terminate two years after the award has been made, may find, 14 or 15 months afterwards, that his disability, directly due to war service, has worsened. Under the existing Regulations, however, he is told that, as he has failed to appeal against the final award within 12 months of that award, he cannot have his case heard before the Pensions Appeal Tribunal. Those limitations and restrictions which are now present in pensions administration may be perfectly legal, and you may justify them by

        833
        appealing to Royal Warrants and existing Regulations, but they are merely legal obstacles which are permitted to exist as barriers in the way of men getting what, 1 believe, the House and the country wants every ex-service man to get, and I appeal to the Minister to get away from the idea that his discretionary power enables him to deal with all cases of hardship, and to place the ex-service man in a position where he can claim his pension upon medical diagnosis as a statutory right and not as a matter of grace. I apply that to the seven years' limit and to all those quibbling limitations which ought never to have existed at all.
        The other matter I want to say a word about is the position of widows. I do not think the case of the ex-service man's widow, her position and her dangers, has ever been properly realised by this House. We cannot make full amends to a widow for the loss of the breadwinner by giving her a few shillings a week for herself and her children; but the most vicious aspect of ' pensions administration so far as widows are concerned is that a large number of widows have had their pensions stopped on the ground of what the Minister of Pensions pleases to call a "moral lapse." I think it quite improper, as I have said before, that the Ministry of Pensions should set itself up as a sort of moral censor of the conduct of war widows. That not done, so far as I know, in any other department of public life. The Minister of Pensions would not wish to see the system followed so far as his own administrative staff are concerned. Think of the temptation, if you will, and of the danger in which a young war widow is placed who has to maintain herself on a few shillings which the Ministry of Pensions will give her if she has not been discovered in any moral lapse: The mere consideration of her position ought to remove any possibility of our lending ourselves to this wicked inquisition into the private conduct and moral behaviour of those who, in my judgment, are getting from the State nothing more than they are entitled to. But even if we think the Minister of Pensions justified in his moral censorship, and even if the war widow is guilty and I do not admit that she was in very many cases in which she has been penalised—ought we not to con-
        834
        sider the effect which the stoppage of her pension has on the well-being of the children for whose maintenance she is responsible? We are not merely hurting the widow—teaching her a lesson—but penalising the children and compelling her to have recourse to the Poor Law. I think these are legitimate points of criticism, but I will not detain the Committee longer, for I hope that on some other day we may be able to return to this Vote and give it more detailed consideration than we can to-day.
        Major COHEN: I have been awaiting this Vote, as there are several things I wish to bring to the notice of the House. While I am ready to admit, while, indeed, I gladly assert, that the majority of ex-Service men in this country are treated better than those in the rest of Europe, there is still a minority about whom a certain number of us disagree with the Government. I do not think, however, this is a moment to put forward t heir claims. I was surprised that this Vote was taken to-day, for it seems to me that while the controversy is going on anyone who is not for the Government is against the Government, and I, for one, do not intend to embarrass the Government in any way by any single item of criticism. The British Legion has been mentioned in this debate, and while the attitude of the British Legion on certain items regarding pensions is well known, I think it will interest the House to know that only a few days ago a resolution was passed by the British Legion urging all ex-Service men, who saved their country during the war, once again to support the authorities and the Government of the country. I think the majority of ex-Service men will agree that T ought not to put forward their particular ease to-day, when the case of so many others is of considerably greater importance and more urgent. That is all I want to say.
        Mr. T. WILLIAMS: I would like to offer one or two observations following the remarks of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. T. Kennedy) with reference to those widows who for some reason or other have been deprived of their pensions, in some cases for considerable periods. The Minister of Pensions will recall that quite recently I brought an individual case to his notice, and the

        835
        right hon. Gentleman's influence was largely responsible, presumably, for getting the pension re-issued. What I wish to draw attention to, however, is the faulty mechanism under which a widow who may have several children dependent upon her gets her pension withdrawn, and it is two, three or four years before there is any possibility of her securing it again, notwithstanding the fact that she is living a fully moral life. The case I have referred to is only one of many that hon. Members could bring forward, in which a poor woman who lost her husband during the war may have developed relationships with some individual while anticipating, perhaps, that a real union might follow. Unfortunately, however, those hopes are not always realised, with very sad, and even disastrous, consequences to the widow and her children.
        In the case I am referring to a woman, because of one lapse, was deprived of her pension for between four and five years. It is not so much the widow who is called upon to suffer as the children, who are in no way responsible for anything that may have occurred. I am sure the Minister agrees that no widow ought to forfeit her pension unless she has committed some immoral crime for which there is no sort of forgiveness. But the forfeiture of the pension in this particular case was the result of reports made by voluntary workers, which were subsequently found to be inaccurate and could not be relied upon at all. For four years that widow, while suffering all the anguish of having lost her husband, was called upon to endure a further agony as the result of some faulty information supplied by a "nosey-Parker voluntary worker" who ought never to have been permitted to deal with any individual case. The right hon. Gentleman ought to see to it that before any widow has to forfeit her pension very reliable evidence is forthcoming, and it ought to be forthcoming month after month—the woman ought not to be penalised for years as the result of one report which turns out to be a faulty one. When these eases arc brought to his notice the Minister sometimes shows righteous indignation, because he cannot believe that women have been deprived of pensions unless they have committed some crime. The Special Grants Committee are charged with responsibility in these cases, and while it is difficult to
        836
        ascertain the working of their minds, I think it is true to say they rely almost wholly upon voluntary workers, not all of whom have the best characters themselves. People charged with this responsibility should be of high moral character themselves, should be made absolutely responsible for all their statements, and should act in a strictly impartial spirit, and then the chances are that these cases would not be so frequent in future.
        I have also one or two observations to make on Appeal Tribunals and Medical Boards, which are closely allied to one another. I have in mind the cases of certain men who, beyond any shadow of doubt, are suffering from physical disabilities arising from their war service, are unable to follow their normal occupation and are unable to find an occupation fitted to their present condition. After having been before the Medical Boards time and time again they go finally, to an Appeal Tribunal, in the hope of being awarded a pension consistent with the physical disabilities under which they are labouring. They win their appeal before the tribunal, and become entitled to a pension, but the next thing that happens is that the Ministry calls upon them to attend another medical board, and that medical board can determine that. they have no pensionable disabilities, although the appeal tribunal, which consists very often of two medical men end one other member, have decided in their favour. The consequence is that the men do not get a- single penny piece, and must wait a further twelve months often dependent on the poor law before there is any chance of securing any financial benefit at all. Whether or not a select committee should he set up, as has been suggested, I think there is room for further investigation into many of the rules and regulations dealing with tribunals, medical boards and the various departments dealing with ex-service men.
        Another question I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman is whether there has been any change in the methods of dealing with men, who are suffering as a result of war service and should be on treatment allowance? Many cases have been brought to his notice where an individual has been in some institution and his dependants have been receiving treatment allowances: but when the man returns home there is no allowance for him

        837
        although he is informed that he must still go for treatment to his panel doctor, though the panel doctor may tell him that he is incapable of work and must not attempt to go to work.
        The right hon. Gentleman will better understand the peculiar type of case if I remind him of certain ex-service men who work in some of the deep coal mines of this country. Unless they are physically fit they are quite incapable. of doing their normal work. Probably they are suffering from some physical disability, and the doctor in the district realises better than most other people whether they are fit for work down the mine or not. Sometimes these men come into contact with the medical experts representing the Ministry of Pensions. A local doctor will give a man weekly notes for education purposes or National Health Insurance, thereby showing that the man is incapable of following his work and yet because the medical man representing the Ministry of Pensions slates that the man ought to be following his normal occupation, no treatment allowance is forthcoming. There are thousands of these cases in which they are receiving Poor Law relief because the medical man representing the Ministry of Pensions is taken as being right every time, while the panel doctor who knows more about these cases than the experts, is ignored almost in every individual case.
        The only other observation I wish to make is in regard to educational grants to children. I am sure if the right hon. Gentleman had an individual case brought to his notice he would not hesitate to provide for the child of any man who lost his life in the War with an opportunity of acquiring a really good education. As a matter of fact when we come to examine such cases as a whole, we know many instances in which after they have been brought to the notice of the Special Grants Committee, they have inquired into the question as to whether if the father had lived he would have been in a position to provide his child with secondary or continued education. They analyse the potential wages which the father would have been receiving if he had been alive, and invariably the balance of opinion goes in favour of the Ministry of Pensions and against the child, with the result that these children are often
        838
        deprived of a real opportunity of acquiring a reasonable education.
        The Minister of Pensions has stated this afternoon that the amount of money required for pension purposes is a diminishing quantity for four or five different reasons which the right hon. Gentleman clearly explained, but because the amount is diminishing it does seem to me that as the children who really need and apply for a continued education are a very small number the total expense would be extremely small, and I think we can afford to be generous rather than harsh when appeals of this kind are made for a continued education in the case of orphan children. What is now happening seems to be a tightening up of the rules when these applications are made, and I think the purse strings of the Special Grants Committee ought to be loosened somewhat, and the same applies to all those committees who deal with such eases. Wherever possible I think as many children who apply, and who can benefit by a continued education should be given that privilege in much larger numbers than has been the case up to the present.
        Sir HENRY CRAIK: I realise that the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy(Mr. Kennedy) and the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) have carefully avoided anything of an acrimonious character in this discussion. At the same time there are certain points which I would like to raise. I am not going to enter upon that very difficult question relating to the morality of the women, but I would ask the hon. Member who has just sat down whether his suggestion in regard to educational grants is really a reasonable one. The hon. Member asked why the education grants were stopped in the case of the children of war widows. I gravely doubt myself whether anyone could point to a single child of a widow whose husband was killed in the War and where the widow desired secondary education for her children, where she has not been able to get it.
        With regard to what the hon. Member said about the special doctors engaged by the Ministry of Pensions, 1 would like to ask is it right that the Ministry's medical officers, who have specialised in looking into these cases, and have brought all their scientific knowledge to-hear upon them, should be disregarded

        839
        and the panel doctor made the chief and final court of appeal. The hon. Member said he was sorry to hear the Minister advocate continuity of administration and he thought there ought to be no sch continuity. 1 would like to ask him whether he thinks that the ex-Minister of Pensions in the Labour Government would say that that is a safe doctrine to preach to the House of Commons, more especially when it is borne in mind that different parties may occupy the Treasury Bench in turn. Is it to be said that you may advance pensions to any extent, and that there should be no limit? What was the history of the pension system in the United States? Was there not there something of that very dangerousߞߞ
        The CHAIRMAN: I imagine that would require legislation, and it is not in the discretion of the Minister. Therefore, it cannot be discussed in Committee of Supply.
        Sir H. CRA I K: I only made that remark because the hon. Member opposite referred to it as an ideal system. I wish to say a few words in regard to what has been said about having a centralised system, because I happen to know something about the Origin of that system. When the first Pensions Ministry was established in 1915 or 1916, the proposal then was that there should be a Pensions Commission, and I opposed that proposal with all the vigour I could, because I thought that a Pensions Commission would lead to extra confusion and dissipation of power and machinery all over the country and make it amorphous and unworkable. Unfortunately I was persuaded to become a member of that Commission, and I was asked to take a position upon it. I never ceased to regret doing so, because it proved to be such a culpable waste of time, and a more impractical commission it never was my lot to see.
        We had a few rather inferior officials, and we were called together every morning at 10 o'clock. This went on for some time until it came to the length that there was laid before us one morning an elaborate scheme for the distributing of the rooms in a single house that was' to he handed over to the Ministry. That certainly was a question which ought to be settled by the Permanent Secretary of
        840
        the Department. What was the consequence? We had committees, advisory bodies, and deputy chairmen all piling upon us suggestions, and giving some particular answer to the question as it presented itself to them in their own little districts.
        What was the result? About £1,000,000 was placed at the disposal of the Pensions Commission but fifteen months afterwards they had not spent even the interest on that. £1,000,000. I have watched the work of the Ministry of Pensions very closely, and I was in very close touch with the admirable Minister of Pensions under the Labour Government, and I am sure he learned how much that administration had gained by centralisation and how much it had thrown off of nonsense and waste of time. We owe a great deal to the centralised authority and the regularity at the Ministry of Pensions. We have regional councils, and my own countrymen have tried to raise the red flag over the abolition of the regional council for Scotland. I do not the least identify myself, as a Scottish Member, with the opposition to the action of the Ministry in that respect; I would only ask hon. and right hon. Members opposite—who, I recognise, have brought into the discussion nothing of anger or acrimony—to put themselves in the place of the Minister, and ask themselves whether it is not possible that, among all the intricate details upon which they have expressed themselves with so much fervour, there is some other aspect that may be quietly argued? I do not think that, if the Minister of Pensions in the Labour Government had been here today, he would have quite joined in with all that his colleagues have said.
        Mr. R. MORRISON: I rise with the object of directing the attention of the Committee generally, and of the Minister in particular, to one point, and that is with regard to the very large number of ex-service men who have developed or are developing tuberculosis of the lungs. The right hon. Gentleman, in his statement, if I understood it correctly, mentioned that there were at the present time 2,000 men in sanatoria. I presume that by that he meant 2,000 men whose cases were attributable to or aggravated by war service. I think, however, that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that,

        841
        in addition to those 2,000 men for whom the Ministry is responsible, there must be thousands of ex-service men in sanatoria whom the Ministry disown. A very large number of men during the last two or three years have been turned down on the ground that the tuberculosis they had developed was neither attributable to nor aggravated by war service. I would like to ask whether the medical officers who reach these decisions are taking all the facts into consideration? Are they satisfied that all of these young men, who, a few years ago, were perfectly sound in body and limb, would, even had they not been in war service, have been suffering to-day from tuberculosis of the lungs? If the decision be that, even if all these young men had not joined the Army and gone through the privations of active service, they would still have developed in a few years tuberculosis of the lungs, I, as a mere layman, with no professional knowledge of the matter, must beg to differ.
        Take the case of the men, of whom there were thousands, who had malaria, or repeated severe attacks of trench fever. I suggest to the Committee that, as a result of that, the constitution of these men was seriously undermined, they were never able to get into a state of what one would call robust health, and, as a. result, tuberculosis of the lungs got them when otherwise it would not have done so. I am prepared to admit that they have not contracted it directly as a result of their war service, but the point I wish to put to the right hon. Gentleman and to the Committee is that, if they did not contract it as a result of their war service, they, at any rate, contracted the physical condition which prevented their complete recovery and made them easy victims when they came back into civil life.
        We hear a great deal in these Debates about the benefit of the doubt. I should like to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that the benefit of the doubt ought to be extended to all ex-Service men suffering from tuberculosis of the lungs. What happens if one asks the average medical officer, "Are you prepared to say that the thousands of young men who are suffering to-day from tuberculosis of the lungs would have been suffering from it if they had not served in the War?" The average doctor will reply cautiously that
        842
        he cannot state definitely, but that it is quite likely that the war service has been a contributory factor. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that that ought to be enough, and I suggest, further, that in all these thousands of cases—I am sure there is not a Member of the House who has not had very many of them brought to his notice—insufficient notice is taken of the opinion of the man's own doctor. In cases that arise now, where men have tuberculosis of the lungs, the Ministry demands an almost continuous medical record, but it is probably not realised by the Ministry how reluctant most people are, and particularly men who are liable to lose their employment, to go and see a doctor. The result is that they keep on as long as they can, until they are finally driven to see a doctor, and then find that they are suffering from tuberculosis of the lungs.
        I understand that tuberculosis officers and medical officers of sanatoria are forbidden to express an opinion on the question whether a man's tuberculosis has been caused or aggravated by war service. I will take a typical case. I have thousands of them, and I daresay other members have as many as I have. A man develops tuberculosis of the lungs, and is taken away to a sanatorium, or goes to see the county council tuberculosis officer. The Medical Officer says to him, "I think this has been caused by your war service you had better go and see your Member of Parliament, and see whether you can claim a pension." The man then, or someone on his behalf, goes to see his Member of Parliament, and tells him that the medical officer of the sanatorium or the county council tuberculosis officer has expressed the opinion that he is suffering from tuberculosis, and that it has been contracted owing to his war service. When the Member of Parliament does, as every member probably would do in a case like this—as I do, at any rate—namely, tells the man to go back and see the doctor again, and ask him if he will give a statement in writing to the effect that in his opinion the tuberculosis has been caused by war service, in 99 cases out of 100, the medical officer will not give any statement to that effect. I want to ask the Minister whether it is not the fact that tuberculosis officers and medical officers of sanatoria are forbidden to express

        843
        an opinion as to whether a man's tuberculosis of the lungs has been caused or aggravated by war service.
        The question was raised, I think, in the last Debate, as to whether Members of Parliament were justified in taking any notice of individual pension cases that were brought to their notice. As far as I, and, I think, Members in all parts of the House, are concerned, we do not want these individual cases. There is a tremendous amount of trouble in dealing with them. I would, however, like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, if Members of Parliament refuse to have anything at all to do with individual cases, they can always rest assured that those cases will get the same attention? The right hon. Gentleman nods his head in the affirmative. Let me, however, give an example. It. does not come directly under his department, but it was an experience that I had, and I shall never forget it as long as I have anything to do with war pensions. A man died in my constituency from tuberculosis of the lungs, leaving a widow and five or six children. The widow applied for a widow's pension, and received notice from the Ministry that she was not eligible for a war widow's pension. She then appealed to the Tribunal, on the ground that the Ministry had turned her case down. She was in very poor circumstances, and I did something that I very rarely do—I said that, as she had no one to help her, I would, if I could spare the time go down to the Tribunal with her and act as her representative and put die circumstances before the Tribunal.
        On the day before we had to go before the Tribunal, I spent nearly two hours going into all the details, getting documentary evidence from the man's previous employers, and generally trying to get up as good a case as I could to put before the Tribunal on behalf of this widow, whose pension had been turned down by the right hon. Gentleman's department. We got down to Cecil Chambers, in the Strand, where the Pensions Appeal Tribunal meets, and, after being kept outside for about half an hour—I am not complaining about that at all—we were called into the room. The widow and myself went in, and then, to my surprise, the Chairman of the Tribunal said, "I suppose you are busy?" I said, "Well, I
        844
        am; we are all busy nowadays; but I am not too busy to find time to go into this ease." He said, "I do not think we will trouble you; we have decided to grant this appeal." Neither the widow nor I had uttered a single syllable.
        I am just putting the facts as they actually happened. I have no desire to score any point of any kind, but I would now like to take the attention of the Committee hack to the point I made before I told this incident. I was asking whether members of Parliament, who, I am perfectly certain, do not like to have the worry of all these cases, can be assured that, if these people are left to themselves to see their own cases through, they will get just as much consideration as when a Member of Parliament happens to take an interest in their cases and back them up. I should be glad to have an assurance from the Minister that that is so. There may be some perfectly reasonable explanation of the incident I have given, but I think every member of the House will agree with me that it was certainly an extraordinary coincidence, and I should like to feel satisfied in my mind that, if that widow had gone before the Tribunal by herself, without anybody to speak for her, the same announcement would have been made to her that the Tribunal had decided to grant the appeal without hearing any argument. The right hon. Gentleman nods his head in the affirmative, and I completely and entirely accept his assurance, which I am very glad to have. I think that every member of the House will admit that the circumstances of the case I have narrated were extraordinary, and they certainly surprised me. I do not think I have introduced any acrimony into the discussion, and I have no desire to do so, either now or at any other time, but I do want to appeal to the Minister, who, I know is sympathetic towards all classes of these men, on behalf of those who are suffering from tuberculosis of the lungs.
        5.0 p.m.
        Sir GERALD HOHLER: I wish to put a point arising upon the case of a widow who subsequently married. Under the warrant she thereby receives small gratuity and loses her pension. In this case the woman was entirely deceived by the man, who committed bigamy, she believing him

        845
        to be a single man. It was found out, and the Ministry was applied to to restore the pension subject to the deduction of the gratuity she had received, but they entirely refused to do so. I submit that that was entirely wrong, and, what is more, it is a whole change of policy. I myself have personal knowledge of a case where a contrary decision was given. The, woman had been deceived, and the man had committed bigamy. The Ministry restored the pension, subject, of course, to the deduction of the gratuity. I think the gratuity was really written off against the arrears of pension. On what ground does my right hon. Friend now refuse to restore the widow to the position in which she was? I can find no justification for it under the warrant, and I think the Minister will agree, now that his attention is brought to the case, that it is a very great hardship. There is no justice in it. There has been no immorality on the part of the woman. She thought she was lawfully married, and then found she had been deceived. I hope my right hon. Friend will tell me this is a mistake, that the administration is what it used to be, and that this widow is entitled to the restoration of her pension.
        Mr. PALING: I should like to refer to the question of education. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir H. Craik) said he did not think anyone could point to a single case where a child had been proved capable of benefiting by secondary education where a grant had been refused. But I do not think that is the principle on which grants are made, as to whether the child is fit for secondary education. If my memory serves me aright, the test is whether the economic status of the father was such that, had he lived, the child would probably have been given secondary education. It is a question of the economic circumstances entirely, and that is why we think a good many applicants are being dealt with very hardly. I am very glad to note that this year the recommendations for special grants have been increased from £80,000 to £83,000. I believe a few weeks ago the Minister himself indicated that there was an idea of dealing more generously with this question, and that seems to be carrying it out to a very small degree.
        846
        The whole point of view from which secondary education is looked at to-day by the working classes has altered. It may have been that in 1914 there were relatively very few parents who gave their children secondary education. They could not afford it. But from 1914, particularly from 1918 upwards, the number of working class people who are anxious that their children should have secondary education has grown enormously. During the five years that I was a member of an education authority, the number of children sitting for scholarships grew by thousands every year, and the number who are gaining them grew too. In addition the number of children who either did not sit for scholarships, or whose parents, if they failed, were anxious for them to have secondary education and were willing to make sacrifices for it, grew enormously year by year. So fast were they growing that we found it impossible to build secondary schools fast enough to accommodate them. In view of this, although the Minister may be legally and technically correct in his interpretation of the Act as it stands, in view of this later development, I think a much more generous interpretation might have been given to this question. When I look through the figures relating to educational grants, I find under C.1, Pensions and Gratuities to Disabled Officers of the Navy, Marine, Army and Air Force, the amount to be given this year is £15,000. On the next page, under E, to the children of deceased officers of the Navy, Marine, Army and Air Force a sum of £61,000, and on the following page, under G, Special Grants to the Children of Officers and their Families from the Special Grants Committee, Children's Educational Allowances, £13,000. So that there is a total of £89,000 provided for the coming year for the children of officers.
        I am not complaining about it. They have a right to a good education, and apparently they are going to get it, but I am complaining that to spend £89,000 in the case of children of officers, who were relatively very few in proportion to the number of men in the ranks and noncommissioned officers, and only to spend £83,000 in the case of the men, is hardly fair treatment. I suggest to the Minister that he might extend his powers, which I think are very large in relation to this

        847
        question, to the very utmost limit, in order that the children of these people shall not suffer because their fathers happened to be killed in the War or disabled and pensioned off. The children of thousands of these people are sitting for scholarships, and surely the fact that a child has gained a scholarship, or is thought fit to sit for the examination, is sufficient evidence that it is capable of benefiting by secondary education, and surely it is not asking too much that when application is made these children shall be given special grants. I had occasion some months ago to bring a case from my own district to the notice of the Minister. It was dealt with very generously. I want to give credit where credit is due. I asked a question some few months ago, how many of these applications had been sent in, and I was rather dismayed at the number that had been turned down. I am asking now that the right hon. Gentleman will deal more generously with these cases in the future than he has done in the past.
        There is another question I should like to raise. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that the advisory councils were to be abolished. I should like to know whether those are the councils which were set up during the tenure of office of the Labour Ministry, and if so, why? Also can he give us some idea as to the percentage of recommendations which have come in from all those bodies which have been accepted by the Ministry, and how many have been turned down. In particular, is it a fact that nearly every one of these Committees has from time to time complained of she working of the seven year's limit and of the final awards. Have they all made frequent suggestions to him that it is time this whole business was gone into, either by a Select Committee or by some other method? In reply to my hon. Friend who spoke from the front bench, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities, when speaking against continuation of policy, said that in his opinion, had the Labour Ministry of Pensions been here, he would not have agreed with it, but I think he would, because although the Labour Ministry thought he could alter a good many of the hardships that then existed by a more generous interpretation of administration,
        848
        when speaking in this House a year ago my right hon. Friend said:
        "I want to submit that the time has now come for setting up a strong Select Committee, representative of all parties in this House, to delve into all the intricacies of this pensions administration once more."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 26th May, 1925, col. 1256, Vol. 184.]
        Most of these advisory councils have dealt with these matters and made these suggestions, and in view of the fact that last year 300 Members of the House signed a petition asking for the same thing, and that now, years after the War, Members are pestered with letters from people with grievances, does not the right hon. Gentleman think there should be a change in this direction and a Select Committee set up? An hon. Member below the Gangway asked if the right hon. Gentleman would make some reference to the question of the resignation of the Special Grants Committee. The Minister simply stated it was a fact that they had resigned, but he had succeeded in getting someone still to sit.
        Major TRYON Major TRYON indicated dissent.
        Mr. PALING: In any event, I should like him to give us some explanation why they resigned, and will he tell us at the same time whether this Committee had power to deal with things apart from the Minister, or whether in any question that they dealt with, he had power to alter their decision, and whether he has interfered time after time with their decisions and whether it is because of that that the Special Grants Committee have resigned. If they have not resigned for any of the reasons I have suggested, will he tell us what the reasons are.
        Captain O'CONNOR: I have one question to put to the Minister, and by a curious coincidence it is nearly the same question that was asked by the hon. and learned Member for Gillingham (Sir G. Hohler). I, too, know a case of a lady who was in receipt of a widow's pension in the ordinary way under the 1919 Warrant. She re-married a man who was impotent. She obtained a decree of nullity dissolving the marriage. The pension was stopped although she obtained the decree of nullity and the marriage was therefore void ab initio as though it had never taken place. She applied for a restoration of her pension. It seems to me that this is a case in

        849
        which equity demands that the pension should have been restored. The view taken by the Minister, I believe with some hesitation, was different, because I understand that after consulting with his legal advisers he came to the conclusion that she, was not entitled in these circumstances to the pension. That is a slightly different case from that mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Gillingham. My hon. and learned Friend tells me that his case was not of a marriage at all.
        The reason that I was going to offer to the Minister for the extraordinary action which he has taken in the case I have mentioned, was that he is confusing a lot of old decisions which seem to establish a difference between a marriage which was void because it never in fact took place according to law, and a marriage declared void ab initio, although during its currency it was a good marriage. In later cases under the law of nullity. I say this having some special knowledge, and having had occasion to look into many eases in which I have practised in the Courts, that distinction has disappeared almostly completely. In fact, where a marriage is declared null and void by the Court of competent jurisdiction in this country, for every purpose it is just as if that marriage had never taken place. The decree of the Court in such a case is declaratory, and it is declaratory of the fact that there has been no marriage.
        In these circumstances I submit for the Minister's consideration that he has no legal ground upon which he can stand in saying that the widow in these circumstances ought not to suffer the deprivation of her pension. Apart from the legal grounds altogether, on equitable grounds the discretion which the warrant vests in the Minister could hardly be exercised more disastrously than in a case like that to which I have referred. There can be no conceivable justification for the exercise by the Minister of his discretion against a case such as that. The woman on every moral ground is obviously entitled to regard herself as in the same position as if the unfortunate episode, which was not, a marriage, had never taken place. If these cases are to be precedents, I submit that they should be very closely examined and that the Min-
        850
        ister should review the exercise of his discretion in the light of my observations.
        Mr. PILCH ER: I have no intention of making either a legal or a long speech, but there are one or two points to which I would like to draw the attention of the Minister. I have no complaint personally, for when I have brought cases to his notice they have received the most courteous attention. I should like to refer to the intention of closing or of reducing to a part-time office the pensions office at Truro. The county of Cornwall is a very long straggling one, with only horizontal connections or, at any rate, very few vertical connections, and with indentations in the coast. I understand that with respect to the office at Truro it is proposed to take it away to Plymouth. I realise that it is proposed to carry out this change in the interests of economy. I have the greatest sympathy with the motive of economy, but I do think that the ease of Cornwall is a very special one, and merits the consideration of the Minister. The proposal came before the County Pensions Committee a little while ago, and 13 votes were cast against it and only one in its favour.
        I have received statistics of the amount of work done in the Truro office during the six menthe immediately preceding the consideration of the ease by the Pensions Committee, and I find that 2,711 letters were sent to the office and 3,086 were dispatched from the office during the six months. From my own experience as a member for one of the Cornwall constituencies, I can testify that there is a very large amount of business going through that office. From all parts of the constituency I am receiving persistent inquiries regarding cases, some of which, judged on the mere grounds of ethics and logic, seem to a plain man to be very hard cases. There is one case in which a woman was debarred from her pension because her husband died more than seven years after he received his injuries. She has no pension and she and her children are dependent on the guardians. There is another case at the other end of my constituency in St. Austell, which relates to the question of final awards. It is the case of a man who had a very good war record. He was employed by a firm of china clay merchants. He did good ser-

        851
        vice in the war, and he was awarded a 40 per cent. disability in 1922 on the ground of arthritie.
        The award was adequate to the man's condition at that time, but when last in my constituency, I received a letter from the firm which employed him saying that it is now impossible for him to do any sort of manual labour, or any sort of hard work. The man saw me, and insisted on unclothing himself so that I might see his condition. He is a perfectly hopeless cripple, and the award is now totally inadequate to the merits of the case. I have sent the employer's letter to the Minister, and I am sure that he will deal with the case on its merits. I am receiving that sort of letter from all over my constituency. There are these hard cases. We do feel that it is a mistake to take the office away from Truro when that office is dealing with four or five thousand letters every half year Moreover, there are something like 200 voluntary workers who feel that it is an imposition upon them to take this work to Plymouth.
        Mr. SULLIVAN: I should like to mention the ease of a man who fought in the War, and sustained three wounds in the thigh. The medical reports show that there is still shrapnel in one of the wounds. Nevertheless, the man's pension has been stopped. His applications for pension have been turned down. When I was home last week he appealed to me to approach the Minister. I cannot understand the reason for turning down this case. Last week I went to see the man, and I found that one of the wounds was still running. He is a miner, a very steady man, and a very good type of man. With a running wound, he cannot risk the danger of contact with water at his work, because that would kill him right off. We have had no redress in that case so far. I do not claim to be a medical man, but it does not require a medical man to know that when a thigh has been punctured and one of the wounds is open it is impossible for a man to follow his usual occupation. Cases of this kind tend to bring discredit upon the administration of pensions. I served on a local pensions committee, and I can understand many of the difficulties, but I do suggest that there is too much red
        852
        tape and less sympathy and human touch in dealing with these cases then was shown at the beginning.
        I know from personal experience that hon. Members opposite are just as keen as we are that justice should be done to the men who served their country and suffered thereby; but, unfortunately, for some time past we have been getting one answer when we send cases to the Ministry. When I was a Member of the House in the last Parliament I appealed to the present Minister as an ex-soldier. I thought that with a soldier as Minister of Pensions he would know what the men did and what they suffered and the feelings they would have if they thought they were badly treated, and that we might get more sympathetic consideration. But I am inclined to think that he, too, is beginning to forget. If the nation forgets and if the Minister forgets it will leave a very bad feeling in the minds of these men. I hope that when this case is sent back to the Minister we shall get better treatment than we have received so far. I can assure the Minister that, despite anything that may be in the medical report, the man is suffering as a result of his service in the War. Indeed, the medical report says that there is still shrapnel in one of the wounds, and I know that one of the wounds is open. That makes the man incapable of attending to his work.
        Major TRYON: I desire to thank hon. Members who have taken part in the debate for their contributions, in telling me of the difficulties which they find, and putting forward their criticism so moderately. I will take in order the various points that have been raised, beginning with the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. T. Kennedy). I am sorry he is not in his place, but I know that he has been present during the greater part of the debate. He spoke of the reduction in the cost of pensions and the reduction of the vote, and suggested that it was clue to final awards. That is an extraordinary mistake. It is the final award which secures the pension of the man from reduction. The hon. Member cannot have appreciated the advantage which it is to a man to get a final award of pension for life.
        The hon. Member also spoke of the centralisation of our work, and criti-

        853
        cised it very severely; but he forgot to mention that it was the policy, and the right policy, of the late Government to carry out centralisation. It was in accordance with speeches made by members of the late Government before they assumed office. Perhaps I may quote again the statement made by the right hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Roberts) when he said that it was the definite policy of the Ministry with which he entirely agreed, that all the regional headquarters should in due course be absorbed in the central office in London. Therefore hon. Members speaking from the front bench opposite must be careful in attacking a policy which was carried out, and quite rightly, by their own Government when they were in office. The hon. Member also referred to the disproportion of the higher staff to the rest of the staff, and to our failure to reduce the staff. I would point out that in regard to the staff of Pension Issue Office the Whitley Council has made representations that the higher staff is inadequate and should he increased. Centralisation does not lead to additional expense but to considerable reductions. The present Vote of £1,962,900 for Administration covers the whole of the administration. In a previous Vote the regional system alone was responsible for £2,000,000, but the abolition of the regional system and the centralisation of that part of the work has led undoubtedly to great reductions in the administrative cost. The hon. Member male the mistake of confusing regional offices with area offices, which do maintain a personal touch with pensioners.
        I was greatly tempted to interrupt the hon. Member when he referred to the Statistical Department, but I refrained. One of the uses of the Statistical Department is to reply to the numerous questions put by hon. Members, but it has a much more important part to play in the administration. Whatever the Vote of the Ministry may be the pensions paid out depend not upon the Estimates provided for the year, but upon the decisions of the medical boards and the number of men who have a right to a pension. What I mean is this. In the case of other Departments it may be possible to limit expenditure to the exact amount of the Vote, but the Ministry of
        854
        Pensions cannot. It is important that we should keep to the closest possible approximation in our estimates to our expenditure. There have been cases when enormous over-estimates were made. The work, of course, was incredibly difficult, but a large over-estimate only means the raising of a large amount of additional taxation without any corresponding benefit going to pensioners. It is important, therefore, that we should have a just estimate of what we are likely to spend, and in that matter the Statistical Department of the Ministry plays an important part.
        It has been suggested in the course of the debate that the amount of money we are spending in Canada, £23,000, is a good deal more than we ought to spend considering the small number of pensioners in Canada. We were spending at the rate of £38,000 a year, but under the new arrangements we have made a saving of £15,000, and we are now only spending £23,000 on administration work in Canada. The Committee, I think, will agree with this expenditure. We are, in fact, spending about £1,000,000 a year in Canada, and it is our duty to do all we can to keep in touch with the pensioners who have gone overseas, and who are living in the scattered districts in this great Dominion. I do not think the House will grudge the expenditure we are making in an endeavour to see that our administration in Canada is being properly carried on, and I take this opportunity of thanking the Canadian Government for the way they have assisted us in this task.
        Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Will the Minister of Pensions reply to the question put to him by the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. T. Kennedy), as to how many ex-service men we had in Canada for whom this money is expended.
        Major TRYON: The number of pensioners in Canada is 15,000, and when hon. Members consider that they are scattered all over that great Dominion, I do not think they will consider the expenditure too much. I must say that I was somewhat astonished that any hon. Member should attack the work of "Officers' Friend." Extraordinary complicated and difficult questions have to be considered and dealt with, and officers have not those local committees and

        855
        voluntary workers which are at the disposal and service of other ranks. The least we can do is to provide officers with a corresponding aid and assistance in order to help them with the very technical and difficult questions regarding their warrants and pensions, and to help them in putting their case to the Ministry. The question of widows and the forfeiture of pensions is an extremely difficult subject, and I cannot do better than put the position plainly and bluntly to the House. When a war widow marries she unquestionably loses her pension. That is the law; but the point at issue is this. Can she evade that law by living with a man, possibly have several children by him, and maintain her pension merely by not going through a legal form of marriage. That is our difficulty, and those who criticise us in this matter do not quite realise that there is the other side of the question. The feeling is very strong that a woman should not be entitled to draw her pension when she is living with another man.
        Mr. WI LLIAMS: Will the Minister bear in mind that the general complaint is that the forfeiture of the pension ranges over a number of years when no adverse reports can be levelled against the widow—that a woman has been misled by some unscrupulous man into an unfortunate position for which she is now suffering.
        Major TRYON: I quite realise the hon. Member's point, but I do not think hon. Members quite appreciate the large number of these pensions that are restored. A very large number of them are restored, and this is one of the most difficult tasks which the special grants Committee have to undertake. With regard to the speech of the hon. Member for Tottenham North, (Mr. R. Morrison) I should like to tell him that the only reason I left my place when he was addressing the Committee was to get the highest medical opinion I could on the point he raised. Medical officers fully realise the difficulties of the question of the connection between tuberculosis and war service. They are conscious of the difficulties of the problem, and in many ways these cases have received special consideration. A question was raised about the Tribunals. These tribunals are set up over me. I am not responsible for
        856
        them. They are independent bodies. When they go into each case, they have all the information of the case set before them.
        We have to choose between two explanations of the incident described by the Hon. Member for Tottenham. One is that before the applicant himself appeared before them the Tribunal had decided to grant the case, so impressed was the tribunal by the facts as put before it in the precis prepared by the Ministry of Pensions itself. The other suggestion is that the formidable appearance before the tribunal of the Hon. Member for Tottenham so terrified that body that it immediately granted the applicant his pension. I rather expect that it was on the principle of justice that they proceeded to grant the case.
        Mr. R. MORRISON: Will the Minister give the Committee the assurance, I am sure he can, that the poorest and most illiterate in the land, when they go before the tribunal, get as good a hearing as anybody?
        Major TRYON: I can assure the hon. Member that that is so. The clearest possible instructions are sent to the chairman of the tribunal, to the effect that if an applicant be enable to put his ease properly through illness or from lack of education, he do all he can to make all the points possible in favour of the applicant. That is a very proper instruction. With regard to the question of Members of Parliament and individual cases, I am in some considerable difficulty, because if Members put an individual case to me and it goes through, I am open to the attack that it would not have been considered but for the action of the Member of Parliament, and if it is not successful, then again I am open to the attack that we are hard hearted. At a recent meeting of the new Central Advisory Committee, I was struck by the strong feeling that exists in that committee that as far as possible cases should be kept away from Members of Parliament. It was felt that Members of Parliament should not be involved in the trouble and anxiety of these cases, and they were anxious that the local resources of the Ministry and the ex-Service men's organisations should be utilised by applicants rather than that applicants should write to Members of Parliament. That is the opinion of these voluntary workers.

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        I will look into the case referred to by the hon. Member for Bothwell (Mr. Sullivan). Some of these applications are justified and some are not, but this House has asserted the principle that the decision of the tribunal is binding. The Committee will not expect me to express an opinion at the moment on the cases referred to by the hon. Member for Gillingham (Sir G. Hohler) and the hon. Member for Luton (Captain O'Connor). They are matters at Law and not matters in which I have as Minister, a discretion. I shall be happy to examine these two eases but I cannot express an opinion on them without examining them. The hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Mr. Pitcher) referred to the question of the office at Truro. He made a very strong appeal for the retention of that office, but I must remind him that the office will remain in Truro. It is not going to be abolished. The enormous saving in cost which has been effected by a reduction in the duties or status of some of these offices would not have been possible if we had given way to the opposition which has nearly always come when we proposed to do away with or reduce any local office. There is hardly a single case in which we have attempted to centralise and do away with any office which has not met with local resistance, but the fears, the sincere fears, which have been expressed have not been justified by subsequent events after the change was made.
        The Special Grants Committee do extraordinary difficult work. They are voluntary workers most of them, and they deal with such matters as the forfeiture of widow's pensions. I have already replied to a question with regard to the resignation of the Special Grants Committee and this is what I said:
        "Certain members of the Committee, 1 regret to say, recently resigned on the ground that they differed from me as to the procedure to be adopted in reviewing, and, so far as necessary, reorganising certain branches of their work particularly on its educational side, and because they wished to give me a free hand in this reorganisation. I have made the necessary new appointments.''—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th April, 1926, col. 2179; Vol. 194.]
        I hope the Committee will not expect me to say more on this difficult question. I am now awaiting hopefully the success of their deliberations.
        Mr. R. MORRISON: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman give the Committee any information as to the appointment of the new members of this Special Grants Committee?
        Major TRYON: The one thing we have had in mind above all others in making these new appointments is that it should bring a larger knowledge of educational matters into the committee. But the position of this committee has been somewhat misunderstood. Suggestions have been made that they pay considerable allowances to the wives and families of officers when they are in hospital and that they do not make corresponding payments to other ranks, and that they have some class bias in the tter. If there be any bias or any inequalit, it is not in favour of but against the officer. The other ranks draw their allowances for their families when in hospital as a matter of course, whereas in the case of the officers it is only those whose need is established who get the allowance. Officers' allowances are made as special grants, but those of the men are in the main block of this Vote.
        Mr. PALING: How many of the old members are on the new Special Grants Committee?
        Major TRYON: There were two, but one has since resigned. The representative of other ranks from the British Legion is still a member.
        Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again," put, and agreed to,— [Captain Bowyer.]
        Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

  UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BILL
  Order for Second Beading read.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Betterton): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  As the House will see, if they look at it, this is merely, a Bill for extending the operations of Section 1 and part of Section 3 of the Act of 1924, and Section 5 of the Act of 1925. It is a short Bill with only one operative clause. Its main, and indeed almost its only purpose, is to

  859
  ensure that unemployment benefit which would otherwise cease after 30th June of this year, will be payable for the extended period laid down in the Bill. If the Bill be not passed, all benefit payments would cease on 30th June, but, although the benefit payments would cease, the obligation to pay contributions under the existing law would remain. It is obviously necessary, therefore, that we should have some extension of the period which the law at present provides. Hon. Members will see what I have stated is provided for in Section 1 (a). Sub-section (2) deals with another matter which will be familiar to the House. Under the Act of 1924 the power of waiver by the Minister of what is known as the thirty contributions rule came to an end in October of 1925. Under our Act of last year that period was extended until June, 1927. Under the Bill we propose to extend that power of waiver also to December of next year, so that the two dates will synchronise.
  Clause 3 of the Bill deals with the power which the Ministry has of making arrangements with associations of employed persons, trade unions and others, under which the trade unions as our agents pay the benefit to those who are entitled to it. Under the existing law the contribution which they pay is fixed by the Act of 1920, hut unless we prolong for a further period the powers which we already have, they will be called upon to pay a higher contribution than that which they now pay. We wish to keep the matter with regard to them, as in everything else, in state quo. For these reasons, I submit the Bill with confidence to the House, as a formal and uncontroversial measure.
  Mr. SHAW: I am a little in doubt as to whether it would be possible at this stage to discuss certain features of the Unemployment Insurance Act as it now exists, and I am sure that in the present circumstances, when there is that doubt, one might let the Bill go to the Committee upstairs instead of attempting to thrash out our old parliamentary questions in this House when people are occupied by other things. Consequently I shall not attempt to offer any opposition to the Bill, nor indeed to offer any criticism of it. Criticism and amendments we will reserve for the Committee stage. Every-
  860
  one knows that this Bill is absolutely essential. In 1924 an amendment of our Act was carried to reduce the operation of it to the term of two years. Unless that provision is suspended obviously we shall be in a condition with regard to unemployment insurance that we cannot contemplate. With regard to the giving of another term to the waiver of the Minister, I shall make my only appeal to the Minister. It is that the waiver should be used with very much more generosity than heretofore, and that the unemployed should have a better chance than the Minister has given them up to now.

  GENERAL STRIKE.

    ILLEGALITY OF PROCEEDINGS
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Bowyer.]
    Sir JOHN SIMON: I see in the newspapers this morning that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Leeds (Sir H. Slesser) made some observations on the Motion for the Adjournment last night, in criticism of a speech which I made to the House two or three days before. I do not at all complain of the hon. and learned Gentleman doing that, though I think it was a little unfortunate, since I was in the House within two or three minutes of his rising, that he did not inform me that such was his intention. The hon. and learned gentleman is an old professional and private friend of mine, and he has been kind enough to express his regret and explain the mistake. I say no more about it except this, that I quite understand that the hon. and learned Gentleman might have been tempted to make a speech without giving me any notice, because he was criticising a speech of mine in which I had pointed out that there were cases in which the failure to give notice exposed people to actions for damages. It may have been that the hon. and learned Gentleman was anxious to give an illustration of a case where the failure to give notice does not expose anyone to an action for damages. I can assure him that, so far as I am concerned,

    861
    I make no complaint, because it is not worth while occupying the time of the House with it.
    I cannot help thinking that the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman showed that he has not apprehended the main point which I tried to put to the House. That is no reason why I should be annoyed, but I think it is important that the point should be understood. Most unfortunately, as I began to speak the other night, there appeared to be a kind of general strike proclaimed on the Labour Benches. Not only did the Labour Members strike work, but three or four of them who were prepared to remain, were what I believe is called "fetched out"; they were peacefully persuaded by the pickets. As we are fortunate now to have some of the members of the Labour Party present, I hope I may be allowed very seriously to put briefly, but in perfectly plain and rather broade; form, the main point to which I ask the attention of the House, and, if I may say so, of hon. Members above the Gangway. I can assure them that I am not spending my time in discussing some miserable, legal technicality. The point which I put is a point which must be admitted to be of the greatest possible substance and importance if it is right.
    The central proposition which I suggest that anyone who studies this matter fairly must accept is this—that this so-called general strike, whatever be the provocation or the explanation or the circumstances which caused it to be decided on, is not, properly understood, a trade dispute at all. I am quite willing to believe that it has had its origin in a trade dispute. I take the view that, so far as that particular trade dispute is concerned; my hon. Friends above the Gangway are very far from being people without reason for supporting most strongly the contention that the coal miners must have all the public support that could properly be given to them. But my point is that, once you proclaim a general strike, you are as a matter of fact, starting a movement of a perfectly different and a wholly unconstitutional and unlawful character.
    Mr. THURTLE: No!
    Sir J. SIMON: I think I can quote reasons which the hon. Member will respect. I take the view that the Trade Disputes Act, when it spoke of a "trade
    862
    dispute," undoubtedly never contemplated at all the situation in which we are standing to-day.
    6.0 P.M.
    The best proof of that is that the Trade Disputes Act was carried through this House on its Third Reading without anybody voting against it, and the plain fact is—not as a matter of narrow law, but as a matter of broad fundamental constitutional principle—that once you get the proclamation of a general strike such as this is, it is not, properly understood, a strike at all because a strike is a strike against employers to compel employers to do something, but a General Strike is a strike against the general public to make the public, Parliament and the Government do something. I ventured this view last week because I felt it my duty to state it as clearly as I could for the information of any who might choose to listen to me, or read what I had said. The hon. and learned Gentleman the member for S.E. Leeds last night observed that these legal propositions could only be finally decided by judges, and not by other members of the public. That is quite true. I merely offered that view believing it to be true, but I have very good reason now to think that it is accepted and entertained in quarters which the hon. and learned gentleman the member for S.E. Leeds certainly will not suggest are either partisan or ill-informed on the subject. I notice that a very learned judge, Mr. Justice Astbury, in a judgment which I understand lie gave this morning—I saw a copy of the judgment an hour ago—has been stating this proposition. I think it worth while to read to the House three short passages from the judgment of this learned judge who had before him a dispute concerning the Sailors' and Firemen's Union. I am not concerned with that dispute, but in the course of his judgment the learned judge, dealing with the facts and the law, said:
    "The so-called general strike called by the Trade Union Congress Committee is illegal and contrary to law, and those persons inciting or taking part in it, are not protected by the Trade Disputes Act of 1906. No trade dispute has been alleged or shown to exist in any of the Unions affected except in the miners case, and no trade dispute does or can exist between the Trade Union Congress on the one hand and the Government and the nation on the other……. The orders of the Trade Union Council above referred to are there-

    863
    fore unlawful and the defendants are at law acting illegally in obeying them, and can be restrained by their own Union from doing so."
    This was a case where the Union itself was intervening to prevent members of the Union from being required by other bodies to leave their work improperly. Then the learned judge said:
    "Now the law upon trade union benefits is as follows. No member of the plaintiff union or any other Trade Unionist in this country, can lose his trade union benefits by refusing to obey unlawful orders."
    I am sure my hon. and learned friend the member, for S.E. Leeds will be glad to have this from a judicial authority. I understand his language last night might be thought to show some little doubt about this, hut perhaps I was ill-informed. The learned judge proceeds:
    "The orders of the Trade Union Congress and the Unions who are acting in obedience thereto in bringing about the so-called 'general strike' are unlawful orders and the plaintiff union is entitled to have this fact made clear and brought to the attention of its members."
    That was the second point I made.
    Then, says the learned judge finally:
    "Trade union funds in this country are held in a fiduciary capacity, and cannot legally be used for or depleted by paying strike pay to any member who illegally ceases to work and breaks his contract without justification, in pursuance of orders which are unlawful, and this fact also is one that the plaintiff union is entitled and bound to make clear to its members in the difficult position in which they have been placed."
    I venture to delay the House to read those extracts, because if the hon. and learned member for S.E Lee 's wants judicial authority, there is the judicial authority. I do not know whether the hon. and learned member would attach importance to an extract from a textbook of repute. He himself is the author of a text-book on this subject which is, if I may say so, a very good one. In the course of that work—which I know very well and which many of us often use, greatly admiring the talent of its author—the hon. and learned Gentleman himself in his own book, under his own hand, lays down this very simple proposition—
    "There has recently arisen for consideration the question of how far a strike called for political objects,—'direct action'
    864
    as journalists have called it—that is, a strike to interfere with or constrain the act of the Government in conduct which the trade unions do not approve, can he said to he a strike in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute. This matter has fortunately not yet had to be decided."
    The hon. and learned Member was writing some time ago. Most unfortunately it has now to be decided. As a matter of fact, it was decided in the Law Courts this morning—
    "I have very little doubt that such a strike would not be covered by the words and the definition of the Trade Disputes Act."
    I just want to point out to members of the Labour Party, [HON. MEMBERS: "You need not"] I think some members of the Party do need it, but let me point out to the House that the only possible matter that ever could be debated on this subject is whether or not the particular proclamation of a strike does or does not come within this perfectly plain constitutional rule. You may do what you think right in the exercie of the right to strike against your employer, but you are not only breaking the law, but you are inflicting a most serious blow on the whole constitution of the country if you abuse that undoubted right with totally different effects. So that the result of what you do, whether you mean it or not, must be that you are putting pressure upon the community, the Government, the people, as a whole.
    I am saying a thing which has been perfectly well understood by the Labour leaders themselves. I do not suggest for a moment that the very distinguished leaders of labour who are represented on the Front Opposition Bench in this House are not as well aware of these propositions as I am. My very respectful criticism is that if they are so well aware of that, firstly, they should have stated it explicitly and publicly before this strike was proclaimed, and, secondly, they should have risked everything sooner than have allowed themselves to be associated in supporting a general strike. Let me repeat words which were used by one of the most respected leaders of the party, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes). He discussed this long ago, and put it quite correctly and quite plainly—
    "if you ever attempt to do this thing, if you ever attempt to declare a strike

    865
    which really is designed to bring pressure on the Government or the community this is what will happen. You tell them there will be a strike for 24 hours, perhaps 48 hours and then you tell them you want a couple of days more, and so on. It is easier to get men out than to get men back, and all the time you imagine that the Government and the other people will be doing nothing but simply waiting for Labour's victory. All experience is against such a lame and impotent method as that. You cannot do it—"
    I am glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Clynes) has just come into the House, as I was quoting his well-known and courageous declaration—
    "You cannot do it without anticipating a condition of civil war."
    For my part, I entirely acquit the responsible Parliamentary leaders of labour from ever having designed, as a motive and an object, the blackmailing of the community which is really to what it amounts.
    Mr. THURTLE: Who are the coal-owners blackmailing?
    Sir J. SIMON: If my hon. Friend will wait for a moment, he will find I am doing full justice to them. I am saying I entirely acquit the responsible Parliamentary leaders of Labour from having been guilty of such motives. [HON.MEMBERS: "We do not want it."] I am speaking to the House of Commons. I acquit those leaders of having set out as their object and intention what in fact is the inevitable consequence if a general strike succeeds, what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Platting himself said must happen, and I repeat his words—
    "You cannot do it without anticipating a condition of civil war."
    But I wish to point out that people in this world have to be judged not by the motives which some of them may have in deciding upon very serious actions, but upon the quite obvious results which the action, when determined upon, is bound to produce. I would invite the House to consider for a moment the character of the announcement which was made I think on Saturday afternoon May 1st, by the General Council of the Trade Union Congress. This was before the negotiations broke down, and before whatever mistake the Government made, and I think the Government made some very bad mistakes; it was before the negotiations
    866
    broke down at all. Consider the real character of the announcement which the Trade Union Congress then made. They announced that they proposed, on the following Monday, to call out and bring to a dead stoppage carefully selected industries in this country, and these industries were selected for the express purpose of making it difficult, and it might be in the end impossible, for the life of the country to go on. There was no reason on earth why they should have called out these particular trades unless it was with that object. They had no quarrel, and the workpeople whom they called out had no quarrel with the employers in those trades. They stopped transport. With what object? Not because anybody in transport has any quarrel with the coalowners, but because transport is one of the vital services of the country. Some foolish misguided people who ought to have been sternly corrected by more sober Labour opinion imagined that they could bring the country to its knees. Of all the stupidities that have ever been perpetrated the most stupid thing of all was the attempt to stop the Press. I am perfectly convinced that no Government can ever conduct a monopoly of newsprint, newspaper ink, newspaper information, and newspaper circulation to the satisfaction of the community at large. A Socialist Government could not do it. No Government could do it, and there is nothing more certain than that in history the decision to stop the circulation of the Press will be regarded as one of the greatest condemnations of the folly which has started this business. Up to, the present we have kept our temper, but let me point out what an astounding view it must be which imagines that the community can be compelled to put pressure on the Government, because, for example, you stop transport in London. We have all seen shopgirls and typists and the rest trudging along sometimes great distances, morning and evening, to and from their work.
    Mr.SMITH: Some of them to slums at the other end.
    Sir J. SIMON: Does any human being of any party or opinion believe that by making those girls do that for a week or two, you are going to make them more favourable to the miners' case? You can make these people go to immense incon-

    867
    venience and suffering and I dare say want, and when you have finished you may wear out the girl's shoes, but you cannot wear out her spirit. [An HON. MEMBER: "How about the miners' wives?"]. I do not want to say anything to create temper at all. Just consider. We all had experience, or those of us at any rate who were at home at the time, of what it was like when the Germans tried to bomb London with Zeppelins. The Germans knew so little of the British character, that they thought that, by putting people living in London to inconvenience or it might be danger, they would somehow advance their cause. I never could have believed that my countrymen, who know the British character as well as any of us do, and who are just as good specimens of the British character as any of us, would have thought that you could possibly secure public support for your cause by operations which are designed to put inconvenience and possibly danger upon the general inhabitants of this land.
    It is that aspect of the matter which makes it so perfectly clear to me that I want to be excused for trying to make it clear to everybody that this is not in any proper sense of the term at this moment a trade dispute at all. It has its origin, I do not doubt, in very deep seated and genuine feeling, and in a very serious industrial matter, but that does not in the slightest degree either explain or excuse the confusion of mind—for it is much more confusion of mind than anything else—which has led perfectly respectable people to imagine that they can adopt the method of the General Strike without completely changing the whole of the character of the activities which are associated with organized labour.
    I know that I have to-day, and the other day, been talking law, but I am the last person in this House to suppose that law is the whole of life. I have never thought so. [Interruption]. My hon. friends above the Gangway are annoyed with me now, but I know very well that there are considerations involved in this whole story which are vastly more important than any mere legal proposition.
    I thoroughly agree, if I may be allowed to say so, that there is apart
    868
    from the legal question a much bigger question, a constitutional question, a Parliamentary question, and that, side by side with that, there is a social question, an industrial question, and a human question. But—and, after all, this is a place where we ought to express our views—what I feel is that the country cannot really concentrate its mind upon, and no Parliament can do justice to, the social, industrial, and human issues involved in this unless it is first realised that the proclaiming of this General Strike was a tragic blunder. It is not that the people who did it were a set of revolutionaries who wanted to break the country to pieces. It is that it has been done under some, I think confused, but at any rate quite mistaken impression, that this was a lawful exercise of the rights of organised labour. It is nothing of the sort, and until there are people who will say that openly and loudly and firmly in another quarter of the House, I feel it my duty to do my best to say it from this quarter.
    When one looks back over the last few days and considers the situation at this hour, this, I think, is perfectly clear. It is perfectly clear that the General Council of the Trade Union Congress has got itself into a position which at the moment it cannot get out of. I saw in the newspapers to-day a statement reported by one of the members of the General Council of the Trade Union Congress to this effect: "We cannot afford to make the first move." I have no doubt that the same is true about the Government. The Government says that in defence of the community, in defence of us all, it is bound to put up a resistance to a General Strike, and it is perfectly right. To the considerable disappointment or misunderstanding of some people who are friends of mine I have felt it my duty to say boldly that the Government is right about that. But what I feel so deeply—and this is the last thing I have to say—is this. We have got a situation in which on the one hand, those who have proclaimed this General Strike do not see their way to call it off. We have got, or the other hand, a Government representing the whole country which cannot in the circumstances take the first step, and the result is that we are threatened with a continuance from day to day of this frightful condition, merely because the

    869
    people on the two sides—and I ask my hon. friends to notice that the two sides are the Government and the Trade Union Congress—each of them, cannot make an open move.
    If you will read the remarkable book recently published of Colonel House's Memoirs, you will see in it how in 1916 I think,—at any rate, it was before America came into the War—America was in confidence apparently making certain propositions to Germany on the one hand and to our own Government on the other, and evidently, in the view of Colonel House, those were propositions which might perhaps have led to some earlier solution on terms which would still have secured victory to the Allies. I do not know whether that is right or wrong, and we have too much on our hands to discuss the history of those days now, but my point is this that the reason why nothing came of that was because neither of the two contesting parties could, in public, take the position that they were making even a suggestion or an attempt at a suggestion to end the War. Each side said, "If we were to do that it would be interpreted as weakness." And that is what the leaders of the Trade Union Movement are saying to-day. Exactly the same thing, I feel quite certain, must be passing through the minds of many of those who are responsible for the Government of the country. But there is this prodigious difference. That, at any rate, was a war that was being carried on against a foreign country, a foreign community, and we in this country were one community, acting together.
    This thing is a war—the reason why we have this censorship of the Press and so on is just because it is a war—in our own boundaries, and when I hear people, talking about fighting to the bitter end, I do not mind whether it is some hotheaded gentleman on the Labour side or, as I think, some reactionary on the Government side, I shudder at the idea that there is any sane human being who really thinks this is a fight that can be fought to a finish. If this is to be fought to a finish, even though the community is completely vindicated, it mans that our flesh and blood have been struck down and reduced, in life, hope, in business it may be, for dozens of years to come. There is no man in this country who ought to talk about this horrible con-
    870
    flict as a thing which is going to be fought to a finish. On behalf of myself and some of my friends, I am going to take a little responsibility. I see quite clearly the great difficulty which the authorised and respected leaders of labour are in. I regret with all my heart that they ever gave even a, silent acquiescence in this shocking and dreadful attempt to put pressure upon the whole community. As it is, they are in a difficulty. The Government I will not say is in a difficulty, but at any rate it has its difficulties, because there are people who want to fight to a finish on both sides. I am against a fight to a finish, whoever wants it.
    Therefore, my friends and I propose to put down on the Order Paper of this House a Resolution for an early date, in which we will ask the House of Commons to put on record its view that, if and when three conditions are satisfied, satisfied concurrently, the Government ought to announce its willingness for a short period to give assistance to this very hardly pressed coal industry. Now what are these conditions? I put first and foremost, as absolutely an essential condition, for the sake of the future of our country, for the sake of the whole orderly, constitutional Government of this land, the condition that there ought to be an immediate and an unqualified calling off of the General Strike. I put down, as a second condition, to be complied with at the same time—I do not care whether you call them lock-out notices or not—that there should be a resumption of work by the coalowners at the old rates from day to day, in order that there may be no attempt any longer to state, what I think is historically untrue, that as a matter of fact what they did amounted to a lock-out in the proper sense of the term.
    I say, in the next place, that the Government have got a responsibility. They have put on record, in the last letter which the Prime Minister wrote before the break, that they propose in any event to prepare legislation to carry out the recommendations of the Royal Commission so far as they call for fresh legislation. I propose that that should be one of the conditions to be imposed, and lastly, I think it ought to be an essential condition, not that the Trade Union Congress should say it will use its best en-

    871
    deavours, but that those who speak for the miners on the one hand and for the coalowners on the other should give a definite undertaking that they will forthwith negotiate on the basis of the contents of that Report, without excluding from it anything which it contains. I have no doubt many people can greatly improve on that formula. I am not on formula. I am on this simple point, and I appeal to the House of Commons. I have done my very best from here to show during this past week I do not qualify in the least my belief that this General Strike is in its, effects, whatever its intention may be, an attack which is borne by and inflicted upon the community as a whole. As such, I think it to be absolutely intolerable, but I am equally clear that if anybody on either side in this business talks about "fighting to a finish," ho cannot have the slightest idea of what is really involved.
    I have abstained in what I have said in the last few days from making criticisms about the early stages of the negotiations, not because I do not think there is a very severe criticism to be made. I think the time will come, and I hope it will come soon, when people will say to the Government, "You paid £24,000,000, the biggest price ever paid by the British people for anything of this sort. What did you buy with it? You bought time with it, and what have you done with the time? "I beg hon. Members who agree with me not to mistake. It does not matter what the merits of your case may be, or what aggravation you may have. If the Prime Minister refuses to receive a deputation in Downing Street, that is no reason for blowing up Whitehall. You are bound in the end to recognise that this method which you have adopted is a method which is criminal, which is unconstitutional, which will bring disaster to the labour cause, and which is utterly contrary to the wise advice which the Labour leaders have given in the old days.
    I indicated just now the sort of Resolution which my friends would put down. We should have thought that if those conditions were satisfied, the Government ought for a limited period publicly to announce its willingness to provide assistance for the coal trade in some form or other, but, unless something of this sort be done by people in this House or out of
    872
    it who are under no compulsion to reserve their suggestions for fear of being misunderstood, then the future of this country is dark indeed. It is all very well to say that this is a good-tempered strike. It is all very well to say everybody is cheerful and happy. There is no sensible, sober, careful man in this land who does not see to what this must lead. I, therefore, would, with great respect to the House of Commons, and apologising for taking upon myself something which I really do not care to do, suggest that these considerations will have to be borne in mind, and as soon as that Resolution which we will put down for an early day is one which the Prime Minister feels in his judgment can be usefully discussed it will be within the power of the Government and its Whips to give the House a day for discussing something of the sort, to see if we cannot bring this frightful business to an end.
    Mr. T. SHAW: I am very doubtful, indeed, whether this Debate is likely to do the good that the right hon. and learned Gentleman thinks perhaps it may do. It would have been better, think, if a Debate of this character had been initiated in circumstances in which we could have insured the presence of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. My hon. and learned Friend, the ex-Solicitor-General is not in the House, I am sure he would have been here had he known that this Debate would have been raised at this time.
    Sir J. SIMON: I can assure the right hon. Gentleman, that as soon as I read this morning that my hon. and learned Friend had made the observations he did, I wrote him a letter telling him that I should raise this matter on the Adjournment. I told him I should make no complaint of his remarks. I said I hoped he would indicate to any of his colleagues or friends that they were at liberty to attend if they liked.
    Mr. SHAW: I think most of us were of opinion that the pensions debate would go on longer, and that after the pensions debate there would be the unemployment debate, which no one anticipated would finish before 8 o'clock. I mention these facts to assure the House that what I said has really some foundation. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has explained to us the law, and has

    873
    read a lecture to the Members of the Labour Party. He has kindly absolved some of us from the responsibility for the General Strike. May I say to him, with all clue respect for his legal knowledge, that it is not illegal in this country for a person or a body of persons, however large, to cease work if they wish to, and I am not aware of any law which prevents any working man who desires to leave work at the request of any person from so doing. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about the breaking of contracts !"] Between a breach of contract and the illegality of a strike there is all the difference in the world, as any hon. Member knows. I repeat my point, that in my opinion it is not illegal for any body of men, however large, to leave work in this country, and if our people see that by leaving their work they can prevent an injustice being done to the bravest, the most generous and the most loyal of the workmen of this country, they have a perfect right to do it, and if they can prevent the injustice, well, God speed to them.
    May I say to the right hon. Gentleman, —speaking on my own behalf, and, I am sure, on behalf of all my colleagues on the Front. Bench and the Back Benches—that he has no need to absolve us from any blame. We really do not need absolution from the right hon. Gentleman. We will take the full responsibility for all our actions, and if he kindly keeps his blessings and his absolutions for his own friends, perhaps he will do more good than by making speeches such as the one he has made to-day. Every word of blame which he has apportioned he has apportioned to trade unionists. Not a word of blame has ho apportioned to those who are trying to drive below the subsistence level men who work in a dangerous occupation, in an arduous occupation. If his blame had been equally apportioned, if he had shared his blame between people who want miners to work for less than a subsistence amount, and the trade unionists, one would have understood the genuineness of his blame. All his blame is on the shoulders of the trade unionists. There is not a word of blame for the people who posted notices of savage reductions in wages, which no body of self-respecting workmen could accept, and no body of
    874
    self-respecting workmen could fail to help their colleagues in fighting.
    We had better know exactly where we are. We are not ashamed at all; we are neither ashamed nor afraid. From this Box, before this dispute broke out, appeal after appeal was made. The word "grovelling" was used. I am afraid that grovelling appeals were made, giving the impression of weakness. As a matter of fact, it was calm strength and not weakness. I know the gravity of this situation, and I do not want to minimise it. I have myself travelled this week-end, in one way or another, over about 500 miles of our roads. I do not need to be told by the right hon. Gentleman or by any hon. Member what a general strike means. Everybody knows the gravity of it, and those who would speak, intending to make party capital at this moment, even from our benches, are doing disservice to the cause of peace.
    My principal object in rising was to make it perfectly clear that as far as we are concerned, there is no responsibility we shirk, there is no cover under which we desire to hide. We do not admit that anybody who has ceased work has not the right to cease work, and we do not admit that the miners are wrong, or that the trade unionists are wrong. Let this proposition be perfectly clearly understood, in order that the House may realise what is the proposition it has to face. In a few words I am going to deal with the suggestions of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. It is rather regrettable that the lock-out notices were ever posted. That was the beginning of the dispute. It was perfectly well known to everybody in the country that if the miners were attacked, the rest of the trade unionists would stand by their side. Why, then, was not an attempt made in order to get these lock-out notices withdrawn, so that negotiations might take place? I hare spent thirty years of my life as a trade union negotiator. I know something of Government action, through the Ministry of Labour, as a conciliator. Both the Employers' Associations and the Labour Minister—one Minister after another—always puts one question to the Trade Unions in case of dispute: If the trade unions have tendered notices, those notices must be withdrawn before negotiations can go on. That has always bean the policy.

    875
    Why then has it not been the policy that the employers' notices should be withdrawn before negotiations take place? No attempt was made to get the employers to withdraw their notices, and the trade unionists feel, and the miners feel, that they are treated in quite a different away from the Employers' Association. On the one hand, both the Employers' Associations and the Government say in a dispute, "You must withdraw the notices. We cannot negotiate under a threat". But the Government have never to my knowledge said to a body of employers, "You must withdraw your notice; it is impossible for us to negotiate otherwise." That is a plain, simple statement of the case, I hope [Hon. MEMBERS: "No"]. If it be not a plain, simple statement of the case, let me try to make a simple statement of another case. Let me try to make a simple statement of another kind, and that is, that the trade unionist will never be contented to see a state of things in which his notice must be withdrawn before negotiations take place, but the employers' notice must not. That is where we are.
    What is to take place in the future? The right hon. Gentleman is to move a Resolution. His Resolution, I take it, if carried—and it will be carried if the Government accept it—will put the position, will give us what is known, I think, as the status quo ante, though I do not know anything of Latin—I understand it will be the position before the lockout notices were posted. If that be the case, then the House can discuss it. But I wonder if be can tell us whether it is likely to meet with a favourable reception, because some of us would like a hint in advance? If there is something behind it, then it is possible that there are some people on this side of the House who believe in peace, and if they have a guarantee of the status quo ante, and that the miners would get a straight deal, would help in every possible way to bring about peace. I am trying to look at
    876
    the matter for myself, as I can see it through my own eyes. I know how difficult it is to see the other man's point of view. As I see it from my own point of view, the miners have twice been deceived. In the first case, they were promised that the Sankey Commission's report should be accepted in the letter and in the spirit. I myself heard that promise made from that box opposite. That promise was never implemented. There was a second Committee that again declared, in order to bring prosperity to the coal industry —I am not quoting the actual words but the spirit of them—in order to bring prosperity to the coal industry there must be reorganisation. Again nothing was done. We had the subsidy paid for months long, and during all that time not a step was taken towards that reorganisation that two Commissions had reported was necessary. The third Commission reported that reorganisation was absolutely necessary. The employers never said a word about reorganisation. They proposed savage cuts in wages that it was impossible to accept.
    I do not believe that the coalowners or any Member of this House, would attempt to defend the notices which the employers posted. Here are the miners. Twice Commissions have reported that reorganisation was necessary. Nothing happens. The miners have to bear the brunt, in their wages, of the lack of reorganisation. Why should not, therefore, the workmen stand by them in order to help them out of their difficulty? It is their duty so to do. I am not going to make a speech that will raise any passion. I merely say, in conclusion, that when this Resolution comes before the House, we shall see who are the friends of the right hon. Gentleman. We shall hope in the discussion to hear less of the crimes of the trade unionists, and a little bit more of the crimes of the employers.
    Adjourned accordingly at Twelve Minutes before Seven o'Clock.

  ROAD EXPENDITURE.
  ROAD EXPENDITURE.
  SAFEGUARDING OF INDUSTRIES (STRAWBOARD).
  SAFEGUARDING OF INDUSTRIES (STRAWBOARD).
  TUBERCULOSIS.
  TUBERCULOSIS.
  POSTMARKS (ADVERTISEMENTS).
  POSTMARKS (ADVERTISEMENTS).
  UNEM PLOYM ENT (WALWORTH ROAD EXCHANGE).
  UNEM PLOYM ENT (WALWORTH ROAD EXCHANGE).
Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

PASSMORE EDWARDS (TILBURY) COTTAGE HOSPITAL CHARITY SCHEME CONFIRMATION BILL.
ALLHALLOWS AND MARWOOD (HONITON) CHARITIES SCHEME CONFIRMATION BILL.
ROBERT EARL OF LEICESTER'S HOSPITAL CHARITY SCHEME CON FIRMATION BILL.
BRIGHTON (LONDON ROAD) CONGRE GATIONAL CHAPEL CHARITIES SCHEME CONFIRMATION BILL.
Brought from the Commons, read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 3) BILL.
Brought from the Commons, read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.
PORT OF LONDON BILL.
Read 2a and committed.
LOCAL AUTHORITIES (EMERGENCY PROVISIONS) BILL.
Brought from the Commons and read 1a.
LAND DRAINAGE PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (No. 1) BILL.
Brought from the Commons, read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.

BANKRUPTCY (AMENDMENT) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:—

Great Western Railway.

Ramsbottom Urban District Council.

Kingston-upon-Hull Corporation.

Mynyddislwyn Urban District Council.

Middlesbrough Corporation.

Also the Certificate that no Standing Orders are applicable to the following Bill:—
Marriages Provisional Order.
And also the Certificate that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:—
Ministry of Health Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 2). [H.L.]
The same were Ordered to lie on the Table.

HACKNEY BOROUGH COUNCIL BILL.
  CHORLEY CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
  Committee to meet on Tuesday next.
READING UNIVERSITY BILL. [H.L.]
  WORCESTER CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
  Reported, with Amendments.

STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE.
Report from, That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the Petition for a Bill by
The Falmouth Docks and Engineering Company
ought to be dispensed with and leave given to introduce the Bill. And that the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the
Imperial War Graves Endowment Fund Bill
ought to be dispensed with—Read and agreed to.

LEGITIMACY BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES (AMEND MENT) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with an Amendment.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendment to this Bill be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendment be now considered.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE (JUVENILE SOCIETIES) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

ECONOMY (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Viscount Peel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Amendment as to proportion of contributions payable respectively by insured persons and employers and by the Treasury.
1.—(1) Section four of the National Health Insurance Act, 1924 (in this Part of this Act referred to as "the principal Act"), (which provides for contributions by insured per-

125
sons, employers and the Treasury), shall be deemed as from the first day of January, nineteen hundred and twenty-six, to have had effect as if for the words from "as to seven-ninths thereof'' to the end of the section their were substituted the words "in the case of men as to six-sevenths thereof, and in the ease of women as to four-fifths thereof, from contributions made by or in respect of the contributors by themselves or their employers and as to the ba1ance thereof from moneys provided by Parliament," and for the purpose of determining the amen tit to be derived from moneys provided by Parliament in respect of the cost of additional benefits administered by a society, other than additional benefits consisting of increases of sickness, disablement or maternity benefit, the amount of that cost shall be apportioned between men and women in such manner as may be prescribed by regulations made by the Minister of Health (in this Part of this Act referred to as "the Minister') with the consent of the Treasury.
(2) Nothing in this section shall affect the amount. of the sums which are to be credited to societies out of moneys provided by Parliament under the proviso to subsection (3) of section one of the National Health Insurance Act, 1922, (which makes provision as to the cost of medical benefit and administration expenses).
LORD ARNOLD LORD ARNOLD moved, at the beginning of the clause, to insert "As from the appointed day." The noble Lord said: In moving this Amendment I desire to state certain objections against this clause, which is the main operative clause of the Bill. I have other Amendments upon the Paper, but I shall deal with those very briefly; indeed, in one or two cases I shall have pleasure in giving way to other noble Lords, reserving such brief observations as I have to make until after they have spoken. It is on this Amendment that it is my duty to put forward some intricate and complicated points. It must be emphasised that this is a very important Bill. It intimately affects the lives of fifteen million people and, though the subject is highly technical and difficult, I feel that your Lordships will not grudge the time which is necessary in order to get at the facts.
The effect of my Amendment, if carried, would be to postpone, I hope indefinitely, the operation of the Bill. On the Second Reading I stated that this clause is a breach of faith. I repeat that now and I will at some length prove it. On the Second Reading I cited in that connection certain words used by the Minister of Health last year in another he, when he described any idea of raiding
126
the surpluses as a breach of faith. What was the reply of the noble Viscount opposite to me? He said that my remarks were irrelevant. In fact, he went further and said that they were wholly irrelevant. I have not been very long a member of your Lordships' House, but I have been a member long enough to learn that when the Government has a particularly awkward point to meet they fall back upon the old device of dubbing it irrelevant. I feel bound to say that I do not think that is a very high form of debating such as I expected to find in your Lordships' House. So far from the point being irrelevant it is, as a matter of fact, at the very heart and kernel of the controversy. I would respectfully say before I go further that I think in discussing such a highly technical subject as this in your Lordships' House we are entitled, in the replies that we get from the Government Benches, to rather more argument and rather less assertion.
The position of the Government in regard to this clause comes to this. They say that the Bill does not affect the surpluses, but only cuts clown the Government contribution to the societies. My first reply to that is a categorical denial. The question is what will be the effect of the Bill; not what does it say in words, but what will it do in fact; and I say that the surpluses, both present and future, will be affected by cutting down the Government contribution. Let me put this point Plainly so that there may be no misunderstanding. I will pick my words very carefully. I say that many societies will be unable to meet the new charge for medical benefit in Clause 2 and at the same time sustain the reduction in the State contribution proposed by this clause without using their accrued surpluses and, in some cases, their undisposable surpluses. Therefore, the surpluses will inevitably be drawn upon as a direct consequence of the provisions of this Bill. Thus, the position is that, even if it be technically the case that there are no actual words in the Bill which specifically take away a capital sum of, say, £10,000,000 or £20,000,000 from the surpluses of £65,000,000—because that is the estimated amount—yet the effect of the Bill will be definitely to take away some portion of the surpluses. Therefore it simply is not true to say that the surpluses are not touched and that it is only the State contribution which is reduced.
The position is that the effect of that reduction will be to take away some portion of the existing surpluses and to slow down the accumulation of future surpluses.
Let me look at it in another way. While, as I have said, it may be technically true that there is no actual clause in the Bill which specifically takes away £10,000,000 or £20,000,000 of the surpluses of £65,000,000, yet the effect of the Bill is, in point of fact, adversely to affect the finances of the societies to a larger capital sum than £65,000,000. This Bill reduces the Government contribution by £2,800,000 per annum. To take away an annuity of £2,800,000 from funds earning about 4 per cent., which is the correct figure, is equal to a capital reduction of no less than £70,000,000. It is, then, idle to say that the surpluses are not affected. The finances of the societies hang together as a whole just as the finances of a company do. Your Lordships will be aware that some companies, very prosperous ones, have in their balance sheets three or four different, kinds of reserve funds. There may be a general reserve fund, a contingency fund, a dividend equalisation fund and so forth. Very well. If, in those circumstances, there is a proposal for taking, let us say, £100,000 away from the general reserve fund, it is really not correct, looking at the finances of the company as a whole (and that is the point), to speak as if this operation has no effect upon the reserves as a whole. Of course it has, because it means that you have depleted the total reserves of the company by £100,000, and for practical purposes, looking at the problem as a whole, it really does not matter from which particular reserve fund that £100,000 is taken. In a sense it is merely book-keeping. The company as a whole is £100,000 worse off; and that is the point. Therefore, when you are looking at the problem as a whole, and that of course is what we ought to do in considering this Bill, then even if it is the case that the surpluses of £65,000,000 are not actually in so many words touched by a clause in the Bill, that contention, which is the contention of the noble Viscount opposite, has no real meaning or application in relation to the problem as a whole, because the total finance is inextricably inter-related, interdependent
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and intertwined, and this Bill actually worsens the finances of the societies to a greater extent than £65,000,000.
I will put the argument in another way, with a very simple illustration. If I have a big bowl of water and a cup and I take a. cupful of water away from the water on the left-hand side of the bowl it is no argument to say that that operation does not touch the water on the right-hand side of the bowl because it is taken away from the left-hand side. The point is, and there really is no reply to this, that the total volume of the water in the bowl has been reduced by a cupful and for practical purposes it does not matter a scrap from which particular part of the bowl the cupful of water is taken. So, looking at the whole of the finances of the approved societies, it is really a quibble to say that the surpluses of £65,000,000 are not affected by the Bill. I do not use the word "quibble" in any offensive way and certainly not in any personal way; the noble Viscount, I am sure, will understand that. The surpluses are affected as a matter of fact. Taking a comprehensive view of the whole situation it may be argued that they are, in effect, wiped out altogether. You cannot affect them more than that! Let me put the point in this way to the noble Viscount. It would indeed be better for the societies if the Government, instead of reducing the contribution as provided in this clause, would take away the surpluses of £65,000,000 altogether and leave the contribution at what it is now; that is, at two-ninths.
The more this matter is examined the more evident it becomes that the contention of the Government will not bear looking at for a moment. It was never suggested by Sir Robert Horne, and it was in reply to him last year that the Minister of health made the remarks which I quoted on the Second Reading of this Bill, and so far as I know, it has never been suggested by anybody that the Government should come along and specifically take a capital sum of, say, £10,000,000 or £20,000,000 or more out of the accumulated surpluses of the societies, out of the £65,000,000. That has never been suggested so far as I am aware. The phrase "raiding the surpluses" was a form of words used to indicate a policy of relieving burdens at

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the expense of the approved societies. That mast have been so, because what Sir Robert Home urged was a reduction in the contributions of the employers and employed. He did not suggest direct relief to the State and if he had clone so he would never have put forward the proposition of taking a capital sum of £10,000,000 or £20,000,000. That is not what the State really wants in its finances. His idea was to give some annual relief and so far as the State is concerned it is annual relief that the Chancellor of the Exchequer mostly wants. Hence this Bill and the reduction in the State contribution.
Last year the Minister of Health did not merely condemn what is called raiding the surpluses, for he was also on the same Occasion very severe in his language about the reduction in contribution, which is what this Bill effects, and Sir Robert Horne twitted him with this in the debate this year, and not unnaturally, because last year the. Minister of Health used strong language about a proposal to reduce contributions. He said such a proposal would be a retrograde step and that he would view it with very great lam and concern. He also said:
"if you reduce the contributions you must add to the number of societies that will be deficient and decrease the number of societies that have surpluses."
How then can the noble Viscount contend, when under this Bill the contribution is to be reduced by £2,800,000 per annum, that the surpluses are not affected? The Minister of Health himself, the representative of this Government, speaking in another place as I have just said last year, stated that the effect of reducing the contributions would be to decrease the number of societies that have surpluses. This Bill does reduce contributions; hence it will affect surpluses, and it will affect both present and future surpluses.
It must never be forgotten that this is a compulsory scheme which brings in three parties to the insurance, the State, the employers arid the employed, and for the State alone, without the consent of and without even consulting the two other parties, to cut down its own contribution is a definite violation of an agreement. The Government has no kind of right to
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default in this way and to cry off part of its bargain. I feel confident that is a point which must appeal to your Lordships. It is grossly unfair to the whole scheme. Last week the noble Viscount, if I may say so, entirely failed to realise the situation. He said that in 1920 the proportion of the State's contribution had been altered and therefore there could be no breach in doing the same thing now. But I pointed out to him that in 1920 the alteration was made by mutual consent, and as a matter of fact I may say that what was done in 1920 actually increased the State's total contribution and did not reduce it as this Bill does.
Leaving that, however, let me call attention to the very strange argument of the noble Viscount last week. He said that it did not matter that the change in 1920 was made by mutual consent and contended that, because a change had been made then, that was a breach just as much as this Bill is a breach of agreement. This is an astounding theory. If an agreement is altered by the mutual consent of the parties thereto there can be no breach. There may be an alteration, but there is no breach. Surely I am right when I say that breach means that one of the parties breaks an agreement without the consent of the other. That is what breach means and that is what this Bill does. Therefore there is a vital difference between this Bill and what was done in 1920.
I have already, in passing, referred to it, but I wish to mention that not only is there a breach of agreement but the societies were not even informed in advance of what the Government contemplated. Every previous change in the Insurance Acts—I quite admit there have been many—has been a matter of mutual agreement after long consultations and conferences between the Government and the societies. On this occasion, when this great blow fell upon the societies, no such conferences had been held. The Government had not even the common courtesy to acquaint the societies with what was going to be done until the very morning when the Bill was introduced.
I will take a further point. In the Government Actuary's Report on the original Bill in 1911 the following passage appears:—
"This margin in the contributions will represent a corresponding increase in the

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present value of future benefits, including allowances for cost of administration, since, on the assumption that the cost of these will work out at the anticipated figure, the societies will accumulate surpluses which will be employed to increase the benefits according to the provisions in the Bill."
This Bill is a direct violation of those words because the margin in the contributions which was to accumulate surpluses to increase benefits is to be cut down. I wish to give one other quotation. It is on page 13 of a copy of the Government Memorandum explanatory of the original Bill of 1911 as passed by the House of Commons, and there appear there these words:
"But it is necessary to put every society on exactly the same footing: first, for the purpose of the State valuation; secondly, as regards its financial position if it takes the older lives into insurance. This has been effected in the following way. Inasmuch as the State has convenanted to pay two-ninths of the benefit for men every society will necessarily be in a solvent condition."
Your Lordships will notice that it is here specifically stated that the State is covenanting to pay two-ninths and it is that covenant which is broken by the reduction of this two-ninths' contribution. The word "covenant" means to contract, to enter into a formal agreement, to bind oneself by contract. The State in this Bill is breaking its covenant. Therefore I say you have in what I have quoted full proof, as clearly as the words of the English language can establish anything, to demonstrate that this Bill is a breach of pledge or contract.
I must next emphasise this, that the word "surplus," with which much la has been made in all this controversy, is really a misnomer. The use of the word "surplus" is unfortunate. It really is a wrong term to use in describing the accumulated funds of the societies. It gives the impression that surplus means something additional to the scheme, but none of the so-called surplus could be so described, because the intention of the original Act of 1911 was this. It was not only to give cash benefits, but to give extended and treatment benefits, more commonly known as additional benefits. It would be more accurate to use, instead of the word "surplus, "the term" balances to provide schedule benefits." In the Schedule of the original Act there were fourteen addi-
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tional benefits. By subsequent legislation those fourteen additional benefits have been increased to nineteen, but even in the best societies the most that have been fully given by societies are fourteen benefits and, in the case of no society can there be a real surplus until the whole of the nineteen additional benefits have been fully given. So far from that having been done, the position is that some societies have not yet been able to give a single additional benefit out of the nineteen, and it is a tragic circumstance that this Bill makes it quite certain that they will never be able to give one additional benefit. That is a very serious matter.
These additional benefits deal largely with the preventive side of National Health Insurance and the preventive side is clearly expressed in the Government Memorandum explanatory of the original Bill in 1911. Dealing with the objects of the Bill that Memorandum said—
"The Bill is intended to effect as wide an insurance as possible of the industrial population against sickness and breakdown; it is also intended to be as far as possible a preventive measure operating to reduce the amount of sickness."
The intention to make the preventive side, as soon as the funds permitted it, a major part of the operations of the scheme, is not only implicit, but it is expressed in the original title of the Act: "To provide for insurance against loss of health and for the prevention and cure of sickness," etc. Yet it is that part of the national health insurance funds, which would be available for these preventive or treatment benefits, which the Government propose to take for the relief of the taxpayer.
I must next point out, and this is very important, that there is a substantial case for doubting whether the actuarial basis of the Bill is sound. The Bill is based upon the Departmental Actuarial Committee's Report to the Royal Commission, but unfortunately there is ground for fearing that the whole basis of the Bill may be upset. That is a very important point. Under clause 1 of the Bill the State contribution is, as I have said, to be reduced by £2,800,000 per annum. In addition to this the approved societies will be charged with a further yearly payment of £1,900,000 for medical benefit. Those two items, making

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together £4,700,000 per annum, are virtually equivalent to the total annual surplus which is being earned and may indeed, with the way things are going, be more than the total annual surplus.
The Minister of Health himself, last year, when he was resisting the speech of Sir Robert Home for a reduction in the State contribution, warned the House that in future surpluses will probably decline. He said this:—
"Is it certain that we can count upon the repetition of the surpluses which were accumulating down to the end of 1923? I beg the House not to take this as by any means certain. I beg them to understand that there are some rather disquieting features on which we have information which render it very unlikely that in future quinquennials the surpluses will be anything like what they were."
Those are his words, that in future quinquennials the surpluses will probably be nothing like what they were. This is further borne out by the reply given to the Royal Commission by the Deputy Government Actuary. What is the position? Since 1922 what I may call the sickness line has been getting worse. 1924 was worse than 1923 and 1925 was worse than 1924. Those are the replies by the Deputy Government Actuary himself, and I may say, in respect of certain societies representing several million of insured persons, that the sickness experience of 1926 is worse than the corresponding period of 1925.
My next point, which I can put very briefly, is this, that the effect of this Bill upon the surpluses is a breach of the understanding on which redemption by the sinking fund was extended in 1918. This is a very complicated matter, and I do not intend to weary your Lordships with it. It is sufficient to say that in 1918 a compromise was arrived at and an agreement made with regard to the reduction of the sinking fund for the redemption of reserve values. This understanding was set forth in paragraph 27 of the Ryan Committee Report, which said:
"The effect of this reduction in the income of the sinking fund would be to extend the redemption period. We are aware that objections may be entertained to this proposal on the ground that the present generation of insured persons have formed the expectation of an extension of benefits in 1932, but we consider that this disadvantage is more than met by the following facts."
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Then, among other advantages that will accrue, the Ryan Committee says:
"The scheme offers a substantial prospect to many societies of the provision of increased additional benefits at a date considerably in advance of 1932."
The position, then, is made quite clear. There was a definite understanding that if the approved societies agreed to reduction in the sinking fund there was given a quid pro quo which was that additional benefits to a larger extent would come much earlier than would otherwise have been the case. Those were the expectations held out and now that the surpluses have accrued and the additional benefits have accrued, this Bill is going to deprive those concerned of a large part of the advantages which they were promised.
Before I leave this—I should like the attention of the noble Viscount to this point because it is a very important point which, as far as I am aware, has not been made previously—I should emphasise that no small proportion of the surplus of £65,000,000 is due to the diversion of the sinking fund made in 1918. I do not say what proportion, but the amount is probably in excess of £20,000,000. This large sum, whatever the figure may be, would, but for the 1918 agreement, have been applied to the redemption of reserve values and thus would have hastened the day when, under Section 11 of the Act of 1924, there could be a general extension of benefit.
I must just say a word about the Report of the Royal Commission in connection with this matter because reference has frequently been made to the Report of the Royal Commission on National Health Insurance. The Government has sought to justify in some measure what it is doing by certain quotations from that Report. As a matter of fact, it is quite impossible to substantiate any contention of this sort. On the contrary, it is made plain more than once that the Royal Commission did not contemplate any reduction in the Government contribution nor any diversion of any of the resources of the approved societies. This can be proved in a sentence or two. For instance, in

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paragraph 153 of their Report the Royal Commission say:—
"We consider also that the scheme should be self-supporting, subject to the payment by the Exchequer of its present proportionate share of the cost of benefits,"
and so forth. There is nothing there that justifies reducing the Government contribution of two-ninths.
The Royal Commission, in the same paragraph, make it quite clear that they would not be party to any action that would modify the proportion of two-ninths. What do they say about that?
"While we have felt hound here to explain the situation in which this result arises, we do not desire what we have stated to be regarded as qualifying the recommendations which we make in later chapters of our Report in regard to the application of any margin in the existing scheme."
That margin was based on estimates formed on the assumption that the Government would continue to pay two-ninths of the cost of benefits. The position of the Royal Commission—I can put it in a very few words—was really this: They were much impressed by the fact that existing money benefits are insufficient. The benefits, however, could only be increased by larger contributions and that they were not willing to recommend. They therefore, apart from that, sought to do everything that was possible in the interest of the insured persons by recommending extended benefits. They recommended four such benefits. The first one, I am la to think, can still be given, but the second, which would have been possible but for this Bill, will not now be possible.
VISCOUNT PEEL: Which do you call the second?
LORD ARNOLD: That was the valuable provision of a small allowance to dependents of sick members of approved societies. That benefit will not now materialise. There is no economy here. This will only mean that in many cases people will be driven on the rates. You may relieve the taxes, but you will be making the rates higher. That appears to be the consistent and persistent policy of the Government. There is no real economy looking at the country as a whole.
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Before I sit down I must say a word or two on the question of the hospitals. In the Third Reading debate the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Sir Kingsley Wood, referred to a number of letters he had received from hospitals, in which it was stated that the passage of the Economy Bill would mean a big slice off their income. Commenting upon this matter, he said this:—
"It is a very unfortunate apprehension, and anyone who has put forward that statement is under a very wrong impression as to the position."
He went on to say that during the next few years approved societies could increase their grant to hospitals should they so desire. That statement is most misleading as it stands, for it can only apply until the surplus as disclosed by the second valuation is exhausted. It cannot seriously be argued that the surpluses can remain the same if the funds of the societies are deprived of £4,700,000 per annum—that is, £2,800,000 owing to the decrease in the Government grant and £1,900,000 due to the increased cost of medical benefit. Where, then, is this money coming from? Obviously out of the funds of the societies. Consequently there will be less surplus, and in such societies—and I commend this to the noble Viscount [Viscount Knutsford] opposite—as are fortunate enough to have any surplus their members will have to determine to what it will be applied. Grants to hospitals will most certainly be reduced, and there is little doubt that in many instances they will cease altogether. This is all the more true in view of the fact that this Bill will drive a number of societies into deficiency and, as regards others, it will so reduce surpluses that it is safe to assume that; grants to hosptals, if there be any grants will be of the slenderest dimensions.
I want in conclusion to put two short points to the noble Viscount. The first is this last week I said that in the case of certain insured persons Parliament was by this Bill definitely putting them in a worse position as regards benefits. I referred to the case of widowers and unmarried men between the ages of 65 and 70, and said that in some societies these men would be worse off owing to this Bill, if they became ill for a long time. Therefore Parliament is in this Bill definitely breaking to their disadvantage the contract which these men have made

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under the ægis of the State, and I maintained then, and I maintain now, that such a proceeding ought to be condemned in the strongest language that the limits of Parliamentary expression permit. What did the noble Viscount-say in reply to me? In the first place he quite misunderstood the point, and then, when I put him right about that, his argument came to this, that it really did not matter because, after all, Parliament was breaking the contracts of only a small percentage of the men and not of all the men—
VISCOUNT PEEL: I did not say that.
LORD ARNOLD: That was the implication.
VISCOUNT PEEL: That is a very different thing. I said nothing that could be interpreted possibly in any such way, and the noble Lord is only trespassing upon the House because he knows that there is no OFFICIAL REPORT published.
LORD ARNOLD: I think that the noble Viscount's remark is quite uncalled for. There will be an OFFICIAL REPORT. I definitely stated in my speech upon the Second Reading—and the point was perfectly clear—that, in the case of some men, and I named widowers and unmarried men between the ages of sixty-five and seventy, their position was worsened, or at any rate might be worsened in the case of long sickness, by this Bill, and that, under the provisions of the Pensions Bill of last year, it might work out in some of these cases that they would not be in such a good position as they would have been in if this Bill had not been passed. What did the noble Viscount say? He tried to suggest that I had made that remark about all insured persons between the ages of sixty-five and seventy, though I had not said anything of the sort. In order to make it quite clear, I have myself referred to the notes, and find that I referred only to the case of certain unmarried men and widowers. When I corrected the noble Viscount he said that it applied to only some of the men. I say that the implication of that is that it does not matter if it applies only to some of the men. I think it is perfectly clear that this was the implication, and surely this is a most amazing position for a Conservative Minister to take up.
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The noble Viscount seems to be unable to appreciate that there is a great principle at stake here, and from that point of view it does not matter whether the contract is broken in the case of a million men or of one man. It is the principle that is at stake, and that is the real point. I should like the noble Viscount to deal with that point specifically, if he will, in reply, and I hope that he will not evade the issue by an attack upon the Labour Party similar to that made by a certain noble Earl last week. I will not go into that matter now, but if the suggestion that trade unionists have broken their contracts were properly thrashed out it would be found to bear a very different interpretation from that which it has been sought to put upon it. But that has nothing whatever to do with this Bill, and I hope that we may keep to the issue that is before your Lordships' House.
I come to my last point. I made a quotation from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the effect that, despite this Bill, the societies were far better off than they expected to be, chiefly owing to the rate of interest having gone up. I disputed that the societies, or rather their members—for that was what was meant—were far better off than they expected to be. As a matter of fact, they are worse off, because the rise in the rate of interest is more than neutralised by the rise in the cost of living. But even if it were the case that these men are better off, I pointed out what a dangerous theory it was for the Government to propound—namely, that, because people who have made an agreement with the Government are better off than they expected to be then the Government is at liberty to alter that agreement. I do not think that I am misrepresenting the argument. That is what it comes to, if it comes to anything.
I cited as an analogy the case of the 5 per cent. War Stock holders, who are far better off than they expected to be owing to the fall in prices and I asked the noble Viscount to tell me, and to tell your Lordships, what would be the abjection in principle to applying this new doctrine of the Conservative Party to the case of War Loan interest. If it is argued that because the health societies are better off than they expected to be that is a reason for altering an agree-

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ment, why should not the same reasoning be applied in the lease of War Loan interest? On what grounds of logic—I put it to the noble Viscount—could the Conservative Party, having argued one way on this Bill, argue another way if a proposal were made—I do not say that it will be—for the compulsory reduction of War Loan interest on the ground that War Loan holders, owing to the fall in prices, are better off than they expected to be? The noble Viscount said last week that the points to which he did not reply then would be replied to by him this week. I put this point to him specifically. It is a perfectly fair point, and I hope that he will deal with it in his reply today.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 8, at the beginning insert ("As from the appointed day").—(Lord Arnold.)
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (VISCOUNT PEEL): May I call your Lordships' attention, first of all, to the terms of this Amendment, because I noticed that in the course of a detailed speech the noble Lord did not refer to the Amendment at all. I should like to point out that the Amendment as it stands upon the Paper means nothing, and accordingly, if your Lordships were to vote for it, you would be putting yourselves in the position of voting for something that, I am afraid, has no significance whatever. The noble Lord has merely put upon the paper the words, "As from the appointed day." The friends of the noble Lord who put this Amendment down in another place were, if I may say so, a little more businesslike and tidy than the noble Lord, because they did insert a date to which they wished the Bill, or rather the action of this particular clause, to be postponed. The noble Lord, however, did not take the trouble to put down any such date upon your Lordships' Paper and he says that the effect of his Amendment will be to postpone the clause altogether. I may say, incidentally, that such will not be the effect of the Amendment, for it will have no effect at all. I suppose that the object of the noble Lord really is to reject the whole clause and therefore to throw upon the finances of the country an extra charge of £2,800,000.
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I must, if I may, congratulate the noble Lord on having appended to so slender an Amendment so substantial a speech in point of length. I congratulate him also on having restated quite correctly very nearly the whole of the speech that he made to your Lordships on the Second Reading. I dealt with most of these points, I am afraid at rather inordinate length, on the Second Reading and accordingly, with your Lordships' permission, I shall deal with them very rapidly this evening. His first charge was that I had been guilty of some very terrible Parliamentary error in accusing the noble Lord, in reading some statement, of being irrelevant. That is to say, there was a statement, which I think he said had been made by the Minister of Health, about raiding the surpluses. I am sorry to say that I have to repeat what I said, because his charge is that the Government are raiding the surpluses under this Bill, and it is difficult to answer such a statement except by saying that they are not. That is the fact. I pointed out again and again, on the Second Reading, that there is no attack on the accumulated surpluses of £65,000,000.
The noble Lord, to-day, rather shifted his ground. I think he slid away from the £65,000,000 rather rapidly, and then proceeded to suggest that the Government are raiding the surpluses in the future, because if the reduction of the Government contribution was made, surpluses would not be so quickly accumulated in the future as they have been in the past. As regards the £2,800,000, I suppose that is pretty obvious. I never pretended that the societies would not be better off if they got that sum than if they did not get it. The argument, therefore, of the noble Lord opposite comes to this, that you are, as it were, constructively, if I may use the expression, raiding the surpluses; that if the Government went on granting the contribution which they do not consider necessary to produce the benefits, the surpluses would be larger because of that extra contribution. Of course that is so, but that is a very different thing, and the societies know it is a very different thing, from raiding the surpluses which they have accumulated. I think that is the whole extent of the noble Lord's argument.

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I should like to point, out, too, that really you must snake some deduction from the £2,800,000, because under the Bill £600,000 a year is released from the amounts that are added to the sinking fund, and the fractions taken away from the contributions of the employers and men in order to build up the sinking fund. In that way £600,000 is released and if the societies are for the future worse off in respect of Government contribution to the extent of £2,800,000, anyhow they are covered to the extent of £600,000 by the release from benefits. Therefore, when you are talking about £2,800,000, you ought more strictly to talk about £2,200,000, because that is one of the results from this Bill. I do not know whether your Lordships will thank me if I go into the rather long argument which I put forward last Thursday about the alleged breach of faith. I think the noble Lord rather modified that expression, but I think I have said before that the contribution of two-ninths was stated to be a contribution which would secure that those who entered into insurance at any age, whether sixteen, thirty, forty or whatever it was, would secure more than the full value of the benefits to be obtained from the contributions of employers and employed. That is so and that two-ninths was merely the expression in words, or writing if you like, of the way in which that promise was to be kept. That promise is still kept, because under the reduced contribution there is no question at all, if you look at the Report of the Government Actuaries, that the benefits and advantages to be derived by persons who enter into insurance will be greater than their contributions.
Again, the noble Lord has paid no attention to what has been done by the Government entirely outside their contribution of two-ninths, or one-seventh, as the case may be. He has not alluded to the fact that the income of societies is very largely increased by the extra interest on money. He used some argument about those people who get five per cent. instead of the three per cent. which was paid on borrowed money before the War. That argument does not affect the matter, because the Government borrowed money at the price of the day, but it is a definite advantage which the societies have got. Again, you have also the fact that £24,000,000 has been
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contributed by the Government to the societies wholly outside any sort of bargain, covenant, contract or agreement, or whatever may be the sort of phrase used by the noble Lord, and if you are going to construe this as a strict agreement, or strict bargain, the State would have a perfect right to say: Before we go on paying two-ninths give us back the £24,000,000 which we granted to assist the funds of the societies, as regards medical benefit and in many other ways
I do not know whether the noble Lord wants me to go into the small points which he made, but I would further point out the immense advantages accruing to the societies from the Widows, Orphans and Old Age Pensions Act, which takes away from the societies the whole burden of paying benefits to persons between 65 and 70 years of age, which is the period when the heaviest charges are laid upon the societies. I think he said that that was an unfair thing to do, because these people got less advantage under that Government Bill than they got under the Insurance Act. Then the noble Lord said: "Oh, but they did in certain cases," and I replied: "Ah, but that is a very different thing." When I said that, the noble Lord drew from my remark the extraordinarily unfair inference that I was approving of sonic breach of contract. I was only drawing attention to the fact that he had made a correction—a very grave and I think very wise correction—of the general statement which he had made as to the disadvantages under which people between 65 and 70 years of age were placed if they shifted from the insurance scheme to the scheme under the Widows, Orphans and Old Age Pensions Act. I pointed out at that time that the. advantages which they got were more than three times the advantages which they got under the Insurance Act.
Of all that the noble Lord tells you nothing at all. He omits the tremendous advantages given by the Government outside of any agreement, and the tremendous relief given to the societies by this Old Age Pensions Act, the capital value of such relief being put at £37,000,000. He entirely omits the advantages they get from the increase in the average price of their investments, and he settles down on this one point: that the societies, in spite of these

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immense advantages, are going, according to him, to be ruined because, on the carefully formed opinion of the actuaries, the Government contribution is to be reduced from two-ninths to one-seventh. That really is the general defence of the whole clause, but there were one or two further points made by the noble Lord. He said that, when the Bill passed, the subscriptions, as he called them, to hospitals will cease.
LORD ARNOLD: I did not say so.
VISCOUNT PEEL: Did you not say they would be diminished?
LORD ARNOLD: If the noble Viscount wishes I will read it all to him, but it is rather long. I did not say, however, that the subscriptions would cease.
VISCOUNT PEET: So far from ceasing or being diminished—and if they do not cease or are not diminished I think there was no point in the noble Lord's statement—from 1926 to 1931 the grants to hospitals would be more than doubled, and there is no reason to think that after 1931 those grants would be materially reduced. That, I think, answers the point of the noble Lord, whatever the exact point may have been, about the hospitals.
Broadly speaking, the whole effect of this provision is that the advantage to the societies is now reduced by £2,200,000; but, against that, you have to set the enormous advantages they have received from the action of the Government itself, and, as all the people who are insured at any age under this Act will be secured in getting benefits greater than they have contracted for, as it were—more, that is to say, than the value of their contributions—surely it is a fair thing for the State to say: "We have in the other way so immensely improved the position of those particular classes to whom this Act applies that we are justified, when we are not depriving them of any benefit, in slightly reducing the Government contribution as some quid pro quo, as sonic set-off, against the great additional advantages that will be conferred on those societies by the action of the Government itself."
LORD ARNOLD: Before we pass on to further Amendments, I should like to say a few words in reply to the
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noble Viscount. He began his remarks with certain criticisms of the form of the Amendment. That really is a very minor matter. As he knows, the Amendment was put down in order that a general discussion on the clause could take place, and the Amendment was in the same words as those put down in another place. But it really does not matter what the particular form of the words was; the object was to raise a discussion. The noble Viscount said it gave me an opportunity of repeating almost entirely my Second Reading speech. I have laced hastily through my notes, and a statistical estimate shows me that, so far from that being the case, I only used today—and that in a different form—about one-eighth of the arguments that I used upon the Second Reading. About seven-eighths of my speech was absolutely new, and I think it is a rather strange thing for the noble Viscount to say that I repeated my Second Reading speech. And, as regards the one-eighth, there were two points which I wanted the noble Viscount to deal with, which he said he would do, but which, as a matter of fact, he has not done, at any rate as regards one point. I particularly wanted him to reply to the point about War Loan interest. He has again disregarded it, and we can only conclude that the Government lets that go by default.
The other point which I brought up today, and which was referred to last week, has, in a sense, been dealt with by the noble Viscount. That was the point about the effect of this Bill upon certain widowers and unmarried men between the ages of sixty-five and seventy. Even here the noble Viscount has not appreciated the position. Once again he said precisely what he said last week. I never at any time said, or implied, that the whole position of persons between sixty-five and seventy was worsened by this Bill. The point I made is one, I think, which would appeal to the noble Lord, Lord Banbury of Southam. It was that if you had a certain number of people, however small, who were definitely put in a worse position owing to this Bill, in a contract which they had made with Parliament, that was not a right thing for Parliament to do.
Let me go into detail on that, because the noble Viscount did not give the figures. Under the Pensions Act a

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widower or unmarried man will get 10 s. a week from sixty-five to seventy, but if such a man became unwell, say when he was sixty-six, as many do—became what is called permanently disabled—for the first six months in the case of a good society he will. get, not 10 s. but 20 s. a week; and after that he will get 10 s. a week. I wonder what the noble Lord opposite would say if some such proposal as that now made were made by a Labour Government in regard to contracts. I think he would agree that it was not a right thing to do. The noble Viscount has not really touched that point. He now says that the general mass of the people get more under the Pensions Bill than they do tinder this Bill. I am not denying that. I am dealing with this specific case, and I think it is a point which is worth your Lordships' attention. The noble Viscount also says that the societies are relieved of the whole charge of persons between sixty-five and seventy. I think that is incorrect. I think he will find that they are relieved of cash benefits, but are not relieved of additional benefits.
The main controversy, of course, turns round the question of surpluses. I went over it again and again, and I am not going to repeat what I have already said. But the noble Viscount did not appear to appreciate what I said twice or three times—certainly twice—that the effect of this reduction in the Government contribution will be not only to slow down the accumulation of future surpluses, but will be in some cases to affect existing surpluses. That is the position. It really is no use, therefore, for the noble Viscount to say that existing surpluses are not touched. I will tell him in detail how the position might work out. It may be that if the actuarial assumptions of this Bill are justified—they may be, though I doubt it very much—that the total present accrued surpluses of societies in the aggregate will not be decreased. But that result will only be attained by reason of some societies having spent or entrenched upon their existing surpluses—that is the word I should like to stress—such spending being balanced in the aggregate by surpluses yet to be made in the case of other societies. So the point I wished to make is mathematically correct. In certain cases the surpluses of existing societies will be affected.
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On the question of the hospitals, which the noble Viscount referred to, I did not say that contributions would immediately cease. On the contrary, what I said was that the Parliamentary Secretary's statement that the hospitals would receive their money could only apply until the surpluses disclosed by the second valuation are exhausted. I then pointed out that, after that, in some cases the subscriptions would cease altogether, and that probably in all cases, in view of the way in which surpluses will be cut down, the future subscriptions would be of the slenderest dimensions.
The noble Viscount referred to the advantage which the societies have in the increased rate of interest. It really is an extraordinary thing to my mind that the Government keep bringing up that point again and again apart from its corollary, which is that so far as the members Of the societies are concerned—and that is all that matters—any advantage which comes from an increased rate of interest is neutralised, and more than neutralised, by the increased cost of living. So that for practical purposes there is nothing whatever in the point. We have other important Amendments to come, and I particularly wish to hear the remarks of my noble friend Lord Buxton on the unemployment insurance provision, so I will not speak longer now, and I will reserve any other observations I have to make until a subsequent speech.
LORD ERNLE: I should like to say a few words upon this subject, yet when an agriculturist begins to talk finance I think one naturally asks for his credentials. When this Act was passed I started a federation of rural villages which is now a very important body, and I think I am expressing the view s of a federation which numbers several thousands of villages and hundreds of thousands of assured members. I followed the noble Lord's speeches with considerable interest because on the practical working of those societies I do not think, if he will allow me to say so, that he understood the last point that he was making.
The whole structure of the finance of the Act was based on a 3 per cent. return for money. Therefore, now that the societies can get practically 5 per cent. the gain is very large, so large that it would probably almost allow the Govern-

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ment to reduce its subscription from two-ninths to one-seventh in the case of men and one-fifth in the case of women. Besides that, there are certain margins of safety which were left when that Act was brought in, which are so wide that even after the Government has reduced its grant you will be able to carry out the scheduled time-table of the original Act; that is, the promised time-table. What you will not be able to do is to provide the accelerated service which might have been carried out had the Government continued the grant at the rate at which it was originally made. But the question of promise comes in there. If you carry out the scheduled time-table, that is the promise and the Government will be able to do that.
I dislike this Bill as cordially as the noble Lord who has opposed it so strongly. I believe the societies could make better use of the money. But to say that it is raiding the surpluses, that it will ruin the approved societies, or will materially prejudice what I think is the roost useful and beneficial measure that I remember as being passed in my lifetime, I do not think is correct. Were it, as the noble Lord stated it to be, an attack upon the approved societies, I think we should have heard a great deal more about it from those large friendly societies, which are bodies of enormous importance, both in numbers and in wealth. I do not think you will find that they like the Bill. No one can like the Bill. It is a disappointing Bill to both sides of the House. It is disappointing in the paltry amount of the economies secured and in the sources from which those savings are effected. For all that, to say that it will destroy the approved societies of this country or in any way seriously prejudice the punctual fulfilment of the promises contained in the original Act, I believe would be a great mistake.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2:
Amendment of s. 83 of principal Act.
2.—(1) Subject to the provisions of Section eighty-three of the principal Act there may, out of the funds out of which benefits are payable under the principal Act, be applied for the purpose of meeting the cost of medical benefit, the administration expenses of insurance committees and any expenses incurred by the Minister in connec-
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tion with the administration of benefits a sum at such yearly rate as may be prescribed, but not exceeding thirteen shillings per year in respect of each of the total number (calculated in the prescribed manner) of the persons who are entitled to medical benefit as being or having been members of an approved society, and there shall be paid for each year to insurance committees on account of the cost of medical benefit and their administration expenses, and to the Minister on account of expenses incurred by him in respect of the administration of benefits, sums not exceeding in the aggregate the sum applicable as aforesaid, and not exceeding as respects the administration expenses of insurance committees the sum of sixpence, and as respects the expenses of the Minister the sum of threepence, in respect of each of the total number aforesaid:
Provided that if the aggregate sum paid for any year to insurance committees and the Minister under this section in respect of each of the total number aforesaid is less than the sum applicable as aforesaid in respect of each of the said total number, the balance shall be carried forward and be treated as being applicable as aforesaid in any subsequent year.
LORD ARNOLD LORD ARNOLD moved to omit from subsection (1) the words "and any expanses incurred by the Minister in connection with the administration of benefits." The noble Lord said: In moving this Amendment I shall speak only for one minute. I have already made a considerable draught upon your Lordships' time and there are, as I have said, other Amendments which deal with quite other matters. This clause increases the charge upon the societies by a very large amount; in fact, as I have said in my previous speech, by £1,900,000. It increases the amount to be paid by the approved societies for medical benefit by 3s per member. I know the noble Viscount may say that the societies agreed to this and in a sense that is true. But they never agreed to it if at the same time the Government was going to cut down its contribution of two-ninths and reduce their income by £2,800,000 a year. It does not require very much knowledge of finance to see that if at the same time your income is to be reduced by £2,800,000 and your expenditure increased by £1,900,000, it is a serious matter, and this will be a serious matter for the societies. I will not go into detail as to how far the Government has been in order in its various dealings with the doctors before, but will content myself with what I have said. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 26, leave out from ("committees") to ("a") in line 28.—(Lord Arnold.)
VISCOUNT PEEL: The particular clause which the noble Lord opposite desires to amend provides for placing on the funds of the approved societies as from January 1, 1927, the balance of the cost of medical benefit up to a maximum of 13 s. per insured person per annum. I stated on the Second Reading of the Bill that this extra charge of 3s. had, of course, to fall upon the funds of the societies because a particular fund, the Suspense Fund, on which this extra charge had been laid, had been practically exhausted. There was, therefore, so fund from which this money could be drawn, and it had to fall upon the funds of the societies. The societies, indeed, were very fortunate in that for several years this charge did not fall upon their funds but upon the Suspense Fund. The proposal in the Bill is in accordance with the recommendations of the Royal Commission on National Health Insurance, and, as the noble Lord said, has been accepted by the Consultative Committee representing the approved societies of all types. The only point made in answer to that by the noble Lord was that had they known about other charges they would not have agreed to it. All I can say is that the approved societies have not breathed a word upon that point since the introduction of the Finance Bill. They have very justly and very properly abided entirely by the agreement and assent they then made.
What would happen if this Amendment was carried? The effect would be that from January 1, 1927, a residual liability of about £2,000,000 for the cost of medical benefit would be left and there would be no provision for finding the money with which to pay that £2,000,000 from any source. I have no doubt the noble Lord does not really intend to press this Amendment because it would leave £2,000,000 in the air with no fund, no charge, no account from which it could be paid It obviously has to be paid, and I ask your Lordships to adhere to the clause as it stands in the Bill.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4:
Amendment of s. 68 of principal Act.
4.—(1) As from the first day of January, nineteen hundred and twenty-seven, such part of any sums falling to be dealt with under subsection (2) of Section sixty-eight of the principal Act as represents interest shall, instead of being so dealt with, be applied from time to time in defraying the amount, as estimated by the Treasury, of such part of the cost incurred by Government Departments in connection with the provision of insurance stamps and cards and the sale of insurance stamps as may be attributable to national health insurance.
(2) Such part of the sums which under the said subsection (2) are to be carried to the Central Fund as may be required for the purposes specified in this subsection, instead of being carried to that Fund, shall, after deducting therefrom the sums applied under the preceding subsection, be applied for those purposes as follows:—
(c) In the third place, in the event of the interest mentioned in subsection (1) of this section being insufficient to meet the costs to be defrayed therefrom in accordance with the provisions of that subsection, the said sums shall be applied in payment of the deficiency.
VISCOUNT PEEL VISCOUNT PEEL moved to leave out subsection (1). The noble Viscount said: The Amendments standing in my name on this clause run together. I do not think there is any opposition to the proposal. I suggested that I would move such an Amendment during the course of the Second Reading. All it means is that among the charges that are to fall upon the Stamp Fund the Government claim is to be the last claim instead of the first claim. The other accounts that have a call upon this particular fund, like the account for persons who fall out of insurance through unemployment, and the Drug Fund, are to have precedence. I do not think there is any opposition and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, lines 3 to 13, leave out subsection (1).—(Viscount Peel.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendments moved—
Page 5, line 14, leave out ("the said")
Page 5, line 15, after ("(2)") insert (" of Section 68 of the principal Act")
Page 5, lines 18 and 19, leave out ("after deducting therefrom the sums supplied under the preceding subsection")
Page 6, line 1, leave out from ("place") to ("the") in line 5
Page 6, line 6, leave out ("in payment of the deficiency") and insert ("from time to time in defraying the amount as estimated by the Treasury of such part of the cost incurred by Government Departments in connection with the provision of insurance stamps and cards and the sale of insurance stamps as may be attributable to national health insurance").—(Viscount Peel.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 5:—
Transfer from Navy, Army and Air Force Insurance Fund to Exchequer.
5.—(1) There shall, in accordance with directions of the Treasury, be transferred to the Exchequer from the Navy, Army and Air Force Insurance Fund constituted under the principal Act the sum of one million one hundred thousand pounds.
LORD ARNOLD LORD ARNOLD moved to leave out subsection (1). The noble Lord said: The noble Earl, Lord Oxford and Asquith, has an Amendment down on this clause, and I was hoping that he would have been here, in which case I should have had great pleasure in giving way to him. As your Lordships will agree, he made a very powerful appeal to the Government in regard to this matter last week. For my part I am going to say very little about it, though not because I am not taking strong exception to it. I am very wishful not to repeat anything which I said last week. As I have already observed as regards my previous speech it was all practically different from what was said last week. The points about this matter are very simple. I think it is in some ways the worst clause in the Bill. There is in this Reserve Fund of the Army, Navy and Air Forces an accumulated surplus of £1,500,000 and the Government come along and say: "We will leave you £400,000 and take to ourselves £1,100,000." I think the noble Earl, last week, seemed to think the total of this amount came in owing to the casualties of the War. Part of it has come in that. way, but, in the Government Paper that has been issued, it will be seen that there are other sources from which this money has accumlated—five or six sources in all. But wherever it has come from, there it is, and there was a very strong feeling in another place
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that, although many of the original men under this scheme were now dead, it was, so far as their part of the money was concerned, a clear case for applying the doctrine of cy-près.
There are so many equivalent purposes to which the money could be put. The noble Lord last week spoke of that, but I do not recollect whether he specifically mentioned the consumptives. There are many men, unhappily, who have been discharged from the Army who are now suffering from consumption and whose consumption is not directly traceable to the War. Consequently they are not getting an adequate War pension. The position of these people is extremely sad and I cannot help thinking that it would have been a gracious act on the part of the Government if they had used some of this money to help these men. There were, on the Government side in another place, members who got up and supported that that should be done, but the Government refused to yield on the point. This is all the more surprising, because this is one isolated act. This is not going to bring the Government £1,100,000 every year; it simply gives them that sum now. It is, in fact, a capital sum. As the noble Lord said last week in a most powerful appeal, is it worth while in these days, even for the sum of £1,100,000, to create all the bad feeling which this has done and necessarily will do?
There is a further feature which was not put last week. I think this ought to appeal to your Lordships. So far as the men still in this Fund are concerned, Army discipline prevents them making any protest or any representation. As far as I understand it that is so, and I think they are put at a very great disadvantage in regard to it. There is no doubt whatever that the Government would never have come along and done this if they had not been hard up, but the fact that the Government are hard up does not really justify what is proposed. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, lines 7 to 11, leave out subsection (1).—(Lord Arnold.)
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: As far as I understand the noble Lord who has just sat down, he has not in any way stated that there is any legal pledge or liability on the Government which would

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prevent their doing that which they are going now to do. I also understood from the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Oxford and Asquith, the other day, that there was no legal liability upon the Government and that there was no charge of breaking any contract or doing anything illegal that could be made against the Government. I may have been mistaken, but that is how I understood it. I now understand the noble Lord to say that it is only a small amount and that the people for whom he is speaking would like to get it and, therefore, as it is only a small amount, it is a mistake to take it away. The noble Lord also says that it was because the Government were hard up that this is being done. I would point out to the noble Lord that the country is now poorer than it has been for very many years and that economy must be practised. Economy always must be unpleasant to certain people. As long as you do not break any contract or commit any illegal thing, it does not matter how small the amount is, that amount should be taken and economy should be exercised.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): I should like to make one explanation with regard to this. I do not think the matter seems to have been quite understood, judging from the debate that took place on the Second Reading. In the Bill of 1911 it was recognised, in clause 59 I think, that there might be a certain number of people discharged from the Army or Navy—there was no Air Force in 1911, but it is now included—who would not be in a position to join approved societies on account of the state of their health, and to meet those cases a fund was established to provide ordinary benefit for them. I say ordinary benefit advisedly, because—and this is a very important matter—it was specifically laid down in the, Act that such men would not be entitled to any additional benefit. There is another point which, I think, is somewhat misunderstood. The obligation to keep the fund solvent—and it is a statutory obligation—lay wholly upon the Government. Before the year 1919 there was an arrangement whereby a reduction was made in pay, but since 1919 the whole of the contribution—that is to say, the contribution of employer and employed—has fallen upon the Government entirely.
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Now before the War this fund was practically working level. It was just keeping itself solvent. But during the War it increased very rapidly indeed and now, as the noble Lord has stated quite accurately, there is in the fund a sum of £1,500,000. The reasons for that are several, as he has said. One of them I think is stated in the White Paper laid on the Table of your Lordships' House. That reason was that a greater rate of interest was earned by the fund than was anticipated in 1911 and the cost of administration was very much below the original estimate. There is another reason and that is that the contributions to this War fund accrue entirely to the principal fund. In the case of contributions to approved societies—and this fund is not in the least on a par with the funds of approved societies—a certain margin is carried to a contingency fund. In this case there is no contingency fund and all the Government contributions, which are the only contributions, accrue to the main fund.
There is another point which, of course, was never contemplated in the 1911 Act and I think it is really the main cause of the surplus. Vast numbers of men who joined the Army at the outset of the War and during the War were not in insurable occupations at all, but automatically Government contributions were paid for those people and so, of course, the fund rose very considerably. Those men were not in insurable occupations when they joined the Army and when they came out of the Army they did not go into insurable occupations. Such an enlistment, of course, was never contemplated in 1911. Contributions in respect of those men went automatically into the fund. Then, the result of casualties in the War has to be taken into consideration. The reserve accruing therefrom has also gone into the fund. That is how the fund was built up and something has got to be done with it.
At present there is no legal power whatever to deal with this fund except to keep it solvent and to relieve the Government of contributions. That is the only method in which the fund can be used now. Therefore we propose under this Bill to use part of the surplus to bring the position of the 23,000 men now on the fund up to the position of their comrades who are able to join approved societies.

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At the present moment no soldier, or sailor or airman can obtain additional benefit when he leaves the Army until he has been for five years a member of an approved society. Therefore, in another part of the Bill, we make provision to allow a man's Army service to count so that in the vast majority of cases he will be entitled to additional benefits immediately he joins an approved society on leaving the Army. It is estimated that 400 men a year go out of the Forces and on the fund and in order to enable them to enjoy additional benefits immediately on leaving the Army it is calculated that a sum of £100,000 is necessary. £100,000 is taken from the surplus for that purpose.
In addition to that, we propose to provide a man on the fund with additional benefits at once up to the average conferred by the approved societies. That will involve a charge of some £300,000. By that means we deal with £400,000 of the £1,500,000. Now I come to the problem of dealing with the remaining £1,100,000. It has been stated that this money is in the same position as the fund of an approved society, but I venture to hope that when I have given your Lordships a few words of explanation you will see that that is entirely a misapprehension. In an approved society there is no guarantee as to benefits. The benefits depend upon the finances of the society. In the fund, as I have explained, the ordinary benefit is guaranteed and now by the changes we are making we guarantee additional benefits bringing those men who are on the fund up to the same position as members of an average approved society. This is an important point. If we have made a mistake in thinking that the £300,000 provided will cover this, and it is found that more money is required, the State will have to pay the extra money, for the whole of the contributions in respect of soldiers are paid from Government funds.
It has been said that this surplus, morally if not legally—I think the legal position is admitted—belongs to the men who are members of the fund. That, again, I think is a misapprehension. It is not these men who have contributed this £1,100,000. That money comes from the State and it comes largely and mainly from contributions in respect of
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those who were not in insurable occupations who passed into the Army and out again, and as the result of War casualties, as well as for other reasons. The noble Lord, in his speech in moving the Amendment, said that these 23,000 men are in very hard case because they have no other source to which they can look for assistance. I think every member of your Lordships' House will agree that this would be a very distressing fact if it were so, but examination shows that it is really not the case. Examination shows that from 5 to 10 per cent. of these 23,000 men are in receipt of the full 100 per cent. War pension and the vast majority of them are receiving disability pensions of one kind or another. It is admitted that those on the fund are suffering from some disability or other, which makes them unable to join an approved society, and it is in this way that their disability should be provided for and not through this particular £1,100,000.
if we were to utilise this £1,100,000 in the manner suggested, that is to say, entirely for additional benefits for these particular 23,000 men, we should be giving them additional benefits nearly 400 per cent. greater than the average of any member of an approved society. I say emphatically that everybody in your Lordships' House has the greatest possible sympathy with these 23,000 men who are unable to join approved societies and we should like to do everything possible to help them. The proper method of relief, however, is not by taking this particular £1,100,000 and giving it to these particular 23,000 men, but by a considered scheme of pensions whereby each case is dealt with on its merits.
I would like to add this—I do not think the point has been made before in your Lordships' House; at least I have not heard it—that these 23,000 men are a very small proportion of those men who were on the fund, as it is called, five years ago. There were then 200,000 men; that is to say, 177,000 more than are on the fund now. It is largely from the contributions of those men that the surplus has arisen. These 23,000 men remain in insurable occupations and they are paying contributions, but the other 177,000, for some reason or other have passed out of insurance, are not on the fund, and it is impossible to say exactly what has be-

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come of them. I think your Lordships will agree that it may fairly be lamed that these 177,000 men have some right to benefit under any scheme for disposing of this wartime surplus, which was so largely created by them. If that should be your Lordships' opinion—as I think it must be—there is only one way in which they can benefit, and that is by receiving the same relief in taxation as ordinary members of the community; and that is done by taking this £1,100,000 for the purposes contemplated in the Bill.
LORD HORNE: As an old soldier and one who has been connected With the Army all my life, and, in recent, years, with the organisation which your Lordships all know so welt, the British Legion, may I appeal to His Majesty's Government to administer this fund, or rather the balance of it, as liberally as they possibly can? Although, as the noble Earl has said, a proportion of the 23,000 men are in receipt of full pensions, or at any rate of some pension, I can assure him that there are a large number of men who have no pension at all, though they are really suffering from disability due to the War. They have failed, in some cases for good reasons and in other cases for bad reasons, to make good their lam to a pension. I should be the last person in the world to say a sword against the administration of the Ministry of Pensions. I think that it has been most liberal, and that they have dealt with the cases before them with the greatest sympathy and in the most practical manner possible. But there are a number of cases in which a man's disability has not perhaps matured for some years after the War, has advanced gradually and is still advancing, and it is on behalf of those men in particular that I would appeal to His Majesty's Government to act with the greatest liberality.
Let me give an illustration of the class of men to which I refer. I am thinking at the moment of a man who was a regular soldier, was discharged and joined again at the outbreak of the War and rose to the rank of officer. He came back to civil employment and was employed in the police, but gradually his health began to give way. I knew of him well because he had been in my family for years. There had been no signs of tuberculosis or of anything of that sort in his family, but he gradually became
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unfit for his employment and he is now going down hill every day. I took the greatest trouble to try and trace out for him the source of this disability. He admitted to me that he had been gassed and, like many a good fellow, he took no notice of it at the time and there was no record in his documents. The result was that one was unable to make good any claim for attention. I do not put this particular case before your Lordships as one that requires immediate attention or with any charitable intention, because I am happy to say that the man is in good employment and in no immediate want, but he is an illustration of a type of man which has suffered in many cases, is suffering and will suffer more every day. I know that the Government are in great difficulties at present in raising money to make two ends meet, but I would ask them and your Lordships to remember that the same stringency applies in the case of these men who have hardly been able make two ends meet during the last few years and for whom the possible increase in the cost of living makes things very much more difficult.
I would also ask if it might not be possible for His Majesty's Government to make it plain exactly why it is that, they are making this use of the fund. Speaking for ex-soldiers and, I am sure, for ex-sailors as well, I can say how difficult it is to make them understand exactly how it is that this money, which they are rather inclined to look upon as a fund to which they have contributed to a very large extent, can in equity be taken away from them. Regimental officers have always been very careful, in administering funds over which they have had control, to devote them entirely to regimental purposes. I would ask His Majesty's Government in allocating this fund, to do so with the greatest possible sympathy for these men, who did their best for their country and have suffered in consequence.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I must confess that I should not have intervened in this discussion on any ordinary or trivial Amendment. Our thoughts are elsewhere and we are anxious to do nothing that can in any way embarrass His Majesty's Government. I do feel, however, that a very strong case is to be made out for this Amendment. I, for my own part, would not care to put it on any lega

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basis. I would be perfectly ready on an occasion of this kind to make an appeal ad misericordiam and to say that., if for no other reason, it is because of the hardships which certain soldiers are without doubt suffering at the present time that the whole of this money should not be dealt with in the way that His Majesty's Government propose. The existence of the fund is admitted. What I should very much have preferred to see would be that His Majesty's Government should devote it to some analogous purpose, some purpose resembling as closely as possible the purpose for which the fund was originally intended.
Your Lordships cannot have heard without emotion the speech that has just been made by the noble and gallant Lord from personal knowledge of the want in which so many of these soldiers are at the present moment. I would go further and say that there is no one of your Lordships with any acquaintance amongst soldiers, and especially those who have left the Army, who does not know that there are plenty of hard cases that are not covered by the Pensions Act—pray do not let it be thought that I am attacking the administration of the Pensions Ministry any more than the noble and gallant Lord who has just spoken—and I will add that there are cases which could not be covered by any Pensions Act. But I should very much have liked to see these large sums of money set by as a fund from which donations might have been made from reasons of clemency to those hard cases which we know exist all over the country and are not at present covered. I shall not follow the example of the noble and gallant Lord by quoting examples from the county with which I am more particularly acquainted, but I do venture to say that in regard to this fund, which is partly, if not wholly, due to the savings of these people, if there are not heirs at law there are at any rate heirs in equity to be found, and it is to them that I would venture to direct your Lordships' attention.
I am afraid that it is too late to make any appeal to His Majesty's Government, but I would only say that it does seem to me to be a misfortune that nothing should have been done in this direction, that no attempt should have been made, with the money which was at their command and which was originally in-
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tended for the benefit of this particular class, to assist similar people who are in difficulties to-day. A new fund of that kind might, I think, have been instituted by the Government, and might, indeed, have done a very great deal of good in a great many hard cases. Unfortunately, the exigencies of the public service and the needs of the Treasury have conquered those other tendencies, but I am afraid I cannot advise the noble Lord who moved the Amendment to proceed to a Division. I am afraid that a Division would not be representative of the feeling in this House. So many of my political friends have been prevented from attending this afternoon by the political friends of noble Lords who sit on the Front Opposition Bench that a Division would not be representative of the House, and therefore I cannot advise the noble and gallant Lord to divide the House.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I listened, of course, as I am sure all your Lordships did, with great sympathy to the observations made by the noble and gallant Lord on the Cross Benches, and of course nobody is more fully entitled in this House than he is to speak with knowledge of the conditions of the soldiers and those who served in the War. I was not perfectly clear as to the case he cited—whether it was the case of a man in insurable employment or not. The case which I think he raised was as to the difficulty of men who had been really injured in the War by being gassed, or otherwise, and who found themselves later on suffering in health, of attaching their illness to some injury received in the War. Many of them are fine men who did not like to make any fuss or trouble about being gassed, or so on, and suffer through their own unwillingness in a difficult time to make much of their own illness. That, I think, was the case more or less which the noble and gallant Lord cited. I was wondering myself whether it was a case for possibly some amendment of the Pensions Act, which might cover cases of that kind, because I was not at all sure whether such cases fell within the four corners of this particular clause, which deals with men in insurable occupations.
Turning to what was said by the noble Earl, he suggested, I think, that this

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particular fund which had so accumulated should be set aside as a fund out of which grants might be made. I think there is some objection to dealing in this way with a fund which has been accumulated for some specific and special purpose, because your Lordships will see that this fund stands in a peculiar position. As my noble friend has said, it has nothing whatever to do with approved societies. Where there are approved societies, if they have losses they have either to reduce their benefits or increase their contributions. This is not in the ordinary sense an approved society, but simply an undertaking by the Government to grant certain advantages and benefits to those soldiers who, when they pass out of their required service, cannot join approved societies. They rely on this fund, and the only arrangement that was made was that they should get the ordinary benefits.
Now it was considered very carefully what should be done with this money. I do not wish to rely on strict legal argument, but I think it can be easily said that the claim of these men now on the fund should not be extended to the accumulated fund, but the Government had decided to extend the benefits of these men, and, in addition to the benefits secured by the agreement under which the fund was set up, the Government agreed to extend those benefits to the average additional benefits enjoyed by persons who would be in approved societies. That is to say they really put these men in the same position as if, during their time in the Army, they had been members of approved societies. Your Lordships must remember that the whole of the contribution is now paid, and for some years has been paid, by the Government. It is only a matter of calculation how much the Government should contribute in order to make the fund secure and solvent for its purposes. If the Government are wrong in their calculation, they will have to pay extra to make up the fund. Really it is very largely a matter of book-keeping.
What the Government might quite well do is to say: We have been contributing to the fund more than sufficient to secure the benefits, and we will reduce our contribution. The Government have only said: Because this is a hard financial time for the country, instead of reducing
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our contribution for the next eight or ten years we will, as it were, take this £1,100,000. That is the whole business and I do suggest to the noble Lord and to the whole House, which is extremely sympathetic in such cases, that it is rather better not to deal in this way with a fund collected for one specific purpose, but to find other ways of assisting these soldiers, possibly, as I have suggested, by some amendment of the Pensions Act. I hope the noble Lord will not press his Amendment.
LORD DANESFORT: I had no intention of intervening until I heard the speech of the noble Viscount. We all feel, as he said, the utmost sympathy with cases such as that to which the noble and gallant Lord referred—namely, the case of the man who fought for us and who has suffered, and who, under the existing Pensions Act, is unable to obtain a pension. If the Government will give us, I will not say an undertaking, but some sort of assurance, that an endeavour will be made to meet the eases of such men by some amendment of the Pensions Act, I think it will give great satisfaction to many members of this House. I quite see the difficulty of paying these men out of the fund now under discussion, but for the moment I cannot see any real difficulty, or objection, to so amending the Pensions Act as to meet these cases of really great hardship. I am hopeful that the Government, without giving a strict undertaking, will be able to give an assurance of some sort.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBUSY): I need not assure your Lordships that the speech delivered by the noble and gallant Lord on the Cross Benches appealed to all of us, and I am sure not less to me than to anybody else. I am sure we are delighted to do anything we can for these gallant soldiers—we know how deeply they are to be commiserated with—but the matter is surrounded with difficulty. My noble friend Lord Danesfort has just asked whether the Government will promise to look into the question from the point of view of the Pensions Act. I must not pretend to be familiar with the details of that Act, but I will engage to have the mutter looked into, in case it may be possible for anything to be done to meet these serious cases; but I hope my noble

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friend will not press me to go any further than that. On this particular Amendment I feel, for the reasons stated by the noble Viscount in charge of the Bill, that the House would be unwise to carry the Amendment.
LORD ARNOLD: In view of the very telling speech of the noble and gallant Lord on the Cross Benches, and of the comprehensive statement of the noble Earl on my right, I did not desire to say anything more on this measure. But I must add, because I wish to remove a possible misunderstanding about something which the noble Viscount said, that when I referred to this amount as capital that was not in any way to excuse the Government in what they are doing; it was rather to increase the enormity of their offence, as I previously pointed out. The noble Marquess. I am sure, will carry out his undertaking to have this matter looked into, and if something comes of that it will be a great satisfaction to your Lordships, because one of the reasons why there has been such strong pressure to use this money for this very special case was that again and again representations were made to the Government to deal with this matter. I hope now that something will come of it.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clauses 6 and 7 agreed to.
Clause 8:
Amendment of s. 4 of Unemployment Insurance Act, 1925, 15 & 16 Geo. 5 s. 69.
8.—(1) As from and after the fifth day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-six, until the expiration of the extended period as denned in Section four of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1925, the contribution payable under the Unemployment Insurance Acts, 1920 to 1925, out of moneys provided by Parliament shall be a contribution of such an amount as may be determined by the Treasury to be approximately equivalent, having regard to the estimated proportions in which contributions are payable in respect of men, women, boys and girls, to the sum which would be produced by weekly contributions paid in respect of insured persons and exempt persons at the respective rates set out in the Second Schedule to this Act.
(2) Paragraph (c) of subsection (1) of the said Section four (except in so far as it relates to the meaning of the expression "the 1925 debt") is hereby repealed as
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from the first day of January, nineteen hundred and twenty-six.
(3) This Part of this Act shall not apply to Northern Ireland.
LORD ARNOLD LORD ARNOLD had an Amendment on the Paper to leave out subsection (1). The noble Lord said: I do not propose to move this Amendment, but desire to give way to the noble Earl, Lord Buxton. He is a very great authority upon this unemployment insurance scheme, and he has really a paternal relationship to it, and I am sure your Lordships will desire to give him a very full opportunity to speak.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I beg to move the next Amendment, which is purely drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 43, at end insert as a new subsection:—
("(4) This Part of this Act and the Unemployment Insurance Acts, 1920 to 1925, may be cited together as the Unemployment Insurance Acts, 1920 to 1926.").—(Viscount Peel.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
EARL BUXTON EARL BUXTON moved to leave out Clause 8. The noble Earl said: I am much obliged to my noble friend for allowing me to move my Amendment instead of bringing forward his own. He made one little error: I am not going to make a full statement on the matter. But this is an important Amendment, and noble Lords will remember that the House of Commons did not take any Amendments on the Committee stage, in order, I think, to avoid a Report stage. They left your Lordships to make such Amendments as you thought fit, and I notice that the Government themselves have put down a very substantial number of Amendments—so many, indeed, that they require three Ministers to put them on the Paper and carry them through. Therefore I hope they will be willing to accept some comparatively small Amendment from this side of the House.
Your Lordships are aware that Clause 8 proposes to take away, from the funds at present available for the carrying out of the Unemployment Insurance Acts, money to the extent of £5,000,000 a year. Only nine months ago the Government themselves made a totally different proposal. At that time, last July, they pro-

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posed, in order to bring the Fund at an earlier stage to solvency, to add £2,500,000 to its funds. Now they are proposing to deduct £5,000,000; apparently without any rhyme or reason they have now altered their views. The only argument that has been used by the Government justifying the action they have taken is that, thanks to the improvement in trade, unemployment has fallen considerably in the last few months, and that the official figures of 1,300,000 unemployed last July had by this March fallen to 1,100,000. Even on those figures I am afraid it is very doubtful whether an improvement is really indicated, for this reason. The figures show that last September, just before the coal mines subsidy came into being, there were nearly 300,000 miners out of work and on the Unemployment Fund; whereas, this February (I have not got the analysis for March) the numbers had fallen to something like 120,000. Nearly 200,000 miners, therefore, who were unemployed last September, thanks to the subsidy have obtained employment since. The total unemployment figure for last September, compared with February of this year, shows a difference of the same number. Therefore it is clear that the whole of the decrease was due to the fact that 200,000 miners were re-absorbed into the industry. And let me point out the enormous expense of this to the State, which has been paying £750,000 a week in order to absorb these miners.
But since the Bill was introduced the other day a much more serious position has arisen, and. as we are aware, we are in the middle of a strike of far-reaching extent which is likely to last for some considerable time. When this matter was discussed in another place the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is the responsible person for these proposals, for it is he who has raided these various funds, said—
"We may have a great struggle, a great lock-out, a great stoppage, whatever it may be.… None, of the proposals. … in the Bill will have the slightest reference to that; altogether different proposals will be required. … if such a contingency arises; but on the assumption that this danger does not arise we have every reason to believe that a live register of 1,050,000 will carry us through the year."
Unfortunately, since the Bill was in another place that contingency has
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arisen, and I think I might ask the Government how, in these circumstances, in view of what was said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, they can at the present moment proceed with this clause, taking this money away from the uninsured. Because, after all, though there has been a good deal of discomfort of various sorts to the individual and to the mass of people in consequence of the strike, that is not really the serious part of the strike itself. What is going to happen—and nobody can foresee how far it will go—is that it will paralyse trade, many great manufactories will have to shut up, and trade will be so dislocated that not only will there be an immediate increase of unemployment, but in the future it is quite certain that the number of those on the Unemployment Fund will be very considerably increased for a long time to come.
I would therefore ask the Government, knowing as they do that for every 10,000 additional persons who come on the Unemployment Fund it costs £380,000 for the year, how they can justify at the present moment taking away this £5,000,000, seeing that they know perfectly well that a great deal more than £5,000,000 will be required through the present dislocation of trade. The noble Lord, Lord Banbury of Southam, said that everybody has got to suffer when you have economy and curtailment. That is quite true, but surely in this case it would be uneconomical folly to take away this £5,000,000 now and have to repay a very much larger sum within a comparatively short time.
I should like to say a word or two on the merits of this proposal. The Unemployment Insurance Act was founded on a tripartite agreement between the employer, the employed and the State, the employer and the employee making certain contributions and the State adding to those contributions a sum of its own. When it was carried out it was estimated on a very conservative basis in the hope and belief that as trade improved and unemployment fell a large surplus would accumulate. The object of that surplus was, in the first place, to form a reserve fund for a rainy day, for a falling off in trade at any future time, and secondly, and after that was sufficiently obtained, to provide that the surplus should be

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applied to one of two things or to both of them—either to improve the benefit for the employee or, in the alternative, to reduce the contributions from both parties under the Unemployment Insurance Act.
The original Act created a surplus very soon. Unfortunately, the War came and upset all calculations, with the result that the Fund became more or less insolvent and had to borrow from the Treasury. In July last the Government, as I think very wisely, came to the conclusion that it was both important and essential that the deficiency period, the period during which the Fund might be insolvent, should be reduced, and they proposed themselves to add about £2,500,000 to the annual amount of the contribution of the State to the Unemployment Fund so as to bring that deficiency period to an earlier conclusion. And now, only nine months later, they are proposing an entirely different policy. They are proposing now not to add to the Fund but to take away £5,000,000 from it, which, apart from any question of the strike, will mean that its insolvency will continue much longer, that a far longer time will elapse before benefits can be increased or contributions reduced. To that extent the Fund is put to great disadvantage. I have not been able to appreciate the change the Government have made at the instigation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am not surprised that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should change his mind because he is a past master in changing his Party and his views from time to time. But that. I think, has not weighed with noble Lords opposite. I have not been able to discover what has caused this' great change, except the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer wanted to balance his Budget. In my opinion this raid is not fair to the employers and to the workmen who have contributed to the Fund.
We were told that the solvency of the Fund would not be affected, that there would be no increase in the contributions, that there would be no reduction in the benefits, and that no one would be worse off in any respect. Those, I think, were the words that were used. But that is an altogether misleading statement because, as I showed just now, the Fund was founded on a conservative estimate, and when unemployment diminished and trade improved the result was to go, not to the benefit of the State solely, but to
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the benefit of the three partners. That is to say, the men probably would have improved benefits, the employers and employees would be called upon for reduced contributions, and at the same time the State might be called upon for a smaller subsidy to the Unemployment Fund. I do not want to use strong language at all because I think the State is entitled, if it chooses, to do that sort of thing, but I do not think it is fair to employers or employed that the State, the third partner, should suddenly get the whole of the benefit which has accrued from the conservative estimate and the good management of the Fund, and this, if I may say so, entirely without consultation with the other partners concerned.
There is one very flagrant case of hardship which will arise from the action of the Government. As I pointed out just now, the basis of contribution under the original Act of 1911 was that of equal contributions from employer and employed and a proportionate amount from the State itself. That continued until 1921. In that year, in consequence of the enormous increase in unemployment and the uncovenanted benefits given, the Fund was in a somewhat parlous condition and an additional penny was put on the employers to enable the Fund to become gradually solvent. But it was put on with the understanding that as trade improved and unemployment diminished and as the Fund became more solvent the first result of those advantages would be the taking of this penny off the employers. Not only so, but the Act passed last year by the present Government actually gives a statutory undertaking regarding this proposal because it is stated in the Act itself—I am not quoting the legal wording—that as the Fund improved in solvency, as debt was paid off, the first use to be made of that improved position would be to take off this penny.
Now the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government have come along and taken away this £5,000,000 a year, which means, as they have admitted themselves, that for some considerable and indefinite time this additional penny will remain a burden on the employers. Although I speak of the employers I think that in these matters there is really no distinction between employer and employed. The penny is not on the employer; it is a burden on trade, and though the

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Unemployment Insurance Act has had very beneficent results—that is admitted and I do not think it is too much to say that it has helped by alleviating distress and saving homes and health when combined with the Health Act, and has done a great deal to enable us to come securely, safely and peacefully through our industrial difficulties after the War—no one can deny that the contributions under this Act, especially if combined with the contributions under the Health Insurance Act, constitute a very heavy burden indeed on the industries of the country. Anything that alleviates that burden would be of advantage both to the trade and the general conditions of the country.
Under the original Act the contribution was 4d. from the employer and 4d. from the employee. Speaking under correction and taking into account the 2d. added last year for social service, as one might call it, I think the burden of contribution on the employer is now 11 d. and on the employee 10 d. That represents £5 per annum on every man employed in a particular industry. Obviously, that is a very great burden, though a right and proper one, on trade itself, and I am sure that not only ought the employer to be relieved of this additional 1d but by allowing the Fund to become gradually more and more solvent, it will be possible before very long to relieve both employers and employed—that is, the burden on trade—from some of these contributions which now exist. I am sure it would be a greater advantage to this country from the point of view of employment, of trade and of industry generally, that these contributions should be directly reduced by 1d. or 2d. than that £5,000,000 should go into the pocket of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be re-distributed—or perhaps not to be re-distributed—to the taxpayers as a whole whose relief cannot be anything like the same advantage to trade as a direct reduction in the contributions of employer and employed.
I trust that the noble Viscount representing the Government will consider two things. First, on this question of the burden, the millions would be much better left in the Fund and greater relief would thereby be given to trade as a whole than if they were taken out. Secondly, after the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I cannot
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see how, in present circumstances, the Government can justify their action, which may or may not have been justified some days ago. It has clearly now lost its force. I appeal to them in those circumstances to leave the Fund alone. As my noble friend said, I have a parental interest in it, and I ask the Government not in any way to hamper it, but to leave it as it is now. Undoubtedly, if you pass Clause 8 now, in a few weeks the Government will have to come to the House of Commons and ask for a larger contribution to the Unemployment Fund. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 8.—(Earl Buxton.)
VISCOUNT PEEL: The noble Earl has put before your Lordships very fully his reasons for urging upon you the acceptance of his Amendment to leave out this particular clause. If I may, before dealing with the specific points he raised, I should like to bring to his notice the fact, of which I have no doubt he is aware, that leaving out this clause would lay upon the Exchequer an additional burden of some millions. I only make that suggestion because the noble Earl is fully aware of the provisions of the Parliament Act, and of the powers of this House as regards finance. I only say that in passing.
I will deal also with the general argument of the noble Earl. He said: Why are you proposing to reduce the State contribution from 6¾d to 6d. at the very time when you are in the middle of a strike, and when, as the result of that strike, you may have an unusually large number of people cast upon the Unemployment Fund? I feel as strongly as the noble Earl the full force of that argument. In face of a condition of things of that kind, which obviously your Lordships will appreciate better than I do, the only reason why I ask you to proceed to pass the Bill in its present form is this, that it is wholly impossible to forecast at the present moment what the results of the strike may be, how long it is going to last, what fresh burdens may have to be cast on industry, how industry will suffer, how many people will be unemployed. All these things are utterly beyond our range of estimating now. If they were not I might be more favourable to the noble Earl's suggestion, but, as it is, I think

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we can only proceed upon the basis of the present Bill. When this terrible business is cleared up, when it is possible to estimate the losses—I was going to say the gains, for I hope there may be some—then, I think, it will be necessary for this very intricate matter to be looked into, and it may or may not be necessary to introduce fresh legislation.
EARL BUXTON: I do not think the noble Viscount quite represents my point. He says it will make fresh legislation necessary.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I said "may be necessary."
EARL BUXTON: With this strike having gone on for ten days, and being likely to continue, it will lead to a considerable amount of unemployment. The reason for this reduction was that unemployment was going to be less, but now that it is likely to be more, additional money will be required instead of less.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I am much obliged to the noble Earl, but I fully appreciated the argument he was making, and I think my argument was proceeding on the basis of what he stated. It is obvious that no human being can at this moment estimate what may be the effect upon the Unemployment Fund. In those circumstances I say it is better to leave the matter as it is, and not to alter the Bill at the present moment before we know what the obligations that we shall have to face amount to. That is the simple point I put before your Lordships.
One or two other matters were put by the noble Earl with which I should like to deal. He said—and I think it was the only place where he made errors in fact—that this was a tripartite arrangement, and that it was not right that one party should get all the benefits even though that party is the State. He said: You reduce the State contribution from 6¾d. to 6d. and you make no other reductions in the contribution of the other parties. He added: You ought really to make a reduction of 1d. in the employer's contribution before you consider the question of the pari passu reduction in the contribution of one of the other parties. I do not think that is quite the correct way of putting the matter. May I remind him that only eight months ago there
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was a reduction of 4d.—2d. each in the contributions of the employers and the employed. Not only is it not true that the State gets all the advantage but what is true is that before the State got any advantage 2d. was taken off the contributions of each of the other parties. At that time the argument was very much the other way. The State might; then have said: "It is rather hard, as this is a tripartite agreement, that you should get 2d. off, but we get nothing." I think the whole thing must be taken together, and the noble Earl will realise, the advantage having been entirely on the side of the other parties nine months ago, that it is only fair the State should now have some reduction. This is a smaller reduction than the 2d., it is only ¾d. against the 2d.
As regards the other point made by the noble Earl, I think an argument may be fairly sustained that the employers had a claim to the extra 1d. before this reduction was made by the State. That may fairly be argued. All I can say to that is that the levying of a charge on trade and the levying of general taxation still remains. Though the claim of the employers may be postponed, undoubtedly, if there were any further reduction in contributions, the employers have a first claim to the first penny of reduction. I do not know whether, in view of the general argument used by the noble Earl, it is much worth while my dealing with the earlier part of his argument, because he says the whole situation is going to be changed now, and what is the good of referring to the past. I will therefore, only say one sentence about that. He referred to the rapid change in the views of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not know that I need refer to some general reflections that the noble Earl made on the rapidity of the change in the general views of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I will confine myself to the particular one made last July.
At that time the situation was entirely different and there was a much more gloomy anticipation of the number of persons who would come upon the Fund than has turned out to be the case. The noble Earl says that is all due to the coal subsidy and that if it had not been for the large numbers of miners who were kept in employment through the action of the subsidy there would not have been

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a further falling off in the number of unemployed. I am rather interested to hear the admission that the subsidy was of some value. One has generally been criticised on the ground that the subsidy was of no value. But I do not think that covers the whole case. Those who were familiar with the situation a few months ago know that in many other trades there were distinct signs of development which, no doubt, have been heavily injured by the present unfortunate General Strike. On the whole point I do urge upon noble Lords that, though they may see difficulties and though there may have to be changes in some months to come, it is better to leave this clause in the Bill instead of speculating what will have to be done when we come to estimate the injury the country may have received.
LORD ARNOLD: I should like to support the noble Earl who moved the Amendment. The noble Viscount went to some extent into past history, but only to a very limited extent. His argument seems to be that the employers have had 2d. off and the employees 2d. off and it is hard if the State is not to have something off. But the 2d. was taken off because other sums were put on for other social services. That is a point the noble Viscount did not mention. All he said was known last year when it was decided that the State was not to get the first reduction: the employers were to get it.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I admitted it.
LORD ARNOLD: The Chancellor of the Exchequer has admitted it and the Minister of Health has admitted it. The Government is intercepting money which really ought to go to the employers. It is no justification to say that when the Bill passed in another place it was not possible to know what would have happened if it had not been for the strike. It is true, of course, that owing to the strike we do not know what commitments may be involved but before the strike came it was extremely doubtful if this particular clause in the Bill was justified. There was every reason to suppose that after the withdrawal of the subsidy, strike or no strike, the funds would not stand what is being done in this Bill. It is quite certain now that this clause ought not to come in any scheme of sound
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finance. Before the strike it was doubtful if the thing was actuarially sound. The strike has made it perfectly clear that it was not actuarially sound. I entirely agree with what the noble Earl said on that matter. On any kind of sound finance or businesslike method the Government ought to accept this Amendment and delete the clause.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 9:
Substitution of one register a year for two and reduction of qualifying period.
9.—(1) One register only of electors shall be made in each year and the qualifying period shall be reduced from six months to three months.
(2) For the purpose of giving effect to the foregoing provision, the Representation of the People Acts, 1918 to 1922, shall have effect subject to the following modifications, that is to say:—
(b) The provisions mentioned in the first column of Part I of the Third Schedule to this Act shall be amended in the manner shown in the second column of the said Part I;
and to such other modifications as may be necessary for the purposes aforesaid.
LORD DESBOROUGH LORD DESBOROUGH moved, in subsection (2), paragraph (6), to leave out "Part 1 of". The noble Lord said: This is an omnibus Bill and as I happen to represent a Department which is affected by the registration of voters I have to propose the Amendments which are down in my name. Clause 9 proposes to make one register for the whole of the country and by doing so, and by shortening the period required for qualification, £250,000 will be saved to the country. To carry out this very laudable design I beg to move the Amendments which are down in my name. They are drafting Amendments and I am sure, in view of the great economy I am now proposing, no objection will be taken.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 19, leave out ("Part 1 of"). —(Lord Desborough.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 21, leave out ("Part 1") and insert Schedule.—(Lord Desborough.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 10:
Amendment of Ballot Act, 1872, as to division of register at polling station.
10.—(1) At any election to which the Ballot Act, 1872, applies the returning officer may direct that the register or the part of the register containing the names of electors allotted to vote at a polling station shall be divided for the purpose of making separate issues of ballot papers to the electors:
Provided that the returning officer before giving any such direction shall be satisfied that if any such division of the register is made the proper conduct of the election will not be prejudiced.
(2) Each part of a polling station at which any such division of the register is used shall be deemed to be a separate polling station for the purpose of the appointment of polling agents by the candidates.
LORD DESBOROUGH LORD DESBOROUGH moved to leave out Clause 10. The noble Lord said: At this late period in the evening I do not propose to go into the provisions of the clause. It is my duty to ask you Lordships to delete it.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 10.—(Lord Desborough.)
LORD ARNOLD: I do not propose to discuss this clause, but I do propose to tell your Lordships a little of the history of why this is being done. Many members of your Lordships' House may not be aware of what the position is. This clause should really have been deleted in another place. It deals with matters affecting the representation of the people and it is their province to deal with that. The Government, both in respect of this clause and I think another clause, put down an Amendment for deletion, but as I explained to your Lordships on Second Reading, they were being so damaged by criticism in another place that they were determined at all cost to avoid a Report stage. Your Lordships will be aware that if a single Amendment is made there must be a Report stage. The Government put down an Amendment in the name of the Home Secretary and then adopted the extraordinary course of not moving it and intimating that the clause would be taken out in your Lordships' House. It is obvious that it was thought
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that your Lordships would be perfectly ready to do anything that a Conservative Government wants done.
That is not the end of the matter, for last week, in the Second Reading debate, the noble Viscount, when he came to this very awkward stile, rather stumbled. He did not say this was going to be done. He said he might have to move the deletion of the clause later. I began to wonder whether, in view of the highly improper procedure proposed, the Government had thought twice about it and were not going to delete this clause. Yet the very next day these Amendments were on the Paper. The noble Viscount must have known perfectly well they were going to be on the Paper. I suggest that it is a very strange thing to make a statement like that when he knew Amendments were going to be put down for deletion. I will not say more except that I think the whole procedure highly irregular and improper.
LORD JESSEL: I am very much amused by the noble Lord opposite posing as such a Parliamentary innocent. He served such a long and valuable apprenticeship in another place that he must know perfectly well that Governments do resist Amendments in order to avoid a Report stage. There is nothing new in that. On the other hand I may remind him that he and his friends in another place had ample opportunities for discussing this Bill, as can be seen by the number of Divisions and the number of days that the Bill occupied. As regards these two clauses, I am very glad the Government has decided at last to get rid of them, because I do not think they would have served any valuable purpose, and from the machinery point of view I think they were unsound.
VISCOUNT PEEL: I always seem to be falling under the animadversions of the noble Lord opposite for one crime or another. Animadversions shower upon my head in such rapid succession that it is difficult to deal with them. Apparently the present charge is that I did not say that it was quite certain that Amendments were to be moved to delete certain clauses and that I expressed some doubt on the subject. I did express doubt because I am very cautious never to say anything to your Lordships unless I am quite certain, and at that moment I was informed

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—I do not deal with Home Office matters myself—that the deletion of these clauses was under consideration. Therefore, with my usual caution and accuracy and desire not to mislead your Lordships, I did not say these clauses were to be withdrawn. What I did say was quite accurate, that the matter was under consideration. I hope that this explanation will relieve me from further criticism.
LORD ARNOLD: The noble Viscount is a little too optimistic. The position is this. The noble Viscount says he did not know whether or not the clauses were going to be deleted, but the very next day Amendments were down on the Paper. They must have been handed in that same evening. There is something that wants reconciling there. My only reply to my noble friend opposite is that it is true that I have had some experience in another place and I know that Governments have made attempts to resist Amendments in order to avoid a Report stage. That is perfectly true, but I cannot myself recall—I do not say that it has never happened—the case of a Government having put down an Amendment which they were going to move themselves and, when that Amendment was reached, declining to move it in order to avoid a Report stage, and saying that it will be done in another place.
Viscount PEEL: It is a useful precedent for your Party in the future.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 11:
Amendment as to stamping of ballot papers with official mark.
11.—(1) Notwithstanding anything in the Ballot Act, 1872, the returning officer shall cause the ballot papers to be stamped or printed with the official mark prior to the polling, and so much of that Act as requires each ballot paper to be stamped with the official mark immediately before it is delivered to an. elector and as requires the returning officer to provide each polling station with instruments for stamping on ballot papers the official mark, shall cease to have effect.
(2) The provisions of the Ballot Act, 1872, which are set out in the first column of Part II of the Third Schedule to this Act shall have effect subject to the amendments thereof specified in the second column of that Schedule being amendments consequential on or incidental or supplemental to the provisions contained in subsection (1) of this section.
LORD DESBOROUGH LORD DESBOROUGH moved to leave out Clause 11. The noble Lord said: This clause is in the same position as the unfortunate Clause 10, and I have to move its deletion in accordance with an undertaking which was given by the Home Secretary in another place. It is quite true that, in order to get the Bill through, which I think everybody wanted, it was a very good plan, to avoid trouble on the Report stage, to have this Amendment moved at another stage and, in accordance with a promise that was given that this clause should be deleted at a further stage of the Bill, I rise to move the Amendment that stands in my name. Neither of these clauses seems to me to be very important. The object of both was to save money. I cannot say anything more about Clause 10 but, as regards Clause 11, it did meet with a good deal of opposition in another place and the Government came to the conclusion that, as there was going to be a conference on the franchise on which all Parties would be represented, it would be as well to leave the matter—that is, the subject of Clause 11—for the discussion of that conference and not to press it at the present time. Both these clauses are really small affairs and I do not think that the Constitution will be imperilled by their withdrawal at this stage.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 11.—(Lord Desborough.)
LORD ARNOLD: I had not intended to speak again on this stage of the Bill, but I must say one or two words about the speech of the noble Lord opposite. I do not think he realises that he has really made the case infinitely worse, because he now tells your Lordships that the Home Secretary had promised that your Lordships would take out this clause. How could the Home Secretary know that?
LORD DESBOROUGH: No, no.
LOBD ARNOLD: Those were his words. I listened very carefully and the noble Viscount opposite confirms me. Your Lordships might have taken a different view. The suggestion is that your Lordships' House is simply in the pocket of the Conservative Government.
LORD DESBOROUGH: I said "at a further stage." I am quite sure that the Home Secretary would not in the least interfere with the well known wisdom of your Lordships' House. He said that he would make an attempt to have this evil redressed at a later stage. This is that later stage and your Lordships, if you want the clause to remain, can vote for it.
LORD ARNOLD: As a matter of fact, the Home Secretary did not use those words, but the noble Lord did say to the House that the Home Secretary had promised that this clause would be taken out in your Lordships' House. That is the only point and—
LORD DESBOROUGH: I do not think I did say that.
LORD ARNOLD: The noble Lord did say that.
LORD DESBOROUGH: I never said anything of the sort.
LORD ARNOLD: If I misunderstood the noble Lord well and good. We must wait and see what the OFFICIAL EEPORT says. The noble Lord also said that everybody wanted this Bill passed. So far from that being the case, I can scarcely remember a Bill which has been more strongly opposed by both sections of the Opposition or a Bill of any importance that received less support from' the Government's Back Benches.
LORD DESBOROUGH: I said that everybody was in favour of economy. This is £250,000 a year.
LORD ARNOLD: The noble Lord said that everybody wanted the Bill passed, and I am pointing out that, so far from that being the case, it was very strongly opposed and it is well known that the Government had the greatest difficulty in getting their men into the Lobby to support it.
LORD DESBOROUGH: Will you propose that Clause 11 stand part?
LORD ARNOLD: As I have said, I am not discussing the merits of the clause. I am merely stating the position.
On Question, Amendment agreed to
Clauses 12 and 13 agreed to.
Clause 14:
Operation of s. 118 of Education Act, 1921.
14.—(1) For the purpose of removing doubts it is hereby declared that the Board of Education shall not, for the purpose of subsection (2) of Section one hundred and eighteen of the Education Act, 1921, be bound to recognise as expenditure in aid of which parliamentary grants should be made to a local education authority any expenditure which in the opinion of the Board is excessive having regard to the circumstances of the area of the authority or the general standard of expenditure in other areas, or which in the opinion of the Board unreasonably exceeds any estimate of expenditure made by the authority.
THE LORD CHAIRMAN: The noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, has been good enough to tell me that he does not move his Amendment to leave out subsection (1), and Lord Gainford—[who had given Notice to move, in subsection (1), to leave out the words "which in the opinion of the board is excessive having regard to the circumstances of the area of the authority or the general standard of expenditure in other areas, or which"]—is not in his place. I think the next half-dozen Amendments upon the Paper can hardly be taken in the order in which they appear if every noble Lord is to be able to say everything that he desires on every Amendment. The Amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Peel, comes first.
VISCOUNT PEEL VISCOUNT PEEL moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "or" ["authority or"] and to insert "and," and after "expenditure" ["general standard of expenditure"] to insert "on corresponding services." The noble Viscount said: I rather think that I may save the noble Earl, the Lord Chairman, from some of his difficulties, because I understand that this Amendment meets the views of my noble friends Lord Jessel and Lord Monk Bretton who have given Notice of Amendments to this clause. I should prefer to read to your Lordships the clause as it will run if this Amendment is inserted. We are dealing, of course, with the question of how it is to be judged, whether percentage grants should be paid on certain educational services and what

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standard should be taken by the Government. The words will be:—
".… which in the opinion of the Board is excessive having regard to the circumstances of the area of the authority and the general standard of expenditure on corresponding services in other areas.…"
I think that this really sets up a very fair rule by which the Government may judge as to whether or not these are Services on which a corresponding 50 per cent, of the Government grant ought to be paid.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 5, leave out ("or") and insert ("and") and after ("expenditure") insert ("on corresponding services").—(Viscount Peel.)
LORD JESSEL: I am very glad that the Government have made this concession because, from the point of view of education, especially in London, we felt it rather hard that the circumstances should not be taken into consideration. We had no fear that the President of the Board of Education, who is known to have served his apprenticeship on the Education Committee of the London County Council, would be hard, but at the same time it was felt very strongly by the Education Committee of the London County Council, which is doing some of the finest work in the country, that the effect of the clause as it stood was to give too arbitrary a power to the Board of Education. At this late hour of the evening, I do not wish to detain your Lordships with a speech of any length. I will only reiterate that which I said before, that on both sides and among all those in another place who put forward somewhat similar Amendments, it is a matter of gratification that the Government have now seen fit to accept an Amendment which quite fulfills the views that they have been putting forward.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 14, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
First Schedule agreed to.
Second Schedule agreed to.
Third Schedule:

THIRD SCHEDULE.

  PART 1.
  AMENDMENTS OF THE REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE ACTS, 1918 AND 1922.

  Column 1.

  Column 2.

  The Representation of the People Act, 1918 (7 & 8 Geo. 5. c. 64).

  Section 7

  For the words for part of "the qualifying period not exceeding four months in the whole there shall be substituted the words for part of the qualifying period not exceeding two months in the whole, or where the occupation of the person giving the permission commenced more than six months before the first day of June, for not more than four months in the whole during that period of six months.

  Section 43

  For paragraph (18) the following paragraph shall be substituted:—

  "(18) Notwithstanding anything in this Act it shall not be necessary as regards any county or any registration unit therein, if the county council of the county so resolve, to show or distinguish in any register other than the register in those years in which county council elections fall to be held the names of persons entitled to vote as local government electors:

  Provided that—

  (i) a resolution under this paragraph shall not have effect as respects the register in any year unless it is passed before the fifteenth day of May in that year;

  (ii) for all the purposes of the registration of local government electors in any county or registration unit therein to which any Such resolution applies, the last preceding local government register shall remain in force until a new local government register conies into force.

  In this paragraph 'county' means a county exclusive of any burgh within the meaning of the Town Councils (Scotland) Act, 1900."

  Column 1.

  Column 2.

  The Representation of the People Act, 1921 (11 & 12 Geo. 5. c. 34).

  Section 1

  After the words "qualifying period there snail be inserted the words not exceeding two months at any one time or if the residence commenced more than six months before the first day of June during a part of those six months."

PART II.
AMENDMENTS OF THE BALLOT ACT, 1872.

Column 1.

Column 2.

Section 2

The words "at the time of voting" shall be omitted and after the words "with an official mark and" there shall be inserted the words "at the time of voting shall be" and after the words "can be identified" there shall be inserted the words "or which was not duly issued."

Section 4

At the end the following proviso shall be inserted:—

"Provided that nothing in this section shall affect the powers of the returning officer under the rules in Schedule one to this Act to examine the numbers on the backs of ballot papers for the purpose of identifying and rejecting ballot papers not duly issued."

Schedule I.,

Part I.

In rule 20, the words "with instruments for stamping thereon the official mark" shall be omitted.

In rule 24, the word "Immediately" shall be omitted, and after the words "either" stamped or perforated and" there shall be inserted the words "immediately before it is so delivered."

For rule 34, the following rule shall be substituted:—

"34.—(1) Before the returning officer proceeds to count the votes he shall, in the presence of the agents of the candidates, open each ballot box and, taking out the ballot papers therein, shall count and record the number thereof and verify the ballot paper account given by each presiding officer by comparing it with the number of ballot papers so

Column 1.

Column 2.

recorded by him and the unused and spoilt ballot papers in his possession and the tendered votes list, and shall reseal each sealed packet after examination. The returning officer shall thereupon mix together the whole of the ballot papers contained in the ballot boxes:

Provided that if, after counting and recording the number of ballot papers and verifying the number recorded as aforesaid, the returning officer finds that there is a discrepancy between the number so recorded and the number stated in the ballot paper account and has reason to believe that the discrepancy has been caused by the insertion of ballot papers not duly issued, he may, before mixing the ballot papers together, examine the numbers printed on the backs of the ballot papers for the purpose of identifying and rejecting as invalid any ballot papers which have not been duly issued.

(2) The returning officer while counting and recording the number of ballot papers and verifying the number so recorded and counting the votes shall keep the ballot papers with their faces upwards and take all proper precautions for preventing any person from seeing the numbers printed on the backs of such papers and shall, if he himself examines such numbers for the purpose aforesaid, take all proper precautions for preventing any other person from seeing such numbers during such examination."

In rule 36, after paragraph 4, the following paragraph shall be inserted:—

"5. Not duly issued." At the end of rule 36 the following words shall be inserted ho shall also report to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery the result of his verification of the ballot paper accounts, and shall, on request, allow any agents of the candidates, before such report is sent, to take copies of it."

In rule 37 all words from "but shall proceed" to the end of the rule shall be omitted.

LORD DESBOROUGH LORD DESBOROUGH moved, at the beginning, after "Third Schedule" to leave out "Part I." The noble Lord said: This is a drafting Amendment made necessary by the deletion of Clause 11.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 2, leave out ("Part I").— (Lord Desborough.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND)THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND) moved, in the reference to Section 7 of the Representation of the People Act, 1918, to substitute "last day of the qualifying period" for "first day of June." The noble Duke said: The Bill as it stands provides that the first day of June shall be the last day of the qualifying period. By a subsequent Amendment it is proposed, in Scotland, to keep as at present the 15th June. The Amendment which I am now moving is the most convenient way of making the consequential alteration.
Amendment moved—
Schedule 3, page 17, line 33, column 2, leave out ("first day of June") and insert ("last day of the qualifying period").— (The Duke of Sutherland.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND: The next Amendment also is intended to bring the Bill into tine as regards Scottish matters. The 15th June is at present, in Scotland, the last day of the qualifying period for the Autumn Register. It was originally proposed in the Bill to make the last day the 1st June, as is done in the case of England, on account of the extra work involved in preparing the Annual Register, which is to come into force on the same date as the Autumn Register—namely, the 15th October. It has been found possible, however, to arrange for the work to be done within the period presently allowed, and it is now proposed to retain the present date—the 15th June. This date is further to be preferred because the 28th May is the principal removal term in Scotland, and removals take place largely during the first week in June. With the qualifying period ending on the 15th June persons so
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removing will be registered where eligible for their new address. They would be registered for their old address if the qualifying period ended on the 1st June. The Amendment is agreed with the Party Agents and Registration Officers in Scotland.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, leave out from beginning of line 37, column 2, to the end of line 30 on page 18, and insert (" The following paragraph shall be inserted after paragraph (4)—
4 (a). In the application of the section of this Act relating to qualifying period, the fifteenth day of June shall be substituted for the first day of June.
Paragraph (18) shall be repealed ").—(The Duke of Sutherland.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND: My next Amendment is consequential on my first Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, lines 39 and 40, column 2, leave out ("first day of June") and insert ("last day of the qualifying period")—(The Duke of Sutherland.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DESBOROUGH: The Amendment that I now propose is consequential. It has been agreed to by the representatives of the three Parties.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 40, at end, insert—
Column 1.
"The Representation of the People Act 1922 (12 & 13 Geo. V., c. 12): Schedule.
Column 2.
The dates specified below shall, as respects the several matters so specified, be substituted respectively for the dates specified in the last column of Part I:—

End of qualifying period, 1st June.

Publication of electors' lists, 15th July.

Last day for notice of objections to electors' lists, 31st July.

Last day for claims, 7th August.

Last day for claims as absent voters, 18th August.

Last day for notification of desire by naval or military voter not to be placed on absent voters' list, 18th August.

Publication of list of objections to electors' lists, 13th August.

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Publication of lists of claimants, 13th August.

Last day for objections to claimants, 18th August.

Publication of lists of objections to claimants, 18th August."—(Lord Desborough.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND: The table of new Scottish registration dates in respect of the Annual Register is agreed with the Registration Officers and Party Agents.
Amendment moved—
Schedule 3, page 18, line 40, at end, insert—
Column 1.
"The Representation of the People Act, 1922 (12 & 13 Geo. V., c. 12): Schedule.
Column 2.
The dates specified below shall, as respects the several matters so specified, be substituted respectively for the dates specified in the last column of Part II:—

Publication of electors' lists, 8th August.

Last day for notice of objections to electors' lists, 22nd August.

Last day for claims, 22nd August.

Last day for claims as absent voters, 1st September.

Last day for notification of desire by naval or military voter not to be placed on absent voters' list, 1st September.

Publication of list of objections to electors' lists, 29th August.

Publication of lists of claimants, 29th August.

Last day for objections to claimants, 3rd September.

Publication of list of objections to claimants, 3rd September."—(The Duke of Sutherland.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Amendment moved:—
Page 18, leave out from the beginning of line 41 to the end of the Third Schedule.—(Lord Desborough.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Third Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
Fourth Schedule agreed to.
House adjourned at five minutes past seven o'clock.