Sitting of 7 November 1928

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  ARMISTICE DAY CENOTAPH CEREMONY (TROOPS).
  Mr. THURTLE(by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to a suggestion that troops taking part in the Armistice Ceremony at the Cenotaph should parade without arms; and if, in view of the nature of that ceremony, he will adopt this suggestion?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans): Yes, Sir. But I think the suggestion should not be adopted. The troops are present at the ceremony at the Cenotaph as representing the Army—the living comrades of those whose deaths the Cenotaph commemorates. The Army Council consider that this ceremony should be accorded the highest military honour. The Army therefore parades in full dress with arms.
  Mr. THURTLE: May I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman on this matter? Is he aware that large numbers of people in this country feel that the presence of arms on this occasion is a violation of the spirit and purposes of the ceremony, and will he not, in the circumstances, in view of the fact that the change would offend none and please very many, reconsider the matter?
  Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: No, Sir; I think they are mistaken, and when they have read the answer I have given I hope they will see that they are mistaken.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is it not a fact that a great many units attend church parade without arms, and as it is a religious ceremony at the
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  Cenotaph, would it not be perfectly proper for troops to appear in full order but 'without arms?
  Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: No, it is not a fact. Troops attend religious services with arms—always with arms. In church they wear their side-arms and pile their rifles outside, or, if barracks are close, they leave the rifles in barracks.

  HIGHWAY ROBBERY, KENSINGTON.
  Sir WILLIAM DAVISON(by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to a serious case of highway robbery in Kensington during the second week in October, when a Mr. and Mrs. Reid, who were returning from the Motor Show to their home in Warwick Gardens, were set upon by a gang, robbed of money and valuables and received serious personal injuries; whether it is a fact that no police were within call; and whether he is satisfied as to the adequacy of the police force for the protection of residents in this part of Kensington from highway robbery in the future?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir William Joynson-Hicks): My attention had not been drawn previously to this case, but I am having inquiry made, and I will communicate with my hon. Friend.

  PORTUGUESE WEST AFRICA (BRITISH SEAMAN'S ARREST).
  Sir ROBERT HAMILTON(by Private Notice) asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can state what action the Government is taking with the Portuguese Government with reference to the long delay in the trial of Mr. Brewer, the conditions of his incarceration while awaiting trial, and the severity of the sentence passed upon him by the court at Lobito?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Godfrey Locker-Lampson): His Majesty's Ambassador at Lisbon, acting on instructions from His Majesty's Government, addressed strong representations to the

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  Portuguese Government on the 3rd instant against Mr. Brewer's long detention prior to trial and the severity of the sentence. The Portuguese Government promised an immediate investigation by telegraph. As Mr. Brewer, after the first few days following his arrest, was detained in the local hospital where he enjoyed considerable freedom, there is no cause for complaint in regard to the conditions of his incarceration.
  Sir R. HAMILTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the question of laying the correspondence on the Table of the House?
  Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I require notice of that question.
  Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether 3rd November was the first date on which His Majesty's Government made representations to Lisbon, seeing that this man has been detained for a year?
  Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: That is so. The hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) has put a question on the Paper for Monday on that particular point, and I propose then to answer it.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): I beg to move,
"That, until the Adjournment of the House for Easter, Government Business do have precedence at every Sitting."
It might, perhaps, be for the convenience of the House if I state what is not familiar to all, namely, that had this been a continuance of the Session which began in February, it would not be necessary to move this Resolution, so far as the time up to Christmas is concerned. That leads me to say this: If it becomes the practice, as I hope it may become in time, whatever Government is in power, for the Session to begin in the autumn—I believe that more experience will convince the House that it is both better for legislation and more convenient for Members—it will then be necessary for the House to consider what should be the proper allocation of Members' time as between the different periods of the year. I throw out the suggestion now,
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without expecting or desiring an answer this afternoon, but I think it might be quite a good thing if some such little conference of all parties as that which agreed to the allocation of private Members' time, were to discuss this question, so that some agreement might be reached, and, if possible, the whole matter put on a permanent basis before another Government comes into power. It is well worth thinking of and does concern the House as a whole.
So much for the period up to Christmas. The less usual course that the Government are taking to-day is to ask for private Members' time up to the Easter Recess. The reason for that, as I indicated briefly yesterday, lies in the weight of legislation that has to be got through this Session. I refer, of course, to the Poor Law Bills for England and Scotland. Those are two very heavy and very necessary pieces of work which, of course, will be explained at length by the Ministers responsible when the Second Reading takes place I hope within the next three weeks. It is quite clear that, this being the last Session of the present Parliament and it being quite uncertain as to when the General Election will actually take place, as a matter of precaution that legislation must he got on with as quickly as possible.
It is for that reason that we are asking the House, asking private Members, to surrender their time up to Easter, so as to allow the passage of those Bills. On that point I would say that although that takes away from them the right of putting down Motions and introducing private Members' Bills on specially allotted days, it does not take away their right of presenting private Bills by the other ordinary method, nor would the progress of those Bills, if non-contentious, be prejudiced at all necessarily, even by the shortness of the Session. But, of course, it is obvious, from observations that have been made from all quarters of the House, that there is a feeling that the end of this Parliament may conic earlier rather than later—I can say nothing about it at present, but there is that feeling—and if that be so it would be perfectly impossible for any private Members' Bills to approach to that stage when they could come up to the House for Report and Third Reading.

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So the probability is that, even were time allotted to them for the earlier stages, all that time would be wasted by inevitable interruption of a General Election. Those are the reasons. There is one other point that has occurred to me. Of course, I cannot speak for other parties; I am merely speaking with my own responsibility here. If the House agrees with the Government in this Resolution, I think that all parties might make an effort to give to private Members what they have not always had, and that is every chance with the ordinary Debates, by those on the Front Bench not taking part in Debates more than is necessary.
It is always customary, and I think not without use, that when anyone in any place makes a Motion of this kind, he makes a claim that, although he is taking a course which he does not wholly like and which he does not wholly commend, it is a course which he is taking with much greater moderation than that shown by those who have introduced Resolutions before him. So I say that during the whole of this year we have taken no private Members' time at all. I think that is rather good, and I would add that at no time before Easter have we taken quite as much time as the Opposition sitting there took in 1924, when they were in office. I say nothing about the War time, when, of course, private embers had to sacrifice time. It is a fact that for two whole years, in the time of the Coalition Government of which I was a member—the last year but one and the year before that—the Government took the whole of private Members' time. But I do not wish to insist on that, because that was a very different time, and the arrangement was almost wholly due to the stress of the War years.
I go back to a normal period—the last time when any Motion of this kind was put—and I am glad to think that in 1911, when the Liberal party in overwhelming strength occupied these benches, and seemed likely to occupy them for the rest of our lives, they put down a Motion, taking the whole of the private Members' time up to 13th April. That Motion was supported by the hon. and gallant Member for North Aberdeen (Captain W. Benn), whom we are so glad to see in his place to-day. In this brief space,
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I think I have shown the necessity, so far as Government business is concerned, for taking this step—that is to say for taking private Members' time for a period equivalent to two months, or with as much of January in addition as we may happen to sit—that I have excellent precedent for the step I am taking, and that that step, though naturally it cannot be palatable to the House, is yet a much shorter step than has been taken by greater men than myself.
Mr. RAMSAY MacDONALD: There are two preliminary observations which I should like to make. The first is with reference to the suggestion made by the Prime Minister that the other parties should consult with him in view of the new arrangements for the business of Parliament and the beginning of the Sessions, so that our Standing Orders relating to private Members' time might. be adjusted to the new conditions. We shall be very glad indeed, so far as we are concerned, to accept his invitation on that matter. The other thing is his suggestion that the Front Benches might give more time for discussion to private Members. That is a matter that we all feel deeply on our consciences; but the right hon. Gentleman has put it, I think, in a somewhat imperfect form. I should say the thing to point out to-day is that the right hon. Gentleman should not issue orders from the Front Bench preventing his own private Members taking part in the Debates. What has been so painful to us, Session after Session, is the blank, and, I am perfectly certain, unwilling silence on the benches behind the right hon. Gentleman.
I think the right hon. Gentleman's commendation of this Motion has been just a little perfunctory. He said yesterday that he was going to encroach, to some extent, on private Members' time. What we discover on our Order Papers to-day is that he is going to take all private Members' time. He referred to what used to be called Autumn Sessions. Now this not an Autumn Session This is the beginning of a new Session. When we were faced with a Motion equivalent to this Motion, at the beginning of an Autumn Session, we, performing our duty as art Opposition, did our best to safeguard private Members' time. You, Sir, and your predecessor being very zealous

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custodians—properly, if I may say so—of the Rules of the House, we have found ourselves, every now and again compelled to put down Motions and Amendments in a form which implies exactly the opposite of what we want. For instance, when we want an increase of a Vote we take the opportunity of explaining why we want the increase in the Vote by putting down an Amendment to decrease the Vote. If I may say so in a way that you, Sir, certainly will not misunderstand, that is not the fault of the Opposition, but the fault of the zealous custodianship of the Standing Orders of the House. Therefore, what we have had to do on previous occasions when an Autumn Session was being opened was this: We have had to oppose the Government taking time, but the object of our opposition was to secure that, when they did take time, if any important subject came up which could not have been foreseen at the time of the Motion, the Government were pledged in such circumstances to give the Opposition or the sections of the Opposition an opportunity to discuss the matter on the Floor of the House.
Now, that is a totally different thing from what the right hon. Gentleman is doing to-day. We are to-day at the beginning of a new Session. This is a. new time-table, and I think every party in the House hopes that this time-table is going to remain—that we begin, now, to do our ordinary Parliamentary work, that we shall have a good deal of it, especially Second Readings of important Bills, cleared out of the way before Christmas, and then, as a compensation, that we shall try to rise, not as so frequently happens now in the first week or fortnight of August, but somewhere about the middle of July. Therefore, when the right hon. Gentleman moves this Motion to-day it is tantamount to his coming before us in January, under the old conditions, and moving that the whole of the private Members' time should be taken up to Whitsuntide. That is the way it would be put in the old currency of our habits of Parliamentary procedure. I say a majority has no right to use its numbers in order to carry a Motion of that kind. This is not, as it were, suspending the Standing Orders—which we have all had to do and which, certainly, we will all do when circumstances compel us. This is not
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a suspension of the Standing Orders: this is a subversion of the Standing Orders, and the House certainly ought. not to allow it to be done in the present circumstances.
Why does the right hon. Gentleman want this Motion? He says that it is in order to pass the Poor Law Bills. That is not the programme. He also mentioned a Bill yesterday which was so insignificant, according to his definition of it, that it was not worth mentioning in the King's Speech. I refer to the Wireless and Cables Bill. That is a Bill of extraordinary, of supreme importance. Rightly or wrongly—I am not arguing that to-day—that Bill upsets a very old national policy. Members on the opposite side of the House will not deny that it upsets the policy that the nation should keep control of its means of communication, more particularly the Imperial means of communication. I am not going to assist the right hon. Gentleman to get that Bill. If he had told us to-day that he wanted the time in order to fulfil some of those other pledges, about factory legislation, in any event we would have approached it with a certain amount of sympathy in our hearts which is not there at all at the present time. The legislation that he wants falls into two categories: one is the shop-window dressing that is necessary for a General Election, and the other is legislation of the nature of the Wireless and Cables Bill. The effect of it is this: The Prime Minister asks this House to-day to set a precedent. We may come to an agreement with him—I hope we shall—about the new Standing Orders, but. nevertheless, if the Motion which the Prime Minister has now moved is carried to-day, it will stand on the records of this House, and Prime Minister after Prime Minister who will succeed him can quote it as a precedent, and ask the House to follow a precedent that has already been established.
It means, in other language, this: He comes, at the beginning of this last Session of Parliament, and he is making this claim, that, on account of the General Election pressure on the Government, the Government may ask the House of Commons, and private Members, in every last Session of these short, five-year Parliaments, to give up the whole of their rights, and, if private Members are not willing to give up the whole of their rights, he claps his Whips on and gets the Government majority in order to en-

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force it. That is the situation. Let us establish this precedent, and we shall not hear the last of it. The tendency is to take more and more time from private Members. I daresay, if we were in the right hon. Gentleman's position, that we would feel, as he is feeling, the pressure to yield to that temptation. I wish he had one day somebody who would resist him, but the argument against resistance which has the least weight with everybody who cares for the liberties of this House is the argument that the Prime Minister has put up to-day, that the Government, preparatory to going to the country, in the interest of producing certain legislation by which the vote of the country may be secured, are going to clap their majority on in this House and deprive private Members of their time. So far as we are concerned, we shall not assent to the proposal.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: This is a Motion that must put any Member who sits in opposition to the Government in a dilemma. If he supports it, he is undoubtedly supporting a proposal which is a very serious departure from precedent, except in the days of emergency which the Prime Minister has pointed out, and which may be a precedent in future which will deprive private Members of their rights in this House. On the other hand, if we resist it, we are putting off the Dissolution. The Prime Minister has already indicated his programme. Naturally, it is a programme which we oppose, but it is for the Government to determine their own programme, and having regard to what they did last Session, I think they are bound to go through with that programme. They cannot leave matters where they were left at the end of last Session with regard to rating; they are bound to carry through their proposals. Practically, that, with the Budget, will take most of the time. There may be one or two other proposals which will take up considerable time. If in addition to that we are to take Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, I am afraid the result will be to put off by some weeks a Dissolution of Parliament, to which we are all anxiously looking forward. Whether we shall be equally pleased when it is over, one leaves on the knees of the gods.
Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: And the goddesses!
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Yes, and the goddesses. If you have made up your mind—and I have no doubt the Government have made up their mind—that the Dissolution should come before the hay harvest, it is a real question whether they have the time at their disposal to carry through their programme and at the same time give the usual facilities for private Members. If they nave not, I do not think they are doing a thing which any other Government would not have done under the circumstances. I am very sorry I was not here when the Prime Minister rose, because it was an important pronouncement, but he suggested that there might be a Conference of parties to discuss a certain aspect of our proceedings. I wish it were possible to extend that to considering the whole of our proceedings, especially with regard to private Members. I have been in this House now very nearly 40 years, and I think, in regard to most of the time which is allocated to private Members, the best use is not made of it. I think much better use could be made of it. It is very rarely that you get a Bill through; it is purely a toss-up if you get the first chance, and there are very few Bilis that ever get through. It is as easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle as for a private Member to get a Bill through this House, and that is very largely due to the fact that it is purely a matter of chance which Bill gets the best opportunity, and the Bill that gets the best opportunity is not the Bill that really interests the vast majority of the people in this House or the subject upon which it is most necessary to have a debate and to have legislation.
The same thing applies to the Tuesday and Wednesday discussions and I think it would be desirable that, either in this Parliament or in the next, there should be a discussion, not a Committee set up, such as a Select. Committee—these Select Committees rarely arrive at conclusions which are practical—but rather a free and easy discussion among those in charge of the business of the House, with a view to seeing whether better use could not be made of the machinery of the Howe for the purpose of providing opportunities for private Members. For instance, here is one thing which has always struck me. It is right that the House of Commons should have an oppor-

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tunity of discussing things that may not interest the Government for the time being, things which are in process of being discussed in the country, things upon which public opinion might not be ripe for the moment, matters on which even Members of the House of Commons are not very clear in their own minds—not necessarily party questions, but questions of general interest—and I have always thought it was a very great mistake that the Moment you limited the days given to Supply you should not then have extended the sphere of discussion. In the old days, if you permitted the discussion of Amendments, for instance, on subjects which involved legislation in a Debate in Committee of Supply, the result would be that you would go on discussing Supply all the year round, and there was no limit, but the moment you impose a limit on the number of days in Supply, it does not matter to the Government in what form the discussion takes place, and it cripples the discussion to limit it entirely to mere questions of administration, whereas often Members of this House are more concerned about other matters, which may infringe the Rules of the House in that respect.
Those are questions which I hope the Prime Minister will permit this Conference to 'discuss; they are questions which concern every party in this House; they are questions which concern the working of Parliamentary institutions. There is much greater freedom in other Parliaments in that respect., and while I do not like this departure from precedent in the matter of taking up the time of private Members, still it is very difficult, and if the Government have made up their mind definitely—I am not prepared to challenge their figures—that there is no time to be given away in respect of private Members if you are to dissolve Parliament before the hay harvest, then all I can say is that I. very much regret that it should be necessary to make a precedent of this kind, but I hope the Prime Minister will give an opportunity for a discussion on a broad basis with regard to methods of improving the opportunities for private Members.
Mr. THURTLE: I am sorry to intervene at this point, but I trust hon. Members are not going to allow their
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rights and privileges to be taken away without a word of protest. As a back bench Member, I want to enter my protest against this wholesale taking away of our rights. I do not agree with what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) has said about the dilemma in which we find ourselves. He said that we are to choose between having an early election and sticking up for our rights as private Members. In taking that point of view, he has shown his characteristic inability to take a long view of things, because the question whether we are to get the election in the middle of May or the middle of June seems to me of minor importance compared with the question whether we are to safeguard the rights of private Members not only in this Parliament, but in many Parliaments to come. There is a special reason just now why we should stand up and fight as far as possible for the rights of ordinary private Members. I say this without distinction of party. A tendency is growing up in all parties to impose a much more rigid form of discipline, and to make the ordinary rank and file Member very little else than a voting "robot." That is bad for Parliament it is certainly bad for Members, and it is bad for the reputation of the House outside, because, if that kind of spirit persists, the best type of man, the type of man which is wanted in this House, will refuse to put up with it and will not come to the House at all.
I do not want to go into history, but there is the tragic case of the hon. Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto). The House will recollect that case. I understand that the hon. Member for Barnstaple is a Conservative of the most impeccable respectability; he is a Conservative of the Conservatives, and, like most of the other Conservatives in this House, he has actually sought to conserve a certain amount of independence of mind. What was the result? He was told that, because he took up an attitude like that, the whole weight of the party machine would be brought. to bear against him; he was confronted with the possibility of expulsion. I think I am entitled to say on that that the Prime Minister, acting through his Chief Whip, is saying in effect to the members of his

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party "Either be 'robots' or perish. I am prepared to admit that a certain amount of obedience ought to be given to the party machine, for without that obedience we cannot effectively carry on the business of Parliament; and I, like all my colleagues, am prepared to give a very large measure of obedience. There must, however, be times and occasions on which we should be allowed to take our own point of view, and to give expression to our own individuality, and the best means by which we can ensure that right is by safeguarding the right of private Members as laid down in the Orders of this House.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to certain questions which are non-party in character. There are a number of them. It is quite impossible for the ordinary Back Bench Member, through the channels of his party machine, to get an opportunity of discussing these questions. But, by means of the right of private Motions, apart from private Bills. there is an opportunity for a private Member to bring forward such questions upon which he feels strongly and have them discussed. I can mention a very contentious question which I would like to have discussed on a Motion in this House. I would like to have the question of birth control discussed, but there is not a chance, so far as I can see, of any of the ordinary official machinery of a party being used for that purpose.
Mr. ERNEST BROWN: This is a Motion for birth control.
Mr. THURTLE: It controls the birth of ideas certainly. This is a question which excites enormous interest in the country, particularly among the women electors, and if would be a very good thing if we had a discussion on a matter like that, and if the ideas of Parliament were clarified in regard to it. I have only one other point to make, and I hope the Prime Minister will forgive me if I seem to be offensive in making it. My complaint against him in regard to this, as in regard to so many other matters, is that he sins against the light as it were. How many times has the Prime Minister come to the House and said, "This is something I hate to do, but necessity drives me into doing it"? I could go back two or three years, and talk about something which happened in connection with the miners, but I will
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not do that. Always what we complain of on this side of the House is that the Prime Minister is constantly doing something with which he says he does not agree. He has been driven by necessity now, so he says, into taking away the rights of private Members. I speak to him as an Englishman, and I wish he would cut out all the talk about regrets, and do what he has decided to do and say nothing about it. He has decided to take away our rights as private Members let him be an honest man and admit that he is doing this purely for party necessity. The alternative is not only to defer the Election. If he likes, if he would give private Members their time, he could still have the Election at an early date by dropping some of the unnecessary and very contentious legislation that he is proposing to bring in. The position comes down to this: Here we are, we private Members, having our heads forced upon the block, and the Prime Minister is standing with uplifted axe prepared to decapitate us. All we say to him is, "Get on with the job, and spare us all these loud sobs and regrets."
Captain BOURNE: Whenever we have a Motion to take away private Members' time, we have a certain amount of regret expressed by the Opposition. I sometimes wonder- how sincere those regrets are, because I have noticed that, whenever we have given a whole day to private Members, as we have done under a recent alteration of the Standing Orders, it is by no means easy to keep a House up to 7.30 in the evening, and the difficulty of keeping a House between 7.30 and 11 o'clock is extremely great; it is Only that humane provision in our Standing Orders which prevents the House being counted between 8.15 and 9.15 which has enabled many budding orators to be heard. Much as we protest against private Members' time being taken, in our hearts many of us are doubly thankful when we are not lucky in the Ballot. I can speak from some experience, as I have had to pilot two Bills through this House.
What the Leader of the Opposition forgot is that in this Parliament we are in a slightly abnormal state which is not likely to recur. Under the Representation of the People Act of this year, we are adding a very large electorate to the register, and that register comes into force on the 1st May. It is unlikely that

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there will be any large subsequent addition to the register or that we shall ever again have a Parliament which is faced with a greatly enlarged register coming into operation in May instead of in the autumn, which fact dominates the next General Election. If we were on a normal register, the Election would probably not take place until next autumn and in that case there would be ample time to give to private Members. We are dealing, however, in this particular Session with abnormal circumstances, and before this act of the Prime Minister is quoted as a precedent, that fact should be taken into consideration. What are the chances of private Members' Bills? Under existing Standing Orders all Fridays until Easter are given to private Members; after Easter the first, second, third and fourth Fridays and, after Whitsun the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth Fridays are given to private Members. Does any hon. Member imagine that the third, fourth fifth and sixth Fridays after Whitsun will see this Parliament in existence? It would be wasting the time of the House to give Second Readings to Bills and send them to a Standing Committee upstairs, and it would give a good deal of trouble to Members who sit on this Committee and to the Government. All the time we should have the knowledge in our hearts that in the end the Bill is never likely to get through this House, let alone another place. We should look at this matter with some idea of the possibilities of what may happen, and I feel convinced that to bring in a Private Member's Bill this Session under the ballot would be a pure waste of time and effort on the part of those Members who might be fortunate enough to draw places.
As regards Private Members' Motions, if the House is going to accept the offer of the Prime Minister and we are to have a conference of all parties, I think that Conference might very usefully consider whether the arrangements made under the new Standing Order adopted a year ago have really worked successfully. So far as I can see, as a humble student of the procedure of this House, to ask Members to listen to two academic Motions in one afternoon is putting too great a strain on their patience. I say nothing against listening to a discussion on one subject in one afternoon, but to ask Members to come to listen to two Motions which they
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know in their heart of hearts will, even if they be carried, have very little effect on the government of the country, is to put too great a tax upon their patience. I would suggest if that Conference be held that it should consider seriously whether it would not be preferable to consider Motions from 7.30 to 11 o'clock on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, as we did under the old system, rather than have one whole day given up to private Members' business.
Another point, which I think was raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), is whether we could not have some other procedure for allotting private Members' time. At present it all depends upon the luck of the ballot. It must have been the experience of everyone that if a Member has some subject which he is particularly anxious to bring forward he is very often not successful in the ballot. It is some Member who has no subject in which he is specially interested who is the lucky one. But, however it comes out, in the result a Member brings forward what is really a party point and makes a party speech, supported by the Members of his own party, and some of the wider questions which are really of interest to all of us in this House, and which might be discussed with general advantage, are never touched upon at all—and all for the reason that the Members who wish to raise them are not fortunate in the ballot. These are points which, I think, might very well be considered if a Conference is held. I quite agree with the view that in a general way the rights of private Members as regards the time allotted to them in this House need to be very carefully safeguarded, but I do not feel that the best use is being made of those opportunities at the present time, and I would welcome anything which would give private Members a little more chance of being useful, and would make a Member's opportunities of talking in this House depend more upon his own merits and less upon the luck of the ballot.
Mr. HARDIE: I wish to protest against the proposals of the Prime Minister to-day from the point of view of Scottish Members. The time given to Scottish business in this House is so small that we depend very largely upon a chance in the ballot for an opportunity to bring forward the subjects which con-

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cern Scotland. We might have a chance to bring in a Bill for Scottish Home Rule. And if there be any logic in the statement of the Prime Minister to-day, he ought to be a supporter of a separate Parliament for Scotland, in order to be able to get through the business which concerns England. I think that to-day the Prime Minister was shutting the door very decidedly. The suspicion aroused in my mind by the Prime Minister's statement is that he fears that questions may be brought forward as private Members' business which would challenge a direct vote between the Conservatives and the other parties and be bad for the Tories in the coming election. I felt that he was trying to deprive the private Member of all rights of trying to challenge the opinion of the House prior to the election. In the main, however, my protest is based on the question of Scottish business. We are entering now upon a new Session, but a great many things which have occurred in Scotland can never be brought forward if the arrangement suggested by the Prime Minister is put into force. Our only hope of being able to deal with them is through the opportunities afforded by private Members' time—unless the Prime Minister will say now, in regard to certain business, that he will grant special days in order that it may 'be dealt with. So little attention is paid to the business of Scotland owing to the lack of time that we have to appeal to our own Members to bring forward Scottish business whenever they get an opportunity to do so.
The whole position of affairs arises from what I call the insane system under which we carry on the business of this House. We have been out of the House since August. Why? Why do we continue this stupid arrangement of having these long recesses and at the same time having to work night and day while we are in Session Is it not because the whole system of British Government is stupid? How can we expect men with any brain power to be able to stand up to this work night and day? All of us need a certain amount of rest. I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, being a medical man, will know that, speaking generally, the hours between sunrise and sunset are the best period in which to get the maximum
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amount of work from the brain. The whole basis of the organisation of business in this House is stupid. Imagine people running down here at five o'clock the day before in order to try to get a seat; and' then, after putting their cards in a seat, going away again! Insanity is at the basis of the whole thing. The nation's business ought not to be run on this haphazard system of having a long holiday and then coming back to work night and day. How can we find time for our business in that way?" The excuse is always being made when one wants some really urgent question brought forward, "Oh, but the Session is so short that we cannot find the time." Why not reduce the holiday period? Why not get the House on a sound working basis? If a. working man anywhere seeks to get an extra holiday, there is always an outcry abort it, but when it is the case of a legislator, of course it is held that he requires months to recover from the effects of his work during the time the House has been sitting. The reason for that is that our sittings are not planned on the basis of a day's work. The organisation of the House rests on the basis of a day and night rush. Why does not the Prime Minister show the nation that he has a different mental outlook from that of other Prime Ministers? Why does he cot put the House on a working basis by reducing the long Recesses, so that we need not burn the midnight oil over our business but be able to do it in the day time. If that were done, we should not find ourselves in the position we are now in of being asked to deny private Members their rights. On these grounds, I protest against the proposals of the Prime Minister.
Mr. E. BROWN: I think the hon. and gallant Member for Oxford (Captain Bourne) has shown less than his usual acuteness in the speech which he has just delivered. I know that the hon. and gallant Member has carefully watched the amount of time allocated to private Members in the past, and he is aware that the majority of the days which have fallen to private Members have fallen, by the luck of the ballot, to hon. Members opposite. Therefore, if the hon. and gallant Member is justified in making any comment in regard to the academic nature of the Motions and Private Members' Bills which have been submitted to the House or as

67
to the lack of interest in the Bills produced on Friday afternoons, that is a reflection on private Members as a whole and more particularly upon the private Members belonging to the party opposite, who have been the most successful in the ballot for Bills and Motions.
Last Session I drew attention to a subject which hundreds of thousands of women are debating very closely at the present time, and which was raised by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Cove). I allude to the administration of Widows' Pensions). That was not an academic subject, but was one of real interest, and there was no lack of support for the proposal of the hon. Member for Wellingborough from all sides of the House. Therefore, the comment made by the hon. and gallant Member for Oxford is a reflection upon those who support the Government, whose minds are academic and out of touch with the real life of the people. [HON. MEMBERS "No!"] At any rate, that is the logical consequence of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's argument. I am sure that if hon. Members opposite bring forward Motions which really concern the life of the people there will be no lack of support for them on the part of Members sitting on this side of the House. The Prime Minister has told us what has been the practice adopted by previous Prime Ministers, but I would like to point out that what is now proposed is very remarkable, because this Motion has been moved, not merely in the, early part of the Session, but at a time when it actually interrupts the Debate on the Address and before we have had disclosed to us the contents of the Bills announced in the King's Speech. We have interrupted the Debate on the Address by a Motion to give the whole of the private Members' time to the Government. If hon. Members have any regard for the rights of the House, I hope they will make a strong protest to-day against the action of the Government. I was reading the other day an article by the late Cardinal Newman, in the course of which he said:
"To centralise is the art and trick of the despot."
The Prime Minister is being despotic. I know his speech does not sound despotic, because he has made this proposal in such a delightful manner. It must not,
68
however, be overlooked that what the right hon. Gentleman has done is asking the private Members to give him the whole of their time for the rest of the Session. We have all had the White Paper containing the King's Speech, and, if the Prime Minister would only consent to drop one Bill, it would not be necessary to bring forward this Motion. Last Session the Minister of Labour asked us to pass a Bill to put Unemployment Insurance on a permanent basis. When that Bill was under discussion, I moved an Amendment providing that it should not come into operation until the live register of unemployment had come down to 720,000. I did so because, in my opinion, it would be impossible to base a Bill on 30 contributions until the unemployment figures had fallen to 720,000. At that time, we were told that our arguments on this subject were fallacious, but now we are told in the King's Speech that we are to have a new Unemployment Insurance Bill backing up every argument used by many bon. Members of this House against the Bill of last year being made a permanent Measure.
Hon. Members must not speak in a perfunctory manner upon this subject, and they must let the Government understand that a mere handful of men cannot he allowed to take away the time usually allotted to private Members before the Bills actually promised in the King's Speech have been produced. I know we shall be told that previous Governments have often adopted this course, but that which is now proposed establishes a new precedent. I have in my possession extracts from three or four speeches taken from the OFFICIAL REPORT but I will not read them. All those speeches support the procedure which has now been followed of beginning the Session before Christmas, and the reason given for taking that course by Conservative, Labour, and Liberal Members was that by beginning the business of Parliament in the early part of the winter before Christmas we should be able to devote more time to the discussion of subjects raised by private Members. In face of those arguments, it was a very great surprise to me to hear the Prime Minister say that when this new practice was advocated in years past it was done in order to afford private Members a greater amount of time. The very first proposal

69
in this Session of Parliament is not that private Members should get more time but for a more drastic appropriation of the time of the House by the Government. I think private Members ought to have at least three or four days for private Members' Motions and private Members Bills before Easter. For these reasons, I shall go into the Lobby in opposition to this drastic and unnecessary Motion.
A reference has been made to Bills dealing with the Poor Law, but we do not know anything about those Measures. We have been discussing this question in Scotland not merely as affecting parish councils but as dealing with our education authorities and the whole structure of local government, which is a very large question. If the Prime Minister really desires to allocate more time and get his election early and give private Members their rights, let him drop one of the Scottish Bills, and he will find that Scottish Members will be able to fill up the extra time allotted to them dealing with Scottish affairs.
Mr. BECKETT: I hope that during the course of this Debate we shall have more speeches from back benchers sitting on the other side of the House. It seems to me that this is one of those rare and refreshing occasions upon which we should all be able to combine quite regardless of any party spirit for the purpose of roasting the two Front Benches. When I am in this mood I see right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite sitting like twin Caligulas wishing that we had only one head for them to remove. I cannot agree with the hon. Member for Shore-ditch (Mr. Thurtle) that the Prime Minister has ever appeared as an executioner. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury seems to me to_ be more like an executioner, with the Prime Minister in the classical role of Bishop Juxon, who with gown awry and voice choked with sobs hurried to the execution to witness the last scene. I am rather disappointed that more back benchers opposite are not joining with us in our protest against this Motion. I know the hon. and gallant Member for Oxford (Captain Bourne) has been a very regular attendant in this House, and he has made many gallant, if rather inaudible, attempts to speak from the Conservative back benchers' point of
70
view. In view of these facts, I am somewhat amazed that he should reproach us with indulging before empty benches. The hon. and gallant Member knows very well that his own party works in squads, and that practice has left his benches empty. That is one of the reasons why the present Parliament has fallen into disrepute.
Cannot I make an appeal to the Prime Minister to-day, and to his successors in the future, really to give the question of his own back bench Members a little more consideration? The Conservative Press, as well as the Labour Press, has remarked on the enormous number of men who come into this House, of all kinds of temperaments and abilities, and go from it in a very short time; and, particularly in this Parliament, note has been taken of the enormous number of supporters of the Government who have very rapidly decided that a Parliamentary career has no attractions for them. Has the Prime Minister ever thought of the disastrous position of those who some day, sooner or later, whether of his own party or some other, must follow in their footsteps? He himself and his colleagues are Lad enough, but, if back bench Members hers of all parties are to get less and less opportunity of finding out anything about the governmental mind of this country, future Governments may be even worse than the one sitting in this House at the present time. I seriously ask the Prime Minister whether it is not possible, in return for taking away privileges, which, frankly, I do not think, as things are at present, are of very much value to a private Member when he has them, to consider whether private Members of all parties who wish to do so might not be given more opportunity of usefully acquiring information about the job that they are supposed to do?
Is it not possible, when this All-Parties Committee meets, to consider whether departmental advisory committees, composed of members of all parties, might be set up, so that back-bench Members of the House, when they are called upon to discuss any important issue, would have at any rate the benefit of some little knowledge of the machinery of the Department which they are discussing. At present our Debates in the House—and

71
I am sorry if I offend any back-bench colleagues in saying so—are mainly a "frost," because, except for the gentlemen sitting on the two Front Benches, very few of us have the slightest idea of the machinery at our disposal. It is no wonder that our Debates and speeches are often ill-informed, and that our colleagues do not take the trouble to come and hear them.
This Motion to-day raises a much more fundamental problem than the question of a few afternoons between now and Whit-sun which, I quite agree, are usually wasted when we get them. It raises the question whether we are going seriously in this House to try to make Parliament a place where men who want to serve their country according to their ability may come and qualify themselves for a term of service, or whether we wish Parliament to be a place where two small juntas of astute politicians handle large bodies of robots in the Division Lobbies. That is the question before the House. If the Conservative party could abandon its shift system, if it could persuade even 20 of its Members occasionally to listen to Debates, I am quite certain that they too, once they began to take any interest in the House to which they have sought election, would be found with us protesting against this system which effectually shuts out the back-bench Member from any kind of knowledge of or power to assist in the effective government of the country.
Mr. KIRKWOOD: I rise most emphatically to protest against this curtailment of the privileges, particularly, of the back-benchers. It appears to me to be an attitude of mind which is developing in this House, and in everything connected with it, that the voice of the minority shall not be heard. Here we have the Prime Minister, of all men, who, like myself, has just returned from a lengthened holiday, and here at the start, as I look along the benches, I see everyone on the Government Bench more tired-looking than his neighbour I am satisfied that, if an employer of labour were to come in and find all the heads of his departments so tired-looking and, indeed, so lazy-looking as that Front Bench was when the Prime Minister was speaking, he would give the lot the sack. That is what the country is going to do
72
with them in any case, and I would remind the Prime Minister quite respectfully—I suppose that that is the correct Parliamentary way to speak—that before very long he will be a back-bencher himself; and I know he would not be sorry, for, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) says, he has made an awful mess of it. I say that in all sincerity; I believe he has made a right mess of it.
4.0 p.m.
It seems to me that this is Fascism in operation in our native land. The only difference is that the Prime Minister has not the grit and courage to take it upon himself to be a Mussolini, and, therefore, he lines up with the whole of the Cabinet—20 Mussolinis—to keep us in subjection here. We have come down here all the way from Scotland, 400 miles, and the Prime Minister knows perfectly well the treatment that my fellow-countrymen meted out to him in Glasgow. Probably that is one of the reasons for the way in which he is dealing with us now; he is having a bit of his own back for the treatment meted out to him in Glasgow University. We have come down here all the way from Scotland, over 400 miles, and, as we have advertised to all the world, we are coming down here to do things; and we are going to allow nobody to stand between us and our doing them, it does not matter who they are. Here you find the Prime Minister rising up in his might and in the manner that only this Prime Minister can. It is not an autocratic manner, because it would be the easiest thing in the world for us to get up against an autocrat; but in that suave manner he asks us to surrender what is the great boast of this House, the privilege of the private Members irrespective of the Front Bench on either side. He asks us to surrender that in the name of liberty: O Liberty, what deeds are done in thy name! All the Scottish Tory Members may as well come here and hand in their voting cards as at party conferences, and we Socialists from Scotland may as well hand in our voting cards to our Chief Whip. There is no need for us to come here at all; that is what it amounts to. In every quarter of the House everyone who has any regard for this country and for this House, all the individual Members and all the statesmen who claim to be great House of

73
Commons men, complain of the lack of interest taken in the proceedings, and yet we are asked to agree to a proposal to make it more difficult for Members to take interest in the proceedings. How can they take interest if they are not to take part in the proceedings? They are to be so many robots. I hope every Member of this House, whether Socialist, Liberal or Tory who has any regard for his country and for this House and its Rules of Procedure, and who wants to do something to remedy the terrible condition of things that exists in the country, will resist this idea, put forward by the same Government that introduced the Eight Hours' Bill for miners and forced the miners of this country to work an extra hour a day.
Am I to be told that if we Members of Parliament who have £400 a year—never mind all those other things that are "added unto you"—if we were deprived of all that—[An HON. MEMBER: "What else is added"?]. "Tell it not in Gath"—if we were up against it, as tens of thousands of as good men as the Prime Minister are absolutely up against it, their wives and families starving, if the Prime Minister were up against it or if the front bench were up against a state of affairs like that, will anyone say they would not have some enthusiasm to change it? Is it to be supposed that in such a case we would be discussing this paltry business here to-day? No, we would be discussing how our wives and families were going to be fed-Untrammelled by party, or anything else, we on the back benches claim the right to stand here and voice the aspirations of poor humanity that sends us here to defend it against all comers.
Mr. SAKLATVALA: I would like to ask the Prime Minister one simple question. He takes away the liberty of the House on the supposition that he wants full time to introduce two Measures relating to Poor Law reform and the granting of enabling powers for the reduction of freights, in order to lessen unemployment. If that be so, will the Prime Minister declare that, good, bad or indefferent as his proposed laws may be, if this House will undertake to give him point-blank authority to pass this law without any discussion, he will undertake to reduce unemployment in this country by 50 per cent. before the General Elec-
74
tion, and will he stand or fall by it? And will he employ the time given for introducing factory legislation? To come to the House with a vague promise of some important legislation, without giving a definite undertaking how the important legislation is going to affect the people of this country, is merely using a camouflaged argument. I again ask the Prime Minister if, in the event of getting his legislation put through as he desires, he will undertake to decrease unemployment in this country by at least 50 per cent. and stand or fall by it at the General Election? Apart from that, I shall certainly oppose the Prime Minister's suggestion, which, I know, will be carried in spite of opposition, but, if carried, it will show the Communist party at the General Election to what a farce this democratic assembly can be reduced.
Mr. GRIFFITHS: I am protesting against the proposal of the Prime Minister in order to draw his attention to the action of the Minister of Health in reference to the Welsh Board of Health, and the treatment meted out to the Welsh Parliamentary party in regard to' a, deputation, and when the subject was discussed in this House, not as a result of time being given by the Government Whip, but as a result of time given by the Labour Members on Supply days. I would point out to the Prime Minister that in Wales at the present time there is a feeling of resentment at the action of the Minister of Health in dealing with the question of the Welsh Board of Health, and the only opportunity we as a Welsh Parliamentary party would have had of protesting against the action of the Government and the Minister of Health would be by a private Members Bill or by putting down a Notice of Motion. Now the Prime Minister asks us to sacrifice all these privileges, so that the Government may carry out their proposed legislation during this Session.
The Welsh Parliamentary party feels very strongly indeed about the action of the Minister of Health, because it affects the health of the people of our country and places us in a far worse position than even the Scottish people, and they have complaints. During the last Session we felt so strongly on this matter that we went to the Minister of Health and the Government Whip, and

75
asked them to give us a day to discuss it. They refused, though the Government could afford to give three days of the time of this House to discuss the Totalisator Bill, when there were vested interests on the other side. We think that the cause of the Welsh nation is far greater than that of any tote or vested interest, and seeing that the Prime Minister is asking us to sacrifice the time during which we might have an opportunity, by Notice of Motion or private Bill, of bringing to the attention of the country the treatment we have received,
I am going to protest with all my might against it, and we want, before the General Election, to let the Prime Minister know the feeling of the Welsh people upon this matter. I am glad that the Welsh Press will have the opportunity of reporting to-morrow the protest put forward as far as the Welsh Parliamentary party is concerned.
Question put,
"That, until the Adjournment of the House for Easter, Government Business do have precedence at every Sitting."
The House divided: Ayes, 174; Noes, 136.

Division No. 1.]

AYES.

14.13 p.m.

Albery, Irving James

Falle, Sir Bertram G.

Nuttall, Ellis

Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)

Fanshawe, Captain G. D.

Oakley, T.

Applin, Colonel R. V. K.

Fermoy, Lord

Penny, Frederick George

Apsley, Lord

Forestler-Walker, Sir L.

Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)

Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. W.

Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony

Perkins, Colonel E. K.

Astor, Viscountess

Ganzonl, Sir John

Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)

Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

Gates, Percy

Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)

Balfour, George (Hampstead)

Gault, Lieut.-Col. Andrew Hamilton

Pilcher, G

Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

Goff, Sir Park

Power, Sir John Cecil

Bellairs, Commander Carlyon

Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John

Preston, Sir Walter (Cheltenham)

Benn, sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)

Gunston, Captain D. W.

Preston, William

Berry, Sir George

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

Rentoul, G. S.

Betterton, Henry B.

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

Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.

Blundell, F. N.

Hamilton, Sir George

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

Boothby, R. J. G.

Hanbury, C.

Robinson, Sir T. (Lanes. Stretford)

Bourne, Captain Robert Crott

Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.

Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.

Harrison, G- J. C.

Russell, Alexander west (Tynemouth)

Boyd-Carpenter, Major Sir A. B.

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

Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)

Braithwaite, Major A. N.

Henderson, Lieut.-Col. Sir Vivian

Sandeman, N. Stewart

Brassey, Sir Leonard

Heneage, Lieut.-Col. Arthur P.

Sandon, Lord

Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive

Henn, Sir Sydney H.

Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew. W)

Brittain, sir Harry

Hilton, Cecil

Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)

Brocklebank, C. E. R.

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

Skelton, A. N.

Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.

Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)

Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)

Brown. Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)

Hopkinson, Sir A.(Eng. Universities)

Smith-Carington, Neville W.

Buchan, John

Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)

Southby, Commander A. R. J.

Burman, J. B.

Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K.

Spender-Clay, Colonel H.

Burton, Colonel H. W.

Hurst, Gerald B.

Sprot, Sir Alexander

Butler, Sir Geoffrey

James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert

Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G. F.

Carver, Major W. H.

Jephcott, A. R.

Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.

Cassels, J. D.

King, Commodore Henry Douglas

Streatfelld, Captain S. R.

Cautley, Sir Henry S.

Lamb. J. Q.

Stuart, Crichton. Lord C.

Charterls, Brigadier-General J.

Lister, Cunliffe-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip

Templeton, W. P,

Christie, J. A.

Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)

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

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer

Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey

Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell-

Cobb, Sir Cyril

Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (Handsw'th)

Tinne, J. A.

Cochran, Commander Hon. A. D.

Loder, J. de V.

Titchfield, Major the Marquess of

Cohen, Major J. Brunei

Looker, Herbert William

Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.

Cooper, A. Duff

Lowe, Sir Francis William

Waddington, R.

Cope, Major Sir William

Luce, Maj.-Gen. Sir Richard Herman

Wallace, Captain D. E.

Couper, J. B.

Lumley, L. R.

Warrender, Sir Victor

Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe)

MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen

Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)

Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)

MacIntyre, I,

Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)

Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)

McLean, Major A.

Wayland, Sir William A.

Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West)

Macmillan, Captain H.

White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dairymple.

Curzon, Captain Viscount

Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm

Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)

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

Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel.

Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)

Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)

Makins, Brigadier-General E.

Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

Davies, Dr. Vernon

Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn

Wolmer, Viscount

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

Margesson, Captain D.

Womersley, W. J.

Dean, Arthur Wellesley

Marriott, Sir J. A. R.

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

Eden, Captain Anthony

Merriman, Sir F. Boyd

Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley

Edmondson, Major A. J.

Milne, J. S. Wardlaw-

Wood, Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)

Elliot, Major Walter E.

Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)

Woodcock, Colonel H. C.

Ellis, R. G.

Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)

Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.

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

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

Wright, Brig.-General W. D.

Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith

Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)

Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)

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

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

Everard, W. Lindsay

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

Major Sir George Hennessy and

Mr. F. C. Thomson.

NOES.

Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)

Hayes, John Henry

Riley, Ben

Adamson, w. M. (Staff., Cannock)

Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)

Ritson, J.

Alexander, A. V, (Sheffield, Hillsbro')

Henderson, T. (Glasgow)

Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich)

Ammon, Charles George

Hirst, G. H.

Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W.R., Elland)

Barnes, A.

Hollins, A.

Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter

Barr, J.

Hore-Belisha, Leslie

Saklatvala, Shapurji

Batey, Joseph

Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)

Scrymgeour, E.

Beckett, John (Gateshead)

Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)

Scurr, John

Bellamy, A.

John, William (Rhondda,. West)

Sexton, James

Benn, Wedgwood

Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)

Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)

Briant, Frank

Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

Shepherd, Arthur Lewie

Brown, Ernest (Leith)

Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)

Shiels, Dr. Drummond

Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)

Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

Shinwell, E.

Buchanan, G.

Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)

Slesser, Sir Henry H.

Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel

Kelly, W. T.

Smillie, Robert

Cape, Thomas

Kennedy, T.

Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley)

Charleton, H. C.

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

Smith, Rennie (Penistone)

Cluse, w. s.

Kirkwood, D.

Snell, Harry

Compton, Joseph

Lansbury, George

Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip

Connolly, M.

Lawrence, Susan

Stephen, Campbell

Cove, W. G.

Lawson, John James

Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)

Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)

Livingstone, A. M.

Sutton, J. E.

Dalton, Hugh

Longbottom, A. W.

Taylor, R. A.

Davies, Ellis (Denbigh, Denbigh)

Lowth, T.

Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)

Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

Lunn, William

Thurtle, Ernest

Day, Harry

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

Tinker, John Joseph

Dennison, R.

Mackinder, W.

Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

Duckworth, John

MacLaren, Andrew

Viant, S. P.

Dunnlco, H.

Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)

Walsh. Rt. Hon. Stephen

England, Colonel A.

Mac Neill-Weir, L.

Watson. W. M. (Dunfermline)

Fenby, T. D.

Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.

Wellock, Wilfred

Gardner, J. P.

Malone, C. L'Estrange (M'thampton)

Welsh, J. C.

Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.

March, S,

Westwood, J.

Gibbins, Joseph

Maxton, James

Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.

Gillett, George M,

Montague, Frederick

Wiggins, William Martin

Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)

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

Wilkinson, Ellen C.

Greenall, T.

Mosley, Oswald

Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)

Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)

Murnin, H.

Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)

Naylor, T. E.

Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)

Griffith, F. Kingsley

Owen, Major G,

Windsor, Walter

Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

Palln, John Henry

Wright, W.

Groves, T.

Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)

Grundy, T. W.

Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

Hall, G. H. (Marthyr Tydvll)

Ponsonby, Arthur

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)

Potts, John S.

Mr. Charles Edwards and Mr.

Hardie, George D.

Purcell, A. A.

Whiteley.

Harris, Percy A.

Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  KING'S SPEECH.

    DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS.
    [SECOND DAY.]
    Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate an Question [6th November].
    "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:
    MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN,
    We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."—[Major Edmondson.]
    Question again proposed.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: I hope the House will extend the courtesy which it never fails to show to one who addresses it for the first time. I should like to ask one or two questions about the proceedings of yesterday. We have been discussing during the last two hours the rights of private Members, and it is particularly in reference to the rights of private Members that I want to question the new precedent which was laid down yesterday by the Prime Minister in the Debate on the Address. The Prime Minister's new practice is this. He said: "If an Amendment is to be moved later, I am exonerated from giving any answer to any question that may be raised now." That is a very serious departure from our practice. The Prime Minister did not even limit it to the question of the Anglo-French papers. He said in perfectly general terms: "If an Amendment is to be moved later, there is no need for me to make any reply." It is obvious that, if the right hon. Gentleman cannot reply, no one can reply. But for the timely intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) the whole Debate on the Address would have come to an end yesterday, and, indeed, I observe that you, Sir, rose in your place actually to put the Question, which was the natural result of the new precedent created by the Prime Minister. It is the usual thing to say the rights of private Members are of great importance,
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    but here we are most directly affected, because the Address in reply to the Gracious Speech is one of the richest fields for private Members, and if, therefore, we are to accept the Prime Minister's dictum the rights of private Members are still further impaired, which throws an interesting light on his profession to-day about desiring that the back benches shall take more part than they do in the Debates.
    Let us go one step further. The Prime Minister said be would not answer the questions of my right hon. Friend because an Amendment was going to he moved. How did he know? There was no Amendment on the Paper. There was no opportunity to put one down, and, though we all have a right to go to the Table and ask to see copies of Motions handed in, no one in fact knew what that Amendment was or what the terms of it were in a general way. Unless indeed we are to be invited to offer manuscript Amendments to the Address, the Prime Minister's new precedent really cuts out all debate on the general question. Let me take it one step further. The right hon. Gentleman said that he cannot answer questions if Amendments are subsequently to be moved on those points. The hon. Member for North Battersea (Mr. Saklatvala) has effectively put a stopper on all further discussion on this question because he has offered an Amendment that deals with every quarter of the globe. From China to India, to America, to mines and factories and unemployment there is not a single topic of political discussion which does not appear in a pugnacious form in the characteristic Amendment that he has placed on the Paper. The Prime Minister, I think, mistook the old practice of the House. It is true that on the first day of the discussion on the Address the proceedings very often terminate early, but the reason used to be that there was so much matter in the King's Speech that people did not feel qualified to speak on it until they had had an opportunity of digesting it. Moreover, my recollection of the custom is that the Leader of the Opposition made his attack, then an extensive and authoritative reply was made by the Prime Minister, and then Members went home to browse over the complex and dazzling programme that the Government offered. In this docu-

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    ment which was thrown into our hands yesterday there is no food for thought, whatever else there may be, and, therefore, from the Parliamentary point of view the precedent of the Prime Minister should be scotched at the outset; otherwise, the rights of all of us are in danger.
    There is a far more important reason than that. We should have thought the Prime Minister would have taken the first opportunity to deal with some current misunderstandings, not in this country indeed but abroad, about the Government's policy, and this is, from our own national point of view, independent of party, an extremly important matter. Lord Grey made a speech on Monday in which he referred to two particular things. He said, first of all, that the impression was current on the Continent—he did not support it—that we had entered into something which would lead to a naval and military alliance with the French. It is quite immaterial to say the impression is ill-founded. We hope it is, but there it is, and surely it is in the national interest that the Prime Minister should take the very first opportunity to kill any impression of that kind by a plain statement in the House of Commons. Lord Grey went on to say that we had strained our good relations with the United States and the result of the Government policy had been to stimulate the supporters of the naval programme in America. Surely it would have been desirable, quite apart from the rights of private Members, that the Prime Minister should have dealt at once with the situation in order to ease the strained relations, instead of which he made a speech which would have done infinite credit to a junior Whip. He spoke about the distribution of business and the difficulties and so on, but he never dealt as Prime Minister, or indeed as a Minister of authority, not merely with the Amendment on the Anglo-French papers, but with any one of the issues raised by my right hon. Friend. It is a startling departure from the custom and practice of the House. Naturally one casts one's mind about to see what can possibly be the reason for this change. I 'dismiss at once the idea that the Prime Minister had in his mind some supposed rules of our practice about Amendments. I think the real reason was that there are questions at issue here on which the Cabinet have not
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    made up their mind and that, therefore, they are quite unable to answer the penetrating interrogatories administered to them from this side.
    I want to speak particularly about the Anglo-French papers. We are going to deal with four points, the question of the trained reserves, the question of the Washington ratio, the question of the supposed new entente with France, and the relations between ourselves and the United States. As to the reserves question, of course if you have a system of conscription you are bound to have a growing number of trained men, and perhaps the phrase "limitation of trained reserves" is a bad way of putting the objective. The objective is to limit the land strength of a country, and it may be done better perhaps, not by limiting the number of trained reserves, but by limiting the percentage of each class called up year by year or limiting the period for which they are trained, the attempt being to get rid of the war machine and to substitute a militia. That is perhaps the most favourable avenue of approach to this difficult problem. The White Paper attempts to put the responsibility on Lord Cecil, and I do not think it does credit to the generosity which ought to characterise the Government towards one of its members who resigned from it for honourable reasons. The second point that has emerged is that this proposal to abandon our resistance to the military or army side is a bargain. It has always been presented as a bargain. The idea that we could not hold the position but had to abandon it for another is not supported by the White Paper. It was first suggested in France between the Foreign Secretary and M. Briand as a bargain. It was presented as a bargain. It is, "If you do this, then we will do that." [Interruption.] This is the effect of it: "If you do this, then we shall be in a position to do that." The Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot have read the papers.
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Churchill): I was making no comment on the hon. and gallant Gentleman's remarks.
    Mr. BENN: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. It was presumptuous on my part to suppose he referred to my remarks.
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Oh, no.
    Mr. BENN: The Foreign Secretary goes to M. Briand and says, "If you will concede to us the right to build our ships, we will concede to you the right to have your men." That bargain, that phase of bargaining is not only apparent in the first communication between our Foreign Office and the French Foreign Office, but in the letter to Sir Horace Rumbold which came in reply to the agitated inquiry which he made about the feeling created in Germany. I am very far from wishing to impute lack of candour, especially with regard to the Foreign Secretary, because if there is one quality which is more admirable than another in him it is his candour. But this is a thing which excites a tremendous amount of attention abroad. It does not matter to us, because we have a small professional army, but it excites an enormous amount of attention abroad and is of immense interest. First of all, a despatch is sent out to Rome, Washington and Tokio about this Naval Agreement, but there is not a word, not a hint about reserves. Furthermore, the Foreign Secretary makes a speech in this House on 30th July on the eve of Parliament rising. He says, "I made an agreement with France." My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Central Hull (Lieut. - Commander Kenworthy) puts a specific question: "Is this an exclusively Naval Agreement?" and, to my amazement—I accepted it when I read it at the time—the Foreign Secretary said, "Yes." And all the time there were papers in existence showing on his own initiative that this was not an exclusively Naval Agreement; it was a bargain. He traded for our right to have the ships, their right to have the men.
    There is a much more shocking example —I say it is a shocking example—in the interview given by Lord Cushendun at Geneva a month later. He explains the naval position and goes out of his way to use wards which I do not say that a lawyer could not defend as being truthful. I do not say that. I say that no one could understand that at the back of all this Naval Agreement was an understanding, a. concession on our part to give way on this question of the number of land forces. What is the present position? That is the question. Do we stand in the position in which we stood, putting ourselves in opposition
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    to this proposal to have an unlimited number of trained men, or have we abandoned that? That is a perfectly plain and specific question, on which, I think, it would be not unreasonable for me or anyone else now to ask for an answer from the Government. When the Preparatory Commission meets, what is the position of the British representative? Is he to go forward and say, "We have gone back on our position with regard to trained reserves, and we stand where we did in the bargain as represented by the papers"; or is he going to say, "We are receding to our old position, and we are opposed to this unlimited quantity of trained men abroad"? It is well to remember—while I would not wish to say anything to exacerbate feeling between England and France—that we are not talking about white soldiers; we are talking about black men. We are talking about niggers from Northern Africa. These are the people who are to be trained in unlimited numbers. [Interruption.] Certainly. There is conscription in French North African colonies, as everyone knows, and anybody who was in Germany just after the War knows that one of the bitterest complaints of the Germans was that black troops were contained in the army of occupation. That is the first question.
    The second question is this. At the Washington Conference, in 1921, there was a ratio fixed of 5,5,3. In the correspondence Admiral Violette asks if equality is to be permitted in the submarines and cruisers between the great naval Powers. The Foreign Office replies admitted equality of tonnage as regards submarines and cruisers of the great naval Powers. That is to say, the extension of the Washington Naval Agreement is not to be an extension of the old ratio, but of the same tonnage to all naval Powers. I would like an answer from the First Lord of the Admiralty on that question. Is it a fact that that the Government have abandoned the Washington ratio of 5,5,3 and are now going to permit equality of tonnage for all naval Powers? If they have, it seems to me we shall be in a very queer position when we meet again in 1931 when, we hope, we shall continue the Naval Agreement between the five Powers. There is a further point. As to submarines under 600 tons and cruisers with 6-inch guns,

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    no limit is set. Is that in accord with Article 8 of the Covenant of the League of Nations? There is nothing in the Covenant of the League of Nations about being able to have unlimited numbers. The Government must reduce their forces to the lowest point consistent with national safety. We shall have an unlimited quantity of these submarines and cruisers. I do not know what effect that will ultimately have on German action. You cannot, expect Germany to go on for ever with a small professional army under the Treaty of Versailles while you are making agreements with her neighbour to have large armies. It may be for a year or two, but not for ever. The permanent disarmament of Germany can only come by the general disarmament of Europe.
    There is a third question I would like to ask the Government on this question of co-operation. Certainly the evidence in the White Paper is one-sided. There seems to be nothing in the published documents—I do not know whether they have all been published or not—but the suggestion that we should work with a common policy with the French comes exclusively from M. Briand in one of his despatches. Lord Cushendun makes a speech shortly afterwards in which he says there is no new entente because the old entente persists. "Hear, hear!" says an hon. Member. How is that going to appear in Germany I We talk about Locarno! To be perfectly candid, I must add that rather a cryptic footnote appeared in a subsequent copy of the "Times" that there had been reference to Germany in his speech. I say that because it is only fair. There were these unfortunate sentences, M. Briand saying we must co-operate in our policy, and Lord Cushendun saying, "There is no new entente with France, because the old entente persists"—the old entente which led to the War. [Interruption.] What I say is it was a prelude to the War—a necessary prelude to the War. That is in the minds of all Germans who read a speech of that kind. Here, again, on this question of co-operation, I do not know how far it is bilateral. It was suggested by M. Briand, and we want an answer as to whether it was bilateral. There was no mention of this in the document sent either to Rome, Tokio or Washington. Furthermore, Lord Cushendun, in the
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    famous interview to which I have referred, made no mention of it. I think I am entitled to ask with Lord Grey of Falloden, whose opinion is entitled to great respect, when he said that there is the impression in Europe that we are marching again on the old line of a partial alliance—I think we are entitled to ask the Government here and now—not next Wednesday week, when some Member may or may not move an Amendment on the subject—whether it is a fact that we reciprocate the sentiments of M. Briand in that part of his speech.
    On the question of the relations between ourselves and the United States, here, again, there is a most unfortunate quibble on the part of Lord Cushendun, an attempt to put blame on the United States of America. He said, "You originally suggested categories, and we are trying to meet you." He knows full well that there was a sharp division of opinion shown at the Kellogg Conference, and now the Government put forward the very point of view that was expressly rejected by the American Government. It is all very well for the First Lord of the Admiralty to shake his head, but that is what the United States Note contains.
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Bridgeman): I did not say that.
    Mr. BENN: No; but is it quite wise, diplomatic or helpful to us or to the United States to propose in more objectionable form the very thing which they themselves have rejected? You put yourselves in the ridiculous position of making an agreement with France, as Lord Grey of Falloden says, in order to try to get the better of the United States. What has been the result? It has been to give an enormous stimulus to the big navy party in the United States of America—an enormous stimulus. I do not know whether it will jeopardise the Kellogg Pact. I do not know whether the Kellogg Pact, with its Imperialist reservations, matters very much. It has given an enormous stimulus to the big navy party. Senator Borah says that there is nothing for it but to build the full programme.
    We are entitled, I think, to put one or two questions to the First Lord of the Admiralty on this subject. These are the questions I would like to ask him. When he meets his Board, and they frame their

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    programmes not only for this year but prospective programmes, do they take into account any forces which the United States have or may have in contemplation? It is a fair question. Does their programme take into consideration the naval forces of the United States? Because there seems to be a difference of opinion about it. I do not know what the First Lord will say, if he says anything at all, but I know that there is a sharp division of opinion. We have declared for equality and no more. This is supposed to be the policy of the Government. The Chancellor of the Exchequer does not mean that at all. He goes to Floors Castle immediately after the Coolidge Conference and this is what he says: "We cannot accept any form of parity that does not take into consideration the special needs of these overcrowded islands." What does that mean? That is no parity at all. That means parity with superiority. Therefore, I am entitled to ask the Government to answer four questions: (1) Where shall our representative stand as regards the trained reserves? (2) Is there something or nothing in the nature of continued and exclusive co-operation of a special kind with France? (3) Where do we stand as regards the Washington ratio? (4) Do we take into account in any way the forces of the United States in calculating our own naval strength? If we can get an answer to these four questions, I think that, apart from party, which is of comparative unimportance in this matter, the national interests will be served.
    Colonel HOWARD-BURY: May I congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. W. Benn) on having come back to this House? We have listened to him with the due courtesy which his maiden speech to-day deserves and we do not forget that in past times on various points of Order, some good and some bad, he has kept us very late on many occasions. I venture in many ways to disagree with him in what he has said. In the first place, with regard to the misunderstandings abroad, I think that the Leader of his party, and especially the articles written by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) in the foreign Press, have done more than anything else to cause trouble abroad in regard to the
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    Naval Pact. They and they alone are responsible. The other day I was reading an African newspaper which dealt with this matter. In Africa, which is supposed to be a somewhat uneducated and ignorant country, they put the blame upon the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs for all this trouble. They see truly what is the reason for it. They state that the effort to cause trouble was caused by anti-Government efforts in England, by the anti-Government Press and by the writings of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs. These anti-Government efforts and writings are responsible for creating misunderstandings and for undermining the prestige of our country abroad. They are responsible, and not the Pact.
    In regard to the question of disarmament and reserves, the lines upon which Europe is progressing to-day is in reducing the number of the years of training. I think that next year in France the training period of regulars is to be reduced from three years to one year. In Belgium, there is already a considerable reduction. I think they have only eight or nine months annual regular training, which is turning their force into almost a militia. It is upon these lines that we can far easier come to an agreement than by trying to estimate or reduce the number of reserves. I listened with great interest to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, but there were certain omissions from that speech. He did not tell us the reasons why the Anglo-French Pact came into force and why it was initiated. There were various discussions at Geneva and there were disagreements between the different countries. The President of the Session, on March 15th, said at the opening Session of the Preparatory Commission:
    "I am faced with this difficulty, that I do not know whether the Governments—which I fervently appealed to more than once at our previous meetings to seek to reconcile their different standpoints in regard to certain questions of primary importance to our draft Convention—have been engaged in conversations or what may have been the result of such conversations."
    The American representative, a few days later, said:
    "At the conclusion of the first reading, there were so many points of disagreement that we felt that nothing further could be accomplished in public meetings until after an effort had been made by direct negotia-

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    tion between the various Governments and between groups of Governments to find a way, through mutual concession, to eliminate existing divergences. It was felt that only after eliminating a considerable part, of the opposing views could we profitably embark upon the second reading with some prospect of drawing up a document so harmonious and so representative of accepted views as to offer a basis for calling a final conference."
    That was the origin of the Pact. That was the reason why we and France, with greatly divergent views, came together in order to try to come to some agreement which we could put before the other countries, so that when the Second Reading came we might have definite agreement proposals for naval disarmament to put forward, with some chance of acceptance. The only fault I have to find is that our Foreign Secretary took this House into his confidence too early. He was too kind. If he had waited until he had received the replies from all the foreign countries nothing would have been known about it; there would have been no agitation and none of this trouble. I fully support the Government in their efforts, in spite of the abuse which has been heaped upon them. They have done their best in the cause of peace. Formerly, foreign policy used to be outside party politics. It used to be considered that internal affairs were proper matters for party politics but that outside, in foreign affairs, we faced the world as one. I am sorry that this occasion has been seized upon by poth parties of the Opposition to belabour the Government and to reduce our prestige, our credibility and our reliability in foreign countries. Much of our Press has shown itself thoroughly anti-French. Look at the case of the American journalist, Horan, who was arrested. The French were immediately abused for dealing with this American journalist, who had abused the hospitality of France. When it was proved that he had done so by thoroughly underhand actions, did those who had attacked France for their action apologise to the French? There was not a word of apology.
    The rock of our foreign policy and what has kept the peace in Europe since the War has been the Anglo-French Entente. Around that Entente other countries have been enabled to rebuild their houses. It used to be said that so long as the Entente remained in Europe,
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    peace was assured. Any attempt to upset it, as Tchitcherin did not very long ago, has been the cause of upsetting Europe again. Therefore, I look with great disfavour upon any attempt to upset the Anglo-French Entente. The Anglo-French Entente made Locarno possible. I foresee the time, and it is bound to come sooner or later, when an Entente is likely to absorb other European countries. We are getting Germany into the Entente, but with regard to Italy the matter may be much' more difficult. An Entente which can absorb three or four of the great countries of Europe will make war impossible in Europe. It is on these lines that we should work. That will help the work of the League of Nations and make it far more easier. The League of Nations is world-wide, it embraces the whole world and it has to delegate its authority to different branches. On the lines which I suggest, there will be a. powerful branch of the League for peace.
    The Entente is not a Treaty; it is a geographical fact. As a country, we might call ourselves a kind of Janus. We have to face both ways. We are European because the Channel to-day is nothing of an obstacle. Fifteen minutes in an aeroplane takes us across. We have to look on the one side towards the Continental nations and on the other side we have to look towards our Empire. We have to frame our policy with due regard to our Empire and our neighbours, and it surely should not pass the wit of our politicians to be able to bring these two essential things together, to establish our Entente more firmly in Europe, and at the same time to keep our Dominions working with us and helping to ensure the peace of the world. What we want is more co-operative spirit in Europe and the Entente is helping in that direction. It will do more to destroy frontiers than anything else.
    I was abroad at the time that the Kellogg Pact was signed and I discussed it with many people of different nationalities, with the Swiss, the French, and the Germans. They all said that they were delighted to sign the Pact, that it was an excellent idea and that it was an ideal. They said: "We belong to old countries. We are realists as well as idealists, and we have to look upon the spirit with which this Pact has been promoted. We

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    all want to outlaw and get rid of war, but what are the Americans doing? They come to us and tell us to disarm. What are they doing themselves? Are they not increasing their Navy to an enormous extent? Are they not spending double what they did in pre-War days? We are willing to sign the Pact." But in saying that, these representatives of different countries spoke rather cynically about the matter. They said: "Mr. Kellogg has come to us with brotherly love. Did he come to visit your country? Did he not come in an American cruiser and visit the Irish Free State and, diplomatically, say that there was no time to visit England?" That is what they said to me abroad. They said: "We want to face facts and realities. If there is the spirit behind the Pact, we are with them absolutely. Even if the spirit is not there, we will sign the Pact, but at the same time we know what it means. It is an ideal that we have had put before us, and we have to face facts."
    The lines upon which we should work to obtain peace in Europe is to strengthen the Entente by bringing within its orbit the other countries, Germany especially. Germany is willing to co-operate. economically and financially in the work of Europe. Are there not big agreements in regard to steel and iron, etc.? They have already started. I believe that in the course of time it may be possible to found a European United States which will be ready to take their place in the world, which will be able to keep the peace and to prevent wars in Europe and to do more to prevent wars than any so-called Pacts. Such a United States of Europe will be able to help the League of Nations in its work and will be more conducive to peace than anything that has yet been done. I welcome the Government's sincere attempt in regard to the Anglo-French Agreement which, unfortunately, has failed, thanks to the machinations of the Opposition and the articles written in the foreign Press which have stirred up all this trouble in other countries. It was a sincere attempt on the part of the Government, and it is wrong to blame the Government for what they have done in making their attempt.
    5.0 p.m.
    Mr. BATEY: I want to draw the attention of the House to that part of the King's Speech which deals with industrial
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    questions. We have had a very interesting Debate on foreign questions but we remember that we have 2,000,000 men out of employment in this country. I hope the Debate will not be devoted entirely to foreign questions and that we shall keep in mind the condition of the working classes of this country. For the first time, the King's Speech refers to the mining industry and the distressed mining areas. The King's Speech is a confession of failure on the part of the Government to deal with the mining industry. It is altogether a different speech from the one we discussed in this House when the present Government first took office. In 1924 the King's Speech of that year contained these words:
    "I am glad to note the signs of improvement in the state of trade and industry."
    That cannot be said in the King's Speech to-day. As a matter of fact, the Speech lays stress on the fact that industry is just about as bad as it can be and the present Government must he held responsible for it. We have had four years of failure on the part of the Government to deal with the condition of industry, and especially with the condition of the mining industry. Some of us are anxious to take part in this Debate because we have spent the Recess in our distressed mining areas; we have seen our people and realised their condition. What has impressed me most in the County of Durham is that it is difficult to tell whether there is more distress amongst the unemployed miners than amongst the miners who are employed. The men who are employed are receiving such low wages that they are in almost as pitiable a condition as the men who are unemployed. Last Friday evening I attended a social in my constituency and one of my best supporters, an extremely good worker, said to me, "Joe, I have taken home to-clay 29s. 6d. as my week's pay, and out of that 29s. 6d. I have 2s.7d. union money to pay." Several women who were present related occasions this year when they had received far less than 29s. 6d. per week and, therefore, I am justified in laying emphasis on the great distress amongst the mining population; not only amongst those who are unemployed but amongst those who are working.

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    When I look at the King's Speech in order to ascertain what hope there may be for these people I find that it contains three expectations. The first is industrial transference, the next migration, and the third, rate relief on coal. These are the remedies that the Government are proposing for the mining industry. As a matter of fact, they are simply a continuation of the quack remedies which the Government have been applying to the industry for the last four years, and especially during the last year. Let me remind hon. Members opposite of the experience we have had of the Government's policy this year in dealing with the mining industry. At the beginning of the year they set up an Industrial Transference Board, and the President of the Board of Trade said its duty would be to find work for men in the distressed mining areas. As weeks and months went by we found that the Industrial Transference Board was doing nothing at all for the mining areas. It went from one mining area to another, did nothing, and in the end we had to demand a report of its work—which we should never have seen but for that demand—in order to ascertain what it was proposing to do for the distressed mining areas, and when we obtained the report we found that it was a complete wash out and meant nothing at all for the miners. It simply left them exactly where they were.
    When the Government found that the Industrial Transference Board was doing nothing to help the miners the President of the Board of Education gave us to understand that he was going into these distressed areas in order to consider the conditions of the miners and their wives and children. After he had visited the areas he came back to this House and all he could suggest was that he was prepared to give milk to children on the production of a doctor's certificate. That was simply adding insult to injury. We also had the Minister of Health during one of our Debates last year saying what he considered ought to be done. He said that there ought to be a national relief fund, a national appeal, on behalf of the depressed mining areas and immediately we had the Lord Mayor of London issuing a national appeal. Everybody knew that it was impossible by such an appeal to get sufficient money to help the large number of miners who were out of work. I thought then, and I think now, that it
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    was the wrong way to deal with the problem. The mining areas are in their present condition because of the policy of the Government during the last four years; the Government is responsible for the mining population being right down in the gutter at the moment, and instead of issuing a national appeal the Government ought to have found the money to help the mining areas. That national appeal, however, was issued and £90,000 was obtained in order to help 300,000 miners, their wives and bairns. It simply proved a farce. It is proposed to go on with it. It would be much better to leave it alone. We want a different remedy altogether.
    After the House rose the Prime Minister issued a letter to employers saying that they ought to employ some of the unemployed miners. I should like the Prime Minister to tell us if one unemployed miner has been employed. It may be that a few men have been employed as the result of that appeal to employers of labour, but in my opinion it was not worth the cost of the pen, ink and paper. In Durham it is well known that no men have been employed. The Prime Minister's bosom friends, members of the Conservative party, and coalowners, have not employed a single man as the result of that appeal. And after an experience such as that during the last year the Government to-day are simply proposing a continuation of their quack remedies for the mining industry. In the King's Speech they say:
    "The situation in the mining areas continues to engage the earnest attention of my Ministers, who are taking energetic steps to promote the success of the scheme of industrial transference and migration."
    I wonder why they use the word "energetic"? They lead us to believe that they are proposing three things as a remedy for the present condition of the mining: industry—industrial transference, migration and rate relief on coal. None of these things will ever touch the mining industry, and 12 months hence, or two years hence, unless another Government takes the place of the present administration, we shall find that the position will be worse and not better than it is to-day. We have had a little experience of industrial transference. I have here a case where two young men were sent from Durham to London. They answered advertisements through the

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    Juvenile Unemployment Bureau. They were interviewed at the County Hall, Newcastle, on 15th October, and were sent to London for work at an hotel in Norfolk Street on Friday, 19th October. One was to be given a post as a page boy and the other as a hall porter; but they found that it was simply a delusion. The hall porter was to get 20s. a week but the hotel people started bargaining with him and wanted to pay him 18s. per week. When they saw the other lad who was to be a page boy they said "Oh you are far too big." That is after they had been sent from Durham to these posts in London. They were told that they would be met at King's Cross by someone who would take them to the hotel, but they were left to find their way there as best they could.
    They were also told that if they went to London and found that the jobs were not what they had to been led to expect they would receive their train fare back. These lads were left to drift about London for three or four days, and their experience of some of the places they stopped at is really harrowing. I have a letter here from one of them, and it is of the most heart-rending kind. They were left to drift about London until their relatives in Durham were able to send someone down to find them and take them back home. And that is what the Government calls industrial transference! Those are two cases—I could increase the number. There is no hope of assisting the mining population by the policy of industrial transference. I agree that here and there you may be able to take a young man and find him another job, but it is impossible to take the thousands of men who are really down and out and anxious to work from the mining villages and find them work miles and miles away. Here is another case. In an Employment Exchange a notice was put up that there were positions in the Leeds Police Force for which men could apply. One man did apply and got this reply:
    "I am directed by the Chief Constable to inform you, in reply to your application of the 10th instant, that he regrets he is unable to give you an appointment in the Leeds City Police Force."
    We could quote numbers of other cases. They justify us in saying that the policy of the Government, as proposed in the King's Speech, the policy of industrial
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    transference, will not help us. It will not even touch the fringe of the question. The same remark applies to migration. The Government say, "We will help you by industrial transference and migration." We have still in our minds the Canadian harvesters. I remember that before the Recess the Colonial Secretary said: "These men will be able to obtain between £5 and £8 a week." I have in mind the case of a man whom I have known well for a long time. I have known him as a good worker. He went to Canada and succeeded in getting only 3½ days' work. Then, when he wanted to come back to England, he had to pay his own fare from Winnipeg. In my own Division there are other cases of young men who came back, and when they reached Liverpool had to go to the Employment Exchange to get the money for their train fare home and agree to repay it at the rate of 2s. per week. It is impossible for the Government to help the mining population by migration. Our people have grown up in the mining villages. They have married there and their families are there. It is impossible to take them in thousands, with their wives and bairns, to pull them up by the roots and transfer them to some other country or another part of this country. An altogether different remedy has to be found.
    Let me deal for a moment with the rate relief for coal, the Government's de-rating scheme. The Government say, "We will cure the mining industry's troubles by giving rate relief." They are going to make matters worse in Durham. I am going to read a letter from the Seaton Burn Coal Company, of Northumberland. It emphasises all that we could say in regard to the Government's rate relief on coal carried over public railways. In Durham and Northumberland one-third of the coal is carried over private railways. There were collieries there before the railways came into existence, and they put down their own railway lines. They are now to be penalised for having done so; they are to be forced to close their pits because they cannot compete with pits that get the rate relief. Not only is one-third of the coal carried over private railways, but those collieries employ no fewer than 69,000 men. As a result of the Government blunder, we have therefore to face the

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    possibility of 69,000 more men being unemployed in the counties of Durham and Northumberland. This is the letter of the Seaton Burn Coal Company:
    "On behalf of the 150 shareholders of this company, I herewith enclose copy of a memorandum which has been forwarded to every Member of Parliament to enlist their sympathy and secure their support against a measure of Parliamentary action which, if passed, will result in a serious miscarriage of administration so far as this and many other struggling collieries in Northumberland and Durham are concerned.
    As a colliery company which owns private mineral railways, one of eight miles in length and another of an additional four miles, I am communicating direct with you in view of there being so little time for each individual shareholder to do so, as was the private railway owners' first intention.
    You are aware that the Northumberland and Durham coalfields are at present fighting against bankruptcy and consequential closing down, which would result in a tragedy to the mining community, and the struggle they are going through is unparalleled in their history.
    It is felt by all those colliery owners owning private mineral railways, that it is only necessary for the Members of the Government to realise that it is unwittingly inflicting a terrible further handicap on the collieries running their mineral over their own private railways, as same will be the 'last straw' which will prevent them from continuing to compete against those collieries using the public railways, and instead of doing good to the public, it will result in what is nothing short of a catastrophe to a huge number of the mining class, whilst doing good to probably no greater number than the number of those who will be harmed by the oversight and omission.
    I would like to point out to you one or two salient factors which I feel will enable you Wore fully to appreciate that no advantage at this stage call be given to those collieries who use the public railways at the present time without closing down permanently those collieries which, through having their own private mineral railways, will be hopelessly placed in a position which will prevent them from fairly competing against the collieries in Northumberland and Durham not owning private mineral railways.
    Practically all collieries are now, and have been for two or three years, working at a heavy loss.
    One of the foremost Northumberland collieries, owning three pits and with a capital of £257,500, has gone into liquidation, and it is known that many other companies are near the end of their borrowing resources, and if there is no improvement in the present demand and a reduction in the cost. of working coal, they will be compelled to follow suit.
    The great majority of the companies are in the hands of their bankers, and it is a
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    well known fact that the prospect of increased bankers' overdrafts is nil.
    Collieries owning private mineral railways have still to pay local rates for such railways, maintain their permanent ways; have to employ their own railwaymen and pay their wages, whether the private mineral railway is being extensively used or little used, and the latter has been the position for the last two or three years.
    By bringing to your notice an inequitable piece of legislation which is threatening to place an unequalled burden on this company in particular, at a time when it is a practical impossibility for us to keep our heads above water, I am sure that you will not hesitate to take up a stand on behalf of this and other collieries owning private miner al railways."
    That is signed by the General Manager and Secretary of the company. It is no use the Government saying, as they do in the King's Speech, that provision is to be made whereby railway companies can make low charges for the carriage of coal. If the Government pursue that policy, they are simply going to make things worse than they are now in the North of England. Everything that the Government have clone during the past four years has made the mining industry worse. Yet there is a remedy, and the Government will not adopt it. Science and research have proved that it is possible to do something for the industry. Research has proved that we need not depend solely on coal production. Coal production alone may be all very well for some coal owners who have good coal mines, but it is possible to use our coal industry to further advantage. If the Government were prepared to stand by the coal industry and assist it in the way I. shall indicate, a much brighter day for the industry would be in store. Research has proved that out of 1,000 tons of coal we can extract, by low temperature carbonisation, 700 tone of hard smokeless fuel, 17,000 gallons of crude oil, 4,520 gallons of motor spirit, 5,000,000 cubic feet of gas and 13,400 1bs. of sulphate of ammonia. It may be too much to ask coal companies, in their straitened circumstances, to find the capital for starting these by-products schemes so as to make the industry prosperous. If coal owners cannot or are not willing to do it, that is no reason why the coal industry should remain in the condition in which it is, or why thousands of our people should be left in a state of starvation.
    It is the duty of the Government to act. One thing the Labour Government

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    did in 1924. When the new sugar beet industry was just coming to the front, the Labour Government stood behind it, and although some folk may condemn subsidies and may not like them, none the less subsidies help a new industry to expand. Here is a new industry which would employ every miner who is now unemployed and pay him decent wages. It is the duty of the Government to stand behind this new industry and to find the money for these by-product works. Instead of doing that they are simply giving us doses of Baldwin's Balsam and making things worse and worse. I want the Government to adopt an effective remedy for the mining industry. Even in the districts in Durham that are now derelict, with all the pits closed, I believe it would be possible to restore prosperity. All that is wanted is a Government willing to help.
    Sir BASIL PETO: I do not claim the slightest right to say anything in this House upon the subject of foreign policy. I have never done it. But as I have the privilege of rising now, I cannot resist saying that I cannot congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. W. Benn) on his contribution to the cause of peace this afternoon. Both the party to which he now belongs and the party to which he lately belonged claim in a special degree the privileges of fostering the League of Nations and taking it under their political wing. It is on that account the more regrettable that both those parties have made it their principal line of attack on the Government that the Government have mishandled the delicate negotiations with France. The hon. and gallant Member for North Aberdeen went further, and as a contribution to peace told us that it was the entente between France and England that led to the Great War. I do not think that that statement would be accepted in any part of the country, however it may have been received by his own supporters in this House. He also told us, referring to the Gracious Speech, that it was a ridiculous document and did not give any food for thought. If that be so, surely it is unnecessary for the Opposition to require four or five days to debate a document so simple. I do not know what the hon. and gallant Member expects. I think it has been over
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    looked in the Debate so far that the Government in preparing the King's Speech is dealing only with the legislation which it is about to pass in the course of a normal Session. It would be ridiculous to overload that programme with a heap of promises of possible legislation which the Government and all the Members of this House know is quite impossible to carry out in the time available.
    The hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) said that the King's Speech, in relation to unemployment contained only quack remedies. How does he know that? The main item in the Speech, and the principal matter with which we shall be dealing in the coming Session, is the completion of the Government's great scheme of industrial rating relief. How does the hon. Member know that that is going to be a quack remedy for unemployment in the mining industry, as well as in the iron and steel industry and other heavy trades? The hon. Member told us further that the Government policy of the past four years was responsible for the condition of the mining areas. That was his statement hut he entirely failed to prove it. I do not want to say exactly what is the cause of distress in the mining areas, but everyone who has studied the question knows that one of the contributory causes was the late disastrous stoppage in the coal trade and the consequent handing over to our competitors of foreign markets which we have not yet recovered. Apart from that, there is no doubt whatever that the distress and lack of business in the coal trade cannot be regarded as a problem alone. It is linked up with the disastrous inactivity of our formerly great steel and iron trade. The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Spencer) who I regret is not now sitting with the party to which he formerly belonged and to which he contributed so much common sense, knows much better than the hon. Member for Spennymoor that one of the real remedies for the trouble in the coal trade is to get the steel and iron trade on its feet again. If that were done a very large part of the unemployment in the coal trade would disappear.
    When the hon. Member for Spennymoor says that he disagrees with the policy of the Lord Mayor of London in

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    making an appeal for the distressed miners, I do not know that I altogether differ from him. It is a generous gesture but it is obviously inadequate to cure the evil. But what is the alternative of the hon. Member for Spennymoor? I thought until he came to the very end of his speech that he had no other remedy to propose except an enormous scheme of direct State assistance for those who are out of work in the mining industry. I do not believe that to be a policy which the working classes of this country want. What they want is to have the country's industries restored to a position of prosperity which will give them a chance of earning their own living. At the end of his speech, however, the hon. Member told us that he had another remedy. He said the Government ought to find money to promote industrial research particularly in reference to the low temperature carbonisation process. Supposing the. Government did so, and supposing the low temperature carbonisation process proved to be a commercial and industrial success, does the hon. Member imagine that it would be confined exclusively to the coal industry of this country? We shall be exactly where we are until we tackle the whole industrial position of the country and secure fair play for our own industries such as the industries of every other country get from their Governments.
    I do not in the least concur in the criticisms which have come so far from the Opposition as to the nature of the King's Speech. The principal item of the legislative programme is, as I have said, the completion of the Government's great rating reform scheme. The House knew that six months ago and they knew that was all that could be carried through in the time remaining during thy present Parliament. That reform and one or two minor matters of urgency are all, apart from finance, that we have to deal with and I think the King's Speech is an honest, straightforward announcement of the Government's programme. They have not overloaded it and they have by the Motion which the Prime Minister moved to-day probably —I hope certainly—secured adequate time for the full discussion of that vast Measure when we come to deal with it. If that be added to what the Government have already done in the last five
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    years I think their record will bear comparison with any other five years of legislation in this country. The rating reform scheme has one immense merit in relation to unemployment. It does not claim to "cure" unemployment as the hon. Member for Spennymoor puts it. It is not a complete cure for the disease but, as far as it goes, it is directed to those industries which are most distressed. They are to get the major part of the relief and, undoubtedly, the cumulative effect of the relief from rates and the lowering of railway rates will put a great many men into employment in distressed areas and industries. I do not say I regard this Measure as the whole of what is necessary to re-establish our industry. My views on the question of Safeguarding of Industries are well known. I wish, indeed, that the Government had time to carry out a great extension of the experiment that has been so successful in the little industries to which it has been applied, in finding work for the unemployed, so that we might tackle, from every point and not from one point alone, this great and urgent problem.
    My real object in rising is to call attention, while expressing my general app-oval of the Gracious Speech and the Government's programme, to one small omission which I greatly regret. I am very sorry that the Government have been unable to find time for a small Bill to amend part of the Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Acts. Since I have taken a special interest in this subject I get, from every part of the country, letters from people of one class. They are small people, comparatively poor people, each of whom owns just one house and in almost every case that house has been purchased by the owner for his or her own occupation. There are cases of people in this position who, for seven or eight years, have been unable to get possession of their own houses. It seems to me very unfortunate that a Conservative Government which should have a special interest in safeguarding property—particuarly the property of poor people—in encouraging thrift, and in spreading wealth wider throughout the people of this country, could not find time during these five years, with the great majority that we have had, to remedy this grievance and hardship. Many of the people to whom

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    I refer have bought these houses with the savings of a lifetime put together slowly with a view to providing for their old age.
    We are rightly proud of the Government's housing record. We have built more houses and cheaper houses than have been built since the housing problem was tackled, and I cannot help thinking that, in many districts, we must have sufficiently overtaken the housing shortage, to enable us to do a simple act of justice to these small house owners. It is not a question of making fewer houses available but only a question of who are to occupy particular houses. In these cases there is somebody occupying the house of the owner while the owner is occupying accommodation, possibly inferior, belonging to somebody else. Therefore it does not affect the total number of houses available or the shortage of houses, whether you give these people the right to use their own houses or continue to withhold it from them. I could give dozens of cases, and I have had at least 100 communications from all parts of the country on the subject. I will ask the indulgence of the House to state four cases of this kind. They are not particularly had cases compared with the others, but they will give hon. Members an idea of what is going on all over the country.
    The first ease is that of a woman aged 58 who bought a little house in Bath, 18 months ago. Her only means of living is letting lodgings and she bought the house for that purpose. The tenant of the house pays 8s. 6d. a week, whereas similar houses in the same road are let at 11s. a week. The tenant lets two rooms furnished at 8s. per week, so that his net rent for the remainder of the house is 6d. a week, and the owner of the house has to store her furniture. She cannot carry on her business, and she has to pay 15s. a week for her own accommodation and the storage of her furniture. Is that justice? The second case is that of a railway employé. I wish the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas) were in his place, because this case would anneal to him. This man has been an employé of the London and North Eastern Railway since he was 16, and he is now close on 60 years of age. He bought a
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    small house in Sheffield in November, 1920, with money that he has struggled to save. He has tried to get possession of this house without success. Thousands of houses have been built in Sheffield but the tenant has made no attempt to get any of them and apparently does not mean to do so. This man is at present living in a railway house, but when he reaches the age of 60, which will be in a few months time, he will have to turn out of it because he will then have reached the age of retirement. He has been careful and thrifty all his life with this contingency in view, but now he will be homeless when he ceases to be employed by the railway company. The third case is one in which the property has been inherited. It is a small old-fashioned house of eight rooms. The present occupier has no children but the owner of the house has three young children and is living in a small cottage, the only one obtainable other than houses at a guinea a week or council houses at 16s. 4d. The rent paid to the owner of this house of eight rooms, is 7s. 6d. a week while the owner himself has to pay a rental of a guinea a week in order to get accommodation for his family. The fourth and last case is that of a woman whose husband is a reservist. He was among the first to go to France on the outbreak of war and he has done 21 years' service. Six months before the husband was due to leave the Army they bought a house with £400—money saved by taking in lodgers and going without holidays for years. The tenant is paying 6s. 6d. a week for a six-roomed house, while the owners have to live in two rooms paying 12s. 6d. a week, their two children sleeping out. In the face of cases of this kind all over the country, I am very sorry the Government have not found time to bring in a one-Clause Bill in relation to the matter.
    Mr. MONTAGUE: There is already a remedy for cases like that.
    Sir B. PETO: I could easily show that in all these cases the owners have used the legal remedy and tried to get possession, but in nearly every case, while they get sympathetic statements from the justice who tries the case, he always says he cannot help them because the owner has not shown that he has got exactly similar alternative accommodation to offer to the tenant. My point is that in

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    every one of these cases there are two families or two people, living in two houses, and that if it does not affect the shortage of houses at all, it is high time that a person who has put by and saved all his life in order to acquire his own house should have the right to live in it and that the other people, who have not done that, should have to find the alternative accommodation. That, at any rate, is what I think would be justice and would accord with the principles of the party to which I have the honour to belong; but that is a very small criticism of what I regard as a satisfactory programme for the Parliamentary Session that remains. I am glad the Government have not tried to overload the programme, and I hope that we shall find that the great scheme of rating relief will do at any rate a very great deal—it is admitted that it cannot do everything—to restore occupation to those who are now needing it.
    Mr. G. SPENCER: Anyone who knows British trade and industry will have to regret that such a deplorable state of affairs exists, not only in the coal trade, which is exceedingly bad, but in almost the whole of the basic industries of the country. There may be particular causes of which I know nothing at all, but, in my opinion, there are two main causes which have contributed more than any other to the sorry position in which we find ourselves to-day. It would probably be difficult to say which is the main cause of the two, but whether or not I am able to do that, I think I shall be justified in putting them forward as very substantial contributory causes of the distress that exists. The first is that we have been rigidly pursuing a policy which is seeking to make gold the standard of our currency. Mr. McKenna, as far back as 1918–21, outlined a scheme for reducing prices. He has not seen eye to eye all along with the rest of the bankers with regard to gold being the basis of our currency. He would have extended it to certain bills of exchange, but the rest of the bankers want to make gold the basis of our currency and have been pursuing a policy to that end, with what effect?
    The whole of the manufacturing community, the whole of the producers of this country in the basic industries, have been manufacturing at one price, and owing
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    to the restriction of credit following upon the bankers' policy, they have found that they have not been able to sell at a price which would pay them. This restriction of credit has not merely contributed to the losses which are being sustained to-day in the basic trades, but undoubtedly it has affected the purchasing power of the people of the country and has limited the volume of trade which has been taking place. That, in my opinion, is one of the main causes of our distress. Instead of gold being the basis of our currency, wealth product should be the basis, and then there would be no inflation. I confess that I am not an economist, but I am a man of common sense, and I know that the gold of the world has not been coming in in sufficient quantities to maintain the prices at a standard which is sufficient to meet the requirements of trade at the present time, and it must naturally follow that, if you are going to make gold the standard or basis of your currency, unless gold is produced in ever-increasing quantities to meet the increasing volume of trade, there must be a reduction in prices for trade to meet the convenience of gold — [Interruption]. Obviously, there must be a decrease in prices. If you have a piece of gold as big as one hand and a piece of trade as big as the other, you get an equation, and if yon double your trade you must double your gold to keep your prices stable. If you do not do it, your prices must inevitably fall.
    Instead of gold being, as it is to-day, the master of trade, it should be the servant of trade, and I condemn the producers of this country in that they have not taken a greater interest in the currency of the country, but have left it to the bankers, and instead of the bankers arranging currency to support the trade and credit of the country, they have taken out of British industry, out of your pockets, by the appreciation of gilt-edged stocks since 1921, no less than £600,000,000. You have found it, productive industry has found it, and instead of us, on this side, and you, on that side, fighting against each other for that which does not exist, we should have come together to have protected our interests. As the late Lord Milner said some time ago,
    "The dividing line of politics in the future will be producer versus non-producer,"

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    and that time has arrived now. Cotton, agriculture, coal, iron and steel, every basic trade, is losing money. I know one Member of this House who has lost £100 a week in cotton for over a year. It seems incredible, and whether it is cotton, agriculture, coal or iron and steel, I ask to what extent these things can go on.
    There is a limit to such losses, and instead of labour and capital pointing the finger at each other and saying "You are the cause of the trouble," in my opinion it would be far better if labour and capital got together, as far as this currency question is concerned, and demanded, not that any drastic action should be taken, but that there should be a searching inquiry into the whole currency system of the country. If it is found that currency is not feeding industry to the extent that it ought to do, if it is found that currency is dictating what prices shall he, if it is found that lack of credits is throttling industry, then it should be made clear that currency should be, not the master, but the servant of industry, stimulating the free flow of goods, putting an end to the state of things we have to-day, when we see the furnace yard full, the pit yard full, the warehouse full, the shop full, factories stocked with goods, and all of us wanting to exchange them, yet the very medium of exchange so reduced that, instead of facilitating the rapid flow of goods, it is checking that flow. The sooner we turn our attention to this question the better it will be for the whole of productive industry, both masters and men. The greatest fraud that has ever been perpetrated upon the working classes of this country has been gold as the basis of currency.
    I am coming now to discuss the Free Trade policy, which has been dictated and supported by the Liberal party. I should like to begin this part of my speech by quoting from a Liberal political economist, Professor Sidgwick. This is what he said as far back as 1883:
    "I have now to call attention to an oversight in the ordinary exposition of the benefits of Free Trade which is of some importance when the division of the world into separate nations is taken into account and the interests of a single nation are considered. It is often assumed, expressly or tacitly"—
    I especially draw the attention of my hen. Friends above the Gangway to this part of the ease—
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    "that when a class in a given nation can obtain any kind of commodities cheaper through foreign trade, the nation as a whole must be benefited by their so obtaining it. What is overlooked is the possibility that a portion of a nation from which employment is withdrawn by the change cannot be employed within their own country without a loss of utility greater, on the whole, than the gain from the cheap foreign supply of the commodities they were producing before the change. I do not think this result is at all a probable one in a country as large and as industrially developed as England."
    He thought it was not possible for that to take place in England. Let us look round at the moment, and we shall see that not only has it taken place, but anyone who will take the trouble to read this month's "Trade and Navigation Return" will find that it happened some time ago also; and there is an ever increasing volume of trade flowing into this country made by labour in other countries which is less well paid than ours and which does not, therefore, admit of fair competition. The Labour party and the Trade Union party must inevitably, if they follow the logic of their own position, be Protectionists: they can be nothing else.
    6.0 p.m.
    What does it matter to any one of us whether the man making goods lives in Belgium or Bermondsey if his labour is cheaper than ours, and it does not admit of fair competition? It is throwing out of work the man who is getting the higher standard of wages and giving the work to the man who is taking a lower wage and working longer hours. Some time ago, when we were discussing this aspect of the question—and it is the whole Liberal answer to the question of safeguarding and protection—the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Collie Valley (Mr. Snowden) said, "I like people to put into my back-garden pianos and things like that." What is the inference of a statement of that kind? My friends the Liberals say that, imports are paid for by exports. What is the fallacy underlying it all? It is that if these imports do not come in exports will not go out but it means more: it means that the goods will not be manufactured at all. Therein lies the fallacy. I maintain that if these goods, which are coming in increasing quantities into this country, were manufactured by us instead of being manufactured by foreign labour, whether they be hosiery goods, iron and steel,

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    cotton, worsted goods or various other things which I could mention, which are coming in in ever increasing quantities, and if it be true that all trade is barter, it must inevitably follow that they would be paid for by other goods manufactured in this country. A recent writer gives an illustration of a man making shoes in this country, and a man making hats in France. It is a very powerful illustration, and hits the nail on the head. The Englishman sends his boots to France, and the Frenchman sends his hats here, and there the exchange probably ends with more or less satisfaction to both parties. But, he says, suppose, when the Englishman wants his next bats, instead of turning to the Frenchman he turns to the Englishman, and says, "If you take my shoes, I will take your hats." My Liberal friends may laugh, but I am not an economist I am a man of common sense, and I tell them that if I can keep in my country the hats and shoes, my country is that much richer than it was before.
    Sir PHILIP PILDITCH: From whom do von quote?
    Mr. SPENCER: Professor Sidgwick. What has been the main argument and the whole basis of Free Trade, starting with Adam Smith and built up a. little bit by John Stuart Mill? It has been this, that you have at the extremes of our country great barriers over which capital cannot go and cannot leave the country, and this capital, they say, will be employed in the country and, as it is employed in the country, it will go from one trade to another. The volume of trade depends upon the quantity of capital that you have got. That is a good Free Trade doctrine. If you have only a limited quantity of capital you will have a limited quantity of trade; and Free Traders have built their whole thesis upon this fact, that Free Trade means that inside a country we should retain all the capital and give the maximum amount of employment to our people. If we did any trade with another country, it would not be because our capital had gone out to foster other industries, but it would be because it was to our advantage, owing to the fact that there are certain products which we ourselves cannot produce from nature. That has been their theory and their argument, and it has entirely broken down to-day. Capital is going out, and the
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    Labour party and all other parties should remember for what it is going out. They tell us that it is going out in the form of goods. I grant that, but where is the capital going? It is going to a foreign country to employ foreign men to send goods into this country against the Britisher, and the whole Free Trade doctrine is the doctrine of sending as much capital out of the country as possible to foster industries in another country to send over cheap goods to this country.
    Is it not better for that capital to remain in England to employ the Britisher rather than that it should be sent to a foreign country to employ somebody else? Why is it not left in this country? I am not complaining about the investor—far from it. I am dealing with the principle, not with the individual. The investor will go to the best market. What I am complaining about is that investments are not made more attractive and more secure in this country by the protection of those industries in which we can make the goods ourselves. If we had that protection, instead of capital flowing out to where it can get the greatest possible interest, it would stop in this country. If John Stuart Mill and the rest of them are sound in their economics, it means that the more capital that remains in Great Britain the more labour we shall be able to employ with that capital. We can make our choice. We can either send it into another country, or we can let it stop in this country, and if we send it into another country it must inevitably follow that we shall employ other labour, and not British labour.
    When we come to calculate exports and imports, it has always been said that exports pay for the imports, but in order to try to make things balance, what have the Liberal party and the Free Trade party to bring in? They have to bring in an element of finance which, in my opinion, should never be brought in, and they cannot justify it being brought in. Last year, £348,000,000 invisible exports came into this country, of was supposed to have come in, as interest upon investment; abroad. Let me ask my trade union friends to look at this for a moment. I can understand shipping as an invisible export, because there is a constant element of labour in shipping and services of that character. But if a man invested £100 in foreign Government bonds 20 years ago, and his interest comes

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    flowing into this country year after year, can it be said that there is a constant element of labour in that service.? There is nothing of the kind, and it never ought to be brought into the balance sheet when we are weighing up imports and exports. There is not a balance of trade in our favour as real trade goes. It means all along that we are not providing work for the people iii this country. There is the greatest possible opportunity—not for the Conservative party; they will never do it—but for the Labour party to rise up and say, as they ought to say, "We will test the sincerity of the Conservative party." They should bring in a Private Member's Bill, if it be possible, to protect all those industries in this country in which there is the maximum of unemployment, and where there is the competition of low wages and longer hours on the Continent which they cannot meet. If they did that, there would be in this country a greater volume of trade than there would be by any other method at the present time. My friends taunt me about protectionist countries. We have had a surfeit of Free Trade in this country, and it has given us what we have got. Can my friends say that in France or in any other country to-day there is more unemployment than we have in this country? They have longer hours and lower wages in France, but that is the reason why the workers of this country, who are trade unionists and who believe in protecting the highest possible standard of existence consistent with the economics of the country, should be protectionists against that class of labour. If instead of railing at each other as we are, instead of pointing our finger at the capitalist, and instead of the capitalist being suspicious of us, we really came together and discussed these two great questions from a business point of view, unemployment, in my opinion, would be minimised, and we should do a greater volume of trade and bring back a greater measure of happiness and prosperity to the people. You cannot kill Bolshevism by mere doctrines; you cannot kill any form of extremism by mere theories; but if yon introduced a sound, broad policy which would give work and wages and bring contentment, it would destroy foolish nostrums and place the country on a basis of economic and political safety.
    Sir WALTER RAINE: In the Gracious Speech from the Throne there is a sentence, the purport of which is that we are to have a Supplementary Estimate in order that the railway companies may grant relief to certain industries in December of this year, instead of October next year, as originally intended. I want to refer briefly to the question of the coal trade mentioned by the hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey). If the private railways are not to be included in this relief, it will be a very serious matter indeed. Last year 14,250,000 tons of coal were carried over the private railways, representing 29 per cent. of the total production of Durham and Northumberland. This is a very serious matter for the constituency which I have the honour to represent, because no less than a quarter of that quantity, namely, 3,500,000 tons, is carried over private railways. Therefore, I make bold to ask that this matter should receive the serious attention of the President of the Board of Trade, who, I am glad to see, is present. If nothing is done, certain collieries which are served by private lines will suffer very seriously, indeed, certain areas will suffer very seriously, and in these days we cannot afford to allow any area to suffer if we can prevent it by a simple change.
    I hope the Supplementary Estimate will include the amount which the private railways would receive in the way of relief, namely, their 75 per cent. That will be something to the good. But I am going further. I say that I hope the President of the Board of Trade, or whichever Department has the matter in hand, will see that this private railway relief is put into the pool, and that all coal passing, over railways, whether they be public or private, will share on the same basis. Otherwise, as I have said, the position with regard to these private railways will be very serious indeed. It is impossible at the moment to calculate exactly what will be the measure of relief, but, according to some figures got out by actuaries in Durham and Northumberland, the net average relief to be given to collieries whose traffic passes over the public railways will be just over 5d., and deducting the 84d. which is the average relief which the private railways will receive in their75 per cent., it comes out at 4.8d. If this relief to the railways had been given to every class of traffic

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    there might have been some point in the argument which has been put forward that the private railways, as they have not paid into the pool, have no right to the relief, but seeing that we are picking out—and quite rightly, because they are very depressed—agriculture, coal, and the iron and steel trades, and also seeing that this is in the form of a subsidy, I say that all in the coal trade, whether their coal passes over private railways or over the public railways, ought to have equal benefit.
    It may be interesting to know the figures which have been taken out for the River Wear, in which I am particularly interested, because it is in my constituency. I got them on Monday morning, before leaving home. The coal carried by private railways which was shipped in the 10 months ending 31st October amounted to 2,700,000 tons, against 1,845,000 tons carried over the public railways. It will be evident, therefore, how serious is the position as far as my constituency is concerned. I am not looking at this as a party political question, I regard it as a matter of bread-and-butter for the people of Durham and Northumberland. It may interest the House to know that coal is sold in the North of England in groups. I will not mention any names, but there are four different kinds of coal in Durham which come under one classification. Only one of these kinds of coal travels over private railways; the other three pass over the public railways. If the relief is not given to the private railway companies in the same manner as to the public railway companies, a lot of the trade will be lost to Sunderland because the foreigner will buy in the cheapest market—and I do not blame him for it—and he will take the other coals which are more or less of the same quality. That is another reason why this relief should he granted to all.
    There is one further reason which I would put forward, and again I speak for the town which I represent. I happen to be a member of the River Wear Commission, which has charge of the Port of Sunderland. If this relief be not granted in the way I have suggested, the River Wear Commission will probably—more than probably—suffer through loss of trade diverted to collieries which are served by the public railways. I think
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    I have said sufficient about this. The letter which the hon. Member for Spennymoor read a few minutes ago from the Seaton Burn Collieries admirably sets forth the situation, and I hope the Government will give the matter earnest consideration. If there is any technical difficulty in the way of granting what we are asking, I feel sure the House will readily pass a Measure to get over that difficulty, because Members on all sides of the House must feel seriously concerned about the trade of the country, and would not, I know, do anything which would drive trade away from any particular port, because it would not necessarily follow that it would go to another part of the country. I appeal to the President of the Board of Trade, and those who are acting with him in this matter, to see, before it is too late, whether this request which we are putting forward cannot he granted. To start with, cannot the. Supplementary Estimate be framed so as to allow these private railways, to have the relief as from 1st December; and, secondly, cannot they allow them to pay the amount they do receive into the pool and receive their fair share from the pool?
    Mr. KINGSLEY GRIFFITH: The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Spencer), after having thrown out a challenge to us on these benches and to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden), has departed, but, all the same, I would like to say a few words in answer to him, in no sense desiring to rail against him, but only to appeal to that common sense of which he spoke. He has complained of the tremendous flood into this country of goods produced under bad labour conditions. He desires to meet that position by having this country imitate the fiscal system under which those bad labour conditions have come into being. One would have thought his common sense would have revolted against so startling a proposition. Nearly all the rest of his speech on the subject of Free Trade was really an appeal to the country to increase its wealth and its prosperity by narrowing its markets, by dealing with as few people as possible, instead of with as many people as possible. If his arguments were sound, it is, obviously, a very unfortunate thing that we ever had any foreign trade at all. He ought to have been there when we first started trading with nations

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    abroad. It would be, I suppose, when the Phœnicians came with their dyestuffs to buy Cornish tin. The hon. Member ought to have been on the beach to tell them that their dye-stuffs were going to interfere with the valuable British woad trade, and if he had succeeded in persuading them to retire we should never have had any foreign trade at all. I think it may be conceded, also, that if we had never explored avenues of foreign trade we should never have had any Empire at all. But I do not desire to pursue further an abstract argument with a Member who has left the chamber. I only desired to take up the challenge and to answer it shortly, and I do not think I need deal further with it at the present time.
    My object in rising was to deal with the specific words in which the Gracious Speech from the Throne referring to the efforts made to deal with the unemployment question. I think the results are extraordinarily disappointing. The problem of unemployment envisages itself in my mind, first and foremost, as 200,000 men in the coal trade and about 100,000 in the iron and steel trade who have been found by the best authorities, as the result of research, to be definitely surplus, probably, to their industry, in the sense that they have no immediate prospect of finding employment there. That, to my mind, is a tragedy far outweighing even the importance of the startling total number of the unemployed at the present time. It is when unemployment becomes chronic, when the same men are unemployed year after year, that we have to treat it as a national emergency equal to the emergency of war, and to deal with it by the most drastic steps. I fail to find that the most Gracious Speech from the Throne has foreshadowed any measure which will be at all adequate to an emergency of this kind. Take the rating relief proposal. I am not going to develop any attack on that proposal. That attack has been made on other occasions from both above and below the Gangway, and will be made again, but it is obvious that the rating relief proposal will not affect those 200,000 men in the coal trade and the 100,000 men in the iron and steel trade to which I have referred, because the Industrial Transference Board, in making their estimate of the men who
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    have no present prospect of being reabsorbed into trade, have taken into consideration not only the fact that the Government are proposing measures for rating relief, but also that further improvement might take place in management and in the methods of rationalisation; and in spite of all that they came to the conclusion that there was this great surplus of labour to be dealt with in some way or the other.
    Without desiring to say dogmatically that rating relief is going to do no good to unemployment in general—for in the spending of all that money some of it is bound to spill over to the right people, and here and there some good will be done—I must say that it is not going to tackle the heart of this great question as it is presented to us in the terrible figures prepared by the Industrial Transference Board. For that remedy we have to look elsewhere. What is suggested is a migration of the people. It is suggested sometimes that this migration should he to the Dominions, and sometimes that it should take place within our own boundaries. With regard to migration abroad, I need only refer to the very weighty words which were uttered last Session, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hill-head (Sir R. Horne). He pointed out that the number of our people which the Dominions could absorb at the present time was limited, and must be so for a considerable time, that they had their own unemployment problems, and that there was only one kind of labour which they were ready to absorb at present, which was agricultural. As to sending out people for a harvest, I do not want to attack any scheme which has given wages to any British citizens, even for a short time, but that is obviously only a temporary measure, and no permanent solution. The men go out and come back with various reports, but the total of unemployment in this country is not thereby lessened. What of migration within the country? I am not going as far as the hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) went in the course of his earnest and eloquent speech. I think a fair amount of profitable transference can be accomplished. If you find, perhaps, 30 places for men from a town like Middlesbrough in the course of a month, that effort cannot be

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    ignored if the men really find permanent situations; but, obviously, compared with the unemployment in Middlesbrough, it can only be regarded as a drop in the ocean.
    I applaud, as everybody in the House will applaud, the action of the Prime Minister in making an appeal to employers to try to select men from those industries which are most badly hit; it is a good thing that it should be done; but when it is put forward as one of the main planks in a policy for curing unemployment it becomes farcical. It is obvious that it is not a curing of unemployment but a distributing of unemployment. A certain number of men from the distressed areas are brought down to the south-west and the Midlands where they find employment instead of somebody else in those districts. In almost every instance it is merely a displacement of employment, and the employment of one man instead of another. I know some men in the north-east district have been found employment in other districts. By adopting this policy you are not curing the problem of unemployment; you are simply altering its distribution. Industrial transference is not, to my mind, a hopeless policy, but it is a hopeless policy as it is being carried out by the Government without any destination being indicated when the transference takes place. Transference implies a starting place in the distressed areas, but it also implies a destination and a place where work is needed. An appeal of the kind which has been made by the Prime Minister does not create a demand for work where there was no demand before; it merely assists a certain number of men to be selected. In the training centres we are told that the aim is general employability, but I do not know what can be taught in order to promote it. If the intention is to give more specialist training you must have some idea as to what it is for, and where the labour is going to be placed.
    The whole of this policy of transference and training is made useless by the fact that the Government have no general scheme for creating work. The Government seem to have snatched the purely negative conclusions arrived at by the Transference Board, and they have concluded that no responsibility rests upon the Government. I ask the Prime
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    Minister, or anyone who undertakes to deal with this problem, to imagine what they would do if the problem before the country was an actual shortage of food or a famine. What would the Government do under those circumstances? I am sure they would try and sweep the world in order to find food to meet a famine. When it happens to be a famine in relation to work, why cannot the Government sweep the country for all the possibilities of work, because such possibilities exist and they can be found if the Government will only address themselves to the subject in a serious manner.
    Until all the needs of this nation are satisfied; until the housing problem has been solved and all our slums have been removed; until our roads have been made perfect and all our agricultural land has been brought into cultivation—until all these things have been done it cannot be said that there is no work to he found for the people of this country. It is the duty of those at the head of the State to realise that national investment for peace is as necessary and as laudable as national investment for war. If we had a Government of that kind, we should not find these poor pitiable proposals put forward which the Government have suggested to meet the terrible problem which confronts them in their last year of office. I am afraid that we shall not find any real remedy put forward by the present Government and nothing will be done until those at the head of the State have a clearer vision, a greater imagination, and a more profound faith.
    Mr. TINKER: The hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) has dealt with the position of the men at work in the coal industry, and I want to draw attention to the position of some of those people. In the course of the last Session I asked the Home Secretary if he could see his way to amend the Workmen's Compensation Act, and my reason for asking that question was the very low wages which were being paid to the miners. I mentioned that certain cases had come to my notice where the minimum of £200 had not been paid and nothing more could be claimed by the men. In reply, the Home Secretary said that he would make inquiries, and, if he found that my statement was correct, he would pay attention to the matter.

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    Later on I received a reply that there was no evidence of the character which I had indicated. During the Recess I have spent some time trying to find out the amount of wages actually earned by the miners, and I have obtained some figures from the men who are getting compensation. I have examined 100 cases of men in Lancashire, and not one of them is getting 25s. per week compensation. This proves that the average weekly wage is something less than £2. That is a fact which cannot be disputed, and it bears out what the hon. Member for Spennymoor has said, that the wages paid to those employed in the coal mining industry are very poor indeed. I ask the Home Secretary to pay close attention to these facts, because he has now sufficient evidence to proceed on the lines which I have indicated. I hope the Government will realise the amount of distress which prevails in the mining areas. I am sure the country generally is aware of that distress judging by the meetings which have been held to relieve the distress in the mining areas. One case has been brought to my notice in a letter written by Mr. Galsworthy, headed "The Plight of the Miners," in which he says:
    "Now certain thoughts have crystallised within me: coal, whether owned by the nation or by private individuals, is a national resource, and it should not be possible for any private individual or company finally to abandon any pit by a stroke of the pen without referring the decision to the Ministry of Mines, or some other duly constituted authority representing the nation. A man may fail in an ordinary business a ml no national harm done, but where his failure means the final abandonment of a national source of wealth he should not he allowed to fail in the present arbitrary manner, which at a stroke destroys the livelihood of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of his fellow-creatures. The decision for such abandonment should be nationally adopted or at least ratified."
    We blame the Government for having allowed private enterprise to bring the coal industry to its present state. We say that the Mining Industry Act of 1926 has done nothing to further the national interest. It may be argued by the President of the Board of Trade that the White Paper issued by the Mines Department will help the coal industry. One passage in the Report issued by the Board of Trade on this subject says:
    "Particulars of amalgamations in this category which are known to have been
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    effected since the passing of the Act are given below. They cover 172 pits, normally employing about 126,000 workpeople, and comprise 17 separate schemes, subsequently reduced to 14 by the further amalgamation of the South Wales anthracite groups."
    I contend that those amalgamations do not meet the situation. A scheme of that kind sets district against district, and, unless the problem can be dealt with nationally, no satisfactory solution of the problem presented by the coal industry can be found. There is a further passage in the White Paper which refers to a scheme now being put into operation in Lancashire and Cheshire, Cannock Chase, Leicestershire, North Staffordshire, and Warwickshire, as well as in the Yorkshire, Notts and Derby coalfields. It is a striking example of the fallacy of private enterprise. I understand that one of the principles of private enterprise is not to restrict output, but the document to which I have referred says:
    "This scheme provides for
    (a) a levy not exceeding 3d. per ton on all coal raised."
    It is also provided that each colliery shall have a quota or percentage applied each month to the basic tonnage, and there is a further provision as follows:
    "If a member exceeds his quota in any month by more than 1 per cent., he is liable to a fine of 3s. a ton in respect of the excess tonnage; and in the case of systematic excesses heavier penalties may be applied."
    This is a clear case of private enterprise restricting output. If that is so, then hon. Members are bound to realise that private enterprise applied to the coal industry has failed in regard to one of its fundamental principles. Consequently, the only real solution is for the nation to take over the coal mines and make them a national concern. When hon. Members admit that in the coal industry private enterprise has failed, I contend that it is only dealing with the problem piecemeal in the way which is now proposed, and the Government are not doing their duty. I appeal to the Government to recognise what is happening in the coal industry. The present state of things cannot continue much longer. The nation is going downward step by step, and we ask that things should not be allowed to get any worse.
    I will endeavour to show how this problem can be dealt with. I think the

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    nation ought to recognise that those who are allowed to work in mines should be restricted to a certain age. I do not think any man over 65 years of age ought to be allowed to go down a. mine. The nation should see that men engaged in the mining industry, upon reaching the age of 65, should have sufficient to keep themselves. We have heard a good deal of talk about raising the school age, but why not attempt to deal with this question in reference to the coal industry. In December, 1927, there were 41,400 boys under the age of 16 employed in and about the coal mines. My contention is that no boy under 16 years of age ought to be allowed to work on a night shift at the pit-head. At a time when we have an excess of labour in the mining industry, it is only reasonable to ask the Government to extend the Mining Industry Act in order to prevent boys working on night duty below ground. There is an excellent chance now, while we have so much surplus labour, and I would appeal to the Government to pay attention to that point.
    As to the general question of the mining industry, for a long time past if has been apparent that something ought to be done, and it is perhaps not too late to make one more appeal. Already tonight mining Members from these benches have shown the state of things that is obtaining in every coal pit, even in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, which in times gone by used to be called rich coalfields, but are now themselves experiencing great difficulties. It is not one part only of the British coalfields that is in distress. When we make this appeal, it is with the hope and thought that in the future the Government will realise the folly of leaving to private enterprise, as they have done in the past, our greatest basic industry.
    Captain CROOKSHANK: Everyone, of course, must sympathise with the coal-mining industry in the terrible times through which it is going. It is, indeed, heartrending to see what are called "economic forces" working themselves out in the actual flesh and blood of so many of our fellow-citizens. If I turn from that aspect of the King's Speech, it is because I deem it a privilege to be the first to-day to touch on the agricultural question. Members who represent
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    agricultural constituencies welcome very much the words in the Gracious Speech, because, for one thing, they do not foreshadow any great amount of legislation with regard to that industry. It is a well known fact that, if there is one thing which the agricultural industry abhors above all others, it is over-much legislation. We have, however, in the lifetime of this Parliament, passed many Acts that will have beneficial results for our industry if they can be properly administered, and, therefore, what we hope to see most particularly during the coming months is that the Minister of Agriculture should be able to proceed upon his way rejoicing, because he has, for example, in the Act dealing with grading and marking, which has been so happily inaugurated in certain parts of our industry, a weapon which may do a great deal more than many people suspect in bringing back prosperity, so far as prosperity can be brought back on the marketing side.
    He has, again, placed on the Statute Book an Act dealing with credits for the agricultural industry, and I hope he will be able to bring that fully into force at the earliest possible moment by setting up the corporation foreshadowed in that Measure. He has it in his hands to press forward with schemes for afforestation, and he certainly is in a position to bring his great influence to bear on his colleague, the Minister of Health, to press of much more strenuously than has yet been possible with the improvement of housing in rural areas. All of that can be done by virtue of recent legislation which we in this Parliament have passed, and it is by administration as much as by legislation that our acts here will be judged. I hope, therefore, that the fact that the Gracious Speech does not foreshadow much in the way of agricultural legislation will not mean any relaxation in his or our efforts to try to bring back prosperity to what, after all, is the oldest and the greatest industry of this country. But there is legislation foreshadowed, and legislation of a very practical and very desirable kind. We have, first of all, a reference to Estimates which will shortly be placed before the House, and, in passing, one welcomes the note once again the need for economy in public expenditure, because, if there is one thing Which is above all desirable to-day,

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    not only in the field of national finance but also in that of local government, it is economy on every side.
    In that paragraph we have a reference to relief in freight rates on certain articles connected with our industry. We understand, from speeches made by the Minister of Agriculture, that these comprise manures, livestock, feeding stuffs, milk and potatoes. That is a very varied list, but it is a list of great value, because, in drawing it up, my right hon. Friend and his advisers have obviously had to bear in mind the fact that, in order to give the greatest possible assistance to the British producer, they should try to think out a list of freights on articles which were going to help him mast so far as they were lines of his industry where there was the least foreign competition. Owing, quite naturally, to the organisation of this country in regard to the way in which the railways are run, and the treaties that we have with foreign Powers, we are precluded from giving preferential rates for British as opposed to foreign goods, and, therefore, the best means of assisting our own home producer is to choose traffics in which he is more particularly concerned. We welcome that because we know that the, extra £750,000 which is going to be saved to the agricultural industry as a result of these reduced rates is going to be of great benefit to it on its production and marketing side.
    One would not, however, have suspected, in the course of this Debate, that the Gracious Speech foreshadows one of the most important revolutions in the whole of our agricultural economy. It foreshadows that relief, of which much has already been said, which is represented by the total abolition of agricultural rates on land and on buildings. That is a proposal which is going to be placed before this House, and it is certainly revolutionary in the extreme. It is something to which the agricultural industry has aspired for many years, but, if anyone had said 12 months ago that there was a prospect of its being brought about in the lifetime of this present Parliament, they would have been laughed out of court. We welcome, therefore, those words relating to relief from the burden of rates, which, as the Gracious Speech says, may benefit agriculture. After all, it is only the con-
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    summation of many years of Conservative policy. We started by making it one of the principles of agricultural rating that there was a case for preference in the case of agricultural land. That was afterwards extended in its amount, and, within the lifetime of this present Parliament, was extended again to cover agricultural buildings; and this year, according to the programme which the Government are going to place before this House, we are apparently to put the corner stone on that policy, which we have so long hoped might come to fruition.
    There is no question that it will benefit every branch of agriculture, and it is the only possible way of doing it. When you have barred out, and it is obvious to every thinking person that you must bar out, on the one hand any system of universal subsidising of the agricultural industry, and on the other hand a system of Protection—because we still stand by the words of the Prime Minister that none of our policy is to be any taxation on articles of food—it is only by a system of rate relief that you can possibly benefit all agriculturists, whether great or small, in proportion to their interests in the land. I know it is a platitude, but, if one considers for a moment all the diversities of the industry, one sees that there is nothing really in common between the man to whom agriculture means the production of milk, the man to whom it means the marketing of livestock, the man to whom it-means arable farming, the man who is a market gardener, or, again, the man whose livelihood conies from potatoes. There is really very little in common between all of these except one thing, and that is the burden of the rates; and it is by their realisation of the importance of relief in that direction that this Government are really making history in the agricultural world.
    We, therefore, most particularly welcome these words in the Gracious Speech. We welcome, as I have said before, the fact that not much legislation is foreshadowed for our industry, hut we hope that, among the minor Measures which are referred to in the last paragraph, the Minister of Agriculture may draft and introduce into this House a Bill dealing with drainage. This subject has been considered by a Royal Commission, and it is a question which certainly

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    affects a great many districts in my own constituency. I hope that it may be considered as one of the more or less non-controversial Measures which the Government may find it possible to slip through in the course of the coming months. On the main question, we do welcome very much in the country districts the foreshadowed relief from rates and we are also particularly pleased that we are not going to be burdened with a great deal of new legislation.
    Mr. TAYLOR: In looking through the Gracious Speech, I notice a reference to the continuance of the policy of migration as a means of alleviating the difficulties which exist in our mining areas, but I am very sorry to find that the Government have omitted any reference whatever to the possibility of relieving the situation in the mining areas by a system of land settlement, not in Canada or Australia, but here in our own country, where so many acres of arable land are going out of cultivation. The hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank), who has just spoken, has referred to the hopes which he has of agricultural prosperity being restored, or at any rate helped, by the de-rating of agricultural land, but he has, I think, overlooked the fact that this concession to agriculture will in all probability, if the experiences of the past are any guide, be completely swallowed up in the maw of the landlords by increased rent, for the Conservative Government have already given a lead to the private landowners by raising the rents of the allotments at Sutton Bridge in Lincolnshire, which are under their Department, on the very ground that, because they are to be de-rated, the tenants will be able to pay a higher rent. The whole cry of agricultural landlords is that they are unable to keep up either the drainage or the repair of their properties or the provision of capital for agricultural holdings, because the rents are too low to permit them to fulfil the functions which they used to fulfil; and certainly I think that the value of this concession to agriculture will prove to have been enormously over-estimated, and that the main benefactors will not be the farmers, but the landowners. However that may be—
    Captain CROOKSHANK: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that ever since
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    1896, when preferential relief was given in respect of agricultural rates, rents have gone consistently downwards?
    Mr. TAYLOR: That is due to a number of economic causes which did not operate at the time the Act was passed.
    Sir JOSEPH NALL: They are operating now.
    7.0 p.m.
    Mr. TAYLOR: My object in rising was to draw attention to the treatment that has been meted out to a considerable number of British citizens who were induced by false pretences on the part of the Government to go out to Canada in connection with the special scheme for miner harvesters. On 1st August last the Colonial Secretary made a statement in the House, in the course of which he said, answering a question by the hon. Member for Rothwell (Mr. Lunn):
    "Arrangements have been made, in consultation with the Canadian Government, under which 10,000 men are to be assisted in going to Canada from this country for work in connection with the Canadian harvest."
    He said they were going under special terms and proceeded to state:
    "The average rate of wages for harvest work in Canada is about £3 to £5 a week with keep."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 1st August, 1928; cols. 2185–6, Vol. 220.]
    A little later on, in reply to a Supplementary Question, he stated that, during the eight weeks a man might be expected to work, he might be able to earn over and above his keep a sum of from £24 to £40. Previously he said in the House, on 26th July, that he had received a telegram from the Canadian Government but was not at that date in a position to make a state rent. I would like the contents of that telegram from the Canadian Government to be disclosed in the House tonight. I do so because it must have been within the Colonial Secretary's knowledge, at the time he made the statement in the House on 1st August, that the responsible authorities in Canada, the representatives of the provincial Governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, together with the representatives of the two Federal railway systems, had met in Winnipeg in the month of July for the purpose of discussing what were the requirements of the Western harvest fields as far as labour was concerned. It was distinctly stated at that

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    meeting that no wages should be advertised in appeals for harvesters. For a Minister to make the statement he did, in view of the fact that a conference of the responsible Canadian authorities had been held, means that he must have been misleading the men recruited under that scheme.
    Most of the dissatisfaction which has arisen among the men who went out to Canada is due to the fact that no guarantee was given by the Canadian farmer either to employ the labour or to pay a particular rate of wages. They did not contract to pay to an unskilled British miner harvester the rates of pay that were represented to the men in the employment exchanges in Great Britain before they went to Canada. One cannot altogether blame the farmers because, where they were able to get skilled men used to Canadian conditions to do the work, it was not likely that they were going to pay someone who was quite inexperienced the rate of pay for which they could hire a skilled man. Therefore, when the men were sent out to the farmers—not to individual farmers, because no list of individual farmers had been compiled—when they were sent out from Winnipeg for hundreds of miles in batches to agents at the railway stations, without any preparations made for them, without anybody to meet them, without any employment to which to go, with very little in the way of resources, it is not surprising that, when they succeeded in getting a job, they had to take whatever wage was offered to them. They naturally expected that the Canadian farmer would be willing to pay the rate of wages represented to them in Great Britain even though they were not fully skilled men, arid not able to earn the rate payable to fully skilled men. That is the first charge I want to make against the Government, that they misled those men who were sent to Canada and that they had knowledge of the actual conditions before the statement was made by the Colonial Secretary in the House on 1st August.
    It so happens that I was in Vancouver during the month of August, and was taken ill there. During the time I was in Vancouver, the City Council and the authorities in that City expressed very great alarm as to this importation of labour from Great Britain, and a number of statements in the Canadian newspapers
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    led me to believe that all was not well in relation to this Canadian harvester scheme. I would like to draw the attention of the House to this statement which appeared in the Canadian newspapers on 21st August:
    "The Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways announce that no more harvesters' excursions will be run to Western Canada this year. The second series arranged for the present season have been cancelled. Instructions have been issued to agents throughout Eastern Canada, including Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes, to stop the sale of tickets. The action followed a conference in Winnipeg which was attended by representatives of Railways and officials of the Government Employment Service. It is stated that the total number of harvesters carried from Eastern Canada and Great Britain already arrived at the harvest fields or on their way there has reached 40,000, while British Columbia to date has sent 1,000 more than originally anticipated."
    There is a clear indication that the second series of excursions, arranged by the conference of responsible authorities in Winnipeg for the purpose of supplying the Western harvest fields with labour by conveying the Eastern Canadian worker, who normally moves West for harvest work, had to be cancelled because of the result of the influx from this country of men who were taken into Winnipeg with-out any proper provision being made for their employment. It seems to me a perfect scandal to take men at great cost 3,000 miles or more over the sea for a very short period when the home market supply is not fully utilised.
    A second item in the Canadian Press to which I want to draw the attention of the House is a statement, a despicable statement, in any opinion, made by the British Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs. This statement was made on 27th August in Winnipeg in an interview to the representatives of the Press, and was to this effect:
    "Lord Lovat hoped that the newspapers of Canada and Great Britain would not pay too much attention to stories brought them by miner harvesters of injustices done to them. There are bound to be injustices on both sides, but there will also he as many and probably more instances where the men have been treated fairly and have kept their part of the bargain."
    The ordinary British citizen, the ordinary man in the street, is, in my opinion, just as likely to be as truthful in relation to these matters as any Conservative lord,

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    and I consider it was a very reprehensible thing for the Under-Secretary to make such a statement appealing to the British and Canadian Press not to pay too much attention to British harvesters' stories. No good can be done either to Canada or to Great Britain, or to good relations between those two branches of the family, by the suppression of stories of injustice. If the statements are true, they require proper investigation. It is not only that from my own personal experience I know that many of these men did not get a fair deal—
    Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKE: From what paper is the hon. Member reading?
    Mr. TAYLOR: I am refreshing my memory from an article written by myself in the columns of the "Lincolnshire Forward." If the hon. Member will allow me, I can tell him the papers from which I took the quotations that I made. Does the hon. Member suggest that these quotations were not published in the Canadian Press?
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEIt is usual to name the paper. I suggest nothing.
    Mr. TAYLOR: The third statement is a statement published in the papers of the Canadian Press and made by Dr. J. T. M. Anderson, who is the Conservative leader in the Saskatchewan Provincial House. He declared at Saskatoon on 30th August that the treatment of British miner harvesters at Saskatoon was a disgrace to Canadian civilisation. There is, apparently, some justification for the point of view I have expressed in the minds of responsible Canadian leaders in Western Canada. My complaint is that no proper arrangements existed for the distribution of these men from Winnipeg, and that many of them suffered very great hardships. I have in my possession statements concerning a case of about 100 of these men whom I met in Winnipeg. I do not propose to read it because I do not want to take up the time of the House unnecessarily, but it shows that, in the case of hundreds of men at least, no proper work was available for them and that many of them suffered very great hardships. They had to "jump" trains and beg their way. They were unable to get work, and when they got back they were in a very difficult position. Matters cer-
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    tainly did improve after the Empire Parliamentary Delegation arrived in Winnipeg, and at the time I left the men who were reaching Winnipeg on their way home to this country were certainly getting three good meals a day, and conditions had improved in many ways.
    I want to make one very strong complaint about the way these men were treated in relation to their return to this country. It is that before they could get their tickets to return to this country they were compelled, owing to the exigencies of their position, to sign a document to the effect that they had refused work in Canada. When I went into the immigration hall attached to the Canadian Pacific Railway and into the Government Immigration Hall, I discovered that these men were being asked to sign a statement to the effect that they had refused work in Canada at wages from four to five dollars a day. That was a condition of receiving their ticket to return to this country. Later on I discovered that after the arrival of the official representative of the Ministry of Labour in Winnipeg, the form used by the Department for dealing with men who were returning had printed upon it these words:
    "I have refused to work at wages from four to five and six dollars a day."
    Most of those men have had very unfortunate experiences. They had had great difficulty in getting back to Winnipeg, and many of them had suffered very real hardship, and, when they were asked whether they would go out again for a job at four or five dollars a day, they very naturally said: "What guarantee is there that the job is there and that the wages will be paid when we get there?" I met men in Winnipeg who had been out twice, and had had the same kind of experience, and naturally they declined to go out again under those conditions unless there was some absolutely definite undertaking by somebody that their first experience would not be repeated.
    Mr. ROY WILSON: Does the hon. Member want to convey to the House that in the cases he investigated those men who had gone out hail not received employment at five dollars a day, and when they were asked to go out again they had good reason for believing, before

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    they signed the certificate, that they were not going to get the employment offered?
    Mr. TAYLOR: I say it was very unfair to place those men, after the experience they had gone through, in the position that they bad to sign a document saying that they had refused work at from four to five dollars a day as a condition of receiving their tickets to return to this country. I am speaking now, not of men who were medically unfit and had a doctor's certificate, but of men who had gone out. In some cases there was no work for them, and in the majority of cases they were provided with a few odd days on a farm at about half the rate of wages that was offered them in this country.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Does the hon. Member mean to say that any rate of wages was guaranteed to them in this country?
    Mr. TAYLOR: I say that there was a moral guarantee on the part of the British Government with regard to the wages that these men were to receive. Had it not been for the posters exhibited in the Employment Exchanges, and for the statement of the Colonial Secretary in this House, had they known the conditions they were going to they would certainly not have gone to Canada. They were told by the Colonial Secretary that they could save, in addition to their keep, from £20 to £40 by eight weeks work. I am not concerned with that so much as I am with this question of compulsion in relation to the signing of forms, because, apart from the Labour Members, there is a considerable number of Members in other parties who would not desire to do an injustice to their fellow countrymen. It seemed to me justifiable for the men to sign the forms if it was their only way of getting home. Some of them were married men who were anxious about their families, to whom they had not been able to send anything. They were without resources in what was to most of them a strange country, and in view of the experiences most of them had when they were sent out to Winnipeg, I for one do not blame them for refusing to take a second promise. I would blame any man who had a definite job to go to, who was physically able to do it,
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    and refused to take it. I have no sympathy whatever with that kind of man, but with individuals placed in the position that a very large number of these men were placed in, I have very real sympathy.
    I should not like anything I have said to-night to damage the prospects of promoting that kind of migration which, I believe, can take place with real benefit both to Canada and Great Britain. I am quite satisfied that with proper care and organisation a contribution to the wellbeing both of Canada and of Great Britain can be made by migration schemes. In all probability a considerable number of the men who have gone out have had much better experiences than those which I have been describing. The Canadian farmer, on the whole, is a good fellow and is probably just as anxious to do the best that he can for one of the old stock arriving from Great Britain as anyone else, especially if he is an old country man. But to dump men into Winnipeg in the way that these men were dumped, without any proper organisation for their employment, is not going to help either Canada or Great Britain, and I sincerely hope that we may have a full statement on this matter which will deal with the charges that have been made to-night.
    Mr. SEXTON: It has been my privilege to listen to a good many Gracious Speeches from the Throne delivered in another place, and debated in this, but I have no recollection at any time of having read a more miserable and unworthy production. It has nothing to commend it to me in the least. It is less like a Speech from the Throne than the address of a municipal candidate. Threading through the whole of the Speech appears the sentence "Economy and efficiency and the health of the people shall have the first attention." The record of this Government for the last four years gives the direct lie to both those statements. Economy of a kind, yes, but efficiency, no. In no department of the Government is there any justification for the claim that there has been efficiency. Economy at the expense of the health of the people, economy at the expense of the comfort of the men who ought to be, instead of a national liability, producers of wealth and a national asset, restriction of legitimate

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    benefit, the denial of even the common necessaries of life to sustain life and prosperity do not count in the record of the Government for righteousness.
    It reminds me very vividly of an opponent I once had at a municipal election who in his address, posted all over the Ward, made a somewhat peculiar statement. He was a self-made man; a successful business man, and, having made a success of his own business, he was more capable of attending to my business than I was myself. One strong point he made was that the health of the people should have his first and last attention. It turned out on inquiry that he was an undertaker, and got his living by burying his neighbours, and not by keeping them alive. That is on a par with the claim of the Government on the ground of economy and efficiency. I have read the Speech over and over again, and I have endeavoured to find something that would give me some justification for at least giving credit to the Government for having done something in this direction, and if we go back on experience and read the Speech in connection with their actions, I have very faint hope that if they get an opportunity to carry out even its very vague statements it will be of any advantage whatever to the electorate. Let me quote one or two sentences.
    "The situation in the mining areas continues to engage the earnest attention of My Ministers, who are taking energetic steps to promote the success of the scheme of industrial transference and migration."
    What justification is there for that statement? The whole record of the dealing of the Government with the mining problem stinks in the nostrils of reasonable men. I represent a mining area. I see the misery and the poverty and the refusal even of temporary aid. I see all around me a terrible tragedy and a basic industry of the country drifting down every day. We had a speech from the hon. Member for Broxstowe (Mr. Spencer). Here is an industry to which he belongs. It is absolutely free from foreign competition, and yet out of his own mouth he stands condemned. This trade, owing to the action of the Government, who profess that the question is having their earnest attention, is of such a character, as has been described by an hon. Member on these benches to-day, that the average wage of those engaged in it is
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    under £2 per week. The question of migration has been mentioned. I leave that where it is, except to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, whose language is contained in the King's Speech, where they are to go? In Canada and our Colonies there are unemployed. All that the right hon. Gentleman—the first gentleman in England, so to speak, apart from the King —can do, in perfect good heartedness I admit—the intention is all right—in the midst of this poverty and degradation, is to write a letter to the employers asking them to find employment. In the words of a subconscious poetical friend of mine, he wrote to the employers
    "To see them right through
    And find them all jobs
    Where there was nothing to do."
    When are we going to be rid of all this fooling on this question, a question that is bleeding the country dry to-day? We have had the humiliating confession of the absolute failure of the Government to deal with this question. We have had it from the Front Bench during the last three Sessions of Parliament. We have had it in the Ministry of Labour for two or three Sessions also. The Unemployment Insurance Act was so amended that the figures on the live register were reduced but the figures outside the live register were shut out so that men were left starving and women and children standing behind like ghosts. I am sure that in his official capacity this haunts the right hon. Gentleman every time that he gets up in this house and makes a statement that unemployment is increasing. In spite of all this safeguarding of industries that hon. Members opposite have boasted about and are boasting about to-day, in spite of all the attempts to solve the unemployment problem, the humiliating confession is made that the expenditure on unemployment requires an increase of borrowing powers in order to meet further liabilities. The Gracious Speech says that
    "a Bill dealing with this question will be laid before you."
    I hope that there are some reasonably-minded men on the opposite side of the House, although there appear to be few there now, for I can count them on the fingers of one hand. That is the misfortune of the whole business. When

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    these serious questions are being discussed, we find that the men who might be convinced by the statements which are made from this side—we have not a monopoly of wisdom; I think there are some Members on the opposite side of the House who might be influenced by the truth—are usually absent.
    There is another paint with which I want to deal. In His Majesty's Gracious Speech we have another development foreshadowed in the rating and valuation suggestions for the relief of distressed industries. We are told that these suggestions are not to be confined to distressed industries. We have not the Bill before us at the present time, but in this connection I am fortunate, because I hold in my hand cuttings containing extracts from a speech delivered by a very prominent and responsible member of His Majesty's Government, the Solicitor-General. The Solicitor-General has been in my constituency, and he has been talking to my constituents. I have no doubt that the position of Solicitor-General carries with it great influence, and I believe that whatever words the hon. and learned Gentleman uses are listened to and quoted over and over again. It is far that reason that I take the liberty of quoting from the authoritative speech which he made on that occasion. Although the Bill is not yet before the House, if the hon. and learned Gentleman has stated the truth—and I think he has—he indicated the very essence of the Bill that is going to be presented in a few days' or a few weeks' time. Speaking on the general principles of the rating and valuation proposals the Solicitor-General said:
    "With regard to the extra money available for distribution as a bonus to the needy areas, this would be allotted to each area at so many pence per head of the population. The population, however, would not be the real number of inhabitants, but an invented or 'doctored' number designed to give extra weight to those elements of the population which most needed help, and to the ability of the area to raise the money to meet the cost of social services."
    The hon. and learned Gentleman followed that up by a very peculiar and remarkable statement:
    "This number was arrived at by taking the real population and increasing it—"
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    I am not going to inquire into the method that is to be adopted for increasing it: I will leave that to the Solicitor-General to explain—
    "by the percentage by which at the latest census the number of children under five years of age per 1,000 of population exceeded 50. Next the figure thus obtained was 'doctored' to give effect to the cost of relieving unemployment. For this purpose it was ascertained what percentage the number of unemployed men bore to the total estimated population. If this percentage (average over three years) exceeded one and a half per cent., which figure has been selected as being well below the average for the country, so that full effect might be given to the necessity for payment of relief caused by unemployment, the percentage by which it exceeded one and a half per cent. of the population was multiplied 10 times, and the 'doctored' figure of population was increased by that amount."
    There you are. It is just about as clear as mud. There is no doubt about the doctoring. It is said, of course, that figures cannot lie, but in the words of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, if I may be pardoned for using them,
    "terminological inexactitudes sometimes can figure, and do."
    The hon. and learned Gentleman goes to the source of the whole business and tells us who is going to find the money.
    "The money,"
    said the Solicitor-General,
    "is being found mainly by the tax of 4d. in the gallon on imported oils, generally known as the Petrol Tax. It is always unpleasant to pay for any scheme, however good, but it is a sound principle of taxation to find a source of revenue which is bound to expand and which will expand without the consumer feeling that he is seriously affected by the tax."
    Surely, on calm consideration the hon. and learned Gentleman cannot seriously mean that the consumer is not affected by the duty on petrol. As a matter of fact, I am getting letters of protest from my own constituency and from other constituencies, and I 'have no doubt the hon. and learned Gentleman is receiving protests from municipalities and constituencies all over the country against this iniquitous tax on the raw material of industry. This is what will happen. The relief given in the rates will go only to a section of the community and not to the whole of the community. The Solicitor-General may say that it does. But the whole of the relief to the manufacturers, who although they may be a very important section of the community,

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    are only a very small section of the community, is not sufficient, even if they were so inclined, to enable it to be passed on for the benefit of the wages and conditions and the hours of labour of those whom they employ. I am told by the brewers that what they are gaining by this gift is not sufficient to enable them to take a farthing a pint off beer. The man who uses petrol on the roads and on the canals has to pay 4d. per gallon and gets no relief whatever from the Bill. He has to pay his local rates in full although he may be engaged in carrying raw material to the manufacturers. This is what the Solicitor-General, in a very eloquent sub-peroration, says about it:
    "In any case, we are dealing with a great national scheme, and I believe the person who uses any form of motor transport even if there is an addition to the expense of over one penny in six miles will rejoice to think that for every throb of his engine and every turn of the wheel of his car he is contributing to the restoration of prosperity."
    I cannot visualise that person's satisfaction at the throb of the engine, but I can certainly visualise the indignant throbbing of his heart and of his pocket at having to be compelled to find money when he himself is living from hand to mouth doing a small distributive business, and he is compelled to pay the whole of his rates and then to find 4d. in the pound towards paying the rates of a man who is doing a roaring business next door to him. That is the position.
    What is the use of telling us that this thing is going to lift the burdens of industry. If I had time and the House had patience with me I could make suggestions, which I think every thinking man would accept as reasonable, for lifting at least 50 per cent. of the burdens of industry by making those pay a far bigger burden who do nothing to create the wealth which they enjoy. That, however, is too big a question to be dealt with to-night. When we are asked, as we are asked, religiously and kindly in this Address to pray that the blessings of Almighty God shall rest on our deliberations, it almost seems to me to be taking God's name in vain. There are scriptural quotations which would fit the situation, particularly one from the Book of Kings, as applied to the last Election, when Saul went out to seek his father's asses and found them. There is another quota-
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    tion equally as effective from the Book of Nahum, third chapter, first verse:
    "Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery;…
    The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots.
    The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; they stumble upon their corpses."
    Mr. GEORGE HALL: Various phases of the Gracious Speech have been dealt with to-day. I do not propose to deal with the question of foreign affairs, which was so ably dealt with by the hon. and gallant Member for North Aberdeen (Captain W. Benn) whom every hon. Member is pleased to see back with us again. I wish to deal with the phase relating to the mining industry and particularly that portion where it is proposed to grant benefits for the export of coal. We are informed that on the 1st December the de-rating proposals as far as railways are concerned are to come into operation, and that the export of coal and the industries of steel and iron will thereby benefit to some extent. May I ask the President of the Board of Education, who is now in his place on the Government Front Bench, whether any arrangement or any agreement has been arrived at between the Government and the coal owners so that once these de-rating proposals come into operation instead of the benefits being handed over to the foreigners, as the benefits which have been given to the mining industry in the past have been, the mining industry itself will benefit?
    If we consider the history of the Government's dealing with the mining industry during the last four years we must admit that it is not a very pleasant or very happy one. The name of the Prime Minister and his Government one might almost say stinks in the nostrils of anyone connected with the mining industry. For four years the Government have been endeavouring to do something but on every possible occasion any advantage that has been given to the mining industry has been handed to other people instead of benefiting the people who are directly affected in that industry. We all know what happened when the £23,000,000 of subsidy was granted. In 1926 the Coal Mines Act was passed. From 1926

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    down to the present time wages have been reduced and reduced, and yet we find the mining industry is in a more precarious condition to-day than before the Government began meddling with it. Seeing that it is anticipated that something like an advantage of 7d. or 8d. per ton is going to be given to export coal from this country I would like to ask the Government whether they have entered into any agreement or negotiation with the coalowners that that. advantage is not again going to follow the reduced prices which have taken place during the last three or four years. I feel sure that I am expressing the opinion of all my colleagues when I say that everything the Government have done has failed and that unless some such arrangement as I suggest can be adopted the benefits accruing as a result of the de-rating proposals will also fail. Not that any of us think for a moment that the de-rating proposals are going to cure the difficulties of the mining industry; if they are anything at all they are purely palliatives. I will not go further into the matter because I and my colleagues have pointed out on previous occasions what we consider to be the difficulties and the only way in which those difficulties can be fully dealt with. I would ask the President of the Board of Education to pass on my suggestion to the Ministers responsible.
    There is another paragraph in the Gracious Speech dealing with the situation in the mining areas which states that it
    "continues to engage the earnest attention of my Ministers."
    I do not propose to take up the time of the House in, dealing with that matter further than to say that at no time in the history of the mining industry, I was almost going to say at no time in the history of this country, have the conditions been as tragic in the mining districts as they are at the present time. It is admitted on all hands that we have had something like 250,000 or 300,000 persons unemployed for the last three or four years and in some instances for the last six or seven years. The House and the country can well imagine how conditions are in those districts which are very largely one-industry districts. Take South Wales. Here is an area 60 miles
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    long by 25 miles wide where you have a population of just 1,000,000 persons. In a one-industry district, when the colliery closes down 90 per cent. of the persons in that district are robbed of their means of existence. Unemployment benefit has been bad but as time has gone on the mere subsistence that unemployment benefit gives has been stopped and these unfortunate persons have had to seek the assistance of the poor law authorities.
    I would like the Minister of Health to be present when one is dealing with the tragic situation in the mining industry. I blame the Minister of Health and his Department for a good deal of the suffering which is existing at the present time. Unemployment benefit is bad enough. When a husband, wife and two children have to live on something like 25s. or 26s. a week one can well imagine how long they can provide the bare necessities of life upon such a weekly income. Once unemployment benefit stops and these persons have to seek poor law relief the attitude of the Minister of Health is such that they are really deprived of relief in the ordinary sense. An unemployed man if he happens to be able-bodied is refused poor law relief. I could give case after case in my own area where men through no fault of their own have been deprived of unemployment benefit and have had to seek poor law relief and we find husband, wife and two, three, four or five children have to live upon an income of something less than £1 a week.
    I have here a statement which was recently drawn up. Take the position in almost every area in South Wales. In Bedwellty, where you have the Commissioner Guardians, the average amount of Poor Law relief paid to recipients is 3s. 7d. per week, taking the average of adults as well as children. In Bridgend the amount is 4s. 6d. per week, in Crickhowell 4s. 1d., in Merthyr 4s. 10d. and in Pontypridd 3s. 5d. per week per individual. A week ago last Friday a man came to my house, a good workman, who had been employed in the mining industry for something like 20 years. He has been out of work because of depression in trade. This man, for some reason or other, was deprived of his unemployment benefit. He has a sick wife and five children depending on him, and because he is able-bodied he cannot get

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    any relief. His wife was given a sum of 10s. a week, with 2s. a week for each child, making the income going into that home since the 13th August of this year until a week last Friday £1 per week to maintain the husband, the wife and five children. If the Prime Minister would take up these cases in the mining areas and would inquire into them I feel sure that, difficult as they are, he would devote his attention to consideration of the very great suffering which is unfortunately prevailing in these mining areas at the present time. I do not wish to go further into this matter, which has been dealt with so often, but the Government must be aware that whatever scheme they are going to put into operation, transference either to places in this country or to places in any other country, it must take some time before they can touch the fringe of the difficulty with which the mining industry is confronted.
    8.0 p.m.
    Seeing that the question of transference is mentioned in the Gracious Speech from the Throne. I wish briefly to deal with the difficulty which arose with regard to the harvesters who were sent to Canada. I, fortunately, was one of the Empire Parliamentary delegation. We were in Canada at the time when the difficulty arose, and I should like briefly to deal with the position as I saw it. You have the Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, the three great prairie Provinces where a great deal of wheat is grown, and we are delighted to know that there was a record harvest last year which made it necessary to import a large number of men in order to reap it. Negotiations were entered into between the Colonial Office and the Federal Government for sending out some 10,000 men from this country. One must admit that there was very little time for the arrangement of the scheme and, indeed, only 10 or 15 or 20 days elapsed from the time the agreement was notified until the first lot of men were taken on board ship. I want to draw the attention of the Prime Minister to this point, that if men are to be sent out harvesting, as these men were, a good deal of attention should be given to the actual agreement and conditions under which they are sent out. It was intended that these 10,000 men should be unemployed men and that preference should be given to single men; a policy
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    with which I entirely agree, but you are dealing with unemployed men and the Government said that if a man was unable to pay his passage out—and a reduced fare was agreed upon—the Government would advance the sum of £10 to enable him to do so. At least an arrangement was made, I believe, that he should be taken out on condition that £10 of his passage money was repaid.
    What I complain about is this, that if he was a married man he had to give an undertaking that his wife and family would be maintained during his absence. How in the name of goodness can a wife whose husband has gone to Canada be maintained out of anything the harvester would earn? It is impossible for him to get any money back for at least six weeks after he has left this country. I have a letter here sent out by the Pontypridd Board of Guardians in regard to these cases. It states that each applicant had to fill up before he went to Canada a form asking who would be responsible for the maintenance of his wife and family, if any, during his absence, and that no applicant could be accepted if his dependants became chargeable to the guardians for relief. Apparently, says the letter, no steps were taken by the Employment Exchange officials to verify the replies given to these questions and, consequently, a number of applicants were accepted for migration where it would have been seen had investigation been made that the guardians would have to grant relief immediately the man left. The following case is an example of what I mean. A married man with a wife and three children was accepted under this scheme. He stated in his application that his father would be responsible for the maintenance of his wife and three children. His father is a man of 60 years of age, and works very irregularly at the colliery. Since the husband went to Canada the guardians got into touch with the man's father who said that he knew nothing at all of any guarantee that he was responsible for the wife and three children.
    There are numbers of cases of that kind. because 18 per cent. of the men sent to Canada were married men. We had case after case where the wife and children became chargeable to the board of guardians and they had considerable difficulty in getting poor law relief because the husband had stated that he would be

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    responsible for their maintenance. A condition of that kind is almost impossible. After these men had left this country no effort at all was made by the Government to instruct them in Canadian conditions. As the Prime Minister knows the conditions of employment in Canada are entirely different to the conditions in this country. It must also be remembered that you axe dealing with men who had been unemployed for periods of six months up to two years, and they had to go out to Canada to undertake very hard work indeed. Harvesting is very hard, and I saw a number of men in Canada who were anxious to make good but who had not worked for 12 months before and their hands were badly blistered, their wrists were swollen, and it was impossible for them to follow and keep up with the experienced men with whom they had to compete for work. Another difficulty was this, that the Government in their forms mentioned the fact that a minimum 30 days' work would be guaranteed and that £3 to £5 per week was the usual amount paid, but no effort whatever was made by the persons responsible to enter into any agreement with the farmers as to the payment of wages and guaranteeing work. It was left entirely to the men to negotiate their own terms and conditions direct with the farmers in Canada, and, like all other farmers, the Canadian farmers will give the experienced men the preference every time, and if they can get the inexperienced men to accept lower wages, as they did in the case of a number of these men they will force them to accept lower wages.
    A great deal of the difficulty arises from the fact that no proper supervision or instruction was given to these men, no effort was made to see that they were properly placed, and what promised, to be rather a successful scheme, although it did not actually fail, was not so successful as it might have been if proper care and precaution bad been taken. Then I must say that the selection of men on this side was very bad. I saw men from my own district in Canada who were unable to get work at the collieries in South Wales because they were not physically fit. I saw one man who suffered from neurasthenia and was told that they had had considerable difficulty
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    with him. I found him suffering from loss of memory, and if we had not intervened on his behalf he might have been in serious trouble. I saw another man from Northumberland who was discharged four years ago because he was epileptic. He had fits until a fortnight before he was sent to Canada, and he had fits in Canada. He was physically unfit. If greater care had been given to the selection of the men, and if they had been instructed in the difference between Canadian and British conditions, the scheme would have been much more successful than it appears to have been. The largest proportion of these men, however, made good. As far as my own district is concerned, Mr. Osmond, who has been dealing with the matter, assured me that not 5 per cent. of the miners sent from South 'Wales gave them any trouble or difficulty. It is wrong to describe the scheme as a miner's harvesting scheme. The majority of the men amongst the disgruntled ones were drawn from the dock areas. They were not miners. The smallest proportion of those who were disgruntled came from the mining areas, and I am convinced that the scheme could have been much more successful if proper precautions had been taken.
    Then comes the question of the transference of men in different parts of this country. I would like the Government to take this matter up more earnestly. They are banking largely on the transference of these men for dealing with the mining difficulty; and they are transferring at the rate of 400 persons per week. It is confined largely, as is necessary, to the single men, but the Prime Minister must know that there is no district in this country which has not got its quota of unemployed. There are unemployed in London, in Manchester, in Birmingham, in every city and in every town and in every industrial area, and these young men when they are transferred are being transferred to districts where there are already persons who are unemployed. I have the case of a young man, 20 years of age, who had never left home previously being sent to London to look for work. He gets his unemployment benefit of 14 shillings per week. How can a young man live on 14 shillings a week in London? If he stays at an ordinary "doss house" it will cost him one shill-

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    ing per night, and he has seven shillings per week to maintain himself in food and look for work.
    It is impossible for this transference scheme to be successful unless something more is going to be done by the Employment Exchanges for placing these men in suitable districts and an allowance given to tide them over until such time as they can get work. I want the Government to seriously consider the question of transference. As far as the miners' leaders are concerned, they are not opposed to transference provided there is a reasonable opportunity of the men getting work; and it is better, if any men are to be transferred, that it should be the young and single men in preference to the married and older men. The Transference Board has dealt with that point, and they state that of the 130,000 cases which they examined 65 per cent. of the men were under 35 years of age. They have grouped them in different categories; but you can go on dealing with the transference of men at the rate of 400 per week, and at the end of five years you will find your unemployment problem as great as it is now. It is not going to touch the fringe of the difficulty. I would that the Government would get right down to the real cause of unemployment not only in the mining industries but in nearly every industry in the country. The Prime Minister must know that owing to economic changes and the application of machinery to industry it is inevitable that a number of men will he thrown out of work, and I ask him to reconsider the question and endeavour to deal with the older men in the industries of the country.
    Economists tell us that we are going to have 800,000 or 1,000,000 unemployed persons in this country for some time to come. The Minister of Labour in the Bill he has introduced has indicated that the estimate of the Government last year is wrong. If we are to have this problem, ought we not to decide who are to be unemployed? Is there any reason why, we should have in industry in this country over 1,000,000 men who are over 60 years of age, and have out of industry and unemployed 1,000,000 under 60 years of age? Why not consider a scheme for taking out of industry the million men over 60 years of age and placing in industry the million men under 60 years of age? I know that there is the difficulty of finance and that
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    the Transference Board dealt with it. They said that to give the 1,000,000 men over 60 a pound a week, and their wives 10s. a week, would cost £60,000,000 a year. What is unemployment costing the country at the present time? Unemployment benefit and Poor Law relief, not only what are they costing in money, but what are they costing in sorrow in the homes of almost all the working-class people of the country to-day?
    After all, it is no precedent to give 10s. at 60 years of age. An hon. Friend asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on one occasion what was the average age at which police officers retired, and the reply was that the age was about 47½ years, and that the police received pensions for an average period of 23 years. In the Civil Service, in the Army and Navy one could point to precedents which show that the pensionable age could be reduced to 60. When it comes to a question of money, surely a great country which is finding £850,000,000 for national purposes ought not to quibble at £60,000,000 or £70,000,000 or £80,000,000 or even £100,000,000 to deal with what everyone must recognise as almost a national emergency. I do want the Prime Minister and the Government to get down to the facts and to deal with the serious problem which is arising out of unemployment. If the Government could only devote their time between now and the General Election to dealing with this question, the best election cry they could have would be the promise that my hon. Friend the Member for North Battersea (Mr. Saklatvala) asked the Prime Minister to give to-day. My hon. Friend said that if the Prime-Minister could only give the promise that the unemployment registers in this country would be reduced by 50 per cent., there was no Member of the House who would place any obstacle in the way of the Government passing the necessary legislation.
    Transference to other districts or to Canada and the Dominions is not going to touch the fringe of the difficulty in mining or other industrial areas. I beg the Prime Minister to do something. One-million-three-hundred-thousand of the best men and women in the country are suffering to-day, and we have to realise that dependent on them there are others. Taking together the registered unemployed and those persons who are in

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    receipt of Poor Law relief, there are something like 3½ to four million persons who are deprived of the means of livelihood. If the Prime Minister wants to do something to help us he will devote his time to consideration of this very serious problem which is eating into the lives of the working people of the country like a cancer. If any Member of the House went into any working-class area of the country and asked man or woman as to what was the matter with which they were more concerned than with anything else, he would get the reply, "Insecurity. If in work there is insecurity, and if out of work, where can I get a job?" Unemployment will have to be dealt with by the people of this country, in this country. Bad as the Government is, and lacking in statesmanship as it is, in my opinion, if it would only attempt to get to grips with the situation, instead of giving us palliatives for our troubles, as in the King's Speech, they would give us something of far more benefit to the working people of the country.
    Mr. MONTAGUE: I want to take advantage of the presence of the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. K. Griffith) to touch upon a question that he raised in his speech. The hon. Member was speaking of industrial transference, and he made the very remarkable statement, with regard to the condition of West Middlesbrough, that, assuming that industrial transference is a remedy for unemployment, only about 30 per month could be found jobs in the area of Middlesbrough. He said that, therefore, there was no solution of the problem in industrial transference. Such a statement is a very remarkable one, coming from an hon. Member for an industrial district of that character.
    Mr. GRIFFITH: I meant found jobs, not in Middlesbrough, but from Middlesbrough.
    Mr. MONTAGUE: Then I misunderstood the hon. Member. I thought he said that the 30 positions could be found for unemployed miners from other areas. That is putting it the other way round, and I am not sure now whether the hon. Member would undertake to say that in any area in this country it would be possible to find 30 jobs for miners or any others unless it meant putting 30 other
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    people out of work. The hon. Member agrees with me, and therefore I have no quarrel with him. My quarrel is with the Government. If a man from South Wales or Durham is found a job in London, he is either turning another man out of a job or he is filling a position which some other unemployed man already in the area can just as adequately fill. It must be remembered that without training in new industries the kind of work that miners could do, other than mining, would be work of a quality that the ordinary unemployed man could undertake. When that argument was put forward before the Recess, the Minister of Health stated that, although the possibility of finding employment for these transferred men could not be disputed, yet even if it were true that employment in other areas would mean unemployment for those who would otherwise have had the jobs, it was a very desirable thing that the exceptional distress in the mining and other areas should be more evenly distributed throughout the country. That is a point that I want to put before the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Health, who is present.
    If there be anything in that point, it means that you are not seeking to distribute employment. What you are seeking to do is to distribute the burden of Poor Law relief. I gather that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health agrees with me. It is a question of taking the distress in certain areas as abnormal and spreading it a little more evenly over the country so as to relieve those particular areas. It is not a question of spreading employment, because it does not make any difference at all to employment. It is a question of spreading the burden of Poor Law relief. If that point be accepted, I put this further point to the Government: If you think it desirable and necessary that the burden should be more evenly distributed about the coon-try, then you should distribute it where the burden can best be borne. I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary grasps what I am dealing with now. But if you want to distribute the burden or Poor Law relief, surely it is better that transferred miners or unemployed men from any district should go to areas

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    which can bear the burden of Poor Law relief better than the poorer industrial districts.
    If you must put other people out of jobs, in order to put unemployed miners into jobs, why not do it in Westminster rather than in West Ham? Why not do it in the comparatively wealthy borough of Wandsworth as against the comparatively poorer borough of Islington? But that is precisely what you are not doing. You are sending these people to be burdens on the Poor Law in those areas where the Poor Law burden is great and the unemployment is great. I suggest that it is not a wise policy. I do not disagree in the abstract with the idea—I think as a Socialist I ought to agree with it—that from a national point of view a distribution of the burden would be satisfactory. I do not disagree with distributing it throughout the nation, but let us have the burden where it can best be borne and do not send unemployed men into poor districts to take the bread out of the mouths of those who either are already employed there or are quite willing to fill any of the jobs that a miner can fill.
    I was pleased to notice that the last speaker and some other speakers on this side pointed to the fact that the Government must not ride off on the assumption that unemployment is solely a question of abnormal conditions in the mining areas. It is true that conditions in the mining areas are abnormal, but many Members opposite seem to think that, but for the condition in the mining areas, things would be all right and that we should not be able justly to grumble at the state of the unemployment schedule. That is not the case. It is not a question solely of abnormality in the mining areas; neither is it a question of the results of the general strike. We have been told by several speakers that we must bear in mind the effects of the industrial upheaval of 1926. We on this side have our own point of view regarding that upheaval and the responsibility for it. The mining trouble was not a strike and had nothing to do directly with the question of the general strike. It was a lock-out for which the employers were, at least, immediately responsible. The point is that unemployment does not depend on abnormal conditions in the mining areas. It does
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    not depend on the existence or otherwise of a general strike at any period and insofar as the general strike may have affected the trade of the country, even if we concede all that is claimed by the other side on that point, that factor is a diminishing factor while unemployment generally to-day is not a diminishing, but an increasing quantity. There is, in fact, a slight diminution of unemployment in the mining areas due to certain circumstances, and it is not good enough for Members on the other side to seek to ride off with this talk about abnormal mining conditions and the effects of the general strike.
    The unemployment figures are creeping up week by week and that unemployment is due to something more fundamental than strikes—more fundamental even than abnormal conditions in the mining areas. It is due to the fact that the income of this country is not properly distributed. I listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Broxstowe (Mr. Spencer) who submitted a very abstract economic argument. With some parts of his speech I agreed, but in regard to others I thought he showed contradictions of his own statements on questions of currency and so forth. He said that we wanted a greater flow of capital and that, if we only had more capital, we would have more trade. That is the fundamental fallacy. We are not suffering from lack of capital but from stagnation of capital which is an entirely different thing. We are suffering from the fact that the people are unable to buy the goods that capital, properly invested, could help to produce. Until the people are able to buy the goods, all the capital in the world may be available hut it will not be invested. Capital is only invested when there is a prospect of profit, and there cannot be a prospect of profit when there is no prospect of purchase, of trade, of the power of the people to consume.
    I do not want to become as abstract as the hon. Member for Broxtowe was, but the great trouble with the capitalist system is that if you save for the purpose of investment, you withdraw expenditure in order to finance new production, when you have not got rid of the old production. If I were to save £1, instead of buying a pair of boots which I needed—I find it hard to get them very often—and if I were to invest that £1 so that

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    it went into the boot-producing industry, I would not have bought a pair of boots that was available for sale and that pair of boots would remain on the shelves. I would have invested my £1 in the boot industry and financed the production, probably of two pairs of boots at cost price, and so there would be three pairs of boots to get rid of instead of one. So long as you have a tremendously unfair system of distributing the national income, you have that position, and until there is some scientific way of controlling your capital expenditure, so that it shall be proportionate to your consumption, you will never solve the unemployment problem—which is equal to saying that you will never solve that problem until you have a system of society entirely different from the capitalist system.
    The hon. Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto) had something to say on the question of rent control, and he drew some pictures, supported by facts from his own experience, of the unfair way in which tenants are profiteering by, taking advantage of the Rents Restriction Act. I am quite prepared to admit that that kind of thing happens, and the reason is that you have sub-tenants to consider and that you have not adequate alternative accommodation for them; otherwise it would not happen. The only alternative in the mind of the hon. Member and of most hon. Members opposite is gradually or otherwise to abolish rent restriction. I am quite sure—I know from experience in my own area—that there are hundreds of thousands of people who are in fear and trembling lest there should be any interference with the Rents Restriction Act. The effect of either gradually or immediately touching rent restriction under present day conditions would he that although sub-tenants might be profiteering to-day in some cases, profiteering would then be the rule, and people would be bled white by the landlords uncontrolled by the Rents Restriction Act. The way out is, not to abolish rent restriction until you have a certain condition, but to build more houses. The only way of solving the housing problem is to provide an adequate number of houses for the people to live in.
    The Government profess to be satisfied with the progress of housing. I am not satisfied with it, because I remember that
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    a Government Committee in 1919 said that we had in that year a capital shortage of houses in this country to the number of 1,000,000 and that we required, as an absolute minimum, at least 100,000 a year from that time onwards in order to make up the deficiency due to increased population and the decay of existing property. If you reckon the number of years that have gone by since that authoritative statement was made, you will find that, in addition to the 1,000,000 houses required then, we require at least another 1,000,000, so that 2,000,000 houses ought to have been built according to that very moderate and conservative estimate, which was largely exceeded by other authorities, such as the Town Planning Association and bodies of that character. If you take that estimate, you should have had built, since 1919, 2,000,000 houses. The Government boasted a few months ago that since 1919, not 2,000,000, but 1,000,000 houses had been built, so we are 1,000,000 houses short in this country.
    It is nonsense to say that we have come anywhere near solving the problem, and it is ridiculous for the Government to profess itself as satisfied with the progress of housing. Hope is beyond me so far as this Government are concerned, for this Session at any rate, but I hope there will be soon a possibility of a move in the direction of a much larger and more virile housing scheme in this country. After all, if you are talking about unemployment and about restoring the trade and efficiency of the country, I imagine that the housing problem is indeed fundamental. Not only are there the houses that are required, but those figures deal only with the normal supply of houses and do not touch the slum problem. That is a problem by itself, and it is an expensive problem for any Government and for any country, as any medical officer of health will tell you. I am thinking of the medical officer of my own district of Islington, where one person in every three dies in a public institution. In that area you have a large number of slums, and those slums are expensive. They are hideous in character and their moral effect is bad, but they are expensive to the community, because the people who are compelled to grow up in them are not the efficient men that we want for the building up of this

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    nation. Until you make some serious attempt to handle this housing question in a thoroughgoing way, you will not be able to talk about competing successfully and about commercial development in this country. The question of housing is indeed a very fundamental one.
    Mr. CONNOLLY: There is one item in the King's Speech to which the Prime Minister did not refer and to which, as far as I know, no other Member in this Debate has referred. I regard it as very important, and seeing that we have the benefit of the Prime Minister's presence, I will draw his attention to it. This is the statement:
    "Proposals for extending the Export Credits Guarantee Scheme for a further period will be laid before you."
    I might say that the Prime Minister himself is responsible for this scheme, which I personally regard as successful as far as it went, but I regret to say that it has been restricted in a manner that has not worked out to the benefit of the country. I see here that an extension of the period is contemplated by the Government, but there is no mention whatever of the extension of the scope of this scheme. May I remind the Prime Minister of how the scheme was set in operation? He himself issued a questionnaire to the manufacturers of this country, including engineering and shipbuilding firms, asking them what their chief difficulty was. If he remembers, the questionnaire contained six questions, and the principal question was: "What is hampering you from getting business; what is the principal obstacle, and what suggestions do you make for getting over that obstacle?"
    An exemplary answer to that question I regard as that given by Messrs. Ruston and Hornsby, who are engaged upon agricultural machinery and manufactures of that kind. Their answer to Question No. 5, I think it was, was to the effect—I speak from memory—that there was no lack of orders the world over, but that their chief difficulty was in giving long term credits. Arising out of the answers to that questionnaire, the right hon. Gentleman in the beginning of 1926 put into operation the Export Credits Guarantee Scheme through his Overseas Trade Department. As he knows, I have at times asked questions upon this scheme, and I have two or three times pressed for the extension of the time. I was
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    very gratified to see that it was intended by the Government at the end of September next year, when the scheme would terminate, further to extend the time, and I suppose that this refers to that extension of time. I am very pleased at that, but I want to draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the restrictions of the scheme.
    If Lincoln, Peterborough, and other parts of the country can benefit through a scheme of this kind, that has been so successful as far as it has gone, why cannot my constituency, for instance, have a share in the benefit of it '? Why are countries like Rumania, India, China, Russia and others excluded from the operation of this scheme When the scheme was first put into operation, I brought into this House three times the Blue Book of the Russian Mercantile Marine, showing that there are, as regards the Black Sea arid the Caspian Sea, hundreds of ships short of the complement required—1,803 ships short, says the Russian Blue Book. Why are Rumania and Russia excluded? Why is our own dependency of India excluded? I asked a question in regard to India and was told that business there has for time immemorial been conducted upon a basis of a 90 days' credit, and we are asked why we want to introduce into our business relations with India a five years' credit scheme. I cannot help thinking that vested interests have something to do with that answer. If this scheme has been successful up to now in the operations with the countries to which we have been extending it, what are the reasons that it cannot be extended to include not only the Near Eastern but the Far Eastern markets? I press the Prime Minister for an extension of the scope of the scheme to include the countries which up to the present have been excluded.
    I wish to emphasise another point in the King's Speech which has been touched upon during this Debate. It is the question of the differentiation between private railways and public railways in the de-rating scheme. It surely cannot he the intention of the Government that scheme calculated to benefit the heavy industries should throw out, as I am assured it will throw out, a group of collieries in Burradon, Seghill and Cramlington in Northumberland. Before the general manager of the group wrote the letter which has been read to-night, he

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    said to me that there are three of their collieries which must close down on account of this preferential 7d. The figures are 1⅓d. against 8½d. That is approximately a difference of 7d. between the rebate that is to be given to the public railways and the rebate to be given to the private railways. That 7d. means the difference between carrying on and closing down for Burradon, Seghill and Cramlington. The Northumberland and Durham coalfields, above all others, together with the Welsh coalfields, need the full benefit of this rebate. Instead of that, a third of the export coal from Northumberland is actually going to be placed under a disability. The position is this. The public railways will not get any direct benefit. They do not claim to get any direct benefit. They are going to pass the benefit of the rebate under the scheme on to their customers. It means that the coal-owners who own the private railways are to be placed under this disability, that they will remain as they are as against the 7d. rebate to he given to the public companies. The public companies are to get an increase of trade and most of that increase will come from the private railway owner. That is briefly the private companies' position.
    The Government's position can also be briefly stated. Their difficulty is that the provisions for re-rating are already in an Act of Parliament, and we cannot go outside that. That is not, however, an insurmountable difficulty, because the relief to the public companies is to be ante-dated. That was superimposed upon the Act of Parliament since the House rose. If that can be done, it is not beyond the power of the Government to bring in a short Bill to include the private companies in the provision which has been made for the public companies. I see no difficulty in it from the Government's point of view. To-day we have had Member after Member speaking in terms similar to those used from these benches, indicating that there is a measure of Government agreement in the House in regard to this grave injustice. It is not over-stating the case to say that the collieries and groups of collieries who use their own railways are to be placed in a position of grave injustice if these provisions go through unaltered. The difficulty of the Government is not insurmountable. Nothing is insurmount-
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    able when there is a measure of agreement in the House, and I suggest to the Prime Minister that this is a matter to which he ought to give his attention, and I hope that he will meet our views on the matter.
    There is another matter in His Majesty's Speech upon which I want to touch.
    "My relations with foreign Powers continue to be friendly."
    I do not often touch upon foreign relations, but a White Paper has been issued during the Recess which is very interesting, because I can see in it great possibilities for the next Government, which will not be a Tory Government. I refer to the International Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. I have read this Convention through two or three times, and I think it is a very good thing that it has been signed by 26 Powers, including ourselves, we being the last as usual to sign; we ratified it on the 1st May. It is an international agreement with regard to the protection of industry, but it protects everything in industry except the worker. That is what I mean when I say that I see great possibilities in it for a Labour Government, because all that is required to make it fully comprehensive and successful is the inclusion of the man who works. You have everything here dealing with the protection of industrial property, trade marks, names, indications of source of origin, and repression of unfair competition among employers, and on page 25 you have:
    "The contracting countries are bound to assure to persons entitled to the benefits of the Union an effective protection against unfair competition."
    Then it goes on:
    "Every act of competition contrary to honest practices in industrial or commercial matters constitutes an act of unfair competition."
    Then it goes on to say what these acts are. Right through, property is protected, dishonest means of competition are put under penalty, but not a word as far as the workers are concerned. There is provision for the seizure of goods that are manufactured under what is called unfair competition, and unfair means of competition are described, but there is nothing at all about sweated goods. Goods that are wrongly described and goods that are manufactured under a

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    false description can be seized, but the worker is of no account. I see great possibilities here, and probably this White Paper, which seems to have escaped the notice of most of us, will engage the attention of the first Labour Government.
    Mr. KELLY: I want to express my appreciation and regard for the Seconder of the Motion, for I am glad that he had the courage to get rid of the trappings which we have seen worn by Members when they are moving and seconding the Address. It probably required some courage on his part, and I trust that we have seen the last of these trappings which have to be worn by people in order to move and second the Address. I noticed when he was speaking that he seemed very much concerned about those who are responsible for the King's Speech and for the language of it, and he was careful to say he did not suggest that, we should see any great easement of our position in the matter of unemployment. I was not surprised to hear that. I have known him for 30 years as a worker in my own trade, and I quite appreciate that he could not say to this House that the proposals of the Government as embodied in the King's Speech will be of advantage to any industry. A great deal has been said about the rating relief proposals lifting a weight from industry, but I can hardly believe the Government are sincere in that claim, because in the same King's Speech we find the Government imposing a further burden upon all the industries of the country. While telling industries that something of the burden which they already bear will be removed, the Government are proposing to borrow more money from the Treasury in order that unemployment benefit may be continued.
    This position has been pointed out to me by employers, particularly when in the conference room. Many of them are supporters of the Government. Very few employers have yet had the courage to face up to the position and join forces with us on these benches, but they will have to do so one of these days; they cannot help themselves; the force of circumstances will drive them to take that course. But what they are saying to-day is, "Here are the Government who already impose upon industry the charge of unemployment insurance, and
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    the charges for the interest upon the amount which has already been borrowed from the Treasury, now proposing to borrow more money and thus impose a greater charge upon industry." In face of that we are expected to give thanks for this Speech. I can see nothing in it which calls for any expression of thankfulness. As one who is very much concerned with industry I can find nothing in it which is going to help industry.
    9.0 p.m.
    I wish to ask the Government one or two questions about the work of industrial transference. They are making a great deal of it; they speak of energetic steps being taken to promote the success of industrial transference and migration. Will they tell me how many people have been moved from place to place under this scheme, and what provision has been made for them? How many boys have been brought to London under this scheme, and how many London boys have been deprived of situations owing to these boys having been brought in from other districts? Those of us who have been interested in this work have for many years been asking the Government to find for the boys of London situations which they could take and in which they would have some feeling of security when they grow up. The Ministry of Labour have not yet been able to find all the places that we desire for our London boys, but yet they can discover situations in London for boys from distressed areas. That is only playing with the question. It is not fair to the country, it is not fair to the people, to suggest that there has been some improvement in the placing of people in industry when, as a matter of fact, they are only being moved from spot to spot.
    With regard to the proposals of the Government for securing a greater measure of employment, I would ask the Prime Minister, whom I am glad to see in the House, what are the industries in which he expects there will be more employment as a result of the de-rating proposals and the other schemes of the Ministry of Health. I suggest to him that those proposals will not mean the employment of one additional engineer in the engineering trade, or of one additional shipbuilder in the shipbuilding industry, nor will they mean more employment in the cotton industry. I hope we may have some explanation of this

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    promise of greater employment in the basic industries. Seeing that the President of the Board of Trade is present, I wish to ask him why, now that the Export Credits Scheme is to be extended, why it is not to be applied to China and to Russia? I ask that because many firms in my own constituency engaged in the manufacture of machinery and in the production of other materials are trading with those two great countries, and, so far as I can learn, they have not experienced any greater difficulties, in fact, they have had fewer difficulties, than in the case of contracts with people in other countries. Why the Government should continue this restriction and say that the Export Credits Scheme is not to be applied to those two countries is something which I cannot understand.
    Reference has been made in the discussion to unemployment and the conditions existing in this country. I ask the representative of the Government to tell us under what authority they have been dealing with unemployment in such harsh manner during the last few years. The Employment Exchanges were set up to prevent men and women travelling from gate to gate and shop to shop wasting their own time and the time of foremen and managers pleading that they might be found employment. The Exchanges were set up in order that the workless man or woman might be brought into touch with any available work.
    Now the Government have laid down that you must register yourself at the Employment Exchange by means almost humiliating to people out of work. You have to prove your ease not only by attendance at the Exchange but you have to crawl about from shop to shop and gate to gate in order to show that you are "genuinely seeking work." Not only that, but the Government are asking every unemployed man and woman to purchase a diary and enter in it not only the date on which they made an application for a job, but the time when they called at any particular establishment. After that they have to appear before a Court of Referees in order to prove that they have been "genuinely seeking work" I am amazed at men and women tolerating some of the methods adopted by the Court of Referees and the Ministry of Labour.
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    I would like to refer to the method adopted by the Umpire. I am bringing forward these facts because of the suggestion in the King's Speech that there is a desire to deal more humanely with those who are unemployed. I find that when these people who are unemployed have proved their entitlement to employment benefit very often the insurance officers will turn down the decision of the Court of Referees and force the people to appeal to the Umpire. I would like to call the attention of the Government to the many thousands of people who, during the last four years, have been thrown out of benefit without any chance of having their cases heard by the Umpire and without any opportunity of proving their entitlement to the benefit that was set down in the Act of Parliament for those who are unemployed. I will take the decisions of the Umpire. I have recently appeared before him in connection with cases of members of my own union, and this is the method of treatment. In one case, the insurance officer said that a man was not entitled to the dependants' benefit because he happened to have someone lodging with him.
    Mr. BATEY: I have a case like that.
    Mr. KELLY: The case I am alluding to is that of an unemployed man, and his wife does the best she can under the circumstances. I often wish that every Member of the Tory party had been obliged at some time or other to live for a month under the circumstances surrounding this case. This man had a lodger who agreed to pay 22s. per week for board and lodging, or just a little more than 3s. per day. In this case, it was decided that the wife of this man was following an occupation of profit, and I have here the decision. It states that this woman was engaged in an occupation ordinarily carried on for profit, and that was considered to be a justification for saying that the man was not entitled to the benefit. In this particular case the lodger had been out of work for months and had not paid a penny for his board and lodgings and there was no likelihood of the woman ever receiving the 22s. per week which the lodger had offered to pay. Notwithstanding these facts, the Minister of Labour, backed up by his harsh regulations, forced that case to the Court of

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    Referees, and it was only after appearing before that court that we were able to secure the benefit for the woman. That is the method adopted by the Government, although in the King's Speech an endeavour is made to give the appearance that they have some heart and feeling towards the unemployed.
    I will now deal with an omission from the King's Speech. [An HON. MEMBER:" There are a good many."] I know there are a good many omissions, but it would not be fair to the House if I attempted to deal with all of them. Let me take, as an example, the Factories Bill. Hon. Members will recollect the reply given by the Prime Minister on this question yesterday to the Leader of the Opposition, and we were told that it was wrong for us to consider that the action of the Government on this matter was unjust. I am sorry the Prime Minister has left the House, because I desired to challenge his statement. I would like to ask if the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are prepared to say that, in the decision they have come to with regard to the Factories Bill, they have not been influenced by the National Federation of Employers who have given them no peace in regard to this particular Measure. I would like to ask the Government if they have not been influenced by the factory owners of Lancashire and Yorkshire. I know those people have given the Government no peace, and because of their influence the Government have decided not to come forward with a Factories Bill at this particular moment. I have heard employers of labour in factories talking about the conferences they have had on this question, and when the Prime Minister tells us that the Government have not been influenced in their decision on this question by these people, I do not think he is treating the House fairly, and he is not playing the game.
    We hear about the prosperous industries in the South. Someone told us that it is in the North where the greatest hardship is, and that many of these industries are coming South in order to get away from the trade union agitator. I have heard from some supporters of the Government how well things are going. I want to refer to the artificial silk industry, that sweated industry with which so many Members and ex-Members
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    of this House are concerned in the financial sense. I would like to tell the House something of that industry, all mention of which has been omitted by the Government from the King's Speech. I would like the Treasury to tell us how many men they have wasting their time dawdling about the various artificial silk factories of this country. I have been through one or two of them, and have been amazed to see Treasury officers hanging about the place the whole time. I think it is a poor way of using labour power, if labour power at all is expended by these people in these places.
    As to the wages paid, I need go no further than Peterborough, only 75 miles from this House. There we have a firm whose capital is largely foreign, with managers brought from another country. I suppose there is no difficulty in getting the certificates for those people to enter this country. We find them there paying girls 12s. 6d. to 18s. 6d. a week, with a bonus of 1s. or 2s. a week added, and the Government are not enforcing any regulations upon them with regard to health conditions. Although the conditions in these factories are so injurious to health, nothing is being done by the various Departments, and there is not a word in the King's Speech about bringing that industry under the Workmen's Compensation Act so far as industrial diseases are concerned. In fact, the Home Secretary says that he would have to go to the very point of particularising a process, or the single action of an individual, before he would place it under the industrial diseases section of the Workmen's Compensation Act.
    For the women folk of this country, 12s. 6d. to 18s. 6d. a week is considered to be an adequate wage in that prosperous industry, about which we have heard so much in this House during the last year or two. As to welfare conditions, this firm thinks so little—and it is not this firm alone; I am only taking it as illustrative—they think so little of the women folk of this country that they do not even trouble to have a woman supervisor to attend to the injuries that the women workpeople may happen to meet with; they have a workman, some man or other, to attend the women folk under those conditions. I would suggest to the Government that, if they are really thinking in terms of helping industry, they might not trouble about this

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    derating. It will be of little advantage, and I have heard no employers yet say much in its favour. I know that, so far as my own town of Rochdale is concerned, we are not thinking very highly of the Government in regard to it, because we realise that in the years to come we shall have to pay heavily in that district, and that it is not a. question of sharing the burden over the whole country.
    There is nothing in the King's Speech that gives hope of help for industry. There is nothing about remedying any of the evils which are bearing heavily upon the people. There is nothing that is going to deal with the housing problem, despite what was said by the hon. Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto). The only thing that he and the hon. Member who spoke last night asked for was the opportunity for landlords to begin profiteering in the matter of rents. All that they asked was that the building of houses might be stopped, so that landlords might be able to bleed the tenants much more heavily than they had been able to do at any time in the past. If they want to help in that direction, it is more houses that are required, and not the attitude adopted by the Ministry of Health, of which we have had to complain. I certainly cannot join in expressing thanks for this King's Speech, which, in this year 1928, is a discreditable production for any Government to come forward with.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: I join in this Debate because this is an opportunity that is given to us in the House of Commons to bring the Government to book for their mismanagement of my native land. I see that in the King's Speech they have condescended to mention my native land, Scotland. It says:
    "Measures will be presented to you"—
    that is the House of Commons—
    "for giving effect in this country and in Scotland to the comprehensive scheme which has been prepared by My Ministers for the reform of the rating system."
    This Government, who are in control of Britain at the moment, have been in control for over four years, and, in every Measure that they have brought forth to try to palliate the terrible conditions of the working class, they have miserably
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    failed. Every Act which has been put on the Statute Book of this country, and which the Government have said was going to ease the lot of working men and women, has operated in an opposite direction. This Government have robbed the widow and orphan. Hon. Members may smile, but he that laughs last laughs longest. They have robbed the widow and orphan; they have robbed the unemployed men and women; they have increased the working hours of the miners, and nobody knows that better than the President of the Board of Trade, who has financially benefited by that Act.
    HON. MEMBERS: Order!
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister): That is absolutely untrue.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD rose—
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Dennis Herbert): I must ask the hon. Member to give way when he makes a personal attack like that, if the right hon. Gentleman wishes to deny it.
    Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I should not ordinarily interrupt, but, with the leave of the House, I should like to say that it is well within the knowledge of hon. Members opposite that any financial interest that I may have had indirectly in that industry has been fully disclosed to this House, and I do not think the hon. Member's remark is called for.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: What I said I stand by. The President of the Board of Trade has not given up any of the shares or position he had connected with the collieries, and I state here that the colliery owners benefited lo the detriment of the miners. I hold that until he is able to disprove it, either here or elsewhere. If I am saying what is not true, I shall be the first one to stand here and withdraw, but not till it is proven that I have made a mistake.
    Then we come to the rating system. We are Socialists, and we believe that the only rating system that is going to be of any use to the working classes of this country is one by which the people shall be taxed according to their ability to pay. That is the system upon which we base all our ideas. As I go through this King's Speech I do not find anything which is going to ameliorate the

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    terrible conditions which prevail not only in the mining areas but in every big industrial area in the country. Men, women and children are starving. Our race is deteriorating. Mothers do not know what to do to get their boys a decent job and all over Britain to-day they are asking what they are to do with their boys. There is no place for their sons and the Government are making no provision, paying no attention and turning a deaf ear to all the appeals which have been made from this side of the House, not with a view to pulling down our country but of bolstering it up and making it a country such as they boast it really is. What have they done in order to assist our doctors? There are some of them here who have had experience of going into the slum areas where they see a little child emaciated and in a terrible condition which requires the doctor not to administer medicine but to give a line for food. The children are dying of starvation and this condition is the result of mal-nutrition. Food and not medicine is what they require. The doctor should be in a position to give a line for butter and milk and the things which are absolutely necessary in order to maintain the little one, but absolutely nothing is done. That is a side of it which has never appealed to them.
    We are out in the country honestly denouncing them because we believe that they have no right to be in control and are not fit to govern, and in the midst of our crying and appealing to them the Minister for the Overseas Trade Department—and I am sorry that he is not here—springs on the country an idea in order to relieve unemployment and so that the Government may have some stunt with which to go to the country. His fertile brain, or that of some of his friends, evolved the idea that they would dispose of 10,000 unemployed away across the wild Atlantic and send them to Canada. There is no place for them at home, so get rid of them. I was one of the British Delegation that was sent to Canada along with some of my colleagues. I know the ship we went out in, the "Empress of France" on which there were between 300 and 400 of these individuals. They called them harvesters. On the Delegation there were men from every side of the House. There were Tories, the Liberal party was represented, and the
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    Socialist party too. Every individual in that Delegation vied with one another, including Tories, in going down among those harvesters. We were proud to recognise them as our fellow countrymen. They were not the rag-tag and bob-tail of city life; they were the very type of men whom if there was a war on would be asked to go and fight for their country. Many of them there had fought for their country and they carried their wounds on them—some of them were so wounded that they had no right to be there, for they were not able to work.
    These men went out to Canada with us. We left them at Quebec. Again we met the harvesters at Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba. How did we meet them? We did not get out of the station before we were met and told that there were harvesters down below and something was wrong. Along with my colleagues I went to see what was wrong, and the first thing which presented itself to us was an iron gate—one of those collapsible bar gates. On either side of it stood a soldier with a revolver and a policeman with a revolver. They have no time for batons in Canada. We asked to be allowed to go in to see these harvesters, but we were refused admittance. The hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston) and your humble servant were refused admission. I said to them; "Now look here, you had better let us in. I do not want to quarrel with you, but we are going in and you had better go and see who is responsible for refusing to let us in, because we are two Members of Parliament. We do not want to fall foul of you or get you in any trouble." Eventually after some trouble and argument we got in, and there again we saw our own kith and kin—Scotsmen, Englishmen, and Welshmen—being treated not as free men but as criminals. We had not been there very long when we were joined by the right hon. Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw). What impressed us most was the spirit that was abroad; the spirit that these men were not free. That was what we objected to. We raised cain about it at the time, and that night instead of being the guests of the nobility of Winnipeg we went and made further inquiries, in fact into the small hours of the morning. We went to one of those places where they put men who have nowhere to go and there we saw

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    men being asked to lie down on mattressess which were filthy; no blankets, no sheets. We asked the superintendent in charge what it all meant, and he said: "Well, you know if we gave them blankets they would steal them." We asked why the beds were dirty, and he said: "Oh, the men are dirty." I told him that I had been in gaol in my own country and that even the criminals get a bath to wash themselves, could they not have that? It is perfectly true, when we raised the matter, that other people complained and said: "We are going to break the delft with a hammer." They never broke any delft, they were not there. They did not see what I am now telling the House; but we did.
    We travelled hundreds of miles into the prairies to see the harvesters at work and in order to see the farmers as well. How did it strike me? We asked those who were in control in Winnipeg to tell us where we could see the men at work. We asked: "Where are the men you have sent out into the prairie? We will go wherever you say in order to see them." We went 83 miles out in order to see one of the agents who, they said, had the disposal of the men in that area. We arrived at the place and saw him and asked him how many men he had disposed of. He said 130. "Where are they?" "I do not know." He knew, nothing about them. There was no record of them. Then he said he had sent 10 men to such and such a place and seven to such and such a place. We went to those farms. At the place where he said he had sent seven men was an Aberdonian farmer, named Judson. We asked him, "Where are the men? Can we see them?" He said, "What men?" "The harvesters" "Oh" he said, "we have only two" "What about the rest?" He did not know anything about the rest. They had cleared out. They were of no use to him, and nobody had any record of them; nobody knew anything about them. That is what happened Take the farmer. We interviewed several farmers. The Canadian farmer has only three weeks at most in which to get in his harvest. His all is at stake, and invariably he is a sturdy and hardy built individual who works during harvest time all the hours God sends and expects every other man
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    about the place to do the same. He says: "Look at this. I have the whole thing planned out and if I happen to get men who are not suitable the whole of my organisation goes to bits. I am better without them. These men have come over here from mining villages and the big towns and they have, rightly or wrongly, engrafted into them the idea that eight hours a day is long enough to work, and when they are asked to work more they revolt. During harvest time we know nothing about hours. We want to work as long as we possibly can in order to get the harvest in, and therefore we come up against these men."
    Most of these men have no knowledge of the work and because they have been unemployed for months, some of them for years, they are underfed. How can you expect men who have not worked for months and who have been underfed through no fault of their own to go away to the prairies and work against men who are vigorous and well-fed, and whose all is at stake. It is an utter impossibility. My contention is that this is another crime which the Government have committed, a brutal and callous crime. Canada did not want Dukes and Lords. Canada wanted men of my class, and it was my class which was treated in the fashion that I have described. What makes it worse is this. The Canadians, and I know what I am saying, did not want those men. There was no arrangement for those men to go out. The Secretary for the Overseas Trade Department was in the midst of negotiations with the Canadian Government. The question was not settled. He had not got them to agree to the business when he announced to the world—and I have a copy of it—that we were going to send out 10,000 men. It says at the beginning of this statement:
    "The Dominion Government has expressed a strong preference for men from the mining areas."
    That is not true, and again I know what I am saying. Here is a proof of it. This document was handed to me by the secretary and treasurer of the Farmers' Union; not the farm labourers but the farmers, representing almost 200,000 Canadian farmers—the united farmers of Canada. This was given to me by the secretary and treasurer.

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    W. M. Thrasher is his name. This is what I made him put down in writing. Listen to it:
    "The annual conference in connection with harvest labour was held in Winnipeg on the 19th July, 1928. At this conference there were representatives of the transport companies, representatives from the employment services of Canada, from the three prairie provinces, representatives from the United Farmers of Canada, and from the Canadian Council of Agriculture. The purpose of this conference"—
    it is a conference that the farmers have every year—
    "was as follows: First, to arrive at the number of men required for harvest and threshing operations in each of the provinces, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta; secondly, to decide when these men should be brought to the various provinces, and, thirdly, to canvass the supply. After a thorough discussion by the conference, it was decided that an ample supply of harvest labour could be secured from Eastern Canada and British Columbia."
    There was no mention whatever at that time, that is on the 19th July, when all the farmers were in conference, of a supply of harvest labour from Great Britain. Fancy, a "carry on" like that. Here are the Government in charge of affairs, and yet they make a bloomer like that. This official goes on to say:
    "It is my opinion that any problem which may have been created in regard to the miner harvesters is due to the fact that this supply of harvest labour was sprung as a surprise on Western Canada without giving those in charge of the distribution of harvest labour sufficient time to provide for them being taken up."
    On the 14th of August a conference was held at Saskatoon on the subject of immigration. This conference was called at the instigation of the United Farmers of Canada, there being present official representatives from the United Farmers of Canada, the Canadian Legion, Organised Labour, the Women's Labour League, the Rural and Urban Municipalities, the Women's British Immigration League, and several visitors unofficially representing other bodies. This is the resolution that that body passed:
    "The attitude of our organisation towards the immigration problem is shown in the following resolution passed at our convention:
    Resolved: That the United Farmers of Canada in Convention assembled do not approve of a vigorous immigration policy on the part of the Government until our own unemployed are cared for and those brought out in former years are assimilated and
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    established; and that we put it on record as being opposed to the granting of any special privileges to those coining into the country which are not granted to our own citizens. This indicates clearly that we believe the immigration problem to be neither a religious question, nor a question for corporations, nor a question for any individual party. It is entirely an economic question, and we believe that the policy should be worked out jointly by the provincial governments and the Dominion Government and the responsibility for carrying out that policy definitely placed on the Department of Immigration, and, further, that no one political party or religious body or corporation should be allowed to solicit or dump immigrants indiscriminately within the Dominion of Canada, and that all immigration activities should cease until the whole question has been thoroughly examined upon a scientific and economic basis."
    That is what the Canadians say about the situation. I have in my hand a document which was given to me by the Secretary of the Trades and Labour Council of Winnipeg, F. Mackintosh. What I hold in my hand is the sworn evidence of over 300 harvesters and the evidence of every harvester is a. sad tale of what these people are up against. They come from all over Britain. Men are sent away up the country and when they arrive at their destination, perhaps on a wet day, the farmer does not want them, and they have no place to which to go. No provision is made for them in many cases and they had to wander about the towns and fall in with some Scotsmen or Englishmen, yes, and Irishmen too, who are kind enough to take them in and see that they obtain a bit of food. That was their fate, and here is the evidence. If it is challenged, it is here to be produced. I hope that the country will pay attention to the idea which the present Government are trying to formulate, and that they will watch keenly what is going on. The Government are trying to get our eyes away to Canada, the land of the future. I believe that Canada can be made a great land, but only under a Socialist Government, both here and there. What did we find at our conferences in Canada? As we went from one province to another and we listened to one Parliament after another in conference, they told us about the wonderful land that Canada is, and as I believe it to be, of its great agricultural resources and its great mineral wealth. They told us that one of the most valuable minerals of the present

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    day, nickel, is to be found there and that Canada is the great nickel centre of the world. You cannot carry on your armaments without nickel. Hon. Members know who has the nickel. He is the individual who advocated in this House, when I caused a scene four years ago, the adoption of emigration as a cure for unemployment. I refer to Lord Melchett, better known as Sir Alfred Mond.
    10.0 p.m.
    They told us that Canada possesses all this great mineral wealth, boundless wealth, stored up there. Wherever we went, the Ministers appealed to the delegation. They thought that we were all rich men. Some members of the delegation were rich men. Even if they were not rich men, they represented the rich side of Britain, while I and my colleagues represented the working classes. Those members of the delegation were representing finance. The Canadians appealed to them for British capital. American capital was going into the country, and they did not want American capital; they wanted British capital. My point, when I said that Canada can be made a great land under Socialism, was that Canada does not require any capital from anybody. They had, as I told them, an object lesson from Great Britain at the outbreak of the War. The financial system of Great Britain broke down and we declared a moratorium. Lord Melchett suggested at that time that we should start a printing machine, to be worked night and day, in order to run off Bradburys, and they did it. I suggested to the Canadians that Canada should not beg, and that they should be ashamed to do so. I said that men who represented the great wealth of Canada, that wonderful country, should not be begging from Britain. I asked why they did not take a leaf out of Britain's book and start a printing press and run off notes, call them what they liked. I suggested that instead of calling them Bradbury's, they might call them Snowden's. On what did Britain run off the Bradbury's? On the strength of the British Empire. On the great economic resources of Britain. Canada could do the same, but that would spell the end of capitalism and that would mean Socialism.
    My object to-night is to draw the attention of the country to this stunt of this poor, decrepit, trembling-to-its-ruin
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    Government. I am sorry the Prime Minister is not here. Yesterday, I heard the Prime Minister speak, and I looked at him quite sympathetically. Anyone who saw the right non. Gentleman yesterday must have known perfectly well that there was a man who was on the bridge of a ship that was sinking. Why is Birkenhead running away? Because he knows perfectly well that the ship is sinking. He is one of the very mighty men. He claims to be the mightiest of the mightiest. He is one of the first-class brains: I wonder where he carries them. I want to appeal to the House, in all sincerity, and to every section of my fellow-countrymen in Britain to realise that the part which the Government has played at this moment in regard to this matter has done this country a tremendous amount of harm. Those of us who are anxious about the welfare of our country have been anxious to do what we could to get into friendly relations with Canada. Some of us have gone out of our way in order to strengthen the bond of friendship with our kith and kin across the seas, because, as I have said again and again, if we cannot make friends with our own kith and kin across the seas we can make friends with nobody. We believe that the British Empire, properly organised—I am not for ending the British Empire—could be made the most powerful instrument for peace in the world.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: So it is.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Yes, but you are doing your very utmost, consciously or unconsciously, to make that an utter impossibility. In Winnipeg, we saw three or four hundred men who were coming back to this country. They will be agents to cry down Canada. Those men will go into every town and village throughout the length and breadth of this land telling everybody that Canada is a rotten place and that Canadians are this, that and the other. All our efforts ought to have been strained to see that every one of these men who came back from Canada would have been praising Canada. I maintain that, under proper conditions, Canada is well worth praising. If the Tory Members of this House understood the position they would not tolerate the attitude of the Government.
    We came back on the "Empress of Australia." Travelling with us again were harvesters, and they were the men

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    who were coming back classified as unfit. These men, 42 of them, had their tickets to Southampton, and there they were to be disbanded. Fortunately for them, we were on the boat and Lord Peel, the Chairman of our Delegation, a very fine man, introduced to us a civil servant who happened to be on board. I will not give his name, but through him we were able to get these men tickets to take them on to Glasgow. Not only that, but they provided them with sandwiches, so that they would not starve on the road. On Monday night it was my privilege to address in Glasgow four huge open-air meetings, in order to chase the Tories out of Glasgow if I could, and when I had finished speaking for my colleague, who has been sent back to the Town Council by a majority of 10,000, a harvester came up to me and said: "Before I went to Canada I was drawing 32s.from the Employment. Exchange, Now I have come back I am getting nothing." That is not an isolated case. That is going on all over.
    The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) has the case of a harvester whose wife has been left destitute in Glasgow, and they have refused to give her any relief. They went the length of making those men get their wives to sign that while they were away harvesting they would not get anything from the parish council or the board of guardians. Did you ever know anything so inhumane? Here is proof of it. My colleague had this case brought to him in his own constituency. He went to the parish council and stated the case on their behalf. It was turned down. He went and interviewed evidently a more humane man than the Secretary of State for Scotland. He interviewed the Under-Secretary, who sent on a letter to my hon. Friend that those women and children are being attended to by the parish council.
    On Sunday night I was addressing a huge working-class audience at a theatre, again on behalf of my colleagues for the municipal election. The better the day the better the deed. There Councillor Hector McNeill told me that he had been called to the Employment Exchange. Harvesters who had come from all over Scotland had been landed at Broomielaw and there they were disbanded. They had no money and nothing to take them
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    anywhere. They went to the Employment Exchange, where a brother of the great Sir Andrew Duncan, whom I know, is in charge, and Mr. Duncan said he could do nothing for them. Councillor Hector McNeill got in touch with the parish council to see if they could do anything. After a good deal of wrangling the men were able to get to their homes. Many of them came from Dundee. There is a state of affairs! Fancy a Government sending our men away across the sea. Many of them should never have been sent. My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston) and myself interviewed several men who have open wounds as the result of the War. One man had a great open wound in his leg and his left arm was destroyed. This proves conclusively that this had been a hurried, messed up job. If Labour had committed such a crime, if it had made such a mess, hon. Members 'opposite would have been crying down our credit from Land's End to John o' Groats. I hold that it is the bounden duty of any man Who loves his native land to do all that he possibly can to see that this Government is driven out, because, if they are not, they are spelling the end of Britain.
    Mr. SAKLATVALA: With regard to the Gracious Speech, I can only recall the policy of the Tory Government before a previous General Election when they tried to hypnotise the country on the slogan of tranquillity, and I believe the present Speech is also an attempt to restore tranquillity, as if nothing important is happening in the country or in the world. However, I find that while the Speech permits of a little verbal wrangling between Members of different parties here, it provids to all parties that common platform of Parliamentary hypocrisy which keeps from the ordinary man in the street the truth about the realities of life. I unhesitatingly say that it devolves upon me, not only as a member of the Communist party, but as representing the voice of all those who are not here charged with hypocritical Parliamentary democracy, to point out where the reality stands. The hon. and gallant Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. W. Benn), who by the way has wiped out his past and swallowed a new monkey gland and become rejuvenated to deliver his maiden speech, was hinting at the very numerous

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    subjects I had to mention in an Amendment of mine. I am not now referring to the Amendment in particular. But I would point out that the party to which the hon. and gallant Member has now the good fortune to belong, being a little more numerous than my party in this House, has got 14 hon. Members to divide the subjects and to put down Amendments on many topics under different groups, and has set up a division of labour on the different topics. I, being less numerous than any other party, just ask the House to realise that I am not trespassing on their indulgence in any way, but that I find myself called upon to instruct the only member of my party to take up all the topics and to speak of them.
    There is the reference to the Kellogg Pact. I am very sorry that I cannot share the bubbling enthusiasm about the Kellogg Pact as an instrument of peace. It is a definite and deceitful American type of instrument of conspiracy against peace. Where is the peace about the Pact? Where is the renunciation of war? When Kellogg landed in France, American soldiers were shooting Nicaraguans and interfering with their affairs. I shall not go into all the details. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition objected to the British attitude. It is not that I want to defend that attitude. I submit that every big Power that signed the Kellogg Pact signed it with a militarist reservation. Some may have been honest enough to express that, but others were cunning enough not to do so. Did America sign the Treaty without any reservation about the Monroe Doctrine? Did she sign it without reserving to herself enough murderers, in the shape of an army, to bully the people of Nicaragua and the Philippines? She signed it with the distinct reservation that her disarmament was to leave an armament sufficient to bully the less powerful nations around her but she entered into a conspiracy with other powerful nations that they were not to hurt one another.
    France signed the Treaty while in the Rhine area French troops were occupying German territory. Did France sign without reservation? She signed with the reservation that her disarmament would mean a sufficiency of murderers to terrorise the Moroccans, the people of Indo-China and of all the Colonies
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    belonging to France. Did Japan sign the Treaty without reservation? That was another hypocritical deceitful State which put its signature to the Renunciation of War while at the same time Japanese soldiers were actually and murdering Manchurians day after day and terrorising the Koreans in order to make wealth out of the exploitation of Korea. The Japanese signature is subject to reservation, and the Japanese renunciation of war only means that the big brothers will no longer quarrel among themselves but will keep sufficient military power to bully and terrorise helpless peoples under the false and hypocritical pretence of safeguarding their Imperial interests.
    The Kellogg Pact is nothing but an attempt to deceive the public that it means a renunciation of war. Does this House believe that this country has renounced war? Our honourable colleague who moved this Address to the King for his Gracious Speech is, himself, as one could judge from his clothes, still a military officer and in this House we have colonels, majors, captains, brigadier-generals, admirals and rear-admirals, scattered about in all parties. Yet Members of this House would tell us that this country has renounced war and that certain parties were never in favour of war. But not one single party has taken the attitude that if that renunciation is to be a reality no one of their members ought to hold a commission in the Army and that the Army is not wanted. They have all renounced war but they all want officerships in the Army.
    Mr. E. BROWN: Are not you a Colonel in the Red Army?
    Mr. SAKLATVALA: So far I am not. There was an enthusiastic colleague of mine who did become one and who felt very proud of it, but he has found it more convenient since then to retire to the Labour party.
    HON. MEMBERS: Name!
    Mr. SAKLATVALA: Mr. Newbold. We are emphatically of the opinion that this Kellogg Pact is nothing but a secret conspiracy of the powerful armed nations to keep in abeyance their own quarrels, in order that they may be strong enough to suppress those countries

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    which each one of these bullying, murderous nations is exploiting. There is not the slightest doubt that when all these people were signing this Treaty they were equally preparing for war on Russia, for au attack on China if China turned Bolshevik, for an attack on India if the Indians tried to evict the British intruder and turn him out of their country. They were all making their own preparations and, at the same time, pretending that this was some great act of peace.
    All these disarmament theories neglect one important point. All the nations armed in the modern and efficient way represent only about 450,000,000 human beings, out of the population of the world, but there are another 900,000,000 human beings who are not armed at all, or who are very imperfectly armed. These 900,000,000 people have no consolation whatever if they are shot down by means of a fewer number of machine guns instead of a larger number. What is the consolation to the Egyptians if the British bully destroys Alexandria and bombards their coastal towns with six cruisers instead of sixteen? What is the consolation to the Arab of Iraq if you bomb his villages—as members of all parties in this House have done—and destroy innocent women with babies in their arms by means of bombs thrown from the air, if you say that the aeroplanes employed in killing those people numbered 12 and not 20. If you keep that in mind, that 900,000,000 of the people of this world are living in an unarmed condition and an unprotected state, for a few nations to arm themselves with small cruisers or big cruisers, or with few or many bombs, is immaterial; the fact remains that you are carrying on your murderous game against humanity and against some section of human beings, and that is only to be put an end to when you begin to consider more honestly the Russian proposal of complete disarmament, instead of playing about with deceitful games.
    Then comes the satisfaction about the Japanese Emperor being enthroned and so on.
    "The historic friendship which for so many years has united Japan and My country has always been a potent factor in the maintenance of peace in the Far East."
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    What does that mean? After the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Japan was definitely made able to carry on war on Russia and on China. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance has not led to peace in the East, but it, has led to wars, to murders, to destruction, to fire, to arson, to crime, and to inhumanity. After the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, what did Japan do She crushed the Koreans; she sapped their life-blood. She put forward false, deceitful claims on the innocent people of China, and it was the British militarists who taught the first nation of Asia, took her in partnership, and taught her the same murderous game that Britain has always been famed for in this world. Yet you claim that the Alliance produced peace. It produced terrorism, murder, war; it destroyed the-peace that did continually exist when Japan was not encouraged by her British ally to cut other peoples' throats and take ether peoples' lives.
    There is now again the same flattery of Japan going on, not because the British merchants love the Japanese merchants, but because they find that perhaps it is possible to use Japan to bully and terrorise the Chinese. This House is asked to congratulate itself over the new atmosphere of peace and settled government in China, and you have all denounced war; you are no longer going to carry on war, but why has nothing been done to completely withdraw all the foreign forces from China? There have been disturbances in China. Would there have been no disturbances in Great Britain if German troops were occupying the British Isles? There are disturbances in China because of the presence of foreign troops and of foreigners demanding in their country unjust and unequal rights and treaties. I submit that there are more Chinamen in Lime house, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Newcastle than there are British citizens in Shanghai. Will you permit the Chinese people to keep a few Chinese battalions and Chinese battleships for the protection of their citizens in Great Britain as you presume to keep yours for the protection of yours? It is a game of cowardice arid not of statesmanship, and you know it in your heart of hearts. There are more British subjects living in France and America than in China, far more. Would you dare to keep British soldiers and

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    British battleships in American and French soil and waters? You dare not. You are keeping them in the pretence of protection simply against weaker nations whom you can rob and plunder, and you put on the hypocritical garb of protecting them and keeping the peace in those countries.
    The Speech refers to the extension of export credits. I have not yet heard a word, as formerly we used to hear from the Opposition, as to whether even now the Government will give up their policy of cutting their noses to spite their faces, and extend these credit facilities to traders with Russia. You will not do it. Why? Because the Workers' Soviet Republic was founded through bloodshed. There was a civil war, a revolution, and human beings were killed, so you will have nothing to do with them. Was the British Empire founded without bloodshed? There was a hundred times more human blood shed in the founding of the British Empire than ever was spilled in Russia during the years of the Revolution. Look at all the wars from 1805 to the last German war. This country has shed a hundred times snore blood of people of all nations in the world. You have slaughtered Frenchmen, Spaniards, Dutch and Russians, you have slaughtered Turks, Persians and Afghans when they had not the least chance to fight you. You killed in their own homes the Punjabis, Bengalis and the Mahrattas, and the Ceylonese, the Burmans, the Malayans and the Chinese. You murdered poor, primitive races, people who did not know geographically where your country was situated, as the Sudanese, the Zulus, the Bantus and the Swazis, and you had not the remotest excuse that they were going to attack von and kill you. You have butchered them and murdered them in a wholesale manner. You have killed them in their own country. There is no nation in the world, no institution in the world which has devoured more human lives and created more murders than the British nation and the British Parliament. Yet the Government of this Empire, which was founded on murder, armed bloodshed, armed loot, armed destruction and confiscation of other people's property and other people's land, has the insolence to say that we do not trade with Russia because they founded their state on blood-
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    shed. You can tell that tale somewhere else, but the world is growing wiser, and the Government would be wiser not to carry on this sort of falsehood any further.
    We come to the one great omission, India. India makes the Empire. It is India that even gives the legal technical title of Empire to the British Empire. The Colonies do not constitute the Empire. If India were dropped to-morrow, the British Empire would not be known as the Empire. There is again a complete omission of any mention of India at a time when the outrage is being committed by this nation of thrusting upon the people of India representatives of this Parliament to go and terrorise over the people of India, and of keeping soldiers there to extort a good opinion of this Commission from the people of India. There is no mention of it at all. It is all very well for you to get into a frenzy about enslaving and robbing other nations, but you are forgetting your own destiny. In the constitutional development of this nation—in the days of King John—in the days of King Charles—in the days of Queen Victoria —what has been the method followed? The people wanting their liberties and their freedom formulated their demands. We did not see the powers representing the Crown telling the people what liberties and what freedom they should demand. In the development of a nation it is the people who have the right to formulate their constitution and to make their demands upon the Crown and the agents of the Crown. It is a ridiculous farce that the Crown and the Crown's agent should keep soldiers bullying the people and say to the people, "You will demand as your measure of liberty and freedom what we tell you to demand."
    I am sorry to say that the Opposition has neglected its sacred duty towards India, and made common cause with the Government in running that slavery abroad. I am sorry to say that in your frenzy you are surrendering great principles of British life. Save by the express vote of Parliament, no Government officers, no agent of the Crown—not even the King of England himself—has the right to deprive British citizens of those liberties which their ancestors won for them, once as I have said under John and once under Charles and his suc-

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    cessors. When creating new legislative machinery in South Africa, in Canada, in Australia, in the Irish Free State, and also in India, we expressly laid it down that local legislatures there should have no right to deprive British-born citizens of the liberties which have been won from the Crown, that is, without an express and clear decision of the British House of Commons; but now agents of the Crown by the exercise of arbitrary and autocratic powers such as would lose the Crown the Throne if they were tried in this country, are seeking to deprive British-born British citizens in India of their one liberty, of their right to a fair trial before being punished. Under the law as it is they could be punished if they had done wrong, but the Crown is to-day seeking powers against British citizens in India such as Abdul Hamid lost his throne for, such as the Tsar of Russia lost his life for, and which the Kaiser of Germany lost his throne for, and such as are no longer tolerated in any country, great or small. The British Crown, through its agents, is seeking to destroy the liberty not only of the enslaved people of India but of British-born subjects, under the false and hypocritical pretence of what they call the Public Safety Bill.
    The Public Safety Bill is to deal with those Britishers who go to India and say to the people of India that their fellow countrymen have no right to rule India. They are to be deported without trial, they are to be imprisoned without trial, their liberties are to be cut away. If the Crown attempted to do anything of that sort in this country the Conservative party would immediately organise a revolt against the Crown. This nation has already organised a revolt. The hon. and gallant Member for North Aberdeen referred in the Debate to the black soldiers of France, and pointed out the danger to Europe of employing those black soldiers. What about your brave Gurkas, Mahrattas and the negroes employed in the Army in British Africa? Are they not black soldiers? Is France the only country which has employed black soldiers? We have heard some hair-splitting arguments from the hon. and gallant Member for North Aberdeen and from the Leader of the Opposition. I have not forgotten the hypocritical and diabolical utterances of the right hon.
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    Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) on this question. What did the right hon. Gentleman say when he was discussing the subject of peace. He represented this country as consisting of peace-making angels, and he told us that the cause of the great loss of human life was the system of conscription.
    The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs described the people of this country as angels without wings and as a peace-loving nation because we have not a system of conscription. That is what the right hon. Gentleman said in the Debate about peace, but surely he is aware what a mockery the British system has been in the past. It is true that you had no conscription in peace time, but in war time the Government adopted full-blooded conscription in a few weeks' time. Under these circumstances how can you expect the world to believe that England is a peace-loving nation? What is the lesson of the last Great War? What is the meaning of having hon. Members of this House who are officers, and who are now out of military practice? Those hon. Members are now in civil life. They sit in this House and some of them write articles in the newspapers. During peace time they appear as innocent as doves, but when war comes—[Interruption.] The last War was a great lesson to us, especially as administered by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, who condemns conscription in foreign countries but who is clever enough in war-time to adopt conscription in this country in 24 hours. It is all humbug and moonshine for anyone to write the sort of King's Speech we are considering, and for the Labour party to offer a namby-pamby opposition to it. France has got black troops on the Rhine and Britain has black troops in the Himalayas; therefore the French are decried while the British are angels. The times are past when the workers, in this country or abroad, are going to swallow this sort of political logic. It might work very well in a general election or a by-election, where people are half thinking instead of fully thinking, but, in the cold, calm study of their daily life, people are not going to accept this sort of hypocritical arrangement of statesmen and Parliamentarians as touching the realities of life.

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    I was a little disappointed when our Scottish champions stood up to speak of Scotland. May I ask the Prime Minister why he has not allowed this House to know what His Gracious Majesty's agents are doing in Greenock, where a chief constable, or magistrates, are issuing orders with regard to public meetings? If anyone does anything wrong in a public meeting, there is a Court of Law; but here, although the Parliament of the people has fought for centuries for liberty, one twopenny-halfpenny chief constable or magistrate comes down and says that meetings shall not be held. To such a scandal has it extended that even in the case of borough council elections, when meetings were organised, the men who organised them have been arrested and put into prison. The liberties of the people are not observed in this fashion, and I am really surprised at the calm, cool way in which Scotland takes, lying low, this rapacious enslavement by officers of the British Crown. It is really amazing how people are getting accustomed to Fascism under the soothing name of Parliamentary democracy. I ask the Prime Minister whether he is prepared to say on his oath that borough council elections carried on in Greenock under these conditions are at all legal and valid.
    Mr. MAXTON: Ask the Lord Advocate.
    Mr. SAKLATVALA: I would have asked the Lord Advocate, but I know that he is a Parliamentarian, and does not know what the subordinate officers are doing. If he knew, perhaps his own sense of decency would revolt, but the very fact that there is a Lord Advocate, and the very fact that this is going on, shows that the Parliamentary Cabinet Ministers are puppets, and the country can be run by Fascist battalions outside.
    Mr. MAXTON: He is responsible.
    Mr. SAKLATVALA: I will put down a question to him on Tuesday, when I suppose we shall see what sort of responsibility he has. Having wandered, as the hon. and gallant Member for North Aberdeen said, over a vast area, let me come down to the very grave situation with regard to unemployment. Here again there are on the carpet so many pairs of boxing gloves, so that men of
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    different parties may have a sham fight among themselves, but that does not bring us to the realities of life. With regard to migration, this country, with its vast empty Colonies like Australia, New Zealand and Canada, ought to have had continuously a migration policy completely disassociated from the problem of unemployment. I think it is an immense shame that a country which has genuine, healthy room for a scheme of continuous, independent migration to its Colonies, should have confused the issue and subordinated that problem to party tactics by associating it with the problem of unemployment. I appeal to the Ministers of those Dominions to compel the Prime Minister of this country not to associate the problem of migration to the Colonies with unemployment at all. Even if this country were fully employed, the need of regular, systematised, healthy, open, clean migration would still exist, and to have dragged in the unemployment issue, and made the misery and suffering of the people a handle for a party politics display, was not only a piece of meanness towards the unemployed of this country, but a great injustice to the colonial and migration requirements of the Dominions.
    You have so completely mixed up the issue that only the unemployable and the unfit of this country are going to be encouraged to go to the Colonies. You Have done the greatest possible harm to a problem which has quite a clean and independent position of its own. I urge the Ministers vet to take immediate measures completely to dissociate the problem of migration from that of unemployment. If you do not do so you are doing the greatest possible harm to the people in the Colonies arid adding injury to insult to the unemployed in this country and at the same time you are producing no result of any value whatsoever. You must pull yourselves back out of the mirage of using the unemployment problem for migration. Leave the unemployment question as a local question to be settled by yourselves in this country, and leave the migration question as an independent question for the Colonies, remembering that here you have a country restricted in its area, and growing in its population, and there you have vast lands available in the Colonies.
    That is my first remark, and now I come to my second remark. The Employment

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    Exchanges and the Government authorities are ready to pack up the Reds and send them about to different places so that they may not organise a campaign against the Government before the General Election comes. That is not being done for the benefit of the workers, but is trickery to preserve the Conservative vote and the position of the Government.
    Mr. E. BROWN: The Reds are against the Labour party, too.
    Mr. SAKLATVALA: They are like the Conservatives and the Liberals. The whole machinery is created for the purpose of removing the Reds when they are organising themselves among the unemployed workers locally. I ask the Prime Minister one serious question. What guarantee does he give to these men and women that they will be put back in their own constituencies at the expense of the Government when it comes to be their right to exercise their vote at the next General Election? Are thousands upon thousands of voters up to be fraudulently and dishonestly transferred from their legitimate areas in order to make it convenient for Tory candidates by removing their votes? I want to know because during the last municipal elections hundreds of cases of realisation of this great deceit upon the working classes has come upon these men and women. They have been transferred to areas where they have no vote. The last municipal elections have disclosed that circumstance, and I ask the Minister to say how they are treating this particular subject of the liberties of the people before the General Election comes, without making it a matter for joking. With regard to unemployment, if all these schemes are going on and these debates are going on, as they are, and if the results are concealed from the people we must out of our own loyalty to His Majesty warn His Majesty's Ministers of the consequences which may befall them and their position and authority. How long are the people going to keep away from expressing their anger? Not very long, for the cup is getting full.
    There was a lot of talk by the hon. Member for Broxstowe (Mr. Spencer). He delivered a speech like a bull in a china shop. The position is this, A quarter of a million miners have lost their jobs. That means that 60,000,000
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    tons of coal taken out of Britain are not wanted. You do not tell the world that British capitalists are settled in Africa, India and Southern China and are taking out 65,000,000 tons of coal every year and are paying labour 7d. for a day of 10 hours underground. You are concealing the fact. You do not tell the jute workers of Dundee that unemployment has become permanent in Dundee, that about 30 per cent. of the looms and spindles will never work again, and at the same time you have 75 jute mills in Bengal, where you are paying 3s. 8d. a week of 60 hours to the girls in the spinning department. By the process India is devouring more than 60 per cent. of the total jute product of India, and there is not sufficient raw jute left now for all the spindles and looms in Dundee. You are not telling the textile workers the truth as to how your Imperial policy in China and India, with labour exploitation, the enforced illiteracy of the people, enforced slavery and the denial of political life to the workers is creating a mass of unemployed workers in this country.
    These are the causes of unemployment. Now with all the criticisms I would still disagree. Unemployment cannot be cured by a new scheme of transference of men. It cannot be cured by building houses and this, that and the other. Unemployment can only be cured by the Government passing an Act and, without any compensation, taking possession of all mines, factories, dockyards and places of industry. That is the only way of creating normal employment where capitalism is creating unemployment. Make friends with Russia, give up your game of murder in India, treat them as you treat France and America and withdraw your troops from China, and there will be more than enough demand for all that you will produce by seizing those factories, and carrying on your work without any compensation to the owners.
    Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned," put, and agreed to—[Mr. Lansbury.]
    Debate to be resumed To-morrow.

  PRIVILEGES.
  Ordered,
  "That the Committee of Privileges do consist of Ten Members":
  The Prime Minister, the Attorney-General, Lord Hugh Cecil, Mr. Clynes, Mr. Arthur Henderson, Sir Ellis Hume-Williams, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Sir Robert Sanders, Mr. Macpherson, and Lieut.-Colonel Spender-Clay nominated Members of the Committee.
  Ordered,
  "That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records."
  Ordered,
  "That Five be the quorum."—[Sir G. Hennessy.]

  ADJOURNMENT.
  Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]
  Adjourned accordingly at One Minute before Eleven o'Clock.

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
LORD STRICKLAND.
Sir Gerald Strickland, G.C.M.G., Head of the Ministry of the Colony of Malta, having been created Baron Strickland of Sizergh Castle, in the County of Westmorland—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

ARCHITECTS (REGISTRATION) BILL. [H.L.]
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to provide for the registration of architects, and to move that it be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1ª.—(The Earl of Crawford.)
On Question, Bill read 1ª, and to be printed.

ROAD VEHICLES REGULATION BILL. [H.L.]
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill for the better regulation of road vehicles, and to move that it be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1ª.—(Viscount Cecil of Chelwood.)
On Question, Bill read 1ª, and to be printed.

NAVAL ARMAMENTS: ANGLO- FRENCH PROPOSALS.
LORD THOMSON LORD THOMSON had given Notice to move to resolve, That the negotiations disclosed in the White Paper, Cmd. 3211, regarding limitation of naval armaments, constitute a grave setback to the cause of disarmament. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I think I may say that the Resolution standing in my name on the Order Paper expresses a widely-held opinion. It has been suggested to me that I should introduce
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into the terms of that Resolution some expression of regret. I am perfectly certain that a great many noble Lords who are present feel regret at the result of the recent negotiations, though they might not be willing to declare it in the terms of a Resolution. The publication of the White Paper was expected to allay anxiety on this question; but I am afraid it has only confirmed the worst fears of those who consider that disarmament is not only a moral obligation but an economic necessity.
It is very difficult to say anything new about this matter, so much has been said and written about it already. There is general anxiety to express views on the subject not only on the part of individuals but of Parties. I noticed, yesterday, that the noble Earl, Lord Beauchamp, was so anxious to fire the first shot in your Lordships' House that he mentioned it in his remarks on the Address. My justification for bringing it to your Lordships' notice to-day is that there are in this House a great many noble Lords who can speak with very special authority on questions of foreign policy. We are also fortunate in having as a member of your Lordships' House the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, who is for the moment the head of the great Department principally concerned in this matter and who has had to handle some of the most difficult parts of the negotiations. In that respect, if I may say so, the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, has all my sympathy. He has really been put into the position of the horse which was put into the shafts while the waggon was in mid-stream. He was not responsible, as I understand it, for the initiation of these negotiations, but had to carry them to the best conclusion in his power. So if I venture to bother your Lordships to-day with this matter it is as one who may be considered a fool for rushing in where so many angels have feared to tread, but also with a view of getting an authoritative expression of opinion on this matter and a statement from the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun.
The Press, generally speaking, has not been favourable to the Government. I am not referring only to the Opposition papers, nor to those other organs of the Press whose political allegiance may be somewhat uncertain: even the loyal Times laid the whitewash on so thin that

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it was almost transparent, and its leading articles on this subject have been masterpieces of mild rebuke. I tremble to think what the fulminations would have been in the pages of that great newspaper had a Labour Government put the country into a similar predicament. I can imagine columns devoted to condemnation, if not abuse. All round the Press has condemned these negotiations as a grave blunder. In these circumstances the attitude of some of the spokesmen of this one and indivisible Government, as it was described by the noble Marquess in his speech yesterday, is all the more bewildering. Take, for example, the speech delivered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his constituency at the end of last month. What does he say about this vital matter? He is reported to have said this:—
"The discussions of the last two years had tended to bring naval, military and air matters into a position of international consequence and prominence which was not at all warranted by anything in the present peaceable state of the world."
Does that represent the view of His Majesty's Government? Is His Majesty's Government entirely oblivious of Article 8 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, under the terms of which we are committed solemnly by the most explicit pledges to do our best to expedite the reduction of armaments? Does His Majesty's Government regard the Covenant of the League of Nations as a "scrap of paper"?
If the Chancellor of the Exchequer really represents the views of His Majesty's Government it is not at all surprising to my mind that these negotiations terminated as they did. Nothing is more calculated to make experts dilatory and idle in their task than this sort of attitude on the part of the Government that is behind them. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking presumably for the Government, talks about the peaceable state of the world to-day. At this moment there is a peace in Europe, but it is a peace of exhaustion. Europe to-day is an armed camp. There are more armies and more soldiers under arms to-day in Europe than there were before the War. Europe is seething to-day with questions in dispute, with points of friction. It is perfectly true, and I agree with those who say that we have a breathing space, for this
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peace of exhaustion may last for ten or it may be twenty years. But unless that breathing space is utilised to the best advantage, unless the leading countries of the world, like our own—the leading country in the councils of Geneva some few years back—take an energetic lead in this question of disarmament, it is certain that we shall drift into a position exactly similar to that which existed during the first decade of this century and that we shall be plunged in due time into another war. The peaceable state of Europe is not, unfortunately, due to statesmanship. It certainly is not due to the sort of statesmanship that is indicated in that speech. It is due, unfortunately, to exhaustion. But thank Heaven we have a breathing space and I sincerely trust it will be utilised to the best advantage. We have to find some new method of settling international disputes during the breathing space, or else be faced with a still more appalling calamity than that of 1914.
Several conclusions may be drawn from a study of the White Paper. I do not want to trouble your Lordships with past history. This ground has been trodden time and again, but there are certain points that I do want to bring out because they lead up to the main points of my remarks this afternoon. What are our commitments? I think it is fair to say to the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, that these negotiations resulted in something which is a great deal more than a compromise between ourselves and the French, something which may be described as a deal. The bargain, as I understand it from the White Paper, began on March 9 of this year, when the Foreign Secretaries of Great Britain and France had an interview. They were at once confronted with the difficulty which is expressed in the White Paper in this language: "Diametrical opposition in crucial matters." I never attribute evil motives to the Government, especially in foreign policy, and I believe that in all innocence we began to drift into this deal; in fact it is the innocence of the whole transaction which fills me with dismay. It seems to me a terrible thing that people with the best intention should find themselves dragged into such a dilemma.
What was the deal? It is a vulgar word, but what was it? "Diametrical

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opposition in crucial matters." And the way out? We were to concede to the French on the point of trained reservists and small submarines in return for their conceding to us a certain formula in regard to naval classification. It seems to me that we gave away a very great deal and we got very little in return. What were the effects of that deal? First and foremost I think the effect was to excite suspicion in the United States and Italy. To my mind that suspicion was most natural. That deal strengthened the British on the high seas by giving us unlimited power to construct light cruisers. It strengthened the French on both land and sea, more especially in the latter case in narrow waters and in that most powerful weapon, in modern warfare, of blockade. It gave to us, acting together, undertaking a concerted and common action, a position which was almost irresistible in Europe if not throughout the world. May I read to your Lordships in this connection a small extract from a document with which you are probably all familiar, the remarks of the Ambassador of the United States? Speaking of his Government he says:—
"It would be happy to continue such efforts, but it cannot consent to proposals which would leave the door wide open to unlimited building of certain types of ships of a highly efficient combatant value and would impose restrictions only on types peculiarly suitable to American needs."
Then take the Italian comment, which is more subtle. This is what the Italian Government replied:—
"They believe that they can detect an indication in this sense in the Anglo-French project, in the connection which it—in fact—introduces between the naval proposals and the question of the trained reserves of the army and for mobilisation."
A connection between naval and military proposals. They believed they could detect what really amounts in that connection to a deal.
I will go further. I am putting myself in the position of the naval experts from the Admiralty—the British naval experts. I find it difficult to believe that those experts would have accepted the unlimited construction of small submarines by the French, our nearest neighbour, separated from us by very narrow waters, a neighbour with many ports upon the Channel—that naval experts, whose first thought is naval security, would have accepted the unlimited
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construction of small submarines as the basis of an arrangement for the reduction of armaments, for the advantage of so near a neighbour, unless they also had imagined that there was some arrangement. The noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, said in his remarks at Blackpool that there was no new Entente, and he corrected that at Dartford by saying that there was no need for a new Entente, the old Entente existed always. But what he meant by an Entente was a sort of general affability, world-wide affability all round, general agreement which included Germany. I doubt if a more unfortunate expression than "old Entente" could have been employed, with due respect to the noble Lord, because that old Entente has an ill-omened and unfortunate connotation, and it certainly led to common and concerted action with the French. The noble Lord has changed his attitude very remarkably since 1924. To my mind that is one of the most hopeful features of our time. In those days he referred to the Germans as fraudulent defaulters; to-day he talks, and I believe quite sincerely, of an Entente applying to the Germans and meaning general agreement all round, affability with all people. If the noble Lord can change his point of view so fundamentally I do trust that he will also change his nomenclature.
The second effect of this Anglo-French compromise, I think, as it appears from the White Paper, would have been, not to decrease armaments, but to increase them all round, especially naval armaments. The American Ambassador and the Italian Government are both at pains to point out what they feel upon that subject. The American Ambassador says so in terms. He says:—
"The American Government feels, furthermore, that the terms of the Anglo-French Draft Agreement, in leaving unlimited so large a tonnage and so many types of vessels, would actually tend to defeat the primary objective of any disarmament conference for the reduction or the limitation of armament …"
The Italian Government is more explicit. What the Italian Government says on that point is this:—
"The adoption, in fact, of a measure of this character would render it necessary for each country to present and carry out as largo a naval programme as possible …"

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Could there be more emphatic condemnation of this compromise? How the noble Lord ever expected that compromise to be accepted by the United States and Italy puzzles me. I can hardly believe that the French Government expected acceptance by Italy and the United States. Indeed, this proposal, so far from effecting disarmament, would not only have increased armaments, but would also have brought about competition in armaments.
Take the case of large cruisers. That, according to the American experts, is a type of vessel indispensable to their requirements, and, according to the proposal, there was to be a maximum tonnage allowed to all nations in that matter—a maximum applicable to all. In view of the well-known attitude of the American Government, there is no doubt that they would have set the pace in this matter, and, as far as I can make out, that pace was likely to be pretty speedy. So there were left small cruisers and small submarines unlimited: capital ships and aircraft carriers already limited by the Washington Conference; large cruisers to be subject to a form of competition in which the richest nation in the world, with its back rather up as the result of these revelations, to set the pace. The only economy that I can see that could have resulted from these proposals would have been in large submarines. To that economy the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, referred with tempered satisfaction, at Blackpool, I think, as a case of half a loaf being better than no bread. My only comment on that observation is that I believe the British taxpayers, when they studied these proposals in their entirety, would infinitely prefer no bread. And this is what the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who of all people ought to consider economy at this juncture, describes as a step forward to a larger measure of agreement.
Now I pass to the question of trained reservists. Here we have one of the most complicated questions that one can well imagine, a question involving a very large principle and a mass of detail. I notice that both the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, and the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, made the concession on this point with extreme
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and natural reluctance. It does involve an immense question of principle. We are in a new era, an era of mechanised armed forces. The infantry soldier and the cavalryman are about to start down that long vista in which they have been preceded by the knight in armour, the bowman, and the musketeer. If their day is not yet done, it is nearly done. For purposes of war and for calculations of trained reservists, the mechanic is at least as important as the man with the rifle in his hand, or the soldier with the sabre. And I admit straight away, as an old soldier, that there are immense difficulties in setting limits to the number of such trained reservists. In a sense every mechanic up to the age of sixty years is a trained reservist. He is at least as useful as a man with a rifle.
So much for the difficulties of the computation. I will admit further that it is impossible probably to estimate what those trained reserves would amount to. We are up against a proposition, enunciated I think by Clausewitz many years ago, of the nation in arms. Now, France proposes to be a nation in arms. There is no getting away from that. Their declarations on the subject have been published. Where do we stand in the matter? Where do we stand when we admit this principle of the nation in arms? We have to go back to the time when we imposed on Germany, on Bulgaria, and other conquered States the provision that they were not to have conscripted armies, that there was to be no compulsory service. We have now got this position, that the countries which desire conscription, which maintain it and which practise it, desire no limit to be set to the number of their trained reservists. We are producing the most top-sided and unfair state of affairs. When we imposed those conditions on the conquered States after the World War we might have foreseen our responsibilities in the matter. In any case, we cannot evade them now.
I believe myself that in conscript armies the limit that will be set to the number of trained mechanics will be the limit of cost. Where large establishments are concerned the cost of training military mechanics will be enormous, but the unfortunate fact remains that a lack of money never seems to stop modern States

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from embarking on military preparations, and though that limit may exist it is such a very large and wide one that doubt if it will have much effect. Here, if I may say so, it seems to me that the noble Lords, Lord Cecil and Lord Cushendun, might have insisted on the question of principle and left some formula to be devised by experts. I believe that there are at least half a dozen experts in the service of the British Government to-day who could have worked out a formula, and I believe that the formula would be based on some such conception as this: that if we conceded conscription then there must be a limit to the size of the conscripted armies. This has been done. It is possible to impose limits on conscripted armies. There is such a thing as the ballot under cover of the principle of conscription. We have abandoned a vital principle, we have committed ourselves to the thesis that a nation in arms is a recognised fact in Europe to-day, and it seems to me that we have imposed on our enemies in the last War conditions which put them at a grave disadvantage with reference to their late enemies. It is small wonder that in these conditions the Germans are perturbed.
Now I come to my main point. It is this: What are our commitments in this matter? The most pregnant sentence in the White Paper occurs on page 25. It has already been referred to in another place, and it will be referred to by everyone who devotes attention to this matter. It is the last sentence in the French reply to the Foreign Office, and I may call it the climax of the French argument. It runs:—
"Whatever the result, and even should this hope prove illusory"—
the hope being that the other nations would agree to the Anglo-French naval compromise—
"the two Governments would, none the less, be under the urgent obligation to concert either to ensure success by other means or to adopt a common policy so as to deal with the difficulties which would inevitably arise from a check to the work of the Preparatory Commission."
That request or that suggestion, from the French, so far as I can see from the White Paper, has never been replied to by His Majesty's Government. The Government sent a reply to that particular Note, but they did not refer to
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this part of it. They certainly mentioned it in Notes to other countries, such as the United States and Italy, but here is a suggestion in writing from the French to which no answer has been given by His Majesty's Government. And yet one would have said that it was the most important part of that Note, the climax, I repeat, of the French argument.
We are taught that when a diplomatist says "Yes" he means "Perhaps"; when he says "Perhaps" he means "No"; and if he says "No" he is no diplomatist. What does he mean when he says nothing? Does silence mean consent? It certainly seems to me that this is a question to which some answer should have been given, and I am curious to know whether or not an answer has been given, because it seems to me to be one of those questions to which an answer is imperative. It is like the postscript to a lady's letter; you have to answer it. It is one of those leading questions such as I cannot imagine that the noble Lord, who is so courteous in his dealings, would overlook. He must have answered it in some form or other. I should imagine that if he had not answered it the French Government would have written again and insisted upon a reply. While this question remains unanswered, while there is an ambiguity in this situation, I submit that very serious consequences are liable to ensue. The first and most serious is that neither the United States nor Italy is likely to co-operate wholeheartedly in any further conferences on disarmament. They are both suspicious and they are both a little angry. The whole position, so far as they are concerned, has been queered. While there is the least ambiguity about that important question their position will be, if not hostile, at any rate cold. It seems to me that we have to clear this up.
I accept whole-heartedly that which the noble Marquess said in yesterday afternoon's debate as to there being no such thing as a Pact, and that the naval compromise is dead. But what about trained reserves, what about small submarines, what about no limitation to the number of small cruisers, what about all the other things which have crept into the negotiations and to which, so far

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as I understand, we are more or less committed to the French? Are these commitments dead also? It is quite obvious that the thing called the naval compromise is dead, but what about our commitments to the French? The mere silence of the Government on that vital sentence seems to me to throw some doubt upon their attitude. While that doubt remains it is a fact that Italy and the United States will not and, indeed, cannot co-operate in any further conferences on disarmament.
I have read, and I think I have heard the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, say in reply to critics, that we as a country cannot dictate to other countries. Of course we cannot dictate, but it has been our pride, if not our boast, that we occupy a commanding position in the councils of Europe. We certainly did so in 1924. We were respected at Geneva, we were respected throughout the world. And why? Because we were prepared to give an energetic lead in this vital question of disarmament and because we were anxious to keep our pledges in this matter. I am not saving that the noble Lord is not so keen, but all I can say is that he does not show that he is. If we are known to be really sincere and keen in regard to this question of our pledge—I must insist upon the pledge because it is ever present to my mind as a solemn pledge, entered into when we signed those Treaties—if we are really keen and show it, I am convinced that in the United States public opinion, which is extremely powerful there, and perhaps more powerful than in any other State, would overcome the Big Navy Party. I doubt if anyone can deny that it has already done so. When there was a discussion some time back about cruisers and 75, I think, were proposed by the Big Navy Party, that proposition was allowed to lapse. Public opinion was the cause. We have only to prove to the United States, and indeed to France, to judge from recent happenings there, that we are in earnest in this matter, and I believe our problems with regard to disarmament will be greatly simplified, although not wholly solved, because no doubt it is one of the thorniest subjects to be dealt with.
We do not need any secret diplomacy to effect that. I am not accusing Lord Cushendun of secret diplomacy during the last few months. On the contrary, I
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am afraid that our diplomacy has been neither secret nor successful. Secret diplomacy is at all times a gamble for a Government. There are occasions when a man or a body of men may think that nothing else will achieve the purpose they have in view, but then secrecy is all important, so that if the negotiations break down no great harm is done, and if they are successful the result can be announced at the time and in the manner to give it the best effect. There was no real secret diplomacy on this occasion. It is perfectly true that in London it was almost impossible to get any information. There was the loyalty of the noble Lord and his subordinates. It was impossible to get information in London, but in Paris the cat was continually emerging from the bag, and what a circumstantial cat. Every word in the White Paper had appeared in the Parisian newspapers. The tragic failure of these negotiations—this sort of demi-semi-secret diplomacy should be a lesson to us all. It certainly is an incident to be remembered. Believe me, I am not criticising my noble friend Lord Cushendun in this matter. I do not think he has been at all well treated.
It seems quite clear that there will be no practical advantage in renewing these disarmament conferences before the year 1931. Between now and then a great deal may have happened. It is greatly to be feared that the cruiser programme will have been embarked upon in the United States. These are evils which we have to face. It is to be hoped that when 1931 comes somewhat different methods will be practised. It appears, from reading that White Paper, very clearly to me that the experts had a very considerable, if not excessive, say in the matter. Experts are good servants, but bad masters. No one who has had any connection with our civil servants and subordinates in our fighting Departments but knows how loyal they can be, but I do not think it is fair to an Admiral to ask him to initiate a policy with regard to naval disarmament. These men are very loyal, and will carry out a policy, however distasteful, and when they meet together afterwards in their clubs they will say: "I could not help it, I had to do it, that cursed politician told me to." But to ask them to initiate a policy of naval disarmament is to ask them to

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do something which they would naturally consider as letting down their Service.
I submit, with all respect, that some of these Admirals at Geneva were given an impossible task. I think my late leader, a man whose loss I regret more than I can say, for he was guide, counsellor and friend—when I think of how that man, that philosopher and clever lawyer, came to the War Office and made the Generals think his way—because that is what Lord Haldane did—I cannot conceive why any statesman, any member of any Government should not expect, and could not expect, from Admirals an equal loyalty and an equal adaptability of view. I do not believe that these men will ever interfere with the execution of a policy. I believe that they will work loyally for a policy, even although they detest it, but you cannot expect them to initiate it. And what do we read about the proceedings of the Preparatory Commission? There they were, these unfortunate Delegates, and according to an article in The Times, which I have every reason to believe is quite correct, they were terribly bored. Some read, some wrote letters, many slept, and some may have wept from sheer boredom and languor. They were only aroused to interest in the proceedings when a Latvian Delegate got up with some new and absurd proposal. They had no guidance, and they just sat there in dilatory, languid boredom with their surroundings. They were a sort of lotus eaters at Geneva. There was nothing to stir them or even to guide them, and yet, to quote the article in The Times this was the time when "the idea of the naval compromise first arose." Apparently, a French Admiral said to a British Admiral: "By the way, why cannot we agree upon this?" and the British Admiral, seized with enthusiasm, telegraphs to London and says what a bright idea it is. And actually the British Government approached the French Government, imagining that it was the policy of the French Government, an assumption which proved to be incorrect.
I can well imagine that such was the attitude of those Delegates if the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer represents the views of His Majesty's Government and of the Foreign Office towards this question of disarmament. If His Majesty's Government considered
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it a question of no international consequence, can one wonder if the Delegates got languid? You cannot blame the Delegates if that state of affairs goes on. When they see a prominent and responsible member of the Cabinet deal with this matter as though it were a mere addition to Æsop's Fables this policy of drift and dilatoriness is bound to continue in the Preparatory Commission. I believe that that spirit was the real cause of failure at Geneva. I believe that His Majesty's Government had the best intentions but that they were very vague, that they had no ardour or conviction in the matter, that they treated it in an academic spirit and left it to the experts, that they regarded our solemn pledges as a disagreeable heritage from a period of transient idealism and that they also considered them to be impracticable of fulfilment.
We contrast that with what some of us imagined was the policy of the British Government after the War as indicated by our signing not one but several Treaties embodying the Covenant of the League, the policy of all-round disarmament by international agreement in which we would take an energetic lead. We make that contrast and get food for reflection, and we are inclined to put the blame where it should lie. We are pledged solemnly to this question of disarmament, not only to our own people, but to the world. We cannot shirk the task without dishonour. We cannot be dilatory in it without losing our good name, and now we are involved, as I see it, in a horrible dilemma. We are committed vaguely, so far as I can see, to various propositions with which I am certain the vast majority of people in this country would not agree. We are running the risk of a race in armaments with the richest country in the world. There is a cynical attitude produced by these revelations, a cynical attitude throughout Europe which, to quote The Times, is most disheartening. It is so. The least conscientious observer must notice that. Millions of people are disheartened. Those who scoffed at the League are chuckling. They say: "We told you so, there is no substitute in international affairs for force." I submit that this attitude of mind has been largely caused by the publication of the White Paper and that the negotiations

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conducted at Geneva during the past twenty-four months have constituted a grave setback to the cause of disarmament. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That the negotiations disclosed in the White Paper, Cmd. 3211, regarding limitation of Naval Armaments, constitute a grave setback to the cause of disarmament.—(Lord Thomson.)
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (LORD CUSHENDUN): My Lords, I am sure that I may safely acquit the noble Lord opposite of any desire or intention to perform an act of benevolence towards the Government, but nevertheless I am very grateful to him for giving me this early opportunity in the present Session of Parliament to say something in your Lordships' House with regard to the immense amount of misunderstanding and, I am afraid, a good deal of misrepresentation, of which, of course, I entirely acquit the noble Lord, with regard to the matter which he has brought before your Lordships this afternoon. The various charges that have been made against the Government may be divided under several heads. I shall show your Lordships presently that my difficulty after listening to the noble Lord is to know precisely what the charge is against the Government. It is quite true that he has given a general belabouring to the Government, as many people outside have done during the last few weeks, but I have some difficulty in knowing exactly what he thinks we ought to have done and I will particularise that in a moment.
He referred to the charge of secrecy. He was good enough to say that he did not charge me personally with any secret diplomacy during the last few months, but he went on to show that he fully endorsed the very strong observations that have been made in the Press and on the platform with regard to the alleged concealment, or attempted concealment, of these negotiations. With reference to that I should like to point out that as a matter of fact—you may hold this opinion or that as to the merits or demerits of secret diplomacy—you could hardly imagine any transaction more free than this from concealment, or attempted concealment, or observation of secrecy. In this connection I will presently make on a minor point an admission which the noble Lord
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and the other critics of the Government are quite welcome to exploit so far as they can, but with that exception, to which I will come in a moment, I maintain absolutely that there has been from first to last no sort of secrecy or attempted secrecy with regard to this transaction.
What are the facts? First of all, before any agreement was reached, at the earliest possible moment it was announced in the most public way possible that conversations were going on with a view to arriving at an agreement on a matter which was perfectly well known to all those who were at that time engaged at Geneva. Suggestions had been made by various people that the best way of disposing of the differences that had arisen would be to have private conversations between the Governments concerned. That course was adopted, but so far from observing secrecy it was publicly announced at once. The compromise itself was reached on July 28, the fact, as I say, having been advertised that the conversations with a view to a compromise had been going on. It was reached on July 28. Two days later, on July 30, the terms of it were telegraphed to the Japanese, the Italian, and the United States Governments—two days after it was arrived at. On the same day, July 30, the Foreign Secretary announced in the House of Commons what had been done. I should like to call your Lordships' attention to the terms of that speech of my right hon. friend, because any ordinary person who listened to or read that speech must have seen the whole nature of the transaction and its limitations—a very important matter in view of what subsequently happened.
I ask leave to read to your Lordships an extract from my right hon. friend's speech. He was asked what was going on at the Preparatory Commission, and he said:—
"At the moment the Preparatory Commission on Disarmament is not in session, and no definite date has been fixed for its session, but, as has been publicly announced, conversations have been proceeding between ourselves and the French with the hope"—
I call your Lordships' attention to these words—
"of reducing the difference between us, indeed, in the hope of finding some compromise upon which we could both agree, and which we might then submit to other Powers and perhaps, by our proposals, facilitate pro-

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gress in the Committee. Those conversations have been successful between the French and ourselves, and I am about to communicate to the other principal naval Powers the compromise at which we have arrived"—
incidentally I may say that the communication was made on the same day on that speech was made—
"with the hope that it may be acceptable to them also, and that thus a great obstacle to progress will have been removed and a step made in advance. Until those proposals have been communicated to the other Governments, I do not like to say more about them."
And he finishes by saying:—
"I imagine the first serious discussion on them will probably take place in the Disarmament Committee itself."
From that it will be seen that clearly the conversations which had been going on and the compromise which had been arrived at were simply for the purpose of removing the differences which had arisen between ourselves and the French regarding the Draft Convention for prescribing the principle upon which naval disarmament might proceed.
When that speech was delivered, no demand, no request was made in the House of Commons by any member of the Party to which the noble Lord belongs for further information. One small point was raised I believe by Commander Kenworthy, but no dissatisfaction was expressed by the Leaders of the noble Lord's Party on the ground that there had been insufficient information, nor was there any demand for further information; because it was probably understood at that time that the Foreign Secretary's explanation was a perfectly reasonable one—that until the proposals were communicated to the other Governments he did not like to say more about them.
I come now to the admission which I said I was ready to make in regard to the question of secrecy. It is true, of course, that Sir Austen Chamberlain did not give in the House of Commons the actual terms of the compromise, and I am free to admit that had it been possible for him or for anyone else at that time to foresee the extraordinarily wild and in many cases, I am afraid, malicious rumours and innuendoes that sprang up, not immediately but after a short time—if anybody could have foreseen that I have very little doubt that my right hon.
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friend would in that case have published the terms of the compromise and would have explained to foreign Governments that this departure from the ordinary courtesies of international intercourse was for a good reason which it would have been possible to make them understand. But, as I say, no one could possibly have foreseen that. I would like to insist upon this point in that connection. Supposing that he had at that time published the exact text of the compromise, it would not, in point of fact, have silenced in any way the innuendoes that were being publicly expressed because, as I shall show in a moment, many of the most mischievous things that were said would have been quite as compatible with the actual text of the compromise as they were with the announcement which he had made without giving the text. Unfortunately, as your Lordships will remember, very shortly after the speech of my right hon. friend in the House of Commons from which I have just quoted, he had a very unfortunate breakdown in health, and therefore from that time he at all events has no responsibility for anything that took place, and from that moment the whole and exclusive responsibility in regard to this matter rests upon myself. I wish that to be clearly understood.
As far as I can trace it, the mischief, because there has been mischief, I admit, began with perfectly unauthenticated statements in certain French newspapers in the month of August. I was not immediately aware of what they were saying, though of course it was brought to my attention after a short time. Those statements in the French Press vesting on absolutely no evidence, which were none the less believed in a very widespread way although they had no evidence or even any pretence of evidence in support of them, represented that the compromise which had been spoken of by the British Foreign Secretary in the House of Commons really covered something very much more than it pretended to do. Those French newspapers no doubt constituted a particular political movement to which they were in allegiance; they were Party newspapers. At all events that is what they did. They made the statement that this really was a secret alliance or something of the sort with arrangements for pooling the two navies. It was not unnatural that a statement of

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that sort caused misgiving in Germany, in Italy and in the United States of America, because, unfortunately, the public do not require their newspapers to be documented. They do not ask on what authority such a statement as that rests, and public opinion is very much misled.
As I say, it was a little time before I became aware of what was being said, and your Lordships, I am sure, will agree with me in this, that it is a very difficult matter to decide at what particular moment it is wise to contradict wild rumours that happen to be published in the Press, and especially in the Press of a foreign country. I must say when I first became aware of the things that were being said in the foreign Press, it appeared to me that they were so utterly wild, without any shadow of foundation for them, that I could not believe they would not very quickly be forgotten and pass away. I thought it was wiser not to issue a denial in the Press; but I was disappointed in that. I found that gale almost of misrepresentation and innuendo was growing. I was extremely occupied at the moment, as I was just going to Paris to sign the Kellogg Pact on behalf of His Majesty's Government, and was to go on from there to Geneva, which, as your Lordships know, is no light task. It was only when I got to Geneva that I came to the conclusion that I ought to do something to stop the false reports that were being spread, and thereupon I made a statement on the 30th August at Geneva, which gave really all the circumstances, so far as I was able to give them at that time, with regard to the negotiations that had been going on.
But I want to refer for a moment to the point I was pressing upon your Lordships just now—that the publication of the actual text of the three Notes in which the compromise was embodied would have done nothing to prevent those rumours. If people make the statement that concealed underneath the agreement there was an unavowed military alliance, that there was an arrangement that the two navies should concert action and so forth—all those rumours would have gone on just the same, because it was just, as easy to say that behind the text of the compromise there was a secret agreement. I myself was sanguine enough
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to hope, when I made a statement, which was published in all the Press, on August 30, that a definite categorical statement made by a member of your Lordships' House and a Minister of the Crown, would at all events have been believed, but I am not at all sure that the statement that I made had that effect, as I think the noble Lord himself said. I do not think that it had that effect at all, and I am afraid, if I may say so, that even my noble friend Lord Cecil of Chelwood was not quite ready to accept my word in that regard.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: I do not know what the noble Lord is alluding to.
LORD CUSHENDUN: What I was referring to was this. My noble friend gave an interview to the Daily Telegraph a short time ago. It was published in the Daily Telegraph of October 23—that was after the White Paper was published. In that interview my noble friend—of course, it may have been forgetfulness, perhaps it was, on his part, but the very first words of an interview which he stated to be in relation to the Anglo-French naval compromise, as disclosed by the official documents were:
"It is a very good thing to have a definite assurance that there are no secret clauses in the Anglo-French agreement."
There was nothing new in that, unless my noble friend had forgotten it, if he accepted the statement which I had made six weeks or two months earlier. On August 30 I had made this statement, a portion of which perhaps your Lordships would allow me to read. The final paragraph in my statement—I do not think it could be more precise or categorical—on August 30 was in these words:—
"Speculations as to secret clauses and so forth have no foundation whatever. I see it suggested, for instance, that we were going to arrange for pooling our navy with the French. There is absolutely nothing in any such suggestion, nor is there anything at all in the shape of an agreed policy between ourselves and the French."
I will come back to that in a moment, because the noble Lord has put again to me the question whether or not that is true.
"It is not a question of policy. That has never been discussed. There are no secret clauses nor any arrangement as to an

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alliance or co-operation of navies. All that is absolutely beside the mark; nothing of the sort has ever been suggested."
I do not think that it would be easy to deny more emphatically the sort of reports that were at that time going about, and doing, as I freely admit, a great deal of mischief. I do not think it, would be possible to have issued a more emphatic denial.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: Perhaps my noble friend will allow me to say that I do not see how he reads into my interview any suggestion of disbelief in his former statement. Certainly, that was very far from my intention.
LORD CUSHENDUN: I am very glad indeed to have that assurance from my noble friend. I only wanted to bring out that what he on October 23 seemed to think was a new—
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: I did not say that.
LORD CUSHENDUN: It appeared to me to be so, but of course I accept my noble friend's statement. It is not worth arguing. What is the precise charge against us? I think I have succeeded in showing your Lordships at all events that there was no secrecy or any attempt at secrecy from first to last. What is the precise charge? I want to know whether the view of the critics of the Government—the noble Lord (Lord Thomson) and others—is that we ought not to have tried to compose our differences with the French. Is that what is suggested? I want to find out what the charge is. We are constantly being exhorted to proceed with disarmament. The noble Lord, Lord Thomson, repeated it time after time in the course of his speech. We are always being exhorted, though I may say, incidentally, we do not require any exhortation, because we are quite as anxious as the noble Lord or as my noble friend (Viscount Cecil of Chelwood) or any other member in this House. No one is more anxious, if my assurance may be accepted, than this Government to proceed with, to encourage and push on, with the policy of disarmament in any way that may be practicable.
As I say, we are constantly being exhorted to do that by international agreement, and it is only by international agreement, of course, that you can get
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disarmament. It is by international agreement that we are bound to do it under Article 8 of the Covenant to which the noble Lord referred in the early part of his speech. The noble Lord says we were not wrong to try to compose our differences with the French. By what conceivable method could we do that except by the method we adopted? A number of different States met together at Geneva endeavouring to arrive at an agreement among the whole lot. There was an emphatic difference, especially between two of them. May I remind the noble Lord, and any of your Lordships who are not familiar with the procedure at Geneva, that the whole of this matter arose from the fact that we had started the proceedings by tabling a Draft Convention. The French tabled a rival Draft Convention: therefore France was obviously the nation with whom we had to compose the difference. We were the two Governments which had put in the drafts upon which the discussion was taking place. Very well, you have to try to get an agreement among a number of different States, all with their different points of view, all with their own prejudices, their own principles, their own ideas. Between ourselves and France was the chief disagreement. How does anybody suggest, except by talking together, except by consultation, except by seeing whether by give-and-take it was possible to arrive at an agreement, that we could carry out what we are all agreed we want to get—namely, international agreement. But you cannot—though I think many of the critics of the Government, perhaps not in this House, are always trying it—you cannot at one and the same time exhort us to base international relations upon agreement and in the same breath denounce us when we adopt the only method for arriving at agreement.
There was another innuendo which came up and was doing a great deal of mischief in this connection, though I must say that I do not think the noble Lord himself said anything on those lines. But one of the most pernicious and mischievous suggestions which have been made is that because we arrived at an agreement with one nation it must necessarily imply hostility to some other nation. It was said in some quarters that this agreement, in all its simple and inno-

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cent form, which Sir Austen Chamberlain described in the House of Commons, involved an Anglo-French combination against Germany; at another time it was said it involved an Anglo-French combination against America; and I am not sure that we were not even accused of combining against Italy. Of course, there was not, as I say again for the hundredth time, the smallest shadow of foundation for, or evidence to support, such an innuendo as that.
And here, incidentally, may I be allowed to refer to something which the noble Lord said? I could not see its relevance to his own case, and I did not think that it was distinguished at any rate by any generosity towards myself. He thought it necessary to remind your Lordships of certain expressions of opinion which I used some years ago, which I quite admit were very strongly hostile to Germany. I was not the only one at that time who was using very strong expressions about Germany. Certainly nothing I said could rival the expressions that were used by no less distinguished a person than Mr. Lloyd George at that time; and I think that everybody knows it was very common throughout this country to be expressing very strong hostile feelings towards Germany. I quite admit that I did. But I am not ashamed to admit that, with the passage of time, the animosities of the War period have died down—it is a blessing that they have died down—and I am very free to confess that I have been subject to that process as well as other greater and better men than myself. I do not quite see what the purpose of the noble Lord was in dragging up from oblivion those particular expressions of which I was then guilty.
I have shown, I hope, that there was no concealment in the negotiations. I have shown, I hope, that owing to the circumstances of the time it was with France that it was necessary for us to come to some arrangement. I now come to a third head, and perhaps the most important, as the noble Lord admits that we ought to have tried to compose our differences with France. I now ask myself, were the actual terms of the compromise bad in themselves? Of course, there have been all sorts of criticism on this head, some of it very violent indeed, some of it more measured, and I should
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like to say I welcome the measured and moderate criticism of two such distinguished authorities on a matter of this kind as my noble friend Lord Cecil and my noble friend Lord Grey, both of whom have criticised the Government, fairly and moderately. But I do wish to point out that I think that even those criticisms of Lord Cecil and Lord Grey did not quite appreciate the true facts of this case.
Take the attitude of my noble friend Lord Cecil—and my reply to what he said applies equally and more strongly to the speech of the noble Lord—the criticism, put in various ways, was that we allowed the French to have unlimited small submarines, unlimited small cruisers, and that by their being unlimited we have apparently, in the minds of the critics, conferred some immunity upon the French Government which they do not possess at present. All that line of criticism rests upon this fallacy, that, the critic is comparing what was proposed to be done in the compromise with some ideal which has not been attained. The only fair comparison is with the existing state of things. Now, when your Lordships bear that in mind the whole of this criticism about allowing the French to have an unlimited number of small cruisers and an unlimited number of small submarines absolutely goes by the board. They have that now. We cannot prevent them having it. They can build as many submarines, both big and small, and as many cruisers, both big and small, as they choose. The only question that we had to consider was whether we could make some arrangement that would put some limitation upon this unlimited building. I quite agree with my noble friend that we would very much have preferred to limit those classes as well. It is hardly necessary to say this, because it is well known to everybody who has followed the matter at all, that our original proposal was to have nine categories of warships, which would have covered every class of combatant vessel, and that they should all be subjected to limitation. Naturally, therefore, we would have preferred to get what we originally proposed. But, when you are trying to arrange matters between a conflict of views, surely it is a commonplace that you must give and take. I notice that Mr. MacDonald yesterday in another

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place spoke as if the very fact of giving way from some position that you had once taken up was in itself a wrong thing to do. You cannot begin to compromise unless you are prepared to give up something that you would gladly have, and we did give up something in order to get some limitation. We were willing to give up that which we would certainly have desired to have.
The whole question is whether the limitation arranged in the compromise would or would not have been better than nothing. The noble Lord quoted a remark of mine made at Blackpool, I think, which I emphatically repeat. I think that in this, as in other matters, half a loaf is better than no bread. We have to realise, as I do not think that the critics of the Government have done, that the only alternatives were either to have some such arrangement as this or to confess that you could not do anything at all in the direction of disarmament. We have to remember that the Washington Agreement of 1921 was itself only partial and covered only two classes, and that our compromise, if it had been acceptable, would have extended the Washington Agreement a little further—I will not put it higher than that—and would have added to the two classes limited at Washington two further classes—namely, cruisers carrying the heaviest guns, of which I shall have a word to say in a moment, and the largest submarines. The Government perfectly realise that, from the point of view of national security, if we could imagine a time when we should be, as we have been in past times, at war with France, an unlimited number of small coasting submarines infesting the Channel would undoubtedly be a very great danger to us, so much so that it is really very much more to our interest than to that of the United States to have a limitation of these small submarines. As your Lordships know, we have more than once proposed to go a great deal further. We have been anxious to abolish submarines altogether, and we agreed with the United States Government in that proposal; but the simple fact is you cannot do it. The noble Lord said, and quite truly, that we cannot dictate, and, if the noble Lord has his way, apparently we cannot even persuade. How we are
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ever to arrive at any decision in a matter of this sort when first of all it is considered wrong to try to persuade each other by friendly talk and when it is admitted that we cannot dictate, I do not know.
Now I want to say something about the criticism of my noble friend, Viscount Grey of Fallodon. In the course of his speech at a luncheon the other day—a most moderate speech, if I may say so, and one of which I have no right, with one exception, to make the smallest complaint—he referred, as others have done, to the proposal regarding cruisers made in the compromise, and said that what we were proposing to do was simply to arrange with the French something that the United States Government had already rejected; and he added that to do this was very simple. He left no room for doubt that when he said "simple" he meant "imbecile." If I may say so, he was not strictly accurate. The proposal that was made in the compromise is not exactly that which the United States Government rejected. I do not want to go at length or in any detail into this side of the question. Nothing is further from my desire, and I do not think it would serve any useful purpose to plunge again into controversy which might possibly be misrepresented or misunderstood in the United States, but, as that point has been taken, I am bound to point out that the proposal regarding cruisers that was supported by the United States was that cruisers of 10,000 tons would meet their needs, and for this two reasons were given: (1), that cruisers of that size could be armed with 8-inch guns; and (2), that they were wanted—and on this the American representative laid most stress—because they were vessels of large cruising range.
It was pointed out that the Americans had not an unlimited supply of naval bases all over the world and that they wanted for their needs cruisers of a large cruising range. The proposal in the compromise that we arranged with the French for the first time did not propose to limit vessels on account of their tonnage. It proposed to limit them on account of the size of their guns. Consequently, supposing the Americans had seen their way to accept it, they would have had no limitation whatever of these very large cruisers, provided that they

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were not armed with 8-inch guns. In other words, one of the conditions that they laid down, and the one upon which they laid most emphasis, would have been satisfied, while the other one admittedly would not, and to that extent, and to that extent alone, the proposal in the compromise was at variance with that which the United States had previously accepted.
But even supposing that it had been true that what was proposed had already been rejected by the United States Government, does my noble friend Lord Grey really suggest that in a matter of this sort, when a great number of nations are trying to hammer out an agreement with great difficulty, it is imbecility to entertain a position which is put forward because it has been on a former occasion rejected by one of the Governments concerned? Is it imbecility to make such a suggestion as that? I respectfully submit that it is nothing of the sort, because, remember, we ourselves, and the French Government, were in this very compromise making large concessions from the attitude which we had previously adopted. We were each, for the sake of agreement, giving up something to which we undoubtedly attached a great deal of importance, and I cannot see that in those circumstances it is monstrous to suggest that some other nation might reconsider a position which it had previously taken up. If that cannot be done, if everybody, having once stated their position, is to take up an immovable attitude with regard to it, then what is the good of going to Geneva and discussing these matters at all? We can all sit at home and put down on paper what our attitude is towards all these matters, and nothing is to be gained by meeting together for friendly consultation, if you start with the idea that once an attitude is taken up there must be no deviation.
That, I am glad to say, is not the view of the American Government. The noble Lord spoke a great deal of what I think he called the half-suspicion, half-anger of these other nations. All I can say is that I see no trace of it. I think the communications which we have had from other nations have been perfectly friendly and perfectly courteous, and
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with reference to the point that I am now on, I wish to point out to my noble friend that in the last paragraph of the American reply, they even make a suggestion for keeping the door open for further discussion, and the suggestion which they put before us there is a suggestion which they must be, perfectly well aware we have already considered and rejected. I do not complain of that in the least. On the contrary, I can only assure your Lordships that the suggestion by the American Government will be carefully considered and examined by His Majesty's Government to see whether, either with or without amendment, it opens a way for further consideration of the question of disarmament. When we are doing that I do not think it would be at all fair to apply, and I am sure that Lord Grey would not apply, his epithet to the American Government. That sort of criticism is undoubtedly, and rightly, reserved for your own Government; you do not apply it to others.
What I want to point out in conclusion is in reply to the actual terms of the Motion which the noble Lord has put down for your consideration. The Motion says that these negotiations constitute an actual setback. I entirely deny it. They have done nothing of the sort. I do not wish to minimise the regret which I feel with regard to all that has clustered round them, but what has happened is that we are now hack in exactly the same position as if we had not made this proposal for a compromise at all. It means that we have to find some other way, and in that connection I feel that T am bound to answer the very specific question that was put to me by the noble Lord when he said that his main point was what are our commitments. I really do not know whether I can find more emphatic language than that which I have used already. If I could, I would use it. There are no commitments, and never have been.
LORD THOMSON: No commitments on our acceptance of the principle of trained reservists?
LORD CUSHENDUN: I say definitely that there are no commitments of any sort or kind. None. The noble Lord especially asked me with regard to the last paragraph in the French Note, which is as follows:—

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"Whatever the result, and even should this hope prove illusory, the two Governments would, none the less, he under the urgent obligation to concert either to ensure success by other means or to adopt a common policy so as to deal with the difficulties which would inevitably arise from a check to the work of the Preparatory Commission."
The noble Lord said that it was impossible that that paragraph should remain unanswered. He asked me first whether it had been answered. It is hardly necessary to assure him, I should have thought, that if an answer had been sent it would have appeared in the White Paper. No answer has been sent to it, and for a very good reason. The noble Lord compared it to the postcript to a lady's letter, and I accept the analogy. It is a very disagreeable thing among friends, whether nations or ladies, to be obliged to repel an advance, and what we felt was that that particular paragraph, which, as the noble Lord says, is vaguely expressed, does not make any specific proposal, but it did appear to us that it might bear the suggestion of something in the nature of a closer, formal, political alliance, rather than the mere friendliness, which I call the Entente, which exists between the two countries. We do not like to repel an advance, and we thought that our silence would be perfectly understood, and I have not the least doubt that it has been. We have not been asked for any further elucidation of our views about that, and I do not think our silence—I hope not—has done anything to disturb the warm and friendly feeling which we continue to entertain towards France, and which I hope we always shall continue to entertain towards France, although the particular attempt to agree upon the principle of disarmament has unfortunately not been successful.
There is only one other thing upon which I must say a word, because otherwise my silence might be misunderstood. It is with regard to the question of military reservists. There, again, we are undoubtedly in exactly the position we were in when my noble friend Lord Cecil made the speech which 'appears in the White Paper. This was before there was any sort of conversation or conference. I need not go fully into the circumstances, but he pointed out that His Majesty's Government, which he was so ably representing at Geneva, probably
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—he did not put it higher than that if I recollect rightly—would not insist upon their view with regard to military reservists. That is the position we are in to-day.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: You must put in the condition. The condition was that we had our way on naval matters.
LORD CUSHENDUN: The position we are in now is that it will be necessary before very long for the Government to give instructions to their representatives at the next meeting at Geneva. Those instructions have not yet been either drafted or even considered, but this is one of the points on which instructions will be necessary. But we are under no obligation.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: Hear, hear.
LORD CUSHENDUN: We can, if we like, alter our attitude and insist upon our own view with regard to military reservists. I do not encourage the noble Lord to think that we are likely to do so, because I believe it would be an absolutely futile thing to do. We know quite well, as my noble friend knew eighteen months ago, that whether we like it or not we should not get our view to prevail. We have not altered our view. We are still, of course, opposed, as this country has been always opposed, to conscription and compulsory military service. To all that we are opposed, and our view is that limitation of lard armaments must be very partial and probably ineffective to a large extent unless you bring into the limitation the trained reservists. But that is not the view not only of France but of practically all the military nations on the Continent.
Let me remind your Lordships that this is not merely a question of armaments. This is a matter which I have discussed with many Frenchmen, some of them of great eminence, and what I have learned—and I confess it surprised me—is that they regard this matter of universal military service not merely as a military question. They regard it as a social question and a political question. It is part and parcel of democracy in their view. They think that the liability of everybody to serve with the

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Colours is essential to the principle of equality. Therefore, I think, altogether apart from the question of disarmament, we should find it perfectly hopeless to try to move France and the other military nations on the Continent to take our view of it. As I said, I cannot encourage the noble Lord to think that we shall do what would be mere obstruction of disarmament. If we did so the noble Lord would be the first to condemn us the first time we had a debate on disarmament in this House. We have to get agreement one way or another. If we said we will not consent to any limitation of land forces which does not include the trained reservists, the only result of that would be that there would be no agreement at all and there would be no form of disarmament with regard to land forces.
Finally, let me point out to the noble Lord, and to your Lordships, that although our view is that without including the reservists disarmament must be ineffective, the Continental nations believe that they do carry out and are carrying out a large measure of disarmament by a totally different method. They contend—I am not pretending that I agree with them—that by cutting down the length of service with the Colours, although it does not disarm them in the sense of reducing their man power, it does by another road reduce their offensive strength. From that point of view they contend that they are not really neglecting disarmament when they adopt that view which we do not share. In this, as in the other matters which we have been discussing, I do not believe there is any good in going to Geneva at all, or in attempting to do any of these things by international agreement, unless you are willing for sufficiently good cause to surrender your own point of view and consent to give as well as take. That is my view of the whole matter.
I repeat that, although this particular failure has not given any definite setback to the cause of disarmament, I agree that it is very disappointing that it has not given it a very large fillip. If it had succeeded it would have given a very considerable fillip to disarmament. It would have carried it further than it has gone yet with good hopes of carrying another instalment later on. But we do
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not despair merely because we have had that discouragement. I repeat that His Majesty's Government are absolutely convinced, and I personally (which is a less important matter) am absolutely convinced of the supreme importance of promoting disarmament both from the national and the international points of view. I say we must not be discouraged but we must try to find, difficult as it may be, some other road of approach to a general agreement. But I do ask the noble Lord to bear in mind that unless we do get general agreement it impossible to do anything.
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON: My Lords, I would first of all deal with the criticism which the noble Lord has made directed to something which I said the other day. He implied, if he did not say it directly, that I had applied the word "imbecile" to the Government. Well, I did say something which entitled people to search for alternatives to the epithet which I actually used. I think the epithet which I actually used was "simple" in the least favourable sense of the word.
LORD CUSHENDUN: Is not that the same thing?
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON: The noble Lord says: "Is not that the same thing?" I have already made him a present of the admission that it leads to a possible search for alternatives, but I would like to assure him that the epithet "imbecile" was not the alternative which was in my mind. I had in mind a much shorter and more colloquial alternative if I used one at all, but I chose to use the epithet "simple" in that way, and I do not think it is quite right for the noble Lord to speak as if I had deliberately said "imbecile." He took the point that we do not apply that sort of term, not even the epithet "simple," to foreign Governments but we apply it to our own Government. Of course, that is so. This country is carried on by the Party system and an Opposition speaks about the Government in this country very much more freely, naturally, than it would speak about the Governments of foreign countries.
LORD CUSHENDUN: I do not in the least complain of it, not at all.
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON: Then I will not labour the point if that

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is so, but of course it is impossible as between nations. I think the noble Marquess said last night—I am sorry I could not be here, I had to be elsewhere—that we could not always speak out, and, of course, we cannot as regards foreign Governments.
Now let me come to the substance of the noble Lord's remarks. My point which he criticised was that the Government ought to have known that the proposal in the naval compromise about cruisers would be unacceptable to the United States. I followed the proceedings of the Three-Power Naval Conference at Geneva. I even wrote a letter to The Times after the compromise broke down, and it seemed to me in reading this White Paper that those who were negotiating the compromise at Paris were thinking entirely of what had taken place in the Preparatory Commission for Disarmament and had forgotten altogether what took place in the Three-Power Naval Conference. When I read the proposals which were made in the Anglo-French compromise it seemed to me absolutely certain that the United States would reject them. They were not on a minor point. They were on the very point which broke down the Three-Power Naval Conference and caused its failure, because the United States attached so much importance to it.
It is not really worth while to labour the point as to whether the noble Lord is in the right or I am in the right about this matter. This is a matter in which we have to take the view which the United States Government themselves considered—as to whether these proposals would be acceptable. The actual language used by the United States Government is this:—
"This proposal is obviously incompatible with the American position at the Three-Power Conference. It is even more unacceptable than the proposal put forward by the British Delegation at that Conference …"
Though my knowledge of what happened at the Three-Power Conference is confined to what has appeared in the Press, I must say that it seemed obvious to me that the British and French Governments would get that reply from the United States. I do not think they could reasonably have expected anything else.
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In regard to the method, I have not criticised the method of discussing this matter separately at Paris or anywhere else. If deadlocks occur in the Preparatory Commission for Disarmament between two particular Powers, it is obviously a proper method to adopt that they should discuss that deadlock between them with a view of getting rid of it before the Preparatory Commission for Disarmament meets again. Through the whole of this White Paper this thread runs, and I think the point ought to be emphasised, that the whole discussions with the French Government were not devoted to a separate agreement between the two Powers but to arriving at something between themselves which should be preliminary and lead to a general agreement. If the object of one Power is to make an agreement with another Power without reference to other Powers of course the two Powers may do as they please. But if, as in this case, the method chosen of a separate discussion at Paris was to lead to a general agreement, it was obviously futile to begin by taking as a principle of agreement something which the two Governments ought to have known that the most important factor in naval limitation, the United States, was sure to object to. I do not quarrel with the method adopted by the Government. What seemed to me so unfortunate was that, adopting the method, they came to a conclusion with each other which was certain not to further the cause of naval disarmament. That is the point I really wish to make. The noble Lord opposite has criticised it, and I think, with the White Paper before us, it was not fortunate; that in fact it has been, perhaps, the greatest factor in causing the failure of the whole Anglo-French naval compromise.
In my speech the other day I admit that I spoke very strongly of the mischief which I thought this Anglo-French naval compromise had done. But the view I took and the view I take now is that the more untoward the consequences have been the more anxious we ought to be to get over those consequences. The point I made was that to get over those consequences we must have help from the Government in order to enable us to co-operate in getting over them. The two things which I asked were, firstly, that the naval compromise should be declared at an end, and secondly, that it should be

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made clear that we were not competing in naval building with the United States, as the Prime Minister himself said a few days ago. I do not want to deal tonight with the second point, which has not yet come into debate. I welcomed most sincerely the statement of the noble Marquess opposite that the agreement was at an end. The statement of the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, on August 30, is borne out entirely, I think, by the contents of the White Paper. There was no agreement. There was no treaty. It was a preliminary compromise between the two Governments which would depend upon whether other nations accepted it. In fact, the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, said that it was so far from being a treaty that the so-called agreement—that was the phrase he used about it—would fall to the ground unless other Powers accepted it. After that I was sure that the Government would feel that the statement made on their behalf by Lord Cushendun would be stultified if, after the replies received from the Governments of the United States and Italy, the agreement was not declared at an end.
One point not covered by the statement of the noble Marquess yesterday was the point of the naval reservists. It has been made very plain in the White Paper that the naval reservists were not part of the text of the naval agreement; so much so that the question of the naval reservists was not mentioned at first to the other Powers to whom the purport of the compromise was communicated. I refer, of course, to the trained reservists. The noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, has dealt with that point this evening and has made it clear that we are under no obligations. He does not think it likely that we should change our minds but we are free to change our minds. The worst of the way in which this matter of the trained reserves has been dealt with in the White Paper and in negotiations is that it makes it so exceedingly difficult for us to deal with the question as if nothing had passed. It undoubtedly appears in the early part as a bargain. It appears quite clearly in the views exchanged between the British and French Governments that it is a bargain standing or falling with the naval agreement. Later on the Government say, I think in a Despatch to Washington, that it was really no bargain and no concession to the French Government because the Government
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had come to the conclusion that it would serve no good purpose to persist in it. It is very unfortunate that the thing should have got into the position of having appeared to be a bargain, because undoubtedly there will always be the impression that if we, do withdraw our objection to the trained reservists there is, something in the nature of a bargain still subsisting.
I do not know that the Government can go much further than the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, has gone to-day in saying that we are under no commitments. It is absurd, of course, to suppose that because something was part of this Anglo-French compromise we are, therefore, bound to give it up and take another course because the Anglo-French compromise is at an end. I consider that what is meant by the Anglo-French compromise being at an end is that we are perfectly free to press for the particular form of naval limitations which suit our interests, but the French are free from any obligation to support us if our views do not agree with their views. In the same way, with regard to the trained reservists, the French are free to adhere to their views, but it ought to be clearly understood that they must not necessarily receive our support for those views, and the utmost that we contemplated before the Anglo-French naval compromise—perhaps Lord Cecil of Chelwood can speak on this with more authority—was not that we were going to support it, but that we might not persist in an objection which we had previously raised.
I take the Anglo-French compromise, the whole thing military and naval, as being at an end. I accept the assurance of the Government. Although that assurance comes after all that has passed, I think it is necessary. After the suspicion which has been engendered it was not enough merely to make another speech such as the noble Lord, Lord Cushendun, made on August 30. It was all he could do at that time, I admit, because the replies of the United States and Italy had not been received then, but it wanted some definite striking statement, something which was a fact rather than words, and the statement that the compromise is at an end is, I think, the most that we can get at the present moment. I hope that that statement will be corroborated in Paris also. I have only one suggestion to make. I do not think

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any reply has been made to the United States and Italy. I think that the two Governments, the British and French, might agree each to send a communication to the United States Government and to Italy, and to Japan also, of course, saying what they have said in this House, that in view of the replies which have been received, the Anglo-French compromise is at an end, and will no longer be put forward as a basis for discussion. That, I think, might be worth doing as a matter of courtesy and also to emphasise the fact that the thing is really at an end.
Now, if the Anglo-French naval compromise is really at an end, if it is cleared out of the way, I would make a further suggestion to those of us who have felt most strongly about the misfortune of it, about the unhappy way in which it was handled—a criticism which applies to the French Government as much as to our own. I would apply the same epithet to both, because it was a joint matter between them. Some of us feel most strongly about it, feel that it has really given a check to discussions about armament. It has not brought the meeting of another naval conference upon the limitations of navies nearer; on the contrary, I think it has a little chilled the prospects for the time being, but I think even those of us who feel this most strongly ought to think it is only logical for us, if the agreement is declared at an end, not to keep it alive ourselves by continuing to discuss it in this country. Let us treat it as at an end. Do not let us go on talking as if it were alive. What we want to do is to get over the bad consequences abroad. I would myself, at any rate, like to take the line of impressing this point, that the Anglo-French naval compromise being at an end, other Governments ought to regard the matter as now one in which an entirely fresh start has been made, that they ought to regard the slate as being cleaned; that whatever they have felt about the Anglo-French naval compromise, they ought to recognise that there was really no intention in it except that of promoting general agreement, and that there was not intended to be any secrecy about it because other Governments were informed at once of the fact that an agreement had been come to, and it was announced immediately.
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What would be much worse than a thing like the Anglo-French compromise would be that any two Governments should come into a Preparatory Commission on disarmament with an understanding between themselves which had not been made public, and which only appeared when they were working together in the Preparatory Commission on disarmament. I think other Governments might take note of the fact, whatever they may think about the wisdom of this Anglo-French naval compromise, whatever they may think about the manner in which it has been handled, that it is something of which a clean breast has been made. I hope they will feel, especially the United States Government and Italy, that as they have rejected what has been proposed, it is even more incumbent upon them, knowing now the views of the British and French Governments, to do what they can to make us acquainted with any possible thing which they conceive will produce a general agreement.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, after the weighty speech to which we have just listened, I hope we may assume that this will be the last occasion on which this unhappy subject will have to be discussed, and that being so, perhaps your Lordships will allow me to say a very few words upon it. I was, if I may say so, a little surprised and puzzled by some parts of the speech of the noble Lord who introduced this Motion. He seemed to think that the setback to disarmament had been so serious that nothing could be done at all for several years. That seems to be very excessive pessimism. I should be very sorry to believe that. I think that if this agreement is definitely and entirely dropped and abandoned, it would not be right for this House to express an opinion that it had been a grave setback to the policy of disarmament. After the very definite abandonment of the agreement altogether, and the statement that we are not bound by any pact, whether on land or sea, I do not myself see why it should be a serious and a grave setback to the cause of disarmament.
I read, as most of your Lordships no doubt did, the speech of my noble friend Viscount Grey of Fallodon on this sub-

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ject the other day. He asked this House, and indeed the country, to accept the view, which I do accept, that it was, as he put it, an isolated blunder. I am not surprised that the Government are a little restive under the particular form of my noble friend's defence of their action. I remember a case I had when I was at the Bar. I was defending a gentleman who was accused of corruption in a municipal election. There was no doubt about the corruption and the only defence we could think of was that he was really so very stupid that he did not know what he was doing. While I spoke he was just below me and I enlarged on that topic. I have often wondered what his genuine feelings towards me were, for we got him off.
That has been rather the attitude of my noble friend towards the Government. I am ready to admit that this is an isolated blunder. I believe it was. Perhaps my noble friend on the Front Bench will not think I am unduly critical if I venture to say that these isolated blunders are becoming rather too frequent. This is one. There was—I think it was only a matter of wording perhaps—the method in which the Kellogg Pact proposals were received—I am not going into the details of it—the celebrated reservations and so on. I think that was a very unfortunate way of dealing with that question. It produced unfortunate results and, personally, I read with great pleasure the passage in the gracious Speech in which it was said:—
"My Government have been happy to accept the Treaty for the Renunciation of War in the form proposed by the Government of the United States."
That is exactly the state of things now, and I do not know that we need go back on the question of what was said when the Government were making up their minds in what form they would accept the Treaty. It has been accepted in the form proposed by the United States Government, and we, of course, are bound by the words of the form. Still, as I repeat, I think there was some misfortune in the way in which that question was handled.
I do not want to go back to the controversy in which I was personally concerned, the question of the Three-Power Conference last year. But I hope your
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Lordships will forgive the rather human inclination to say: "I told you so." It is a very silly thing to say, I know, but we all of us have a desire to say it when the opportunity occurs; and when I reflect that I was told from the Front Bench in effect that my resignation was quite causeless, and it was very courteously hinted that it was due to a fit of temper, I cannot help feeling that subsequent events may perhaps have induced the Government to see that there was really a very serious ground of dispute between us, and that perhaps I was not wholly wrong in the view that I took of it at that time.
I cannot help feeling—and I want to say this as strongly and as courteously as I can—that there was at that time, and that there still is to some extent, not an error of policy, not a determined desire to do what seems to me and others to be wrong, but rather a wrong way of approaching these questions. I cannot help feeling—I thought so at the time—that the result of the failure of the Conference was greatly to hamper disarmament and the progress of disarmament. That view was not accepted, but I note now that in many of those organs of public opinion which thought I was most wrong it is now treated as a matter of course that the failure of the Conference at Geneva has been a very serious blow to the cause of disarmament. And what I am a little anxious about, I confess, when I read the Papers in this Anglo-French correspondence, is to feel quite sure that the lessons which were taught by that failure have been really learned by His Majesty's advisers. I am sure they are in favour of disarmament—I do not question that for a moment. Of course I accept most fully what my noble friend Lord Cushendun has just said on the subject. They are very much in favour of it. But are they in favour of it to the extent that they will do what is necessary in order to secure it? That is the point, and that is what I am a little doubtful about.
I need not paint the lily by elaborating what Lord Grey has just said about the simplicity, as he regards it, of expecting that this agreement would be accepted by the United States. But may I point out how much worse it was even than my noble friend Lord Cushendun was prepared to admit just now? What

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was the issue upon which we found ourselves in a difficulty with the French last year? It was this, and simply this, as far as naval matters were concerned. They wanted to limit the fleets by total tonnage; we wanted to limit them, not only by total tonnage, but by tonnage in categories as well. That was the whole point. Under this proposed agreement both have gone. There is no limitation by total tonnage nor is there any limitation by categories. All that has been put in its place is that certain vessels are to be limited by categories. But, as for the rest, it is left completely at large, so that it is worse from my point of view than even the French or the English proposition at the Preparatory Commission last year.
And when my noble friend complains that it is wrong to say that we allowed small cruisers, I think he must recollect what had taken place at the Three-Power Conference. There undoubtedly the issue between us—not the issue between us and France, but the issue between us and the United States—was the extent to which these small cruisers should be limited. That was one of the great issues. I do not say it was the only one. There was the issue of the 8-inch guns as well, which was the actual point upon which we broke off; but the greater part of the discussion, as everyone can see who studies the documents, was as to the question of how many small cruisers should be allowed, and what should be the total, particularly of the British small cruisers. The Americans proposed a very drastic limitation, and the question was whether we could go sufficiently near to them to reach an agreement. I confess, I think, that but for the 8-inch gun question we might have reached that agreement. But that was the issue. Now you come and say we are going to put the whole thing aside; we are not going to limit the small cruisers at all; we are going to propose something which is very much worse than anything we proposed at the Three-Power Conference.
It really is not quite fair for my noble friend to say that it is absurd to talk about allowing small cruisers because the French are, apart from agreement, entitled to build them. The question is: Was it, or is it, or is it not, a reasonable proposition to say in this last proposal that there should be no limitation
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on small cruisers, and in that sense we were to allow complete liberty to build small cruisers? I confess that I share the opinion of my noble friend Lord Grey, that it was not reasonable to expect that the United States would accept such a proposal as that. And I do very respectfully urge upon my noble friends these propositions, which seem to me to go to the root of the disarmament question. You cannot expect any agreement on disarmament which does not include naval disarmament. That has been made quite abundantly clear by several of the Powers. You cannot have military disarmament without naval disarmament. It is reasonable from their point of view, and you must regard that as one of the fundamental factors of the situation. And I think this is also a fundamental factor—that you cannot have naval disarmament except by agreement among the great naval Powers, including, of course, Japan and the United States; and therefore it is no use making a proposition which goes to the very root of the objection which underlay the breakdown of the Three-Power Conference.
Why is it that the American attitude was so critical of our desire to have a large number of these small cruisers? It was because they thought that on those terms they could not reach, and that we did not intend them to reach (though we assured them to the contrary) what they called parity—equality, numerical, mathematical equality. Well, personally, I believe you have got to concede that principle absolutely. I thought so at the time, I said so at the time, I say so again; and what undoubtedly really disquieted American opinion was that they thought they saw in this new agreement an attempt to make it difficult for them to assert this doctrine of equality in fleets as between the United States and ourselves. That is really the fundamental matter, and I feel bound to press this upon the Government because I believe it lies at the very root of the whole difficulty. I do not want to dig up past controversies more than is necessary, but I do recollect a speech made at Haslemere by a distinguished member of the Government in which he said in so many words—I have the words here if they are challenged—that he was not prepared in a formal agreement to agree to what he called mathematical parity. I am sure

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that this is a fatal attitude. I feel bound to say quite plainly that if that distinguished gentleman is to guide the policy of the Government in these matters I see nothing but the gravest misfortune ahead of us and, what is much more important, I am suite sure that a very large body of my fellow-countrymen are of the same opinion. That is the first grave observation that I feel it right to make on this subject.
The second concerns a point that has already been touched upon. The proposals for this compromise arose from a conversation between two distinguished sailors. I am sure that they are admirable and competent in every way in their profession, but it is quite wrong to leave the negotiation of this question in the hands of sailors, however distinguished and patriotic they may be. It cannot be done safely. I need not point out to your Lordships some of the results that flowed from it. Unquestionably the treatment of the question of trained reserves, though not perhaps so important as some of the other aspects of this agreement, was dealt with in an unfortunate way. A great deal has been said about the attitude which, representing the Government of the day, I took last year at Geneva. What really was the question that arose? It was this. Admitting conscription—because we early came to the conclusion that it was hopeless to get any Continental country at this stage and moment to abandon conscription—ought you to limit trained reserves in numbers? There is great difficulty in doing this. I believe, indeed, it is almost impossible to do it, if by trained reserves you mean those who have passed through the army and been trained there. Evidently, if you have conscription, you pass so many people out of each class through the army and they become trained reserves automatically. You may, of course, make regulations as to the amount of renewed training in subsequent years, but I was assured that this would not really be a satisfactory way of dealing with the matter. Accordingly, if you are going to limit trained reserves, you must limit, not the trained reserves themselves, but the number of men who are called to the Colours by conscription.
On that point there was some discussion, but there was never anything like a concession one way or another. So far as my memory serves me, I do not think that my noble friends will find that I
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made any statement at all as to the possibility or impossibility of limiting the numbers called to the Colours in any particular year. One point that I did—I will not say concede, but about which I made a statement quoted in the White Paper, was, strictly speaking, concerned with trained reserves, and the statement was made because it appeared to me impracticable to limit trained reserves except in the sense of limiting the number of those called to the Colours. I do feel very strongly that there is a great deal to be said for limiting the period of service and, if you could get the service sufficiently limited so that all the armies were really brought down to a militia basis, you would do a great deal for the peaceful condition of Europe. On that point, certainly, no concession was hinted at or made by myself. More than that, there are many signs on the Continent that several nations are moving in that direction. I see that the Belgians have already announced that they are going to revise their period of service to eight months for ordinary soldiers and twelve or thirteen months for the more highly-trained soldiers, and I think that this might be a very fair way out of the difficulty. Observe that, when we left the thing in the hands of these two admirable sailors, they made no observation of that kind at all and no conditions as to the withdrawal of opposition to the trained reserves. Apparently they accepted the withdrawal without any conditions at all.
I do beg the Government not to treat this matter of disarmament as a question for their technical advisers, military, naval or even aerial, though I have a great respect for the Air Force. It is not so. It is not a question merely for technical advice, but a question of great national policy, the principles of which must be laid down by the civilian advisers of the Crown who occupy the chief posts of responsibility, acting on their responsibility, but, no doubt, collecting all the information that they require from their technical advisers. That is essential and vital to the whole proposal. I feel very strongly that, unless this principle is fully accepted, it is nonsense to talk about the question of small cruisers or anything of that kind being a question for naval advisers. Unless that principle is adopted

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we shall never advance and we shall never succeed in obtaining disarmament. It is not right to leave these things to technical men. It is not fair to them and it is not fair to the country.
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, in view of what has already been said and of the course that the debate has taken, I think that I need detain your Lordships only for a very few moments. The origin of this matter was, I think, unfortunate for the Government through no fault of their own. A statement was made by the Foreign Secretary in the House of Commons to which the ordinary person in the country did not attach any very great importance at the time, but supposed that it meant that we had succeeded in making some agreement and to that extent was glad. Then, of course, as the noble Lord said, from the Press, and particularly from the Press of other countries, there began to come mysterious hints, and this simple announcement was blown up and invested with the most mysterious and sinister character. For that, of course, the Government are not altogether to blame, and no doubt the accidental and unfortunate illness of the Foreign Secretary himself was partly responsible. We recognise that the noble Lord opposite was in a very difficult position personally at the time as to what it was best to do.
I do not want to press too many of the accusations that have been made or of the points that have been urged, but I should like to say one word about the question of secrecy. The noble Lord says that nothing could have been less secret than the arrangement that was made. I am not sure that I could go quite so far as that. After all, the statement of Sir Austen Chamberlain was rather a bald one. There was not much disclosed then as to what the arrangement was, and there was, I think, a modicum, not of misrepresentation, but perhaps of suppressio veri at various stages. For instance, so far as I can ascertain, in the communications of the agreement made to foreign Powers no mention is made of the question of trained reservists which we had agreed with the French, and when I look carefully at the statement on August 30 of the noble Lord, to which he referred us, and which he made to re-
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assure the world at large, in that statement I find no mention of the agreement with regard to trained reservists. That, of course, is not a full and frank disclosure, and the disadvantage of a disclosure which is not full and frank is that if somebody, or if the Press of some other country, for mischief-making or other reasons, hints at disclosures which are still possible, you are in a worse state than you were in before. So the matter is really unfortunate in many respects. Your Lordships know very well that you cannot control the irresponsible Press of our own country, and still less that of any other country.
To that extent the Government are entitled to some sympathy, but I do not think they are entitled to any sympathy for the blunder which they made in entering into this agreement at all, because it seems to be admitted by everybody, except by the noble Lord, that it must have been known, or ought to have been known, that the naval part of the agreement would be necessarily unacceptable to the United States. If that be so, what was the good of two people-trying to make an agreement which would only lead to disaster? I think myself—I do not wish to be quite as pessimistic as my noble friend behind me—that it is the case that the cause of disarmament has received a definite setback from this unfortunate incident, and I read with great interest the speech of Lord Grey last Monday, and was very glad to hear him again to-day. I think he was kind to the Government in calling it an isolated blunder. Their more candid friend on the other side said there had been a succession of these isolated blunders, and that is really our charge against them. It is not a charge of bad faith, it is not a charge of anything dishonest, or dishonourable, but it is a charge of having made a mess of affairs of this sort, which is of the very greatest importance, and, by one method or another, of having succeeded in the end in doing injury to the very cause which we are prepared to believe and hope they have at heart.
In one thing that I was going to say I have been entirely anticipated by the noble Viscount, Lord Grey. I was going to make some such suggestion as he made—namely, that the best way of getting

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rid of the matter, now that we are definitely assured that it is dead and buried, and the agreement is at an end, is to say no more about it. We want to try and start afresh. The blunder is not one which affects one particular Party in this country, but also national interests, and therefore we want, if possible, to forget it, except perhaps at the polls. It may be remembered there Against the Government, but I was going to make the same suggestion, that having received this very definite assurance we might pass away from the matter and let it lie, in the hope that we shall recover from the had effects it has had. I would like to endorse the suggestion of the noble Viscount who, with his great experience, would not make a suggestion which was impracticable, that the reply of the noble Lord might in some way be embodied in a Note to other Governments, so that the world at large might see what is the present attitude of His Majesty's Government towards the matter, and know that the whole thing has been swept out of the way.
If that can be done, the noble Lord, whose honesty none of us doubts, would be allowed on this occasion to leave the dock without conviction, and stand remanded
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until next June for judgment. That, I think, would be the best way of disposing of the matter. It has been a great misfortune, and I should like to end by calling your Lordships' attention to what I regard as an extremely favourable sign, which has not been mentioned in this debate to-night—namely, the speech of Mr. Baldwin at the Albert Hall on the question of the League of Nations—a speech with which lovers of peace will associate themselves almost entirely. If that is the spirit which animates His Majesty's Government, and they translate it into action rather more successfully than hitherto, then I think we shall all have reason to be satisfied. That is the note upon which I, personally, should like to dispose of this matter, and I hope that the assurances which the Government have given may be accepted, and may be believed, and above all, I hope, if one can hope, that they will be fruitful of action.
LORD THOMSON: I did not move for Papers, and I beg leave to withdraw my Resolution.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at a quarter before seven o'clock.