Sitting of 22 June 1932

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
London Midland and Scottish Railway Order Confirmation Bill [Lords].
Read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.
London and North Eastern Railway Order Confirmation Bill [Lords] (by Order).
Considered; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  CHINA.

    BOXER INDEMNITY.
    Mr. MANDERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is aware that the Boxer indemnity moneys remitted to China under the Act of 1931 are being used for purposes contrary to the terms of the Act and to undertakings given by the Government when it was passing into law; and what action he is taking in the matter?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Eden): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. The second part does not therefore arise.
    Mr. MANDER: In view of the fact that a promise was given to the House that this money was going to be used ultimately for educational purposes in China and that that has not been done, will the hon. Member make representations to the Chinese Government that they shall keep their engagements?
    Mr. EDEN: I do not think the hon. Member's statement is correct. We have no information that the money is being used otherwise than in accordance with
    1078
    the terms of the Act. If my hon. Friend has any other information we should be glad to receive it.
    Mr. MANDER: Is the hon. Member not aware that £40,000 has been spent on a new foreign office at Nanking at the bidding of the Chinese Government?
    Sir NICHOLAS GRATTAN-DOYLE: Can the hon. Member say if there is a Chinese Government?
    Mr. MANDER: Will the hon. Member make inquiries if I bring these facts to his attention?
    Mr. EDEN: Yes. I shall be glad to receive any information.

    MARITIME CUSTOMS, MANCHURIA.
    Mr. MANDERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the present position with regard to the proposal of the Manchukuo with reference to the maritime customs in Manchuria?
    Mr. EDEN: I have no information as to any proposal by Manchukuo. As regards the actual position, I cannot add anything to the answers given to my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Sir A. M. Samuel) on 13th and 20th June and the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean) on 14th June.
    Mr. MANDER: Has the hon. Member seen the statement in the "Times" today that the Customs and Excise have been seized by the Manchurian Government?
    Mr. EDEN: I have seen the statement but we have no confirmation of it at the Foreign Office.

  LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

    OFFICIALS (SALAEIES).
    Mr. MANDERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the total emoluments, including salaries and allowances, in gold marks of the Secretary-General of the League of Nations, the Director-General of the International Labour Office, and the British Ambassadors at Paris and Washington?
    Mr. EDEN: With my hon. Friend's permission, I will, since the answer is a long one and involves a table of figures, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    The figures are as follow:

    Gold Francs.

    Gold Marks.

    Secretary-General. Salary

    100,880

    =

    81,700

    Frais de représentation

    63,050

    =

    51,000

    Director-General, International Labour Office.

    Salary

    90,000

    =

    72,900

    Frais de représentation

    30,000

    =

    24,300

    £ Sterling.

    Gold Marks

    His Majesty's Ambassador at Paris. Salary

    2,250

    =

    34,900

    Frais de representation

    12,200

    =

    189,100

    Exchange adjustment

    2,320

    =

    36,000

    His Majesty's Ambassador at Washington.

    Salary

    2,250

    =

    34,900

    Frais de représentation

    13,250

    =

    205,500

    Exchange adjustment

    2,490

    =

    38,600

    The exchange adjustment, as was explained in reply to a question by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) on 15th February, is made in gold countries so as to secure, in respect of rather more than half the emoluments, the same sum in terms of local currency as was previously received. The amount payable to His Majesty's Ambassadors, as frais de représentation, depends upon the requirements of the individual posts. These are not comparable with those of the Secretary-General of the League of Nations and the Director-General of the International Labour Office, since His Majesty's Representatives in these two capitals occupy large official residences and have to maintain suitable establishments for the entertainment which their position requires of them. It may be well to add, that the salaries of His Majesty's Ambassadors are subject to Income Tax and Surtax, while those of the Secretary-General of the League of Nations and the Director-General of the International Labour Office are not.

    HAGUE NATIONALITY CONVENTION.
    Miss HORSBRUGH(for Miss CAZALET) asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is now in a position to inform the House of the terms in which it is intended to reply to the request from the Secretary-General of the League of Nations on 24th October, 1931, for the views of the British Government on the question of reconsideration of the Hague Nationality Convention and the claims on this matter put before the last Assembly by the International Women's Consultative Committee?
    Mr. EDEN: The reply is still under consideration, and I regret that I am not yet in a position to inform the House of its terms.
    Miss HORSBRUGH: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us when he will be able to give this information to the House?
    Mr. EDEN: I hope within a very few days.

  AVIATION.

    PERSIA.
    Mr. HUTCHISONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in view of the fact that the permit granted by the Persian Government to enable British aeroplanes to fly over Persia expires on 1st October next and that arrangements are being made in consequence at great expense to lay down an alternative route along the Arabian coast of the Persian Gulf, whether any representations have been made to the Persian Government in this connection?
    Mr. EDEN: The decision to use the route along the Arabian coast was taken by His Majesty's Government alone, and it has therefore not been necessary to make any representations to the Persian Government for an extension after 1st October.

    LIGHT AEROPLANE CLUBS (SUBSIDY).
    Mr. NEIL MACLEANasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air to how many private light aeroplane clubs Government subsidy has been granted; how many clubs have received the maximum subsidy; and the total sum paid in the past financial year; and whether, in view of the Government's insistence upon economy, he will reconsider this matter?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Philip Sassoon): As regards the first two parts of the question, excluding clubs affiliated to National Flying Services, 15 light aeroplane clubs have received subsidy payments. No club has in fact received the maximum subsidy under the 1931 scheme and the total subsidy payments to the clubs during that financial year amounted to approximately £10,220. As regards the lust part of the question, my Noble Friend very carefully examined the subject in all its bearings before reaching the conclusion that it was in the national interest to maintain these clubs in being, and that their continued existence could only be secured by the revised scheme recently approved. I may say that his decision received general endorsement from this House on the occasion of the Debate on Air Estimates.
    Mr. MACLEAN: Since the Government have declared the necessity for economy, and as this is purely an amateur sport, will the hon. Gentleman, in reconsidering the matter, if he is going to find it possible in the present circumstances to subsidise a gentleman's sport, he will also subsidise other sports in which the workers take part?

  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

    ADMIRALTY (ACCOUNTANT'S AND SECRETARY'S DEPARTMENTS).
    Mr. POTTERasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what will be the estimated net saving to the public purse as a result of the rearrangement of the Accountant's and Secretary's Departments of the Admiralty?
    The CIVIL LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Captain Euan Wallace): It is estimated that the net saving will amount to at least £8,000 a year.

    AIR MINISTRY.
    Brigadier-General NATIONasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air the total number of the personnel employed at the Air Ministry in administering the non-effective services; and what is the amount of their annual salaries?
    Sir P. SASSOON: The answer to the first part of the question is 13, and to the second part, approximately £4,900.
    Brigadier-General NATION: Can the right lion. Gentleman say what proportion of the personnel are serving officers and men of the Royal Air Force?
    Sir P. SASSOONPerhaps I had better have notice of that question.

    CUSTOMS AND EXCISE DEPARTMENT (STAFF).
    Mr. EDWARDS(for Mr. HICKS) asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the number of departmental higher clerical officers, departmental clerical officers, P-class clerks, and temporary clerks employed as at the most convenient date in the outdoor service of the Customs and Excise Department other than in the collectors' offices and sub-offices, and the allocation of such officers to the various collections?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Major Elliot): The figures are in process of compilation, and I will send the hon. Member a statement giving the figures asked for at an early date.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    PROMOTION.
    Mr. COCKSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of lieutenant-commanders in the zone for promotion to commander on 30th June, 1932; the number of promotions to be made; the number of lieutenant-commanders (ex-mate) in the zone; and how many of these latter officers have to be in the zone before two of them are selected for promotion half-yearly instead of one as heretofore?
    Captain WALLACE: 478 lieutenant-commanders are in the zone for promotion. Twenty-five promotions are to be made. Forty-two lieutenant-commanders (ex-mate) are in the promotion zone. Mates on promotion to the rank of lieutenant are absorbed into the general list of executive officers, and as such are considered for promotion entirely on their merits as compared with the other officers in the zone.
    Rear-Admiral GORDON CAMPBELL: In order to facilitate the promotion of these young and promising officers, will the Admiralty reduce the length of time that senior officers can remain on the active list unemployed?
    Captain WALLACE: I will bring that suggestion to the notice of the First Lord.
    Mr. COCKSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of mates and mates (E), respectively, commissioned as such prior to the Armistice, and the number of these officers who have been promoted to commander and engineer commander, respectively, in each of the half-yearly lists since that time?
    Captain WALLACE: As the reply contains a tabular statement, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate the answer in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. COCKS: Do not the figures show that the proportion is four to one against the executive rank, and will the Admiralty do something to rectify this proportion?
    Captain WALLACE: Perhaps my hon. Friend will study the figures.
    Following is the answer:
    369 promotions to the rank of acting mate and 153 to acting mate (E) were made up to the date of the Armistice. The following promotions from ex-mates and ex-mates (E) to commander and engineer commander respectively have been made since 1918:

    Commander.

    Engineer Commander.

    1918—

    December to 1926 June inclusive

    Nil

    Nil

    1926—

    December

    1

    —

    1927—

    June

    —

    —

    December

    —

    3

    1928—

    June

    —

    2

    December

    1

    4

    1929—

    June

    1

    3

    December

    1

    4

    1930—

    June

    1

    4

    December

    1

    4

    1931—

    June

    1

    4

    December

    1

    4

    Mr. COCKSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in making the selections for promotion to commander, he will take into account the fact that lieutenant-commanders (ex-mate) have served for some years as ratings and petty officers and, in some cases, warrant officers, before receiving commissions, and that, as they have not been permitted to specialise, they have spent, in comparison
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    with ex-cadets, a greater proportion of their careers at sea?
    Captain WALLACE: All lieutenant-commanders are selected for promotion solely on their merits, and their records of service are carefully considered before selection is made.

    ROYAL DOCKYARDS (EMPLOYES).
    Mr. EDWARDS(for Mr. HICKS) asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of men employed in the Royal Dockyards on 1st June, 1932, and on- 1st June, 1931?
    Captain WALLACE: The numbers of workpeople employed in all departments of the home dockyards on the nearest available dates are as follow:

    Week ending 4th June, 1932.

    Week ending 6th June, 1931.

    Portsmouth

    …

    12,985

    13,096

    Devonport

    …

    10,787

    11,107

    Chatham

    …

    8,326

    8,642

    Sheerness

    …

    2,056

    2,126

    Rosyth

    …

    699

    695

  TANGANYIKA (LOANS).
  Sir ALFRED BEITasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it is intended to issue any further loans to the territory of Tanganyika in the near future which shall be guaranteed by the British Government?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister): No, Sir.
  Mr. GEOFFREY PETO: In view of the large sums of money which we have advanced to this mandated territory, will my right hon. Friend endeavour to obtain in return power under the mandate to give preference to goods of British manufacture?
  Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I am not sure that that arises out of the question. I was asked whether we were issuing any further loans and the answer is "No."

  COLONIAL AND MANDATED TERRITORIES (DEVELOPMENT).
  Mr. DAVID GRENFELLasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any schemes for the extension of

  1085
  railways, improvement of harbours, or construction of roadways, or in connection with agriculture and forestry have been undertaken in Colonial and mandated territories since 30th September, 1931; the financial commitments or guarantees involved; and the estimated value of the contracts placed in this country, or about to be placed, consequent upon the schemes being put into operation?
  Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I assume that the question of the hon. Member refers to schemes assisted from the Colonial Development Fund or financed by funds provided under the terms of the East Africa Guaranteed Loans Act, 1926. The information which he requires. is contained in the third interim, report of the Colonial Development Advisory Committee (Cmd. 4079), of which I am sending him a copy, with one addendum relating to a scheme approved since the publication of the report. Colonial Governments are continuously engaged in unaided schemes of improvement and development so far as their revenues permit. But I am afraid that to answer the question the hon. Member put with regard to such schemes would involve asking every Colony for a list of all work put in hand.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE.

    CIVIL STAFF AND EMPLOYES, FARNBOROUGH.
    Captain HAROLD BALFOURasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air the number of civil staff and employés at the Royal Air Force,, Farnborough, and the cost thereof in April, 1922, and April, 1932, respectively?
    Sir P. SASSOON: The number and estimated annual cost of the staff and employés at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, in April, 1922. were 1,356 and £290,830 respectively, and in April, 1932, 1.342 and £321,600. I may add that the figures for 1032 include the major portion of the staff and cost of the Airworthiness and Technical Publications Departments which in April, 1922, were located at the Air Ministry.

    CIVIL AVIATION BRANCH.
    Captain BALFOURasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air the total number of staff employed in the civil aviation branch of the Air Ministry on inspection of civil aircraft and
    1086
    engines, and on certification of airworthiness and testing of civil aircraft; and the total number of registered British civil aircraft?
    Sir P. SASSOON: As regards the first part of the question, the inspection of civil aircraft and engines and the testing of civil aircraft are not carried out by the Directorate of Civil Aviation, but by technical brandies and experimental establishments which arc primarily maintained for Royal Air Force purposes. A precise estimate of the total time spent on purely civil inspection and testing would involve a disproportionate expenditure of time and labour, and would not in any case afford a reliable indication of the numbers required for this work, if it were divorced from the work of the Royal Air Force. The preparation and issue of certificates of airworthiness is one of the duties of a branch of the Directorate of Civil Aviation, consisting of six officials. As regards the second part of the question, the total number of registered British civil aircraft was 984 on 30th April last.

    CONTRACTORS' LIST.
    Mr. KIRKWOODasked the Undersecretary of State for Air whether the India Tyre and Rubber Company, Inchinnan, is on the list of contractors to his Department?
    Sir P. SASSOON: The answer is in the affirmative.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Will the right hon. Member see that this firm comply with the Fair Wages Clause for contracts?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has a question later on that subject.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: But it is not to the same Department that my other question is addressed. I wish to put a question to the light hon. Member.
    Sir P. SASSOON: The contracts which are made insist on the maintenance of the Fair Wages Clause,
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Will the right hon. Member make inquiries, and he will find that this firm has refused to negotiate with the trade union leaders and there is previous cause for complaint.
    Sir P. SASSOON: I know that complaints have been made by the trade unions, and they are under investigation.

    FLOATING DEVICES.
    Rear-Admiral SUETERasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether his attention has been called to the rescue of an airman after having been afloat for eight days on his machine in the Atlantic; and if he will ascertain what special floating devices this aeroplane had and whether these could be considered for service aeroplanes that are called upon to fly over the sea?
    Sir P. SASSOON: Yes, Sir; inquiries are already being made.

    BOMBING AREA, LINCOLNSHIRE COAST.
    Mr. THOMAS WILLIAMSasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air what area on the Lincolnshire coast it is proposed to utilise as a practice bombing station for the Royal Air Force; whether it is proposed to evacuate the occupied villages in the area; and, if so, on what basis compensation will be paid?
    Sir P. SASSOON: This area comprises the sandhills extending southwards for about five miles from Saltfleet Haven to the coastguard station with the adjacent sea frontage and two other small adjacent areas. There are no villages within this area, and the last two parts of the question therefore do not arise.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Is the right hon. Member not aware that the area is used by people who are holidaying, and does he not think that there will be danger to the civilian population in any part of the area if such practice takes place?
    Sir P. SASSOON: I do not think that that comes under this particular question.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Is it not more desirable to indulge in these doubtful practices at sea?
    Mr. LOUIS SMITH: Having regard to the large number of children who visit this area, is there not an added danger owing to this practice of bombing?
    Sir P. SASSOON: When bombing take place every possible safeguard is of course taken.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Cannot the Undersecretary find some place in Kent; in his own Parliamentary division?
    Mr. THORNE: May I ask when the Government are going to economise in this direction?

    REPAIR DEPOT, SHREWSBURY.
    Mr. DUCKWORTHasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether any offers to purchase have been received in the case of the recently closed mechanican transport repair depot at Harlescott, Shrewsbury; and, if so, how many have been refused and how many are still under consideration?
    Sir P. SASSOON: It would not be in accordance with custom or in the public interest to disclose any details relating to the current negotiations for the sale of this depot. My hon. Friend may rest assured that the Air Ministry is giving close attention to the matter.
    Mr. DUCKWORTH: Does the Under-Secretary fully appreciate the severe loss caused to the town of Shrewsbury by the closing of this depot and the urgency of getting this valuable site utilised for some other purpose at the earliest possible moment?
    Sir P. SASSOON: Yes. We fully realise that.

    FATAL ACCIDENTS.
    Captain H. BALFOUR(for Mr. WELLS) asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air the number of fatal accidents in the Royal Air Force that have occurred while flying in close formation during the present year up to date and during the year 1931?
    Sir P. SASSOON: Five fatal accidents took place during 1931 and up to date in 1932 in the course of formation flying. In only one of these cases, however, can the accident be attributed to flying in close formation.

    AERODROMES (FLOOD-LIGHTING).
    Mr. THORNE(for Mr. McENTEE) asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether, arising out of recent floodlighting demonstrations at Heston airport, any alteration has been made or is contemplated in the flood-lighting of aerodromes used for night flying by the Royal Air Force?
    Sir P. SASSOON: The system of floodlighting at Heston is under investigation by officers of the Department.

  TRANSPORT.

    MOTOR ACCIDENTS (HOSPITALS).
    Mr. N. MACLEANasked the Minister of Transport whether he is taking any further action to diminish the burden on voluntary hospitals as the result of motor accidents?
    The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Pybus): I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for North Lanarkshire (Mr. Anstruther-Gray) on 15th June.
    Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: In view of the financial straits, will the right hon. Gentleman at least make some inquiries into a possible solution of this problem?
    Mr. PYBUS: This problem has been carefully considered, and while I fully sympathise with the desire of the hospital authorities, I may remand the House that during the passage of the Act it was pointed out that an Amendment moved to Section 36 was unlikely to achieve the result required.
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman consider the holding of a sweepstake as they do in Ireland?

    THIED-PARTY INSURANCE.
    Mr. GLOSSOPasked the Minister of Transport whether in view of the fact that third-party insurance with regard to motor vehicles is now compulsory, he will take steps to ensure that, in the case of insurance companies desiring to alter the terms of a policy on renewal, they shall give to the policy holder at least four weeks' notice of their intention prior to the expiration of an existing policy?
    Mr. PYBUS: I understand that it is already the usual practice of the companies to give at least two or three weeks' notice of their intention to alter the terms of a policy on renewal, and I think therefore that my hon. Friend's point is reasonably met.
    Mr. GLOSSOP: Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider the matter if I send him some instances where an insurance company have given only five days' notice of their intention to alter their tariff?
    Mr. PYBUS: I shall be glad to consider any case if the hon. Member will let me have particulars.

    MOTOR YACHT DETENTION, RAMSGATE.
    Captain BALFOURasked the Minister of Transport if he is aware that a private motor yacht, owned by Mr. Norman Dore, a customer of Ramsgate harbour for over 12 years, was recently forcibly prevented from leaving the inner harbour for the outer basin by the harbour staff; that Mr. Dore was informed that the detention was by the harbour master's orders and on account of unpaid dues, which amounted to under 10s. and for which the owner received no demand note; that Mr. Dore desired to pay the amount but was unable, to do so owing to the harbour office being closed, thus causing loss of tide and day; and if he will investigate this incident and issue instructions to the harbour master to treat users of the harbour more considerately?
    Mr. PYBUS: I am calling for a report upon the incident to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers, and will communicate with him when I have received it.

    UXBRIDGE BY-PASS.
    Sir GIFFORD FOXasked the Minister of Transport the present position in regard to the proposed extension of Western Avenue (Uxbridge by-pass); and whether it is intended to proceed with the work?
    Mr. PYBUS: Steps are being taken to safeguard the line of the proposed extension of the Western Avenue, but I see no immediate prospect of being in a position to offer a grant towards further construction.

    ROAD SERVICES, SCOTLAND.
    Lord SCONEasked the Minister of Transport if he will state, giving separate figures for each quarter, how many applications have been made to the traffic commissioners for Scotland (Northern Area) since their appointment for permission to run a motor vehicle service?
    Mr. PYBUS: As the answer contains figures I will, with my Noble Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the reply:
    Figures are not available for exact quarterly periods. Up to 30th June, 1931, 1,504 applications for road service licences

    1091
    or backings were made to the Traffic Commissioners for the Northern Area, Scotland. During the next six months— i.e., up to 19th December, 547 applications were made for road service licences and 266 for backings. From 20th December, 1931, to 31st March, 1932, 652 applications were made. Of these applitions 600 are in respect of the year 1932–33, i.e., for licences and backings which would become operative between 1st March, 1932, and 28th February, 1933.

    MOTOR VEHICLES (SPEED LIMIT).
    Mr. PRICEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department the number of motorists that have been prosecuted for dangerous driving since the abolition of the speed limit, and the number of convictions'?
    The UNDERSECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Oliver Stanley): Such figures as are available (which relate to the year 1931) will be included in the return of offences relating to motor vehicles, which is now in preparation. The figures will not, however, distinguish the different types of vehicles in respect of which proceedings were taken and, as the hon. Member is aware, the speed limit has not been abolished for all types of motor vehicles.

    ROAD SURFACING.
    Mr. GROVESasked the Minister of Transport if, in connection with schemes of road or bridge construction financed either wholly or partly by his Ministry, the Department makes any recommendations respecting the nature of road surfacing; whether his engineers have any data as to the cost and durability of various types of road foundations and surfaces; and whether these data are utilised previous to consent being given by his Department or whether such matters are left to the discretion of the engineering firms carrying out the works or the local authority?
    Mr. PYBUS: No proposals from any local authority involving grants from the Road Fund are approved until we are satisfied that they are technically sound. My Department possesses extensive information regarding the cost and durability of road foundations and surfaces.
    Mr. GROVES: Will the hon. Gentleman make all the information public?
    Mr. PYBUS: It is of an extensive and technical character, and it would obviously be extremely costly to publish all the information that we have in the Department regarding road construction.
    Mr. GROVES: I do not want all the information, but will the hon. Gentleman supply the cost of the different materials, stone, asphalt, and so on?
    Mr. PYBUS: Well, the hon. Member must put that question down.
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: In view of the extraordinary success of the instances where rubber has been put down in London, will the hon. Gentleman consider acquiring large quantities of surplus rubber for this purpose?
    Mr. PYBUS: That also is another question.

    CHISWICK AND TWICKENHAM BRIDGES.
    Mr. LEES-JONESasked the Minister of Transport the estimated cost of architectural bronze and other ornamental treatment on the new Chiswick and Twickenham bridges; and the estimated total cost of each bridge?
    Mr. PYBUS: The estimated cost of bronze and other ornamental treatment for the new Twickenham Bridge is £17,560. Although ornamental in appearance the bronze serves strictly practical purposes. No bronze work is being applied to the Chiswick Bridge. Neither of the bridges is elaborate in its architectural design, and use and beauty are too inseparably wedded to enable their respective cost to be assessed. The total costs of construction are estimated at £227,000 for the Chiswick Bridge and £221,500 for the Twickenham Bridge.

    RAILWAY ELECTRIFICATION.
    Mr. THORNE(for Mr. McENTEE) asked the Minister of Transport the latest information in his possession as to what progress has been made in the promotion of schemes of railway electrification, more especially on the London and North Eastern and Southern Railways?
    Mr. PYBUS: The Southern Railway Company have informed me that they are at present proceeding with a scheme for electrifying the line between London,

    1093
    Brighton and Worthing. The section covering Redhill and Three Bridges will be open for electric traction next month, and the company anticipate that the whole scheme will be completed at the end of the year. The London and North Eastern Railway Company state that they have schemes of London suburban electrification under consideration, and that in the event of the London Transport Bill becoming law they will be prepared to submit proposals to the Standing Joint Committee of the Transport Board and the railway companies which the Bill proposed to set up.

    MOTOR VEHICLES (NARROW ROADS).
    Mr. THORNE(for Mr. McENTEE) asked the Minister of Transport whether he will consider taking the necessary steps to prevent the use of narrow motor roads by motor vehicles of such a size as to vender the safe passing of another vehicle impossible; and whether any applications under the provisions of Section 7 (4) of the Roads Act, 1920, have been received from county councils or county borough councils?
    Mr. PYBUS: The responsibility for initiating proposals to restrict the use of vehicles on particular roads rests with the local authorities specified in Section 46 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, and while I am prepared to consider any applications made to me, I have no authority myself to take action. Eighty-four Orders made under the provisions of Section 7 (4) of the Roads Act, 1920, are at present in force, and one further Order will shortly be made.

  POST OFFICE.

    CONTRACTS (FAIR WAGES CLAUSE).
    Mr. KIRKWOODasked the Postmaster-General whether the India Tyre and Rubber Company, Inchinnan, carry out the fair wages clause with regard to trade union wages and conditions of their employés in their contracts with his Department?
    The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir Kingsley Wood): The only contract from the Post Office received by the firm was for leas than £60, and was completed more than a year ago. I have no reason to doubt that the fair wages clause embodied in the contract was duly observed.
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman also see that this firm make a fair profit?
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that in any future contract with this firm that they recognise the fair wages clause?
    Sir K. WOOD: I will certainly see that if a fair wages clause is inserted, as far as I am concerned, that it is observed.

    TELEPHONE DIRECTORY (CHARGES).
    Mr. TOUCHEasked the Postmaster-General the amount of revenue obtained by the charge of £l 10s. per annum for the insertion of an additional name in the London Telephone Directory; and whether he will consider reducing the amount of this charge?
    Sir K. WOOD: According to the latest available figures, the gross revenue obtained is about £24,000 a year. I regret that in existing financial conditions I do not feel justified in forgoing any part of this revenue by reducing the charge.

    BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION (SUPPLEMENTAL CHARTER).
    Mr. MAITLANDasked the Postmaster-General the reasons why a Supplemental Charter was granted to the British Broadcasting Corporation in August last?
    Sir K. WOOD: The amendment to the Charter was made to remove any doubt concerning the meaning of Clause 15. The Corporation took the view that under the original Charter it was compelled to invest its depreciation reserve in trustee securities while simultaneously borrowing for the purpose of capital development. The object of the Supplemental Charter was to make it clear that the Corporation could use these reserves both in place of new borrowing and also to repay existing loans.
    Mr. MAITLAND: I am much obliged by the reply. In view of the public interest taken in this matter, may I ask whether he will reconsider publishing the terms of the Supplemental Charter?
    Sir K. WOOD: In answer to the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. H. Morris) I have given full particulars of the operative clause as far as this matter is concerned.
    Mr. HOPKIN MORRIS: Will the right hon. Gentleman say why this Supplemental Charter was given without publication in the usual way in the "Gazette" of the application for the Charter?
    Sir K. WOOD: I think the reason for that was that as this was simply a Supplemental Charter to remove doubts, it was considered, in the circumstances, unnecessary.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Will the Postmaster-General lay the Supplemental Charter in the Library so that we may see it?
    Sir K. WOOD: With pleasure; and I will send the hon. Member a copy of it as well.
    Mr. MORRIS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Postmaster-General in the original Charter gave an assurance that before the Charter could come into operation papers would be laid on the Table of the House? Why were not the provisions of the Companies Act complied with in this case and the House given an opportunity of discussing the matter?
    Sir K. WOOD: I should like to have notice of the question before giving a fuller reply. As far as I am aware all the formalities were complied with, and the hon. Member knows that there is no obligation upon any Department to lay a copy of the Charter on the Table of the House, but inasmuch as the original Charter was laid this further document would have been laid but for the fact that it was simply a matter of removing doubts as to the interpretation of the original Clause.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a tremendous amount of discontent in Scotland about this broadcasting?
    Sir K. WOOD: Yes, there is always a lot of discontent in Scotland.
    Mr. MORRIS: I beg to give notice that, owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I will raise the matter of the Charters of the British Broadcasting Corporation on the Adjournment.

  FISHING INDUSTRY (HARBOUR IMPROVEMENTS).
  Mr. T. WILLIAMSasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has any
  1096
  progress to report in arranging and sanctioning schemes for the improvement of fishing harbours?
  The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Sir John Gilmour): Reports on the progress of schemes for the improvement of fishing harbours are included in the Ministry's annual reports on Sea Fisheries. The report for 1931 will be published shortly.

  LAND DRAINAGE.
  Mr. T. WILLIAMSasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has any progress to report in sanctioning further schemes for land drainage?
  Sir J. GILMOUR: I have nothing to add to the information I gave in my reply to a question by the hon. Member on 14th June.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: In those areas which have recently suffered from flooding, will he use his influence with the catchment area board responsible for the drainage to take in hand the necessary work?
  Sir J. GILMOUR: I am sure that the catchment board is alive to the necessity of doing everything in its power to deal with this problem.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on 25th October last year he himself discouraged them from doing this work?
  Sir J. GILMOUR: I thought it necessary at that time to discourage unnecessary expenditure owing to the financial position.

  SCOTLAND (REGISTER HOUSE).
  Mr. GUYasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is now in a position to state whether the recommendations of the Fleming Committee on the reorganisation of the Register House are to be adopted?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Major Sir Archibald Sinclair): No, Sir. The consultations which have taken place with the legal societies have disclosed divergencies of opinion, but further discussions are proceeding with a view to a decision being reached at the earliest possible date.
  Mr. GUY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if these recommendations were carried out, additional duties would be placed on second-class clerks?
  Sir A. SINCLAIR: I have no doubt that is true, and it is one of the considerations which is receiving careful attention at the present time.

  HOUGHTON-LE-SPRING RURAL COUNCIL (EXPENSES).
  Mr. DICKIEasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the Houghton-le-Spring Rural Council is sending one member to each of three conferences at places distant from their area in defiance of his refusal to give his sanction, thereby incurring expenditure which he has forbidden; and what action he proposes to take in the matter?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Mr. Ernest Brown): My right hon. Friend has seen a notice in the Press to the effect stated. Any expenditure incurred over and above that sanctioned by the Minister will come before the district auditor in due course.
  Mr. DICKIE: Have the Ministry any powers, apart from the power of surcharge, which is very rarely exercised, for preventing this joy-riding at the public expense?
  Mr. BROWN: I have given my hon. Friend an answer which outlines our powers. I think he will find that they are effective.

  PUBLIC ASSISTANCE (SCHOOL MEALS).
  Mr. THORNEasked the Minister of Health whether he has issued any instructions to public assistance committees regarding the reduction of equivalent amounts from the relief payments to unemployed parents in cases where the public education authority decides to supply free meals to necessitous children?
  Mr. E. BROWN: The attention of public assistance authorities has been drawn in general terms to the necessity of taking into account, in assessing the amount of relief to be afforded, income and means from every source available
  1098
  to the household (subject to certain statutory exceptions), but no general instructions dealing specifically with the point raised by the hon. Member have been issued.
  Mr. THORNE: Is the House to understand that when the local education authority give free meals to the children the public assistance committees are entitled to deduct an equivalent amount from relief payments?
  Mr. BROWN: The hon. Member must not understand anything except what I have told him in my answer. If he will compare my answer with Circular 1069 of 3rd January, 1930, issued by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wake-field (Mr. Greenwood), he will see what has been laid down in this matter.
  Mr. THORNE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a number of public assistance committees are taking into consideration the meals given to school children and stopping the equivalent from the Poor Law relief?
  Mr. BROWN: That does not arise from the question. If the hon. Member wishes to raise a specific point, I would like to see it on the Paper.
  Mr. THORNE: Will the hon. Gentleman be good enough to make inquiries from the Barking Public Assistance Committee?

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    RUSSIA (SCOTTISH HERRINGS).
    Mr. BOOTHBYasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether he can give any information regarding the purchase of Scottish cured herrings by the Government of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics?
    Mr. JOHN COLVILLE (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): Yes, Sir. Representatives of the herring industry combined to make an offer to sell a quantity of herrings to the Russian Government, and after negotiation a contract has been concluded with the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society for the supply of 100,000 barrels of Scottish cured herrings. I am informed that herrings were landed and cured in part fulfilment of the contract at the end of last week.
    Mr. BOOTHBY: In view of this and other orders recently placed in this country by the Soviet Government, will the hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance that he will not relax his efforts to extend the volume of trade between this country and Russia?
    Mr. G. PETO: Will England be called upon to advance money to pay for these herrings?
    Mr. COLVILLE: No, Sir, the finance was arranged by the Scottish Wholesale Co-operative Society, but His Majesty's Government did point out to the Russians that Scottish herrings were a healthy food.
    Mr. N. MACLEAN: Will the hon. Gentleman inform the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. Peto) that England can get these herrings if they pay for them?
    Mr. COLVILLE: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Will the hon. Gentleman not give some encouragement to trade with Russia in heavy machinery and shipping in order that we may get some work on the Clyde?

    DENMARK.
    Mr. CHORLTONasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department if he is aware of the attempts of the Danish authorities to try to stop kroner deposits in Copenhagen banks made by manufacturers of goods from this country; and will he see that a stop is put to this?
    Mr. COLVILLE: I am not aware of any case in which the deposit of kroner in a Copenhagen bank in respect of a debt due to a United Kingdom exporter has been refused. I am, however, aware that the use of such kroner deposits is subject to certain limitations in order to prevent the evasion of the general exchange regulations.
    Mr. CHORLTON: If I give information to the hon. Gentleman will he take some action?
    Mr. COLVILLE: I shall be glad if my hon. Friend will give me details of any case he has in mind.
    Mr. CHORLTONasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department if he is aware that customers in Denmark of British manufacturers have only
    1100
    received import licences for 8 per cent, to 12 per cent, of their British requirements; and what steps he will take to remedy this?
    Mr. COLVILLE: Licences for the first eight months of 1932 are being granted to Danish importers in proportion to their respective importations during 1931. Those importers who have purchased on a relatively liberal scale during the earlier months of the year have now only a small part of their allocation remaining. Other importers have larger unexhausted balances. These restrictions apply to importations of goods from all countries.
    Mr. CHORLTON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that discrimination is in fact taking place against us?
    Mr. COLVILLE: No, Sir. I have no evidence to support that statement but, again, if my hon. Friend has any case in mind, I shall be glad to have the details from him.
    Mr. CHORLTONasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department if he is yet able to report the steps he has taken with the Danish Government to secure priority of settlement of debts due to us as the largest buyers of Danish productions?
    Mr. COLVILLE: I have reason to believe that the Danish Government fully recognise the strength of the claim to which my hon. Friend refers, and which His Majesty's Minister is constantly pressing on their attention, and that no priority is being given to any other claimant.

  TITHE RENTCHARGE.
  Colonel RUGGLES-BRISEasked the Prime Minister if he will consider the setting up of a Royal Commission to inquire into the whole question of tithe, in view of the grave situation which obtains in many parts of the country?
  The LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL (Mr. Baldwin): I cannot accede to my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion. I am aware that many owners of agricultural land are unfortunately experiencing difficulties in meeting their legal obligations, including the payment of tithe rentcharge, and I understand that Queen Anne's Bounty, who own about two-thirds of the tithe rent-

  1101
  charge in the country, are prepared to consider sympathetically individual cases in depressed areas where financial hardship is involved. I cannot condemn too strongly the acts of violence in some parts of the country on the part of tithe payers in resisting the operation of the law, which have in some cases been directed against officers of the County Court. Such conduct offers no reason in my opinion for the setting up of a Royal Commission to inquire into the whole question of tithe rentcharge. In any case, the Government can hold out no prospect of legislation on this question.
  Colonel RUGGLES-BRISE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in some instances where county court judges feel themselves compelled to make orders for distraint, they do so with the knowledge that those orders cannot be enforced, and even indicate so, in giving judgment; and is such a situation not likely to bring the law of the land into contempt and also create a very unfortunate position between willing and would-be tithe payers and tithe owners?
  Mr. LANSBURY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the fact that multitudes of very poor people who are unable to pay the rent charged for their dwelling-places are being put out because of their inability to pay? If they refuse to go out, they are put out by the strong arm of the law. Why should these gentlemen be treated differently?
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is it not the case that the transformation—
  Mr. SPEAKER: Mr. Baldwin.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: Can I not put a supplementary question? I know something about this subject.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman cannot answer more than one question at a time.
  Mr. BALDWIN: In answer to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Maldon (Colonel Ruggles-Brise), I quite realise that in the payment of tithe, as in the payment of many other legal dues, there are grave difficulties to-day owing to the financial situation of the country. It is the object of the Government to do what they can to enable the country to make those payments with greater facility, and I hope we shall succeed. I would remind my hon. and gal-
  1102
  lant Friend that the legislation of 1918 and of 1925 particularly,, which was to be a final settlement of the tithe question, has saved the tithe-payers, since it was put into law, including the amount that they have to pay in Sinking Fund, no less than £14,000,000. It is impossible to do anything more for them at the present moment.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is it not the case that the transformation made by the very Acts which the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned, of payment in kind into payment in cash, made the tithe receiver into a debenture holder from a shareholder and that that is what has caused the difficulty? If he had been retained as a receiver in kind,, the difficulty would not have arisen.

  METROPOLITAN POLICE FORCE.
  Mr. GROVESasked the Home Secretary whether he will consider so arranging the pay and conditions of the members of the Metropolitan Police Force that they are in general conformity with organised industry; and whether he will recommend a standard minimum wage of £3 weekly with the extra pay for night shifts, holiday, and Sunday working?
  Mr. STANLEY: It is clearly desirable, in fixing the pay and other conditions of service of members of the Metropolitan and other police forces, that due regard should be paid to the standard of remuneration and conditions of service in other employments, as well as to the nature of the work and responsibilities to be undertaken. With regard to the latter part of the question, night work and Sunday work are an integral part of a policeman's ordinary duty, to which due regard is paid in determining the standard of remuneration. He is also entitled to a weekly rest day or payment in lieu and an annual holiday.
  Mr. GROVES: Will the hon. Gentleman say what regulates their pay?
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is it not an error to regard the police force as an organised industry? Is it not more in the nature of a profession, and rapidly becoming a learned profession?
  Mr. STANLEY: That does not arise out of the question.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: It is in the question.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,—
London County Council (General Powers) Bill, with Amendments.
Amendments to—
Sidmouth Water Bill [Lords], without Amendment.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Grange-mouth and Stirling Water." [Grange-mouth and Stirling Water Order Confirmation Bill [Lords].]

GRANGEMOUTH AND STIRLING WATER ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL [Lords].
Read the First time; and ordered (under Section 9 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899) to be read a Second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 109.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY.
  [15TH ALLOTTED DAY.]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Captain BOURNE in the Chair.]
  CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1932.

  SUPPLY.
    Class V.

      DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH FOR SCOTLAND.
      Motion made, and Question proposed,
      "That a sum, not exceeding £1,572,002, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1933, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of Health for Scotland; including Grants and other Expenses in connection with Housing, certain Grants to Local Authorities, &c., Grant in Aid of the Highlands and Islands Medical Service, Grants in Aid of Benefits and Expenses of Administration under the National Health Insurance Acts certain Expenses in connection with the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Acts, and other Services."—[Note.—£1,120,000 has been voted on account.]
      The UNDERSECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. Skelton): In presenting to the Committee the Estimates for the Scottish Department of Health, I think it will be useful if my first observations are on the subject of the actual figures themselves, a summary of which the Committee will find on page 77 of the Civil Estimates, Class 5. The Committee will see, and those who are interested in economy—and who to-day is not?—will observe from that summary how small is the area of an extra-statutory sort where economies can readily be achieved in the Estimates of this Department, for out of a gross total of just short of £3,000,000, housing grants amount to very nearly £2,000,000, that is to say, £1,929,000, and sums payable to the National Health Insurance Fund amount to over £600,000. Therefore, it will be seen that the area of economy is very restricted. One may say, of course, that Departments vary in this respect, that the main function of certain Departments is to carry out statutory duties which involve the distribution of cash the amount of which is beyond their control, whereas other Departments are
      1110
      given a larger scope for the use of the money which Parliament entrusts to them.
      3.30 p.m.
      Despite the narrow range of economy which is possible, the Committee will see that the net decrease for this year is £35,000, and that decrease would have been considerably larger but for the fact that there is in the Estimates one considerable figure of increase, namely, grants towards housing expenditure amounting to £64,000. These grants are paid when the houses are completed, and they are grants, therefore, over which there is no control so far as this Estimate is concerned. What the Committee, has seen as to the figures will, I think, indicate what should be the main topic in my remarks this afternoon. It is clear on the figures themselves that the most important, from a financial and indeed from a social point of view, of all the duties of the Department of Health are those in connection with housing. The grants amount, as I say, to nearly £2,000,000 out of a total expenditure of just under £3,000,000, and I think it will be agreed that of all the social services of the day that of housing is the most important. Before I deal with the main topic of my remarks, there, are one or two other topics to which I should, like to address myself. They are only a selection of the great range of subjects which fall under the aegis of the Department of Health, but other subjects of importance may be raised and discussed, and I shall do my best at a later stage to reply to any questions that may be asked. I should like to say a word on that interesting and important subject, the general health of the community. It is a matter of real congratulation in a time of such great economic difficulties, when so many of our fellow-countrymen and women are out of work and suffering from the absence of solid wages, and are being supported in one form and another by lesser sums, that in general the health of Scotland during 1931 shows a definite though small improvement.
      The infant mortality rate last year was 82 per 1,000 instead of 83. Maternal mortality, which, as all who concern themselves with hygiene questions know, gives considerable anxiety throughout the world, was reduced from 6.9 per 1,000 to 5.9—a very substantial and

      1111
      definite decrease. Those who follow the history of what used to be regarded as one of the greatest of our disease scourges, tuberculosis, will not be surprised to find that once again the death rate from that disease fell last year from 88 to 87 per 1,000. These are significant figures and justify one in the view that, despite the economic difficulties to which I have referred, we have erected in this country, by the joint efforts of all the parties in the State, a system of public health, superimposed upon an immense amount of private effort, which even in these difficult times is able to hold its own with the forces of disease and death. I will leave the questions connected with public assistance, but I do not want to pass to the other subject to which I shall devote most of my attention without pointing out that last autumn we had in the realm of public assistance a remarkable opportunity of testing the efficiency and the skill of our local and central administrators. The introduction of the transitional payment system and the application of the means test threw upon the public assistance committees of every local authority in Scotland the new, heavy and urgent duty of making the necessary assessments. I do not enter into this subject for any other purpose but to say that, however divergent may be our views as to the means test, we can all combine in congratulating the public assistance authorities of Scotland on the energy, courage and skill with which they tackled the job thus unexpectedly thrown upon them. I select for illustration the greatest of the public assistance authorities, and the one which has to deal with the maximum number of cases, namely, Glasgow. When I tell the Committee that in six weeks the public assistance committee and the officers concerned dealt with 53,000 cases over and above their ordinary work, the Committee will agree that we who have some connection with the Department of Health and local government in Scotland have the right to congratulate ourselves upon the energy and efficiency of the officials who administer that scheme.
      I want to turn to the question of housing, which is a topic with which the great bulk of the Estimates which I am asking the Committee to pass is concerned. It is a topic about the necessity of which there is the maximum agree-
      1112
      ment in the public mind. It is a topic also from which, in days when economy has become a vital necessity, there spring some anxious questions. It is one of the riddles of the social services how best to carry on in these difficult times the work of housing so as to ensure that all that should be done is done and that nothing that should not be done is done, and that the possibly conflicting interests of housing and economy are reconciled. Let me state what has been done in the last few years. The figures show that the. local authorities have responded with great determination to the request which was made to them in the autumn that they should do all that they could for housing. The Committee will recollect that when the National Government took office, the only major recommendation of the May Report which was intentionally laid aside was that which concerned housing, the Government holding the view that the adoption of a forward housing policy was necessary for the country. As a consequence of that, my right hon. Friend addressed to the local authorities of Scotland a letter urging them to proceed with the work of housing.
      There is a considerable increase of the houses under construction in 1932 as compared with the two previous years. In 1930 there were under construction 10,580; in 1931, 10,508; and in 1932, 15,977—an increase of over 5,000. The second set of figures is even more important because it exemplifies and illustrates the efforts that local authorities have made. It is put in the form of an Irish bull, but perhaps it is none the worse for that. It is "houses under construction and approved but not yet begun," and the figures are—1930, 14,865; 1931, 16,960; and 1932, 23,854. That is a considerable effort on the part of local authorities. It may also interest the Committee to know the repercussions of these figures upon employment in the building trade and though, for my own part, I think it is right to say that housing must be treated on its own merits and not as a method of solving the unemployed problem, yet if in the course of housing efforts it is possible to provide a considerable amount of extra employment, so much the better. In 1930 there were 6,300 persons employed; in 1931, 5,900; and in 1932, to 31st May, 10,030. It is a matter of real importance that in a trade where

      1113
      unemployment is heavy we have been able in Scotland to give employment to some 5,000 extra men.
      So much for what has been done in the last three years. What of the future? What are the needs of Scotland? The Committee may recollect that under the 1930 Act local authorities were required to send in to the Department of Health a return showing their housing needs, and although not every authority has sent in its return there are only a few in default, and from the housing point of View they are not of very great importance. The figures of the 1930 returns are the most recent statement of current housing needs, though, of course, some of them have been met by the efforts to which I have just referred. Those returns show that just under 40,000 more houses are needed to house persons now in insanitary houses, 21,000 to abate overcrowding, and 13,000 to meet the normal growth of population; and there is an extra 4,000 which do not come in any of those categories
      Mr. MACQUISTEN: What is the total?
      Mr. SKELTON: I shall leave it to my hon. and learned Friend to add it up in any interval in which he may find my speech too dull.
      Mr. MACQUISTEN: I did not get all the figures.
      Mr. SKELTON: That is the need as was reckoned about the year 1930 by the local authorities, but I think it is only right to say here and now that since a great many of those returns were sent in a new and vital fact has been made known to us, namely, that the population of Scotland, as shown by the census of 1931, is not increasing, has, in fact, decreased by just under 40,000.
      Mr. KIRKWOOD: Shame!
      Mr. SKELTON: It is, indeed, a shame, but I do not think it is due to any question connected with housing but to questions connected with economics and industry.
      Mr. KIRKWOOD: It is not due to emigration.
      Mr. SKELTON: I will leave that point to another speech. What we have to consider is whether we must say that
      1114
      the 13,000 additional houses which were said to be required against the normal growth of population is a figure to be now disregarded. I say no, and for this reason, that there has been very considerable increases in the great cities and some of the larger burghs. The increase in Aberdeen was 4.9 per cent.; in Edinburgh, 4.5; in Glasgow, 3.5; and in Dundee there was a very similar figure. In certain great cities and the bigger burghs there have been increases of at least 80,000, so that in those areas local authorities have to cater for an increased population. The Census has revealed another interesting and relevant fact, namely, that to-day there are nearly 100,000 more occupied houses than there were during the last Census. From that I wish to draw this deduction, which I think is irresistible, that if there is a somewhat declining population and an extra 100,000—or, precisely, 97,000— houses occupied, we must to some extent have reduced overcrowding in the 10 years, and, in fact, Census figures which I received only this morning, and which may still be provisional, do show that overcrowding is being diminished. In 1911, 22 years ago, the average number of persons per house in Scotland was 4.69.
      Mr. KIRKWOOD: Per room?
      Mr. SKELTON: No, per house. In 1921 that had been reduced to 4.61, and now it is 4.21; that is to say, there has been a reduction of.5 per cent. or half a person per house in Scotland. Though that may seem a small figure it marks, in fact, a very remarkable change, showing that there is now in every second house one person less than there was 20 years ago.
      Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: Can the hon. Gentleman give us the figures of individuals per room.?
      Mr. SKELTON: I cannot.
      Mr. MACLEAN: That is a very essential point so far as Scotland is concerned, seeing that there are so many large families living in single rooms—families of from five to nine.
      Mr. SKELTON: The figures will be available in time, but I have not got them with me at the moment. These more elaborate calculations take more time, and I think that we have been lucky in

      1115
      getting the figures I have given. I felt a figure so important as that, showing that in every second house in Scotland there is one person less than there was 20 years ago, must be given to the Committee at once, because it is a point of real importance to all who are interested in the question of over-crowding. [Interruption.] It is a considerable advance, and I hope that our finances and the general state of the nation will permit us to continue in that way in the next 20 years.
      So much for the situation as revealed by the Census. What is the deduction that I make? I think it follows that we have to be extremely careful to analyse most anxiously, and scrutinise most carefully, all applications for the building of new houses—not in order to reject them, but to make certain that the district which is applying for them is a district where the population is increasing and not one where it is declining; unless, indeed, there be other factors, such as the age of the town and the un-inhabitability of the houses, which may make reconstruction essential even if there were a certain decline in population. The fact that population is declining in Scotland, the fact that there is a large increase in the number of houses, the fact that we live in times of great financial stringency, when it is the duty of all carefully to husband the national resources, make it essential, in my opinion, that every scheme put before the Department should be the subject of anxious consideration. That is the policy which I propose to adopt, and indeed have adopted. It is for similar reasons to those which I have given that a few months ago, when the burgh of Clyde-bank put forward a scheme for an extended policy of housing, we were forced regretfully, and I am sure rightly, to say that an extended scheme of house building could not be approved at the moment, although the number of houses in the burgh which were known to be insanitary should be replaced by proper houses.
      Mr. KIRKWOOD: Is it not the case that the Clydebank Town Council unanimously petitioned, not only the Under-Secretary but the Secretary of State for Scotland, for 400 houses, and they met with a refusal after representa-
      1116
      tives of the Government had been going round the country advocating that we should go ahead with housing?
      Mr. SKELTON:I thought, perhaps, the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) might say a word or two about it. He pressed me, not unduly, on the subject, and we had many conversations on the topic. I say again, that regretfully but rightly, we came to the decision which I announced. Suppose you had certain districts where the population is declining, there may yet be there a necessity for looking after the housing difficulty. That is particularly the case in the country districts, for though it is a sorrowful fact, as those who have looked into the Census figures have found, that in all the purely rural counties there has been a decline in population, yet none the less we must make sure that the working population which remains in the country districts is properly housed. I have always held that the way to meet the rural situation was by applying the Rural Housing Act, 1926, to secure the rehabilitation of the existing population, and I am happy to say that, so far as the eating of the pudding is the proof of its merit, that seems to be the correct method in Scotland.
      It is most interesting and important to see the very wide use that has been made of the Act North of the Tweed. We have used it to reconstruct almost double the number of cottages which have been reconstructed in England. We have completed the reconstruction of 8,969 cottages in Scotland, while in England there has been completed only 4,779. I see a guilty blush on the face of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health. That shows that so far as Scotland is concerned the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the rural cottage is a right policy. We have in the last few months had very interesting confirmation of that and, if I am not wearying the Committee, I would like to point out what has happened. A few months ago we undertook a special investigation into the state of rural cottages in Berwickshire. We selected six rural parishes, some of them upland and some of them arable districts, and we found very interesting results. We found that out of 472 cottages, 189 had already been reconditioned mainly under the 1926 Act, but the vital thing that we found was that out

      1117
      of those 472 cottages only 20 were regarded as incapable of being improved. That is to say that so far as that one district is concerned—and I do not think it is untypical, certainly of the lowland districts—the value of the 1926 Act, which was confirmed by our predecessors by their extending it by the Act of 1931, is proved up to the hilt, because there are very few out of the total number of rural cottages with which you cannot deal by means of that Act. That is a most interesting and salient fact with regard to rural houses which ought to be kept in view when one says a word, as I must now say a word, on the subject of the 1931 Act.
      The Rural Housing Act, 1931, as the Committee will recollect, was passed by the last Government and applications were made under it last year by the rural districts that double the grant for houses should be given to them. As the result of the necessity for economy it was found necessary by the Exchequer to reduce the number. In Scotland our quota was reduced from 1,444 to 500. I, myself, would have treated that fact with greater regret if it were not that I am satisfied that in the 1926 Act and the reconditioning of cottages you have the main instrument to deal with the problem of rural housing.
      4.0 p.m.
      So much for the country districts. What about the houses in the other districts? The policy that we are adopting is to try as far as possible to concentrate upon slum clearance. That is so important that it must be put first in order of merit to overcome overcrowding and to sweep away slum areas. Sweeping away the slums seems to provide a maximum amount of social and hygienic advantage, and it is upon that that we are going to concentrate to the best of our ability. There is another matter connected with the building of houses that I must here mention, and upon which I am a little anxious—I will not go farther than that. The Committee will recollect that the 1930 Act was largely intended for slum clearance and for getting people into better houses. It applied to people who were very badly housed and especially high grants were given for that purpose. I am a little anxious, because in too many examples the people in the slums are not being put into the new houses, and I do not want somebody else to be put into the nice new local authority house
      1118
      and the so-called slum-dweller put into another house. If one were building a house one would like to ensure that the very nicest type of tenant one could get was going into it. I will not say that that is the right principle, but I think it is an established fact that many—I do not say all, though, hon. Members opposite might say all—of the people who look humble and homely characters when; you see them in a slum house, respond in. the most astonishing way when put into proper surroundings. I remember perfectly well many examples which came to my notice before I held my present office, and T have seen many examples since, of the high grants which the State gave under the 1930 Act. I believe that in a great many cases the maximum of stimulus may be given and the maximum of advantage may be gained if you put the slum dweller into a clean, new house, not into a rather grubby old house. There is a curious confirmation of that. In a certain great city there were two types of inspector, the blue lady and the green lady. It sounds rather like the rival parties in Byzantium where they had blue and green colours. I think it was the blue lady who was the ordinary inspector, who came and looked at you if you were just the ordinary type of occupant, but if you showed, any signs of being a particularly bad tenant you were then visited by the green lady; and it became a matter of universal opprobrium to be of such a type as to incur a visit from the green lady. That is merely a homely illustration of the fact that people, however bad their houses have been before, do respond to the influence of good ones. Therefore, I want to say to the local authorities of Scotland that, although I know quite well from my short experience that there are often cases when they cannot put a slum dweller into a new house, in operating the 1930 Act with its specially high grant, I do think it is of importance that so far as possible the slum dweller should get the advantage of the new house, because if he responds, besides a hygienic advantage you get a high social gain.
      So much for the construction and supply of houses. One word now on the subject of their use. I, myself, do not think that in a time of almost extreme financial stringency—I have repeated this, I think, almost ad nauseam for some

      1119
      years—anything connected with housing is of more importance than that when we have, with the assistance of a subsidy, built houses, the right people should get into them. Curiously enough the right people are not very clearly defined in any of these housing Acts—they are described as "the working classes"—but every-body knows, and everybody has always known, what is the intention. The intention is that working class people who cannot afford to pay an economic rent in the circumstances of their district should be given houses the rent of which is about fine same as they have been paying. That implies that the people who should get the advantage of the subsidy should be people who are in needy circumstances. There is, I think, a widespread feeling in Scotland that in a certain number of cases the right people do not always get into the houses. I had no means when I came into the office which I now occupy of knowing whether that was true, but I myself thought, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State thought, that that was a matter of such importance that we ought to see how matters stood. We, therefore, made use of a body called the Consultative Council on Local Health Administration and General Health Questions, to ask them the following questions: (1) What steps might we take in connection with the letting of houses under State-aided housing schemes to secure that in future they will be let only to tenants who by reason, of their economic condition would come within a strict interpretation of the term "Persons of the working classes," and (2) What economic standard might be adopted as the working rule for the above-mentioned purpose?
      It may be asked why I did not inquire of the local authorities. I did not do that for this reason: I did not want to burden the local authorities with more forms, more statistics and more inquiries. They are already heavily burdened. We had this admirable body representative of the different types of local authorities in Scotland, who, I was satisfied, would be the very people to make a preliminary inquiry. Although that inquiry is still in its very early stages, I am sure that when it is completed its results will be of value; and, of course, we shall take steps to make public whatever the result of the inquiry may be.
      Mr. DUNCAN GRAHAM: Can the Under-Secretary say who they are?
      Mr. SKELTON: Yes. They are Mr. Henry Alexander, Mr. A. W. Brady, Mr. David Brodie, Mr. George Cruikshank, Mr. James Cumming, Mr. John Fletcher, Miss M. C. Geddes, Mrs. Laura MacLean, Mr. W. M. Mowat, Mr. John Ogilvie, Mr. Betram Talbot, Mr. P. A. Thomson, Mr. William Watson, Mr. James Welsh and Sir W. E. Whyte. They will be recognised as people of authority. That is their first job; but they are making inquiries not only as to the future, but as to the past, and it is really about the past in this matter that I want to say a word. Of the total housing grants which we pay each year, amounting to £1,900,000, £971,000 is paid by the State in respect of Addison houses, and it is in respect of the Addison house that I think special inquiry should be made. I do not blame anyone; one knows the difficulties of getting houses in these days; but the fact is that on an average the State, that is to say, the Exchequer, pays a weekly subsidy of 14s. 8d. per week for 60 years for an Addison house, and it is therefore, in my judgment, imperative either that those who occupy Addison houses, if they can afford it, should pay proper rents for them, or, if they do not want to pay proper rents when they can afford to do so, they should go elsewhere, and leave the Addison house for the person who really needs a subsidy house. I say that it is important that that should be done. The general investigation, as I say, is the task of that Consultative Committee, but it so happens that I made a small inquiry on my own the other day with regard to the people who inhabit Addison houses. In many districts I know that there are no people in Addison houses except those who are strictly entitled to be in Addison houses; but I took a certain well-known scheme in a certain well-known city, a scheme consisting of 1,500 houses, every one of them drawing a State subsidy of, on the average, 14s. 8d. per week.
      Mr. TRAIN: May I ask the Undersecretary what the local authority pay?
      Mr. SKELTON: It is the fruit of a rate of four-fifths of a penny in the pound. I am dealing only with the State grant.
      Mr. TRAIN: It would be more than the State grant, would it not?
      Mr. SKELTON: No, very much less. Out of the l,500 houses in respect of which the State is paying 14s. 8d. per week, and if my memory serves me rightly the local authority is paying another Is. 6d. or thereby, there were, at all events, 74 occupiers rich enough to build garages in addition. It used to be said in the happy days of the United States prosperity that almost every artisan in the United States had a Ford car, and perhaps that was so, even in the case of the scheme to which I refer. But our Scottish Valuation roll is a mine of information for those who care to look at it, and if you look at that roll you find this sort of thing, that among the 1,500 occupants of the houses there are stockbrokers, lawyers, architects, managers, travellers, civil servants, merchants and manufacturers. I do not say that they may not be needy persons, but I do say that when you get people who so describe themselves, and when there are 70 of them prepared to build garages on somebody else's ground, there well may be a certain number of the people in that particular group of houses who do not really, in a time of financial stress, deserve a subsidy from the State of 16s. 2d. per week, or rather to live in a house in respect of which such a subsidy is paid; it is not actually true to say that they get the subsidy. It is a subsidy towards the cost of the house.
      Mr. GUY: May I ask whether there are any Members of Parliament in those houses?
      Mr. SKELTON: I specially mention no names; but in these times of uncertain general elections, nobody would describe himself on the Valuation Roll as a Member of Parliament, it might so rapidly become inaccurate.
      Mr. D. GRAHAM: How many of the occupants voted for the Labour party?
      Mr. SKELTON: I said that the Scottish Valuation Rolls are a mine of information, but there are some dreadful secrets which they do not disclose. I do not want to make any accusations or any charges—there is no reason why I should —but I do say that when you get a large block of houses like these where the occupiers so describe themselves, and where they are able to build garages, it is
      1122
      worth while in this time of economy either, if possible, to make those who can afford it pay a somewhat larger rent, thus reducing the State annual liability almost immediately, or, if they do not care to do that, let them go elsewhere and let those who really deserve Addison houses because of their economic conditions get them. I pause there, because I must give an answer to a question which I, myself, put.
      Mr. N. MACLEAN: What is the total rent paid per week for those houses which were investigated, according to the statement which the Under-Secretary has just made—those Addison houses which were being given a subsidy of 14s. 8d. per week?
      Mr. SKELTON: It is not possible to balance these two figures against each other. I am subject to correction if I am wrong, but, as far as I recollect, the rents in this particular block of 1,500 houses vary from £27 to £44 per annum.
      Mr. MACLEAN: According to the size of the house?
      Mr. SKELTON: According to the size of the house, I am informed; not according to the capacity of the tenant to pay. I think, therefore, that the Committee will agree that we were right in making an investigation into this question of subsidy, and for this reason. I say again, that I make no charge and no complaint; if it has happened, there well may have been extenuating circumstances. But in these times, when we still need a large number of houses in Scotland, if we can get some of these Addison houses free, or if, on the other hand, we can get the State burden reduced by some of the rents being increased, then we shall improve the situation either way.
      It may well be asked what will happen to the occupants if they leave their houses. Since the Addison house was built, an immense change has come over the prices of houses. Of the total houses now being built under subsidy, the average price for the actual building is only £308, and if you include the cost of the site, roads and so on, the total cost probably amounts to somewhere between £370 and 390. That is a very small sum; and there are provisions in the Housing Acts whereby local authorities can grant 90 per cent. of the price to be paid by private individuals building houses. It

      1123
      involves no expense to the local authority, because the interest charge covers the very small administration expenses which there are. I commend to those who are at present occupying Addison houses, but whose financial situation perhaps does not really altogether justify it, that they should consider whether this is not a time when it is their duty to build houses for themselves; and, from, the local authorities' point of view, whether it is not a time when a local authority ought, by the means which I have just mentioned, to assist those who desire to build houses.
      Mr. McGOVERN: Would the hon. Gentleman contrast the present cost of the building of a house of a type similar to the Addison house? Is it not the case that the people who are being subsidised are the people who lent the money for the building of that costly type of house at that time?
      Mr. SKELTON: From the point of view of the liability of the State it does not alter the situation.
      Mr. McGOVERN: You cannot sell goods in a warehouse to-day at the 1920 prices. Take the case of the person who is inhabiting an Addison house, and take the cost of building a similar house to-day. Are the persons occupying Addison houses paying more than an economic rent for what would be the cost of building such houses to-day?
      Mr. SKELTON: I think the answer would be that in many cases the rent of the Addison house is not economic, even on to-day's cost of building. I think that is so, but I would like to investigate the matter further.
      Mr. McGOVERN: Cannot we be given the cost of an Addison house when it was built and the cost of building a similar house to-day?
      Mr. SKELTON: I will see, and I hope to have the information in a very short time. Off-hand I should say that the house that cost £1,200 in Dr. Addison's time now costs about £800. But that is not the real point. The real point is that where you have this expensive type of house, if the tenant wants to stay there he ought to pay a bit more, or if there has to be a subsidised house it ought to be occupied by a person who really
      1124
      needs a subsidised house. Therefore I say that this is a matter for real inquiry, and that we have undertaken, as I have indicated.
      The greatest problem of housing in Scotland, and the most mysterious problem is this: Why has private enterprise not functioned in Scotland since the War? Before the War the houses built by private enterprise were 15,000, often 10,000, 9,000 or 8,000 a year. Since the War we have never built by unassisted private enterprise more than 2,000, and last year we built only 1,800. In England the situation is totally different. Last year no fewer than 130,000 private enterprise houses were built in England.
      Mr. N. MACLEAN: For sale.
      Mr. SKELTON: I think I have been very kind in answering questions, but I do not wish to have that kind of intervention in my observations, because it prevents my getting on with what I want to say. I was not saying whether the houses were for sale or for tenancy. What I did say was that in England private enterprise is functioning and that in Scotland it is not, whereas before the War it did. I believe that there is no matter more important, in connection with housing in Scotland, than to restore private enterprise to its function. How to do it I do not know. No one has yet agreed as to the causes of its decline. I will not weary the Committee with the various explanations offered, further than to say that some think it is the rating system. But the rating system is the same now as it was before the War. [An HON. MEMBER: "The Rent Restrictions Act!"] Rent Restrictions Acts do not apply to new houses. Some people blame the subsidies, but on the other hand it is the case that when the English subsidy became less useful to private enterprise all that happened was that there were fewer houses built by subsidy and a higher number built unassisted. I do not think we can safely say that the subsidy is the cause.
      The whole thing is a mystery. I have put the question to the Committee, and I have no answer to give; but I repeat that there is nothing more important, in connection with housing in Scotland, than that we should get private enterprise restored, so that in Scotland it can take a part equivalent to that which it plays

      1125
      in England. It may well be that building for sale has something to do with it. It was the case that before the War the speculative builder built for sale, not sale to the man who occupied a house, but sale to the man who wanted to put some small savings into a house as an investment. A variety of causes has reduced that, partly because there are other investments, like War Loan and Savings Certificates, which offer greater attractions. There is also the great uncertainty as to what rise there may be in rates in the next year. The investment of money in house property has, therefore, become a greater anxiety. That may be an explanation. If we can, we must find what the explanation is, and if it be possible we must restore private enterprise to its housing activities.
      I have covered the ground that I wanted to cover and have concentrated on the question of housing. In conclusion I am delighted to say that, so far as we are concerned in Scotland, we are all agreed that the present is the time when the strictest economies must be undertaken. I am sure that all who have any ministerial responsibility must to the very best of their ability aid the Treasury in its efforts to reduce national expenditure. I think it is the case that in the easier and happier days of the past there was a kind of division of ministerial labour; the Treasury did its best to economise and every other Departmental Minister did his best to hold up the end of his own Department in expenditure. That might have been very proper in ordinary times, but I am sure that to-day, when reduction of expenditure is the first order of the day, it is the duty of every one with ministerial responsibility to assist in every way possible in the furtherance of economy. The task of a Minister connected with a Department is this: He has to form in his own mind an order of merit in expenditure, in order to effect the greatest economy possible. In speaking for the first time on behalf of a great Department in Scotland I can say that no effort will be wanting on our part to effect every economy that is possible, and so far as the Department of Health is concerned I have no hesitation in saying that first in the order of merit of expenditure comes the housing of the people.
      Mr. N. MACLEAN: I think the Committee must congratulate the Undersecretary for Scotland on the painstaking way in which he has given the Committee his first report on the way in which the Department over which he exercises control has conducted itself since the present Government took office. The kindly way in which the hon. Gentleman has given way to those Members who desired to get a little clearer information and have questioned him, is also a matter which calls for our appreciation. On the whole I think we can say that the Under-Secretary has maintained the extraordinarily high position of excellence that is usually taken by Scottish officials when they give their reports, and that in general the hon. Gentleman has given an example to the officers of English Departments of the way in which the reports of their Departments should be given. The Under-Secretary devoted most of his speech to housing. I would first draw attention to the fact that when the Addison houses were built or contemplated this country had just emerged from the War. There had been practically four and a-half years of arrears of house building, not merely Governmental house building but private enterprise house building. Many houses had fallen into such a state of disrepair as to be practically untenantable, and it was necessary that new houses should be built in order to wipe out the stigma on the country of the very bad housing conditions then existing.
      4.30 p.m.
      Members of this House and those outside must realise that with all the considerations of economy to-day—whether they are justified I am not now saying— the nation just after the War, as the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) said in one of his famous speeches, was pursuing a very high purpose. The men who had fought in the trenches were asking to what kind of country they were coming back, what sort of homes they were to return to, and the right hon. Gentleman endeavoured to get the House of Commons to build houses that would be suitable homes for the returned heroes. At that time the nation did not consider that the cost was unwarranted in housing men who had fought and were said to have saved the Empire. But 14 years after the Empire has been saved—I am not casting any reflection on the Under-

      1127
      Secretary, but am merely pointing out what seems to me to be the general attitude of mind of those who are out to demand economies—the sacrifices made by the men in those 4½ years of war are forgotten, and the subsidy that has been paid and is being paid for the erection and maintenance of the Addison houses is now being grudged. I agree that for the most part the returned heroes are not living in the Addison houses. But that is not the fault of the returned heroes. Those of them who are working are not earning sufficient wages to pay the higher rents that are charged for the Addison houses. I interjected to ask the figure of rent. What is an ex-service man to do who is drawing 15s. 5d. for himself and 8s. for his wife on the means test if he has a rent of £27 a, year, with, rates in addition? Consequently, it is true that the houses that ought to be occupied by people who really require them and deserve them have had to be let to people who are willing to pay because those who originally occupied them have had to vacate them and many of them to go back to the slum quarters from which they gladly came with their families.
      We are told that the subsidy is 14s. 8d. per week per house. The hon. Gentleman has admitted that the same type of house built to-day would cost anything from £400 to £500 less than at the time the Addison houses were erected. That is a very large figure. These things have to be taken into consideration when we cast any slight on those who are inhabiting them to-day because they are able to pay the rent of the Addison house. Even those who have built garages have a right to build them if they are paying the rent, but those who can afford to build a garage ought not to inhabit a subsidised house. I do not know what their circumstances are. There, again, it might be necessary to inquire. But I agree that on the surface of things it looks as though anyone who can afford to build a garage in a corporation subsidy house ought at least to be able to pay a higher rent, and part of the subsidy ought to be taken off and applied to some other housing scheme in the same area.
      But the point with me is that, if those houses to-day are to be looked upon as houses to be let at economic rents, you cannot apply the economic rents of 1919–20
      1128
      to them. The economic rent to-day for the same type of house that was built under the Addison scheme is the rent at which the type of house that is being built to-day can be let. I think the Government would be well advised to consider the cutting of their loss on the high subsidies that they paid at that time, when they desired to house so many people who were looked upon as being worthy of the highest sacrifice that the country could make in order to make them some little return for the sacrifices that they had undergone during the War.
      Mr. SKELTON: The hon. Member will recollect that in the Addison Act there was no suggestion that the Addison houses were specially meant for ex-service men. I think the words of the Act were "working class houses."
      Mr. MACLEAN: I hope I did not suggest that. I merely pointed out that, when we entered upon the building of the Addison houses, it arose out of the great speech made by the then Prime Minister, who talked about homes for heroes and said we should require to build homes that those returning heroes were to walk into. That was shortly before the Armistice. We made those sacrifices and we ought not to grumble at them now. I agree that there was no restriction placed upon them. It was not held out that they must be for ex-service men only nor for the munition workers. They were working class houses available for the population owing to the holding up of building generally during the 4½ years of the War.
      Mr. SKELTON: In order to make it quite clear, as between the Addison housing scheme and the land settlement scheme there was this distinction, that the land settlement scheme was for ex-service men and the Addison houses were for the working classes.
      Mr. MACLEAN: There, again, the hon. Gentleman is summarising it very briefly. There was another passage in the great speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs in which he wanted to put large numbers of the men returning from the front back on the land and give them suitable holdings and suitable housing accommodation in which to live and bring up their families, and suitable farm buildings in which to rear stock. It was all part of

      1129
      the wonderful scheme that the right hon. Gentleman had, which was practically endorsed by the then House of Commons but which in many instances is now being grudged by those who formerly supported him and who are now doing their best to get out of the bargain—not a written bargain but a gentleman's agreement—entered into between the Government of that day and the people who had been fighting in the War.
      The hon. Gentleman considered that a great advance had been made because the housing that has been accomplished has reduced the number of people per house by one half or, as he put it, one per two houses. I asked him if he could state the average number per room, because a large number of single apartment houses and two apartment houses are inhabited by families who may be anything from four to eight or nine, or in some cases 10. I agree that the hon. Gentleman could not be expected on the spur of the moment to answer accurately in reply to a question across the Floor.
      Mr. SKELTON: The Census figures.
      Mr. MACLEAN: I have the Census figures for Glasgow. There is one ward, represented partly by the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) and the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton). The percentage of people living more than four to the room—not four to the house—is 19.4. In another ward the number is 13.1 to the room. That is represented by the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). In one ward in my constituency the percentage living more than four to a room is 12.5. Prior to the War and for the first two years after the War at least a half of that constituency was unbuilt over. Since then there has been a very extended municipal house building scheme which has taken in almost the entire open area, which was then farm land. In spite of that large extension, which should bring down the percentage, there is in one ward a percentage of 12.5 living more than four in a room. While we may claim some little credit, we should not be proud of it to the extent of pluming ourselves that we have done something extraordinarily great in solving the housing problem of Glasgow and of Scotland generally, particularly in the industrial areas. In 1930 there were 10,000 odd houses being built; in 1931, 10,000 odd; and in 1932, 15,000. The
      1130
      number approved but not yet commenced was in 1930, 14,800; in 1931, 16,900; and in 1932, 23,800. Of houses under construction the total that I get for those three years is 37,069, and the total approved but not yet built for the three years is 55,679. Those figures show that there is a long leeway to make up. Allowing 13,000 houses for the 1932 programme, you are practically a year behind, and yet your housing problem is still as acute as is indicated by the figures of the Census. Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh are no whit better than the figures I have read out for Glasgow.
      You cannot say that you cannot get labour. The Ministry of Labour Gazette this week states that in Scotland, out of 70,000 odd employed in the building industry, there are 14,427 unemployed. Surely it is worth while doing your best to put those 14,000 into employment and not have the Minister of Labour coming here with shame on his face to intimate that the number of unemployed has gone up once again this month as compared with the previous month? Give him an opportunity of coming here next month with a smile on his face to tell the House that owing to the action taken by the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, and the Secretary of State for Scotland, you have put so many new houses in the way of construction that you have taken 14,000 unemployed workers in the building industry and placed them in employment to help to carry out the programme which the hon. Member indicated to the House a few minutes ago. That would be something at least upon which he might hang his hat and some ambition to which to live up. I hope that by next month the Minister of Labour will be enabled to express the hope that the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Gentleman have fulfilled that ambition and set the wheels of employment going in that industry to assist at least in reducing by a very considerable number the 14,000 who are unemployed.
      An hon. Member wanted to know if any Members of Parliament are living in any of the subsidy houses. I can speak with authority, as I am the oldest Labour Member for Glasgow in this House, having been here for 14 years. To my knowledge there is not one Member of Parliament, Liberal, Tory or Labour inhabiting an Addison house in the city of Glasgow. [Interruption.] To the

      1131
      Englishman his home is his castle, and as far as the Scotsman is concerned, his home is not merely his castle, but everybody else's home is his castle, too, if he can get his hands upon it. At any rate, that is the ordinary acceptance of the idea of Scottish nationalism. I should like to assure the hon. Member, if he had anything at the back of his mind when he put his question to the Minister, that he can disabuse his mind entirely of any such idea.
      Mr. GUY: I must ask the hon. Member not to take my interruption too seriously.
      Mr. MACLEAN: I am not taking it too seriously. The only thing of which I am afraid is that people outside may take it seriously, because questions of that kind get into the Press and the idea may be set afoot, probably wrongly, that a Member of the House of Commons— and probably more than one—is getting the advantage of the subsidies when he ought not to be permitted to do so. It is just as well that such an idea, even if it has been put in the way of a joke, should be knocked on the head right away so that the public outside will not be under any misapprehension, as far as the Members of Parliament for Glasgow are concerned, at any rate.
      We are told that we are now to give private enterprise an opportunity of building houses similar to that which it had before the War. We have been informed that England is in an entirely different category from Scotland in the way in which private enterprise is erecting houses in England. Figures have been given showing that more than 100,000 houses have recently been erected in England by private enterprise. There always has been, not merely since the War, but for a considerable period prior to the War, a difference in house building in England as compared with Scotland. One has only to look at the newspapers, and particularly the London newspapers, to realise the number of houses which are being built here. I am convinced that the Government would not give any subsidy to those particular houses. In the main the houses which are being built in England by private enterprise are for sale and not to be let for rent. You see them advertised for sale on easy terms night after night in
      1132
      the newspapers, and you see advertisements concerning them on the public hoardings.
      I do not think that you can compare the houses which are being built in many parts of England with the same types of houses being built in Scotland. The amount of rent charged in respect of the houses in the suburbs of London could not be paid by any individual living in Scotland who merely wished to rent a house either in the industrial areas of Scotland or the outlying districts. Such houses might be bought on easy terms by some individuals in Scotland, but the major portion of the inhabitants of Scotland could not afford to purchase such houses. Consequently it is a mistake to contrast English house building methods under private enterprise with Scottish house-building, or even private enterprise house building in Scotland, which is in a worse condition than private enterprise house building in England.
      In the Estimates there is a figure with regard to midwives, training, and so on, and there is one point which strongly agitates the members of that profession, who must now be certificated. In many cases the midwife is called into a poor home, and probably after she has done all the work, the doctor receives his full fee, whereas she is often left without anything. I have known several cases in my constituency where the certified midwife has been unable to collect anything because of the poverty of the people she has attended. Something ought to be done to assure that those women should at least receive their fee in the same degree as the doctor. If there is only sufficient money to pay one fee, it should be shared in some proportion between the doctor and the midwife.
      We are told that we must exercise the strictest economy, and that we are living in very difficult times. Many of us on this side of the Committee do not altogether agree with hon. Members on the opposite side of the Committee with regard to all the talk about economy. Those who come to London do not see any idea of economy prevailing in the minds of many of the people they meet. We have only to read the Press and look at the pictures in the papers. Last week we saw "Golden Ascot," "Glorious Ascot." In contrast to the treatment meted out throughout the country as far as economy is con-

      1133
      cerned, London and its environs seem to attract all the wealth, glory and glamour of the United Kingdom. At all events, it would seem so from what we are able to see, what any observer may see in going through London and keeping a general observation. There would seem to be no reason for all the talk about a national crisis, and so on. If economy has to be exercised by this nation, for heaven's sake do not let us commence at the bottom of the ladder, where economies mean the persecution of the individual. Economise at the top where people will not miss that which you take from them and which will not mean the taking away even of a moment's pleasure, but only the spending of something less upon luxury. To make cuts at the other end of the scale means taking something from people which would have been spent upon necessaries, and consequently fewer of the necessaries of life than they have had before. The nation does not require such strict economy, but at any rate, whether economies are necessary or not, there is one economy which ought not to be permitted, and that is to slow down housing to the extent of continuing to force people to live in the slums of our towns in Scotland. It is not economy to slow down housing and make those people continue such a life. It is high time that someone spoke out strongly against it.
      I am glad that the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary has not taken that line and is trying to speed up houses. I am glad that he has taken the view that economy in that direction would prove to be false economy. I hope that he will continue in that light, and if he does so we will do what we can to help him during the time he remains in office and continues his programme. We will bring forward proposals to assist him, and maybe criticise schemes which he may bring forward. We shall not criticise him with the idea of attacking him personally, but in order that the people whom we represent in Scotland may enjoy all the benefits which can possibly come from the Office of which he is at present the head.
      5.0 p.m.
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I should like to offer my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland upon his first performance in his official capacity. As Scottish Mem-
      1134
      bers of Parliament we are all indebted to him for the care with which he answers our correspondence and the evident desire to meet us upon any point that we put before him. His speech today, as he himself said, was confined almost entirely to the one great subject of housing. There can be no greater subject, because it lies at the root of the health, welfare, happiness and contentment of the people of the country. It is always a pleasure to read the Report of the Scottish Department of Health. It is a very fine example of a State document. It is a full, comprehensive and well-written picture of the health and welfare of the people of Scotland as a whole. We Scottish Members are indebted to the Department for the care and the skill they have always shown since they started to write the Reports, in presenting an account of their stewardship to the British House of Commons. If I do not deal with the subject discussed both by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, and my hon. Friend the Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean), in regard to the larger question of urban houses, it is not because I am not interested in the subject, but because I represent the other side of the housing problem in Scotland—the rural side. Consequently, I propose to say a few words upon that particular aspect of the question. I feel sure that my colleagues from Scotland must have been pleased, not only to see what has been written in the Report, but to hear from the Undersecretary of State what has been happening with regard to rural housing. There can be, in a single house in a country district, as much slum as there can be in a big wynd or close in the City of Glasgow. The Act of 1926 has attempted, during the intervening years, to abolish slum conditions in individual houses in rural parts of Scotland, and I heard with great satisfaction that every single county in Scotland has placed before the Department of Health a scheme for the further improvement of conditions in its rural areas. The constituency which I represent was in the forefront to begin with, and I hope that it is still occupying its place.
      Another question to which I should like to refer is that of housing for farm servants. The late Secretary of State for

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      Scotland, Mr. Adamson, took a very great interest in this subject, and I notice that in the report there is some suggestion that investigations should take place in particular areas. I should be glad if, in the course of his reply, my hon. Friend would tell us anything more that he may have to say with regard to this question, because the housing of the farm servants of Scotland is a most important question from every point of view. We are anxious at the present time to prevent depopulation and to keep people on the land, and one of the first considerations in meeting a problem of so colossal and gigantic a nature is to see to it that the people whom you desire to keep on the land shall have fair, decent and respectable home conditions.
      Let me deal with one other aspect which is of particular importance from the Highland point of view—the Highlands and Islands [Medical Service] Fund. I do not think that any fund has ever been established which has done more good than this particular fund, and I am sure it must have been a matter of very great regret to the Department of Health that, in their Estimate for this year, they have had to decrease the amount which has hitherto been allocated to this fund. Last year it was, I think, £70,000, and this year it is only £66,000. I do not know what the reason may be for that decrease. There may be a good justification for it, but I should have thought that one of the falsest economies would be an economy in a direction of that kind. However, I have no doubt that in the course of his reply my hon. Friend will explain to us what the reason for this decrease is at the present moment.
      I am happy to say that I was one of those who took a fair part in the establishment of this particular service, and to-day anyone who goes to the Highlands of Scotland will see the great advantage that it has been, to every corner of the Highlands. The doctor in the old days was miserably paid. He was usually a very decent fellow, and a, highly skilled practitioner. He had to take enormously long journeys in all kinds of weather, and very often, at the end of it all, had not the desire to charge anything to the poor people whom he attended. In the old days, if ever there was a hero in the
      1136
      Highlands, it was the ordinary country practitioner, who fought blast and storm by sea and land in order to carry out his work, and who carried it out with great skill.
      To-day we see a change, and the comfort of the general medical practitioner in the Highlands is now quite safe. There are many cases, however, in which it might well be improved. I refer particularly to the housing of the doctor in the Highlands. A great deal might be done in that direction, particularly when one remembers that the local doctor may very often have several accident eases on his hands, and that he has no surgery. His house was built in years gone by, with no thought of new industries, accidents, or anything of that kind, and, skilled as he is, he has not the opportunity from the physical point of view of dealing with, cases of that kind in a surgery as a medical practitioner should. I strongly suggest to the Department of Health that they should reconsider the whole of this question. It is no use leaving it to the local authorities. The local authorities, for one reason or another, never take a step in that direction, and in my judgment the Department of Health should be firm about this matter and should see to it that, where the doctor has to deal with cases of that kind, he should have the physical advantage of a surgery in order that he may be able to deal with them properly. In a house of that kind there is probably only one small bathroom, and very often not much of a bathroom at all. These cases have to be treated in the house, and it is very difficult, merely from the hygienic point of view to deal with matters of that kind. unless proper arrangements are made, not only in he interests of the household of the doctor, but of the patients whom he attends.
      A new step in advance after the Act of 1931 has been the federation of the nursing associations. The nursing association was usually confined to a particular parish; each parish had its own nursing association—or had not—and the nurses were kept alive and paid by voluntary means. The case is quite different now. The Department and the county councils can federate all these nursing associations and guarantee a fair livelihood to the nurses, aided, as the public Department is, by the spontaneous good will of the people themselves. Not only is this federation of the nursing associa-

      1137
      tions a good tiling in itself, but it is also very valuable from the point of view that nurses can now be provided from a general pool, so that the ordinary nurse, who otherwise might never get a holiday, can always be provided with a substitute.
      There is one other point that is well worth consideration. I notice from the report that the Department has dealt with it, but has not dealt with it sufficiently well. I refer to the question of the provision of telephones in doctors' and nurses' houses, and, indeed, in the local post office. Reference is made in the report to the case of the Island of Soay. Hitherto, when the services of a doctor have been required on that island, it has been necessary to dispatch a boat to Glenbrittle, about one-and-a-half hour's sail, and, on landing, to travel nine miles by road to Carbost. Now, however, there is a telephone at the post office at Glenbrittle, so that the time spent on the road journey will be saved. The Department have the power to make a certain grant from the funds at their disposal in cases of that kind, where the demand of the post office cannot be met locally. The Post Office demands,, as we know to our cost, a minimum number of subscribers in rural districts. The people in those districts are often very poor, and cannot afford to give any such guarantee, and the Post Office, being an economic appanage of the Treasury, will never come forward and look at the question from the point of view of the general welfare of the country. I see that my right hon. and gallant Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is in his place, and I have made that little comment in order to ginger him up, because he himself was at one time connected with the Scottish Department of Health.
      I should like to conclude with an expression of gratitude to the Department for the way in which it has been carrying out its work, and a request that the points which I have brought forward today may be carefully looked into and attended to. If that is done, the result will be, in my judgment and in the judgment of all those who know the subject, greatly to improve a service which has done so much good for a well deserving people.
      Mr. ORMISTON: In rising for the first time to address this honourable House, I know that my Scottish colleagues will
      1138
      give me that consideration which is usually granted in such cases, and I hope that the English Members present will do likewise. I join with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) in congratulating the Under-Secretary on the very able statement which he has made to us this afternoon. I come from a highly industrial constituency, and,, in the course of my professional business, I am brought a great deal into contact with housing affairs, so that I think I may venture to claim to speak with that practical experience which is sometimes of much more value than theory. When the first Addison housing scheme was brought forward, those of us who had taken an interest in housing in Scotland felt that Dr. Addison was on wrong lines in trying to introduce into Scotland a type of house which had been foreign to our Scottish people. Scotland is a much colder part of the country than is London, and it has been the habit of people in Scotland to get close together and live in tenement houses rather than in cottage dwellings. Dr. Addison and his advisers said," No, your Scottish system of housing has been all wrong, and we are determined to show you the right way to live "; and they introduced the system of cottage buildings,, and built houses which wore intended, as my hon. Friend the Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) said, to be homes fit for heroes to live in.
      Unfortunately, however, notwithstanding a State subsidy of 14s. 8d. per week, and a county subsidy of 1s. 6d. per week, the rents charged for those houses were beyond the capacity of those heroes, or even of the working classes for whom the houses were intended. Consequently, they had to be let to civil servants, men in professional positions, and others who could well have afforded to pay an economic rent; and the most glaring fault of the system seems to me to have been the fact that those who were still occupying the poorer type of house—what we call in Scotland the but-and-ben, or the room-and-kitchen house—have had to pay a subsidy of about 1d. in the £ per annum in local rates to enable better-off citizens to live in houses for which they were not paying an economic rent. To my mind, that was a disgrace and a scandal in the housing system of Scotland. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has

      1139
      said that he deplores the fact that private enterprise in Scotland has not kept pace with private enterprise in England, and he wonders why that should be the case. I venture to offer the following observations on that point.
      In Scotland we have been accustomed to a system of land tenure whereby we pay an annual rent for our ground. Although we have been in the past accustomed to pay an annual rent for the house, the number of owner-occupied houses in Scotland, although the statistics are not available, must form a very small percentage of the owner-occupied houses in England. Why is that so? It is on account of the rating system in Scotland. In England the rating system is based on one rate only and is payable by the occupiers. In Scotland we have a system of rating which charges the rate not only upon the occupier but also upon the owner. The owner consequently if he builds houses to rent, has to get not only some return on the cost price of the house but has also to add to that some return on the amount of the rates he will have to pay and as those rates are a highly fluctuating quantity and have since the War increased by over 100 per cent. it has been found impracticable and impossible to build houses to let to annual tenants at a rent comparable with that which is charged for the State-subsidised houses. Again, the owner-occupier is assessed on a rental value equivalent to the rateable value of the State subsidised houses. Whereas the occupier of the State subsidised house has to pay only the occupier's rates, the owner-occupier has to pay owner's and occupier's rates at a valuation equivalent to the rent of a State-subsidised house. That is the reason why we have not the same number of owner-occupied houses in Scotland as exist in England.
      My hon. Friend quoted the case of a house of £400, and said that in that case the local authority would grant a loan of 90 per cent. of the value. Ninety per cent. of £400 is £360, which at 5 per cent. interest represents £18. On the £40 balance which the owner pays, allowing 5 per cent. interest, there is a further charge of £2. Then there is a feu duty of £4 a year and the cost of insurance and upkeep, amounting approximately to £6. On the top of that he has to
      1140
      add the owner's rates which, at the current rate of 5s. in the £ on an assessment rent of £40, would be £10, making an anuual outgo to the owner-occupier on a £400 house, in his position as owner, of £40 a year. On the top of that he is assessed for occupier's rates at a rate which, on the average in Scotland, is 6s. 8d. in the £, so that he has nearly £13 a year of occupier's rates to pay, making a total outgo of £53 a year on a £400 house. When we contrast that with what happens in England we find that the English owner-occupier has nothing like the same amount of rates to pay.
      I have always held the opinion that ft may be the duty of the State or the municipality to provide houses for the poorest of their population, not only from the health point of view, but also from the humanitarian point of view, because it is impossible for private owners to build houses of the class required by the very poor at rents within the compass of their power to pay. Therefore it is the duty of the State and the municipality to build houses for these poor people, but I protest against the municipality or the State building houses for people who can afford to pay economic rents, and letting them to those people at rents which are not economic rents. Just as there has been a means test in the application of unemployment relief, so there should be a means test for the occupying of State subsidised houses. No man whose income is beyond the limit of the National Health Insurance scheme should be allowed to occupy a State subsidised house. Those whose income is beyond that limit are well able to pay an economic rent for their house, and they should be bound to pay that economic rent. If the State and the municipality combined their energies to produce houses for the very poor, not only in the interests of health but in the interests of humanity, they would be performing a very useful service.
      I would suggest that the Department of Health in Scotland, in considering the instructions that they issue to various local authorities with regard to the necessity for the building of houses, should take into consideration the position as to the existing building conditions. In my constituency at the last Census in 1931 there were 171 houses empty, and yet at

      1141
      that time there were 241 State-subsidised houses in the course of erection.
      Mr. KIRKWOOD: What was the size of the houses?
      Mr. ORMISTON: Approximately of the room and kitchen type. The Department of Health in Scotland, who are influenced by the Ministry of Health in London, suggest that room and kitchen houses are no longer suitable for the working-class people of Scotland, but I suggest that in many cases, particularly in the case of old couples, a room and kitchen house is all that they want. It seems very unfair that the Ministry of Health should insist upon the town council of my constituency providing still more houses when there were 171 houses unoccupied at the time of the Census. The owners of those 171 houses, who are drawing no rent from them, have to pay a subsidy equivalent to one penny per annum on the annual rental value of those empty houses in order to provide houses to compete against their own houses that are unoccupied. Our system in Scotland is absolutely unfair. The idea that the owner of unlet property should have to contribute rates in order to provide more houses to compete with the empty houses that he owns is the very essence of injustice. I hope that the Undersecretary will look into this matter. Although I strongly support him in providing houses for the poorest people, I consider that it is the duty of the private citizen to look after himself.
      Mr. McGOVERN: I congratulate my fellow countryman on the very fine speech that he has delivered, and I think every hon. Member will agree with me, no matter what his political opinions may be, that the hon. Member delivered his speech with the utmost confidence, that he has taken an interest in the matters upon which he has spoken, and that he has given real information to the Committee. We shall look forward to the hon. Member taking part on many occasions in the discussions that must inevitably take place regarding our problems. While I am not generally disposed to do so, I congratulate the combination of officials that we have at the Scottish Office. I regard the Secretary of State, the Under-Secretary and the Solicitor-General, apart from ordinary political work, as a very fine combination
      1142
      of Scotsmen in charge of an administrative Department. They have ability and knowledge, and I believe they have the proper humanitarian outlook, and I hope they will be able during their term of office to make administrative changes that will be for the welfare of the people of Scotland. We hope that the administration will be made as humane as possible.
      To-day I want to become the practical politician. I would not ask the Front Bench to do anything if we were discussing legislation, because I understand that in legislation Ministers have their powers fixed by the Cabinet, and that no concessions are to be made. Therefore, it appears to me from time to time to be rather out of place to plead with Ministers for concessions which we know they cannot grant. To-day, however, we arc in a different realm. We are discussing the administration of the affairs, of Scotland. This is one of the very few occasions when we have an opportunity of making the operation of the law less harsh. I hope that although we are discussing here to-day Scottish affaire in England, the day will not be far distant when the men who are on the Front Bench will be sitting in Edinburgh and legislating there. I hope, however, that they will then be Members of the Opposition and not Members of the Government.
      In regard to the report that has been presented I want to offer a few observations. The Under-Secretary dealt with the report in a very fine manner, and I would like him to take note of one or two suggestions that I wish to offer, not from the point of view of legislation in the political sense, but for the purpose of easing hardships that exist under the present law. Two years ago when I came to this House I suggested in my maiden speech that the then Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. W. Adamson) should call the attention of local authorities in Scotland to the necessity of levelling up the scales of relief paid by the Poor Law where persons were residing in a city or in an outside area, and that there should be some attempt to make a change in regard to the scales that were being paid to those individuals. I want to state certain facts, which may be known to some hon. Members and may not be known to others, regarding some of the hardships that certain people are undergoing. Take the scales paid by Glasgow and Old

      1143
      Monkland. You may have a person residing in Scotland suffering from a permanent disability and compelled to apply to the Poor Law. That person may have resided for a lengthy period in Glasgow but the chargeability is on an outside parish. We get two different scales paid to two persons living in the same street or in the same flat that are out of all proportion to the cost of living in the area.
      5.30 p.m.
      In Glasgow we have a scale under the Poor Law whereby a married man receives 22s. 6d., rent allowance up to 7s. 6d., 4s. 6d. for the first child, 3s. 6d. for the second child and 2s. extra if the second child is under two years of age. The total paid to that family is 40s. per week, which I suggest is a fairly humane standard as the cost of living goes at the present time. On the other hand, we have an Old Monkland case where the allowance is 18s., no rent allowance, 2s. 6d. for the first child, 2s. for the second child or 22s. 6d. all told, compared with the 40s. paid in the Glasgow area. If we take the case of a widow we find that in Glasgow area she is paid 12s. 6d., for the first child 4s. 6d., for the second child 3s. 6d. and an extra 2s. if the second child is under two years of age, with a rent allowance of 7s. 6d. or up to that amount, making 30s. in all. Take a similar case from Old Monkland. A widow is paid 14s. and no rent allowance; for the first child 2s. 6d., and for the second child 2s. 6d., that is 19s., whilst the Glasgow case gets 30s. In the case of a married couple with two children the difference is 17s. 6d., and in the case of a widow with two children 11s. per week. These cases are not very numerous and, therefore, could be very easily dealt with. I understand that the Department cannot impose scales of relief on outside areas, but I suggest that they should convene a conference and have a heart to heart talk with the authorities, pointing out the hardship in those cases where people live in towns with a higher cost of living, and in that way get some of these differences removed. I have discussed this matter with the Glasgow public assistance officials and I think it is possible to wipe out the chargeability on outside parishes and give the scale of relief which is paid in the parish where the individual is residing. A promise
      1144
      was made two years ago by the then Secretary of State for Scotland that he would call a conference of that kind. The Under-Secretary of State made that promise, and I suppose he did so in good faith. I do not want to be harsh, but I say that knowing the late Secretary of State for Scotland I did not expect that promise would be carried out, and nothing has ever been done to my knowledge to rectify this wrong.
      Mr. DUNCAN GRAHAM: May I draw the attention of the hon. Member to the fact that a conference of Lanarkshire authorities was held, and that there was only one authority in the county which objected, and that was the authority of the Old Monkland parish?
      Mr. McGOVERN: I understand that a conference of that kind was held in Lanarkshire, but my claim is that the matter was not pursued as it should have been over the whole of Scotland. I am suggesting that we should wipe out these lines of demarcation. While I approve of the actions up to the present of the Secretary of State and Under-Secretary, I shall condemn them if I find there is any backsliding on their part. There is one part of the report which is worthy of special mention, and that is the boarding out of children. Nothing gives me greater satisfaction as an individual than to see the way this question is being handled by the Department of Health and local authorities. I find that there were 8,501 children chargeable to the Poor Law authorities on the 15th May, 1931, and of that number 6,418 were boarded out. There was at first a certain amount of antagonism to the boarding out of children. Before I came into closer contact with the system I was rather sceptical and a little antagonistic, but I find that these children, large numbers of whom come from bad homes or whose parents are deceased, are treated in the most humane and considerate manner. The nation as a whole has cause to congratulate the persons who were responsible for this innovation, which was fought tenaciously by a section of the public in Glasgow. It costs considerably more to board out these children than it does to give them out-door relief, but no one will grudge anything that is paid in connection with this work.
      In regard to housing we come to a rather more complex and difficult subject.

      1145
      I have always believed that the housing of the working classes is a health problem and that instead of raising money by the ordinary method of floating a loan we should raise all the money that is necessary for the annual cost of houses by levying a tax, and use the money free of interest for the provision of working-class houses. This housing question strikes at the root of family life and is the basis of the happiness, comfort and well-being of great sections of the population. We are entitled to deal with it in a drastic manner. In Scotland there are over 100,000 one-apartment dwellings and over 400,000 two-apartment dwellings. We have 2,000,000 persons living in one-apartment or two-apartment dwellings at the present time. In Glasgow alone 6,000 families live in one-apartment dwellings, and most of them number from six to 12 persons. There are 12,000 families of four and five persons living in one-apartment houses. Let me give a case to illustrate the point. Last week I came across a man and woman who were looking for a better house. I discovered that the woman had had her leg amputated at the knee as the result of tuberculosis. There was a daughter 18 years old, recently discharged from the Robroyston Infirmary also suffering from tuberculosis. There was a boy who had been taken to Belvedere Hospital suffering from scarlet fever, and two young children of school age. The whole of that family of six persons were living in a one-apartment house, three stairs up. It was not only a question of wanting better accommodation; the room being three stairs up meant that the woman scarcely ever got out of the house.
      I went to the Glasgow Corporation and found that the medical officer of health had drawn attention to the urgent need of this family being rehoused in a rehousing scheme, but the case had never been analysed, never looked at, and until I was able to bring pressure to bear there was no expectation of that family being rehoused. I consider that such a case is an absolute scandal of the first magnitude. Here we have two young children in a family of six living in a single-apartment house with their mother and sister suffering from tuberculosis, and we still go on discussing the pounds, shillings and pence of the problem, the monetary considerations of these housing schemes, and cases of that kind can be multiplied by
      1146
      the hundred in every industrial area. We took the daughter of 18 to Robroyston Hospital for five months and spent £2 15s. 6d. per week to maintain her, and we grudge supplying subsidised houses to a family like this.
      I know that in regard to rehousing schemes we have the difficulties mentioned by the Undersecretary, but take two typical cases of persons who are going out of a slum area. The first is the case of a man who during a prosperous period desires to do something for his family, to raise their standard of life by taking them out of a sordid slum area, a man who says that he is prepared to spend a good proportion of his income in giving them a better opportunity in life. They move out to a house provided under a subsidised scheme, and he pays 15s. or 16s. per week in rent. He may not have a great wage; it may be £3 a week, but he is prepared to pay 15s. per week in rent and give better opportunities to his children. In the other case the man may be a drunkard, he may indulge in horse racing and live in a very vicious way. He lives in the slum and pays 3s. or 4s. a week in rent. He never attempts to raise the standard of life for his family. But along comes a closing order and the authorities say that he must move out into a better house. I could give instances of people who have moved out and are paying 7s. and 8s. per week in rent for houses provided by the State and the local authorities, and because you compel such a man to move there is a greater income coming into his house than there is into the house of the man who is paying 15s. per week in rent. That is what happens. Then comes along a period of depression and the man who is paying 7s. per week rent may be able to struggle along and make ends meet, but the man who is paying 15s. a week rent finds that he is unable to make ends meet and we recompense the good father by saying that he must go back to the slum. He may be a good father and his wife may be a good mother. He is not vicious, and he may have spent most of his income in providing for his family, but through no fault of his own he has to go back into the slum, to degradation and filth, whilst the man who has lived a vicious life is provided with a house by the State at a much lower rental and is able to maintain himself in decent conditions.

      1147
      There are remedies which could be applied to many of these cases.
      The Under-Secretary spoke about people who were entitled to houses not getting them. Rightly or wrongly, we have had in Glasgow under the rehousing schemes a process which is something like this. A building is pulled down. An old couple who have been laving in that building are then entitled to be rehoused under what used to be termed a slum clearance scheme and is now termed a re-housing scheme. The old couple find that the rent which they are expected to pay for the new accommodation is, according to law, seven or eight shillings a week as against the three or four shillings which they had been paying previously. They find that they cannot afford the extra rent. They do not want the larger accommodation so they go to another person who has perhaps three or four children and is living in a single apartment house. They arrange with that person to take over the new accommodation provided under the rehousing scheme, while they go into the single apartment house. That is what goes on but is anybody going to suggest that in those cases the nation has not benefited by the transfer of the family of three or four children from the single apartment house to the new accommodation provided under the rehousing scheme, even though the old couple go into the single apartment house? I know of numerous cases in which I think the nation has benefited by that system.
      We have also had in operation what is called the double exchange system. Supposing that there is, first, a single-apartment house, then a room and kitchen house and thirdly a two-room and kitchen house, under the re-housing scheme, with scullery and bathroom. A person from the room and kitchen house moves into the new two-room and kitchen house because that person has a large family. Then a person who has been in a single apartment house previously moves into the room and kitchen house, and finally a person from the slum goes into the single apartment house—a person who has no family. That is what is called double exchange. It took me a long time to learn how that system operated. At first, when I heard of people getting accommodation to which they were not entitled I was hot on the heels
      1148
      of the officials but I discovered, as I said before, on analysing most of these cases, that the nation was getting a distinct advantage from that method of rehousing the population.
      In connection with slum clearance schemes the nation is performing a useful function and I would like to see an extension of those schemes in every area. At the same time I think it regrettable that at the present juncture we have not been able to add to the number of houses which are being provided. Unemployment is rife and building trade employés are drawing money from the Employment Exchanges. It may be that they are drawing from 22s. up to 30s. a week. Surely it would be a great advantage to the nation to employ those people on building houses. Why should we keep our building trade workers drawing unemployment benefit at a time when there is an urgent national need for rehousing so many of the people of Scotland? If the whole of that unemployment benefit were devoted to subsidising housing schemes the nation would get some advantage out of it, but to-day we are simply throwing the money into a pit and no results at all are forthcoming.
      There was in 1927 a 10.6 percentage of unemployment in insured occupations in Scotland. That has gone up steadily and the percentage was 26.6 at the last available date and I expect at the present time it shows a further increase. In the building trade there were 15,840 persons unemployed at 22nd June, 1931, and 23,022 unemployed at 21st December, 1931, divided into the following categories: painters, 4,652; labourers, 4,102; carpenters, bricklayers, masons, slaters, plasterers and plumbers, 8,225; and others, 6,043. There has been an increase in six months of 7,182 unemployed building trade workers and it is a scandal that we should have an army of skilled men idle, when there is such a demand for houses. Formerly the cry was, even in connection with the provision of steel houses, that we could not run the houses up speedily enough because the labour was not available. To-day, the nation has resources available which could be tapped in order to provide houses but we are not getting on with the job in a statesmanlike manner. The only point in the Under-Secretary's statement which I did not like was his remark that we were

      1149
      making slight headway. That is not the way to tackle a job of this kind. We ought not to assume an air of self-satisfaction because we have reduced the death rate by 5 per cent. The Undersecretary ought on the contrary to say "I am shocked and ashamed that we have not been able to make greater headway, but I promise the House, on behalf of the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Government, that we will tackle this job in a manner befitting our office." You have the ability and you have the energy if you had the courage to bring about a great revival of house building in Scotland in order to raise the chances in life of the men, women and children of the nation and at the same time give the building workers an opportunity of exercising the trade in which they have been trained.
      The provision of more and better houses would be a distinct advantage to the nation as a whole. The returns show that 79,699 houses are required, but there are 23 local bodies according to the report—there may be fewer now—who have not yet returned their housing needs. Speaking, not as a party representative, but as a man who sees and realises the urgent national necessity in this matter, I want to know what the Department and the Government intend to do to meet this situation. It is remarkable to me the amount of energy which we display and the amount of money which is always forthcoming when it is a question of the destruction of human life in any part of the world, but how slow we are to get on with the job when it is a question of saving human life and giving the children of the people decent surroundings. I want to know why these local authorities are not making their returns. I want to know where they are, and whether they are composed of party representatives whose aim and object is to avoid providing houses in case their own interests may be affected.
      Reference has been made to the Addison houses. The Addison house cost, on the average, £900, but I think that we may take it, roughly, that to-day it would cost £500. In the case of an Addison house which was built at £900, taking that sum at 6 per cent., there is an annual charge of £54 to be met by the nation, by the individual and by the local authority. If
      1150
      that house were built to-day at £500, taking that sum at 5 per cent., it would be £25 per year as against £54. If the Addison house, such as those built a number of years ago, were built to-day, the rental that has been paid would be an economic rent paid by the individual, and there would be no necessity for slanging the people who are inhabiting those houses. We know that large numbers of people may inhabit such houses who were not actually entitled to them, but we must remember the urgent need for houses which existed at the time, and people might be excused for having minimised the amount of their income at that time if they were getting married in order to get a house. I sympathise with individuals in those circumstances.
      I was in a house in King's Park visiting a friend a fortnight ago. That house was built under private enterprise, and it was almost a similar type of house to the house which I occupy in the Sandy Hills area of Glasgow. The private enterprise house was only £1 or £2 more than the amount which I was paying in that area. The difference was not very great because the new house was built at a much lower cost. We ought to cut our losses on these housing schemes and come down to the cold economic facts. We ought to revise our outlook on this question and change all our arrangements in connection with the building of houses. Housing is the only thing I know of which increases in value as the years pass. If you buy a motor car you cannot expect to sell it in two years time for what you paid for it, and if you buy a suit of clothes you cannot expect to sell it at the end of six months for the price which you paid. As a boy, I was in a pawnshop in the Shettleston area, and people used to roll up with suits of clothes on Monday morning. A man with a suit of clothes would ask the manager for £1, and would get £l. After six weeks use of the suit, it was reduced to 15s.; then to 10s., and after that if he came in with the suit the manager sent for the police because it was deteriorating in value all the time.
      A house on the other hand goes up in value. The rent increases as time goes on and apparently every section of the population is expected to bear the burden except those who are in the holy of holies, those belonging to the house-factor and

      1151
      property-owning element. They are to maintain the standard to which they became accustomed in the years of the War and in the years of high prices while others bear the burden. I am not enamoured of the outlook taken by the Under-Secretary and some Members of this House who appear to believe that that old standard ought to be maintained in connection with the Addison scheme. I was a member of the Health Committee of the Glasgow Corporation when there was a discussion upon the building of a new hospital which was to cost something like. £500,000 or £750,000. When the necessity for this hospital was being investigated the case made by the medical officer and the officials was that a large number of people suffered from slight diseases and had to be treated but the housing accommodation in which they lived was such that they could not be treated properly there. A hospital was thus required for dealing with those cases. So, we were going to spend up to £750,000 on a hospital because we had not decent houses.
      6.0 p.m.
      It appears to me to be an outrageous thing but that is what we are doing. We are dotting the landscape with hospitals and poor-houses, tuberculosis institutes and sanatoria of all kinds. We pour out the money after the people have taken the disease. Every medical man who is true to the best traditions of his worthy calling, will admit that if a person contracts tuberculosis in a serious form it is practically impossible to drive it out. We only take them into these institutions and give them a healthy environment and keep them there for a certain length of time. We only prolong the suffering and the agony. Then we dump them back into the slum and kill them by the reaction from the change of environment. We call that wise statesmanship. I know that this problem has its difficulties. I know that local authorities have the property outlook. That is the damnable thing about this question of housing. When an attempt is made to tackle it all the housing interests immediately rise against the provision of houses because it is interfering with their private concerns. They say, "If you provide new houses the old houses will be deserted. The people will flock to the new houses." Of course they will, just
      1152
      as every Member here would adopt a new fashion.
      We find this also—and I am bound to say that the officials in Glasgow admit this—that there is a complete conspiracy, if I may use the word, between the health department and the housing department. You will find the sanitary officer and the medical officer of health saying, "Yes, there are thousands of houses in the Glasgow area that we should close, that we should condemn as being unfit for human habitation, but the housing department refuse to supply the housing accommodation for the displaced tenants, and we are compelled to hold off and to allow these houses to remain rather than to displace the tenants." I have said often, and I say to the Under-Secretary of State, that the medical officer of health ought to do his duty. He ought to condemn these houses and make the job of the hon. Gentleman's Department and the housing committee of the local authority to supply the houses required.
      The housing committee of the Glasgow Corporation had at one time a member who was a master joiner, another who was a master plumber, a master painter, a master glazier, and a man who was interested in the supply of cement, all good Tories in the Glasgow area, and Baillie Fletcher, one of the leading lights on the committee, a slum property owner, a slum house factor. Every time we suggested the need for better housing there was a struggle between the two sections, even in the Tory party. There was an enlightened, intelligent section, very few in numbers, who said, "Yes, we must have better houses and go ahead in a progressive manner with the housing policy." There was another section, cold and cruel materialists, who said, "No, it is going to affect our jobs, our returns from profits; it is going to affect the interests of our friends, and therefore we do not want any houses to be provided."
      That is a horrible thing, and if we could get the Department of Health in Scotland and the Ministry of Health in England as dictators on the question of the provision of houses, I would support them up to the hilt. If we could take the provision of houses out of party politics entirely, and make it the duty of the Department, in consultation with the medical authorities, to see that in every area the houses that ought to be

      1153
      condemned were condemned, and that they were compelled to provide adequate houses for the people requiring them, we could get on with the job in a sensible manner, instead of every section pulling, as they are bound to pull when their interests are affected.
      The Minister said, in connection with transitional benefit, that when it was passed last year the authorities throughout Scotland applied energy and intelligence to the job. I agree with that statement. Apart from the question of the cuts and the changes, I agree that the officials of the local department in Scotland did apply energy—although it may have been misplaced from the point of view of my ideas—and intelligence and capacity to the job in a very wonderful manner. I do not know how far I should trespass in connection with these things, but I will only raise the matter in connection with the able-bodied scales on which the means test was based, because the means test did not first come into operation last year. It was in operation in connection with every able-bodied applicant, even when the Labour Government were in office, and no attempt was made to redress the grievances that we, in common with others, fought out in the local authority and the parish council in Glasgow. You had the application of the means test to every person who was cut off the Employment Exchange, and the whole of his family income was taken into consideration, the only difference being that the numbers were not so great then as they are now. Therefore, the means test, so far as I understand it, has been operating for a very long period, and I want to suggest one or two of the hardships that are very evident.
      I desire, of course, the elimination of this most diabolical and ingenious scheme for punishing the poorest section of the people that has ever been devised to my knowledge, but in the meantime there should be many changes made so that the test would not bear so heavily upon people in receipt of able-bodied relief. I had a case last week of two brothers, and I give this as typical of a number of cases. According to the Glasgow scale—arid I presume that it will be the same in other areas—they are treated on the able-bodied scale of relief under the means test on the basis of man and wife, and they are paid 23s. One brother is an
      1154
      unemployed painter, and the other is an unemployed clerk, both of them brothers of a late Member of this House, who was a Member of the Liberal party. These two brothers are in lodgings; they are not living in a single apartment house. They have lived for years in a house where they have occupied separate bedrooms, and they have been given under this scheme, not 15s. 3d., but 11s. 6d., being treated as man and wife, and both are nearly 40 years of age. They are compelled just now to consider going to a model lodging house—two respectable decent individuals—and you have a good number in that city who are treated in the same way. I suggest that it is outrageous that two able-bodied men should be treated on the basis of man and wife and paid 11s. 6d. instead of the meagre allowance of 15s. 3d. that is being paid at the moment.
      The CHAIRMAN (Sir Dennis Herbert): I am afraid I did not hear the earlier part of the hon. Member's speech, but unless he can relate this to the question of rent, I do not quite see how it comes in.
      Mr. McGOVERN: The same scale allowances are paid on the Poor Law side, of which the hon. Gentleman is in charge, and I suggest that the scale should be changed in connection with able-bodied relief, so that it might be an incentive to the authorities to change the scales in other areas. I suggest that in connection with able-bodied relief a change should be made where people are living out of town and are compelled to spend 3s. and 4s. a week on tram fares. That ought to be taken into considerations, and allowances should be made in that direction. If we cannot get complete abolition, at least modifications should be made in an administrative sense. The Under-Secretary of State has power to confer with the authorities in order to try to bring about these remedies. There is opportunity for the hon. Gentleman's making a great amount of headway in an administrative way, in so far as the affairs of Scotland are concerned. I cannot appeal to him in a legislative way, because he has not the power. I believe that he has the will and the desire and the humanitarian outlook even to legislate in a different direction, but I appeal to him to make the law lees harsh, and to try to bring

      1155
      about administrative changes. If, during his tenure of office, he can do something to ease the burden on the poor, he will merit their approval, and I am sure that they would admire his courage if he would tackle this question in the way that I have indicated.
      Captain WILLIAM SHAW: Listening to the Under-Secretary of State, I was pleased, if somewhat surprised, to hear the emphasis which he put on the question of economy. I say "surprised," because if you examine the Estimates themselves, there is very little evidence to be found that the necessity for economy has been much borne in mind by those who framed them. I recognise that in this Vote a large number of things cannot be cut out, but the total amount of economy is something under 1½ per cent., and that, in a time of national financial crisis, does not seem to be any very great effort towards economy. I hope the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Under-Secretary of State will try a little harder in future, and perhaps they may be a little more successful. I also hope they will be successful in cutting down the personnel in this Department. I was surprised to see that it had increased, and I hope they will make a big effort to secure economy.
      When I was a young man in Scotland, I was taught the old proverb that any fool could spend money, but that it took a wise man to save money. I am afraid that personally I have not made as much use of that proverb as I ought to have, but I pass it on to the Government Department, and I hope they will pass it on to the local authorities, so that those authorities may not be tempted and pressed to spend money. I hope the ratepayers may have the sympathy and support of the Government officials and the Government Department in this matter. I represent a county in Scotland, and there among the largest ratepayers we have people who have to let their shootings during the summer season. I can see that this season it will be very difficult indeed for these large ratepayers to let their shootings, and that will have a bad effect, not only upon them, but upon the shopkeepers in the districts affected, so I hope the Government will keep this in considera-
      1156
      tion and do everything they possibly can to reduce expenditure, both national and local.
      Most of this Vote deals with housing, and I would like to see a very considerable cut made in the housing expenditure of this country. The last speaker said that houses were things that seemed to go up in value, but that has not been my experience. I have mentioned one old Scottish proverb, and I may mention another, which says that if you want to do a man a bad turn, you should leave him an old house, because it is always a source of expense and is a very poor, wasting asset. I should like to see expenditure on housing cut down, and I think the aim and object of the Government should be, as far as possible, to return to the system which obtained before the War when housing was provided by private enterprise. The Under-Secretary of State said that he could not understand why private enterprise was doing nothing to provide houses in Scotland now. It is largely due to the fact that we did not give to those who supplied houses a fair deal. It used to be said that housing was a good medium for investment, and there was the expression "as safe as houses," but we have had the Rent Restrictions Acts, which penalised house property owners very much, so that a man who had given his money to build houses got a smaller return than a man who put his money into War Loan or War Savings Certificates. If we are to get back to the position in which private enterprise will supply the necessary houses, we must win the confidence of the people who put their money in that form of investment. I hope that the Government will consider that, so that in Scotland we may get back to the previous position.
      Mr. LEONARD: In listening to the observations of the Minister, I, like others, was pleased to notice that he was fully appreciative of the advantages that can be gained from a proper housing policy. While I appreciate the tendency displayed in his remarks, I cannot banish from my mind the fact that there has recently been in Scotland, as elsewhere, a very influential organisation of persons who have been shouting for economy, nationally and municipally. Because of the views held by these people, I want to say something on the subject matter of Vote. 10. As one who has been for a

      1157
      number of years connected with the health administration of Glasgow, I regret that there has been a decrease in the provision of sanatoria. Notwithstanding the fact that the figures have been steady, or are to a slight degree falling, the needs in this matter have never been coped with in the past, and I do not countenance with any great joy a diminution of money flowing in that direction. I hope that in future, when that matter comes within the purview of the right hon. Gentleman's Department, he will realise the tremendous danger of allowing this part of the health administration to get into such a position that we shall not be able to cope with this great scourge which affects large cities such as Glasgow.
      It is pleasing to note that the Department admit that part of their activities is disappointing. It gives us courage to hope for better things when we see that in their report they admit that there is disappointment in the number of houses that are being erected I agree that we have to pay attention to the type of house. The statement has been made that we have to be sure that the right people get into the right houses. I agree with that. I would put it another way; we have to see that we have the right houses built to meet the requirements of the people. It is bad economy to have advice from a medical officer of health who receives £2,000 a year for giving us guidance on the kind of houses we should provide, and not pay attention to the space that is essential to have in the houses in such cities as Glasgow. I have heard expressions of surprise that private enterprise has not seen fit to indulge in this activity to a greater degree. The right hon. Gentleman has not seen fit to supply an answer to that, and I will endeavour to supply one.
      Private enterprise has been well treated in the help received in municipal and State grants. I have a report of the Western Heritable Investment Company Limited which has built or is building a considerable number of houses in and around Glasgow, and I have details here covering three different schemes totalling 4,200 houses at a cost of £1,790,000. I note that the company has received subsidies totalling £921,628. In addition they have been financed with loans totalling £1,342,000. So that in all, this firm, which has built houses to the total value
      1158
      of £1,750,000, has received financial facilities of no less than £2,250,000. I suggest, therefore, that it is not because they have been hardly pressed by the people who desire to cope with the housing needs of the Scottish people that private enterprise is not continuing its activities.
      A proposal has been put before us by the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern), to which some attention should be paid. It is that some effort must be made to escape from the imposition of dear money in the provision of houses. We have to find ways and means of getting cheaper money for the erection of houses. If it is feasible to discuss the cancellation of foreign debts, it is just as feasible and at least as desirable to consider ways and means of getting out of the position in which we are with regard to the bondholders, whether private individuals or collective bodies, who are, catering for housing needs. Details have been put before us with regard to the rates which are paid on houses, and it is suggested that the incidents of rating is one of the things which is causing difficulties with regard to houses in Scotland.
      I will give details of a popular type of house in Glasgow. It is the four-apartment, semi-detached house, which is very popular and is the type in which the main body of people in Glasgow should live. The rent of £34 which is asked for that type of house is made up of a number of items. The fue duty is only 30s. a year, notwithstanding all the talk of the dearness of land. A sum of 7s. 6d. has to be paid for insurance and management; and £6 10s. for repairs and upkeep, including a payment for any empty houses there may be; and too many have been left empty too long even in Glasgow by the housing department. Rates are added, and the City Corporation do what all factories do, include rates in the rent, and the rates in this case amount to £10 4s. These items amount to £18 11s. 6d. per annum. To that is added no less than £15 1s. 11d. as interest upon the money used. It is that item which keeps people out of the houses. That is why I insist that there should be some method of escaping from dear money.
      With regard to the relationship of the housing question to the children who go

      1159
      to school, I will give some figures which show the effects of housing in blood and bone. A number of years ago the British Medical Association came to Glasgow, and prior to their visit a special set of investigators not connected with Glasgow at all looked into the conditions of child life in predominantly working-class schools. They took three schools in Glasgow—Cowcaddens, Gorbals and Calton—and endeavoured to ascertain the effect of bad housing on the weight, height and education of the children. They presented a report to the British Medical Association giving these facts. The average height of boys who come from a one-apartment house was only 47.7 inches; from a two-apartment house, 49 inches; and from a three-apartment house, 50 inches. Taking weight, the average of boys living in a one-apartment house was 52.9 lbs. The addition of one room caused the average to rise to 56.6 lbs.; and of a third room to 59.6 lbs.
      Let us look at the effect of the work that the teacher has to do on this raw material. Is he getting a chance? We find that boys who were living in a one-apartment house, who were able to obtain "excellent" in their examinations, were only 6.6 per cent. The figure jumped to no less than 16.6 by the addition of another room, and to 17.5 by the addition of a third room. With regard to the greater mass who never attained "excellent" but were merely "good" 26.6 out of every 100 one-apartment boys obtained "good" in their examinations; that jumped to 45.5 by the addition of one room, and to 49.1 by the addition of the second room. That is a clear indication of the possible effects of economy in that direction, and therefore I am not prepared to receive with satisfaction the position as it is at the present time.
      I want to deal with the relation of houses to health. Census figures for 1931 have been quoted with regard to Scotland, and Glasgow and Edinburgh. The figures for England are not yet available, and therefore I must rely on those that have been based upon the previous census. The relative positions of England and Scotland will be substantially the same to-day. I find from the census previous to that of 1931 that 28.8 per cent. of Glasgow's population live in one-apartment houses. In Edinburgh the figure is 4.7. In Birmingham,
      1160
      about which this organisation of ratepayers say a great deal in regard to the cost of running a city, the figure is only 1 per cent., and in Liverpool, a city comparable to Glasgow, only 2.8 per cent. I have a complete series of figures covering the two, three, four and five-apartment houses, but I do not propose to weary the Committee with them, except to point out that whereas in Glasgow 28.1 per cent. live in single-apartment houses, 56 per cent. of Birmingham's population live in five-apartment houses and over. Liverpool has 52.3 per cent. of its population living in five-apartment houses. That compares very favourably with Glasgow's 28.1 per cent. in single-apartment houses, and 49.8 in two-apartment houses. The small house inevitably leads to increased health costs.
      6.30 p.m.
      In 1930, the last year for which I can quote figures of this description, there were in Glasgow 44,605 cases of registered infectious disease. In Birmingham there were 27,673, a considerable reduction. But the main point I want to make is that out of 44,000 cases of infectious disease registered in Glasgow 15,147, that is 34 per cent., had to be removed to hospital, whereas out of the 27,000 in Birmingham only 4,000 were removed to hospital, being 17 per cent. That difference can be definitely laid at the door of the housing conditions in Glasgow. I cannot lend any support to a continuation of the tenemental, barrack system as it exists in Scotland, and if other people can be comfortable and warm in houses which are not tenement houses, so can the working class, and they would be much more healthy. Take the complaint of scarlet fever. In 1930, there were 4,639 cases in Glasgow, and 94 per cent. of them, on account of the conditions prevailing in the houses, had to be removed to hospital. Of erysipelas there were 645 cases and 51 per cent. had to be removed to hospital. In Birmingham I can find no record of their taking any scarlet fever cases into hospital at all, because of the facilities in the homes of the people, for the patients to be attended to; and with regard to erysipelas there were 25 eases, and 4 per cent. were all that were received in hospital.
      My last illustration deals with a disease which was not always notifiable, pneumonia. In 1930 Glasgow had 6,765 cases of pneumonia and 3,426 were admitted to

      1161
      infectious diseases hospitals, that is, 51 per cent. In Birmingham, where there were 2,100 cases, none were removed to infectious diseases hospitals. These details show that in Glasgow illness is responsible for an expenditure of £60,000, definitely attributable to its housing conditions, which a city like Birmingham escapes. This being the state of affairs we are not going to submit to any clamour for economy from ratepayers' associations or anyone else. We desire to extend the housing facilities in Scotland, and I would like to repeat the request made by the Secretary of State for Scotland in 1930 when he demanded to know what steps had been taken to deal with the housing problem. There is this difference in the situation, that the present Government have full power to satisfy their own desires and are not restricted as other Governments have been, and I want to know what they are prepared to do to bring about some amelioration of the health of the people of Glasgow through the medium of better housing.
      Mr. MACQUISTEN: I would like to join with the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) in congratulating the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Ormiston) on a very informing speech. The hon. Member showed that he knew what he was talking about, giving us a logical and practical review of the Scottish rating system which from my experience of it, I regard as a very unjust system of taxation. It originally started in Glasgow, or at any rate Glasgow was very largely responsible for it. The Town Council of those days wanted to camouflage their expenditure from the masses of the people, and thought it would be much pleasanter to put the rates into the rent, and then, if there were any increase of rates, the landlord would be blamed and not the town councillors. It is curious how unpopular the man becomes who provides another man with a roof to put over his head. It is an illustration of an old maxim that if you lend a friend money you will lose your money and also lose your friend. Even to lend a man money to put up a house for himself seems to make one strangely unpopular, and this unpopularity will extend even to the pulpit. I remember a great travelling Scottish Evangelist preaching once from the text of the importunate creditor, and he typified him in the landlord calling for the rent. He
      1162
      did not seem to realise that had it not been for the landlord taking his savings and spending them on plumbers, plasterers, bricklayers and others the tenant would not have had a house over his head at all.
      Prior to the War practically all the houses were built by small people on money which had been borrowed or saved. They were not the best type of houses and very little imagination seems to have been shown in the architectural planning of them. We begin to realise nowadays in what they are lacking when we see all the labour saving devices introduced from the United States which go to lighten the burden of the house-keeper. Those things might have been introduced here before, but nobody seems to have thought of them. I often feel that if we had women architects we should have made greater progress. Further, those of us who have been foolish enough to buy houses realise how very much better it would have been to rent them. It is an illustration of the maxim that fools build houses and wise men live in them. The small property owner used to spend his money on putting up a tenement because he thought he had got something that could not run away. It was the universal investment of the small shopkeeper or anybody who had led a thrifty life, and perhaps had a daughter for whom he wished to provide. He had not calculated, however, on rents, strikes and propaganda against the payment of rent and eventually a Rent Restriction Act. I heard recently of an unemployed engineer, with a delicate sister and a boy and girl at school, who owned a substantial tenement. The Glasgow Corporation had got a decree against him for £183 for arrears of rates, although as a matter of fact that man had never received a penny of value from the property which his father had bought. The Rent Restriction Act has terrified the ordinary small investor from building houses and still terrifies him.
      The hon. Member for Shettleston says that we ought to take the money for housebuilding free. I agree with him if he would also say that the plumbers should work for nothing in putting up the house, and that the labour of the plasterers and all the other people should also be taken free. It comes to the same thing. Time is money, and if we are taking one man's money and another

      1163
      man's time they are on exactly the same footing. If we conscripted labour for houses and took the money free, no doubt we could get cheap houses, but unfortunately we have to pay the labourer and pay him considerably higher rates than formerly, and I do not know whether we get as much work from him. Perhaps the hon. Member for Cathcart (Mr. Train) would confirm me on that point. All the things to which I have referred and the campaign for the taxation of land values caused an awful drawing in of capital. I remember when the late Alexander are used to go about Scotland speaking every night and sometimes two or three times a night, suffering very badly from a disease known as cacoethes loquendi. His speeches terrified the people who invested in houses and one man of large financial interests in loans on Glasgow property, at a very moderate rate of interest, about 3 per cent., told me that as a result of those speeches he had called upon all his bonds. That happened all over Scotland.
      Whenever fear is excited, capital takes right. It flies to Switzerland, or France or somewhere else. That is what is happening now. We have bad trade, and we have had so much Socialistic propaganda and so many Socialist Governments. The Conservatives are just about as Socialist as the Socialists, although they do not talk so much about Socialism, and at any rate there are the officials, a Socialist bureaucracy, whom no politicians seem to be able to check. Neither here nor in the United States are we able to check the onward march of our bureaucracies. Like the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. Leonard) I do not believe in people living in tenements—living like pigeons, only pigeons fly out of the window instead of going down the stairs. In New York people engaging rooms high up are asked sometimes if they are doing so in order that they may throw themselves out of the window. There is a good deal of that there.
      The reason why working men favour tenements in the central districts of Glasgow is that they want to be near their work and to be able to get home for a mid-day meal. They cannot afford the expense of feeding in restaurants. If we are to get the ideal of the cottage home which Dr. Addison was a little too previous in introducing—and a little too
      1164
      expensive in addition—the proper way is by a dispersal of our industries. It is a shocking thing that the population of Scotland has gone down by 40,000, but the explanation is quite simple; it is due to the enormous increase in railway rates. Industries are flying to the south to be near the English Channel, so as to escape the enormous burden of railway rates. The real explanation of our overcrowded towns is the railway. People are gathered around the railhead. One of our only hopes for the future in the new era is that we shall be able to get our populations more or less dispersed over the countryside. That is the condition of things a German professor was telling me they hope to remedy in Germany where they are trying to "demobilise" the cities and to get the people in groups scattered all over the countryside, in order to combine them as industrial workers and for the carrying on of a rural existence, cultivating their gardens, growing most of their own produce and yet attending the works in the central area. The population of Germany, he said, are ready to follow that plan, and not only will it be of enormous importance for the industrialists and enable them to compete in all the markets of the world, but they felt if a war came the aeroplane and the bomb would not be quite so great a menace, because the people would be more scattered.
      I agree with the right hon. and learned Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) that I would like a little more consideration to be given to the Highlanders. I remember putting that point as to telephones to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in regard to both Isley and Mull. During the Great War the Grand Fleet had its base in the Highlands and spent money there. The Highland crofters benefited very greatly by it. I remember one who said whiskey was not dear for he got a bottle for three dozen eggs. At that time eggs were about 6s. a dozen. Those crofter people made a good deal of money at that time and not being in touch with the ordinary means of investment nor knowing any stockbrokers they did not have the same opportunities for losing it as other people. They either put it in banks, or deposited it or buried it somewhere. They are not so much in want of the comforts of civilisation,

      1165
      because in the fundamentals of life they are infinitely better off than the town artisan. They have such fresh fish as the English trawler has left them, they have their own gardens, and with their own potatoes and their own meal, and some of them weave and spin and wear their own cloth, and there is nothing finer than that. I think they live an infinitely more rational life than even the wealthy people in the cities. They have unlimited opportunities for study and contemplation and the acquisition of wisdom with not over-much mixing with their fellows, which tends to dissipate one's intelligence.
      Now I want to say a word about the Highland medical service. There used to be practically none at all. I remember when I was a boy in a remote part of the Highlands there was a man who had broken his leg 25 years before and was still in bed. These things can happen. There was nobody to attend to him. The Highland medical service is—[Interruption]—I visited the man and I saw him.
      Mr. CHARLES DUNCAN: Why did you not set his leg?
      Mr. MACQUISTEN: Because I was not a Member of Parliament then. It is very beneficial that the people should stay where they were born. They have to some extent solved their own housing problem, because many of them have built their own houses. In the Highlands they build houses with great success. The average Highland crofter is quite as capable of building his house as is the right hon. Member for Epping who, I think, has built quite a good one. There is no reason why provision should not be made for helping them with materials provided that they submit a satisfactory plan and build a satisfactory house. Now with regard to houses for farm workers, the Forestry Commission in Scotland give their workers small farms and a guarantee of so many days work in a year. The practice in Perthshire some 60 years ago used to be that the farmer seldom had farm servants. He was surrounded by smallholdings and the smallholders worked so many days in the year for the farmer who would lend his cattle and ploughs to the smallholders. The farmer was not bound down by a weekly wage all the time. The smallholder provided for his own sustenance very largely from his own holding. I suggest that the farmers
      1166
      should be encouraged by the Ministry of Health to build houses with holdings for their employés, so that they will be able to undertake a very large part of their sustenance from such holdings. It will be a great advantage to both farmers and employés.
      I have another note on the question that was raised by the right hon. and learned Member for Ross and Cromarty, and which I raised once before. There is no harm in raising it again in a new House. It is the need for the provision of houses for the medical officers and surgeons in isolated places. It is not so easy to get people into the clerical service to-day. The circumstances in the teaching profession are so much improved that a man would rather be a teacher than a clergyman, and there is a great scarcity. I suggest that we get out of the difficulty as follows. The healing of the soul and the healing of the body are supplementary to each other in accordance with the old ideal of mens sana in corpore sano, and we should combine the medical officer and the clergymen as has been done with great success in Africa. There is no finer type of man than the medical missionary. Nowhere in the world would you get anything to equal the medical missionary, the man who combines the arts of hygienic skill and religious zeal.
      Now a clergyman is generally provided with a very large house and a very small income. There are a number of comparatively large mansions that are very well adapted to be a doctors house, and often there is a spare room fit for a surgery. If you combined the clergyman's income, which is very small in the Highlands, especially now that the price of grain has fallen away so much, with the salary of the medical officer, you would very much improve his position. It would be more easy to get doctors, especially the medical women going to the islands, which are often too lonely for men. Women doctors seem to be able to live in much greater solitude than men doctors. You would make their lot very much easier, and you would have the benefit of the amount of voluntary work that they are anxious to do. The medical man could get through his course, and I should say follow it up with probably 12 months in a divinity hall, which would give him all he wants. He would be a great success in the combined profession,

      1167
      as he has been in other parts of the world, and the people will be very much more likely to go to church if they felt they were in the hands of a doctor, and they would want to see him in both aspects of his life. It would be a great bond and a great benefit and it would solve the problem of the buildings for doctors. It would also solve the financial problem. Possibly you would require legislation—I do not know—but that is for the Secretary of State for Scotland to consider. I make it as a suggestion to him.
      Mr. R. W. SMITH: The Under-secretary of State for Scotland started his speech by referring to economy, and at the end he said that we should urge the Department to use every effort for economy. I want to press again the point with regard to economy. It was mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member for Forfar (Captain Shaw), who said that there was a saving on the Estimate this year. It is true that there is a net decrease, but, as a matter of fact, on the whole of the Services we are spending some £61,000 more this year than was spent last year. If one looks at the gross total, he will see that the figure is £2,950,740 for this year as against £2,888,335 for last year. What really. worries me is that if one takes the trouble to look at the Estimate that we are now considering, one finds that under the heading of Administration there is an increase in salaries, wages and allowances and part-time medical and dental staff of no less than £4,000 this year. I know it is very difficult for the Minister to cut down in his Department, so it is probably better that he should have the backing of certain hon. Members in order to show that we want to cut down the expenditure. It is rather extraordinary that the items for part-time medical and dental staff should be suddenly increased from £3,000 to £4,150. I would like very much to have an explanation as to why there has been this sudden rise in regard to the dental staff.
      Then there is the figure for the Investigations concerning the causes of diseases, which is the only one which is cut down in subhead C1. It is rather a serious thing to cut down a service like that, especially when, for instance, you find that £4,000 is spent on the permanent staff.
      1168
      I notice that several new staff were required at headquarters. On page 75 it will be seen that grants towards housing expenses have increased this year to £64,030, and the administration staff is increased and will cost about £4,000 more. Surely it might be possible to administer that £64,000 without an increase of staff. The increase of £4,000, so far as I can make out, consists of payments of grants to local authorities.
      One finds in the Estimates a grant towards housing expenses. I cannot see why it should be necessary to have an increased administrative headquarters staff for dealing with that money, costing something like £4,000 more than last year.
      7.0 p.m.
      May I point out a rather extraordinary discrepancy in regard to maternal mortality. The Minister claims that maternal mortality last year was 6.9 and this year 5.9. As a matter of fact, last year's report of the Department of Health shows that last year it was 7.0 instead of 6.9 and it is now down to 5.9, so that he can claim more than he did claim. Everyone is thankful to see this improvement, but there is one rather disquieting feature with regard to the deaths of women from puerperal sepsis. On page 39 of this year's report it is stated there were 544 deaths of women from diseases of pregnancy while last year in the same period there were 661 deaths from the same cause. Of this number 221 were due to puerperal sepsis, which is a very infectious disease, or one-third of the total. This year, with 534 cases of maternal mortality, one would have expected the number of deaths from puerperal sepsis to have dropped to a certain extent. It should have dropped by one-third as compared with last year, which would have brought it down to a figure of 181, instead of 207.
      The point I wish to emphasise is that we have not had the improvement in this respect which we ought to have had. Attention was drawn to the matter very strongly in last year's report of the Ministry of Health and there were various investigations made by the Department. I suggest that it would be a good plan to find out the causes of these deaths. There is no doubt that with improved hygiene they should be brought down, and that with proper care and

      1169
      cleanliness this infectious disease could be reduced. I suggest that the returns should be very carefully collected so as to show whether the deaths were in respect of cases in institutions, or cases attended by a doctor or by a midwife. In 1929, one-half of the cases were attended by doctors and nurses, one-third by mid-wives, and one-sixth were treated in institutions. Therefore, the figures must be in the Department, and it is only a question of finding out where the deaths occurred. I think it will be shown that this disease occurs in institutions rather than in houses, because it is a germ, and not likely therefore to be in the homes of the people, though it may spread through an institution. Steps should be taken to see that an improvement is effected. This year we have had more cases of puerperal sepsis than ever. We had 2,157 cases in 1931, whereas in 1930 we had only 2,000, this being an increase of 157. Here you have a perfectly well denned disease, and I think the Department should take steps to find out the cause of the disease, and see if anything can be done to stop it.
      With regard to the statistics we have been given, I see over one table it says:
      "A statement of the average weekly cost of the ordinary poor in poor houses in Scotland for the year ending 15th March, 1931."
      That seemed quite clear. I have made inquiries, however, and I am informed it is not quite so simple as that, and that most of the institutions which appear here are not comparable. The reason I draw attention to this is that there are 72 institutions, and the total cost per head varies from 4s. 8d. per week in one case to 49s. 10½d. in another case. That the cost should vary to such a large extent in our Poor Law institutions seemed rather strange, and I looked into it. I have now been informed that institutions are not quite comparable. I suggest that rather than give tables which are of no use to anybody, because the figures are not comparable, there should be given to us some statement showing in the one case the poor-houses, and in the other the highly equipped hospitals, so that we may find out the actual cost of the Poor Law institutions.
      Mr. KIRKWOOD: I would like very much to be able to congratulate the Scottish Office on the services rendered to Scotland since this new dispensation
      1170
      took over the reins of government in Scotland. I can remember very well at the General Election what they were going to do, this wonderful combination unprecedented in our day and generation. Here you have a young Liberal made Secretary of State for Scotland and a young energetic Tory made his understudy. Coming with all that reputation and with all the good will of the Scottish Members of every side of the House, what is their record in our distressful country? Because Scotland is a distressful country to-day. The like of it is not seen in Britain. There sit the men who are responsible to this House for that state of affairs. They have the honour of being the chiefs of Scotland in this House, and here they are to-day to give an account of their stewardship. We are supposed to congratulate them. Congratulate them on what? A state of affairs with the like, of which we were never faced. Unemployment rampant in Scotland, worse than ever before. I asked for figures from the Minister of Labour.
      The CHAIRMAN: I only want the hon. Member to bear in mind that his indictment of the Members of the Government responsible for Scotland must be kept within the limits of their responsibility.
      Mr. KIRKWOOD: I do not wish to fall foul with you, Sir Dennis, hut, after hearing the hon. Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) wandering all over the place, immediately I bring this matter up I am put down. Here are the figures. The unemployment on the register in Scotland is 27.2, while for the South Eastern Counties of England it is 14.7 and for London 13.1. I am supposed to sit here and congratulate those men. It is all right for the Secretary of State for Scotland to smile with that pleasant smile of his, and for his Undersecretary to shrug his shoulders, but here are the facts. Unemployment in Scotland is worse than in any other part of Britain, and I want to know what they have done about it, because they are responsible.
      The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Major Sir Archibald Sinclair): I am very reluctant to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but we are not responsible for what he is raising now. We are discussing health, and we are not responsible for the Minister of Labour.
      Mr. KIRKWOOD: I agree with that statement, but I do not know whether the Secretary of State was in when his Under-Secretary made the statement that he was not in favour of building houses simply to find work for the unemployed.
      Mr. SKELTON: I said that, in my judgment, building must be treated on its own merits, and if we were able to show that we had been able to reduce unemployment in the building trade by 5,000 men since we came into office, that was a happy by-product.
      Mr. KIRKWOOD: They are responsible for the state of Scotland. If Scotland was in a flourishing condition, they would be coming here claiming the credit for it. When we come to health, motherhood in Scotland is just as dangerous to-day as it was 20 years ago, and the decrease in the death rate is infinitesimal. Think of the advances we have made; but as regards the preservation of working-class mothers there has been little or no alteration; the death rate in giving birth to children in working-class homes in Scotland is as bad to-day as it was even 40 years ago. The right hon. and learned Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson), who is not now here, said that it was always a pleasure to read this report. It is certainly a very informative report, and I wish every member of the working class could get hold of it and digest it, because it is invaluable; but I would ask anyone who thinks it is a pleasure to read it to listen to this: The number of children under the age of one year who died in Scotland during 1931 was 7,545. That is a disgrace and an indictment. Most of these children died under awful conditions in the great working-class areas in Scotland, and the proof of that statement is this: Take the constituency of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, the under-study to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the future Prime Minister of Britain. In his constituency of Kelvingrove the death rate among children in their first year was 185 per 1,000. Then take the constituency of the Minister of Agriculture. What is the death rate in his constituency of Pollok? It is 45. Why should there be that difference? Is it because the mothers who voted for the Minister of Agriculture in Pollok are any better than the mothers who voted for the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in Kelvin-
      1172
      grove? Certainly not. It is because of the bad housing conditions. I impeach both of these Ministers that they have made no outstanding attempt on the lines of what they said on the platform that this National Government was going to do. They said that the Labour Government was no use and did not know how to govern, and they asked the electors to send them back to deal with the abnormal conditions because they were the men with the outstanding faculties, which were only given to a few in Britain—that we were the many and they were the few selected by the Lord God to rule us and put us in our place. This is the place in which they have put us. They have made no impression whatever. The Under-Secretary talks as though something had been done by the men in the Office, but the Scottish Office is the most reactionary Office that we have to deal with. They have Cabinet officials at £3,000 a year, and this is what we have got from them in 20 years; and let it be remembered that in that time we have come through the Great War, when it was said:
      " That man to man, the world o'er,
      Shall brothers be for a' that."
      It is stated in the report that there is one person less in every second house. The hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean), in opening this Debate, mentioned that on an average there are four persons to every apartment in Scotland, and now the boast is made that there is one person less in every second house. That is a great deal to boast about.
      The next question to which I want to draw attention is one that all Scotsmen who have any love of their native land ought to be asking: What is the reason for the decrease of 42,000 in the population of Scotland? The Government are responsible for that. [Interruption.] The time was when my race emigrated to every part of the globe. They went in their tens of thousands to Canada every year, not to mention the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. That is all stopped; they are not emigrating because every country is up against it just as we are; and yet although that emigration has stopped the population of Scotland is declining—it has decreased by 42,000.
      There is another matter. I shall be glad if the Under-Secretary will let me

      1173
      know, when he is replying, what is the meaning of this statement of the school medical officer for Roxburgh, which I quote from page 51 of the report, where he discusses the state of nutrition in his area:
      "It was found by questioning the children and others that bread and tea is in many cases the regular diet both in urban and rural areas and the old instinctive sense of the necessity of butter, milk and eggs is being gradually lost."
      Are we to be asked to believe that the Scottish folk have lost the sense of good food—that they no longer desire to have butter, milk and eggs, but prefer dry bread and tea? This statement requires some explanation. It is the truth, but not in the way in which it is put there. The fact is that my class, the working class in Scotland, in the rural districts as well as in the big industrial areas, cannot afford milk, butter or eggs, and they have to be content with weak tea and dry bread. If ever there was an indictment of this National Government and of the two Ministers who are representing it here to-day, it is there.
      Turning to housing, what does one find? All the Tories in this House take a delight, whenever they get a chance, in lashing Dr. Addison, who, alongside my late colleague, John Wheatley, was the best Minister of Health that this country has yet produced. Dr. Addison did commit a crime in the eyes of big finance and big business in this country. His crime was that he said that the smallest house that should be built in Scotland was a three-apartment house, and he got that passed through the House of Commons. What a change has taken place! Would it pass through the House now? We have listened to a Scotsman—a well-off, well-fed and well-clad Scotsman—decrying it because of the expense, and saying that it must be curtailed and that the Scottish people like to live in a room-and-kitchen because it is nice and comfortable and cosy. That is not true. Scottish people like to live in roomy houses, but they have always been badly paid and could not afford to do so. From what has been said, it might be thought that it was the Socialists who were responsible for building the houses in my native land, but the Tories were responsible for that long before there were any Labour men in the country. It was they who built the houses. Now they tell us
      1174
      that there are 140 houses which are empty, and, therefore, we cannot go on with building new houses. There are 140 empty houses in a town with a population of between 25,000 and 30,000, and, therefore, the local authority is not to be given the power to build new houses. That was suggested here to-day, and by a very nice man, as a man. That is the Tory outlook, and it is put into operation by the Scottish Office.
      7.30 p.m.
      My constituency of Clydebank is harder up against it at this moment than any other place in the country. We have more able-bodied men drawing unemployment benefit or receiving payments from the public assistance committee than any other place in the country, and it is costing the locality 10d. in the £. In addition to that, next week at least another 1,000 will have to go before the public assistance committee, because the last job we had in the place has been shut off—the Cunarder No. 534. With all this unemployment, the town council—not a Labour council, not supporters of mine politically—passed unanimously a resolution that 400 houses should be built. It came before the Scottish Office, and the Scottish Office turned it down. Why? Who is it that asks the Scottish Office not to grant the town council—the duly, democratically elected representatives of the people—their request? It is the individuals who have been responsible for the awful housing of the people in Scotland—the landlords and factors of Scotland. They are organised to keep Clyde-bank from getting new houses built, because again they say that there are 140 empty houses. I do not know how it is that the Scottish Office manages this figure of 140, because it is the same in Motherwell also. Clydebank has a population of 28,000, and they can only find 140 houses that were empty; and they make that the excuse for saying that 400 new houses shall not be proceeded with. If the Secretary of State for Scotland and other Members of the Government will some down there with me, I will show them a single apartment in Clydebank where a man, a woman and nine children are living, and two of them are tubercular cases. In face of that state of affairs, I appealed myself to the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary, and got them to receive a deputation, including the Provost, the baillies, and so on, but they turned them down. That

      1175
      is the state of affairs in Scotland at the moment, and these are the men who are responsible for it. If they want to help Scotland, let them get ahead with the building of houses. When we set out to try to get the Scottish people to understand that they should have a higher standard of housing, we set out with a definite purpose. The houses that were built before the War were built by private enterprise, but not because the folk needed houses at all. It was only incidental that they required the houses. It was only incidental that we have inclement weather. They built them in order to make a profit, and they built the most shoddy, disgraceful houses that I have seen in my travels practically all over the world. No more disgraceful houses have been built for the working class than were built at the request of the landlords and factors of Scotland. We wish to change all that. The Government ought to go ahead with building houses, and leave the old houses to the landlord and factors. We will go out into the country. I differ from the hon. Member for Argyllshire when he said the worker desires to live at his job. That was true at one time, but it is not true now. He wants to get away from his job. He is like every other intelligent man. He wants to get out into the country. He wants to get as far away from his toil as he possibly can, and quite rightly, because to-day we are the heirs of all the ages.
      If ever there was any proof that private enterprise has failed, that its day and generation have passed, housing has proved it. Why did they stop building houses? The reason was that they could not make a profit out of them. People required houses, so the Government had to step in and build them. Now they turn round and try the means test. Let them go ahead with their means test. I hope they will, because it can only have one end. It will be put on them. They will be tested, too, not only on the riches they possess, but on their ability, and the day is not far distant. The Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary need not run away with the idea that the Government are in for two or three years. They think they have a great majority behind them. Have they? He that lives longest will see most. Their great majority will
      1176
      disappear unless they do something. They are not going to sit there and think everything is all right, because everything is all wrong, and Scotland is a raging mass of seething discontent at the manner in which the Government are handling the country.
      Mr. D. GRAHAM: I should like to ask the Under-Secretary whether any action has been taken by his Department to deal with the people at Hamilton who are being dispossessed of houses that they occupied till recently. I do not think there is sufficient accommodation available to house them. I should like the hon. Gentleman to say something with regard to that matter, and I hope he will endeavour to get these people put into some better accommodation than the poorhouse. The total area of Scotland is 19,069,000 acres. The area of the three counties of Lanark, Dumbarton and Renfrew, in which Glasgow is situated, is 872,000, that is 4.5 per cent. of the total area of Scotland. A half of the population of Scotland live in that area. This housing problem is not a Scottish problem so much as it is an industrial area problem. In the three counties that I have named there is a continual state of overcrowding, and the health of the people is, beyond question, seriously affected. These are the three counties that have made Scotland what it is. The people there ought to be the richest, but they are not. They are the poorest. There are 1,346,500 unemployed persons in Scotland. In these three counties there are 657,530—one-half the total unemployed in 4.5 of the area.
      To talk of economy in the way it has been referred to to-day is simply to create a situation in the industrial areas, and particularly in the West, that can only result in worse evils than we are living in at present. I would commend to the attention of the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary a loading article in the "Glasgow Herald" of Monday which takes the view that a wrong opinion has been given abroad regarding the character of the people of Glasgow and the West of Scotland. If William Wallace had had the unemployed forces that exist at present in Lanark alone, the coronation stone would not have been in Westminster Abbey and the probabilities are that you would have been ruled by Scottish sovereigns long before you were. The Under-Secretary said that

      1177
      an improvement had been made in the housing situation in the last three years. He compared the position in Scotland with that in England. If you go a few years further back, the comparison is all in favour of England and very much against Scotland. In a book published by Major Barnes, who was an able Member of this House, in 1918 he tells us that 109,047 houses were required, apart from the slum clearance question. In one of the parishes in my constituency four out of five of the population are living in one and two-apartment houses. There is no better, no more capable, no more honest, no more hard-working section of the community.
      I congratulate the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Ormiston) on his maiden speech. It was very well delivered and he deserves full credit, although I do not pretend to have any agreement with him. He is in favour of a change in the rating system. I hope the Department will steer clear of that matter; otherwise they will aggravate the difficulty rather than remove it. The hon. Member wants the rating system brought into conformity with conditions in England. That means an increase in rents. It does not matter whether you camouflage the position. The intention is that the tenant should pay a very much increased rent, and that cannot be done unless and until there is a very considerable improvement in working conditions. Scotland is the one country of the three that is losing her population. It is also the country that has sent the greatest number of emigrants from these Islands. I am afraid we are gradually getting into the position in which Ireland was 50 or 60 years ago with a declining population. Those who still remain find it impossible to get employment and do not live in anything like a comfortable way. It will have its reaction, and it will not prove to be for the benefit of this country alone, and certainly not for the benefit of the Empire.
      My hon. Friend is anxious that there shall be rating reform. This is a so-called National Government. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland is a Liberal. The Undersecretary of State for Scotland is a Tory. The Lord Privy Seal makes very great play of the fact that he represents a non-party Government. The people who are advocating a change in the rating system are all actively engaged in
      1178
      the Tory party, and all of them expect this Tory House of Commons to make the change during the continuance of the present Parliament. I sincerely hope that the Department will not agree to having anything to do with this particular stunt of those people. If I had plenty of time I could produce any amount of evidence to show that if there is any evil in the present situation, from the point of view of currency, industry or commerce, the fault does not lie at the door of the ordinary working class members of the community or of the Labour party.
      My hon. Friend said that he was surprised at what he described as the mysterious failure of private enterprise. I do not think that there is any mystery in it at all. Private enterprise stopped building houses long before the War began. They had begun their war, and rents started to increase at the beginning of the present century, over 12 years before the War began. Rents increased because of higher wages. If decent wages were paid to the ordinary members of the working class, then private enterprise might very well renew their operations, but it should only be on condition that decent wages were paid. Rents are too high at the present time even for the accommodation which is provided. I wish to prove that statement by quoting the opinion of a gentleman who is not a. member of the Labour party but is, I think, a constituent of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown), who, I am sorry to say, is not in his place. It is in the form of a report which appeared in the "Glasgow Herald" on 11th May, 1932, dealing with overcrowded houses in Edinburgh. It is a report by the sanitary inspector, one of the fellows belonging to the party who construct things. We do not do so on this side.
      The chief sanitary inspector of Edinburgh, Mr. A. W. Ritchie, has prepared statistics as to the amount of overcrowding which he found in respect of 814 houses situated in various parts of Leith. The population of the houses is 7,966, giving an average per house of 4.33 persons. One-apartment houses number 138, two-apartment houses 1,386, three-apartment houses 284, and four-apartment houses 40, a total of 1,848. On a weekly basis the rents are as follows:

      1179
      One-apartment houses from 3s. 1d. to 5s., two-apartment houses from 3s. 4d. to 8s. 5d., three-apartment houses from 4s. to 1ds. 9d., and four-apartment houses from 7s. 3d. to 13s. 5d. In 9.74 per cent. of the houses there is overcrowding, practically 10 per cent., according to the cubic space standard. In 26.72 per cent. there is a want of proper sex separation, and in 17.69, in addition to there being more than two persons to a room, there is also a want of proper sex separation.
      Hon. Gentlemen who represent different constituencies in this House would themselves feel pretty much as those people feel if they were living under exactly similar conditions. A number of Scottish proverbs have been quoted in the discussion to-day, and there is one which I should like to mention, and that is "That the proof of the pudding is in the eating." If hon. Members of this House were living under conditions similar to those under which the vast majority of the ordinary working-class population in Scotland are living to-day, there would be no talk about economy, but a much greater agitation on their part than there is on our part even, for a greater expenditure of money. It can easily be shown that the only really patriotic course that could be adopted by a Department such as the Scottish Heatlh Department would be to demand that there be power to compel local authorities to build houses in sufficient quantities to make it possible for a healthy life to be lived. It is not possible to live such a life at the present time.
      I speak with some experience, as I have lived in a one-apartment house and know what it is, whereas the bulk of the hon. Members of this House do not know what it is. I have lived in a two-apartment house and I know the conditions, whereas the bulk of the hon. Members here do not. It is all very well to come here and talk about the need for economy. If I put it to them that the logic of their arguments meant the destruction of the health of any number of their fellow countrymen they would deny it. Prisons are largely filled by men and women who have been compelled to go there because of the rotten and unhealthy housing conditions which obtain in Scotland. There is no possibility of there being any improvement in the health of the ordinary
      1180
      members of the Scottish working class until there is a very material change in the housing conditions under which the people are compelled to live.
      Mr. JAMES REID: No one would imagine from the tone of the speech which we have just heard that the last Estimates introduced by the Government supported by the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. D. Graham) were £60,000 short of the Estimates of which we are going to approve to-night. One would think that economy had fallen with peculiar force upon Scottish housing, judging from the speech we have just heard. It is very unfortunate, following upon the very helpful speeches of the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean) and those who followed him, that the Debate should be wound up by a general attack of that character. I do not intend to enter into general topics, but to raise one particular point which was mentioned by the Under-Secretary of State in his opening speech, and was taken up by the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern). It is as to what is to be done with the people who are turned out of slum clearance areas. I heard with some misgiving the opinion expressed by the Under-Secretary. It is not very often that I have a chance of agreeing with the hon. Member for Shettleston, but I did agree with some of his remarks on that topic. It is very injudicious, for various reasons, to make a general rule of putting your people from the slum areas into new houses, or even to do it in the majority of cases, because you are penalising the man who has bettered himself, who may be no better off financially than the man who is living in the slum but who has spent the larger proportion of his money. You are putting the man from the slum, who has been willing to put up with the worst conditions, into better conditions than the man who has tried to help himself and who has spent a larger sum in trying to safeguard the health of his family. That is one aspect.
      The other aspect is that there are many slum dwellers who cannot afford, and many others who do not want, large accommodation, and it would be a great mistake to try to force anybody to go into a house which is larger and costs more than he can afford. Therefore, I think it is only in the minority of cases that one should put people direct from the slums into new houses. You are kill-

      1181
      ing two birds with one stone if you carry out the method of the "double exchange," because you are benefiting two, or may be, three separate people upon one expenditure of money. You are benefiting the man in the slum by putting him into what is at least a tolerable house, not beyond the size he requires and not beyond his means. You may be benefiting him more by doing that than by putting him into a new house. You are benefiting the man from the house which is merely tolerable if he wants to get into something better, and above all you are avoiding the great ill-feeling which I believe exists when a man who has tried to better himself and get into a tolerable house sees somebody put over his head who has not bothered about housing conditions in the past at all. I may have misunderstood the Under-Secretary of State. Perhaps I did. But if I understood him to say that in his view the desirable scheme was to put the majority of the people from the slum areas into new houses, then I thoroughly disagree with that view.
      Another point arises upon this matter. If you put a man direct from the slums into a new house you have to reduce the rent of the new house to something very much smaller than the rent of the similar house which was put up under the 1923 or 1924 Act. You have the anomaly of two entirely different rates of rent for the same type of accommodation. If you are going to make a sort of means test of it and fix a man's rent, not by the quality of the accommodation but by the amount he can pay, I agree that there is a good deal to be said for it and in that case no one has a right to grumble. But if you fix his rent, not by the amount of his means but, as is done, I am afraid, at present, at the rent of the place from which he came, you may very well have a man who is not at all well off getting a house under the 1923, or 1924 Act and paying a very considerable rent for it, and a man who has got a reasonable amount of money but has not spent it on better accommodation getting a house with the same accommodation much more cheaply simply because he has not chosen to live as a decent citizen in the past. That, it seems to me, is bound to cause a good deal of ill-feeling, and I would beg the Government to bear this and all other factors in mind when they are deciding on their policy as to moving people out of slums. I do not wish to take up
      1182
      the time of the Committee with a general argument, and therefore I will content myself with putting that point.
      8.0 p.m.
      Lieut.-Colonel C. G. MacANDREW: There is only one point which I should like to bring to the notice of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for State, and it is a point with regard to what is described in the report of the Department of Health for Scotland as summer holiday camps. In recent years this form of recreation, which is a most desirable thing when properly conducted, has grown very considerably in the West of Scotland, and what is happening now is that certain parts are let, I suppose by farmers and others, for the camps; and they are really run in a most insanitary and unhealthy way. I see that in the report it is pointed out that generally people stay in them only for a week or so. That is quite true, but although the people move, the camp remains, and new lots of people are continually coming. If the camps were taken in hand I think they could be made sanitary, and they would be a very satisfactory and excellent way of enabling people to have a holiday, but these camps, in the way in which they are being conducted at present, are a very dangerous menace indeed to health. I notice that under the Public Health (Scotland) Act. 1897, if the Department is of opinion that it is necessary, the owners of land who let their land for camps can be forced to make the necessary water and sanitary arrangements, and arrangements for destroying refuse, for the people who use the camp, and I think that those are the only possible lines upon which the thing can be organised, because it is obvious that people coming for a week and going away at the end of the week do not understand the dangers which they are running.
      This is a point which, I think, should be brought to the attention of the local authorities by the Under-Secretary, because I foresee that otherwise epidemies will start, and they will lead to danger to the health of the people using the camps. I am sure that it could be done through the local authorities without any expense. I think this is a most desirable form of holiday for people, but I do think that it wants to be organised and run properly. One knows how extraordinary particular the medical autho-

      1183
      rities in Territorial camps are about how the sanitation is arranged; but these camps to which I have referred are, I think, a great danger, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give the matter his attention.
      Mr. BUCHANAN: I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £100.
      I rise to make a very short contribution to the Debate, because I recognise that possibly during the last few days I have had more than my share of the time of the House in general. My reasons for wishing to move the reduction of the Vote by £100 I am not going to outline now, because they appeared in the course of the speech of the hon. Member for the Shettleston Division (Mr. McGovern), and in the speech of the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) and several other speakers. There are only one or two small points that I want to raise. One is a question which the hon. Member for Shettleston questioned the Under-Secretary upon, and, as to this point I am not quite clear, because I did not hear what the hon. Member for Shettleston said. I want to raise one or two very small points. One is upon a matter I have previously raised, the 7s. 6d. payable under the National Health Insurance Act. Is the Under-Secretary aware that under the National Health Insurance Act that 7s. 6d. should not be deducted from Poor Law relief? There are a number of authorities charging the 7s. 6d. That is not in accordance with the Act; the Act definitely excludes the 7s. 6d. I am not here to argue whether the Act is right or wrong; all that I say is that the Act should be carried out whether it is right or wrong, until this House care to put a different Act in its place. If you do not administer the Act you are in for trouble.
      I ask the Under-Secretary whether he intends to take any steps to deal particularly with one body which is outstanding in this matter; I refer to the Greenock Public Assistance Committee, Time after time this practice of deducting the 7s. 6d. has been followed. It may be that the local people think it desirable. That I am not going to quarrel with; all I say is that the Act provides that the 7s. 6d. shall be untouched, and while that is the law nobody in Scotland ought to ignore it, I contend that the law
      1184
      should be applied to these Public Assistance Committees, because they have to depend upon other people honouring the law, and they cannot expect poor people to honour the law while they themselves constantly and flagrantly break it.
      I turn from that to another point which I think deserves attention, relating to the City of Glasgow. I am not going to develop the question of providing new houses, other than to say that I do wish that, in the provision of new houses, more attention could be given to the furnishing of those houses. It seems to me that one of the great problems in our great city is that those poor people who want houses cannot properly furnish them. One great improvement that I see in every part of my native city is the great demand which there is now from comparatively poor people to get a better house. The Glasgow Corporation have built an estate out near Thornlie-bank; it is a very nice and desirable housing scheme, and it would almost break your hearts to see poor people making earnest demands for those houses. I see men, and women too, but particularly men, whom I knew in my own youthful days, who then spent considerable sums of money in drink, but who now spend it in getting for themselves and their families much more commodious and better dwellings. Anybody who mixes, as I do, with the people of the City of Glasgow, must be amazed at the great expense to which the people are prepared to go for houses. I know that in my boyhood days it was looked upon as madness to pay too much to the landlord. I was brought up with nine others, ten in a room. The first thing my folks did was to take a chance to get a better and more commodious house.
      There are two or three things which are noticeable in the city. One is the care of the children. There is a marked improvement in that. I recently visited some Roman Catholic and Protestant schools. I remember that in the old days on St. Patrick's Day we fought the Catholics, and it was pathetic to see them fighting with their bare feet. I visited the same Roman Catholic school, and I saw a marked improvement there. The improvement was considerable, and was in every way a credit to them. The other improvement I see is in the welfare of the women. There is a wonderful improvement since my days. When trade

      1185
      was good in the city and men were earning decent wages the corporation were inundated with demands for decent houses. At first the demand was, comparatively speaking, not so great, because people did not know how the experiment would turn out. I know that criticism can be made against the housing estates, but I do think that their benefits outweigh the criticisms. Look at the contribution which they make in this direction, that they set up an ideal; and the great mass of people, having seen others succeed in the experiment, are now willing themselves to make the experiment which 10 or 12 years ago they would never had made.
      The Under-Secretary for Scotland talked about people who ought not to have houses being successful in getting houses. I know you can say that this man or that man has got a house when he should not have got it. You can go right through the gamut, just as any man who is conconcerned with criminal justice may sometimes see a criminal who ought to get a long sentence get a short one, and one who ought to get a light sentence get a long one. Those things in human life can hardly be measured by a tape measure or a foot rule. What I do say is that though you may argue against it, it is in the main a contribution to the physical and mental health, and, above all, to the sobriety of the community, because the sobriety of Glasgow is tremendous, and sobriety is a great thing.
      I want to make one last point, and it is regarding the closing of slums. Most of us who know Glasgow know that a great portion of it was built long years ago, even before my grandfather's time, and is now becoming old. Some folk are inclined to think that houses which are built of stone or brick, or any other commodity, do not get old. They have been in the habit of looking at them all their lives, and they think they will always go on. A great portion of the city of Glasgow is being condemned. It is getting tumble-down, and the corporation is ordering that the buildings, shall be hauled down because they are becoming dangerous. Dangerous dwellings are becoming prevalent all over the city. Under a slum clearance area order there is a duty definitely on the corporation to provide alternative accommodation. My view is that there is only a technical
      1186
      difference between a slum clearance area and a dangerous dwelling.
      A slum clearance area is cleared because it is dangerous to the health and well-being of the community; it is simply that they have decided that that area is dangerous from the point of view of the future well-being of all concerned. I say there is really in effect no difference between that and a dwelling that might be dangerous because of its being likely to fall down at an early date; and I say that the corporation in every case of that kind ought to be compelled to provide alternative accommodation. I know that up to the present they have done it, but they may not always continue to do it, and at times they do it only with great reluctance. I would ask the Undersecretary for Scotland to use his powers in all cases to see that that is done, and if his powers are not sufficient, to seek further powers; because it is going to be a terrible thing if on the demolition of each dangerous dwelling we are to have decent people turned adrift to go on to the streets.
      I want to say, in conclusion, that I move the reduction of this Vote because we are not sure that everything is yet being done that could be done, and we want at least to record our opinion against this economy mania which is spreading. I must confess that the economy mania leaves me cold and untouched. Most of my constituents have been economising all their lives; and I say that to practise the economy asked for by some Members of this House would be a disgrace to Scotland. I am sure the Under-Secretary for Scotland, who, I hope, wants to have his name engraved with some degree of fame on the scroll of history as having done something for Scotland, will not use his position in order to adopt an economy which I think would be wrong and in the worst interests of the people.
      Mr. TRAIN: I did not intend to intervene, but one or two subjects have been raised on which I should like to say a few words. I congratulate the Undersecretary on the able way in which he presented his report. I also congratulate him on the strong stand he is taking for economy. The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) wants the Under-Secretary's name to go down to history as that of a strong man, and he recommended

      1187
      him to do certain things. If he can effect economy at the Scottish Board of Health, his name will go down to history as that of a strong man. The Under-Secretary began by telling us that a sum of £2,000,000 per year is being given by the State for housing. Ten or 12 years ago nothing was given by the State for housing. Over and above that, the local authorities are rated for housing. The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. D. Graham) asked what was to be done about housing and why we were not doing more housing? He is accusing the wrong people of not doing more. The present Government have done more within the past year than was done in the previous two years, and they have taken on many unemployed men in the building trade and put them on to building houses. That was in the report.
      The reason why more houses are not being built is, to me, very simple. The fault rests with the local authorities. Each succeeding Government since 1919 has brought in Acts of Parliament giving the local authorities power to build houses and each succeeding Parliament has increased those powers. In 1919 we had the Addison scheme, of which the Under-Secretary spoke, under which the local authorities in England paid one penny in the pound and the State met the difference. In Scotland, because of the incidence in our taxation and rating, the amount is four-fifths of a penny, compared with one penny in England. We went on building the homes which, as the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean) reminded us, the Prime Minister of that day said were to be homes for heroes to live in. They were built at a cost of £1,200, £1,000, £900 for a house which to-day is being built for £280. The result of that, so far as Scotland is concerned, is that £1,000,000 per annum has to be paid for Addison scheme housing.
      The Under-Secretary made a suggestion, and I was glad that he had the courage to make it, because I have raised it again and again in this House. Why should people live in Addison scheme houses, which cost so much money, when, as we were told, 70 out of 150 of those people had been able to build motor garages? They are able to build a motor garage and yet they ask other people to pay part of their rent, amounting in Glasgow to a rate of 4d. and to 1s. in
      1188
      many other parts of the country. One hon. Member, I think it was the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. Leonard), said that these men have a right to build these garages if they want to do so. They may have a right to build a garage, but they have no right to do that and then to ask another man to pay part of their rent. People who can pay an economic rent ought not to ask others to pay a part of their rent, particularly when so many people cannot get one of the houses that are being built by the local authorities.
      After the Addison Act we had the Chamberlain Act in 1923. Many houses were built under that Act. Let me remind hon. Members who ask so much about the Addison scheme that in 1921 committees were set up for Scotland and England to report on the effect of the Addison scheme, and both committees recommended that the Addison scheme was too expensive and should be stopped. I served on the Scottish committee. When our report was presented to the House, the Prime Minister said: "This is the report of hard-headed Scotsmen." The committee consisted of Tories, Liberals and Socialists, and we recommended the stoppage of the scheme because it was too expensive.
      Mr. BUCHANAN: Were they all in favour of stopping it?
      Mr. TRAIN: If the hon. Member will apply to the Stationery Office he can get a copy of the report.
      Mr. BUCHANAN: You might save my time by telling me.
      Mr. TRAIN: There were some objectors. I was one who objected to certain parts of the report. In a committee you can put in objections. Although there were some objections, generally speaking the report presented by the committee composed of Liberals, Tories and Socialists was pretty unanimous. The hon. Member can get the report from the Stationery Office, and read it. It will tell him something about the Addison scheme.
      Mr. BUCHANAN: I think I have read it, but my memory is not very good.
      Mr. TRAIN: Under the Chamberlain scheme £6 per house was paid by the Government and £3 by the local autho-

      1189
      rity. The Chamberlain scheme also extended the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act, and encouraged people to own their own houses. The question has been raised to-day why private enterprise has failed and done nothing. In the Third Annual Report of the Department of Health for Scotland, page 151, statistics are given for the year 1923, the year of the Chamberlain Act. Those statistics are: Houses built, ordinary schemes, 4,024; slum clearance schemes, 14,382; private enterprise, 20,983. Therefore, nearly 5,000 more houses were built by private enterprise at that time, when they were encouraged under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act and the Housing Act than were built by any local authority. That is what private enterprise did when it had anything like a fair chance, but private enterprise cannot compete with the subsidy of £13 10s. that is being given on subsidised houses—£9 taken from the State under the 1924 Act and £4 10s. provided by the rates. To expect private enterprise to do anything in those circumstances is asking the impossible.
      The 1924 Act gives great powers. Any local authorities can put its scheme before the Board of Health. Why are they not doing that? Simply because they have not the money. Some of them are rated as high as 1s. in the pound. After the Chamberlain Act we had the Slum Clearance Act of 1925 and the Rural Housing Act of 1925, and in 1930 we had the Rural Housing Act and the Slum Clearance Act. Then we had the 1931 Rural Housing Act. Local authorities could take advantage of all these Acts. What is the use of hon. Members saying, "Why do you not get on with housing?" It is the local authorities who should get on with housing. The Secretary of State urges them to get on with their programmes, but they are jibbing because they have not the money to spend. Under these various Acts you get the same type of house let at rentals of £28, £32 and £22. We are turning the people into pens. A child who lives in a Wheatley or a Addison house says that she will not play with Tiny So-and-so because she lives in a slum clearance. The Undersecretary has now a fine opportunity to co-ordinate these various Housing Acts and turn his attention to the clearing of slums. Let those who can pay an economic rent pay it, or get out. Let them purchase their houses by the aid
      1190
      of local authorities and building societies agreeing to advance 90 per cent. of the cost over 40 years. This would leave these other houses free and save the building of houses of that class. The hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) says that these houses were built for the soldiers who cams back from the War.
      Mr. MACLEAN: I did not.
      Mr. TRAIN: I am sorry if I misunderstood the hon. Member.
      Mr. MACLEAN: What I said was that the then Prime Minister in one of his speeches made that statement, and that afterwards the Addison houses were built. I did not say that they were built for the men who fought in the War or were homes for heroes.
      Mr. TRAIN: I am sorry if I misunderstood the hon. Member. He certainly conveyed that impression when he quoted from the speech of the then Prime Minister. However, who got the houses? The people who could pay the rent got the houses. Local authorities looked for the most decent tenant who could pay the rent. There, again, private enterprise is supposed to carry on the building of houses when the best of the tenants are selected by the local authorities for their houses. I agree with the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Ormiston) who made a most excellent maiden speech, with every word of which I agree. He referred to rating, and to the fact that a man who owns a house has to pay housing rates for other people to build modern houses while he himself has to live in a 30-year-old house and has not enough money to pay for repairs. It is unfair to ask private enterprise to continue under such conditions.
      8.30 p.m.
      A great deal has been said about the question of rating. The hon. Member for Hamilton said that decontrol must mean the raising of rents, but he gave us no arguments in support of his view. All the arguments I have heard seem to prove that it will reduce rents; and if that is the case I am in favour of it. At the present time a private owner has to pay a housing rate on an unoccupied house in order to house people who are in a position to pay an economic rent. The hon. Member for Gorbals said something about houses which were being pulled down. I wish that all buildings

      1191
      were pulled down which are in a dangerous state. There are many houses, however, in large cities which are not in a dangerous state. They have fine stone walls and fine roofs, good joists; but they are not modern. They have no up-to-date appliances, no bathroom, no kitchenette. There are many people who want to live in the place where they have lived for so many years, and if they could get a modern house they would prefer to live in a flat in the town rather than in the country. They are not people of the working classes. They do not want a garden. All they want is an aspidistra in the window. They do not want to be bothered with a garden. There are lots of these houses which could be reconditioned at very little cost, and thus save the spreading out into the country and the making of roads and sewers. It would effect an economy, which is so necessary at the present time. I hope the Under-Secretary will pursue the policy he has put before us this afternoon.
      Mr. SKELTON: My first word, in the short speech I propose to make in reply to the Debate, is one of thanks for the many kind references made to myself and the Secretary of State. It is encouraging, at the beginning of our connection with the government of Scotland, to find, among the many admirable and valuable criticisms which have been made, that time has been found by so many speakers for a kindly personal word for the Secretary of State and myself, which I can assure hon. Members we appreciate very highly. In my original speech I dealt with the question of housing and said that I should rely on hon. Members to raise other topics of interest during the Debate. I will try to deal with the questions which Have been raised.
      The right hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) raised an isolated question with regard to the economy in the Highlands and Islands grant. We all know the valuable work which is done by this grant, and hon. Members will be glad to know that the economy of £4,000 in the Estimate as regards £3,500 is the result of Savings last year, and that the economy effected by an actual cutting down in the operations of this valuable work has only been £500. I need make no observations on what the right hon. Gentleman said on the subject of rural telephones, except
      1192
      to say that I have that matter in mind, and that of the provision of adequate accommodation in the housing of medical officers and surgeons in the Highlands. In the absence of the right hon. Gentleman who courteously intimated to me that he would be unable to be present later, I need only say that we will take into careful consideration what he has said.
      The hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) raised a question connected with public assistance. I was greatly interested in what he said with regard to people who suffer from being chargeable to a rural authority and live in the area of a more expensive urban authority. As a practical observation on that point I would observe that if the individual feels that he or she has got insufficient relief, application may be made to the Department. I know that that is not a very practicable course and for my own part I am interested in the suggestion of a conference of the authorities. I will follow up that matter and see how it stands at the moment and whether there is anything that can be done, for I quite appreciate the point made by the hon. Member. I do not think that he raised any other point of criticism, but in passing may I say that' I was especially gratified by his approval of the policy of boarding-out children. I have a hereditary interest in that policy. I personally believe in its efficacy and value, and I am glad to find approval for it from the other side of the Committee to-day. I know very well that on the surface there are features which might suggest to some hon. Members that it is an unsuitable policy, but I am sure that, when they go into the matter and get over any preliminary disapproval which may be felt, they will realise how valuable it is, so long as the selection of a suitable home is satisfactorily made.
      Several points were raised by my hon. friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), and although he is not in his place at present, there is one point of general importance mentioned by him to which I may refer. That is the question of the non-deduction of the first 7s. 6d. of health insurance benefit from poor relief. I am aware of the practice of certain public assistance authorities in this respect. I have had to make careful inquiries as to the position and as to the

      1193
      rights and powers of the Department, in regard to this matter, and I find that those powers are very limited. This is one of many cases in which the relationship between the central department and the local authority is one in which the central department can exercise nothing more powerful than persuasion. I am sorry but that is the situation under the law and I do not see that I can do more than exercise such pressure as is possible in that way. I entirely agree with the hon. Member that when you have a law it ought to be administered, unless there is some very good reason for not administering it. I was interested, too, in the hon. Member's reference to the question of furnishing houses. I find that there are powers to give a certain amount of furniture in connection with the building of houses by municipalities, but, again, that, like so many other matters connected with housing, is a matter for the local authorities themselves.
      I regret that the hon. Member for Hamilton. (Mr. D. Graham) is not in his place, because I wish to turn to a question of some local importance which was raised by him with regard to certain events that have been taking place in Hamilton. It has been found necessary to close a building—with a view to demolishing it—in which a certain number of people had "squatted." A difficulty has arisen as to how the various families affected are to be accommodated. Some have found accommodation for themselves. At present a certain number are accommodated in the poor-house, and four families, who have not yet found alternative accommodation, are still permitted to occupy the property which is to be demolished. The local authority are satisfied, and I think they are Tight, that before long those who are temporarily accommodated in the poor-house or who still occupy part of the building to be demolished, will find accommodation for themselves. I think it is a case in which a little patience must be exercised by ail concerned. I have to thank the local authority for the patience which they have shown. I may say to the hon. Member for Hamilton that I shall keep a careful watch on what is happening, but I cannot honestly say that I think there is any opportunity or excuse for my intervention at the moment. I think I have now dealt with most of the questions raised during the
      1194
      Debate which are not connected with the subject of housing. If there is any special question which has been put by any hon. Member and which I have overlooked, I shall carefully study the Debate and if I find that it is one to which a specific reply can and should be given, I will give it.
      With regard to housing, I have to thank all the hon. Members who have spoken for the closeness and care with which they have addressed themselves to the subject. I think it will be found when we look over the Debate in the OFFICIAL REPORT that there has not been a single contribution on the subject of housing which has not been of interest and importance. I wish first to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) that he knows as well as I do that it was with reluctance and anxiety that the Clydebank decision was taken. After reviewing the matter for several months and turning my attention to it again and again, I cannot honestly say that I think the decision was anything but right, though I appreciate very much the anxiety which has been caused to the representative of the constituency. I may say, quite frankly, to the hon. Member, that I appreciate the many efforts which he has made to make me and my right hon. Friend take his view of the situation. One never likes to have to do what seems to be the unpleasant thing, and in this case it was much less pleasant when we knew that the representative of the constituency concerned felt so strongly on the subject, and had made such strenuous and sincere efforts to bring us to his way of thinking.
      I have no objection to my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs telling us, as he has told us in no uncertain tones, that my right hon. Friend and I are little better than a pack of rogues. Far be it from me to object to any form of Parliamentary criticism. The only thing I would say to the hon. Gentleman is this. To take one example alone, he said that the population of Scotland had fallen by 40,000, but I would point out to him that it has fallen by that number over the last 10 years, and that the Secretary of State and I have only had direct responsibility for the last nine months. I do not believe that it is during those nine months alone that this lamentable fall in population has occurred. I listened with great care to

      1195
      what he said, but I think that on this point my right hon. Friend and I have a secure defence. I do not pursue the observations that have been made on what I said on the subject of Addison houses and on the subject of private enterprise. I do not regret that I brought these matters before the Committee, because on Tooth most interesting observations have been made.
      Mr. KIRKWOOD: Will the hon. Gentleman explain what I asked him about on page 51?
      Mr. SKELTON: I do not think myself that the observations of the medical officer which were quoted dealt with people who were suffering from severe unemployment. If it had been so, they would have been quite incapable of bearing the kind of inference which was placed upon them. I think they were meant to indicate a natural social change, not one forced upon a population by necessity. As a matter of fact, I had not altogether forgotten the point which the hon. Member raised, and I shall make further inquiries so as to see exactly what the medical officer had in mind, and I will communicate with my hon. Friend on the subject at a later date.
      I do not propose to comment on all the housing comments that have been made, but one hon. Member quoted the figure of people living in one-room houses in Glasgow, and I think he said the figure was 28 per cent., but I find that in the new Census of 1931, 11 per cent. lived in one-room houses. I do not at all like the figure of 11 per cent., but it is definitely lower than the figure which the hon. Member gave.
      Mr. LEONARD:I said that the figures that I quoted were from the previous Census.
      Mr. SKELTON: I think I am right in saying that the figure which the hon. Member quoted was 28 per cent.
      Mr. LEONARD: Yes, for the 1921 Census.
      Mr. SKELTON: And for Glasgow? It is a matter of such importance and interest that even at this late hour of this discussion I would like to refer to it. Between 1921 and 1931 the proportion of people living in one-room houses in
      1196
      Glasgow has fallen from 28 per cent. to 11 per cent., and that is very striking, but I am not quite sure that the hon. Member's figure of 28 per cent. is right, because, reading from the Glasgow report, it appears that as compared with the number of the previous Census the number of people living in one-room houses has declined by 2.1 per cent., which, of course, would mean that it was about 13 per cent. and not 28 per cent. in 1921, and that the number living in two-room houses has declined by 7.1 per cent. "A notable decrease" is the comment of the Registrar or whoever it is who compiled this document, and I think it is of interest to see that. I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Hamilton, who pointed out that the real housing problem was in the industrial belt, and I thought his speech on that point was most valuable. It is of immense importance that in a city the housing conditions of which we know are in many cases most deplorable, there has been that decline, and though it is small in the case of one-room houses, it is very considerable in the case of those living in two-room houses.
      Mr. MACLEAN: You still have, according to the Census, a very high percentage in the industrial areas of Glasgow.
      Mr. SKELTON: I was going to say that these figures and the figures that I gave as to the average number of persons living in these houses are the kind of figures that ought to be before the Committee that is considering Scottish housing, but do not let the Committee think, when I referred to the diminution in the number of occupiers of houses being in every second house one less, that I was saying that in a mood of self-congratulation.
      Mr. KIRKWOOD: You were only making out to the Committee that you had accomplished something.
      Mr. SKELTON: I was trying to make out, not that I and my right hon. Friend had accomplished very much, because we have been dealing with housing only for nine months, but that the combined action of every party in the State over a number of years has effected something, and that is a matter upon which the British Parliament has the right to congratulate itself. It is not a matter for one party only, but for every party, and I do not myself think that it diminishes the effort or makes people "weary in well doing"

      1197
      if they can see that over a period of years the efforts that they have already made have not been altogether fruitless. It was not in any spirit of complacency but in a spirit of something achieved that I referred to the figures to which I did refer, now supplemented and strengthened by the figures which I have just quoted.
      On the whole subject, I feel that we have in this Parliament a body of Scottish Members whose view is not unlike that which I expressed earlier as being the general view of Scotland, namely, that we should press on with housing, but in a way which combines the maximum economy with the work which has to be done. That is one example of the practical spirit which animates the actions of this Parliament, and I am sure it is the only spirit in which the country as a whole can proceed with housing in these times in which we live. There may again be ampler resources, and there may again be greater opportunities for undertaking housing with a less meticulous examination and care than are necessary to-day, but if you wish to have constantly behind you a strong body of public opinion in Scotland in favour of a forward housing policy, you must show the people of Scotland that you are determined to combine the efficient operation of the housing policy with conduct of it, strictly economical.
      One last word, and again it is in reference to a criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs, and other hon. Members, who said that we ought to be doing more to help the unemployed members of the building trade, and that we had done nothing. That in itself is not true. I pointed out that already on the 31st May, 1932, there were practically 5,000 more building operatives employed in Scotland than in the previous year, and on that date there had not yet been a single stone or brick laid in the houses which had been approved, to the number of 23,000 odd, where the comparable number for the previous year was only 16,000. As soon as these 23,000 houses which have been approved are put under construction as I have no doubt many of them already are, then, to the 5,000 extra men who are being employed in the building trade must be added a considerable extra number who will be employed in the construction of the largest number of houses approved at any one time for a number of years. There-
      1198
      fore, I think that is one of the matters in which the strong and powerful criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs will require a little modification from him when he reads, with, I hope, the same approval as I shall, his speech in the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow.
      Mr. KIRKWOOD: I would like the hon. Gentleman to give an answer to this point. In the year that has just finished we built only 10,000 houses, but in 1927 we built 13,000. To-day we have 23,000 building workers in Scotland unemployed, which is the worst we have had for the last five years.
      Mr. LEONARD: The figure given by the hon. Gentleman as to the percentage of Glasgow's population in one-apartment houses in the 1921 Census was correct. I misquoted the figure, which should have been 12.8.
      Mr. SKELTON: I agree that the number of houses completed in 1927 was high, but with regard to the houses under construction and approved, which are the vital figures, they were at the end of last May, 5,000 more than they had been for the two previous years; that is to say, 15,000 in place of 10,000, and the larger number under construction was reflected in employment by the fact that there were 5,000 more operatives in work than there were on 31st May of the previous year. Now that the work is proceeding on the houses which at 31st May were approved but not begun, extra work will be given to members of the building trade arising from the fact that no less than 23,000 houses as compared with 16,000 at the same time last year have been approved and work on them is ready to start.
      Mr. R. W. SMITH: I am sorry I was not present during the earlier part of the hon. Gentleman's speech, but I should like to know if he has said anything about the question, of maternal mortality?
      Mr. SKELTON: I did not refer to that and one or two other questions, because I saw that a good many Members who asked me questions had retired for purposes of their own to another part of the building, and I had intended answering their questions by correspondence. With regard to the question raised by the hon. Member, I will look carefully into the question of puerperal sepsis. It

      1199
      is a matter of some satisfaction that with the general decline of maternal mortality there has been a decline in puerperal sepsis. The situation, I think, is not so serious as the hon. Member would have one suppose in view of the general decline in maternal mortality. I am not in a position to answer the hon. Gentleman with regard to the investigation as to whether the mortality takes place in insitutions or at home. With regard to the point about statistics, the figures which are classified under the head of "poor houses" include institutions which are of a very different character, but the
      Original Question again proposed.
      figures in their present form are by no means useless because they are of value in calculating chargeability to public assistance authorities. I think, however, that there is something in the point that the tables might be made more informative, and we have in the Department been able to make arrangements whereby in future years more information will be given.
      Question put, "That a sum, not exceeding £1,571,902, be granted for the said Service."
      The Committee divided: Ayes, 28; Noes, 133.

      Division No. 257.]

      AYES.

      [9.1 p.m.

      Batey, Joseph

      Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)

      Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)

      Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)

      Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur

      Maxton, James

      Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)

      Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)

      Milner, Major James

      Buchanan, George

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

      Price, Gabriel

      Cocks, Frederick Seymour

      Hicks, Ernest George

      Tinker, John Joseph

      Cripps, Sir Stafford

      Jenkins, Sir William

      Williams, David (Swansea, East)

      Daggar, George

      Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George

      Williams, Dr. John H. (Llanelly)

      Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

      Leonard, William

      Williams, Thomas (York, Don Valley)

      Duncan, Charles (Derby, Claycross)

      Lunn, William

      Edwards, Charles

      McEntee, Valentine L.

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

      Mr. Kirkwood and Mr. McGovern.

      NOES.

      Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.

      Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)

      Rentoul, Sir Gervais S.

      Applin, Lieut.-Col. Reginald V. K.

      Jamieson, Douglas

      Renwick, Major Gustav A.

      Aske, Sir Robert William

      Jesson, Major Thomas E.

      Reynolds, Col. Sir James Philip

      Atholl, Duchess of

      Johnston, J. W. (Clackmannan)

      Rosbotham, S. T.

      Barclay-Harvey, C. M.

      Johnstone, Harcourt (S. Shields)

      Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)

      Barton, Capt. Basil Kelsey

      Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

      Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, putney)

      Blindell, James

      Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)

      Sanderson, Sir Frank Barnard

      Boulton, W. W.

      Ker, J. Campbell

      Scone, Lord

      Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart

      Kerr, Hamilton W.

      Selley, Harry R.

      Boyce, H. Leslie

      Kimball, Lawrence

      Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.

      Broadbent, Colonel John

      Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton

      Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)

      Brown, Ernest (Leith)

      Law, Sir Alfred

      Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)

      Burghley, Lord

      Leckie, J. A.

      Sinclair, Maj. Rt. Hn. Sir A. (C'thness)

      Burnett, John George

      Leech, Dr. J. W.

      Skelton, Archibald Noel

      Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)

      Lennox-Boyd, A. T.

      Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)

      Clarke, Frank

      Levy, Thomas

      Smith, Sir Jonah W. (Barrow-n-F.)

      Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.

      Loder, Captain J. de Vere

      Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)

      Cowan, D. M.

      Mac Andrew, Lt.-Col C. G. (Partick)

      Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)

      Craven-Ellis, William

      MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)

      Spencer, Captain Richard A.

      Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.

      McEwen, Captain J. H. F.

      Stevenson, James

      Crooke, J. Smedley

      McKie, John Hamilton

      Stones, James

      Dalkeith, Earl of

      Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton

      Storey, Samuel

      Dawson, Sir Philip

      McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)

      Strauss, Edward A.

      Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)

      Macquisten, Frederick Alexander

      Strickland, Captain W. F.

      Dunglass, Lord

      Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John

      Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

      Eady, George H.

      Millar, Sir James Duncan

      Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray F.

      Foot, Dingle (Dundee)

      Mills, Sir Frederick (Leyton, E.)

      Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart

      Ford, Sir Patrick J.

      Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

      Summereby, Charles H.

      Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John

      Milne, Charles

      Templeton, William P.

      Gledhill, Gilbert

      Mitchell, Harold P.(Br'tf'd & Chisw'k)

      Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton)

      Goff, Sir Park

      Morgan, Robert H.

      Train, John

      Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas

      Muirhead, Major A. J.

      Wallace, John (Dunfermline)

      Greene, William P. C.

      Nail-Cain, Arthur Ronald N.

      Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)

      Guy, J. C. Morrison

      Normand, Wilfrid Guild

      Waterhouse, Captain Charles

      Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

      Ormiston, Thomas

      Watt, Captain George Steven H.

      Harbord, Arthur

      Pearson, William G.

      Whiteside, Borras Noel H.

      Hartland, George A.

      Penny, Sir George

      Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)

      Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kenningt'n)

      Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)

      Wills, Wilfrid D.

      Haslam, sir John (Bolton)

      Pike, Cecil F.

      Wise, Alfred R.

      Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.

      Potter, John

      Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)

      Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller

      Power, Sir John Cecil

      Worthington, Dr. John V.

      Holdsworth, Herbert

      Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)

      Hope, Capt. Arthur O. J. (Aston)

      Rankin, Robert

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

      Hope, Sydney (Chester, Stalybridge)

      Ray, Sir William

      Sir Frederick Thomson and

      Horsbrugh, Florence

      Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)

      Commander Southby.

      Howard, Tom Forrest

      Remer, John R.

      Sir A. SINCLAIR: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
      Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

      DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, SCOTLAND.
      Motion made, and Question proposed,
      "That a sum, not exceeding £336,647, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1933, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of Agriculture for Scotland, including grants for land improvement, agricultural education, research and marketing, loans to Co-operative Societies, a grant under the Agricultural Credits (Scotland) Act, 1929, a grant in respect of the Hebridean Drifter Service, and certain grants in aid."—[Note. —£140,000 has been voted on account.]
      Sir A. SINCLAIR: Members who have the interests of agriculture at heart, and Scottish Members in particular, have seldom, if ever, met to consider the problems of agricultural administration at a time when farmers were contending against so many and such powerful adverse factors; but at this late hour it would be impossible for me, and the Committee would not expect or desire me, to enter upon a discussion of the broader aspects of agricultural policy, nor do I think that is necessary after the very full and clear explanation of the Government's policy which has been given in successive statements by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture. I would only say this, that while the main battle for the revival of agriculture and industry generally will be fought on a wider than a purely agricultural front, the immediate agricultural objectives of the Government are particularly appropriate to Scottish conditions, and, indeed, we in Scotland have already undertaken a considerable amount of pioneer work in these directions. In accordance with this policy the agricultural departments of the Government, and particularly the Department of Agriculture in Scotland, have been concentrating upon such measures as may be taken immediately to help the farmer in his present distress and to improve his prospects. Nor do we feel that we are engaged upon a hopeless task or even a doubtful enterprise. On the contrary, we are confident that agriculture is destined to play a great and an increasing part in the economic life of the country, and that it will not be
      1202
      the last of our industries to emerge from the gloom of the present depression.
      Nevertheless, while we are anxious to do our utmost to help the farmer in every way in which a Department of State can, no part of the machinery of administration can be immune from the overriding necessity of economy at the present juncture. On account of the financial crisis through which we are passing, and passing, I think, more successfully than hon. Members would have ventured to prophesy only a few months ago, expenditure—and, let it be quite clearly understood, useful, valuable and productive expenditure—has had to be cut in every Department. But for these considerations, I should have found it impossible to justify the heavy reductions which have been made this year in the Votes for important agricultural services in Scotland. Taking these considerations into account, I realise that the Committee will rightly call upon me to justify every shilling of the expenditure which I am asking them to approve.
      Let me begin by asking the Committee to consider the broad totals of the economies which have been effected. The provisional Estimates for 1932, which I inherited, amounted to £757,045. The May Committee recommended that this figure should be reduced by £75,000, apart from economies of an unspecified amount on Land Settlement. The Government made it clear to the House at the time when the report of the May Committee was under discussion, and to the country at the General Election, that they would not be satisfied with the economies which had been indicated by the May Committee, and that further economies would be sought in every direction. In pursuance of the decision of the Government we have sought in every direction for every possible economy in these agricultural services. To summarise what we have done in this direction: We have reduced the Estimate by £175,000 to £581,613, that is £142,000 below the Estimate for 1931.
      The Committee will want me to deal with the particular items of expenditure on these accounts. I propose to take them in the order of size. The largest single item is the Estimate of £220,000 for the Agriculture (Scotland) Fund, which includes a grant-in-aid, of £125,000, for land settlement, and £15,000 for rural

      1203
      housing. The remaining £80,000 represents a proportion of the cash loss in respect of smallholding properties during the previous year, which is applicable to schemes financed wholly or partly by means of loans from the Public Works Loans Commission. After the War, at the high-level of prices, funds were borrowed by the Board of Agriculture, as it was then, at the prevailing commercial rate of interest, in some cases over 6 per cent., which we are still paying. The inevitable heavy loss on the settlements was undertaken at that level of prices, and we paid the full commercial market price of money at the time for the financial accommodation which we received from the Public Works Loans Commissioners. The whole of that money is being paid off by annual payments, decreasing in amount year by year. I say decreasing in amount year by year although, no doubt, some hon. Member will have spotted that there is an increase this year of £1,000. That is merely a matter of accounting last year. It remains true that the general trend over a series of years is steadily downwards. About five years ago it was over £100,000.
      These figures represent a reduction for this year, in the grant-in-aid for land settlement, of £50,000. The normal grant is £175,000, but, as a result of the crisis last August, and of what is known as the standstill order on land settlement, which prevented us from moving at all in the direction of acquiring properties for settlement, we are able to make these economies this year, without for the remaining part of the year, retarding progress on adaptation work on properties already acquired. There could be no more false economy than to slow down that process of adaptation. The more quickly properties once acquired can be passed through the machinery of the Department, the more economical the settlement will be. To slow down the work of adaptation of properties, especially where a certain amount of work has been done, is to run the risk of involving the State in far greater expenditure than would be saved by withdrawing a portion of the staff. Nevertheless, as I have said, the share of the economy measures of the Government to be borne by this service amounts to a figure of £50,000, and it is for me to justify
      1204
      the ground on which I am asking for £125,000. I do not think there will be many voices raised against this grant, for never was there a time when the settlement was more justified, whether we look at the records of the past or at the needs of Scottish agriculture or rural economy in the future.
      Mr. KIRKWOOD: May I ask the Minister whether that £50,000 is going to affect the position this year.
      Sir A. SINCLAIR: That is the economy we are effecting this year. If we look back at the past we find that the policy of land settlement has been justified by the resistance that those who have been settled on the land have shown to the adverse economic influences which have overwhelmed so many larger farmers. There are few industries in this country which can show so small a proportion of failures, during the recent years of heavy depression, as the smallholders of Scotland. Moreover, looking to the future, it is apparent that modern tendencies in agricultural development towards labour-saving devices and mechanisation must inevitably have the effect of aggravating still further the problem of rural depopulation. There is, however, a compensating tendency—of equally natural and sound economic growth—to concentrate upon those lines of production for which this country by the nature of its soil and climate and by the position of its land in relation to its consuming centres, enjoys the greatest natural advantages, such as livestock, dairying and fruit farming, poultry and market gardening, for all of which small holdings are admirably adapted.
      We must not forget the unsatisfied demand which exists for land all over Scotland. Apart from the arrears, amounting roughly to 3,000 applications for new holdings and 3,000 applications for enlargements, the number of fresh applications in each of the past five years has been between two and three times the number settled in any of those years. Experience shows that there is a latent demand which is awakened by the initiation of a scheme in any district. Many of the applicants have been waiting, and especially ex-service men, for holdings since the War. The Under-Secretary for Scotland said, on the last Vote that we were discussing, in reply to the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. D. Graham), that

      1205
      whereas, in the case of housing there was no definite policy and no special pledge given to ex-service men, it was true that ex-service men, as a result of speeches that were made by leaders of public opinion at the end and just after the War, came home under the impression that there had been a pledge given them by public opinion generally that they would get a chance of owning a bit of land. We ought not to forget our duty to them, merely because, owing to circumstances which it is impossible to control and which it has been impossible for some time to control, we are slow in discharging that duty.
      It is a remarkable fact that, in spite of the great difficulties of agriculture, in spite of the bankruptcies and the hard times, this active demand for smallholdings still persists and increases. It is true that smallholdings cost money. To settle a man and his family on a 50-acre holding or family farm costs on the average about £1,187. To make a similar settlement upon a 10-acre market garden costs £685; while a 10-acre holding with pigs and poultry costs the State—these are actual net costs to the State—about £602. On the other hand a five-acre market garden costs only £453. A five-acre poultry holding costs only £444. If those holdings are constituted in suitable places near good markets, the smallholder, even on the smallest of those holdings, even on the five-acre poultry holding, and particularly if he gives half an acre to a market garden, has every prospect of success.
      In the last 10 years there has been spent in Scotland from the Road Fund, from local rates from Unemployment Grants Committee money, upon schemes —which however valuable in themselves give at the best only temporary employment and afford no hope of permanently establishing an unemployed man—no less than £25,000,000, while on land settlement, which provides a permanent means of livelihood for a man and the family, there has been spent in the past 12 years only £2,250,000. Every man settled on a smallholding relieves to that extent the pressure upon the labour market. Let it not be supposed that it is only the country-bred man or woman who does well on the land. Of just under 4,000 men settled on the land by the Department, 2,600 came from agricultural employment, but 1,314, or almost exactly
      1206
      one-third, came from other occupations. A tailor, for example, who was settled in 1921 now keeps over 800 laying hens and raises 5,000 chicks annually. He values his present stock and plant at £4,000. A miner who was settled on five acres in 1923 was transferred to a holding of 49 acres in 1927 and he now has 19 dairy cows and 500 poultry. A cabinet maker with £150 of capital, who entered a five-acre holding in 1923, has twice attained the premier award in the Scottish official egg-laying contest, and is now among the foremost poultry breeders in the country.
      There are many townsmen with a flair for country life who may be quicker and more ready than the country-bred man to adopt and adapt intelligently the latest development in science. In the present condition of unemployment, it is well worth while to get men removed from the congested labour markets or from being a charge on the State or the public assistance committee and planted firmly in secure, wholesome and productive employment on the soil. Lastly, there is that menacing problem which occupies the mind of all of us who know the Scottish countryside, namely, rural depopulation. In recent decades every rural county has registered a decline in its population at each successive census. No part of the country has been a worse victim of this tendency than the Highlands of Scotland. To check the depopulation and restore a balance between town and country must be one of the primary aims of a constructive policy for the countryside.
      Land settlement must inevitably play the chief role in these efforts, and its effectiveness as an instrument in repopulating the countryside is amply illustrated in the third section of the report of the Department of Agriculture. These and many other equally powerful considerations can be urged in support of the policy of land settlement. In that way alone can we redress the balance— now, I suggest to the Committee, in dangerous disequilibrium—between our urban and rural population, and maintain in the countryside in Scotland men and women concentrating on those lines of production for which our agricultural conditions are best adapted, while preserving a vigorous and healthy country-bred stock from which men and women may be recruited either for the intel-

      1207
      lectual and industrial life of our great cities, or for Imperial migration and development.
      9.30 p.m.
      To turn to the next largest item of the Estimates, which is the money required for the maintenance of the whole administrative structure of the Department, let me say frankly that the figures, as given in the Estimates in the summarised form in which we are bound to present them to the Committee, are unavoidably misleading in the sense that they convey a wholly inadequate impression of the economies that have been effected and of course none at all of the results which will automatically flow from them in the future. Hon. Members will naturally look at Item A, which shows a reduction of only £796 from the figure of £130,000 for last year. They will probably be a little puzzled and almost certainly disappointed. Let me therefore ask them to follow me in an analysis of that figure. First of all, I would ask them to give attention to a series of increases in expenditure with which I was faced and over which I had no control. The largest item consisted of annual and automatic increments of salary of the staff and bonuses—increases to which they were entitled by the ordinary rules of the Civil Service, amounting to no less than £3,245. While there is nothing exceptionally generous in the treatment of the staff, which is under the same rules as other Departments doing similar work, there is one peculiar circumstance affecting it which I would ask hon. Members to bear in mind, and that is its comparative youth. It has barely attained its majority, and the result is that while at one end the staff is gradually climbing up the incremental scale of salary, at the other end it will be a number of years before a corresponding number of the staff are dropping off by reason of death and retirement. Meanwhile nothing short of a revision of the pay of the whole of the Civil Service could affect that figure which I have given the Committee.
      The next largest item is the additional cost of services not brought fully into operation during 1931; in other words, inescapable commitments inherited from our predecessors amounting to £940. The next item is clerical vacancies filled at a higher cost than last year, amounting
      1208
      to £983, under an arrangement which is universal throughout the whole Civil Service. If there is a vacancy for a clerical officer in one Department another officer may come in from another Department who may be at a higher level in the increment scale than the officer which the Department is losing or at a lower level. In some years the arrangement works out to the advantage of a particular Department, and this year it is working out to our detriment to the extent of £893. Lastly, there is a new and valuable service recently inaugurated by an Act of the last Parliament—the inspectorate appointed under the Licensing of Bulls Act. For this purpose two inspectors and one part-time advisory officer have been appointed at a total salary of £754. Add to these items a number of similarly quite uncontrollable increases amounting to just under £200, and we reach a total increase of £6,026.
      Now let us turn to the reductions which we have effected. The first item is the abolition of posts to the value of £4,154. The next item is the economy cuts in salaries amounting to £1,624, and the third is the reductions due to retirements, transfer and death, amounting to £1,044, or a total of £6,822. If I mention these facts and ask the Committee to give my Department some credit for this gross figure of reductions, I do so without any of the complacency of which the hon. Member for Hamilton accused us in the Debate on the last Vote. Economy is not a matter of complacency, but a matter for firm and careful handling, and it is my constant endeavour to seek means of economy in every direction in which it can be effected without detriment to the efficiency of the service. For example, in addition to the economies referred to, and to those which hon. Members may be able to trace in the Estimates, I have refrained from filling two of the higher posts in the Department, although they appear on the Estimates, and additional economies in respect of these posts will duly accrue in the course of the year. These efforts to economise without impairing the efficiency of vital services will not be relaxed; we shall continue firmly on this course so long as the present financial emergency exists. I cannot conclude my remarks on this Vote without expressing my own sense, and I believe that of every other Mem-

      1209
      ber of the Committee however keen an economist he may be, of the loyal, zealous and ungrudging service which the public in general and agriculture in particular receive from the officials of the Department over which I have the honour for the time being to preside.
      The next subject to which I desire to refer is that of agricultural research and education. In recent years, when prices have been falling catastrophically, successive Governments have realised the urgency of calling in the scientists to help in attacking economic waste, and thus enabling farmers to reduce both their risks and their costs. The value of the work in this direction performed by the agricultural research institutes has already put into the pockets of Scottish farmers an amount equal to many times the cost of those institutes. There is no more profitable investment that the State can make than scientific research. It is proving its value to agriculture in directions too numerous to mention to-night, but of which recent and striking examples are the prevention of rickets in pigs, of diseases in chickens, and particularly chickens hatched in winter and early spring, and of diseases in sheep which have inflicted heavy losses on Scottish flockmasters. The improvement of temporary pastures through the work of the North of Scotland College of Agriculture was recently calculated by one of the Governors to have resulted in an increased return, to Aberdeenshire farmers alone, of £30,000 a year, while the control of leaf stripe, one of the notable achievements of the West of Scotland College of Agriculture, is estimated to add £l an acre to the returns of oat growers in the districts where that disease is prevalent. These are only some of the obvious results from research. It may be asserted with every assurance that investments in agricultural research return, not five or 10, but hundreds per cent. on the capital invested.
      The latest addition to the chain of agricultural research institutes in Scotland, the Macaulay Institute of Soil Research, has now come into operation. It has been established in good quarters at Craigie Butler, in Aberdeenshire, and is being equipped for the performance of its important duties. It has already undertaken work of an interesting and instructive nature into the possibilities of reclaiming and cultivating peat land in
      1210
      Lewis. The results so far obtained from the cropping of the reclaimed land have been encouraging, and the experiments are being continued with the object of securing still more satisfactory results. An important feature of the work of the institutes in recent years has been the co-operation between a number of institutes, each pursuing the particular line of research for which it is specially adapted, but working towards a common goal. For example, an investigation into the relation between deficiency in the mineral constituents of soils and the occurrence of disease due to malnutrition is being undertaken by the Macaulay Institute for Soil Research, aided by the Rowett Institute for Animal Nutrition at Aberdeen, and the Animal Diseases Research Association at Edinburgh. Each of these Institutes approaches the problem from its own special angle, and facilitates the progress towards the common goal of its fellow institutes.
      Another example of team work is the research which is being carried out on the nutrition of pigs, in which the Rowett Institute, again, is collaborating with the Animal Diseases Research Association in Edinburgh and the Animal Breeding Research Department of the University of Edinburgh. The results of this work should be of immense practical value to farmers in Scotland, and should greatly facilitate the development of the Government's policy for the encouragement of the pig industry. I hesitate to detain the Committee any further on this subject, but there have been such remarkable developments in research on the diseases of sheep that I think the Committee would like to be informed about them. Under the auspices of the Animal Diseases Research Association, during the past year over 30,000 doses of vaccine for innoculation against braxy were sold by the Association to farmers throughout the country, and it is a striking testimony to the efficacy of this treatment that, while in the untreated animals on the farms where carefully controlled large scale experiments were conducted the death rate from braxy ranged from five per cent. in some lots to 14 per cent. in others, the death rate from the disease among the treated sheep was only one-half of 1 per cent.
      Still more important and gratifying were the results of the issue by the Association of 50,000 doses of serum for

      1211
      the treatment of lamb dysentery. The treatment was entirely successful, and I think the Committee will agree that this is an achievement which only a few years ago would have seemed almost visionary, but which will put scores of thousands of pounds every year into the pockets of sheep farmers in Scotland; and I think the Committee will also agree that the grateful congratulations of us all are due to Dr. Russell Grieg and the brilliant staff of the Animal Diseases Research Association. A vaccine for the treatment of louping-ill has also been prepared by the Association, and has been tried this season upon 4,000 sheep. Strong grounds exist for anticipating favourable results, and the preliminary reports, which I only saw yesterday, indicate that the experiments are being conducted under good conditions, and are yielding promising results so far. I should like to refer also to the very valuable work which is going on at the plant breeding station on the production of types of oats which will be early ripening and at the same time productive—work which will be of particular interest to Members for Highland constituencies. Very remarkable results have been achieved with the "Bell" and the "Elder" varieties of oats, named after two of the founders of the Plant Breeding Association, and these two varieties are now on the market and are giving good results,
      I must also refer briefly to the work which is being undertaken by the Hannah Dairy Research Institute. This work is of great value to milk producers, and also to the general community. There is no more important branch of agriculture than the dairy industry, nor one with greater possibilities of expansion. It has been estimated that the average consumption of milk per head of the population in this country is less than half a pint per day; yet, if the average consumption per head in Scotland were raised by a quarter of a pint per day, we should need 100,000 more cows and 10,000 more workers on the land to look after them. Even then the average consumption of milk in Scotland would be about half that in Sweden, and only three-fifths of that in the United States of America. If we increased our consumption to the level of that in Sweden, it is doubtful if, under the present conditions of agriculture in Scotland, there
      1212
      would be enough land in the whole of Scotland to carry the cows that would be required.
      The supreme importance of milk as a food, and especially as a food for growing children, has been demonstrated by a series of experiments carried out in different parts of the country, notably that which was undertaken by the Lanarkshire Education Authority in 1930. But, if the industry is to be developed to its full capacity, it must be enabled, on the one hand, to banish from the public mind the fear of unclean milk and, on the other hand, to lower its cost of production by attacking diseases such as tuberculosis, contagious abortion and mastitis. The Hannah Research Institute and the Animal Diseases Research Association are already working on the eradication of tuberculosis and the prevention of milk fever, and we are now laying our plans for attacking other diseases which impose heavy charges on milk producers. All this work is an important part of the Government policy for the encouragement of the great dairying industry.
      The importance of research is great, but no less important is it to convey the results of research to the farmers. The first stage is the pure research in the laboratory. The next stage is experiment on the farm attached to the Institute. Then experiments on a larger scale may be carried out by the agricultural college and finally, when the value of the experiment is proved, it is the duty of the colleges, by means of arranging visits to farmers, to see the results of the experiments and, by any other means in their power of which, of course, the chief is the employment of the county organiser, to get that information to the farmers of the country. The main agent of this dissemination at the present time is the county organiser who has done such admirable work in every part of Scotland. As, however, agricultural research develops in range and complexity it becomes increasingly difficult for the organiser to keep himself up to date in every department of the work, and it may well be that almost every branch of agriculture is included in the county for which he is responsible. In many cases he may find that the farmers themselves, whom he is anxious to help, know as much about the results

      1213
      of research in the particular line in which they are interested as he does himself.
      It is, therefore, for consideration—on this I should like hon. Members to favour the Committee and the Government with their views—whether we ought not to depend more for the dissemination of this knowledge obtained by research institutes upon specialists in particular branches. Of course, conditions vary in different parts of the country, and in scattered districts like the Highlands it is hardly possible to contemplate in any predictable future that the services of the county organiser on the spot could be dispensed with. In counties less remote it is for consideration whether, with the improved facilities for communication which now exist, a more specialised service, based directly upon the agricultural colleges, would not yield more satisfactory results.
      The last subject on which I desire to say a few words—I wish I could spend more time on it—is that of agricultural marketing. Scotland has not been backward in making use of the Agricultural Marketing Act. Already two schemes have been submitted for my approval. The first is the raspberry scheme, which was submitted to me on 6th April, and I am now considering certain representations and objections which have been put to me by parties affected. The second is the milk scheme, which was submitted to me on the 3rd of this month and which has been published for the information of all concerned in order to give an opportunity of making representations or objections. This milk scheme covers the greater part of Scotland, the whole of the country south of the Grampians. There has also been a strong demand among Scottish farmers interested in livestock for the preparation of a marketing scheme for fat stock, and I am arranging, accordingly, for the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society to inquire into the subject and prepare a scheme. From indications that I have received it is apparent that ample support will be forthcoming in the not distant future for the preparation of similar schemes for eggs and potatoes. These schemes will undoubtedly have the effect of eliminating wasteful and out-of-date methods of marketing in some of the commodities of the greatest importance to Scottish agriculture. I should not like to pass
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      from this subject without paying a tribute to the imaginative and vigorous lead which has been given by the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society, which will long and gratefully be remembered by generations of Scottish farmers as the pioneers, unsparing in their labours, of scientific methods of marketing.
      The time at our disposal is so short— I hope we shall have a further opportunity on some other occasion—that I feel that the best service that I can render to the Committee and to Scottish agriculture is to bring my remarks to a close and give opportunities to others to speak. I assure the Committee that we in the Department of Agriculture are resolved that no efforts shall be lacking on our part to support the Scottish farmer in maintaining, as he has been gallantly doing during the worst years of depression, the high reputation of Scottish farming. The Scottish farmer has always had his eye on the future. Never have Scottish farmers supported and helped forward research and marketing reform more than they are doing to-day, and I feel confident that, when prosperity returns, as it will, to the agricultural industry, Scottish farming will once again be not only the admiration, as I believe it is to-day, but also the envy of the world. But every Department must conform to the general policy of the Government and to the imperious demands of the financial situation. I have, therefore, thrown myself into the task, which I will not disguise from the Committee has been a distasteful one, of effecting economies in services which I believe to be not only important to agriculture but essential parts of the administrative and economic fabric of the State. I have done so because I believe that the policy of the Government is right and is adapted to the needs of the times, that it is idle to go on tinkering with the problem of agricultural development with our reserves of financial power depleted, as they were last autumn, almost to the point of exhaustion, and that, the more rapidly and the more thoroughly, though not carelessly or recklessly, we effect the necessary economies now, the sooner we shall be able to resume our forward march and tackle effectively the problems of social reform and economic and agricultural reconstruction.
      Mr. LEONARD: I hope it will not be taken amiss if I compliment the right

      1215
      hon. and gallant Gentleman on the way he has presented a most interesting case in a manner that befits one coming from the part of Scotland from which he comes. I hope it will not be assumed that, because I represent a congested district of Glasgow, I have no interest in agriculture because, just to the extent that density exists in our town areas, so does it become more important that the question of food supplies should be looked at and understood. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that agriculture is destined to play as important a part in our national life as many other aspects of activity, but I am rather at a loss to understand why, if such importance is going to attend this national conference, certain aspects displayed in these figures present themselves as they do to us. I know that in the initial part of his remarks, as in the latter part, we were informed that the overriding demand of economy was a determining factor, but I am sometimes at a loss to understand what economy really means. It may be that a person himself may think that, if he refrains from spending something, he is saving, but, in so far as the nation is concerned, I think economy can be viewed as increasing the production of the thing required, and it is that category of saving that we have to look into and tinkering, a word that he used later, is something that we should not do even in the holy name of economy.
      I was especially interested to hear the concluding remarks which the right hon. Gentleman directed to the activities of research and experimentation, and because of that reference I am the more surprised to see the decrease of expenditure as shown in the accounts before us. I am surprised to see that in regard to this Department which in the past has been so beneficial to the farming community of the country, and incidentally, I hope, to those who live on the produce of the farms, there is a decrease of no less than £19,564. I should have thought that the results were so beneficial that the Department would have been allowed to carry on as before. While it may be stated, as an offset to that, that a certain amount of co-operation has taken place with regard to the various institutions which are functioning, notwithstanding the co-operation dis-
      1216
      played in that way, I think that there would be a genuine advantage to be gained from extending the work of research. Scientific tests and experiments are also subject to a reduction, although the amount is not so large. I am reminded of the protests made in previous years regarding the lack of power and opportunity to experiment, and to apply the results of the Research Department. If we are to have a research department we are bound to see to it that they have large and comprehensive fields in which to apply the results of research, and not leave the results to be applied by people who are not so conversant with them.
      Agricultural marketing is down for a cut of £4,800, which also does not conform to what I would conceive to be the requirements of this country with regard to the marketing of produce, so essential to our well-being. I was interested in reading a report recently presented by the veterinary surgeon to the city of Glasgow. It may be within the knowledge of the right hon. Gentleman. In that report he tells us of the details given to him and others at the International Dairy Congress in Denmark in July of last year. Among the details of interest contained in the report were the following: For every 100 persons in Denmark there are 46 cows and 148 pigs; in Germany, for every 100 persons 16 cows and 34 pigs; in Holland, for every 100 persons 14 cows and 25 pigs; but in Great Britain, where our needs are as great as those of any of the other countries, for every 100 persons there are only seven cows and six pigs. We should foster education along the lines of marketing and research in the way in which it is being done in Denmark. The outstanding feature of the co-operation which takes place in Denmark is in regard to marketing and the organisation of marketing, including co-operation and the technique of the whole of the problem. It is fostered by Government inspection and control. A Government guarantee of soundness and quality is as essential in this country as it is in Denmark, so as to keep everyone up to concert pitch and cause people to have confidence in regard to the quality of the produce purchased by them.
      10.0 p.m.
      The principle of co-operation covers 90 per cent. of the Danish creamery pro-

      1217
      duction, and in the control of their great co - operative organisations they are sufficiently democratic to allow the representatives of the workers a share in the control. Until we get towards that point there can be very little hope of the idea permeating throughout this country. Piggeries are regarded as one of the byproducts of the creameries in Denmark. The production of pigs is scientifically carried out. There are 53 co-operative bacon factories in that country. They are not confined to the handling of bacon. They also engage in egg production and the grading of eggs, and quite recently they entered into a method whereby the production of chickens is dealt with in a scientific manner. Something should be done in this country by keeping intact the research organisation and the 'application of research, because of its great advantages. Co-operation is the keynote. Until the farmers of this country are educated in the advantages of co-operation they will not achieve the desired object.
      I do not propose to touch upon land settlement, because I have heard an interjection which causes me to believe that it is to be dealt with by another hon. Member, but with regard to allotments, I am of opinion that the demand for them has not been met to the extent I would like to see it met. There are in many depressed areas in the country men who are keenly anxious for work of this description. I am especially insistent upon this because of the examples given by the right hon. Gentleman with regard to inexperienced people with adaptability going into chicken and egg-raising. I think that with an extension of allotments some similar advantage might accrue in that direction. I am informed by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. D. Graham) that there have been a number of applications for allotments in his area and that no response of a suitable or satisfactory character has been given. Therefore I hope the demand for allotments will be looked upon a little more kindly, so that the possibilities of allotments will be as great as those displayed with regard to egg farming. The advances made in research and the application of research do not warrant a reduction of the Estimate, but rather an extension of work which should not in any way be limited.
      Sir SAMUEL CHAPMAN: My right hon. Friend was generous in his tribute of praise to those who work so loyally under him, and I am sure that the Committee will want, if I may presume to voice the opinion of the Committee, to be most generous in their praise of the right hon. Gentleman and the vigorous and encouraging speech he has just delivered to us. We look forward to many years of excellent work from the right hon. Gentleman. Those of us who know a little of Scottish history know that our present Minister of Agriculture for Scotland—I prefer to call him that rather than the Secretary of State for Scotland —occupies a hereditary position, and that his great-great-grandfather was the individual who, through his own efforts in this House in 1793 established the Board of Agriculture for the United Kingdom. I am quite sure that during the next four years, when the right hon. Gentleman ruminates amidst those "castellated shades of Thurso, "as Disraeli, in Edinburgh in 1868, called his palatial residence in the far north of Scotland, when be thinks of what his family has done for agriculture, and when he looks at that Raeburn of his great-great-grandfather, he will be able to say at the end of his career, "I, too, have done something for agriculture."
      I want to speak for only two or three minutes on two points upon which the right hon. Gentleman has not touched. On page 63 of the Report there is mentioned for the first time in the history of Scotland an animal which is not a native of Scotland. We all wish to encourage new industries, no matter where they come from, and in the establishment of silver fox farming in Scotland there has been considerable success. There is another little animal which is being imported into Scotland, the breeding of which we hope will also be a great success—the musk rat. No one wishes to throw any obstacle in the way of those enterprising gentlemen who are introducing this new industry, but as the musk rat is an animal which does not like captivity, and which when it gets into its native haunts breeds at an enormous rate, I do desire to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that it will be most necessary for his Department to keep an eye on those who are engaging in this enterprise.

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      I do not know whether my right hon. Friend has ever seen a musk rat. This particular musk rat comes from Alaska, but it is the same musk rat which is in various counties of Scotland; and as some have escaped from these confined areas in Scotland, where they are breeding them to a large extent, I would point out that if they once get into the rivers of Scotland, whether it is the Erne or the Tay or any other river, they will burrow 100 yards under the soil right into the bank, they will enter under the water, and it is always very difficult to detect the damage they are doing, but when there come floods, down go the banks, and great havoc is caused to agriculture. I am quite sure that the right hon. Gentleman is keeping his eye on this particular little rodent, which is not quite so profitable to breed now as it might have been six or seven years ago, as hon. Members will appreciate when I tell them that I have ascertained to-day that furs of this nature can be secured in the right quarters, with the duty paid —and I call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to those new duties, of which he is one of the distinguished authors—for the price of half a crown. All I desire to say to my right hon. Friend is "Keep your eye on the musk rat."
      Earl of DALKEITH: Having regard to the destruction caused by the musk rat all over Europe, is it desirable to encourage the industry in Scotland?
      Sir S. CHAPMAN: In order not to take up any further time I did not wish to go into that matter, but I desire to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to this: That where they are bred, and where people have the enterprise to put down a good deal of money for the purpose of breeding them, the Department should see that they do not escape from the large enclosures in which they are encaged. Just this one other thing: The right hon. Gentleman at the commencement of his most excellent speech said that he would not go into any details with regard to agriculture, because the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture, who, I am glad to see, has just come into his place —[HON. MEMBERS: "He has been here all the time!"] I am sorry; I was observing so closely the Secretary of
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      State for Scotland that I did not look beyond him to anybody else. The right hon. Gentleman said that as his right hon. Friend had so admirably described the policy of the Government with regard to agriculture he would not add anything further to that. Therefore in the presence of these two right hon. Gentlemen I wish to quote a sentence from a speech which was delivered in this House on the 7th April last by the Minister of Agriculture himself; and it is a passage to which I wish to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland. What the Minister of Agriculture said was:
      "One thing perfectly clear is that whether it is arable farming or stock-raising, if the prices which the producer gets for his product do not pay for the cost of production, it is impossible indefinitely for him to carry on."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th April, 1932; col. 433, Vol. 264.]
      That is the crux of the question. All I desire to say to our popular Secretary of State for Scotland is that he will have to back up the Minister of Agriculture in the spirit and in the letter of that sentence which I have just read. He has to face it. We who are Members for town constituencies have to go quite boldly to our constituents and to say to them clearly, exactly as the Minister of Agriculture has said to this House, "We have got to give the agriculturists of Scotland and of these islands a good price for the products which they produce." The Ministry is there for that purpose. The Minister of Agriculture has pledged himself in this House that that is the policy of the Government, and I am sure the Secretary of State for Scotland will, as a loyal individual, back him up through thick and thin.
      Town and country hang together. An old Member of this House, Sir Josiah Child, said over 300 years ago that they are twins; when one thrives the other thrives; when one decays the other decays. We town Members, as well as the country Members, have to be equally keen in backing up agriculture, and we shall look to our present popular Secretary of State for Scotland to take the lead, so far as Scotland is concerned, to forget for a moment some of those doctrines which I have heard him talk about on the other side of the House, and give a lead to Scotland, and put agriculture once more in a proper state of increasing prosperity.
      Captain ARCHIBALD RAMSAY: I wish only to raise a point which has been raised on several occasions and in several quarters by hon. Members. I refer to the dates of maturity as laid down in the Schedule to the Import Duties Act. We have invited the attention of the Secretary of State for Scotland and of the Minister of Agriculture to these points: how gooseberries in Scotland are not nearly ripe on the 30th June; how we cannot possibly hope to sell strawberries by the 15th or the 25th June; how we have no hope of ripening tomatoes either by the 31st July, when the two penny duty obtains, or even in any quantities by the 31st October, when the penny duty obtains.
      The CHAIRMAN: The hon. and gallant Member cannot discuss that matter on this Vote.
      Captain RAMSAY: I thank you for your Ruling. May I invite the co-operation of the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Agriculture? I would like particularly to plead with, the Secretary of State for Scotland, because in a matter of this kind not I alone but many other Scottish Members have bitterly complained that we find ourselves up against an extremely difficult situation. We go to the office of the Secretary of State, and either he or his most genial Undersecretary, after we have put forward our case, tells us that it does not come quite within the jurisdiction of the Secretary of State for Scotland and that we must apply to the Minister of Agriculture. We go to the Minister of Agriculture and we are told that this matter does not rest entirely with him, and that we must go back to the Secretary of State for Scotland. We are rather like Alice with Tweedledum and Tweedledee. They have their arms round each other's neck, and one says "contrariwise," and the other "nowise."
      This matter is, we understand, in the hands of the Minister of Agriculture, and now that we have the good fortune of having the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Scotland present, I do appeal to the Secretary of State that he will make the strongest possible representations to his colleague. I ask that he would make this representation, perhaps one of many, and that he would ask him, or take steps in consultation with him, to issue an Order-in-
      1222
      Council that will enable the Scottish horticultural producers of tomatoes to have the date of the duty post-dated for three weeks. That would help us out, and a longer period would help us more. Scotsmen who know anything about the growing of tomatoes or strawberries—I could mention several other items—earnestly request that this matter should be dealt with now. We have put questions in the House, we have lobbied outside the House and done everything we possibly could, but month after month has gone by and already several valuable advantages under the Act have been lost to us.
      Therefore, I hope that he will use his good offices to see that an Order-in-Council is issued promptly giving the Scottish horticultural producers the same advantages, or something near the same advantages that are now enjoyed by producers in the southern latitude by postdating the maturity dates under the Schedule by three or four weeks. That would enable the Scottish growers to enjoy the benefits of a period wherein one is able to get enhanced prices, which is a very valuable thing. People may make light of the fact that there is only a small advantage for a short time, but whether it is in agriculture or any other industry an extra 1½ per cent. is a very valuable sweetener to the yield over the whole year. Therefore, I beg my right hon. Friend to do something at once to put this matter right this year and not to leave it over.
      Mr. KIRKWOOD: The Secretary of State can flatter himself on the speech he has made to-night. He has shown that he thoroughly understands his subject, just as the Minister of Agriculture thoroughly understands his subject. Therefore, he can take it from me that all that he has said to-night from his place at the Box, unless he delivers the goods, is going to be used in evidence against him. It is no use his standing at that Box and displaying all his oratorical abilities unless he is going to put into practice something which will be of benefit to Scotland. Scotland needs someone who will do something, not somebody who is only going to talk at that Box. I have listened for 10 years to Secretaries of State making similar speeches, perhaps not just as good as that of the right hon. Gentleman, but just as promising. Agriculture in Scotland is at a very low ebb.

      1223
      When I challenged the Under-Secretary of State about Scotland being depopulated to the extent of 42,000, he explained that it was not in the industrial areas but in the rural areas. Think of that. This depopulation is in the agricultural areas.
      "Oh, that mine enemy would write a book."
      Out of his mouth we condemn the Government again. The most important part of Scotland is the agricultural area. Once a noble peasantry is destroyed it can never be replaced. That is what is going on in Scotland. Our noble peasantry is being destroyed year after year. Formerly they went across the seas, but now they are not being produced because conditions are so bad. The Under-Secretary of State also spoke about 2,000 who are getting smallholdings. We used to worry the Minister of Agriculture when he was Secretary of State for Scotland and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury when he was the understudy of Lord Novar, the Secretary of State, about getting our folk back on to the land, those men who will no longer work in the mines and in the engineering and shipbuilding yards. Tonight the Secretary of State comes forward with a nice flowery speech. You would think that the Government were going to do wonders, and that all is better than well in my native land. I know that such is not the case. No Government have made any attempt to carry out what the speech of the right hon. Gentleman indicates.
      I want the House to remember that we bring from Denmark millions of pounds of dairy produce which we could produce ourselves. Our climate is better, our soil is better, and it was instilled into me in my youthful days whether it is true or not I cannot affirm, that the Scottish farmer is the finest farmer in the world. Here you have the finest material in the world on which to work as against Denmark. You have the soil, the climate and the men. But what do we find? Only 2,000 put on smallholdings. [Interruption.] Well, only a little over 2,000, and you have over 300,000 unemployed. On the evidence of the Secretary of State himself these men who are unemployed to-day—miners, engineers, even tailors—have been a gigantic success on the land where they
      1224
      have had a chance. Why in the name of all that is good does he not put more of those men on the land? Why leave them with nothing to do while you are paying them 15s. 3d. a week? We are told by the right hon. Gentleman that they can be put on the land to earn a decent livelihood, but nothing is done.
      I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not go on with these proposed economies. My colleagues and I have opposed every cut. We do not believe that cuts are necessary or ever were necessary. You will never get good results by reducing expenditure. There is no reason for this idea of economy which is abroad throughout civilisation to-day. Every country has it and every statesman in every clime and every government—even here—are anxious to reduce wages and salaries and to reduce the standard of life. But my colleagues and I stand for the very opposite. I want the right hon. Gentleman to take another view of the situation. We must spend money. There is no shortage of the necessaries of life in the world to-day. If there was a shortage in any article all the investors in the House of Commons would be investing their money to produce that article. There is no real call for economy, and this question ought to be approached from another point of view. The right hon. Gentleman ought to remember that the race which he is supposed to represent here, the Scottish race, the common people of Scotland, are of more value than money. Let him give them a chance instead of leaving tens of thousands of them with nothing definite to do and no hope in the world of being able to earn a decent livelihood.
      To-day the mothers of Scotland are crying out to Heaven, "What am I to do with my boy? Where am I to get him a job?" The Secretary of State has a glorious opportunity to put his own ideas into operation and to put those men on the land, and what a land. Think of the Highland glens and vales, where tens of thousands of a hardy and intelligent race have been reared. Now those glens are depopulated and the houses have been left roofless, though there are not so many of those ruins now. The people have been driven from the glens to the uttermost parts of the world, where they have made good in thousands of cases. Why can we not do something for the folk at home,

      1225
      instead of driving them away across the wild Atlantic Sea? I could tell a different tale from the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir S. Chapman), of forbears of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who drove the Highlanders out of Scotland, and especially the Duchess of Sutherland, one of the worst we ever had. I am not blaming him, but I want to put it to him that he has the opportunity now to remove that blot on the escutcheon of his name, because there is no doubt that it matters to the people of Scotland.
      10.30 p.m.
      The right hon. and gallant Gentleman has the opportunity to do the opposite of what the Duchess of Sutherland and Gordon did in the Highland clearances. He can establish again a race of people that would be a credit, instead of their being up against it. They are living under terrible conditions, which are even worse than in our big industrial centres, with tuberculosis rampant among them because of the bad housing conditions and because of poverty; and nobody knows that better than does the Secretary of State for Scotland, even in his own constituency. He used to stand here, speaking as a Liberal, and attack the Government, even the present Minister of Agriculture, on the very same point, so I hope that he will not let go the good name that he has made to-night. He has made a good reputation for himself, and I hope that he will go to Scotland and to the Scottish Office and put all those good resolutions and all that fine, flowery speech that he made into practice, because action is far better than words, though the words be never so fine.
      Duchess of ATHOLL: I certainly should not wish to go so far as the hon. Member in denunciation of what I thought was an extremely interesting speech, but I thought my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland was unduly optimistic in regard to the prospects of men going on the land and rearing poultry. He said that the man who was going to put five acres under poultry had every chance of success, especially if he put half an acre under vegetables, but I think that statement entirely ignored the handicap under which the poultry farmer labours owing to the very low prices that he is getting for his poultry, to which reference has
      1226
      been made by the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir S. Chapman). We ask the Ministry to put the best minds that they can on to the study of the facts, and the facts are that Russia for the last two years has been our main oversea supplier of poultry and that in May of this year she was sending us poultry at about 6½d. per lb., whereas in May, 1931, her price was only 7d. per lb. That is a distinct fall, though I admit that her price in April, 1932, was a little lower than in May, 1932. The price in April was just below 6d., whereas in May it was about 6½d. But you have there, in spite of the fact that we have an import duty, this fall in price of imported poultry, which is bound to have its effect on the prices of the home birds.
      I know that in an answer given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture a day or two ago, he pointed out that the quantity of poultry coming in from Russia was smaller than in May last year. On the other hand, the quantity that came in in April was very much larger than in April, 1931, or April, 1930. My right hon. Friend also said that he believed that a considerable number of the birds imported in May were elderly hens. No doubt he has a good source of information, but it is quite impossible for any country to have sent us the quantity of poultry that Russia sent us in 1930 and 1931 if she had only sent us old birds. I cannot believe that the birds sent from Russia are only of the type that should be sold at a very low price. Again, Russia had not been sending us eggs in recent months, but in May she again came on to the market at a price of 7s. 3d. a dozen as compared with 9s. 1d. in May, 1931.
      It is not possible to discuss any remedy for this state of affairs, but I submit that it is most inadvisable for a responsible Minister to encourage men with the idea that they can make a decent living mainly out of poultry, and ignore entirely the very poor price that can be obtained for either poultry or eggs. In the case of butter, the right hon. Gentleman was again very optimistic. He spoke about the valuable work of research and marketing methods, and I do not deny the value of them, but they all rest on an insecure foundation so long as the home farmer has to compete with either the prices I have mentioned for poultry or eggs, or with the prices I

      1227
      will mention for imported butter. Russian butter came in at 79s. per cwt. in May, 1932, as compared with 100 shillings in May, 1931. That is a drop of 21s. per cwt. in the course of this year. The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned pigs and the desirability of rearing pigs. I entirely agree. I long to see more pigs and poultry reared in Scotland. They are eminently suitable for a smallholder when he is in a safe position.
      I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has studied the prices at which bacon has been imported from Russia since 1929. In that year the average price of bacon from Russia was 91s. per cwt. In 1930 it was 82s. and in 1931 it had dropped to 46s. For the five months of this year it has not been higher than 41s. If we compare Russian prices with the prices of bacon coming from our chief suppliers, we see that every time the Russian price is below the others. Although the quantity of bacon imported from Russia last year was very small, still, to quote an old Scottish farmer, "A dumped market is a market with no bottom in it," and the Russian bacon imported in the first five months of this year exceeds the total quantity for the whole of 1931 The effect of the imports of bacon, more especially those from Soviet Russia, merits the most careful examination by the right hon. Gentleman and his colleague the Minister of Agriculture. I believe that the Russian Five Year Plan, of which these increased exports are a very important feature, has influenced prices, not merely because of the increase in the exports but by reason of the fact that they are sold at prices much below those of Russia's competitors.
      I think the Plan has also influenced prices through the great limitation which Russia has placed on the importation of certain commodities. That is a side of the question to which even less attention has been paid. Personally I have only begun to study that side of the question quite recently. There is the very important commodity wool, of enormous importance to Scottish farmers. It is very difficult to avoid the conclusion that the immensely restricted consumption of wool and woollen clothing in Russia, plus the beginning of exports of wool, has had a very considerable influence on the price
      1228
      of the commodity. In 1930, according to official Soviet figures, Russia imported not much more than a quarter of the woollen manufactured and partly-manufactured woollen goods that she imported in 1913. That is a tremendous drop. Between 1930 and 1931 again, there was a drop in Russia's importations of woollen yarns from 5,500,000 lbs. to only 77,000 lbs., and if we look at the imports of raw wool we find, according to the official Soviet figures, that they were some 1,200,000 centals in 1913, that by 1928, before the Five Year Plan had begun, they were only about three-quarters of that amount, and by 1931 were only half that amount.
      Therefore, in manufactured woollen goods, in woollen yarns and in raw wool there is a tremendous reduction of the importations into Russia; and that is a surprising feature when we remember the climate of Russia and that Russia was a great country for importing wool. Russia was not, I believe, a country which exported wool at all before the War, and yet in 1930 we find her exporting 113,000 centals of wool and in 1931 exporting 50 per cent. more than that amount. But, the most striking thing of all is the price at which Russia exported this raw wool. In 1930, according to the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics Chamber of Commerce Bulletin, of which I have a copy, the average at which this raw wool was exported was not more than 42s. a cental. That compares with an average price of 83s. 6d. per cental for the cheapest form of unwashed wool imported into our markets in that year. The average price of the Russian wool was just about half the price of the raw wool we took into this country, which came chiefly from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In 1931 Russia dropped her price for the raw wool she exported to less than half, namely 17s. 6d. per cental. I do not yet know what was the average price of our imports of wool from all countries in 1931, but it cannot be anything like that figure. In any case, for the country that had exported at half the average price at which we imported, to drop to less than half of their price in one year, is something that seems to be absolutely without parallel, and something which I hope that my two right hon. Friends on the Front Bench will take into most serious consideration.

      1229
      We have heard of the depression in sheep farming, and I am sure the Secretary of State for Scotland knows something about that question. He must have some idea of it. If I may I will give an instance. The other day I was told by one of the best-known farmers of Scotland of a hill-farmer neighbour of his who had told him that he had lost 12s. on every one of his 500 or 600 sheep last winter. That will give you some idea of the losses that sheep farmers are experiencing. When one mentions the loss on sheep farming, the reply is, "Oh, that is because the price of wool has gone down so much." I should never have believed that Soviet Russia had done anything to influence that so much if I had not found figures like these, and I cannot resist the conclusion that it has been a factor, and probably an important factor, in the fall of prices of wool, which has meant so much loss to the sheep farmer here and overseas. Moreover, that may be one reason why the sheep farmers in Australia and New Zealand are sending their mutton to us at such cut-throat prices—prices which the Scottish sheep farmer will tell you are the severest handicap that he has to meet. If the Minister will look at these figures and have them worked out, or if I may send him the figures which I have worked out from the Board of Trade returns, he will see how very much below all other mutton prices are the prices of mutton imported from Australia. I see I am mistaken in regard to New Zealand.
      The average price of frozen mutton and lamb in 1930 was 66.4s. per hundred. That dropped in 1931 to 47s. per hundred. The Australian price dropped from 61s. per hundred to 55s. per hundred. There was a further drop in the Australian prices, from 55s. 6d. per hundred in 1931, to 45s. per hundred in the first four months of 1932; that is, in recent months there was a fall of 10s. in the Australian prices. I do not doubt that the price represents a heavy loss in Australia, as it represents a heavy loss to the farmers in this country. I cannot help thinking that the fall in the price of wool, which we know has occurred, must have made Australian farmers ready to send their mutton over here at those very low prices, which constitute one of the greatest difficulties in Scottish farming at the present time. It is outside the scope
      1230
      of this Debate to suggest any remedy. I do not want to say anything about that; I want only to bring the facts forward, some of which I have only just learned and some of which I believe are not generally known. No correct solution of any difficulty is possible until all the facts are faced, and that is why I have ventured to bring the facts forward. I beg my right hon. Friend to give them his earnest consideration.
      Lord SCONE: One of the commonest charges levelled against hon. Members is that they pay great lip-service to economy, but that when the proposed economy affects anything in which they are personally interested, they immediately fight against that economy with all their might. I do not intend to lay myself open to that charge to-night. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the economies that he has effected, although I very much regret the necessity for any cuts at all. At the same time, although I certainly share the admiration of those who have spoken for the Minister's very lucid speech, I do feel a certain sense of disappointment that we have had very little mention of specific items of agriculture particularly affecting Scotland. I refer particularly to the oats and barley crop. We know that barley does enjoy at present an import duty of 10 per cent. The Minister of Agriculture, in reply to a question I put to him recently, seemed to think that that was all we could hope for, and that we ought to be satisfied. Honestly, it is not enough for the barley grower of Scotland. An enormous amount of land has gone out of cultivation of barley, especially in North-East Scotland, and unless that land can be brought under the plough, there is bound to be a permanent diminution in the number of farm labourers employed there.
      I should like to draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to one idea which he might follow up in the matter of assisting the barley industry. We are told by the brewers that it is impossible to make decent beer unless they employ a large amount of foreign barley in practically every year. We are told that in only one year in 10 in which the British barley is sufficient to make really excellent beer. A few days ago I was talking to one of the biggest Scottish brewers, and he told me that although it is quite true that the prohibition of the use of

      1231
      any foreign barley would certainly be a very great nuisance to the brewers, he did not for a moment believe that if they were put to it they could not find a way out of the difficulty, namely, the difficulty of clarifying beer made entirely of British barley. I believe that chemistry has reached such a point that a series of experiments at a comparatively low expenditure would prove that we could produce British beer made entirely of British barley just as good as it is produced to-day by using a large proportion of foreign barley.
      I wish to refute certain arguments adduced by the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood), who talked about clearances which he said had caused the depopulation of Scotland, and suggested that it would be a very simple matter to repopulate all the glens. In my own part of Scotland an enormous amount of rural depopulation has been going on in the last century, but there have been no clearances whatever. The whole cause has been economic. Take the position of the crofter or the smallholder of 100 years ago. He lived practically entirely on the product of his own land, on his own grain and meat and he produced his own wool and made his own clothes, but the material position of himself and his family was such as hardly any farm labourer in the British Isles would tolerate to-day. When the hon. Member suggests that we can quite easily repudiate the glens merely by setting up smallholdings, that is a suggestion which would inflict a condition of life on thousands of people, the like of which does not exist in this country at the present day.
      I will cut my remarks very short, though I should like to have spoken at much greater length. I will conclude by Baying that I hope the Opposition will see that when we have the next day of Scottish Estimates, next Tuesday, they put down agriculture again, or the Secretary of State's salary, so that we may discuss agriculture, because I do not think hon. Members would consider a discussion lasting only a very few minutes over an, hour is at all adequate to deal with the needs and problems which affect Scottish agriculture to-day. In some ways I am rather sorry to have spoken, because I imagine I shall not be permitted to
      1232
      speak next time. If I can, so much the better, but even if I cannot, I should be only too glad to think that any words of mine might induce the Opposition to let us have more time, so that others may draw attention to the many urgent and pressing problems of Scottish agriculture.
      Mr. BARCLAY-HARVEY: At this late hour I cannot deal adequately with all the points that I should have liked to put forward, but one or two remarks have been made to which I should lake to refer. In the first place, I would like to recall the Committee to the question of economy, which was raised by the Secretary of State. I was very glad to hear him say so emphatically that he was a believer in economy, even in these important matters, and I hope he will continue the pursuit of economy even in the matter, which we know is so near to his heart, of land settlement. I am not going to pursue him along those lines at present, because it would take too long, but I heartily agree with what he said about another part of the activities of his Department, namely, agricultural research and education. There is no branch in which I would less willingly see economy practised. One of the bright features of Scottish agriculture during the last 30 or 40 years has been the increased production per acre, which I believe is largely due to the efforts of those who have been looking into the research and educational side of agriculture in Scotland. I hope that that will be the last subject that the Secretary of State will tackle in the matter of cuts, but at the same time, I hope I shall not fall into the error of shouting loudly for economy and then squealing when economy is suggested in a matter in which I am interested. While I shall view any further cuts in this matter with great regret, yet, if the Secretary of State finds it necessary to make further cuts in these services, I shall feel compelled, in the national cause, to follow him and give him my support in anything that he may have to do in that direction.
      I should like to call attention to certain of the increases which have taken place in the Department of Agriculture, and to which the Secretary of State did not refer in his speech. He referred—I have no complaint to make about it—to the fact that he has been able to reduce the personnel to a certain extent this

      1233
      year, and has not filled two important posts which are due to be filled at the present moment. I am sure that the Committee have heard that with a certain amount of satisfaction, but I should like to call their attention to the history of the personnel of the Department of Agriculture for Scotland. The Department was set up, as the Board of Agriculture for Scotland, in 1912, and the first figures which can fairly be taken are those for the year 1913, when the total staff was 83. During the War, of course, and the immediate post-War period, the question of land settlement and other matters had to be dealt with by the Department, and it flourished like a green bay tree, so that by 1921 it had increased its numbers to 392.
      It being Eleven of the Clock, the CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
      Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

  BILLS OF EXCHANGE ACT (1882) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Read the Third time, and passed.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

  ADJOURNMENT.
  Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Sir Frederick Thomson.]
  Adjourned accordingly at One Minute after Eleven o'clock.

UNEMPLOYMENT.
  JUNIOR INSTRUCTION CENTRES.
  JUNIOR INSTRUCTION CENTRES.
  WIGAN AND ST. HELENS.
  WIGAN AND ST. HELENS.
  STATISTICS.
  STATISTICS.
CHINA.
  YANGTZE RIVER (BRITISH SHIPPING).
  YANGTZE RIVER (BRITISH SHIPPING).
  SHANGHAI DISTRICT COURT.
  SHANGHAI DISTRICT COURT.
  DIPHTHERIA (SCHICK TEST).
  DIPHTHERIA (SCHICK TEST).
BRITISH ARMY.
  MEDICAL SERVICE.
  MEDICAL SERVICE.
  MEDICAL SERVICES OF THE ARMY.
  MEDICAL SERVICES OF THE ARMY.
Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The EARL OF ONSLOW on the Woolsack.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL.
Read 2a, and committed.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE AND CONTRIBUTORY PENSIONS BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and to be printed.

LEVEN BURGH EXTENSION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to Leven Burgh extension; and to move that it be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal.)
On Question, Bill read 1a; to be printed; and (pursuant to Section 7 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899) deemed to have been read 2a, and reported from the Committee.

GRANGEMOUTH AND STIRLING WATER ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PRO- VISIONAL ORDERS (ABERGA- VENNY AND NEWCASTLE-UPON- TYNE) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PRO- VISIONAL ORDERS (BRIDLING- TON AND WELLS) BILL.
House, in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PRO- VISIONAL ORDER (LEYTON) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PRO- VISIONAL ORDER (OXFORD) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PRO- VISIONAL ORDER (PAIGNTON) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PRO- VISIONAL ORDER (RIVER DEE) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.
LONDON UNITED TRAMWAYS LIMI- TED (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PRO- VISIONAL ORDER BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.
SOUTH LANCASHIRE TRANSPORT COMPANY (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.

PUBLIC EXPENDITURE.
LORD HUNSDON OF HUNSDON LORD HUNSDON OF HUNSDON rose to move to resolve, That, having regard to the present scale of national and local
68
taxation and its effect in restricting industrial enterprise and the burden it imposes on individual taxpayers, this House, while welcoming the economies which His Majesty's Government have already made, is of opinion that it is incumbent upon them to secure a further reduction of public expenditure and a corresponding reduction of taxation.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving the Resolution which stands in my name, I would like to remind the House that in a debate which arose on a somewhat similar Resolution five years ago we urged on the Government and the country the necessity for economy. I am afraid we cannot claim that either the Government or the country paid very much attention to our advice, but at least we can claim this, that it was absolutely sound. Therefore it has occurred to some of us that if we repeated that advice on this occasion perhaps it might carry more weight. But the chief reason that we have for bringing this Resolution forward is that we think it would strengthen the hands of the Government in their desire for economy. In opening this debate I do not propose to enter into the details of when and how economies should be effected. All I propose to do is to try and show that as the cost—and consequently the amount—of our exports is adversely affected by our rates and taxes, and our expenditure, and as our imports now greatly exceed our exports, the maximum reduction possible in our expenditure is essential. We have balanced our Budget, and that, of course, is a good thing to have done; at all events we hope we have; hut it seems to me that in times like the present it is most unfortunate that the balance should have been accomplished by any increase in taxation, because, though an increase in taxation may balance the Government's Budget, it adversely affects what I call the nation's Budget—that is the balance of trade—which is of far greater importance than the Government Budget, which, after all, is an internal matter.
I have here the Board of Trade estimates of what is called the nation's Budget—that is to say, the amount of our exports and imports, visible and invisible, for the three years 1929 to 1931. Figures are very tiresome in a speech, but I do not see quite how we can do without them on this occasion. If we

69
take first of all the two main invisible exports—namely, our income from shipping and our income from interest on overseas investments, our income from shipping fell by £50,000,000 in the three years (that is to say, from £130,000,000 to £80,000,000), and our income from the interest on overseas investments fell by £85,000,000 in the three years (that is, from £250,000,000 in 1929 to £165,000,000 in 1931). Sir Robert Kindersley deals with overseas investments in an article in the Economic Journal for this quarter, to which I would specially call your Lordships' attention, and he has elsewhere expressed the view that this fall of £85,000,000 in the interest on overseas investments may be increased in the current year by from £30,000,000 to £35,000,000 owing to further defaults in foreign Government bonds, and the decline in the income of British companies operating abroad. I should not think that that forecast is at all exaggerated because, owing to the continuous fall of prices, it has become more and more difficult for both public and private debtors to pay.
Without going into further detail, I would like to give your Lordships the estimated balances for 1929 and 1931 of the total of our exports and imports, visible and invisible, excluding bullion, and these are the most important figures that I have to put before you. In 1929 the excess of exports over imports was £103,000,000—that is to say, our income exceeded our expenditure by that amount—whereas in 1931 the excess of imports over exports was £110,000,000, so that in 1931 the nation was working at a loss of £110,000,000. I am perfectly certain that every sensible individual in similar circumstances would make the maximum possible reduction in his expenditure, and I cannot see why the collection of individuals which we call the State should not act in a similar manner. Taking into account the probable decrease in our invisible exports in the current year and allowing for the improved returns of visible imports and exports for the first five months of the year, I am of opinion that, in spite of the efforts of the Government to check imports by means of duties, the result of this year's working is not likely to be better than it was in 1931. It is obvious that we cannot pay our way without steadily consuming our capital if these conditions continue.
I see that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the Third Reading of the Finance Bill, gave figures to show that we were in a better position than other countries, but he left out the important fact that we are dependent, not for our comforts, or our standard of living, or our luxuries, but for our lives, on being able to pay for our imports of food. Therefore we are in a more precarious position than almost any other country. At the moment we are unable to pay for our imports except by selling foreign securities, and even in 1930 owing to such sales there was for the first time, anyhow in time of peace, for fifty years a net reduction of some £35,000,000 in our securities, as Sir Robert Kindersley points out in the article in the Economic Journal to which I have referred. Figures of sales of foreign securities in 1931 are not yet available but they must be very large and the loss of income from these securities is a very serious matter.
In the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to which I have referred he intimated that apart from the Debt charge no substantial reductions of expenditure were possible except in matters of vital importance to the safety of the country or the standards of living of the people such as pensions, insurance and education. He added that if the Government saw that changes of this sort were necessary they would not flinch from telling the country. I am sure your Lordships agree with the Chancellor and would not wish the Government to take rash decisions in this matter, and that you would agree with the Chancellor that hard thinking is necessary before taking any action, but I think that in view of the figures of the balance of trade which I have put before you we may fairly ask what further reasons the Government require before they are convinced of the necessity of substantial reductions in expenditure. Of course, our present position is to a great extent due to the world crisis, but whatever the cause may be it is the effect with which we have to deal. Moreover, our present position is also undoubtedly due to the fact that ever since the War we have been living far beyond our means and notably in the matter of social services.
It is not only this country which suffers from our adverse balance of trade for it is to my mind one of the indirect causes of the continuance of the present world

71
depression. Formerly, when we had a favourable balance of trade we returned this balance immediately to the world in the form of loans or foreign investments. That acted as a sort of fertilising stream on international trade, because it strengthened the position of the recipient countries and enabled them to purchase goods from us and others. Now international trade in some parts of the world has almost entirely ceased, not only because the credit of borrowing countries has been weakened, but because England has practically ceased to be a lending country and no other country has taken its place.
May I say one word about local taxation? I hope we may hear more on that subject from my noble friend Lord Jessel whose endeavours to check local expenditure are well known to your Lordships. In the matter of economy we cannot separate local from Imperial expenditure—both are charges on the productive power of the country—nor can you separate the National Debt from local indebtedness, for the first is a general charge on all our assets and the second is a particular charge on the same assets. As a member of the Public Works Loan Board I see something of this borrowing, and I suggest to the Government that it would conduce to economy if they would do more than they have done in the past to discourage the loans of local authorities. Much as we may deplore the excessive annual expenditure which is paid for at the time it seems to me to be even worse to shift the burden on to the shoulders of future generations. Your Lordships have no doubt seen from answers to questions in the House of Commons that the local yearly expenditure in England, Scotland and Wales has trebled since 1914 and, as your Lordships know, national expenditure has proceeded at much the same sort of rate. When you think that this increase comes after spending about £8,000,000,000 on the War it is difficult to find words to describe such action.
If your Lordships will bear with me a little longer there is just one suggestion that I should like to make with regard to economy. The most important economy, or perhaps I should say, though it is much the same thing, the best alleviation of the burden of Debt and of fixed charges for us and for the world would be effected by a rise in prices. As an instance of that I would like to quote the statistical
72
summary for last month published by the Bank of England. In it there is a statement of our internal Debt from 1924 to 1932. The statement is both in sterling and in the commodity value of sterling on the basis of the prices in 1924. This statement shows that the National Debt in those eight years declined in sterling by £185,000,000, but that it had increased as measured in commodities by £1,093,000,000. If we could go back to the prices of 1924 I suppose your Lordships would call that an economy of £1,093,000,000. Sterling, of course, is nothing but a symbol for a certain amount of commodities, and commodities are the only things that matter, for it is in commodities that in the long run all debts are paid.
It is exactly a year since the Macmillan Committee reported that to raise the wholesale prices should be a prime object of international statesmanship, and the increase in the burden of internal War Debts owing to the fall in prices was one of the many forcible reasons with which they supported their view. Prices have continued to fall since this Report and the burden of all Debts and fixed charges have, therefore, continually increased; and, in the words of the Report, "serious disaster is threatened to all countries of the world alike." The Government agree as to the importance of a substantial rise in wholesale prices, but from what the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mr. Baldwin have said they are certainly relying for this on an era of cheap and plentiful money. I think that anybody who passed through the Argentine crisis of 1890 and the years that followed would tell the Chancellor that cheap and plentiful money is a symptom of and not a remedy for falling prices. After 1890 we had a long era of cheap and plentiful money and money became almost unlendable at short notice. Now, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, this should have brought about a rise in prices. But it did not.
By the courtesy of the Board of Trade I have here the wholesale prices in the United Kingdom of forty-five principal articles during that period and these show that prices fell steadily from 107.4 in 1891 to 88.2 in 1896, and they only rose then owing to the application of the cyanide process to the Rand mines, which increased the production of gold and reduced its value as measured in com-

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modities. If your Lordships want to know why prices do not rise with an abundance of idle deposits in the banks, for that is what is meant by cheap money, I would refer you to an admirable letter signed "Perigrinus" in The Times of yesterday.
It is not surprising that the Government have not had time to study monetary questions. The marvel is that with Parliament and Conferences they have had time to study anything, and I would suggest that the Committee which I understand is being formed in the House of Commons should consider how prices should be raised and report to the Government, and that the Government should form a monetary policy with that end in view and should not allow things to drift—for that, I think, would be the most fatal policy of all when, as the Prime Minister has rightly said, the system under which we live is crumbling beneath our feet. The main evil from which the world is suffering is, of course, lack of confidence, but in my view it also suffers from a lack of leadership. This country has a great prestige and a great following, and I believe it would do much for real and true economy, and more than anything to restore confidence in the world, if this country would take the lead, formulate a monetary policy which would reduce the burden of Debt, and show the world how in its opinion we could get a move on out of this Slough of Despond. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That, having regard to the present scale of national and local taxation and its effect in restricting industrial enterprise and the burden it imposes on individual taxpayers, this House, while welcoming the economies which His Majesty's Government have already made, is of opinion that it is incumbent upon them to secure a further reduction of public expenditure and a corresponding reduction of taxation.— (Lord Hunsdon of Hunsdon.)
LORD MARLEY: My Lords, I am sure the House owes a debt of gratitude to the noble Lord for raising this subject of economy. His speech, if he will permit me to say so, though gloomy, was reasonable and from that point of view it will commend itself to many of your Lordships who are concerned with the question of economy. The fact that the noble Lord changed the terms of his Motion within
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the last few days will be significant because it may indicate that the Government is prepared to accept the suggestions of those unofficial members of another place who are studying this matter and urging their new remedies upon the Government. To us on this side of the House the Motion is of peculiar interest because it reveals clearly and fully the weakness of the present capitalist system—a system which (and the noble Lord mentioned this in his speech) is tottering throughout the world; a system which is leading to bankruptcies, to Debt repudiation, to the trade stagnation to which the noble Lord referred, to a falling revenue in many countries, to an increasing burden of Debts and to Budget deficits in many of the most important trading countries.
The remedies suggested for these conditions are almost pitiful in their futility. We have had moratoria for Debt payments. We have had the almost childish remedy of tariffs which can only, and must, result in further trade stagnation. We have loans by the wealthier countries to those countries who are most near to the brink of the financial and economic precipice. We have Conference after Conference, in the past and in the immediate future, from none of which most of your Lordships have any hope of an adequate and successful emergence. In The Times of to-day, on the main page, there was an interesting letter on the position in the United States. There the writer claims that the productive establishment was overbuilt, was over-equipped, was over-manned, was over-efficient and over-productive. My Lords, what a confession of failure of the capitalist system, with all this marvellous equipment, in the midst of a world where millions upon millions of people are starving or have an inadequate standard of life! My answer to that letter would be that in the face of this over-building, over-equipment, and over-efficiency, the peoples of the world are under-paid, under-nourished, under-clothed, under-fed, under-housed, undereducated, and under-leisured.
What is the remedy that is proposed? Further economies, resulting in a lowering of the standard of life and the social services of the people. The world is suffering not from over-production but under-consumption. The capitalist system has failed to distribute the wealth which it is capable of producing. De-

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benture holders, rent receivers, and the rentier class, are receiving an ever-increasing share of the national wealth, in the face of a falling revenue. The noble Lord drew attention to the fall in our invisible exports. Great Britain is peculiarly affected because of our falling receipts from overseas and from our shipping, and our falling interests from abroad. Both are dwindling, and economy is the only solution put forward by the noble Lord.
To Socialists it would be interesting to watch with a detached view the crumbling of the capitalist system, but unfortunately we cannot be entirely detached, because we are affected in the common smash, both individually and by the suffering which it will cause to the workers of this and other countries. If, in fact, the difficulty of the system of private capitalism is how to consume the goods which the system is able to produce, then, I think, and I venture to put this forward, that the greatest danger to the world from the system under which so many countries are suffering is the danger that the only means of consuming these goods to an adequate extent is by another world war. That is the only way that you can really destroy sufficient of the products of this system to ensure that the system can function adequately. That is why we in the Socialist Party are opposed to the capitalist system, and are determined to sweep it away and substitute a system of Socialism, as soon as we can persuade the people.
The noble Lord on my right mentioned Russia. We all know that in your Lordships' House the subject of Russia is one which destroys the balance of thought among many noble Lords. Yet it is a fact that while you have unemployment amounting in this country to nearly 3,000,000, in France to 3,000,000, in Germany to 6,000,000, and in the United States to 12,000,000 or 13,000,000, in Russia, to-day, there is no unemployment, and Russia is a country with growing wealth, whose people are looking forward year by year to the gradual increase in the standard of life which they are actually receiving, and they have a constructive plan giving hope and belief to millions—a hope and belief which is completely absent from the minds of the masses of the workers of Great Britain and other countries to-day. If by these
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economies the standard of life of the workers is still further reduced, if unemployment continues to increase, as inevitably it must, it must ultimately dawn upon the people that they have no need to tolerate a continuance of a system under which they continue to suffer at an increasing rate, in order that a few people may remain to benefit from a system which brings misery to many and independence to the few.
The alternative is the Socialist policy in which we believe, but while it is impossible to apply that system in this country at the present moment, we must try to make the present system at least as tolerable as we can to the workers. The noble Lord merely advocated less public spending, and therefore more private spending, and he emphasised that point by the change in his Motion, in which he said that the burden is imposed on individual taxpayers, and he demanded a corresponding reduction in taxation. To me, and I believe to those associated with me, it seems to be quite intolerable that a reduction of taxation of the better-off section of our community should be rendered possible by lowering the standard of life of the workers, and if those representatives of the Church who are here to-day speak on this subject, it will be interesting to have their views as to whether the social services should be cut in order that the wealthy may be wealthier.
The noble Lord made but a very slender reference to the possibility of cutting down expenditure for purposes of economy —to the possibility of a reduction in the services of the National Debt. The Macmillan Committee drew attention to the increasing burden of the internal War Debts which has resulted from this fall in prices, and may I remind your Lordships that the payment for War Debts on a diminishing revenue has in itself not diminished at all, but has increased by more than twice as much. In 1920 the War Debt payments were 24 per cent. of the national revenue; to-day the War Debt payments are 43 per cent. of the national revenue, so that the percentage is now almost double. It is no wonder that it was pointed out in another place that the main cause of high taxation was the burden of interest on the National Debt. Sir Robert Horne, speaking in the House of Commons on April 20, said

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"the Debt is twice as large as when the money was borrowed."
We hear talk of a conversion loan. This conversion loan is always just beyond the horizon of what is possible. We have been talking about it for a year—a conversion loan to reduce the interest on the £2,000,000,000, which is the greatest portion of the National Debt, which is burdening the country at the present moment. I believe that if economy could be effected by reducing the interests on the National Debt by 2 or 2½per cent. that would be a genuine step towards helping the survival of the system at the present moment. We have not heard a great deal about the Defence Services this afternoon. I do not think the noble Lord mentioned them. Yet we have to-day a Disarmament Conference to which the Government have given lip-service but at which they have given no lead whatever in the direction of quantitative reduction of armaments. And the opinion is growing in the minds of, I believe, most members of your Lordships' House that the Disarmament Conference at the present moment is nothing but a farce.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh!
LORD MARLEY: Well, I am very glad to hear that questioned, and I should like to see something come out of it in the direction I have named, not only to relieve the burden of the national expenditure, but because it is probable that one of the difficulties in connection with the abolition of international Debt payments resulting from the War, particularly as regards our relationship with the United States, is the fact that the United States are not prepared to agree to a cancellation of the Debt services between the United States and Europe as long as they see that money being spent on increased armaments in Europe.
Economies have been concentrated upon the social services. The noble Marquess, Lord Londonderry, speaking in your Lordships' House last week, said that "true economy means wise spending rather than a reduction in expenditure where spending is productive." In housing £60,000,000 has been saved within the last few months by the cutting down of housing proposals. That £60,000,000 of work abandoned has resulted in an increase in unemployment Among building trade operatives till the figure now
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stands at 330,000 unemployed. That is over 100,000 more, than a year ago. Surely that is an instance of false economy. In education salaries have been cut and classes are becoming larger. We cannot afford an uneducated democracy. That is another example of false economy. The salaries of police and civil servants have been cut, resulting in lower spending power, and therefore more unemployment. Wage cuts have reached the colossal total of £700,000,000 a year as compared with the aggregate wage paid ten or eleven years ago to the workers.
The last Budget was characterised by a very famous economist as replete with folly and injustice because it increased unemployment and diminished revenue. Both those prophecies have been borne out by the facts. Economies in roads and bridges are also false economies. I see that the Roads Improvement Association, at their meeting last December, said that delay in road work, particularly renewals and maintenance repairs, is costly. They reported that there is progressive deterioration, and that the cost of doing the work two or three years later would be much higher than if the work were done at that time. Public works, again, have resulted in false economy. I see that the Westminster Bank Review, dealing with this subject said:
"Economy in the execution of public works has diminished the volume of orders, for example, in the electrical manufacturing industry. Reduced purchasing power is beginning to leave its mark on retail trade, and still more on retail prices."
In the health services, again, economies have been applied. Surely economy in the health services is false economy. In unemployment benefit there have been heavy cuts. We were told a few months ago that the whole financial position of this country was being imperilled because of our unemployment insurance system. We are now told by leading bankers and financiers in America that the whole financial position of the United States is being imperilled because they have not got an unemployment insurance system. Which are we to believe? The result of these cuts in unemployment benefit is that poor relief, according to the Ministry of Health, has now risen until we have the colossal total of 1,188,000 able-bodied persons on poor relief—an increase of 159,000 since March.
We have seen the same thing applied to rural housing and to afforestation. The

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noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, in this House a few days ago pointed to the bad feeling which had been caused between this country and Canada by reason of the economies in afforestation, which had resulted in the cancellation of the orders for seed which had been placed with the Canadian Forestry Department, and for which the Canadian Government has to pay. Another false economy was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Banbury, speaking in your Lordships' House on April 20. He said that export credits for exports from this country were "utterly futile and foolish." It is true that these exports credits have been cut down early this year and have resulted in the loss of a great number of orders to our export industry. In particular we have an example of an order from Russia for 300,000 tons of iron and steel products which was offered to this country, but which our manufacturers could not take because the credit terms that they were able to offer had been cut down by the Export Credits Department. The result was that the whole of that order went to Germany. Those 300,000 tons of iron and steel products would have been 15½ per cent. of our total export of such products for the whole of last year. I may say that a further 200,000 tons order for iron and steel was lost to this country because of the false economy of cutting down our credits to foreign countries.
LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM: Paper, not money.
LORD MARLEY: The orders are very real orders, and bring very real money to the steel workers in the industry. The read cause of the present Motion is, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunsdon, said, that the Government has no plan for dealing with the present situation. Industrial development is left without help to private enterprise. Monetary policy appears to be left to the Bank of England, with no Treasury control. Trade policy is left —heaven knows to whom trade policy is left. All we have is the tariffs, which are a constant and increasing barrier to the extension of the trade of this country. As Mr. Amery said in the House of Commons on the 16th of this month, just a week ago:
"Why should we leave all the good ideas to Russia? Why should not we adopt, from what she is able to teach, at least such ideas as the planning of national industry in the national interest?"
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All we get from the present Government is tariffs which stagnate trade and have been, surely, the most abject failure of any major policy that this country can have seen for nearly one hundred years. We get economies which have lowered the purchasing power of the people, and resulted in an increase in unemployment in this country of 180,000 in the last eight weeks, and I am told that the returns for June—I hope I am wrong—will show another increase in the number of unemployed in this country. If that were all we might not be too depressed, hoping that it is only a temporary slump; but, in addition to that, we have over 180,000 hidden unemployed, men who have been taken off the register of unemployment by reason of the fact that their benefit has been taken away, and, therefore, they no longer register at the exchanges.
This proposal is nothing but a class proposal, and a proposal to hit still further the workers and the poorest people in this country. The Government cannot even pursue the remedies which would enable them to prop up the rotten system which it is pledged to support. There is no sign of the Government controlling the Bank of England and using monetary policy as a system to assist industry and put it on its feet. There is no sign of the Government doing what the noble Lord referred to in his speech—moving towards raising the price level and securing an extension of credit sufficient to put industry on its feet. What is the good of the noble and learned Viscount who leads the House saying, as he did a few days ago, "We are all hoping for a rise in the level of prices," when the Government are taking no steps to ensure that we have such a rise. It is almost pitiful that you leave to the group of people in charge of the present Government the management of a country demanding planning, demanding an understanding of the great problems of industry, and without, apparently, a single idea in any of their heads.
The Midland Bank Review in its last number asked the question:
"Can half a policy pay?…Strict economy will fail unless coupled with determined steps to raise the level of British prices.…Economy, with its grave deprivations, is useless unless there is a business recovery. The plain inference from the events of the past seven months is that our authorities have no clearly defined

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monetary policy. Deflation, which had brought us to the breaking point, has been carried on with renewed intensity, when there was no longer the slightest excuse for it."
The Review goes on to say:
"The sacrifices of the Budget, the imposition of tariffs (of whatever kind), the call for economy—all will be fruitless unless a monetary policy is adopted causing a rise in the price level. This is entirely and absolutely under the control of the Bank of England, except to the somewhat nebulous, indeterminate extent to which the shaping and execution of it are shared by the Treasury."
All we have to look forward to is further attacks on the standard of life of the people of this country. The only refuge of a Government destitute in ideas for constructive rebuilding is to continue to attack the social services and the standards of our people, because the Government are too ignorant, or too obstinate, to learn the lessons which are being constantly preached by economists, industrialists, leaders of all kinds, and a noble Lord I hear murmurs "Socialists."
Capitalism has failed. Capitalism has not provided what it ought to have provided for the people of this country. Sir Arthur Salter, in his book, has pointed out that:
"The defects of the capitalist system have been increasingly robbing it of its benefits. They are now threatening its very existence.…We have, indeed, before us only the alternatives of collective leadership, collective control or chaos."
Only the system of Socialism can provide US with a collective leadership. The system of private capitalism is leading inevitably to the chaos of which we are seeing the results at the present moment.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords. I desire at the outset to express my thanks to the noble Lord who moved this Resolution for placing it on the Paper, and for giving this House the opportunity of debating one of the most important questions before the country at the present time. I would also wish to express to him my pleasure at the fact that the wording of the Motion has been changed, and in its present aspect so far as I am concerned I am prepared to give it every support. May I also add that if this were anything in the nature of a Vote of Censure upon the Government I should find myself in a much greater difficulty because I desire to give every
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support in my power to the Government of the day? But I gather from what has been said by the noble Lord who opened the discussion that there is nothing of that nature in his mind, and indeed the terms of his Motion seem to me to indicate that. I cannot see any reason why the Government should find itself unable to accept the Motion and I hope that as a result we may be able to pass the Motion in this House without a Division and in a manner that will at least emphasise the opinion of your Lordships' House.
Although we have little, if any, power as regards finance we do, nevertheless, possess in this House a number of members who have had long and wide experience of banking, business and finance in every aspect and whose views must have their effect on the country. One observation fell from the noble Lord who opened the debate to which I would draw attention for a moment because it troubled me a little. He laid great stress on the alleviation which he thought must come—and in one sense could only come—from a rise in wholesale prices. I do not suppose that any one of your Lordships would dispute that. But you must add something to it—at least, that is my view. I have seen it stated over and over again—I have read speeches in another place, I have read letters in which the policy which seems to be put forward, or at any rate one aspect of it —that by lowering the value of sterling you will raise wholesale prices and that that will be to the advantage of this country. I do not know what the Government's policy is in this respect, but I most earnestly hope that it is not going to endorse that. The reduction of the value of sterling is a matter into which I cannot go at this moment, because it is far too wide a subject and is not directly relevant to this debate; but the rise in wholesale prices to which reference has been made commands from me full support.
It must, however, be dependent upon one thing which in my view is essential. Before you can get the benefit of the effect of a rise in wholesale prices you must have agreement among many of the countries of the world. This country alone cannot do it. It is no use talking about your Exchange Equalisation Fund, as some do—not the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and not any member of the

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Government as far as I have heard—as if that £150,000,000 could be used for the purpose of reducing the value of sterling, increasing the value of dollars, and consequently, as it is thought by some outside, of raising wholesale prices. Again I must check myself from entering into that subject although I feel strongly upon it. I do, however, desire to say that, provided you can get the assent of at least a number of the largest producing countries throughout the world, you may be able to effect by agreement a rise in wholesale prices which may be of benefit by consequently producing greater purchasing power which will help to restore the prosperity of the world. I must apologise for having taken so much time over that part of the subject, but the noble Lord speaks with so much experience and I have so much regard for his opinion on the subject that I felt bound to express this view.
I listened to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Marley. I confess that at one time I rather wondered whether his speech was an indication to us that he was tired not only of us—that I can easily understand—but tired also of this country, and that he proposed to migrate to Russia, to that wonderful Elysium where, so far as I could judge, the worker has such an excellent time, where indeed, as I understood him, everything goes so well. He had talked a little while before in criticism of the want of leisure by working people in this country, of their under-feeding, under-clothing, under-housing. I would ask him, when he says that, contrasting this country with Russia, if he has in mind the difference between this country and Russia. If he has, how can he stand at this table in your Lordships' House—
LORD MARLEY: If the noble and learned Marquess will forgive me I will deal with that at once. I had very much in view the comparison between the two countries and I had the remembrance that whereas the standard of life in this country has been far higher than in Russia and is falling, the standard of living in Russia has been far lower and is rising. I would remind him that in this country we have a movement for an increase in hours of work, despite the fact there are millions and millions of unemployed, while in Russia the hours of work are being reduced and now stand at an average of seven hours per day.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I must not be drawn into further discussion with the noble Lord, but he must permit me to say that I question some of the facts which he has stated—not, of course, his belief in them. What authority is there for the statement that the hours of work in Russia have been reduced to seven? What authority is there for saying that nowadays there is less leisure here? Have we not all the trouble in the world in ascertaining what is happening in Russia? If the information that has come to me is correct then I would say that in this country the standard of living to which he has referred is an example to which we may hope Russia in time—but heaven knows when—may conform. My final remark in regard to it is that I am inclined now to agree with many observations that he made upon the reduction of the standard of living, and I will give utterance to that in the proper sequence of argument, but I confess that as I listened to him I found it difficult to believe that I could agree with anything that was being said, because of all countries with which to contrast this country he took the example of Russia.
I do not believe the general statement that he made. No doubt he has some authority for it, but I must at least claim that I have as good authority for my statement. I do not believe the statement that people here are being under-fed and under-clothed and are suffering in every way. I do not dispute for a moment that there are unemployed and that there is destitution—of course there is—but we are seeking by every means in our power to meet that situation. I take the view myself that one of the most wise things that we did was to institute the unemployment scheme, which gave rise in the end to what has been called the "dole." I am firmly convinced that it is that "dole"—apart altogether from its abuses with which we have to deal—which has enabled this country to pursue its path tranquilly with the good will of all the people, as was shown not only at the Election but when it came to the payment of taxes at the beginning of this year. I desire to say with regard to that, that my own experience would lead me to the opposite conclusion as a general observation.
I know perfectly well, and it is only his remarks that lead me to make this reflection, that I was impressed when I came

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home from India in going through the London streets in contrasting what I saw with what had been the case a number of years ago, and I confess that after seeing what appeared to me to be the great progress that was being made, the better appearance of the population, showing that they were better fed, better cared for, even better housed, and undoubtedly better clothed, it is a little distracting, when your Lordships and those who think with you and are not Socialists have taken their part in building up this standard of living, to be confronted with a speech holding up Russia as the example that we should follow.
I propose now to address myself to the Motion and I apologise to your Lordships for having digressed because of what was said by the previous speaker. In my view the substance of this Motion is one that cannot admit of dispute—that is, that expenditure should be reduced, and equally that if expenditure is reduced reduction of taxation should follow. The one is a necessary consequence of the other, but the difficulty is how to do it. I was a little disappointed when the noble Lord who opened this debate, and had evidently given much time and thought to the subject, told us that he was not going to indicate how the economies could be made—because presumably we all agree that economies must be made and the difficulty is to know how and where to make them. I trust we may have some more light thrown on this subject as we proceed. That expenditure has risen out of all proportion to the increase of wealth as compared with pre-War expenditure is beyond dispute. I have read recently that the expenditure this year, even after all that has happened, is £56,000,000 more per annum than in 1924.
Expenditure undoubtedly has been increased, but what I would desire to bring to the attention of your Lordships is that of course there have been changes in the opinion not only of your Lordships, but, generally speaking, of the country. Last year, when we were confronted with a very serious crisis and when we had to make economies which are, I understand, recognised in the Motion, there was an undoubted first attempt to reduce expenditure—an attempt which I certainly must not attempt to laud as I had a part in it with my noble friend opposite, Lord Snowden, who was then Chancellor of
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the Exchequer. At that time we did realise, I think—he, perhaps, better than I because he had more to do with it—how difficult it was to make economies. Nevertheless we came to certain conclusions. There had been a Commission which had reported and made a number of recommendations on economy. The recommendations could not be carried out as they were given. A number were, but not to the full extent because it was found that the moment you began to economise—for example, in teachers' salaries—there were difficulties. In the pay of the Navy there were also difficulties, and so it went on. But in the end we did succeed in making very serious economies and without really any very serious difficulty as a consequence.
Now I want to draw attention to one or two matters before making some general observations in conclusion. I think it is impossible to discuss the question of the reduction of armaments at the present moment. That is a subject which is being discussed at Geneva and which is every day becoming more and more inter-dependent with Lausanne, as it has always seemed to me it inevitably must. Therefore I do not pause to consider reductions which might be made save to observe that again and again I have read, and myself examined, what is called the redundancy of the Services—of three men who are employed where one was employed before the War, and that with a reduced personnel in the Navy or the Army, as the case may be. One knows the difficulties. The Minister is naturally anxious, while paying due regard to the interests of the country, to protect the Service for which he is responsible, and it is always a most serious matter to make these reductions. I do not intend to-day to make any observations upon them save to say that if it can be found that economies of this character would be justified—and I believe from all I have read they can be made, though I doubt whether they would amount to any very large figure—they are worth making.
Assuming as I do that there is complete agreement that reduction should be made, the real problem which confronts us at every stage and which your Lordships must have noted again and again when either you think out the subject or discuss it with friends, is how to effect it. It is interesting to know that there is every day an increasing interest in the

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necessity for economy. I gather that in another place there are Committees being formed. I do not know what effect they may have, but at least that House is the custodian of our finances and taxation. Therefore it is most satisfactory to find members awakening to a real interest in this subject, and I hope the debate in your Lordships' House may help.
Another subject which cannot be discussed to-day but which nevertheless has a bearing on the whole matter is that of Reparations and War Debts. Here again I do not propose to say anything in view of the Conference now proceeding at Lausanne, but we must bear in mind that in the ordinary national expenditure of this country, which was given in the Budget statement for 1932–33 and which represented £733,000,000 per annum without taking account of the Sinking Fund of £32,500,000, there is no provision made for the payment of our War Debt. I make no comment on that. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer was perfectly right in not doing it. The only reason I make the observation is that we cannot leave it out of account when considering what is to happen in the future. We cannot treat it as a non-existing Debt. It is there and what is going to happen we cannot prophesy. The reason I make this observation is that there is a very grave loss in exchange at present, and what at one time was a matter of paying £33,000,000 or £34,000,000 per annum becomes at the present rate nearly £50,000,000. It is consequently a matter of serious concern. There I leave it, merely observing that when we are taking note of the future we must not leave out of consideration that there is a liability with which we shall have to deal, in what form, to what extent and for how long I do not attempt to say, but one which we cannot fail to acknowledge.
That being so it brings me down to the two points only upon which I shall trouble your Lordships. Observations upon the revenue of the country at the present moment are perhaps not very helpful, save that they indicate that it may not be quite true that the Budget will balance without some supplementary estimate. I am not prophesying, for I do not know. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told us quite recently, in the second speech he made, that he was not proposing anything of that character at this moment, but no one can tell what may happen as
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the months go by. The only thing I would say, looking at the Estimates, is that unless the Government can find reductions and economies to make during the course of the year, on the Estimates which they presented to Parliament for this year's Budget, 1932–33, I utterly fail to see how it will be possible under present conditions for the Budget Estimates as they were presented to be justified.
I make that observation not in the slightest degree as a gloomy prognostication. Quite the opposite. For myself I much prefer to face the facts as they are. It is the great strength of this country that we do that, and although we may see that things are gloomy, and although we may find a somewhat depressing effect from all we read, nevertheless we do not allow it to interfere too much with our lives, but we carry on, and apply ourselves to the best remedies we can suggest. What I would say to your Lordships is that there are a few figures which trouble me very much from the estimates of revenue. I admit, of course, that the Government are in far better position to form an estimate of revenue than arty one of us can be, however good our information may be, and mine is not criticism of those estimates, but I am merely pointing out that the estimates, however justified at the moment when they were presented, may not turn out correct, not through any fault of the Government but because of the condition of the world.
When I find, for example, that there is an estimated receipt from Income Tax and Surtax of £326,000,000—£260,000,000 for Income Tax and £66,000,000 for Surtax —I want to leave it with this observation only to your Lordships, who are quite as capable as I am of forming an opinion, that with the decreased profits of concerns which are apparent from the daily information with which we are all familiar—even to the extent that we are told there is almost heard the noise of the passing of dividends—how is it possible that that estimate will be realised? It is right that I should state that an allowance is made for some £27,000,000, but my only observation upon it is that we should keep these figures in mind when we come to the necessity for a reduction of expenditure, in order not merely to

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reduce taxation but also to keep a balanced Budget.
I will not spend further time upon that. There are only two other items to which I will make reference, and that merely a passing reference. They are Estate Duties and Stamps. The estimate represents an increase for Estate Duties of £11,000,000 over last year, and in the case of Stamp Duties an increase of £6,000,000 over last year. I have myself puzzled why that is put in. Will those figures be justified? It is there any reason why we should expect £11,000,000 more from Estate Duties this year? It is always a chance whether a rich man dies within the year or the estate pays duty within the year, but taking one year with another there is an average. All I will observe is that those two figures, it seems to me, are very doubtful of realisation during this year, and if you do not get that increase of £17,000,000, or if you get something short of that increase, then you remain with something more required to balance the Budget. That is why I lay such strong emphasis upon the necessity for a reduction of expenditure—not merely because I want to see the possibility of a reduction of taxation but because I want to see a Budget which can be balanced and will not require such steps as have had to be taken in the past.
That is the position as regards revenue. One item, and one item only, I propose to deal with in regard to expenditure, and it is interest and maintenance of the National Debt. It stands at £276,000,000 a year. It is a very large item, and of course we always have to remember in the criticisms which we make of this or any Government that that is almost entirely a product of the War. No Government is responsible for it, but it is there and we have to meet it. It represents about £6,300,000,000 of National Debt. If we do manage to make the conversion which is now under discussion, and of which we have read so much, of the 5 per cent. War Loan, it would mean a reduction of £20,000,000 sterling per annum, if you reduce the interest to 4 per cent., but you must make allowance for a certain loss on reduced taxation, and it seems to me a fair estimate to say that by the reduction from 5 per cent. to 4 per cent. you would really benefit to the extent of £15,000,000 or £16,000,000 per annum.
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Assume that that takes place. I am not jeering about it, as the noble Lord was inclined to do. In the late Government there was a desire on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make the conversion, but, of course, he had to be extremely careful. I quite realise that no Government can attempt to convert a loan of £2,000,000,000 without being sure that they can carry it out, and it must either be able to give a sufficient inducement to make the conversion acceptable to the large majority, or it must be prepared to find currency, if possible, or at least to find money in order to pay for whatever is left.
Obviously, every Chancellor of the Exchequer would be most careful before he launches his conversion scheme. Here you have now a yield of Government security which one may take at 4 per cent. or even a little less. Say the moment has come. I will assume that the necessary notices are given, that there is a favourable response and that the conversion takes place. I ask myself again and again: In the condition in which we stand at present is that sufficient? Can the Government rest merely upon the conversion of that 5 per cent. War Loan which became redeemable in 1929? It may very well be that, as time proceeds, we shall find it necessary to take some other steps with regard to the remaining £4,300,000,000 of National War Debt in order that we may save more interest, and that this figure of £276,000,000 may be reduced not merely by £16,000,000, bringing it to £260,000,000 but by a still further amount. Everything must depend, of course, on what happens in the future. I can conceive circumstances in which we might find it necessary to take very strong measures. I hope they will not arise. But, if they did, I believe that in this country there would be a response just as willing as there was to the demand for extra taxation last year.
I am not going to spend time in comparing the value of commodities and the value of sterling to-day. It has been done already by the noble Lord who opened the debate. I will only say that you may take it roughly that if you measure your value of sterling to-day with the commodity value, as taken from the Board of Trade index of the cost of living, which brought down the figure from 100 per cent. in 1924 to something like 85 per cent. by the latest return—if

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you compare those figures, if you apply that comparison to sterling as it was, then the result is that you make a difference of something like 19 or 20 per cent. in favour of the holder of the loan. All these are facts which will have to be considered, which really do require very grave consideration, but I leave to your Lordships those observations and content myself with saying this. Let us hope that it will not be necessary to do anything further; but, if it is, I cannot doubt that this country would respond to any conversion that was required, in order to enable us to have a balanced Budget and to present, as we always try to do and have done, a picture to the world of a country that is not afraid to face the situation whatever it may be.
After all, really the security behind your National Debt is the national wealth of the country. That is expressed year by year by the national taxation. It is really your only security. There is nothing else. And the national taxation must in itself always depend upon the prosperity of trade and industry. If you reduce expenditure and reduce taxation you will help industry, you will help to a certain extent—it may not be much in these conditions—to re-create enterprise, which is so much lacking at this moment. You will in the same way be assisting the country, and I hope that in assisting this country you will be giving a lead to the world, as the noble Lord said in opening this debate. I am in complete agreement with that, provided also that you get the agreement of the great countries of the world with you. Without it we are unable to achieve what we desire. In my view this Resolution can be accepted by the Government. It does not in the slightest degree interfere with the policy which I have always understood they have been pursuing—searching always for economy, although necessarily, by reason of the enormous amount of work placed upon Ministers, they have probably not been able to devote as much attention to it hitherto as they would have liked, though we are confident that they will as soon as they have the opportunity.
EARL PEEL: My Lords, I am sure we are all very much indebted to my noble friend Lord Hunsdon, not only for putting down this Motion, but also for the very lucid address in which he opened the subject before us and explained the present position of foreign trade. I am
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bound to say I rather preferred the earlier form of the Motion to the later one: it had a directness and sharpness which would have expressed the position even more clearly and forcibly. The noble Marquess who has just spoken has also saved me some trouble, because he dealt very severely with the noble Lord opposite for the curious panegyric which he passed upon Russia and for his general assault upon the capitalist system. I do not therefore find it necessary to follow him in that direction. I only want to ask two or three questions, which perhaps one of his supoprters may answer later in the debate.
We were told how admirable was the planning system in Russia. Of course, when you plan you sometimes have to carry out your plans, and it is rather remarkable that it has come recently to my knowledge in connection with some other activities that that great country, with its wonderful plans, had only a few months ago to import a large amount of wheat for its people, although, as we know, it is the greatest granary and has the largest capacity for wheat growing in the world. The other question I would like to ask him is this. Does he really suggest that we should try to deal with the unemployment problem in this country by introducing a system of compulsory or slave or prison labour, such as they have in Russia? Is that the curious medicine that he would give to this country? Does it occur to him that the people of this country, however misguided they may be, and in spite of what he no doubt would think an unfortunate attachment to the capitalist system, still, even in the old age of this country, have a strange passion for personal liberty?
In the few words that I shall address to your Lordships to-night I want to deal solely with the question of economy and very largely with its bearing in connection with the taxation upon industry. I do not wish to go into some of the questions relating to the Budget which have been dealt with by the noble Marquess, because I think he has already dealt with them fully and effectively. I am quite aware that, unlike a divine philosophy, economy is harsh and crabbed, and it is to that grim subject that I address myself this evening. What I would like is that the debate in your Lordships' House should not so much centre on particular points of economy

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or reduction, but should do its best to spread throughout the country the feeling that really at this time—and certain virtues are uppermost at certain times—public economy is a great and necessary virtue. I know that it is rather a difficult task for Ministers, because Ministers who do not spend are treated so often in the Press as sluggards who do not do their duty, whereas Ministers of a more free-handed sort are praised for their beneficent activities. I know what a tremendous task the Chancellor of the Exchequer always has in keeping down the tides of expenditure, and I would like to do what we can in your Lordships' House, where we speak with the greater freedom that comes from less direct responsibility for the details of finance, to strengthen his hands, possibly even against some of his colleagues if they show any tendency to increase their Estimates.
Looking at the whole question, I agree that Parliament is no doubt an admirably devised instrument for bringing forward grievances and for discussing general problems, but, though it has now the sole guardianship of our finances, I do not think anybody will say that the Parliamentary system employed in this country is well devised for keeping a close control, anyhow, over the details of expenditure. I am very glad to see that certain Members of Parliament, and not official Members of Parliament, are joining together to try, I will not say to lift this reproach, but to see that the House of Commons itself is in a real sense the protector and guardian of our finances. It is often said, though I think with very little truth, that one Parliament cannot bind another or its successors, but, unfortunately, it can. We have had too many instances in the last few years of expenses which are fixed upon the country by successive Parliaments and which we are told that in truth and honour and good faith we must meet. In that sense one Parliament does bind its successors. Unfortunately, when you come to the subject of the reduction of expenditure and the enforcement of economy, Parliament does not bind its successors, because it very often happens that a Government which has gone through the cheerless habit of saving expenditure is only piling up substantial reserves that may be squandered by its less scrupulous successors.
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Then, a great many worthy citizens, full of public zeal and inspired by admirable motives, protest with passion, and even sometimes threaten us with revolution when the particular service in which they are interested is curtailed. It is true, too, that one member of the Party opposite, whom we heard speak to-night, has actually raised expenditure into a virtue, and I am quite certain that any economy that is brought forward by the present Government would, be described as false economy by his supporters, and that Party, utterly undismayed as it apparently is by defeat at the polls, would seek to deprive our industry of incentive to activity by distributing freely the earnings which it has made. Thus, I think, the dice are very heavily loaded against the economist. The spenders are much more persistent than the savers. Though your Lordships do not control finance, I think it is essential that the weight of your collective voices should, if possible, be given in order that we may steer clear of some of these financial dangers.
I am not going to describe, because they are so familiar to all your minds, the difficulties in which we find ourselves —the general slackening of trade and enterprise in industry, the want of prosperity all over the world, the shattering effect on our trade of the frozen exchanges, the low price of materials, and the peculiar pranks of gold. May I stop for a moment to refer to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Hunsdon, about a rise in prices? I trust that no rise will be made in prices in this country alone, without other countries doing the same. That would merely, I am afraid, handicap our exporters and increase our own prices in foreign markets. These general causes, pressing as they do upon us from every quarter, do not, I think, absolve us from doing what we can in our own country to steady our own financial house. Unfortunately we can only offer advice; we cannot impose our will on these international Conferences. What I am glad of is this—and I hope I do not take too serious a view of the situation—that if we do not impose large reductions ourselves, these large reductions will be forced upon us by the falling yields of our taxes, whose effects become more cumulative as industry and enterprise decay. It is quite impossible for us to live at this full.

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financial stretch for ever, and there is a limit to those sacrifices which our countrymen to-day are bearing so bravely and so uncomplainingly.
The broad fact is that the whole scale of our national expenditure is out of step with our present industrial and financial position. I will only inflict one figure upon your Lordships, and it is a terrible and sinister figure. As is now, I think, generally admitted, rates and taxes draw from us no less than one third of our national income. Those immense fixed charges alone constitute a stupendous handicap upon the improvement of our industry. If you examine these charges you will find they are hard, rigid and unyielding, while the income upon which they are levied and out of which they are paid is, unfortunately, only too flexible and variable. We have at present scraped our financial cupboard pretty bare. We have, unfortunately, no more reserves for times of trouble. These heavy charges are not calculated with any reference to the percentage that they bear to our national earning power. Estimates are given of expenditure—sometimes they are not given—but they are not really related to our earning power or our national productivity. The sources from which taxation spring grow less and the burden becomes cumulatively heavy. As we know, immense blocks of capital are dispersed at death, and those great legacies from more prosperous times are not, unfortunately, renewable, and the surpluses of our citizens, capable of being used for investment, become smaller and smaller under the heavier weight of taxation.
I think it is very difficult to exaggerate the tremendously depressing effect on industry of these charges, and, much more, on the minds of those who are engaged in industry and various enterprises in this country. They are fighting amid all the ordinary difficulties of industrial life and strife against these tremendous financial odds. If we try to survey the direction in which the world is now moving, I am afraid we have to say that we are not likely to increase our export trade with the magnificent aggressiveness of the past. All countries, East and West, seem to be animated by the same ambition. They all want to pursue the path of economic nationalism and aim at that type of civilisation which comes from the most widely diversified industries. There
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are to-day very few indigenous industries. You can make anything anywhere without regard to temperament or climate or indigenous national resources. You may talk of complementary industries and of one country supplying those things which are most easily made in that country, but unfortunately national ambitions refuse to bow before the yoke of economics or economic advisers.
Then again, if you look at the tremendous changes and chances and risks that are run by even the most prosperous countries, could you have had a more stupendous reversal of fortune than has been seen in the United States? There was a country moving until quite recently—in spite, of course, of the capitalistic system—on an incredibly steep plane of prosperity, confident and even arrogant of prosperity in the future. Yet, in a few months, the whole structure is shaken and everything swept into a gigantic abyss. Unemployed are numbered by millions and for the time being the people are in despair. We have, of course, recently taken in this country the great step of introducing tariffs and safeguards for our industries, but I think it is quite clear that the value of all these great new opportunities must be neutralised by the weight of old and the prospect of new burdens. Again, the system of exchanges and foreign investments and in fact the whole working of our external trade is built up on the general observance of contracts and good faith. Unfortunately, we seem nowadays to be running into an evil period when, partly from the pressure of necessity and partly from the results of subversive doctrines, these great anchors of a trading nation begin to drag. All these increasing hazards in the industrial world not only invite but insist upon caution in our national finances.
It may be—no one yet can say—that we are moving on to a lower level of living and prosperity. Let us hope, indeed, that some of our troubles may be temporary. As regards more permanent matters, the instability of currencies and our monetary problems, they can only be dealt with as the result of International Conferences and we may have to wait for years perhaps for those results. Our economic doctors, though they may diagnose the symptoms, are certainly not agreed as yet on the remedies to be employed. I hope, too, that we shall not

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cherish the illusion, apparently held by noble Lords opposite, that more spending by the State will create new and real wealth. After all, that expenditure, or distribution, by the State only lasts for a moment and, by the fact of its being so heavy a burden upon our industries and checking production, that distribution can only be effected once. I believe that if it were possible suddenly to reduce, or rapidly to reduce, expenditure by, we will say, one-third, or any large fraction of the present amount, every one would be astounded at the tremendous rush in industrial development which I am sure would very soon fill up the gap in national income.
We have to try and persuade the electors, bewildered as they may be by the rival attractions of financial doctrines, that in a large measure they hold in their own hands their own destiny, and that if we are going to survive we must practise in public economy the more frugal virtues. We must do our best to teach them that spending is the enemy and that a deadly pestilence is often less destructive of national health than wasteful expenditure. It is for that habit of mind in the nation that we must struggle in order to secure economy rather than by setting our minds upon more formal and set economies. It is not the first time in history that democracies have been destroyed because of expenditure. I understand that recent historians hold the view that Imperial Rome itself suffered not so much from the large estates of the magnates as from the terrific taxation which crushed liberty and enterprise in the Provinces.
I agree—and I think most noble Lords on this side agree—that the present Government have made a most effective contribution towards the restoration of our national finances. They have balanced the Budget, although I am bound to say that a few years ago we should not have regarded that as a very astonishing phenomenon, but in these less expectant days let us be thankful in that matter for what we can get. They have also done much to check excessive imports and have re-established our credit in really an astonishingly short number of months. They have given fresh opportunities to our industries and I hope will give more. But I believe the task before them is even more tremendous than those
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labours which they have already performed. Coalitions historically have many drawbacks, but they ought to have at least this one virtue, that they can take upon their broader backs unpleasant duties from which mere Party Govern-merits might often shrink. This readjustment of the whole financial machine to the new world in which we are living may be at first an unpopular task, but I am sure that if they pursue it with resolute will they will attract the admiration of millions of our people and that in a new and genuine prosperity they will reap a rich reward.
THE LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM: My Lords, I would apologise to the House for intervening in this discussion at this time. If, indeed, the matters which are before your Lordships were mainly concerned with finance and economy I should be the last person to think that it was fitting that a member of this Bench should address you, but as I see the matter the problem which is before. us this afternoon is in the truest and fullest sense of the word, not a merely financial and economic problem, but a social problem of the deepest interest to the people of this country. The noble Lord opposite allowed himself something like an appeal to the Bishops as though he assumed it must be almost inevitable that we should be the advocates of extravagant expenditure. He called himself a Socialist. Something more than a generation has passed since Sir William Harcourt said that we are all Socialists now and Socialism is a blessed word—the whole force and value of it depends on your definition of it. I was painfully concerned when the noble Lord proceeded, not obscurely, to indicate that his definition of it was fully expressed in the proceedings in Russia. Does the noble Lord expect Bishops to be enthusiastic for Russia?
I venture to intrude in this debate, because I am persuaded that the poor and the poorest sections of our people stand to lose most by public extravagance. I believe, and it is forced on my notice every day of my life in the County of Durham, that public extravagance both national and local is telling directly and most disastrously on the conditions of life of the poor people of this country. I would like to associate myself fully with Lord Hunsdon's Motion, and I want to add such little contribu-

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tion as I may be able to make to such friendly pressure as your Lordships' House can bring upon the Government to induce them not to underrate the importance of the economies to which they are publicly pledged, but to persist and not to slacken until they have effected real and considerable economy in the expenditure of this country. Since the dramatic events of last autumn we have heard much talk about economy, but I see many signs of growing impatience in the public mind at the widening chasm which seems to be opening between this talk and the actual practical effect that it is having. I am tempted to borrow and apply some words, which I have ventured slightly to amend, of my most famous predecessor Bishop Butler, the immortal author of the Analogy. The words are—Going over the theory of economy in the mind, and drawing fine pictures of it, so far from leading to the habit of economy in the man who so engages himself, is even likely to harden him in the opposite direction and lead to a habit of reckless extravagance.
I want particularly to secure your Lordships' attention to the local aspect of this matter. Upon the larger national question I will say nothing, but remember that alongside our national expenditure there is proceeding all over the country local expenditure, and alongside our National Debt there is rapidly growing a great local debt. I am therefore happy to see that local expenditure is associated with national in the Motion. I desire to address myself especially to the local aspect of the subject as it is presented in the great industrial districts. Your Lordships will remember that the industrial districts are really the main problem and I will indicate the reasons which appear to me to cause that to be the case. In the first place, it is in these great industrial districts, particularly in a time of grave depression such as that through which we are passing, that the justifications for all kinds of expenditure appear to be most numerous and most plausible. Again, it is in these districts that there is normally an absence of informed and effective criticism of the estimates of expenditure presented by local governing bodies. Why? Because in these districts the population is composed almost entirely of wage earners—people who are not accustomed
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to handling a large sum of public money and who are apt to be completely misled by the apparent facility with which vast expenditure can be undertaken and met.
These are the last people in the world who really ought to be asked to accept the difficult and delicate task of appreciating the precise bearing of this kind of expenditure which they so readily adopt. The great industrial communities are very young. The population of the County of Durham in one century multiplied tenfold. These great communities have therefore no tradition of ordered life with all the variety of interests and of experience which are able to produce individuals who are competent for financial management. Lord Bacon said that a crowd is not company. He might have said with even greater truth that a crowd is not a community, and it is crowds that we are dealing with in these great industrial districts. A pit is sunk, people gather to work there, and in a single generation there may be the population of a city and the resources of a hamlet. With these untrained communities do you wonder that we are seeing a recklessness in expenditure which is menacing the whole community?
Let me ask your Lordships to consider for a moment the result of this lavish expenditure. To begin with it tells directly on the people's interests in swollen rates. They do not see it because they do not pay their rates directly, and I think the wage-earning people pay a larger proportion than they ought because they pay in that way. Anyhow, there is this effect of the rates. In many places in Durham there are rates exceeding 20 s. in the pound. They even go up to 30 s. I have observed that when the rates in any district reach or approximate to 20 s. in the pound the prosperity in that community is affected, and when they go approximately to 30 s. people begin to move away, industries are closed, and there are all the signs of the decay of society that we are seeing in Durham. Moreover, great houses are dismantled and their households withdrawn. The local shopkeepers suffer. There is a general flight of industry in the County of Durham. Industries like shipbuilding and export mining are stricken, and it is vital that we should invite new industries into the County, but no new industries will come into a community rated upon

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such a scale. So it is that working people are prejudiced most seriously.
I must not pursue the matter further, but. I want to emphasise that I do think the Central Government ought to be exercising upon the local authorities a restraint on extravagance instead of, as is too often the case, stimulating and encouraging expenditure. I know that the Great War deranged all our perspective and disturbed all our imaginations, and the habit of reckless expenditure then formed is hard to abandon, for new expenditure incurred tends to take shape as a new vested interest. in which human lives have been bound. Then, when the question of anything like economy is raised, at once you have a series of equitable claims from individuals, who ask why they should have their means of livelihood withdrawn. So, as the Government know too well, the task of effecting economies is extraordinarily difficult, because it is bound up with equitable claims of individuals at every point. So cautions therefore must we be in embarking upon new expenditure and encouraging the growth of these new vested interests.
Lavish capital expenditure, moreover, often has a habit of leaving behind it consequences of increased burdens and continuing charges. I would take one instance. Take the immense expenditure upon our roads. The County of Durham is now equipped with roads far beyond its necessity. The State is in the position of a man with an estate with a house sufficient for it. He pulls down his house and builds another, and, builds a thing far too big for the estate to maintain. That is what we have come to in this country. How are our great roads to be maintained? I will mention, in the hope that that mention will carry to the County to which it refers, the direct road between Lanchester and Durham. It is a country road, where there is practically no traffic at all. Trees have been cut down on either side, and one of the most beautiful parts of a county which is not too rich in beauty, has been absolutely wrecked, and we have now a road which would be worthy of one of the main tracks out of London. This has been done merely to make a road, and it has got to be kept up. So it is not only extravagance in expenditure, but it is the continuing burden of maintaining the result
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of extravagant expenditure, which has to be considered.
I think the original sin of our whole system of local government is its assumption that mere numbers indicate a capacity for autonomy. The lavish grants from central funds are operating as a stimulus to local extravagance. If history delivers one lesson more clearly than another it is this, that the ruin of great empires comes from financial mismanagement. Moral corruption, no doubt, played its part, but we now see that the reason why the great empires failed was the extravagant and overwhelming mismanagement of their finances, so that the local populations were unable to bear their burdens. I certainly associate myself with what Lord Hunsdon said. This Motion is not unfriendly to the Government. It is intended to strengthen the hands of the Government, and I, for one, look to the National Government to lift our country out of the formidable difficulties in which it is immersed.
LORD PLENDER: My Lords, this is the first occasion on which I have ventured to address your Lordships' House, and it is with trepidation, therefore, that I intervene in the debate. I do so not for the purpose of condemning the Government, but to urge them, without undue delay, to put into operation the principle which they have accepted—namely, that the question of economy is paramount. The remarks which I had intended to make were of a general character, and the ground which I had hoped to cover has already been somewhat freely trodden by noble Lords who have already spoken. I hope, therefore, you will forgive me if I repeat to some extent the substance of what has been said, although perhaps in other language and perhaps from other angles.
I had the honour last year of serving on the National Expenditure Committee, and in the Report many recommendations were made whereby we thought that a sum approaching £100,000,000 a year might be saved, without any impairment of efficiency in the Departments affected or in the services rendered, or injustice being done to individuals. But that sum, large though it be, is insufficient. Much has been done and I gratefully pay my acknowledgments to the Government for what they have done, but I venture to think there is a great deal more still to

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be done. I am not unconscious of the difficulties. A mere cutting down of expenditure may in itself do more harm than good. It is little use saying that there shall be a reduction of tens of millions more a year without taking into consideration the reactions which might flow from such a course. The Government may consider that even reductions on so large a scale are inadequate in view of Budget necessities and, to use the Chancellor of the Exchequer's words, there may have to be changes in national policy going far beyond anything that has been contemplated. The measures to be taken rest with the Government, and the country will, I believe, support them in any steps which are shown to be necessary to relieve the burdens of taxation which afflict the trade and commerce of the nation and which have to no small extent brought about so much unemployment. No better way of lessening unemployment is there than in reviving and accelerating trade by freeing businesses from heavy taxation burdens and so giving more hope and confidence to those whose capital is at risk.
The time has come, nay it is past, when the Government must reject doing the things that are desirable and only spend on the things which are absolutely essential. The rise in public expenditure during the last few years was largely unjustified, and the creation of a parental State which makes life easy—not always for the deserving; and almost impossible for those who do work and venture their capital in the effort—can only lead to disaster. If I am asked what further economies can justly be made, how additional revenue can be raised, and what changes should be made in national policy, I can only answer that I have not that task to undertake. It is the Government's duty; but there is no one capable of assisting in the task who would not be most willing to give his services if asked for.
This Motion, apparently, does not contemplate the effects of changes in international policy, which might have in many ways a highly beneficial effect on our expenditure and on our trade, both internal and external. I feel certain, however, that whatever we as a nation may do, our efforts will prove unavailing and ineffective in their completeness without co-operative effort on the part of all nations in the old world and in the new
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in relation to the immediate revision of the Debt and Reparation liabilities, and, as soon as is practicable, a much more drastic treatment than revision, and also in relation to the lowering of tariff barriers between countries, which are not a protection but a restriction to the trade of every nation and the cause of constant irritation; and not least in relation to the vital subject of disarmament. I rejoice to see that certain of the European nations are already revising their tariffs in a downward direction, and I hope that example will be followed by other nations as they come to realise that freedom to circulate goods is a necessity to every country whose production exceeds its own power of consumption.
And in this connection some regulation of production extending beyond our own borders must be necessary. These subjects, it is true, form part of a world problem, but they cannot be divorced from the solution of national questions affecting every country, and we ask the Government to push forward with no delay their inquiries and efforts, and to let us see in what way and to what extent they will effect economies in the national expenditure which are long overdue, and also what their considered policy is in the international situation.
In addition to the curtailment of national expenditure, some means must be devised much more stringent than exist now of controlling local expenditure, which automatically attracts grants in aid. Its rise in recent years, in education, housing, and town-planning, highways, public health, etc. is appalling, and the burden of rates is overpowering. Expenditure in recent years has been lavish, and a large part of it is unproductive and non-revenue producing. This is now happily largely checked, but the harm has been done, and it must be stopped for the future. There has been a complete indifference in recent years to the effect of expenditure on a future generation that has purported to relieve unemployment for the moment, and too little consideration given to the right class of expenditure. When one-third of the whole product of industry disappears in taxation, as the noble Earl, Lord Peel, has stated, it is time to take stock and see whither the nation is drifting.
Comparative figures of expenditure with those of nineteen, ten or three years

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ago are not now needed. No statistics require to be compiled to show that our liabilities have grown to stupendous dimensions, and that our rates and taxes are crushing industry, nor is it necessary to illustrate by examples their effect on individual business enterprises, which I could give by the score. They are only too well known, and the facts are admitted universally. Apart from Departmental savings in national expenditure there is the interest on the National Debt, which a conversion scheme should materially reduce, and the time seems nigh when it may be practicable to proceed. And there is also the monetary policy of the country which, surrounded by difficulties though it is and the subject of sharp differences of opinion, at any rate deserves very serious consideration by the Government, in relation, for example, to the fall in world prices of primary products which this country alone cannot regulate. I believe that the Government are fully alive to these grave issues. I believe they are not only anxious but determined to relieve taxation, and if, in addition to easing our burdens at home they can by their advice and example help to rehabilitate a stricken Europe and bring in as a contributor to the solution the great nation across the Atlantic, they will earn the gratitude and admiration of their country and of the whole civilised world.
THE MARQUESS OF LINLITHGOW: My Lords, the House will desire me to congratulate the noble Lord who has just sat down on what is his maiden speech in this House, and to express the hope that he may very often take an active part in our debates. The very special skill which he possesses in the subject which is before the House to-day will give him, I am quite certain, many opportunities of partaking in the discussions in this House to very great purpose and point.
It is really of little use on this occasion to attempt anything in the nature of a criticism of any previous Government. Everybody knows perfectly well the history of Parties in this matter, and no Party in my judgment is entitled to claim exemption from criticism, because all are in some measure responsible. The Motion before the House deals with a topic which is by no means new. In recommending the appointment of the May
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Committee the House of Commons passed this Resolution:
"That this House considers that, having regard to the present burden of taxation in restricting industry and employment, the Government should at once appoint a small and independent Committee to make recommendations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for effecting forthwith all practicable and legitimate reduction in the national expenditure consistent with the efficiency of the Services."
So the House of Commons at least is committed to a direct relating of the incidence of taxation to trade depression.
Before I cite any figures I think it appropriate to remind the House of the profound difference between the budgetary position as it was during a period of rising prices and general inflation of values and as it now presents itself at a time of low commodity value and general world deflation. I shall attempt this by giving the House two quite short examples. The first is from this country and the second from the United States. The gold value of the internal Debt in this country between March, 1922, and the same month in 1932, that is to say, aften ten years, fell from £5,905,700,000 to £4,908,200,000. Its commodity value for the same period rose from £6,244,500,000 in 1922 to £7,608,100,000 in March last. That gives an indication of the increase in the Debt load measured in terms of commodities. And, of course, the same argument applies to interest as to principal.
But the position is far more serious than appears on the surface of those figures. In point of fact there is no good reason in economic theory why a fall in commodity values of the order of that experienced and over the period of time that has elapsed since the fall began, should have led to conditions of trade as disastrous as those which the world has witnessed. What then is the reason for the commercial collapse so far as it has been due to the fall in prices? Beyond doubt it lies in the fact that primary produce has lost value to a far greater extent than have secondary products, with the consequent effacement of the purchasing power of all producers of primary produce the world over.
Your Lordships may care to hear the facts as these have obtained in the United States of America. In that country, since last August, commodity prices have fallen at the rate

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of no more than half of 1 per cent. per month, but while in January, 1931, the general index of the price level was 78.2 and that for farm produce was 73.1; in April, 1932, the general index had fallen to 65.5, while that for farm produce stood at the extraordinarily low level of 49.2. That is why the American farmer cannot buy American manufactured goods; that is why the American factories languish, and that is why, since profits have largely ceased to be earned, the Federal and other revenues have declined, and reduced expenditure by all public bodies in that country becomes a permanent necessity. The same thing applies to all countries, and when you reflect upon the substance of the two examples which I have given the House and recall the immense purchasing power in normal times of the aggregate of the world's agricultural population, and the extent to which that purchasing power has now disappeared, you will appreciate the profoundly important effect of these particular factors in the complex of causes that has led to the world collapse of trade, and you will appreciate in all its dire consequences the relation between the fall in commodity values and the national budgetary position.
There are further repercussions of the process of deflation, and to these I shall venture to refer in a moment or two. But it must be again said that no figures of revenue and expenditure can be adequately appreciated unless all these reactions are kept constantly in view. Loose language in relation to finance is really of no help or use, and I think it is worth while to state quite shortly the fashion in which the several forms of taxation bear upon the issue before the House. I will deal first with Income Tax. With the important exception of the taxes under Schedule A which in their incidence upon industry are analogous to local rates, Income Tax is a tax on profits, and as such is not an addition to costs. I do not myself attach overmuch weight to the argument that direct taxes are prejudicial to trade because their effect is to reduce the purchasing power of the individual. Where there is a waste of resources the case is plainly good. But as to that part of our expenditure which comes under the general head of social services, it would be unreasonable, I submit, to assume that those who enjoy, directly or indirectly, an increase in their
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purchasing power as a consequence of a transference of purchasing power from the pocket of the taxpayer to that of the recipient of State aid, are any worse spenders than the taxpayer would have been had the money been left in his pocket. I think economically that would be an unreasonable assumption to make and I do not propose to make it. The effect of such schemes is mainly to transfer business from one class of trade to another and different class of trade.
Income Tax, it is true, has this further bearing upon industry. It diminishes saving and, therefore, the resources from which new capital, whether for new purposes or for the refreshing of capital in going concerns, must be drawn. It tends, too, to raise the burden on costs represented by salaries and fees because of the natural tendency of the overtaxed receivers of such emoluments to endeavour to offset in some measure the heavy imposts by claiming higher remuneration. Again, Income Tax, since it is assessed on the profits of the preceding year, may, and often in practice does, as I have lately learned, in times of declining trade such as those in which we now find ourselves, represent in effect an increase in costs. That I think is beyond dispute. But most important of all, very high taxation does unquestionably sap business initiative and destroy individual resilience. It is really no use pretending that a business man who finds himself, for instance, debarred by reason of his Income Tax from maintaining the insurance policy upon which in the event of his death the future of his wife and children must depend, will be as prudently bold or as tenacious of purpose as he ought to be, or as he would be if he were allowed to remain solvent within the reasonable standards of his state of life and social position.
I am very well aware that these considerations make no very strong appeal to noble Lords opposite, who are the advocates of a very different set of theories, but I venture to say with great respect that they and their friends would be very well advised to soften a little, at least in practice, the rather harsh theories to which they subscribe and to some of which we have listened to-day from the Bench opposite. Our generation and at least a, few generations yet to come will have to live under some system of industry and finance not very different

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from that which now exists. It is quite true that we are on the march and that none of us know where we are going. That is of the essence of all life, but though we march we must have our meals. The Labour Party tells us that it sees, dim and distant, the spires of a promised city where each individual will find plenty and contentment. I think that in the main those towers and those spires are a mirage, but even if I thought them real and substantial I should refuse to march towards them with the Labour Party as at present constituted, for I think it would fail to provide an adequate commissariat and I might starve on the way before I reached the goal.
For my part, I believe that with the initiative and efficiency of the higher ranks of service and leadership in trade and commerce is bound up the commercial recovery of this country and our future prosperity. I think there are good reasons, into which I will not go to-day, to question the possibility of restoring to their pristine scale and vigour many of those great industries upon which both the individual citizen and the public purse have thrived and prospered in the past. Those industries grew to the scale on which we once saw them thrive in circumstances of a virtual monopoly of world trade such as we are unlikely to enjoy again. But happily we have other resources. In specialised manufacture by units of moderate dimensions our resources are unmatched both in terms of skilled labour and of skilled and experienced designing. But if you would prosper in ventures of that nature you have to be very quick on your feet. Men who are overtaxed and in a constant state of private difficulty for which they are in no way responsible, if not indeed actually distressed, are not those to be quick on their feet. I think it is difficult to overstress, in the real interests of the working classes of this country as much as of any other class in the community, the importance of that consideration. So much for Income Tax.
I turn now for a moment to local rates. Local rates in their incidence are very different from Income Tax, for they represent a positive increase in the cost of production. I appreciate the theoretical basis of the noble Viscount, Lord Snowden's, famous dictum in another place that rates as such are no burden
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upon industry, because I understand, almost as well as he does, the theory of differential rates according to which, as your Lordships well know, the difference between actual rates and those levied on premises of so-called marginal utility tend in the course of time to be represented by deductions from rent and therefore do not operate as a charge on costs. But theory on this occasion, as the Balfour Committee—which I think was the last to point to this particular phase of rates—may for practical purposes be disregarded. Rates assessed upon the annual value of industrial premises do constitute an addition to the cost of production, and unhappily their effect in this regard is in inverse ratio to the volume of output. That, is to say, as output declines, rates remaining constant, the rates represent a constantly rising proportion of any one unit of production.
It will serve to throw the importance of rates in their relation to productive industry at this moment into proper proportion if I give a few facts and figures of local government expenditure. The figures which I shall give your Lordships I believe are accurate. I have spared no pains to make them so. They are for the year ending March 31, 1932. The receipts from rates for the year ending, as I say, March 31, 1932, are estimated at approximately £165,000,000. Final figures for receipts from Exchequer grants for the year ending March 31, 1932, are not yet available, but the total, including grants from the Road Fund, is estimated to be approximately £153,000,000. The aggregate expenditure—I shall draw the appropriate deduction from these figures in a moment—of local authorities for the same period is estimated at approximately £318,000,000. The average amount of rates collected per head of the estimated population for the same period was £3 14 s. 1d. while the loan debt outstanding was £1,175,000,000.
The rateable value of industrial hereditaments in force on April 1, 1931, was £8,840,541. That is about one-fourth of the normal rateable value of those premises owing to the effect of the Derating Act. The average rate in the pound in 1931–32 was about 12 s. and a rough calculation shows that local rates borne by industry to-day, taking into consideration the Derating Act, approximates to £5,300,000. The net output of

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productive industry in 1924 amounted to £1,743,490,000. On this basis you will see that the average proportion of the value of the net product of industries attributable to local rates is in the neighbourhood of.3 per cent. When one reflects that had the Derating Act not been passed into law by the last Conservative Government this rateable value of industrial hereditaments would be four times the sum mentioned, and that the same proportionate increase would apply to the rates levied as these fall as a charge upon industrial production, one is driven to the conclusion that the Derating Act represents one of the legislative masterstrokes of our day. One shudders to think of the position of industry in this country to-day if that measure had not been put upon the Statute Book by the last Conservative Administration.
I turn now to the various charges laid upon employers, and so upon productive industry, by the State in connection with their workers, because they are even more important—as you will see in a moment—than rates. These charges amount approximately for health insurance and pensions to £25,000,000, for unemployment insurance £19,300,000 and for insurance premiums necessarily paid against risks incurred by employers as a result of Acts of the Imperial Parliament, £5,500,000. The total of all those figures which I have given your Lordships for health insurance and pensions, for unemployment insurance and for the insurance premiums against risks under the Workmen's Compensation Act amount to £49,800,000. That is 2.85 per cent. of the total industrial output, the value of which I gave to your Lordships just now as £1,743,490,000. I ought to add that the figures I have given are for employers' contributions only and do not include contributions from workmen. Adding the figure of 2.85 per cent, for health insurance and pensions, unemployment and workmen's compensation to that for local rates, namely,.3 per cent., your Lordships will see that the demands of the State and the local authorities, without taking into account Income Tax, together amount to an increase in costs of production of no less than 3.15 per cent. But for the Derating Act that charge or increase would be no less than 4.05 per cent.
To those of your Lordships who have experience of the intensity of world competition to-day those figures will appear
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most formidable. It is not necessary in this House to recall the fact that upon the capacity of this country to maintain her hold upon her export business must depend the sustenance of the 45,000,000 souls who inhabit this small island. When some of us rise in our places to question the expediency of further public expenditure under Bills of the order of the Town and Country Planning Bill, we but do our plain duty to the public. It is indeed vital that local authorities should be constantly reminded of the imperative necessity of curtailing their expenditure. I shall venture in a moment to say a word or two about detailed opportunities for economy that seem to me to present themselves, but upon the general question, as it touches the so-called social services, I would say that upon broad grounds of policy and of human nature it would in my judgment be dangerous folly, having regard to the existing level of commodity values, to attempt to curtail the spending power, from whatever source derived, of the wage earner unless at the same time you curtail the interest to the rentier accruing to him as the result of his lending funds to the State. I am no Socialist, but I believe the more you examine the case with a desire to see what is practical the more you will feel the weight of that consideration. You cannot hope to correct the disharmony between revenue resources and national expenditure unless you also, and proportionately, scale down the income of the rentier and the nominal value of the Debt.
The obvious alternative, which was recommended so strongly on the Cross Benches and that to which the nations—for we alone cannot attempt it—must strive is to raise the value of commodities; that is, to adopt a policy international as well as national which will result in the cheapening of gold. To that end the statesmen of the world must bend their minds and we must pray that they may succeed in time. That is not to say that the national Budget ought not to be reduced. I am convinced that further and substantial economies are within the reach of the National Government. The position is indeed serious. The present sterling level is approximately that of 1913. There is no reason to suppose that the national income will not in turn be reduced to a figure not

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much exceeding that obtaining in 1913. But national expenditure has risen by no less than 300 per cent. since 1913 until it now absorbs one-third of the national income, and if deflation continues much further the proportion will soon rise to something like a half.
As to particular economies, and omitting any to be expected from a successful conversion scheme or from disarmament as a consequence of successful international arrangements, I am convinced that many Departments of State ought to be called upon to make their adequate contribution towards the relief of the taxpayer. Let me put it this way. I feel certain that any attempt to bring down the cost of the home Civil Service presupposes, if it is to be successful, the willingness of Parliament to ask for much less information on matters of detail. An examination of one week's Order Paper in another place will show how numerous questions are, the number that are concerned with matters of detail and the immense amount of documentation that the public offices must undertake if they are to be in a position to supply at Short notice the mass of information asked for. The willingness of the public to accept a rather less luxurious service must also be presupposed. At this moment it is the duty of Departments to reply with a 1½d. stamp by return of post to any communication, however unhelpful or unnecessary.
In addition to reductions that can be achieved by cutting down the work necessitated by demands from Parliament and the public there ought to be a, most searching investigation into the growth of staff since pre-War days, and in saying that I have clearly before my mind such inquiries as have already been carried out. I am inclined to think from my little experience in Departments that this is really not the appropriate job for a Committee. I would rather see an individual, who should be given a free hand, made responsible with a Committee to advise him, and I would give the individual what would amount virtually to executive power. I think the War Office, the Admiralty and the Ministries of Health and Labour would have a good deal to explain to an individual so equipped and advised, even after making allowances for the increased supervision necessitated by the mechanisation of the Fighting Services and by the many extra duties
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that social legislation of a sketchy character has left the Civil Service to work out. Your Lordships will have seen Lord Hewart's "Blank cheque for our new bureaucracy."
In considering how the fruits of this social legislation are to be thinned, temporarily at least, the Government must make up its mind as to what it wants. Much of the elementary education in this country is, I submit, more or less ineffectual. I would not attack exactly the same elements in our educational curriculum as many others would do. I would retain most of the children's health services. I like them. For instance, I would retain those services connected with dental treatment, eyesight and tonsils' investigation, and I would also say a good word for free or cheap milk. But I would cut out, or very carefully consider the possibility of doing so, all learning except the three R's and I would cut out much of the domestic science taught to girls. What is the use of spending public funds in teaching girls up to fourteen or so fairly elaborate cookery when they will not cook at all for another six years, by which time they will have forgotten everything they were taught? A matter of that sort looks well as a subject, but it is really pretty useless. Inspecting staffs of all kinds—Home Office, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Transport—ought in my judgment to be curtailed and I would leave night clubs and public morals within reason to find their own level and look after themselves.
Even if all reductions possible were effected there would, it is true, be no sensational financial result, but if only expansion by Departments could be checked that would be a very great achievement. Quite apart from the money you would save you would impress the Department with the fact that public economy in this country is essential and indirectly, if not directly, you would tend to deflect the policy of the Department from extravagance towards economy. Most of the reductions would be in low-paid staffs which, however, are generally speaking pensionable. Probably it would not be very economical to pension off prematurely those whose services you proposed to dispense with. The better way would perhaps be to cease to recruit for a period and to redistribute as far as such a policy can be reconciled with the accepted basis of scientific recruitment. I

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think by judicious redistribution you could do a good deal. I entirely agree that in the field of expenditure under grants in aid it ought to be possible to save a good deal by contenting ourselves with the very ample supply of roads which is now enjoyed, and I am inclined to think that not a few of the roads recently created, if my experience in the North is any guide to the general position, might very well not be further maintained.
I would say to the Government, with great respect, "Stick to it! Do not despise what Mr. Gladstone called 'Candle-end' economies." Let it be made plain to the Civil Service that if there are discovered those within its higher ranks who do not mean to play the game, then they will be asked to make way for others who can be relied upon to do their duty to the public, whose servants they are. There is no other way, and I venture to say to the Government that if at the end of their period of office they find themselves still popular in all quarters, they may be sure that they will have failed their country in the hour of her overwhelming difficulties, and that they have failed, too, to carry out the specific and vital task which was entrusted to their hands by one of the most remarkable manifestations of instinctive political sagacity that the long story of popular government in this or any other country can show. I am much obliged to your Lordships for having listened patiently to remarks which have been far too long.
LORD DARYNGTON: My Lords, I was very much interested in the speech of the noble Marquess. When he began he said he was not going to refer to many subjects mentioned this afternoon, but it is rather difficult for anyone not to mention a subject which has not been mentioned. I would like to take this opportunity of mentioning two subjects. One is the question of Death Duties. The noble Marquess opposite said we ought to face the facts, and I do not think the majority of people in this country realise the position in which we stand. I recently wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury and asked him to let me know the amount of the Sinking Fund paid into the Exchequer in the last ten years and the total amount of Death Duties received. I was informed that the amount of the Sinking Fund in the last ten years amounted to £464,000,000, and
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that the amount of Death Duties paid in the last ten years was £674,000,000. If any one of your Lordships were to base his own household accounts on the same lines, he would soon realise how unfortunate it would be. I do believe it is fundamentally unsound, and that we ought to realise that there is this great discrepancy between the Sinking Fund and the amount received in Death Duties. Everyone realises that the Death Duties are not ordinary revenue and ought not to be treated as such.
My other point is the question of the railways. It may be said that perhaps this is not germane to the question of Lord Hunsdon's Motion, but I think it is because everyone will realise the position in which the railways are placed to-day, and it shows that the Treasury are losing a very large amount of money in many ways, particularly in the matter of Income Tax, which is not paid on account of the absence of dividend. The point which I wish to make is this. During the last few years we have spent no less than £500,000,000 on the roads in this country. That is a very serious statement to make. What has been the effect of it? It has provided a speedway which has many times been the means of preventing the railways from making that money which they felt they were justified in making after they had received the charter from the Government after the War. The nominal value of the railways in this country, to-day, is £1,250,000,000, and the Stock Exchange value is only £450,000,000. That leaves an enormous margin. I do not think it is fully realised what a large part railways constitute of the national assets. I think it is no exaggeration to say that the nominal value of one of the railways in this country is greater than the value of all the shipping of this country, taken at £10 per ton.
Anyone who looks at the newspapers and sees the prices of debentures and guaranteed stocks will realise the importance of this matter. I believe it would be to the interest of the railway companies if their deferred shares were £1 shares, instead of £100 stock. An ordinary deferred share of the London and North Eastern Railway, on a £1 basis, could be bought for ninepence, and a similar share in the Southern Railway, on a £1 basis, could be bought, to-day, for one shilling. I think, considering the

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charter which was given to the railways after the War, the Government have a very great responsibility in regard to them. I do not think that anyone ought to look at this question of the railways on the same basis as he would look at any other industrial concern, and I will state my reasons. The conditions on the railways are totally different from the conditions on the roads. Last week I went in two chars-a-bancs. In each case I asked the man how many hours he worked and he said twelve hours. Such conditions are not allowed on the railways. Again, if we turn to many other statutory conditions which exist on the railways, we realise that they are absolutely different from those which exist on the roads.
I know it is of no use declaiming, but we want to know what can be done about it. I do not pretend to be an expert, but I will make one or two suggestions. I want to point out this, that the amount of trust money in our railways is no less than £800,000,000 at the present time, and I know an individual who has left his money entirely to the Public Trustee to invest for him. I think your Lordships will agree that it is not unreasonable for him to think that there is some little responsibility from the point of view of the Public Trustee with regard to that money which has been invested by him. In your Lordships' House not many years ago, you will remember the elaborate procedure which took place at the instance of Lord Redesdale in order to protect the capital of the railways, or rather of those people who were going to become shareholders of the railways, and you also remember the charter which I have already referred to, which really did cause the Government to be to a great extent responsible.
I should like to point out that the railways have no right to charge what they will. They cannot choose their customers, whereas the hauliers on the roads have a right to choose and to say whether they will accept a freight or not. One other condition is remarkable, and that is the condition which is placed on the motor hauliers as to the amount of tonnage they are allowed to carry. Everyone knows that there are no weighing machines on the roads, and therefore a very large amount of tonnage is carried which is excessive in weight. I have known cases when the limit was 22 tons
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but no less than 50 tons was carried on the road. I think it shows great lack of foresight on the part of the Government, to put it mildly, that the present position exists.
The question I want to put to your Lordships this evening is this: Can the two horses, private adventure and State ownership, run together in double harness? Private enterprise must be dealt with by the Government in the spirit of the utmost good faith, and the two agencies must be put on a parity and under such financial conditions as will eliminate rivalry. The suggestions I want to put before your Lordships are these:—A joint board to be formed, made up of authorities of the railways and authorities of the roads; the business of the board to be to provide finance for the maintenance, road staffing and extension of both the railways and the arterial roads; a fund to be formed to cover expenditure under these heads; the fund to be fed, first, from the existing levies made upon road traffic, which it is understood are sufficient to cover the maintenance and other provisions required for the roads, and, secondly, a contribution to be paid in by the railways out of their gross revenues, after deducting the costs of maintenance of the permanent way and buildings and staffing. The first charge on the fund would be for the service of the capital expended by the railways on the permanent way and buildings. This first charge would be some compensation to the railways for the injury which was done to them by the expenditure of £500,000,000 of public money on the roads and the consequent deprival of traffic which they suffered thereby. The next charge would be for the maintenance of the roads; and third in rank would be a provision for such extensions of railways and roads alike as may be determined on by the central board.
I put those suggestions forward very tentatively, but I want to mention the fact that there are a very large number of people prominent in the motor world who are in favour of them and think it is absolutely essential that there should be co-ordination of some kind. What will be said in reply to that is: Why not go the whole hog and have nationalisation? I have had a little experience of Government offices—I was Postmaster-General for about seven years—and I

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know something about the industries in the North of England, and I personally do not believe, as far as the railways are concerned that nationalisation would be more favourably received here than it is in Australia. We have a great example in Australia. Everybody is glad to see the gradual improvement in the Australian position; it is one of the few gratifying features of the economic position. These are the latest figures which emphasise the great handicap of the State ownership of railways in Australia. The amount invested in these undertakings is £336,000,000 and two-thirds of the total deficiency in 1930–31 were losses on railways. They have succeeded in preventing competition from the roads and have done the worst service possible to their railway assets and contributed in no small measure to the financial difficulties of the Dominion. I do not think it is possible to drive the motor car off the roads but I want to see the two services working together.
I should like to state the justification of the first charge given to a portion of the railway capital. The security formerly existing for railway capital has been jeopardised by the creation of the arterial road system. The capital represented by this system has been provided by the State or local authorities on the strength of a public guarantee. The corresponding portion of the railway capital ought perhaps not to have a Government guarantee, but at all events a first charge on the traffic developed by the arterial system so as to neutralise the jeopardy. The question which I have raised is one of very considerable importance, and I hope that the Government may find some way of co-ordinating the two systems.
VISCOUNT LEVERHULME: My Lords, I would like at the outset to say that I am sure that the whole industrial and commercial community will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hunsdon, for bringing forward this Motion to-day. At the beginning of his speech the noble Lord referred to a debate which took place in your Lordships' House a little over five years ago, and I well remember that in that debate at least one speaker advanced the view that, whereas rates were a burden upon industry, taxes were not, since they were levied on the profits of industry after they were made. It
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would have been very surprising after our experiences of the last five years if we had heard that view seriously advanced to-day as an argument for opposing this Motion. We have, however, heard the view advanced that this demand for economy is a sign that the capitalist system is breaking down, and those who hold that view are constantly telling us that, whereas the capitalist system did succeed in solving the problem of production, it is failing to solve the problem of distribution.
With regard to that, at any rate let us remind ourselves that when engaged in the task of solving the problem of production the capitalist system did not have round its neck the heavy mill-stone of taxation, which it now has to bear when it is attempting to solve the problem of distribution. Not only are the dividends paid by industry liable to Income Tax, but I would remind your Lordships that the amount of profit placed to reserve is taxed as well, and in this way a sum which was estimated last year by a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Robert Horne, at over £600,000,000, has been taken by the State during the last twelve years, instead of being left in industry for its future maintenance and development. Surely this is a burden upon industry, leaving out of account the taxes and surtaxes levied on dividends, which, however they may be spent, must at any rate reduce the purchasing power of those who pay these taxes. It is generally admitted that the prudent course for a private citizen is to live within his income, to spend less than he earns, to put by for a rainy day, and, as Adam Smith so truly observed, "what is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom." But, of course, to say that the State or a local authority must live within its income, begs the question, What is that income? The income of a local authority is, of course, its revenue from local rates and taxes. The income of the State is the revenue from the taxes and duties levied by Parliament.
But have not Governments been far too prone in the past to think of expenditure first and taxation afterwards, to make extravagant promises and then to squeeze out of the taxpayer the wherewithal to fulfil them? Before the War the State took one-eighth of the national income;

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now it takes one-third. Up to a point taxation is a spur to increased effort; beyond a certain point it is a discouragement of individual initiative and enterprise. Somewhere between these two points lies the figure which can prudently be called the income of the State, and upon which the State must base the expenditure it can afford. I know that there are those who claim that we have not reached the limits of our taxable capacity. Let us for a moment consider the limits we have already reached. Take Income Tax and Surtax. Income Tax is now levied on incomes as low as £125 a year (subject to modifications and exemptions which I need not enter into in detail) and taxation rises until it reaches a figure between 13 s. and 14 s. in the pound—about eightpence out of every shilling, or twopence out of every threepenny bit. It has been pointed out on many occasions that if a man liable to this taxation desires to insure for the provision of Death Duties his income actually becomes a minus quantity.
I do not wish for a moment to question the perfectly sound principle that all should contribute according to their means. But should not those who think that taxation according to our present methods can be expanded, tell us how much further in either or both directions they would propose to go, so that we may know the worst, and also what compensating benefits the expenditure of this further taxation will bring to industry when the public is left with so much less to spend upon the products which industry makes? I think that all speakers who have supported this Motion must feel that as far as the general principle of economy is concerned they are preaching to the converted. What we want to assure the Government is that they will have public opinion behind them in tackling this problem. No measure of economy can be popular with everyone, but we have a national Government, and one of the main causes which brought it into being was the recognition that expenditure had to be reduced, and that this could best be done by political Parties acting together.
There are very many industrial undertakings to-day which could not have survived had not the most rigid economies been introduced. If businesses have had to ration their spending departments, is not the same policy worthy of considera-
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tion for the spending Departments of a Government or of a municipal corporation? There are to-day nineteen Ministries compared with fifteen before the War. In the Government Departments covered by these Ministries (excluding the Defence Services) there were, in the fiscal year 1930–31, approximately 43,000 people employed, compared with 11,000 in 1913–14. The total expenditure of these Departments was £250,000,000, compared with £45,000,000. The total expenditure on administration in these Departments was £22,000,000, compared with £6,000,000, the expenditure on salaries, wages and allowances being £13,000,000, compared with £2,500,000. If rationalisation has justified itself in industry could it not be applied—at any rate to some extent—to the business of government?
We frequently hear the War blamed for our present high expenditure. While it cannot be denied that the War has placed a tremendous burden upon us, I would like to point out that if one deducts from our present total expenditure the cost of War pensions, the interest on the National Debt, and the cost of the Defence Services, one is left with the figure of nearly £304,000,000 compared with a total Budget in the last pre-War fiscal year of £197,000,000. Are we really satisfied that no further economies are possible in education? Should our policy for several years to come not be to see how we can adapt our educational equipment to the needs of the scholar's future occupations—to industry in particular—rather than increase our volume of higher education? Ought we not to turn our attention to the quality of higher education rather than to its quantity? We are spending approximately £100,000,000 a year on education. In this vast sum surely we can plan to economise as well as to spend. The phrase "planning" is constantly on the lips of politicians at the present time, but it is a phrase which can surely be applied to economy as well as to expenditure, and in this enormous total of £100,000,000 surely we can look ahead and plan for economy as well as expenditure?
I come in conclusion to one field for economy which offers perhaps the greatest scope of all. I refer to Debt conversion. The point I would make in connection with this matter is that further measures of general economy should precede a loan conversion scheme rather than follow it,

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because the success of such a scheme largely depends on Government economy. Let me once more turn to industry to illustrate what I mean. How is it that one concern can offer say 7 per cent. preference shares and have the issue oversubscribed, and another concern offer a return of, say, 8 per cent. or 10 per cent., on its preference shares and find the issue under-subscribed? How is it that one company can successfully issue debentures at a lower rate of interest than another concern can? Very largely because in the one case the public has confidence in the administration of the undertaking, believing it to be prudent and sound, and in the other case its confidence is not so great. The psychology of the public mind plays an enormous part in these matters, and nothing could do more to strike the right note of confidence and prepare the way for a successful conversion scheme than a real measure of proof on the part of His Majesty's Government that it accepted the principles enunciated in the Motion which is before your Lordships' House, and which I have the privilege of supporting.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, as I shall not be here when this debate is resumed I should like to say a few words now with reference to one particular subject and that is local expenditure. I believe that nothing has been more fruitful of extravagance in local expenditure than the system of making proportional grants to local authorities. Parliament, when imposing new duties on local authorities, no doubt thought it would do the thing cheaply by only paying a certain part of the required expenditure, while local authorities, when taking up those duties, thought they were getting something cheap because the Government were paying 50 per cent. or 75 per cent of the costs. The result is that schemes have been indulged in which should never have been started. I know of one particular instance where thousands of pounds are being spent upon a hill road which is only used for four months in the year at most. There is a sharp bend over the railway, not really dangerous and only requiring ordinary care in going round. I do not know what the total cost will be, but simply for tourist traffic lasting, as I say, at most for four months of the year, there is to be a new road bridge put over the railway.
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Then there is the expenditure on housing. Your Lordships must know many instances of houses put up at a cost which would make the economic rent £60 or £70 but which are let at only £20 or £24. They are not occupied by working class people but by people of the middle classes who could well afford to pay the economic rent of the house they want. There is nothing more mischievous, to my mind, than the vast expenditure on housing that has been allowed in the past. If private enterprise had taken it up housing needs would have been adequately supplied all over the country, and houses of the type really required would have been put up to meet the demands of all those who wanted to occupy them. I know of one instance of a district council being asked to put up 127 houses in one locality. A question was asked as to who was going to occupy them and when inquiry was made it was found that only sixteen people really deserved those houses. Row many instances of that kind there are where no close inquiry was made I do not know, but I think there can be no doubt that extravagance in housing has been going on all over the country.
Another instance can be found in the reconditioning of rural cottages. That does not concern local authorities, but two thirds of the expenditure is borne by the State and one third by the landlord. It is not a question of dealing with cottages which are insanitary. They are reconditioned in some cases simply for the purpose of putting in hot and cold water supplies and other conveniences. That will result in a burden on the landlords, because we all know that with hot water systems pipes get out of order, and so the landlord will have to pay the cost of maintenance of these modern conveniences which have been introduced, not to remove defects which might be injurious to health, but solely for the purpose of bringing houses up to date.
I have mentioned these particular instances because I do think that the fact of the Government contributing as much as 75 per cent. has led to great extravagance. I deprecate nationalisation as a principle, but now that our roads are national highways I think it might perhaps be better for a Government Department to deal with them, leaving local administration in the hands of some composite body formed, as in the case of

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Territorial Associations, of people in terested in that particular subject. I believe that would be far better than having two parties playing into each others hands, like the Central Government and the local authority.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Marquess of Salisbury, I beg to move that this debate be now adjourned till Wednesday, June 29 next.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned till Wednesday June 29.—(Lord Jessel.)
On Question Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.

CAMBRIDGE GAS ORDER, 1932.
Special Order proposed to be made on the application of the Cambridge University and Town Gaslight Company:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and referred to the Special Orders Committee.
House adjourned at twenty-four minutes before eight o'clock.