Sitting of 17 July 1933

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Southern Railway Bill,
Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Essex County Council Bill [Lords] (King's Consent signified),
Bill read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.
London Overground Wires, etc., Bill [Lords] (King's Consent and Prince of Wales's Consent signified),
Bill read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Barking Corporation Bill [Lords], Bootle Corporation Bill [Lords],
Rhondda Passenger Transport Bill [Lords],
As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.
Wimbledon Corporation Bill [Lords],
As amended, considered; an Amendment made; Bill to be read the Third time.
Knutsford Light and Water Bill [Lords],
Read a Second time, and committed.
Canterbury Extension Bill [Lords] (by Order),
As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

ABERDEEN HARBOUR (RATES) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL,
"to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Aberdeen Harbour (Rates)," presented by Sir Godfrey Collins; and ordered (under Section 7 of the Act) to be considered To-morrow.
LEITH HARBOUR AND DOCKS ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL,
"to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Leith Harbour and Docks," presented by Secretary Sir Godfrey Collins; and ordered (under Section 7 of the Act) to be considered To-morrow.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  INDIA.

    POLICE (MOTOR CYCLES).
    Mr. HALESasked the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that the motor cycles used by the Calcutta police are all of American manufacture and that further orders have recently been placed for similar machines; and if he will take steps to see that in future British machines are supplied?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Butler): I have no information, but am making inquiries from the Government of India.
    Mr. HALES: Is my hon. Friend aware that the facts are as stated in the question, and does he not realise that it is very difficult for us to ask Indians to place orders with British firms when our own British officials are placing orders in America?
    Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT: Have any general instructions been given always to give preference to British goods?
    Mr. BUTLER: I am making inquiries on that particular point, and perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will put down a question.
    Mr. HANNON: Will the hon. Gentleman not only make inquiries but make representations to the Government of India on the very real importance of this question to this country?
    Sir NAIRNE STEWART SANDEMAN: Can the hon. Gentleman get a note of all these contracts, and where they have been placed, and inquire into the matter?
    Mr. BUTLER: Certainly I will convey any information that I receive to my right hon. Friend, and I am sure he will pay attention to it.
    Sir H. CROFT: Can the hon. Gentleman answer my question as to whether any instructions have been given?
    Mr. BUTLER: On that particular point I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will put down a particular question.

    ALL-INDIA SERVICES.
    Duchess of ATHOLLasked the Secretary of State for India the number of members of the services employed in the Provincial Reserved Services and in the services which, since 1921, have been transferred in the provinces, for the years 1920 and 1932, respectively?
    Mr. BUTLER: In 1922, which is the earliest year for which figures are available, there were 2,562 members of the All-India Services serving in the provinces in reserved fields of administration and 1,167 in transferred fields. The numbers in 1932 were 2,522 and 834 respectively. These figures do not include members of the Indian Service of Engineers serving in Madras and Bombay, as it is not possible in this service to distinguish between officers serving in the reserved and transferred field.
    Duchess of ATHOLL: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether the figures he has given me include Indians as well as British?
    Mr. BUTLER: They include all members of the All-India Services, both British and Indian.

    CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM (COMMITTEE'S MINUTES).
    Duchess of ATHOLLasked the Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the importance of securing as wide publicity as possible for the minutes of evidence before the Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform, it would be possible to arrange that the minutes shall be published by His Majesty's Stationery Office at lower prices than those at which they are at present being made available to the public?
    Mr. BUTLER: I would refer my hon. Friend to replies given by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to the hon. Member for Bristol, North (Mr. Bernays) on 10th April, and my hon. Friend the Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. Guy) on 27th April. The same considerations appear to me to apply in this case.
    Duchess of ATHOLL: If, as I fear, the hon. Gentleman does not see his way to reduce the price of the publications, will he use his influence with the Stationery Office to have the contents of each. volume more clearly indicated 7 I am told that people are having great difficulty in procuring the volume they need, because there is no indication of the contents on the outside.
    Mr. BUTLER: I am sure attention will be paid to my Noble Friend's suggestion.

    PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS (GOVERNMENT INQUIRIES).
    Duchess of ATHOLLasked the Secretary of State for India if he is aware that a questionnaire was issued last summer by the Government of India asking the provincial Governments to ascertain the views of officers of the services and members of the public on such questions as communal tension, the loyalty and morale of the police, the position of the civil disobedience movement, and other matters having an important bearing on the proposed constitutional reforms; whether the result of these inquiries was embodied in a Blue Book; and, if so, whether he will allow the Blue Book to be made public
    Mr. BUTLER: I am not aware of the issue by the Government of India of any questionnaire of this nature.
    Duchess of ATHOLL: Will my hon. Friend take steps to ascertain whether a questionnaire of this nature was not issued last summer?
    Mr. BUTLER: The Government of India is constantly addressing the local Governments in the ordinary course of administration on a variety of diverse subjects. If my Noble Friend will furnish me privately with the information on which the question is based, I will endeavour to identify the circular which she has in mind.
    Major-General Sir ALFRED KNOX: Surely it is possible for the hon. Gentleman to send a telegram to the Viceroy to ascertain whether such a questionnaire has been issued?
    Mr. BUTLER: I have already replied to that in my initial answer, in which I said I was not aware of the issue by the Government of India of a questionnaire of this nature. I can only supple-

    1513
    merit that by saying that the Government of India is always addressing the local Governments on matters of all sorts.
    Sir A. KNOX: Has the hon. Gentleman definitely asked whether this has been issued?

    INDIAN NAVY BILL.
    Mr. DAVID GRENFELLasked the Secretary of State for India whether he can state if it is the intention of the Government of India to revive the Indian Navy Bill of 1929; and whether provision will be made in the Bill for adequate control by the Indian Legislature?
    Mr. BUTLER: The Government of India are considering the reintroduction of the Indian Navy Bill in the Indian Legislature. The Bill would provide for the discipline of the Force; and the question of giving the Indian Legislature any measure of control over the use of the Force would not therefore arise out of the substance of the Bill. That question is under separate consideration, as is shown in paragraph 5 of Head E of the Reports of the Third Session of the Indian Round Table Conference.

    PRISONERS.
    Mr. D. GRENFELLasked the Secretary of State for India whether the Government of India have received any report from Colonel Barker, inspector-general of prisons, Punjab, as a result of his mission to the Andamans to inquire into the medical arrangements there for prisoners on hunger strike; and whether he can state the conclusions of the report?
    Mr. BUTLER: This officer was sent not to make a formal inquiry and present a report, but to consult with, and advise, the local authorities. My right hon. Friend has not yet received any detailed information regarding his visit.
    Mr. GRENFELL: Owing to the disquiet in all parts of this country and o f India itself, will the hon. Gentleman. present a report if a report comes to hand?
    Mr. BUTLER: The officer was not sent for the purpose of making a report.
    Mr. GRENFELL: Surely the officer will have found out something, and, if it is necessary for the Government of India to know, should not the public know at the same time?
    Mr. BUTLER: The Government are satisfied that the hunger strike is ended, and that the conditions are satisfactory.
    Mr. GRENFELL: Was not the hunger strike due to some cause, and should not the public be acquainted with that?
    Mr. BUTLER: As far as I know the cause of the hunger strike was an attempt to undermine prison discipline, and the hunger strike was defeated.
    Mr. KIRKWOODasked the Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the comparative quiet in India, he will now consider releasing the Meerut prisoners, having regard to the fact that they passed four years in gaol during their trial and that the sentences imposed took no account of this?
    Mr. BUTLER: The appeals of the prisoners are on the point of being heard by the High Court.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Allow me publicly to thank the Secretary of State for India for what he did a year ago. I asked him to have these prisoners taken from the plains to the hills during the hot weather, which he very kindly did. Arising from the reply which I have just received, I would ask the hon. Gentleman to put it before the Secretary of State that the time has now arrived when it would be a generous act on his part to use his influence to have the prisoners who were tried at Meerut released.
    Sir BERTRAMI FALLE: May I ask whether the prisoners are detained by the British Government or the Indian Government?
    Mr. BUTLER: In reply to the last supplementary question, the prisoners are at present under the Government of the United Provinces. As to the first supplementary question, I think that as the appeal is about to be heard by the High Court it is difficult for my right hon. Friend to entertain the suggestion.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: The right hon. Gentleman can use his influence. As the House knows, it was successful a year ago. It can be successful again, if he will use it.

    COAL MINES (STATISTICS).
    Mr. TOM SMITHasked the Secretary of State for India the number of mines at work; the average daily num-

    1515
    ber of persons employed; and the total production of coal in British India during 1930, 1931 and 1932, respectively?
    Mr. BUTLER: With the hon. Member's permission, I propose to circulate the answer in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

    Coal Mines in British India.

    —

    1930.

    1931.

    1932.

    Number of mines

    549

    540

    Not yet available

    Average daily numbers employed

    169,001

    158,267

    Not yet available

    Total production of coal Tons

    22,683,861(a)

    20,314,597(a)

    18,719,587(b)

    (a) From Chief Inspector's Report.

    (b) From Indian Trade Journal.

    Mr. SMITHasked the Secretary of State for India how many women were employed underground in coal mines in Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and the Central Provinces, in 1930, 1931 and 1932, respectively?
    Mr. BUTLER: The number of women employed underground in coal mines in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and the Central Provinces, in 1931, was 16,632, as compared with 18,287 in 1930. Figures for 1932 and 1933 are not yet available.
    Mr. SMITH: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the reduction in the number of women employed underground is taking place strictly in accordance with the Regulations made in 1929?
    Mr. BUTLER: The hon. Gentleman asks me for the number. I shall be glad to give it if he will put down a question.
    Mr. SMITH: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in 1929 the Governor-General in Council made a Regulation that the reduction in the number of women employed should be progressive, and can he say whether that is being carried out?
    Mr. BUTLER: Yes, I consider that is so.

    LABOUR CONDITIONS.
    Mr. T. SMITH(for Mr. T. WILLIAMS) asked the Secretary of State for India whether the Government of India have been in communication with the British Legation at Bangkok and the Indian agent at Kuala Lumpur with reference to the condition of Tamil labourers in Siam; and what steps they propose to take in the matter?
    Mr. THORNE: Can the hon. Gentleman state whether the men in question have a trade union to negotiate for them?
    Mr. BUTLER: That is another question, which I should be glad to see on the Paper.
    Following is the answer:
    Mr. BUTLER: I have no information, but will inquire.
    Mr. SMITH(for Mr. WILLIAMS) asked the Secretary of State for India how many of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on labour conditions in India have been approved and put into operation; how many such recommendations affected railway workers; and whether the railwaymen's unions are now recognised by the railway management?
    Mr. BUTLER: I would refer the hon. Member to the report made by the Government of India showing the action taken by the Central arid Provincial Governments on the recommendations of Mr. Whitley's Commission, of which a copy has been placed in the Library. I am sending the hon. Member a copy for his own use.

    LEAGUE OF NATIONS ASSEMBLY (BRITISH DELEGATION).
    Mr. BERNAYSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Government are now in the position to announce the composition of the British delegation to the Assembly at Geneva?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Eden): The United Kingdom delegation will consist of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the First Commissioner of Works, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, the Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs, my hon. Friend the Junior Member for Dundee (Miss Horabrugh) and Sir

    1517
    William Malkin. My right hon. Friend has asked me to take this opportunity of expressing his regret that, owing to previous engagements, Lord Cecil was unable to accept the invitation extended to him by His Majesty's Government to act as a delegate on this occasion.

    GERMAN LOANS (BRITISHINVESTORS).
    Sir CYRIL COBBasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the new position created by the statement of the German Reichbank issued on 12th July, insisting upon the unilateral alteration of the contract governing amortisation of German bonds issued, in London and elsewhere, and the action of the committee of British creditors, supported by the committees of four other countries, on the same date, protesting and withholding consent therefrom, His Majesty's Government will notify the German Government that it supports the British committee in its objection to any breach of good faith caused by the law of June, 1933?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hore-Belisha): His Majesty's Government have not been approached by the creditors with any re quest that representations should be made.
    Sir ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUEL: In view of the position of the Treasury with regard to one of these loans, will the hon. Gentleman ask the German Government to define the right by which they can break their pledged word, given in 1930, by their own unilateral legislative action in June, 1933?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I think that I have made it plain in my answer that the creditors did not approach His Majesty's Government with any such proposal.
    Sir A. M. SAMUEL: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Treasury in some degree stand for the creditors, in view of the fact that it took all the money provided by British investors at the issue of the Young Loan of 1930?
    HORE-BELISHA: I could not accept without notice the assumption on which that question is based, that His Majesty's Government are a. creditor for
    1518
    the interest of these loans. They may have had what was due to them from the proceeds of the loan when it was raised, but that is a different matter.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    CUSTOMS TARIFF, CHINA (COTTON Goons).
    Sir ALAN McLEANasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether he has any information as to the rates of duty charged in the Chinese tariff on cotton piece-goods; and, if so, whether he can state what rates of duty were chargeable on white shirtings under the tariffs of March, 1930, and May, 1933, respectively?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Dr. Burgin): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As a complete answer to the second part of the question is somewhat long I propose, with the permission of the hon. and gallant Member, to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the answer:
    The Customs tariff in force in China in March, 1930, was that promulgated on 5th December, 1928, and in force as from 1st February, 1929. The duties on plain white shirtings under this tariff were as follows:

    (a) Not over 37 inches by 42 yards: per piece 0.495 Haikuan taels.

    (b) Over 37 inches wide: 7½ per cent. ad valorem.

    From 1st February, 1930, the Haikuan tael was discontinued, as the unit of calculation of import duties, and as from 16th March, 1930, the rates of duty in Haikuan taels were converted into gold units on the basis of one tael being equal to 1.75 gold units. The gold unit had a fixed value of 19.7265 pence sterling (or 40 cents United States gold). A revised tariff was promulgated on 29th December, 1930, and the duties on white cotton shirtings under this tariff were:
    Cotton Shirtings, White, Plain:

    (a) Not over 37 inches by 42 yards: per piece 1.20 gold units.

    (b) Over 37 inches wide: ad valorem 10 per cent.

    A new Customs Tariff was introduced in May, 1933, but the official text has not yet been received in my Department. The Commercial Secretary at Shanghai has,

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    however, forwarded a copy of the new tariff, as released to the Press on 22nd May, 1933, from which date the new rates came into force. The duties on white cotton shirtings under the new tariff appear to be as follows:
    Cotton Shirtings, Plain, White:

    (a) Not over 37 inches wide: per yard 0.046 gold unit.

    (b) Over 37 inches wide: ad valorem 25 per cent.

    As from 17th May, 1933, the revenue and flood relief surtaxes, introduced in December, 1931, and August, 1932, became leviable on all imported goods (including shirtings) hitherto exempt therefrom in virtue of the Sino-Japanese Agreement of May, 1930. These surtaxes are each 5 per cent. of the duty.

    ARGENTINA.
    Mr. ROBINSONasked the President of the Board of Trade what progress has been made in the negotiations for the reduction of Argentine duties against British goods promised in the recent trade agreement?
    Dr. BURGIN:: The negotiations are proceeding, but it is too early to make any statement as to their results.
    Mr. ROBINSON: Can the hon. Gentleman say when these negotiations may be concluded?
    Dr. BURGIN: Certainly. Under the terms of the Treaty it is intended that they should be concluded by 1st August.

    RUSSIA.
    Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether it is his intention to sign any trade agreement with Russia before the reassembly of Parliament after the Recess?
    Dr. BURGIN: As my hon. Friend is aware, the negotiations for a new trade agreement with the Soviet Government have only just been resumed. I cannot at this stage say when they are likely to be concluded.
    Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Can the hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance that no such agreement will be signed before the House has had an opportunity of discussing the matter?
    Dr. BURGIN: No, Sir, I can give no such assurance.
    Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: Will the hon. Gentleman give the assurance given by the Foreign Office, that the case of the Lena Goldfields will appear in the agreement, and also the claim of the British creditors; and that no temporary agreement will be entered into before these British claims are dealt with? Can I have a reply to that question?
    Mr. SPEAKER: Mr. Kirkwood.
    Mr. KIRKWOODasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in connection with the renewal of trade negotiations with the Russian Government, he has any information as to what orders that Government is prepared to place with engineering firms in this country; and whether he can tell the House the amount of wood about to be shipped from Russia to this country for house-building purposes?
    Dr. BURGIN: I regret that I have no information regarding the matters to which the hon. Member refers.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Will the President of the Board of Trade do all that he possibly can to open up trade with Russia, as we are very much in need of it, in the West of Scotland in particular?

    EMPIRE MARKETING BOARD.
    Mr. LAMBERTasked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs if he will give an assurance that the funds of the Empire Marketing Board are not being and will not in future be used to advertise Dominion dairy products exported to Great Britain at prices below those ruling in the countries of origin?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. J. H. Thomas): No special campaign in favour of Empire dairy products is being conducted or is contemplated by the Empire Marketing Board at the present time.
    Mr. LAMBERT: Is it not very unfair that the British farmer should be taxed for the Empire Marketing Board in order to foster dumping competition from his own Colonies?
    Mr. THOMAS: My right hon. Friend can be as happy over this as he was on Saturday.

    MOST-FAVOURED-NATION CLAUSE.
    Mr. J. P. MORRIS(for Mr. CHORLTON) asked the President of the Board of Trade if, in view of the harm done by the most-favoured-nation clause giving to another nation with lower wage-rates the advantages of a bargain agreement with another nation, he will take steps to denounce it in order that we may be able to make better bargains with other countries?
    Dr. BURGIN: The general denunciation of existing commercial treaties embodying the most-favoured-nation clause would deprive British exporters of valuable safeguards in foreign markets and would not be in the best interests of this country. It has, however, been stated previously in this House that His Majesty's Government will not be prepared to continue indefinitely to accord full: most-favoured-nation treatment to a country when in the course of negotiations it shows itself unwilling to meet the reasonable requirements of this country in regard to the treatment of United Kingdom goods.
    Mr. MORRIS: Is it not a fact that the existence of the most-favoured-nation clause in commercial treaties prevents any successful attempt being made to deal with Japanese competition with the Crown Colonies?
    Dr. BURGIN: No, that is not an accurate statement of fact.
    Mr. MORRIS: Why cannot we denounce the Congo Basin Convention?
    Sir H. CROFT: What measure of time is necessary to denounce a treaty in such a case?
    Dr. BURGIN: Sometimes 12 months, sometimes six, and sometimes three. In a very large number of treaties the periods are not identical.
    Mr. HANNON: What is the precise meaning of the word "indefinitely" which the hon. Gentleman used in his reply?
    Dr. BURGIN: I do not know whether I am expected to give the Oxford Dictionary definition.
    Mr. HANNON: The common sense definition.
    Dr. BURGIN: The common sense definition means that, if the Government in the course of negotiations with a country finds, when its attention is called to the matter, that the country persists in declining to meet reasonable requirements, we shall consider denouncing that treaty and keeping our hands entirely free

  AGRICULTURE.

    RUSSIAN STRAWBERRY PULP (IMPORTS).
    Sir GIFFORD FOXasked the Minister of Agriculture whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that large contracts are being booked in this country for Russian strawberry pulp shipped from Black Sea ports, and that, although this pulp does not reach England before late August or September, these contracts operate to the detriment of British strawberry prices; and whether he will investigate the desirability of arranging that the duty on strawberries shall be continued in order to cover the importation of this pulp?
    The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Major Elliot): My attention had not previously been drawn to the contracts referred to in the first part of the question. With regard to the second part, strawberry pulp comes under the Customs tariff item "fruit preserved by chemicals": consequently, strawberry pulp from Russia is subject to an import duty of 25 per cent. ad valorem throughout the year.

    MILK REORGANISATION SCHEME.
    Mr. HARBORDasked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the fact that the inquiry into the objections to the milk reorganisation scheme was thrown open to the public by statutory obligation, he is prepared to supply, at least to the organisations representing the parties concerned in the objections to the scheme, the commissioner's report on the inquiry?
    Major ELLIOT: Reports on public inquiries held under the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931, are confidential. I regret, therefore, I cannot see my way to adopt my hon. Friend's suggestion.

    CANADIAN OATS (IMPORTS).
    Mr. ROBERT SMITHasked the Minister of Agriculture if he is carrying

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    on the negotiations with the Prime Minister of Canada with regard to the importation of Canadian oats, either alone or in conjunction with the Secretary of State for Scotland?
    Major ELLIOT: My hon. Friend can rest assured that there is the closest cooperation between the Secretary of State for Scotland and myself in this matter.

    DAIRY PRODUCTS.
    Mr. LAMBERTasked the Minister of Agriculture what progress has been made with the negotiations for the restriction of foreign and Dominion dairy products so as to secure the home-dairy producer a reasonable price for his produce?
    Major ELLIOT: As regards processed milks, my hon. and valiant Friend will be aware that arrangements for regulating imports during the months June to August have been made by agreement with the Dominion and foreign countries concerned. As regards other dairy products, the situation continues to receive my close attention, but I am not in a position to make a statement.

  ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPS.
  Brigadier-General NATIONasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that there is a considerable shortage of up-to-date ordnance survey maps on. a scale of 25 inches to a mile, the scale used as the basis of English land tenure, local government, regional planning, land drainage, etc.; that for many municipal areas the only maps available are over 20 years old; and will he state what steps he is taking, or proposes to take, to remedy the defect?
  Major ELLIOT: Since the War, the staff of the Ordnance Survey Department has been reduced by about one-half, on grounds of economy, and the period between revision of the maps referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend has had consequently to be lengthened. I realise, and will continue to bear in mind, the desirability of more frequent revision, but the question is governed primarily by financial considerations, and I regret that at the present time, in prevailing circumstances, I cannot hold out any hope of an increase in the size of the survey staff.

  BIRDCAGE WALK (ROAD SURFACE).
  Mr. ALAN TODDasked the First Commissioner of Works whether his attention has been drawn to the condition of the surface of the roadway in Birdcage Walk; and what steps he is taking to remedy this?
  The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, and I hope to include a sum in next year's Estimates for the repair of this roadway.

  BEET-SUGAR SUBSIDY.
  Sir MURDOCH McKENZIE WOODasked the Minister of Agriculture the amounts guaranteed to British beet-sugar companies under the Trade Facilities Act?
  Mr. HORE-BELISHA: The total amount guaranteed by the Treasury under the Trade Facilities Acts to British beet-sugar companies is £2,215,000.
  Mr. KIRKWOOD: How much of this guarantee has gone to Scotland?
  Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I will endeavour to give an answer to that if the hon. Gentleman will put the question on the Paper.
  Sir M. WOODasked the Minister of Agriculture whether any of the British beet-sugar companies have confined their activities during the last season to the refining of imported raw sugar; and whether he will take steps to secure that no such factory shall in future be permitted to benefit by the subsidy?
  Major ELLIOT: One company operating one factory confined its manufacturing operations last year to the refining of imported raw sugar, but has been able to secure sufficient contracts to operate with sugar beet next season. I would remind the hon. Member that the subsidy is payable only in respect of sugar manufactured from home-grown beet.
  Sir M. WOODasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state the amount of profits earned, the amount of dividend paid, the capital, and the amount of the reserve fund built up by each British beet-sugar company in the last year for which returns are available?
  Major ELLIOT: I have been asked to reply. I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a statement showing for each factory the amount of share and debenture capital and the total reserves accumulated as at 31st March, 1933. I am not in a position to furnish the other information asked for.
  Mr. SMITHERS: Has the Government come to any decision as to whether to continue the subsidy or not?

  Statement of the Issued Share and Debenture Capital and the Accumulated Reserves of the Beet Sugar Factories in Great Britain as at 31st March, 1933.

  Company.

  Issued Share Capital.

  Debenture Capital.

  Total Share and Debenture Capital.

  Accumulated Reserves.*

  £

  s.

  d.

  £

  s.

  d.

  £

  s.

  d.

  £

  s.

  d

  English Beet Sugar Corporation, Ltd.

  500,000

  0

  0

  —

  500,000

  0

  0

  446,518

  17

  10

  Home Grown Sugar, Ltd.

  145,500

  0

  0

  —

  145,500

  0

  0

  71,602

  0

  1

  Ely Beet Sugar Factory, Ltd.

  450,000

  0

  0

  —

  450,000

  0

  0

  263,901

  19

  9

  Ipswich Beet Sugar, Ltd.

  400,000

  0

  0

  —

  400,000

  0

  0

  158,187

  16

  2

  King's Lynn Beet Sugar Factory, Ltd.

  450,000

  0

  0

  —

  450,000

  0

  0

  26,847

  2

  0

  Anglo - Scottish Beet Sugar Corporation, Ltd.

  442,910

  0

  0

  371,500

  0

  0

  814,410

  0

  0

  40,255

  0

  0

  Second Anglo-Scottish Beet Sugar Co., Ltd.

  240,500

  0

  0

  741,400

  0

  0

  981,900

  0

  0

  29,890

  0

  0

  West Midland Sugar Co., Ltd.

  180,000

  0

  0

  49,200

  0

  0

  229,200

  0

  0

  62,423

  0

  0

  United Sugar Co., Ltd.

  300,000

  0

  0

  —

  300,000

  0

  0

  117,783

  6

  10

  British Sugar Manufacturers, Ltd.

  116,044

  0

  0

  205,416

  13

  4

  321,460

  13

  4

  —

  Central Sugar Co., Ltd.

  175,000

  0

  0

  —

  175,000

  0

  0

  50,000

  0

  0

  Yorkshire Sugar Co., Ltd.

  196,874

  0

  0

  —

  196,874

  0

  0

  18,358

  3

  9

  Shropshire Beet Sugar Co., Ltd.

  354,559

  2

  6

  —

  354,559

  2

  6

  18,531

  13

  1

  Lincolnshire Sugar Co., Ltd.

  332,500

  0

  0

  64,400

  0

  0

  396,900

  0

  0

  59,694

  5

  7

  Second Lincolnshire Sugar Co., Ltd.

  162,067

  0

  0

  47,618

  18

  2

  209,685

  18

  2

  11,079

  16

  1

  £

  4,445,954

  2

  6

  1,479 535

  11

  6

  5,925,489

  14

  0

  1,375,073

  1

  2

  * Including Capital and Special Reserves. The Special Reserves include advances under the British Sugar Industry (Assistance) Act, 1931.

  POST OFFICE.

    BRITISH VESSELS (RADIO TELEGRAM CHARGES).
    Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLENasked the Postmaster-General whether he will arrange that British vessels will be able to ask for medical advice through coast wireless stations free of all wireless
    Sir M. WOOD: Should not the right bon. and gallant Gentleman have this information in order to enable him to come to a decision on future policy?
    Major ELLIOT: There is information which is required to be laid before Parliament and information which is regarded as confidential. This, of course, is administered by the Treasury.
    Following is the statement:
    charges, in conformity with Sweden and other nations?
    The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir Kingsley Wood): The practice varies in different countries. Some, like Sweden, make no charge for transmitting radio-telegrams asking for medical advice; in others, including France, Germany and

    1527
    Great Britain, such messages are charged for. Under Section 34 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906, the owner of a British ship is liable for the expense of providing medical advice for sick or injured members of the crew; and I do not think there is any justification for transferring the cost of messages asking for such advice from the shipowner to public funds.

    AIR-MAIL SERVICES.
    Mr. HALL-CAINEasked the Postmaster-General whether he will consider the advisability of referring to the Post Office Advisory Council the question of how the development of British air-mail services may be stimulated by the simplification of rates and other changes in existing Post Office policy with regard thereto?
    Sir K. WOOD: I am not prepared to agree with my hon. Friend that Post Office policy is retarding the development of the air mail, which has shown considerable expansion in the last few years. If, however, he has any suggestions to make, I shall be glad to consider them and, if desirable, to bring them before the Advisory Council.

    TELEPHONE SERVICE (RURAL AREAS).
    Mr. BARCLAY-HARVEYasked the Postmaster-General (1) what was the cost of establishing a rural telephone exchange in 1925; what is the cost to-day; and what were the charges to subscribers in 1925 and what they are to-day; and
    (2) what was the cost of erecting a mile of rural telephone line in 1925; what it is at the present time; and how much of those costs are represented by materials and labour, respectively?
    Sir K. WOOD: I am obtaining the information, and shall circulate it as soon as possible.

  NEW GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS, EDINBURGH.
  Mr. KIRKWOODasked the First Commissioner of Works whether the Government plans for the building of new State offices in Edinburgh are completed; and when it is intended to proceed with
  1528
  the scheme, in view of the increase in unemployment among building workers in the area?
  Mr. GUYasked the First Commissioner of Works whether, in considering the proposed new Government buildings to be erected on the Calton site, he will consult the Fine Art Commission of Scotland, and will give some opportunity to Scottish architects to submit plans for the buildings?
  Sir SAMUEL CHAPMANasked the First Commissioner of Works how far the inquiries, consultations and negotiations in which he has been engaged during the last six months with Scottish authorities representing public opinion in Edinburgh, with regard to the suggested new Government buildings, have progressed; and if he is now in a position to make a further pronouncement on the matter?
  Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: As I have stated in reply to previous questions, the Royal Fine Art Commission for Scotland are being consulted on, and have still under consideration, various questions relating to the choice and method of development of the Calton site. I am awaiting their report, which I hope to receive at an early date. On the assumption that agreement is reached in regard to the use of the Calton site, the Government have decided that the design of the building should be entrusted to an architect in private practice. The architect will be selected by a special committee including the Secretary of State for Scotland and myself on which, among others, the Royal Fine Art Commission for Scotland and the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland will be invited to be represented. The architect's design will, in due course, be submitted to the Royal Fine Art Commission for Scotland and the corporation of the city of Edinburgh. In order to avoid any misunderstanding, I should add that the Government have not taken, and will not take, any decision, as to whether they will or will not proceed with the actual construction of the building, until all these preliminaries are completed and they are in a position to consider final plans and estimates of cost.
  Mr. KIRKWOOD: Thank you, very much.

  STEAMSHIP "SEVILLA" (MASTER).
  Sir BASIL PETOasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the licence issued under Section 78 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906, exempting the owners of the British ship "Sevilla" from the obligation to employ a British master and officers, is now about to fall due for renewal; and whether, in granting any renewal of such licence, he will see that it applies only to the master and that the other officers of the ship shall be British officers, so that an opportunity may be offered to them for acquiring special knowledge of the conditions of the whaling industry?
  Dr. BURGIN: If an application for further exemption is received in this case, the possibility of securing the employment of British officers will receive full consideration.

  RUSSIAN STRAWBERRY PULP.
  Sir G. FOXasked the Minister of Health the methods of preserving Russian strawberry pulp imported into this country and the measures which are taken to ensure its hygienic purity?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Mr. Shakespeare): The only permissible chemical method of preserving strawberry pulp for importation into this country is with sulphur dioxide preservative to an amount not, exceeding 2,000 parts per million. Imported fruit pulp is liable to examination at the ports under the Imported Food Regulations, which empower the sanitary authorities to seize for destruction any articles of food which are found to be diseased, unsound, unwholesome, or unfit for consumption.
  Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: The Parliamentary Secretary says that fruit pulp is liable to inspection. Is that inspection effective and well carried out?
  Mr. SHAKESPEARE: To the best of my knowledge, yes.

  BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE.
  Mr. LOVAT-FRASERasked the Lord President, of the Council if the National Film Institute is yet in being?
  The LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL (Mr. Baldwin): I take it that
  1530
  the hon. Member's question refers to the British Film Institute, and, if such is the case, I understand that the institute is in process of formation, and an application has been made for incorporation under the Companies Act.

  BRITISH ARMY.

    TERRITORIAL BRIGADE COMMANDS.
    Captain WATTasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office the number of Territorial soldiers who commanded Territorial brigades in the years 1914, 1921, 1929 And 1932, respectively?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Duff Cooper): Seven Territorial brigades were commanded by Territorial officers in August, 1914; in the other three years in question the number was eight.

    MAJOR W. A. ADAM.
    Sir H. CROFTasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he has considered the petition for the investigation of the ease of Major W. A. Adam, late 5th Lancers; and whether he is now prepared to reconsider the matters mentioned in that petition?
    Captain CAZALETasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he can give the House any information 'as regards Major W. A. Adam and his recent petition to the War Office to have his case reopened?
    Mr. COOPER: Major Adam's recent petition was considered by my Noble Friend the Secretary of State, but he can find no grounds for reopening this case.
    Captain CAZALET: Are there any further steps that this gentleman can take to have his case reopened?
    Mr. COOPER: I do not think so.
    Sir B. FALLE: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is a general feeling that this officer has not received the customary consideration and justice which the War Office invariably metes out to officers in such circumstances?
    Mr. COOPER: I do not think that such a feeling can exist in the mind of anybody who read the Debate that took place on this question in another place seven years ago.

    TERRITORIAL OFFICERS (INCOME TAX).
    Captain WATTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in order to make up the loss to Territorial officers in respect of the refusal to grant them Income Tax relief on £7 10s., uniform upkeep allowance, last year, he will take steps to see that rebate of tax on £15 shall be made this year to those officers who attended voluntary training in 1932?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: The law definitely requires that any deduction from emoluments for the purpose of computing liability to Income Tax under Schedule E shall be made by reference to the amount of the expenses for the year which forms the basis of the assessment. My hon. and gallant Friend will see that this provision precludes the grant of a double deduction in one year's assessment, and I regret that I have no power to authorise an exception in the particular cases to which he refers.

    SHROPSHIRE YEOMANRY (RIDING DISPLAY).
    Mr. D. GRENFELL(for Mr. ATTLEE) asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he is aware that the Shrewsbury Conservative Association are advertising a garden fete for 20th July, the attractions of which include a display by the Shropshire Yeomanry; and whether, as participation of military units in political demonstrations is contrary to paragraph 517 of King's Regulations, he will take steps to prevent the demonstration taking place?
    Mr. COOPER: I am informed that arrangements had been made for certain individual members of the Shropshire Yeomanry to give a display of trick-riding, not in uniform. This would not have been contrary to the relative paragraph of the Regulations for the Territorial Army. In view, however, of the nature of the advertisement of the event, the local military authorities have issued instructions that the engagement is to be cancelled.

    COAL-PRODUCED MOTOR SPIRIT(GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE).
    Sir ADRIAN BAILLIEasked the Prime Minister whether His Majesty's Government have reached a decision on the question of Government assistance to the production of petrol from coal?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): Yes, Sir. The Government have decided to give effect to a proposal which they have reason to believe will ensure an immediate advance in the manufacture of home-produced motor spirit. The proposal will take the form of a guaranteed preference at the rate of fourpence a gallon in respect of light hydrocarbon oils, as defined in the Finance Act, 1928, manufactured in this country from indigenous coal, shale or peat, or from products derived from those substances. The guarantee will be for a period of 10 years from 1st April, 1934, provided that if the Customs duty for any financial year after 31st March, 1935, exceeds fourpence a gallon and no excise duty is imposed for that year, or if for any year the Customs duty exceeds any excise duty by more than fourpence a gallon, then in respect of each such year the period of guarantee will be reduced by three months for each penny of excess. [Interruption.] It is rather difficult to follow, but I can assure hon. Members that, although the statement is rather long and complicated, when it is down in print it will be very simple to follow.
    The effect of this arrangement is to vary the period of the guarantee according to the actual preference, that is the difference between the Customs duty and the excise, if any excise duty should be imposed. If the preference remained at its present level of 8d. a gallon, the period of the guarantee would be 4½ years, from the 1st April, 1935. If it was reduced to 4d. a gallon, the period would be nine years from the same date, and any intermediate rate of preference would vary the period of guarantee proportionately. Legislation to give effect to the guarantee will be introduced in the autumn.
    Mr. LANSBURY: In order that the House may be in a position to discuss this very important statement, which we shall, perhaps, all understand to-morrow when we have read it, I give the right hon. Gentleman notice that, on one of the remaining days that we have for discussion, we shall take this as one of the subjects.
    Mr. T. SMITH: Can the Prime Minister give the House any estimate of the amount of raw coal that is going to be used during the 12 months?
    The PRIME MINISTER: An estimate has been made, and figures have been supplied to me. It will mean that about 7,000 men will be directly employed, and a slightly less number indirectly. This particular plant which we have in mind will be capable of producing about 100,000 tons of petrol, or roughly 30,000,000 gallons, a year, and will consume 350,000 tons of coal a year, giving employment to over 1,000 miners in addition to the employment in connection with the plant.
    Mr. LAWSON: Is the Prime Minister aware that the Secretary for Mines, in his speech on the Estimates, could not speak definitely as to the success of these experiments? Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us that he has had some report since that time, and what firms have succeeded in the experiments?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I am afraid I cannot carry in my memory what the Secretary for Mines said, but he assures me that he has been misreported in the present instance.
    Sir A. K. SAMUEL: Will several firms be able to avail themselves of these facilities, or only one?
    The PRIME MINISTER: It is a general guarantee to every manufacturer—whoever engages in the manufacture.
    Sir A. K. SAMUEL: Does the right hon. Gentleman expect and hope that several firms will be able to avail themselves of this proposal, or only one?
    Mr. D. GRENFELL: Will the guarantee extend to any of the known processes—hydrogenation, low-temperature carbonisation, or any other of the processes known to be capable of producing oil from coal?
    The PRIME MINISTER: All that we want is production, and we do not mind the method by which the production is obtained.
    Captain Sir WILLIAM BRASS: What will it cost the Treasury at the present rate?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I think that question had better be put down, but I can say now without any notice that the cost will be very small to the Treasury.

    MANCHURIA (MR. LENOX SIMPSON).
    Mr. T. SMITH(for Mr. T. WILLIAMS) asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will state the nature of the specific charge or charges that were brought against 'Mr. Lenox Simpson by the Manchurian Government; and whether such charges have been proved to the satisfaction of the British Consul?
    Mr. EDEN: The complaints made by the Manchurian authorities against Mr. Simpson were described in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) on 12th July. The precise ground of His Majesty's Consul-General's protest was that a charge should have been brought in die Consular Court and was not brought, and it was therefore clearly impossible for him to enter into any discussion with the local authorities as to whether their complaints against Mr. Simpson were justified or not.

    POLICE WORK. (AEROPLANES).
    Mr. HALL-CAINEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many local authorities have applied to him for special grants towards conducting experiments in the use of aeroplanes by police chasing criminals; and what is the policy of his Department with regard to this matter?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Gilmour): I have received from two county police authorities proposals to incur small items of expenditure for the experimental use of aeroplanes in connection with police work. I have approved these two proposals but I do not anticipate any considerable extension of the experiments at present.

    IMITATION FIREARMS.
    Mr. HALL-CAINEasked the Home Secretary if he is now in a position to make any further statement with regard to the nature of the action which he intends to take with regard to controlling the sale of dummy pistols
    Sir J. GILMOUR: As I have already indicated on previous occasions, I do not contemplate legislation to deal specifically

    1535
    with the sale of such articles. A Bill was introduced in another place on the 11th instant and is for Second Reading tomorrow, to provide special penalties for the use or attempted use of firearms or imitation firearms to avoid arrest, and for the possession of such articles in certain cases.

    VAGRANCY ACT.
    Brigadier-General SPEARSasked the Home Secretary whether he will consider introducing legislation to amend Section 4 of the Vagrancy Act, 1824, so that sleeping out without visible means of subsistence shall cease to be an offence?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: As I stated in reply to a question by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Wrekin (Colonel Baldwin-Webb) on the 3rd instant, I am arranging for inquiry to be made as to the use which is made of this provision. The hon. and gallant Member will appreciate that until the result of this inquiry is available it is not possible for me to express any definite opinion as to the need for an amendment of Section 4 of the Vagrancy Act. I fully recognise, however, the strength of the feeling which exists on this matter, and I intend to go into it very thoroughly.
    Brigadier-General SPEARS: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider issuing orders to the police pending the results of this inquiry not to arrest persons who could only be charged with the offence of sleeping out?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: I am afraid I have no authority to issue such orders but the inquiry that I am making will, no doubt, draw the attention of the police authorities to the whole problem.
    Brigadier-General SPEARS: As for the time being sleeping out is to remain an offence for one section of the community, would the right hon. Gentleman consider making the law equal for all classes by having hikers, campers and caravaners who are sleeping out in contravention of the Vagrancy Act arrested and suitably punished, as was Thomas Parker?

    TOTALISATORS (PONY RACE-TRACKS).
    Mr. DICKIEasked the Home Secretary if the totalisators in use at pony
    1536
    race-tracks are operated under the licence of the Racecourse Betting Control Board; and, if so, what percentage is deducted and kept by the track management and what percentage is given to the control board?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: I am informed by the Racecourse Betting Control Board that the answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part, the board inform me that the agreement, under which licences have been granted to the managements of the two Pony Racecourses at Northolt, and Portsmouth, provides that the licensees shall pay into the Totalisator Fund the proceeds derived from the authorised deduction of 10 per cent. of the moneys staked by means of the totalisator. As contemplated by Section 3 (6) of the Racecourse Betting Act, 1928, the agreement provides for the payment to the licensees out of the Totalisator Fund, at the end of each year, of all taxes, rates, charges and working expenses certified to have been incurred by the licensees during the year, but as a matter of convenience it has been agreed that the board will pay to the licensees, at the end of each race meeting, 7 per cent. of the moneys staked at the meeting towards reimbursement of the licensees' expenses in operating the totalisator, this 7 per cent. being subject to adjustment at the end of the year when certified accounts are received. The balance of the money received by the board, after deduction of the board's expenses in supervision, is available for distribution for the purposes defined in Section 3 (6) of the Racecourse Betting Act, 1928.
    Mr. DICKIE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the final report of the Betting Commission it is stated that in one case a licensee is permitted to retain four-fifths of the total deductions, and, in any case, is it not unfair that the pony-racing track at Northholt should be allowed the use of the totalisator on a profit-making basis while the track at Wembley only a few miles away is not allowed the same privilege despite the fact that the National Greyhound Racing Society say they are prepared there to operate the totalisator without any profit at all?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: Whatever they get is for the purpose of pony breeding, and that was laid down under the Act.
    Lieut.-Colonel MOORE-BRABAZON: If, legislatively, a pony is a horse, could a greyhound be a pony?

    COAL INDUSTRY (WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION).
    Mr. ROBINSON(for Mr. SPENCER) asked the Home Secretary the present position in regard to the insurance of colliery workers against nonfatal accidents?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: As regards the position generally, I would refer to the reply given to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Martin) on 15th June and to previous replies on this subject. Generally speaking, good progress appears to have been made, but the situation in Lancashire, in which my hon. Friend is no doubt primarily interested, is, I regret to state, still very unsatisfactory. One indemnity company is actively considering a scheme to insure employers against disablement as well as fatal cases on the lines adopted in other districts, but their membership has been confined mainly to the northern part of the county. My right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State saw last week representatives from the south-western area who submitted proposals for a fund designed to provide some financial assistance in the event of bankruptcy, but this scheme appeared on the information furnished to be inadequate. He urged strongly upon them that the question should be reconsidered and that something should now be done as rapidly as possible to put matters on a satisfactory footing. I shall continue to keep in close touch with the situation and make every effort to secure prompt and adequate arrangements.

    PUBLIC WORKS (GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE).
    Sir HERBERT SAMUEL(by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether the statement on the subject of public works made by the President of the Board of Trade to the International Monetary and Economic Conference on 13th July supersedes the statement made by the Prime Minister jointly with President Roosevelt at Washington on 26th April, to the effect that enterprise must be stimulated by creating conditions favourable to business recovery and that Gov-
    1538
    ernments can contribute by the development of appropriate programmes of capital expenditure; and if not, what steps have been or are being taken by the Government for the development of such a programme for the United Kingdom?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The statement made by my right hon. Friend to the Economic Commission of the International Conference was directed primarily to the proposal made by the International Labour Office that facilities should be given for the issue of international loans to finance schemes of public works in Eastern Europe. As regards public works in this country the policy of His Majesty's Government is in no way altered. They are providing, or assisting to provide, finance for schemes of a remunerative or necessary character, e.g. slum clearance. But during the past 10 years a very large amount of capital expenditure has been incurred on public works of all kinds, with disappointing results, and the scope for useful schemes is now comparatively limited. It was fully recognised during 'the discussions at Washington that each Government must decide the nature of the programme of public works that it considers appropriate.
    Mr. LANSBURY: What is the reference to Eastern Europe which we are to gather from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade at the World Economic Conference. Has it any reference to the £100,000,000, spent on public works in this country, which, he said, was not a profitable way of dealing with unemployment?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I refer when I say "our own country" to our own experiments. That was fully explained by me to President Roosevelt when we were at Washington.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Are we to take it that there is to be no expansion of public works by the Government to attempt in any way to meet the position?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No, I said that our policy is unaltered. The matter was debated, and a very full statement on the subject was made by the Minister of Health.
    Sir H. SAMUEL: Have the Government in fact any appropriate programme 2B

    1539
    of capital expenditure such as was referred to in the statement signed by the right hon. Gentleman and President Roosevelt?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Certainly. The expression used in that statement was "appropriate programmes." The appropriate programme of the Government is the one which has been announced from time to time.
    Mr. LANSBURY: As the right hon. Gentleman will be a. little freer within the next few days, I wish to give him notice that we shall give him an opportunity to tell the country the appropriate programme.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. LANSBURY: Will the Prime Minister tell us the alteration in business for to-morrow?
The PRIME MINISTER: An alteration has had to be made. In addition to the business which was announced for tomorrow, Tuesday, it is proposed to consider, as first Order, further Lords Amendments to the Agricultural Marketing Bill, which I expect to be received from another place this evening.

SERVICE OF PROCESS (JUSTICES) BILL.
As amended (in the Standing Committee), to be printed. [Bill 151.]
SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

  STANDING COMMITTEE C.
  Mr. William Nicholson reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee C: Sir Thomas Vansittart Bowater, Mr. James Duncan, and Captain Fuller; and had appointed in substitution: Lord Dunglass, Captain McEwen, and Mr. Skelton.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS,
  That they have agreed to,—
  Metropolitan Police Bill.
  London County Council (Money) Bill, without Amendment.
  Sheffield Extension Bill.
  Gas Light and Coke Company Bill, with Amendments.
  Amendments to—
  Dearne District Traction Bill [Lords], without Amendment.
  Rent and Mortgage Interest Restrictions (Amendment) Bill,—That they do not insist on their Amendments to which the Commons have disagreed; and they agree to the Amendment made by the Commons to the words so restored to the Bill, without Amendment.
  Agricultural Marketing: Bill,—That they do not insist on certain of their Amendments to which the Commons have disagreed; they agree to several of the Amendments proposed by the Commons in lieu thereof, without Amendment; to one other with an Amendment; they disagree to one other, but propose an Amendment in lieu thereof, and they have made consequential Amendments to the Bill; and they insist on certain other of their Amendments, for which insistence they assign a Reason.
  Agricultural Marketing Bill,—Lords Reason for insisting on certain of their Amendments, Lords Amendment to Commons in lieu of Lords Amendment, and Lords Amendment in lieu of one other Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed, and Lords consequential Amendments to the Bill, to be considered To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 152.]

  SALFORD CORPORATION BILL,
  Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY.
  [18TH ALLOTTED DAY.]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]

CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1933.
  CLASS II.

    INDIA OFFICE.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £95,695, he 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, 1934, for a Contribution towards the Cost of the Department of His Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council, including a Grant in Aid."—[Note.—£37,500 has been voted on account.'
    3.37 p.m.
    The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Sir Samuel Hoare): Some months ago an Indian boy was asked in an examination paper the following question: "What are the duties of the Secretary of State for India?" Being a very intelligent young man he replied in this manner. "The Secretary of State appoints and disappoints the senior officials." Whether or not that answer was altogether accurate, I do not think that it was entirely exhaustive. The duties of the Secretary of State for India do not end at that particular point, and one of his duties not covered by the young Indian's answer is the duty, year by year, of coming to this Committee and giving an account to hon. Members of the events which have taken place during the last 12 months in the Indian Continent. I welcome this opportunity. I welcome it the more as it gives me a short respite from the battlefield of constitutional controversy, and because it also gives me a short respite from my very onerous duties on the Joint Select Committee, where, according to one of my colleagues in the Government, I am fast qualifying in the future for the lucrative career of an expert witness when politics have either finished with me or I have finished with politics.
    If I had made this speech a year ago, and still more if I had made it two years ago, I should have been compelled to
    1550
    give a very prominent place, perhaps the predominant place, to questions connected with law and order. I am glad to say that the state of affairs is now so much changed for the better that I no longer have to give the prominence to questions of that kind that I certainly should have given to them 12 months ago. Ask to-day any administrator, British or Indian, as to the kind of questions that chiefly interest the people among whom he is living, and I believe that almost without exception he will give this answer: "the questions that are interesting my district to-day are not questions connected with civil disobedience, or law and order, but questions connected with the general field of administration, particularly improvements in the social and economic field rather than questions in the political field." That is a very significant change for the better.
    Thanks to the efforts of that great body of officials in India, British and Indian, influenced from the top by the cheerful confidence and indefatigable energy of the Viceroy and passing from one end of the administration to the other, covering the whole field of activities of that splendid police service, and laet, but not least, backed in recent months by a growing body of public opinion expressing itself in practically every one of the Provincial Councils of India, civil disobedience has now become a matter of altogether secondary importance. To-day, therefore, I am able to leave questions connected with law and order to the end of my speech and am able to ask the attention of hon. Members to the other fields of administrative activity, in particular to certain definite achievements that have been won in the face of many difficulties in those fields of administration by the governments of India during the last 12 months.
    I suppose that the three questions that most interest everybody in the world, and particularly the inhabitants of a great agricultural continent like India, are not political questions but questions connected, first, with health, secondly, with the weather and, thirdly, with the crops. I propose to say a few words on each of these questions in relation to India's problems. I begin with the question of health. The most prominent impression that is left on the mind of anyone who

    1551
    travels in the East is the very low standard of health as compared with the standard of some countries in the West. An almost incredible amount of suffering and inefficiency in many of these Eastern countries is due to the low standard of health. Any efforts, therefore, that are successful in raising the standard of health redound not only to the credit of the men who make those efforts but in a special manner to the future prosperity of the country in which those efforts are made.
    In India we have a very fine record in the field of health administration: I am not sure if hon. Members always realise the debt of gratitude that for many years past not only India but the whole world has owed to the pioneer work of the Indian Medical Service. Many of the most notable achievements in the field of surgery and medicine have been due to the experiments and the experiences of officers in the Indian Medical Service. During the last 12 months, in spite of many exceptional difficulties, the difficulty, for instance, of finding the funds necessary for medical research and medical administration, the record has been, on the whole, very satisfactory. Let me give the Committee two examples. A great Institute of Preventive Medicine has just been opened in Calcutta. Its foundation is due in the first instance to the beneficence of Mr. Rockefeller, and its maintenance comes within the responsibility of the Government of India. I believe that the work of this Institute is going to be of immense value in the preventive field in India in the future.
    The other illustration is taken from certain experiments that have been recently made in India with a view, first, to controlling the spread of malaria and, secondly, to preventing the relapses of the patient after the patient has begun to recover. It may not be in the mind of every hon. Member that the scourge of malaria is so great in India that probably in any given year there may be as many as 10,000,000 people being treated for it. It is probably within the mark to say that between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 people die from malaria in India every year. What an appalling scourge; and what an opportunity for the development of medical science I am glad to be able to tell the Committee that a new
    1552
    drug has been discovered called atebrin, and as far as my advisers can judge it looks as though it will be most effective in preventing a relapse, which has always been the danger of malaria epidemics. I take those two instances and I give them to the Committee—I could give them many others—to show how very active are the efforts of the Indian Medical Service in the field of health and how year after year they are meeting with the success which they deserve.
    I pass to the second question which I said was always in the minds of everyone who lives in the West or the East, and particularly in the minds of people who live in a country dependent for its existence on agriculture—namely, the weather. Neither in England nor in India can we control the weather, but we can to a great extent control its effects. Take the case of India. It is within the memory of every hon. Member that India. was periodically subjected to terrible famine due to drought which swept away millions of its population. I am glad to think that, as a result of the work that has been carried out in the field of irrigation, that chapter is for ever ended. We cannot control droughts, but we can insure, by a system of irrigation, that the canals shall still be filled with water even in the dry seasons.
    I am glad to be able to report that in this the centenary year of our irrigation programme in India we have made still further advances, about which hon. Members no doubt would like to hear the details. Work is being continued on various irrigation projects, four of which at present in hand cover an area of more than 1,000,000 acres, and by the time these various works have been completed the total area irrigated by Government works in British India will be 40,000,000 acres, nearly four times as much as it was 50 years ago and nearly 10,000,000 acres more than it was only four years ago. India will then have an irrigated area twice as large as that of any other country in the world. Water was admitted this year into the canals of the great Lloyd barrage system in Sind, and the first year's results have been satisfactory, the total area at present affected being over 1,000,000 acres. That again is another very conspicuous illustration of the beneficent work, month by month, sometimes unknown to any one here, which is being carried out by the officers

    1553
    of the Government of India, be they seniors at the top or juniors in the remote districts in which they live.
    I come to the other question which suggested interested everyone even more flan political questions—questions connected with the crops. I am glad to be able to report that so far as the crops are concerned last season in India they were satisfactory and the prospects this year are also satisfactory. Up to date the monsoon is strong and plentiful rains are falling over the greater part of India. Great developments take place in India. Let me give hon. Members an illustration. A great development has recently taken place in the encouragement of sugar industries in India. I am told that within a short time something like 50 sugar mills have been set up in India, and it is satisfactory to note in passing that they are finding British machinery much better adapted to their purpose than foreign machinery. As far as we can judge, India in a comparatively short time will be making the sugar that it requires for its own purposes and will no longer be dependent on the imports of sugar from foreign countries.
    Perhaps the most difficult problem that faces the agricultural community in India, apart from the question of prices, and I am coming to that in a moment, is the question of land revenue and land taxation. Hon. Members will realise how serious is a problem of that kind in a country in which rents and land taxation are fixed over a long period of years, perhaps as long as 30 or 40 years, and fixed upon the assumption that the prices of agricultural produce are going to remain fairly stable. Then comes the moment when prices suddenly slump, and the agricultural worker is faced with a burden of taxation which is two or three times as heavy and the fact that prices of commodities are two or three times lower than they were three or four years ago. That is the problem which is facing the agricultural provinces of India. Thanks chiefly to the far sighted initiative of the provincial Governments, and particularly of certain of the provincial Governors, a readjustment has been made to meet these very difficult conditions, and it seems to have been accepted as a fair readjustment by landlords and by tenants.
    I will give the Committee the most conspicuous example of the kind of readjust-
    1554
    ment I have described. I take the case of the great agricultural province—the United Provinces. The Government there took a very bold action and persuaded the landlords to reduce their rents by no less than 4½ crores. At the same time, the Government has itself reduced its land taxation by one crore, and in order to carry this readjustment into effect in the space of three months the Government had to readjust the taxation values of no less than 6,250,000 separate agricultural holdings. What an enormous task, and with what success it has been carried through: With no commotion, with the general acceptance, as I understand, both from the landlords and from the tenants, this gigantic operation has been carried through by 'the officials of the United Provinces Government, and, so it seems, has laid to rest causes which a year or two ago if they had been ignored might have led to serious and even revolutionary consequences.
    I come from the actual question of the crops and the weather to the other very important question—the question of prices. I suppose that no country in the world has felt the slump in agricultural prices more seriously than has India. India is one of those great tracts of the world that responds very quickly to changes in prices. When prices go up, India very quickly regains her prosperity. When prices fall, India feels seriously and acutely the slump in commodity prices. I wish I could make a more optimistic report to the Committee about prices than I can. The latest statistics up to April last show a continued decline. None the less, there are grounds for hoping that those for May and June, when they are available, will contain some indication of improvement. The reports have begun to be more encouraging, and several of the commodities in which India is interested have risen in price. Although the general tendency is one of decrease, the decrease in the case of imports into India from the United Kingdom—and I would draw the attention of hon. Members to this fact—is very small, and the proportion of the total imports coming from the United Kingdom has shown a marked increase in the last few years. In 1931, it was 28.4; in 1932, 37 per cent.; and in the first four months of the present year, it has risen to 41.4.

    1555
    The Ottawa Agreement came into force only on 1st January, and its full effect is not likely to be felt for some time. Nevertheless, it is striking that the proportion of imports into India from the United Kingdom rose steadily from 37.5 in January to 45.7 in April. There has even been some improvement in imports of cotton piece goods, the figures for the first five months of 1933 being 261,000,000 yards, as compared with 237,000,000 yards in the corresponding period of 1932. The general index for India's exported articles stood in 1932 at 84, based on 100 per cent. pre-War, as compared with 151 in 1926 and 148 as recently as 1929. This Change accounts for the fact that the value of imports for last year was only a little over half of the value of imports in 1928–29. It serves to show that the recovery in the price of primary commodities is the principal need of the economic situation in India to-day, and if this could be achieved, the revenues of the country would rapidly expand, and opportunities would again present themselves for advances in all directions where national development is needed.
    Lastly before I pass from this branch of the subject, it is satisfactory to note that trade in India is more and more resuming its normal course undisturbed by political agitation. I will quote to the Committee a sentence or two from the last report of the Senior Trade Commissioner in India—a report which was issued only two months ago. These are his words:
    "There seems no doubt whatever that the political agitation and the boycott campaign has now spent itself, and is a negligible factor. On all sides one observes signs of improvement in political and racial feeling. This is undoubtedly due to the firm policy of the Government of India, and the growing realisation on the part of Indians of all classes and all shades of political thought that within the short space of a year or two their political ambitions will very largely be met."
    Whether or not every hon. Member in this Committee agrees with those concluding words—and I see that one or two of my hon. Friends seem to express some dissent—I am sure we shall all congratulate ourselves upon the fact that trade is now resuming its normal course, and is not held up by the intervention of political boycott.
    1556
    Let me complete this part of the picture by a few observations in another important field of government—the field of finance. There, again, I can draw the attention of hon. Members to many evidences of very substantial improvement. Take the Budget position first of all. The revised Estimates for 1932–23 show a surplus of two crores, corresponding almost exactly to the Budget Estimates. This was achieved after allocating nearly seven crores from revenue for reduction of debt. A small surplus is budgeted for in the current year. This surplus again assumes an appropriation for the reduction of debt, and allows also of course for the restoration of hall: the pay cut. If this situation is compared with most other countries, the comparison is in India's favour, and when it is realised that as recently as 1931–32 there was a revenue deficit of 11¾ crores, the Government of India may look back with satisfaction on the improvement that has been brought about, although this improvement has, of course, entailed high taxation and severe retrenchment.
    There has been an even more striking improvement on the credit side, shown not only by the advance in the price of Government securities in India, and by the fact that borrowing has been effected at declining rates, but also by the reduction in the disparity between the prices of Indian and British Government securities on the London market. The differences in the percentage yield of British and Indian securities at three dates, taken in 1931, 1932 and 1933, were 1.78, 86 and 84. That is to say, in a very short space of time the disparity has been halved. A substantial part of the improvement in the prices has of course been due to general influences, particularly cheapness of money, but those influences would not have produced such results had it not been for the increased confidence shown in the Indian financial position and the financial future of the country. The Government has been able to reap great advantage from the situation. There has been a large reduction in short-term debts both in London and in India. Since the repayment, in 1932, of £11,250,000, the balance of the 5 per cent. loan then maturing. £13,000,000 6 per cent. bonds have been repaid, the last block of these having been discharged last month. Considerable progress has also been made in the funding and con

    1557
    version of the short-term rupee debt. Since June last year Rs. 94 crores of Treasury bills and rupee loans maturing in the next few years have been converted into long-term securities. The amount of Treasury balances now outstanding is 18 crores compared with over 80 in September, 1931, and between 1st May and September of this year loans to the extent of 22 crores are also under repayment. I hope I have said enough to emphasise to every hon. Member in the Committee that a great change for the better has come over Indian credit a ad over the general financial position of India in the short space of a comparatively few months.
    I come now, as I said I would come at the beginning of my speech, to questions connected with law and order. I purposely left over this part of my speech to the present point, as I regard it now as of secondary importance to the kind of questions on which I have just been commenting. Here, again, I think I can report substantial improvements since last I made a speech of this kind to the House. The improvement in the general state of feeling towards the Government was shown in particular by the way in which the Central and Provincial Legislatures passed legislation to replace the ordinances. It is also shown by the general lack of interest in the civil disobedience movement which has fallen to so low an ebb that the extension of it at the beginning of Mr. Gandhi's recent fast made little or no practical difference. There are now, I think, one-fifth of the number of civil disobedience prisoners.
    Mr. LANSBURY: How many is that?
    Sir S. HOARE: Something over 6,000, only one-fifth of the civil disobedience prisoners that there were a little more than a year ago. There are only one-tenth of the civil disobedience prisoners that there were three or four years ago. At the present moment the great majority of the Congress Committee are not in prison at all, and it is significant that even after this great reduction of numbers the general support of law and order should be daily becoming stronger and stronger. A sign of the times is the fact that in Bombay about 150 English cloth shops, which only recently were closed as a result of the boycott, are now reported to be open. A further sign of the times is the report that a few days
    1558
    ago large crowds assembled at towns of the Surat district, which was formerly a stronghold of civil disobedience, in which to witness the hoisting of the Union Jack on the municipal buildings by the Collector of Surat, in pursuance of a Resolution passed unanimously by the municipality.
    The position of the Government is firm and clear, but on the Congress side there are divided counsels and many uncertainties. Their present embarrassment is a measure of the success of the Government. The attempt to hold a Congress meeting in Calcutta in the spring was a fiasco. The last meeting that took place in the course of last week in Poona was, it seems from all accounts, an equal fiasco. It seems that counsels were divided and that there was a great body of support within the Congress itself anxious to see an end put once and for all to the civil disobedience campaign. Summaries of the Indian Press that have been telegraphed to me show clearly that there was a strong feeling amongst the rank and file of Congress against the continuance of an unlawful and unconstitutional programme.
    According to these reports—at present we have no other detailed account of the meeting—Mr. Gandhi set himself against these counsels of reason and moderation. At the beginning of his fast he had still continued to maintain a threatening attitude to the Government. I assumed that he was ill and out of touch with public opinion. Now, however, it appears that in the teeth of the opposition of many of his most trusted supporters he has declared himself in favour of a resumption of civil disobedience as a means of extorting terms from the Government. In these circumstances there is only one course open to the Government. We have said that we are not prepared to negotiate, and we shall maintain our refusal to negotiate. Once again Mr. Gandhi wishes to put himself in the position of negotiator with the Government of India, a negotiator who carries in reserve the unconstitutional weapon of civil disobedience to back his arguments. Let me repeat that there can be no question of making a bargain with Congress as the condition of their accepting the ordinary obligations of law abiding citizens. I will read the Vireroy's answer to Mr. Gandhi, who had

    1559
    requested an interview. I am sure that all reasonable people who support constitutional methods will agree with it.
    "His Excellency has directed me to say that if circumstances were different he would gladly have seen you "
    I pause on that point. There was no question whatever of unconditionally refusing Mr. Gandhi an interview.
    "but it would seem that you are opposed to the withdrawal of civil disobedience except on conditions, and that the interview that you seek with His Excellency is for the purpose of initiating negotiations with Government regarding those conditions.
    "It also appears to have been decided that unless Congress reaches a settlement with Government as a result of these discussions civil disobedience will be resumed on 1st August. It is hardly necessary to remind you that the position of the Government is that the civil disobedience movement is wholly unconstitutional, and that there can be no compromises with it, and that Government cannot enter into any negotiations for its withdrawal.
    "On 29th April, 1932, the Secretary of State stated in the House of Commons that there can be no question of making a bargain with Congress as a condition of its cooperation. The same position has been consistently maintained by the Government in numerous subsequent statements. If Congress desires to resume its position as the constitutional party and to put an end to a movement that has caused grave injury and suffering to the country, the way is open to it, as it has always been, and it is within the power of Congress to restore peace by withdrawing on its own initiative the civil disobedience movement. As, however, Congress is not willing to take that action, an interview with His Excellency would be to no purpose."
    That telegram has the full concurrence of His Majesty's Government.
    I pass finally to a very serious phase of the law and order problem, the phase of terrorism in Bengal. Terrorism in Bengal has been a shameful and devastating disease now for many years. From time to time it has lain dormant. Then it breaks out again, as it broke out again two or three years ago with redoubled virulence. It is one of the most difficult problems which the Government of India in general and the Government of Bengal in particular have to face. Difficult as it is I think that I can report to the Committee to-day definite signs of an improved condition of affairs. There was a time not so very long ago when law and order had almost ceased to exist in certain districts in Bengal, in which official Indians as well
    1560
    as British could not go out except. at the risk of their lives, in which it had become almost impossible to obtain the information about terrorist plots without which it is impossible to deal successfully with them. About 18 months ago we reconsidered the whole position, and we determined, particularly the Government of Bengal and the officials in Bengal, to launch against terrorism a, campaign that would not only hold it in check, but would go far to eradicate it altogether.
    At first the Government of Bengal had to act almost exclusively under the exceptional powers Ordinance. I am glad to think that in recent months the Provincial Council of Bengal has come out in support of the Government and has given it the necessary legislative enactments in place of the temporary Orders. It was necessary to reinforce the power of law and order. It was necessary, for instance, to draft troops into certain districts of the Presidency. It will be a matter of satisfaction, though not of surprise, to the Committee to know that the effect of the entry of troops has been almost instantaneous. Backing up the civil authority and the civil authority backing them up, their efforts have resulted in the steady restoration of law and order in some of the dangerous districts of the Province.
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Without any bloodshed?
    Sir S. HOARE: Yes, without any bloodshed or scarcely any bloodshed. What is equally significant is the fact that sources of information are now once again open to us, and week by week and month by month the Government of Bengal is making more and more successful progress in breaking down terrorism and in exposing the terrorist plots. During the last few weeks there. have been remarkably successful achievements by the police and the military as a result of which we believe that we have now got level with this terrible threat; and with the constant and unremitting pressure that we intend to apply now and in the future, and in the further future, whatever may be the constitutional changes in view, we believe that we shall succeed in freeing Bengal from one of the most terrible and shameful plagues that have devastated any part of the British Empire.

    1561
    So remarkable do we consider the achievements of the responsible authorities, military and civil, that as a special mark of recognition His Majesty the King has approved of the immediate confirment of the Companionship of the Order o: the Indian Empire upon Mr. Arthur Sheldon Hands of the Indian Civil Service, district magistrate of Chittagong, and Captain Thomas Ivor Stevenson, Second Battalion 8th Gurkha Riffles, Military Intelligence Officer in the Chittagong district.
    I hope I have now said enough to interest hon. Members in the administration and achievements of the officials, military and civil, of the Government of India. We have all been passing through very difficult times, and they most of all, especially the junior men among them who have been living and working in remote districts, far away from contact with their own friends and ordinary associations. I believe we have all learned useful lessons in the difficult times through which we have been passing. I remember a wise observation of Emersolfs:
    "Bad times have a specific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss."
    I do not believe that we have missed the lessons of these difficult times. I believe that we have come to realise more clearly than ever the strength and the weakness of our system of Indian Government. Facing these difficulties, the officials on the spot have shown themselves true to our traditions and history and I can claim, without being either hypocritical or sanctimonious, that they have consistently and continuously been guided by a sense of moral duty. In one aspect that sense of moral duty may be thought to have been a weakness. There might have been a temptation to them and. to us to follow in the way of the dictators, to smash all opposition, to give up any attempt at co-operation and ruthlessly to proceed upon the road of autocracy. That is not the line that has been taken in these difficult months by the Government of India or by any of its officials. Simultaneously with our rigid enforcement of law and order we have consistently followed the path of co-operation with our friends in India, whether it be in the field of administration or in those other fields that we cannot discuss here this afternoon. I take no credit
    1562
    for any of these achievements myself but I claim that the record that I have exposed to the Committee this afternoon is a fine record. It is a well-deserved testimonial to the sincerity and integrity of purpose with which these men have faced their difficult problems. I claim that it is also a tribute to the success that has, so far, crowned their efforts. Two thousand years ago King Asoka set up, from one end of India to another, a, series of columns each bearing this inscription:
    "For what do I talk. No other end than this. That I may discharge my duty to the living beings."
    That is the motto of our administration in India. Our past and present records justify it. Our future record may, if we are just and wise, still further enhance it.
    4.37 p.m.
    Mr. LANSBURY: I beg to move, to reduce the Vote by £100.
    I should like to remind those of the Committee who remain that the subject-matter which we are discussing concerns a country as large as Europe without Russia, and with a population of 300,000,000 people. It is a population the vast mass of which ever since the beginning of the British connection and before, has lived on the verge of starvation. It is a, population cursed by disease, by privation and everything connected with penury and want. It is a population which is governed from the outside and that population, living under those conditions, is called upon to pay tribute to an alien power which claims the right to rule and control it. The position of the Indian masses is very similar, only on a much more enormous scale, to that which confronted the Irish people during the long years of their agitation for self-government. The late Lord Balfour said of the agitation in Ireland that it was a social revolution in the guise of a political agitation and he went on to develop that argument by showing, as the Secretary of State for India has shown to-day, that economic causes are at the root of almost every political agitation.
    The Secretary of State in the whole of a long statement—and I do not complain of its length—has not given any hope of economic improvement for these masses of whom 10,000,000 suffer from malaria and 2,000,000 of that number die of that disease. He said nothing to bring

    1563
    hope to the mothers of the million children who die at birth in India. He said nothing to give hope to the people in the Bombay mills or in the wretched, miserable, beastly hovels in which many of them are forced to live. He tells us that we are going to improve the growing of sugar. The right hon. Gentleman cannot have been attending the World Economic Conference which is engaged in the task of cutting down the world cultivation of sugar and I am ashamed that a Minister should come here with a statement such as he has made this afternoon under that heading. He knows better than I do, and many Anglo-Indians in this House know better than I do, what is really wrong in India. It is the fact that, of the wealth which the Indian people are able to produce, a considerable portion is drained away to this country.
    Sir S. HOARE Sir S. HOARE indicated dissent.
    Mr. LANSBURY: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head but will he tell me where the money came from to build the India Office or the magnificent palace in Aldwych?
    Sir S. HOARE: Where did the money come from for irrigation
    Mr. LANSBURY: Never mind about irrigation. Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the question which I have put to him? Will he also say who is paying for New Delhi while the housing of the masses of the people, of which the right hon. Gentleman himself is ashamed, goes untouched? It is all very well to tell us of an odd thing here and there that has been done, but the cold brutal fact remains that, after nearly a century of British rule, the masses of the people in India live on the point of starvation and great numbers of them die from preventable diseases. The right hon. Gentleman also knows that out of India each year there goes an enormous amount of wealth, just as in the case of Ireland in former times, the absentee landlords drew their rents from Ireland and spent the money in London and on the Continent and elsewhere. Absentee landlordism was looked upon as something to be ashamed of in the end, when the late General Gordon and the late General Buller showed up the iniquities of the system.
    1564
    I wish that some civil servant who goes to India would show up the terrible drain on the resources of the Indians for the maintenance of the British Army and of the whole administration, and the amount spent in this country on pensions and on services that are carried on here. It is often said of us when we ask that money should be spent on various purposes, that you cannot spend the same money in two different ways. Ruskin, I think, put it that two people cannot have the same thing. If the resources of the Indian peasantry are spent on maintaining a British paid army and a British paid administration they cannot at the same time have the resources to spend on themselves. Therefore, while listening to the right hon. Gentleman I wondered whether he really believed that we were on the up-grade in regard to our relationships with and our administration of India. In this matter I think I am as reasonable as he is. I should be very glad to know that the people of India were being raised in their economic and social standards of life. I am not talking of the relatively few who are able to be sent here by winning scholarships or by being paid for by rich men. I am thinking of the millions in the villages and of the thousands living in those rotten, miserable, despicable places around every one of the industrial centres. I have not heard a single word this afternoon from the right hon. Gentleman of any hope for those people.
    Then he takes credit to himself and his administration that they have in effect crushed the Congress. He has not used the word "crushed," whatever may be his opinion and that of his advisers, and I quite admit that they are in a much better position, from the official point of view, to deal with that question than I am, but I too have been in communication with Indians who are in this country attending the constitutional committees, and there is not one of them whom I have met., not a single one of them, who takes the view of the right hon. Gentleman. They say it is perfectly true that, as was said by that Polish or Russian general who wired to his lord and master the Emperor, "Order reigns in Warsaw." It did, at the point of the gun; and when the right hon. Gentleman says there is no expression of public opinion now in India in favour of the Congress, of course there is not, because you do not allow it.

    1565
    People cannot express their opinion. They are not allowed to do so. He knows perfectly well that if anyone were to take up the cause of the Congress and advocate the policy of the Congress, he would be put in gaol. They are only allowed to print what the right hon. Gentleman considers it is constitutional and proper to print, and, therefore, all the improper things, from his point of view, are stamped out. In those circumstances, to say that he has won through and got public opinion on his side is, in my judgment, sheer nonsense.
    I heard that story from that Box years and years ago. I have heard it concerning trade disputes, concerning disputes in Ireland, concerning disputes in. this country, where people have resorted to unconstitutional means. I think the right hon. Gentleman was in the House during the suffrage agitation, and I remember Mr. McKenna and the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), when Home Secretary, standing at that Box and saying, "We have got them all in prison now, and the whole business is settled." Any sort of man who has got the power of Government and force behind him can crush any movement that he sets himself out to crush. I do not believe that the Congress movement is anything like crushed in India to-day, and I think that the right hon. Gentleman, and the Government, and this House will speedily learn that that is so. In his treatment of Mr. Gandhi, the right hon. Gentleman has taken the line that he cannot in any circumstances negotiate with Mr. Gandhi until he, in fact, comes in a white sheet and says, "Well, I have given up all that I have believed it was necessary for me to do." Then, if he does that and comes, as an apologist, Lord Willingdon will graciously discuss with him.
    I would like to put it to the right hon. Gentleman that that is not the policy that was adopted towards Lord Carson. There is nobody in this House, Tory, Liberal, or whatever he may call himself, who would deny the fact that Lord Casson, and the late Lord Londonderry, and the whole of the chiefs of the Tory party organised an army in Ireland, armed it, drilled it, and equipped it, and in the end, without his withdrawing one bit—and I always admired Lord Carson for standing for what he believed to be right—Lord Carson forced this House, forced Parliament, to allow His Majesty
    1566
    the King to summon a conference, without any conditions, and with Carson's army in the field, in order to debate with this arch-rebel and his colleagues as to how they could get out of the difficulty that confronted them. The right hon. Gentleman to-day, in the most cold-blooded manner, says that Mr. Gandhi shall not be negotiated with. It may be a matter of humorous indifference to the Under-Secretary of State, but when he has lived as long as Mr. Gandhi, and done as much for the world as Mr. Gandhi has done, he will be entitled to smile at a statement such as I made just now; and the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State, I am sure, will live to be ashamed of the statement he has made here to-day, and so will the Government.
    There is not a civilised Government in the world that would have treated in that way the offer of Mr. Gandhi, who asked, not that he should discuss whether or not civil disobedience should be withdrawn, not that he should discuss any conditions whatsoever, but—and the right hon. Gentleman knows it—all that he asked was that the Viceroy should see him and discuss whether it was not possible to find a way out of the present situation; and the only answer that he has got is the answer that the right hon. Gentleman has given to-day. I think, as I have already said, that that answer is a disgrace, and if that is the final word, I am quite sure that it will band the Congress men together in more determination against the policy of the Government and the right hon. Gentleman. It is impossible that they can accept a. situation of that kind. I have already mentioned Lord Carson. In the case of Mr. Parnell, when outrages quite as bad as some of those that have happened in Bengal by the terrorists were happening in Ireland, the late Mr. Chamberlain conducted negotiations, while Mr. Parnell was in prison, in order to try to put. an end to the difficulties, and there was-no pledge from Mr. Parnell at the beginning. They just went in and discussed the matter and came to an agreement; and I believe now that it would be possible to arrive at an agreement if the Viceroy and the right hon. Gentleman would unbend in ever so small a manner.
    The right hon. Gentleman said that the people generally are on his side. He

    1567
    really is living in a fool's paradise, and I do not understand the right hon. Gentleman, with the means of getting information that are at his disposal, making such a statement. Here is a letter which I have had sent me to-day in order to put before me the views of two leading men in the constitutional committee, and I have also had an opportunity of discussing the matter with Mr. Joshi and other friends who take a similar line to Mr. Tej Sapru and Mr. Jayakar. Here is their letter:
    "(We) understand that you are speaking in the House of Commons this afternoon, and we therefore should like to put our considered opinion before you on the subject of Mr. Gandhi's request to the Viceroy. We find from the Times' of to-day that Mr. Gandhi has sent the following telegram to the Viceroy:
    'Will His Excellency grant an interclew with a view to exploring possibilities of peace?'"
    That is all that Mr. Gandhi has asked; that is the only thing that he has asked.
    "'Will His Excellency grant an interview with a view to exploring possibilities of peace? Kindly wire.'
    We do not read in it any threat of any kind."
    I should not think anybody else would either. They go on:
    "We understand, however, that the request has been refused. We should be very glad indeed if you could draw attention to the terms of the telegram, and press for a further consideration of the matter, so that Mr. Gandhi would have a chance of putting his views before the Viceroy. It would be most unfortunate if he was denied the opportunity of seeing the Viceroy. We should not allow the answer to the question put by Mr. Gandhi to be prejudiced by tendencious telegrams which have been appearing in the Press during the last two days."
    I would call the attention of the Committee to the fact that most of the right hon. Gentleman's commentary on this was only gathered, as I understood him, from the newspapers. There has not been time to get any official statement, and I take it that he has no official statement, that he could not get one, as to what actually happened at the meeting of the Congress. Mr. Jayakar and Mr. Tej Sapru asked that we should not allow the tendencious telegrams in the Press to influence in this matter. They go on to say—and it is not only these two, but others who have seen me say exactly the same thing:
    1568
    "It seems to us inconceivable that a leader occupying the position which Mr. Gandhi does in the national life of the country should be denied the opportunity of seeing the Viceroy, for the purposes of exploring the possibilities of peace in India."
    I want to call attention to the difference between the sentiment and spirit of this letter and the spirit of the right hon. Gentleman. If we are to believe his statement to-day, everything is peaceful now in India. We have nothing more to worry about, everything is quiet, and the caravan will go on its way without the dogs barking in the future. The right hon. Gentleman led us all to believe that he has won his point, smashed the Congress campaign, and now everything will be well. Here are two men, who have never taken the extremist view on this subject, who are here at, great danger to their political reputation in and others taking part in the discussions that are being held, and they are unanimously of opinion that the right hon. Gentleman is quite wrong in thinking that he has now done with Mr. Gandhi, that if he only keeps him in prison, or puts him in prison when he thinks it necessary to do so, the Congress campaign is all at an end. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider the position, and to ask himself whether this attitude of mind that he has taken up is not one which has again and again failed in the object it has sought to attain. Again and again in India, again and again in' other places, Governments and Ministers have made exactly the statements that the right hon. Gentleman has made, and then, in a very-short space of time, they have had to withdraw and take up some other attitude.
    I would call attention to the further fact in connection with this question, that this is not new. Ever since the first mutiny in India, right on till now, there have been continual risings, large and small, in the life of the Indian nation, and they have all taken place because the Indian people were not satisfied with the conditions under which they were living. The men and women on the North-West Frontier, the men and women throughout the agricultural areas, have again and again had "No rent" campaigns. The right hon. Gentleman took credit to himself to-day that the Government had dealt with some of the grievances con-

    1569
    nected with the collection of taxes. He knows perfectly well that one of the causes which brought about the breach between Mr. Gandhi and the Viceroy was the fact that just before Mr. Gandhi landed, one of the provinces had embarked on a "No rent" campaign. That "No rent" campaign was partially dealt with and a settlement was arrived at along the lines for which the right hon. Gentleman has taken credit to-day, but everyone knows that those changes would not have taken place but for the strike against rent. The right hon. Gentleman knows that perfectly well, and he knows, too, that the quarrel between Mr. Gandhi and the Viceroy was very largely due to the action of the Congress in. relation to that "No rent" strike. That being so, it is surely late in the day for the right hon. Gentleman to come to us and say, "Look what I have done; give me credit for what I have done."
    I would have been willing to give the right hon. Gentleman more credit if he had taken the further step of instructing the Viceroy to interview Mr. Gandhi and bring about a settlement. Where is the dignity of Lord Willingdon in this matter? Who is the Viceroy, or who is the right hon. Gentleman, that they should ride the high horse in this fashion? Why should not the humblest Indian, even if he is in revolt against the Government, be seen by the Viceroy? The right hon. Gentleman saw Mr. Gandhi when he was in this country. It was only when he got across the water that the Viceroy, for whom the right hon. Gentleman speaks in this House, took the action that he did. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to take hack that definite "No" which he gave us this afternoon, and to say that he will fall into line with everybody else, Tory or Liberal, who has ever had to administer a great country like India or a small country like Ireland, and will take advantage of the olive branch that has been held out without any condition whatever. Mr. Gandhi has not made any conditions. All that the right hon. Gentleman knows about the Congress discussion has been gathered from the newspapers, which always publish very tendentious statements on these matters. I ask the Secretary of State again to reconsider the whole matter, not merely from the point of view of the people in
    1570
    India, but from the point of view of the people in this country.
    There is a definite clear-cut public opinion in this country which believes that the reason why the Viceroy does not see Mr. Gandhi is more or less a personal one. I do not subscribe to that, but I think that the right hon. Gentleman's speech to-day, and what I cannot help feeling is the rather contemptuous way in which he has treated this business, give rise to a suspicion that the attitude taken by the authorities is, "We have got this wretched man down, and we are going to keep him down." That is not the attitude which the right hon. Gentleman took up when Mr. Gandhi was here. Let the Committee remember that he was then the honoured guest of the Government, he was received by His Majesty, and he was treated decently and reasonably. Mr. Gandhi responded to that treatment while all the time keeping his point of view, as the right hon. Gentleman did his. It is only when he gets to India that he is treated in the manner in which he has been treated. It is not the Government that has now made the first offer; it is Mr. Gandhi—the bruised, beaten and battered man who conies forward and says: "Let us meet together without any conditions at all, and let us try and find a way out." In such circumstances a real, genuine and decent conqueror would immediately hold out his right hand.
    The right hon. Gentleman has boasted of his achievements in crushing Congress. That being so, an ordinary British spirit should lead him to say, "Now we will meet you; we will shake hands and try and find a way out of this dispute." We did it with Botha and with General Smuts. General Smuts is now here as one of the leaders of the British Commonwealth of Nations at the World Economic Conference. Only a few short years ago he was in the field against us. Botha, de Wet and Smuts rode in the Royal Procession in this country after their crushing defeat because the British people felt that the Dutch people had had their fight and that we had fought our dispute with them in the worst possible way, and that when it was over they should in the best possible way establish friendly relationships. Why cannot we do that with Mr. Gandhi? Why should the Government have any false pride or be afraid of the

    1571
    diehards in this House? I am sure that public opinion in this country would support the Government right to the end.
    I want to say a few words with reference to the Meerut prisoners. I know it is like talking to a piece of wood to talk to the right hon. Gentleman about the Meerut prisoners. He is like Lord Carson. He made up 'his mind, but he never got to that Box in the fashion that the right hon. Gentleman has done. He was a bigoted Orangeman and took a very bigoted point of view and held to it. I can always admire a tenacious opponent, but in this matter we have the well-being of 300,000,050 people at stake, and we ought not to be wooden in our opinions or steel our minds against allowing their conditions to appeal to us. Just as we have appealed to the right hon. Gentleman for Mr. Gandhi, we appeal to him again for the Meerut prisoners. It will not be our fault if he stands pat. It will be his disgrace, not ours. He may ask, as was asked on the last occasion, what the Labour Government did or did not do. Nearly two years have passed since the Labour Government went out of office. I will submit to any censure that I have earned as a Member of that Government, but I am speaking now two years after the event.
    These prisoners were tried in Meerut to escape the possible inconveniences of trial by jury. They have been in prison or on bail for four years. No act amounting to conspiracy has been proved against the accused. Acknowledged or presumed sympathy—in some cases denied—with Communism has been taken as sufficient ground for conviction. It is as though Englishmen were sent to gaol for being or being presumed to be members of the Communist party. When the late Lord Brentford was Home Secretary, I asked him whether preaching Communism was a crime, and again and again it has been said that it is not. The present Home Secretary, when answering me in connection with Tom Mann, declared that everybody was free to preach whatever theory of government they chose, and that they would only be prosecuted when they took some overt action against the Crown.
    I challenge anyone who speaks for the Government to-night to bring forward a single charge that was either brought against these men or proved. The main
    1572
    evidence for the convictions was the organisation of strikes. We have here the hon. Member for East Woolwich (Mr. Hicks) who has helped to organise strikes. Everybody honours him. We also have the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. G. Hall) and the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell) and several more who ought to be in prison if organising strikes were a crime. We cannot have one law for. the Indian trade unionist and another law for the English trade unionist. I am told that this wretched prosecution has already cost over £250,000. They have had hundreds of thousands of documents and all kinds of hearsay evidence, and in the end sentences were passed, not for doing anything, but for organising strikes which at the time were perfectly legal, however inconvenient to the authorities. I know the Minister of Labour hates a strike in this country because it gives him a lot of trouble, but he does not think of clapping the leaders in gaol because he knows that we would not allow him. In India, however, the right hon. Gentleman and his officials do it.
    These men were sentenced to three, four and five years rigorous imprisonment and to periods of transportation for five, seven, 10 and 12 years, and in one case for life. The right hon. Gentleman talked this afternoon as if peace reigns in India. He knows perfectly well that we shall get no peace in India while workmen are treated in this fashion. There will be no peace either while the Government are obliged to open such wretched prisons as the Andaman prison, which, unless they are very much improved, are death traps for all who go there. Assessors were appointed to assist the judges at the trial. They unanimously indicated their opinion that in six cases the prisoners were not guilty, but only one of these was acquitted. In seven other cases the assessors declared by four to one that the prisoners were not guilty. but only two were acquitted. These facts seem to us to afford clear evidence of a Judge Jeffreys spirit and a determination to convict anyhow. We contend that the sentences are savagely severe. No account has been taken of the fact that the trial lasted for four years. I will not weary the Committee with the story of the adjournments and the length of the speeches. One learned counsel for the prosecution spoke for a month or two, and then complained that nobody inter-

    1573
    rupted him. I should think that he bored them to tears. This is the manner in which justice is administered in India. We are not in Soviet Russia, but two British engineers were being dealt with at this trial.
    Sir S. HOARE: As the right hon. Gentleman seems to be addressing me personally, I will intervene to make this one observation. This case is at the moment. or will be in a week or two, under appeal. I can only express my regret that the right hon. Gentleman should deal with i', in the way that he has in view of that fact.
    Mr. LANSBURY: I know, and it may, when it comes up for appeal in a week's time, be adjourned for another three months, and then the Crown will want to put forward another lot of stupid evidence, and it will be adjourned until Christmas; and probably by this time next year we will be debating it, as we have been debating it at any time during the last four years. If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to say so, I do not blame him for the Indian law. It has grown up, and there it is. It ought to have been repealed long ago, and I understand the right hon. Gentleman is hoping to repeal it. If he is, for goodness sake do not let these men suffer because we have not repealed it. He teals me that the case is coming on for appeal, but I know that, and I am deliberately making this appeal to him. I do not see why these men should be kept in prison a minute longer. I do not think they should have to submit to the sort of administration of justice which the document I hold in my hand proves they have had to submit to, and I know that in his heart the right hon. Gentleman does not agree with it any more than I do. There is m4 a Member of this House who would say it ought to take four years to bring about results in a trial anywhere. I would not have mentioned Russia but for the fact that we imposed an embargo on Russia because of two Englishmen. There are two Englishmen in this case, but this House is not bothering anything about them, we cannot get a settlement of their case.
    This is a case in which, on the advice of his responsible Minister, who is the Secretary of State, His Majesty ought to instruct the Viceroy to send the two Englishmen home and discharge the
    1574
    other prisoners. They have been punished more than enough. The trial ought never to have started, and that it ought to have been stopped a long time ago, but we should probably have been turned out by the Liberal and Tory parties if we had put that proposal forward when we were in office, as we were in the Campbell case for interfering with the course of justice there. But I do not want to make any point about that. You can score off me, if you like about what ought or ought not to have been done by the late Labour Government. Here are these men, two years almost after the Labour Government left office, still in prison, still subject to another trial, which may take months and mouths. In these circumstances I ask the Committee to vote for the reduction of 1100, so that the right hon. Gentleman will know that he is to instruct the Viceroy to open up talks with Mr. Gandhi on no conditions whatever—just discussions with him as to whether it is not possible to find a way out of the present situation, and also to advise His Majesty to release the Meerut prisoners.
    5.19 p.m.
    Mr. BERNAYS: Whatever the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition may say, it was clear from the speech of the Secretary of State for India that the position in India has improved in the last year, both politically and economically, and I suggest that the congratulations of the House are due to the right hon. Gentleman for the way in which he has handled the Indian situation, and particularly for the way in which he has on most matters been able to take with him the greater majority of the Members of this House. It is significant of the change in the situation in India that the controversy is now centreing round, not a declaration of further war but a settlement of peace. I find it difficult to support the demand put forward by the Opposition that Lord Willingdon should see Mr. Gandhi. It seems clear from the telegram that Mr. Gandhi has in mind some kind of pact on the lines of the 1931 Pact.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Would the hon. Member please quote from Mr. Gandhi's telegram anything that conveys that impression?
    Mr. BERNAYS: I am merely inferring that from the telegrams from India which have been published.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Yes, but his telegram.
    Mr. BERNAYS: If the right hon. Gentleman had any other information on the situation, I wish he had given it to the House.
    Mr. LANSBURY: The right hon. Gentleman, when he was speaking, depended on the Press telegrams. I am depending on Mr. Gandhi's own statement.
    Sir S. HOARE: I depended both on the Press telegrams and the telegrams from the Government of India.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Can the right hon. Gentleman quote us anything he has received from the Government of India showing any statement by Mr. Gandhi that he asks for an interview for any other purpose than to explore the possibilities of peace?
    Sir S. HOARE: It is perfectly open to Mr. Gandhi to make a denial of the statements attributed to him by the Press.
    Mr. LANSBURY: He does deny them.
    Sir S. HOARE: There has been no such denial. So far as I know, he has made no such denial.
    Mr. LANSBURY: This is rather important. Mr. Gandhi has sent a telegram, which was read out. No other telegram, so far as the right hon. Gentleman or I know, has passed. What right have any of us to say what is in Mr. Gandhi's mind, other than what he himself has said?
    Sir S. HOARE: It seems clear that the whole of last week at the Conference Mr. Gandhi supported the movement for continuing civil disobedience. If we are incorrectly informed, let Mr. Gandhi make his own denial.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Let him make it to Lord Willingdon, as he has asked.
    Sir S. HOARE: Certainly.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Then let Lord Willingdon see him. Who is Lord Willingdon that he should not meet him?
    Mr. BERNAYS: The interruptions of the right hon. Gentleman have really strengthened my point. Whatever the object of Mr. Gandhi in seeing the Viceroy, the fact remains that the civil dis-
    1576
    obedience movement is still in existence. If he calls off the civil disobedience movement I understand the Viceroy will then see him. It is not a question, as the right hon. Gentleman says, of Mr. Gandhi coming to Lord Willingdon in a white sheet. It is a question of Mr. Gandhi coming to Lord Willingdon without a revolver. The right hon. Gentleman talked about Mr. Gandhi as the honoured guest of the Government in this country. I agree that he was an honoured guest of the Government in this country, and what did he do within three weeks of being the honoured guest of the Government in this country? He threatened to call on the civil disobedience movement. I can speak myself as a personal friend of Mr. Gandhi. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Well, I probably know him considerably better than hon. Members opposite. However, I will withdraw that assertion in the case of the right hon. Gentleman, because I will not compete with him in the knowledge of Mr. Gandhi. I fully agree with a great deal of what the right hon. Gentleman has said. Mr. Gandhi is a very remarkable man, perhaps one of the really remarkable men of the world, but at the same time, when one examines his actions since the making of the Delhi Pact in March, 1931, one can only come to one conclusion, and that is that Mr. Gandhi has been extremely unhelpful.
    Mr. EDWARD WILLIAMS: Why did you not tell him so last year?
    Mr. BERNAYS: I did tell him. The hon. Member cannot deny what was said by me in my conversations in private with Mr. Gandhi. The civil disobedience movement is still in existence. The Government has always taken the line that it cannot negotiate under the threat of violence. Why should this Government—this Government, at any rate—abandon that attitude now? After all, a large proportion of the Congress is now prepared, apparently, to call off the civil disobedience movement. The right hon. Gentleman says that if the Secretary of State refuses Mr. Gandhi's request it will band the Congress against the Government, but at present the situation seems to be that half the Congress is banded against Mr. Gandhi. If the Government accepted the proposal of the Leader of the Opposition they would be in the absurd position of opening negotiations

    1577
    with a man who is at the present moment the greatest obstacle to peace. In any case, these negotiations with Mr. Gandhi have already been tried once. Who broke the pact of 1931? It was not the British Government, but Mr. Gandhi. It was not the Government who fired the first shot, it was Mr. Gandhi, and really he must bear a great measure of responsibility for what has happened since. Not that, I in any sense question the wisdom of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact at that moment in Indian history.
    I think that Lord Willingdon's policy is often contrasted unfairly with that of Lord Irwin. The one could not have succeeded without the other. It was a very different civil disobedience movement that Lord Irwin had to face in 1931—very different. I happened to be in India at the time. The European community were living almost under siege conditions. Two or three times a week the leading business men had to leave their businesses to act as special con-tables, there were riots and bloodshed everywhere. If I may use a seasonable metaphor, it was bodyline bowling of the most vicious character that Lord Irwin had to face, and it was Lord Irwin who, by his efficient batting, took the sting out of that bowling and prepared a comparatively easy wicket for Lord Willing-don. In other words, Lord Willingdon could not have succeeded with his resolute Government if India as a whole had not realised that Lord Irwin had gone to the full limit of conciliation. It is vital that we should realise that fact. There is no support in India for making the present position permanent. Resolute government can obviously be no alternative to self-government, and that is why it is so important that we should do our utmost to detach the best elements of Congress.
    There is, I think, some misunderstanding here as to the nature of Congress. It does not consist merely of irresponsible revolutionaries. It contains in its ranks some of the best element of young India—ardent, full of sacrifice, ready to serve. The Constitution that does not secure their co-operation will be doomed from the start. By that I do not mean necessarily the actual co-operation of the Congress party. It is at least arguable that the Congress party has outlived its usefulness. It was a propagandist body. The Labour party in this country soon
    1578
    discovered when they came into office that it was impossible to run the State with the methods and the mentality of the Independent Labour party. The personnel of the Congress is a different thing. I regard it as most important that they should be given every encouragement to foresake their old allegiance, and to come in and work the new constitution. How can that be done? I suggest, not by long-negotiated pacts with a man who now, apparently, has reverted to extremism, and on that very subject is at variance with the majority of his followers. In the name of common sense why should we prop up the declining prestige of Mr. Gandhi at the expense of men who worked from the start by our side in producing the new constitution?
    I fully agree with the right hon. Gentleman in all that he said about social conditions in India. The poverty of the country is appalling. It is terrible to realise that there are something like 200,000,000 people in India who never have more than one meal a day, and there is something in the charge that could be brought against our rule in India, that we have been too much concerned with being policemen and not enough with being social reformers, even when you take into consideration irrigation, railway work, and so on, that have been carried out. We cannot entirely blame ourselves for what has happened. We have not had much co-operation from the Indians in the direction of social reform. They have been more engaged in political agitation than in social reform. I remember a lady telling me in Delhi—she was engaged in baby-welfare work—that she had lost all her workers because all the people who used to come and help her were now engaged on political agitation for the Congress. We hope that that situation is now over, and that there will be, when self-government is formed, the necessary driving force that comes from public opinion to make a better India, not merely for the politicians, but for the peasants.
    5.33 p.m.
    Mr. MAXTON: Anything that I have to say is not dissimilar from what was said by the Leader of the Opposition. I was brought to my feet by an interruption made by the Secretary of State for India, during the speech of the Leader

    1579
    of the Opposition, wherein he suggested that there was something improper in raising the question of the Meerut prisoners while their case was the subject of appeal. That reminded me of a document which came into my hands this week, and which I was proposing to raise with the right hon. Gentleman, through ordinary correspondence, but when I found him so touchy on the question of discussing the Meerut prisoners while their case was under appeal, I felt that it would be quite appropriate for me to raise the matter publicly in Committee.
    I have here, sent to me from India, a copy of an official publication called "The Review of the Week." I do not know its exact status. It is published from Lucknow, and is dated 26th April, 1933. It bears the imprint of the Assistant-Superintendent in charge of the Government Branch Press, Lucknow, and it deals with various Governmental activities. It talks about rural uplift in various districts, and general uplift. presumably as distinct from rural uplift. It contains extracts from speeches in the Press, and suggestions for promoting education in rural areas. One of these suggestions that interested me, as an ex-teacher, was where it said that the teacher's chair should be inexpensive, and that it is not absolutely necessary that he should have a chair and a table, because, in their surroundings, those pieces of furniture looked incongruous. "A rope is another necessary article for the school"—and so on, pleasant little bits of information like that. In the middle of all this is a paragraph headed "Communique," and it gives a complete account of the sentences imposed on the Meerut prisoners. It says that they were convicted of a conspiracy to deprive the King Emperor of his sovereignty of British India. That is not unlike the charge which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) has made against the policy of His Majesty's Government, because, pursued to its logical conclusion, it would deprive the King Emperor of his sovereignty in India.
    Right at the end of this paragraph of details about the Meerut trial and sentences, is thrown in, in black print, in this Government publication, while these men's cases are awaiting appeal, and without any interruption of the
    1580
    general purport of the paragraph, these words:
    "The following are the figures of the persons exiled or hanged by the Soviet Government in Russia from 1917 to 1930."
    The hon. Member for North Bristol (Mr. Bernays) talked about body-line bowling, or something of that sort; surely it is not the thing that, while the cases of these men are the subject of appeal, public prejudice should be aroused in a Government publication circulated through the community. The matter was taken up on the spot, and the responsible official has said that it was a typographical error that that particular matter had slipped into that particular place. These men have undergone a terrible trial lasting for four years, and they are living with sentences of from four years to 15 years hanging over them. They are preparing their appeals for submission to a higher court. To start making their position more difficult still by deliberate propaganda of this description seems to be more like the things that we deplore in Germany to-day than the characteristics that we are wont to attribute to British justice, or even to British sportsmanship.
    I back up the appeal of the Leader of the Opposition that the Minister should alter his attitude now, after the expiration of all this time and after the men have already suffered very heavy penalties—one of their number having died during the course of the ordeal—on a charge which might be levelled against any person who is in opposition to the Government in power, if, added to the ordinary political opposition, there is an intention in the propaganda to bring about fundamental social changes. That is not limited to political agitators in India. For a Government to treat these men as criminals and convicts of the worst type is a degradation of the whole of humanity in the period in which we are living. The right hon. Gentleman has paid tribute to the Viceroy for the state of peace that exists in India as compared with conditions two or three years ago, and he has had the full support of the hon. Member for North Bristol, who, I suppose, is the official spokesman to-day for the Liberal party. I do not understand this particular phase of modern Liberalism. It becomes more difficult to understand every day that

    1581
    passes. When a Liberal spokesman gets up in this Committee and approves of the suppression of free speech—
    Mr. BERNAYS: On a, point of Order. May I ask the hon. Gentleman in what passage of my speech did I approve the suppression of free speech?
    HON. MEMBERS: In all of them.
    Mr. MAXTON: Is it unfair—if it is unfair I will withdraw—to say that when the hon. Member pays tribute to the position in India to-day, compared to what it was two or three years ago, when that position has been achieved by the suppression of political parties, the imprisonment of leaders and the shutting down of free propaganda in Indian home-rule, he is giving approval to the suppression of free speech in political life? I cannot see that that is unfair.
    Mr. BERNAYS: Will the hon. Member be kind enough to be corrected by me. He does not make a distinction between free speech that is an incitement to violence and free speech that is not. What has been suppressed is the free speech that is a direct incitement to violence, precisely as it would be here.
    Mr. MAXTON: I still fail to recognise that as Liberalism. I see, sitting in an obscure position on the Front Opposition Bench, the Leader of the Liberal party. In his palmy days, long before he was Prime Minister and when he was a great agitator, in the days of Limehouse and so on, the description that the hon. Gentleman gives to agitation in India is exactly the description that the Conservative party gave to the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). He was inciting to sedition and revolution, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) was one of his lieutenants.
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The hon. Gentleman has no right to suggest that I incited to sedition and revolution.
    The CHAIRMAN: We are now getting a long way from the Vote.
    Mr. MAXTON: I do not think I had got very far away, but there are right hen. Members of the House who are touchy about their past. I was not trying to be offensive to either the one or the other; I was paying them the highest tribute that I can pay to Members of
    1582
    the House, because I think a lot more of the agitator than I think of the statesman.
    Mr. CHURCHILL: That is only too obvious.
    Mr. MAXTON: I only wish that the two right hon. Gentlemen could resume the role of agitator. It may be true that neither the one nor the other ever overstepped what they regarded as the limit, but Governments who watched them doing it believed that they were over the limit. I do not believe that you can make the qualifications about liberty that the Lion. Member tries to make—
    Mr. BERNAYS: May I ask the hon. Gentleman what is the difference between the way in which the present Government are handling the Indian situation and the way in which the Labour Government handled it?
    Mr. MAXTON: That brings me to another point of the hon. Member's speech. He must not try to make me responsible for the actions of the late Labour Government. He knows that my present position in the House of Commons is due to the fact that I did not approve of and support the policy of the late Labour Government. He said himself, further, that it was in the early months of their period of responsibility that they discovered that they could not govern in this country on the principles of the Independent Labour party, and so they prepared to govern on the principles laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) and those who sat below the Gangway in those days—with the results that are upon the nation now.
    Mr. BERNAYS: Why did they not resign
    Mr. MAXTON: I think they did not resign for the same reason that the present Government do not resign. They lived on in the hope that they would have some stroke of luck. Every Government is like that, as the hon. Member will realise more and more the longer he is in the House. When a Government gets into office it remains in office for two reasons. One is that it believes that the alternatives to it are too horrible to contemplate and the other is that it thinks that, if it just allows time

    1583
    to pass, things are bound to get better. In the case of the late Labour Government, things got worse. At the moment, the Government are having one or two little strokes of luck. There is a slight boom in trade, and they are allowing themselves to be led away by the belief that we are in a new era of prosperity. They know that it has come upon the world, just as the economic blizzard came upon the world, as an ad of God, but, if that prosperity should continue, they will naturally take credit to themselves for having achieved it. It is however, a temporary thing.
    That is exactly what the Labour Government thought. In Indian policy, as far as I see it, there will certainly be no substantial difference between the last Conservative Government, of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping was a Member, the Labour Government which followed it, and the National Government which is now in power. The point to be noticed here is this: You may have squashed the principal voices calling for national independence in India; you may have hammered into acquiescence the beginnings of a working-class movement demanding relief from their poverty; but does any intelligent person in this Committee believe that, at this time in the world's history, you have destroyed the desire for national independence in the heart of the Indian people, or that you have crushed the desire among the common people of India for relief from their poverty and for a better social order'? Those two things are there in the minds of the people of India. You can suppress, you can imprison, you can issue your ordinances, you can govern strongly; but you cannot crush that national desire in the minds of the Indian people, and you cannot crush the development of a working-class movement which is insistent that there shall be new economic orders and new social orders in the future differing in a revolutionary way from those under which people have lived in the past. Mere suppression, mere bullying and imprisonment, are not essentially different from the terrible example we have been seeing in Germany in the last months. The attempt to rule by crushing the voices of your political critics does not solve one single essential prob-
    1584
    lem. The problems still remain to be solved, and will remain to be soved.
    I thought there was something pathetic in the Secretary of State's review of what has been done during recent years in the way of the economic development of India. It was a pitiful token, when, as the Leader of the Opposition said, you have there a country as big as Europe, leaving out Russia, a population of hundreds of millions, a fertile soil, a good climate, great national resources, and, after hundreds of years of British occupation, you can point to no real development of the wealth production of the country that is going to give to the people of India more than a starvation level of existence. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, while he made his speech to soothe the consciences of the Committee, will not allow his own conscience to be soothed, but will go to his task at the India Office determined that while he is there some serious attempt will be made to show the Indian people that British rule in India has not been a mere tyranny of an exploiting nation over an exploited nation, that we have not gone there merely for treasure for ourselves.
    I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on one thing, and with this I close. I congratulate him on having come to the House of Commons to present his own Estimates. It has been rather unusual in recent times with Members of the Cabinet; they have usually passed it on to the Under-Secretary. No one here will deny to the Secretary of State for India the credit of having appeared here himself and stated his case. I, for one, hope that, should he remain in that position, and the present Government remain in office until this time next year, on that occasion, when we are discussing the Estimates for India, there will be something better to record, both politically and economically, than it has been possible to put before us to-day.
    5.55 p.m.
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I am sure that, however we may differ about India, the vast majority of Members in the House, wherever they sit, will feel how frightfully out of balance has been the summing up of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) on the British contribution to Indian progress. When I listened to those impressively uttered

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    sentences, which did not seem to me to form at any point the remotest contact with reality or truth, delivered in that charming manner which always impresses the House, I could not help feeling how difficult must be the task which lies before any British Government who are endeavouring to convince people who hold the hon. Member's views of the merits of their administration and of the value of their mission in the East. The hon. Member spoke as if nothing but exploitation and tyranny had been the characteristics of British rule, and as if there was nothing to show for it except, as I gathered, the canals and so forth of which the Secretary of State spoke today. But in 50 years 100,000,000 more people have come into being in India. It may well be, as I said to the House on another occasion, that it would have been better had fewer new people come into being, and if a greater measure of subsistence had been possible for the great mass of the people than has been, so far, within our power to achieve; but no one can possibly say that a country whose population has increased by almost two-thirds in quite a short time is a country in which there is an undue pressure by an alien Government upon the updraught of national life.
    I do not rise to follow the hon. Member in his remarks, but, in the few words which I shall venture to address to the Committee, to congratulate the Secretary of State and His Majesty's Government upon the very satisfactory administrative tale which they have to tell. The right hon. Gentleman told us of progress of every kind in the last two years in India. That was most gratifying to Members of every party, and all that I can venture to say is that it seems that the progress which he has described marks, according to his statement, the arrival of a British Government in India, not by any means at its goal, but at a very satisfactory resting place at the present time. Most of all was his speech satisfactory when he spoke of the improvement in law and order. He not only told us how there was a great diminution in the number of persons in gaol for civil disobedience, but the most satisfactory point of all was the very distinct measure of assistance given to the Government by Indians themselves in the passing of legislation to avoid the
    1586
    necessity for the re-enactment of the special ordinances. All that was satisfactory, and no one could deny to the right hon. Gentleman the great credit which is due to him and to Lord Willingdon for the reconstruction work in social order which they have achieved without bloodshed and without any violent commotion or tumults, but simply by firm and patient administration of the law.
    But what a contrast this procedure has been to the policy of the late Government! The hon. Member behind me made a desperately far-fetched effort to make out that they were both parts of one tremendous whole. I cannot see any contrast greater than the contrast between the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and the answer which the right hon. Gentleman read out with justifiable pride which the present Viceroy has sent to Mr. Gandhi. It is impossible to place in juxtaposition that Treaty which was negotiated only two years ago and the answer which Lord Willingdon has so properly sent to Mr. Gandhi on this occasion, and of which the House, I gather, almost unanimously approves, except for the Socialist party, without seeing that, here you have a contrast as vivid and as absolute as the contrast between oil and vinegar, or black-and white. There has been a great change. That is the point which I desire particularly to impress on the Committee. When more than two years ago I and others criticised very strongly the policy of the Socialist Government, it was not only upon the constitutional issue on which they had embarked that we dissented. It was as much, in some ways even more, upon the administrative weakness which was throwing India into disorder. We all remember that there were horrible events at Cawnpore, there was the occasion at Lahore when the British flag was torn down and solemnly burned by the India Congress, and there was the disobedience campaign of Mr. Gandhi. All these processes were accompanied by continued degeneration of law and order throughout India, causing the utmost anxiety, more particularly as this process of immediate administrative degeneration was accompanied by what looked like a veritable landslide in the constitutional sphere.
    At any rate, in the administrative sphere the right hon. Gentleman has com-

    1587
    pletely reversed the policy of the late Government. Instead of inviting Mr. Gandhi to negotiate a sort of treaty with the Government of the King Emperor, he has been refused access until he places himself within the law. That process redounds enormously to the credit of the administration. What is the use of pretending that there has not been a great change, and what would be my justification if, having seen that great change made in the direction that I urged, I should sit silent and not get up and offer my congratulations, unwelcome though I have no doubt they will be to my right hon. Friend, for having taken the advice that I offered two years ago, for having digested the reproof that I administered two years ago to his predecessor and for having accomplished this great task—this is a most important point—without any serious or horrible incidents such as may easily occur in collisions between the police or the troops and the people. Where are all those tales that we used to hear of it being impossible to reestablish order or deal with Mr. Gandhi and the Congress movement without sending out a division of troops from home—without terrible events on the spot? When we suggested to Mr. Wedgwood Benn that law and order should be maintained, that you should not make treaties with law-breakers, and so forth, when it was suggested that you would have to suppress this Congress movement of civil disobedience, the answer was that it was easy to use machine guns and artillery, but horrible massacres would be perpetrated upon the helpless civil and working-class population. There was no truth in all that. All these were defeatist tales of weakness and falsehood to lead us to take decisions which were not warranted on the merits and were not justified upon the facts. All that has been completely exploded, not by any arguments that any of us delivered but by two years of administrative achievement, the effects of which are now before us and are indisputable. It is simply straightforward, firm administration of law and order, the avoidance of bargains struck between the Viceroy and a man in quasi revolt which have been sufficient to change the entire picture of India from the melancholy, formidable and lamentable state which it presented two and
    1588
    a-half years ago, to the extremely satisfactory condition—I hope not too optimistically stated—which the Secretary of State has laid before is to-day.
    What of this talk about the present Central Government of India being an organism so inefficient that it had to be changed for something quite different? We have been told again and again that the present system is a very bad one, and that the Central Government is very inconvenient and must be replaced by something better. Here you had the most difficult situation you could possibly have. You had the country thrown into great disorder by the weakness of administration of Mr. Wedgwood Benn and, I am sorry to say, the late Viceroy. You had at the same time an important constitutional change bruited about everywhere and pushed forward. You could hardly have a more difficult situation in which to restore order without bloodshed, but it has been done. This despised Central Government machine, which we are told is so bad that it must. be swept away, has proved an effective engine smoothly and easily to change the whole situation and to re-establish a perfectly satisfactory condition of affairs. I am entitled to draw this moral from my right hon. Friend's speech. He has enormously improved the situation and swept away many of the evils. He has done it without any of the disasters that were foretold. He has done it with the existing machinery of Central Indian Government, and he has done it by adopting methods pressed upon his predecessor by many of those to whom in other aspects of the Indian constitutional question he finds himself opposed. [Interruption.] I never said so. I draw my own moral.
    But I should not like the Secretary of State's speech to go out to the world as if it was a proof that the policy that the Government have been pursuing is the same policy as that of the late Socialist Government. It is the opposite policy, and it has been completely successful. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman is premature in interrupting me. In administration it is the opposite policy. In the constitutional sphere, which we are not allowed to touch upon, it is the same. My argument will presently be, having had this success in reversing the policy of the late Government in the administrative sphere, why do yourselves

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    out of the possibility of an equal advantage if you reverse it in the constitutional sphere? I say it is an entirely different policy. It is within the rights of my right hon. Friend, and it is essential to the argumentative position of the Government, to contend that this great o improvement has not been effected by the forces of repression—has not been effected by locking up 60,000 people, that these events have merely been administrative incidentals, and that the real thing that has pacified India has been the hope held out of the great constitutional changes embodied in the White Paper policy. No one can decide about that. It is a matter of assertion and counter-assertion. The right hon. Gentleman quotes some anonymous civil servant or someone, not improperly at all, in his support to show that this peaceful condition which is being re--established is due to the hopes of the Indians that their national aspirations will be realised, or words to that effect. He is entitled to say that, and to say what a great help it has been in restoring order to have this constitutional discussion going on in the meanwhile; but it is equally open to those who disagree with him to argue that his achievement is all the greater because, in spite of the extremely disturbing and subversive suggestions which have been continually made about the departure of the British Raj from India, and all the lcose and vain talk that has been indulged in upon that matter, and all the hopes which have been roused, many of which are not going to be fulfilled, he has been able to restore peace and order without any serious difficulty.
    There are the two views. No one can say which is proved right to-day. We shall see. But, arguing from the experience of the past, I would most solemnly urge that, just as he profited so much in the administrative sphere by taking the advice that we tendered to him and to his predecessor so, if he follows the same path in constitutional reform, he may reap another harvest. It is in my opinion a very dangerous and sinister fact that the right hon. Gentleman and the Government, and those who support the present constitutional proposals, should use the well-earned credit that they have gained by pursuing a policy of one kind in the administrative sphere in order to gain confidence for a departure of a totally different kind in the constitutional sphere.
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    If the right hon. Gentleman had followed the policy of Mr. Wedgwood Benn, if Lord Willingdon had followed the policy of Lord Irwin, I have not the slightest doubt that this great Conservative majority in the House of Commons would have brought the policy to a standstill. But he has confronted Parliament; he has confronted the country with great administrative success, and then he misuses it by a perversion of the real facts. He has misused all the prestige he has got by this action in order to urge us on to courses which are totally different in spirit and which, if carried into effect, would rob him and rob his successor by the very means by which he has succeeded.
    I have no more to say except this. The fact that order and peace have been restored in India is no ground for abandoning constitutional reform in India. On the contrary, it liberates the cause of constitutional reform from the hideous danger with which it was intermingled in the time of the late administration. Never has there been a more favourable opportunity for proposals for constitutional improvement and reforms in India since law and order have been restored by considered, sober and sedate methods. Certainly we must persevere in that course. Those who are represented as diehards and obstructives in this matter simply because they rest themselves in the main upon the reports brought to this House by the Statutory Commission, do not in any way draw from the re-establishment of piece and order in India the conclusion that nothing should he done and that no forward movement should be made. No, the conclusion which I would draw from it, with all the modesty I can, is, just as we have been right on the question of the method of dealing with disorder in India, so the wise and prudent limits which we assign to constitutional progress at the present time, will mark the best path which the right hon. Gentleman can follow in his future conduct of Indian affairs.
    6.17 p.m.
    Mr. HALES: I welcome the opportunity of addressing the Committee on the eve of my departure for India, and no doubt the subject of conversations with the leaders of public opinion will be the progress of the' White Paper. There seems to be an impression which

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    is almost universal that the White Paper policy which is now being put through is that for which India is asking and will be accepted with the greatest satisfaction. That is not so. It may also astonish the Committee to know that the criticisms of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) are mild in comparison with those which emanate from all sides in India. The Secretary of State for India is looked upon as a gentleman who intends at all costs to prevent the nationalisation of India and who by the communal award is to set up what are practically watertight compartments so that there can be no nationalism in the true sense of the word for many years to come. During my visit to India last year, when I stayed five months and travelled all over the country, that view was expressed by everyone with whom I came in contact.
    Various speakers have referred to the question of the giving up of civil disobedience and taking from that the idea that it is a sign of weakness. That is not the fact. Congress to-day is thinking of the question of whether a negative policy of non-co-operation and civil disobedience is advisable, or whether it should drop that negative policy and adopt one of a, more positive kind and capture the legislatures. Although Congress cannot be said to represent the whole of India, we must not forget that it is the only organised body in India which is really efficient and effective. No matter what Government there is in England, whether Liberal, Labour, Conservative, National or whatever it is which has to deal with the matter, it cannot neglect or ignore the Congress if any stable Government in India is to be satisfactory. We have in the White Paper a number of safeguards.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Captain Bourne): I must point out to the hon. Member that he must not discuss the details of the White Paper, because they require legislation and should not be discussed in Committee of Supply.
    Mr. HALES: It would be interesting for the Committee to know the opinions of the leading Indians from information which I have received in the last few days. Mr. Jayakar, one of the leading Liberals in India, says:
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    "It seems to me that all the undesirable features of the result of the Round Table Conference have been repeated in the White Paper, and nearly all the suggestions made by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and myself to the Secretary of State are to he found in the document."
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is now trying to introduce by a side wind what I ruled that he must not do, and that is discuss the details of the White Paper.
    Mr. HALES: I was wishing, is possible, to put forward the Indian point of view, so as to give the Committee my impression of the prevailing opinion in India to-day. The view in India of what would be satisfactory is that much more rapid progress should be made in the control which the Indians desire in the immediate future. Yesterday Dr. B. S. Moonje, the working President of the Hindu Mahasaba, came to see me on the subject of the Army. He suggested that within a limit of at least 30 years the whole Indian Army must be within Indian control. That is only one instance—and I could mention many more—of what the Indians desire, and indeed demand. There is one aspect of this problem which seems to have received very little attention, and that is the question of Burma. As the Committee well know, a poll was taken as to whether Burma should come into the Federation or remain outside. It was a great surprise to many people when it was found that by no less a majority than three to one Burma decided to remain within the Indian Federation. Although every arrangement had been made for the separation of Burma the Government. are now confronted with the fact that it is entirely opposed by the vast majority of the Burmese people. One sees there conditions which are totally different from those of India. The cost of living is very much higher, and the result is that a great amount of Indian labour is imported annually so that costs can be kept down in many of the industries.
    I would draw the attention of the Committee to a fact which is very rarely thought about in this country. We are attempting at a distance of 6,000 miles to come into close contact with the people of India. I feel sure that a visit, extending for months if necessary on the part of our leaders here in order to come into contact and daily conversation with the

    1593
    various leaders in India would result in the rapid working out of a constitution which will be satisfactory to all concerned. There is at the present time a very great desire in India for a settlement of this vexed question. On all hands, especially among the trading community, the wish is expressed that India should have her rights, at the same time preserving to a very large extent the control of Britain. That was the almost universal expression of the leaders with whom I came in contact last year. It is a pity that some means cannot be found of getting into close contact. Whether or not it is possible for the Viceroy to see Mr. Gandhi, surely there are means of sounding opinions on the other side to see whether some via media could not be found which would bring about the much-desired solution. As representing many commercial interests in this country and for the last 16 years travelling continuously in India the volume of trade between the two countries is the criterion by which the opinion of Indians may be gauged. We are India's best customer and she is ours, and it would be almost criminal if civilised intelligent men could not in this twentieth century devise some means of bringing about a satisfactory settlement to which all could subscribe.
    I shall be leaving for India next week in the hope that at least I can do my little bit to assure the Indian people, that although a National Government is in power it is anxious to bring about a settlement. There is very good feeling in India towards England. On all hands it comes out when least expected I ask the Committee to do everything possible to try to bring about a much-desired solution of this great problem, so that within a very few months such a condition of affairs may be achieved that once and for all there may be a, thorough understanding between England and India to the mutual advantage of both countries.
    6.28 p.m.
    Mr. CHARLES BROWN: During the last four years I have listened to many Debates in this House, on the subject of India, and I have never before ventured to take part in any of them, but I do not offer any apology for doing so this afternoon. The question of India is a fascinating subject to anyone who takes a wide and general interest in human affairs. The people of India, their religions,
    1594
    philosophies, customs and habits of life are all of absorbing interest, to those who are interested in the various groups of mankind as they strive to work out their destiny, and it is obvious from what has been said in this House from time to time, that the human factor of western civilisation on India has resulted in cultural and industrial changes Which are far-reaching in their character and significance.
    I wish to make reference to some of those social and economic questions which the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India told us now loom very much larger as subjects for discussion and concern in India than the political and constitutional issues which have been debated recently. I do not know whether I shall carry the Committee with me in general agreement when I say that the day is past when we should merely look upon India as a land where there are opportunities for the investment of capital, where there is any amount of cheap labour available which can be very easily exploited or a place where one can find careers for the sons of the upper middle and professional classes from this country. We have gone beyond the time when we look upon India in that way, and I hope the Committee will take the same point of view.
    The Secretary of State was justified in contrasting the situation as it exists to-day with the situation of a year ago. He more or less congratulated himself on the change that has taken place during his term of office. On the other hand, the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) was justified in pointing out that the policy which he has advocated, having more or less been adopted has, on the surface, achieved results which, he said, would be likely to accrue from his policy, if that policy were put into operation in the sphere of administration. The right hon. Member for Epping was right in stressing that point. I do not know whether the Secretary of State regards what has taken place during the last 12 months as resulting from the policy for which the right hon. Member for Epping stands, but the right hon. Member for Epping was certainly entitled to make that point.
    The Secretary of State referred to other matters of great importance, such as health, the weather and crop prospects. He told the Committee that in the sphere of health administration we

    1595
    have a very fine record in India. I do not want to dissent very strongly from what he said on that point. Our record might very well have been much better than it is. There is a great deal that we could have done that we have left undone. The right hon. Gentleman went out of his way to create the impression that we were benevolent rulers at work in that great country, doing everything we possibly could to lift the people from low standards of life to higher levels, and that no stone was being left unturned to accomplish that object. I do not know that I quite agree with him about that, but I will not pursue that point further in this part of my speech.
    Dealing with the subject of crops, he referred to the fall in agricultural prices and the economic difficulties that had been created for the agricultural population of India on account of that fall. He told us of the difficulty of raising the land revenues, consequent upon that fall in prices and gave us an instance in the United Provinces, where he referred to crores of rupees. If I am right in my estimate of the value of a crore of rupees, it is worth £750,000. He said that the landlords had been persuaded to reduce rents to the extent of £3,000,000 in the United Provinces. While he was making that point, I could not help feeling that the Government might try to bring similar influence to bear upon the landlords in this country. It seems to me that the landlords in India can easily be persuaded to do certain things, if we take the right hon. Gentleman's statement at its face value.
    I have been looking into some reports in regard to the conditions in India. While the right hon. Gentleman was right in reminding us of the things that have been done, I am going to speak of things that we have not done and which we might have done. Many reports published concerning India, written as they are from certain standpoints, stress what has been done by British administration in that country. The increase in population has been referred to by the right hon. Member for Epping. He regarded that increase of population as a tribute to British administration in India. If it had not been for British administration, as he led us to infer, there might not have been that huge increase in population. During the last 10 years 34,000,000
    1596
    have been added to the population of India. It is interesting to note in some of the reports the attempts that are made to apply scientific knowledge of the Western world to certain matters that need attention in India.
    Because of certain interests of my own, I am particularly concerned with some of these subjects. There is the question of improving agriculture by experiments in plant-breeding of various kinds, which are being carried on with beneficial results. In regard to rice, millet, wheat and tobacco experiments in regard to plants are being carried out with the idea of augmenting the Indian crops of these commodities. I read that statement with a great deal of interest, but as long as the existing social order or the existing economic system remains, it does not seem to me that very great benefit will accrue to the great mass of the people there from what is being done in that connection. Steps are being taken in regard to controlling pests, and also in animal husbandry.
    Certain industrial experiments have taken place with the idea of establishing new industries in India. In a recent report it was stated that the importation of paper into India is likely to be checked by Vile development of the paper industry in India. When reading a paragraph like that, one cannot help wondering what is going to be the reaction of a process of this description being established in India. It is likely to have adverse effects on similar industries elsewhere which even now cannot find markets for their goods. I read in one report that the curtailment of the production of turpentine in America had stimulated the production of turpentine in India. When I pursued the matter a little further I found that the curtailment of the production of turpentine in America had been due to the abnormal fall in price, and that the fall in the price of turpentine in America had stimulated the production of turpentine in India. I do not see how these two processes going on in different countries are in any way mutually complementary. They are mutually antagonistic, and in the end they cannot result in any benefit to either country concerned.
    The right hon. Gentleman was right in calling our attention to what has been done in regard to irrigation. He sought to create the impression that most of this

    1597
    is being done almost from a humanitarian and philanthropic motive; that we were there with the benevolent idea of helping the Indians. Let us take the question of irrigation. In a chapter in a recent report where the question of the increasing area brought under irrigation was described, we were told that the return on the capital invested in irrigation schemes brings a safe 5 per cent. That is not an exorbitant rate of interest, but it rules out any idea that this is merely being done for philanthropic, benevolent and humanitarian reasons. It is being done because in those areas, in the circumstances which exist, we find profitable sources of investment for capital which cannot be used elsewhere.
    I am quoting from a report on The Moral and Material Progress of India, for 1930–31. That report goes on to tell us that, there may be legitimately described as industrial workers in India somewhere in the region of 20,000,000. Those people are engaged in factories and transport. India is now classified by the League of Nations as one of the eight most important industrial countries in the world. The report goes on to say:
    "Admittedly, the state of the labouring classes in the large industrial towns, such as Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Rangoon, Cawnpore, is in many ways unsatisfactory. There is yet a vast amount to be done in such matters as the provision of medical facilities, proper sanitary arrangements, workmen's insurance, etc."
    There are other remarks about the working of the Factory Acts in India. The report also states that the number of factories has increased from 7,863 to 8,129, and that the factory population is 1,553,000, of whom more than 250,000 are women. It is evident that the process of industrialisation is going on relatively rapidly in India and that inevitably will create in India a new series of problems, which always arise when an industrial civilisation is superimposed upon an agricultural civilisation. There have been certain tentative attempts to deal with the new situation. An Indian Trade Union Act was passed in 1926. That Act grants privileges to and places liabilities upon registered trade unions. The liabilities of the unions are that they must frame and supply copies of rules and that there roust be audited accounts. The executive of the unions must have 50 per cent. of people on them whose members are actually engaged in the industry con-
    1598
    cerned, and the unions must confine expenditure to certain specified objects. In return the officers and members obtain protection from liability for breaches of contract in connection with acts done in furtherance of a trade dispute.
    This is a point I want to put to the Secretary of State. There seems a strong disinclination on the part of the employing classes in India to recognise the trade unions, although they are now legal institutions. The provision that the union executive shall consist of 50 per cent. of members actually engaged in the industry with which the union deals is important when you find that in cases where there has been an industrial dispute the members of the executive of the particular union working in that factory have been instantly dismissed because they are members of the executive of the union. I want to ask the Secretary of State whether, in spite of the passing of the Trade Union Act, 1926, there is any disposition on the part of employers to recognise the trade unions which have been formed? As a corollary to that Act there was passed the Trade Disputes Act, 1929, which sets up courts of inquiry and conciliation boards, but the awards of the conciliation boards are not binding on the parties concerned. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether these conciliation boards are working, and, if so, with what result?
    In India, as in any other country, where there is industrialisation, strikes are a, characteristic feature of industrial life. In 1930 there were 148 strikes in India involving about 196,000 men. I shall he told that there were fewer strikes in 1930. That is perfectly true, but they did not involve a, fewer number of persons. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman to tell us whether any real effort is being made to settle disputes through the Trade Disputes Act, 1929 Now I turn to the question of hours and labour. The recognised hours of labour in India are 60 per week. A good deal has been said recently about reductions in the hours of labour. President Roosevelt is saying something about it, and there is a discussion in certain industrial countries about a 40-hour week. The Royal Commission on Labour in India, which reported in 1931, recommended the establishment of a 50-hour week. I want to know whether steps have been taken to implement that re-

    1599
    commendation. In that report I find this passage in connection with the jute mills association:
    "The restriction under the Factories Act to a 60-hour week has undoubtedly been very beneficial to labour. Workers have more leisure, especially at week-ends, and general efficiency has considerably increased. The restriction has had little or no effect on the jute industry, the increase in the efficiency of the workers making up for the restriction of working hours."
    That statement corroborates the experience of all industrial countries where long working hours have been steadily reduced. The reduction of working hours has increased the efficiency of the workers and, probably what is more important to hon. Members, has not seriously damaged the interests of the employers. But, as the process of industrialisation proceeds in India, the productions of India will come increasingly into competition with goods manufactured in this country and in other parts of the British Empire, and it might be that the long working hours, the worst conditions, the lower standards of life in India, as it becomes increasingly industrialised, will imperil the standards of life of the workers in this country. It may imperil the standards of life of the cotton operatives in Lancashire and, therefore, I want the Secretary of State to tell us whether there is anything afoot in India to reduce the length of the working day. That is one of the most effective methods of raising the standards of life of the working classes. We know what has been the effect on the workers of shortening the working day in other parts of the world.
    Let me call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to one or two matters in regard to wages. Industry in India does not appear to remain located in one place; it tends to move to areas where labour is cheaper than in the area where it was first established. You may establish an industry in a locality and the pressure of public opinion may lead to the standards of life of the workers being gradually raised. But India furnishes an almost unlimited supply of cheap labour and, consequently, if you get stable political conditions there will be a tendency for capital to be invested. The textile industry which has been located in the vicinity of Bombay now shows a tendency to move to Southern India. And look
    1600
    at the wages which are being paid in Southern India! Women workers are in receipt of wages from 15s. to 24s. a month. I want to impress that upon hon. Members. Men workers get from 20s. to 30s. per month. We just understand that this process is calculated, in regard to certain industries, to undermine the standards of workers in our own country. A weaver in Bombay with two looms was receiving from 65s. to 80s. per month. In the new mills in Southern India a weaver working four looms is receiving 35s. per month. This tendency of industry to move from a locality where pressure of public opinion and organisation has raised the standards of life and wages, to other localities where cheaper labour is available, has meant a good deal of demoralisation of the original workers, and also the demoralisation of the new batch of workers who are taken on.
    There is another matter referred to in the Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India—the money-lending system. I confess that until I read the report I did not know very much about it, but chapter 13 of that report reveals an appalling state of affairs—appalling to me, at any rate. Let me quote one passage:
    "We are satisfied that the majority of the industrial workers are in debt for the greater part of their working lives. Seventy-five per cent. per annum is a common rate of interest. The basis of the rate of interest is one anna per rupee per month, and rates of interest are reported as high as 225 per cent."
    But how are these industrial workers recruited? India is an agricultural country, and they come from the rural districts to the towns. They have to borrow their railway fare to get to the place where they hope to get employment, and they have to pay a jobber to get them a job in the mill. Then, under the system of paying wages which operates in India, they do not get any for the first six weeks. Wages are paid monthly, but not at the end of the month; it is sometimes a fortnight after the end of the month. So that these people go into industry with this burden of borrowed money for railway fare, paying somebody in the mill to get them a job, and then having to live for six weeks on credit before they receive any wages at all. It is an atrocious system, and we are entitled to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman has considered this economic

    1601
    question. In his speech he stressed the point that the political issues had faded into the background, that civil disobedience does not now occupy the public mind, and that it was questions dealing with social and economic problems which were being discussed. In that case will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what is being done in regard to this social and economic question? He took pride also that he had almost restored law and order. I hope he will take a little pride in trying to remedy some of the social and economic abuses which exist. The Royal Commission, on the question of money-lending, recommended:
    "The recovery of any amount advanced to meet travelling expenses should be made illegal, and other advances to workers before actual employment, begins should be irrecoverable in the courts."
    Has anything been done to implement these two recommendations? The report also says:
    "Employers should adopt a weekly system of payment."
    Has anything been done in that connection? Have the Government any schemes in mind for the establishment of co-operative banks with a view of eliminating the moneylender from the Indian economic system? As the right hon. Gentleman has restored law and order, cannot he turn his attention to these social and economic questions? If his success in one direction is as pronounced as he claims it to be, we may hope that he will be equally successful when he turns his attention to these other matters.
    It may seem somewhat ridiculous to talk about unemployment in regard to India, but I wish to say a few words about it. I know that there are no statistics available on which one can base firmly any point one puts forward. We have been assured that the system which prevails is more or less as follows: The agricultural workers go in and out of industry. They work for some time in the factories and then, as there is no pension or insurance system, they return to their villages, having meanwhile lost their contact with the land. They go back after a spell of work and, perhaps not, having earned enough money to pay off all their debts, they have to be maintained by their families and relatives in the villages to which they return. I do not know if
    1602
    the Government borrowed the idea of the means test from India, but the method now employed in this country is very similar to what happens in India. The industrial workers, no longer wanted in industry have to be maintained by their families and relatives. I do not know if it is any good asking a Government which adopts that system in this country to abolish it in India, so I would urge them to abolish it here first and then in India. The system which I described is virtually what is happening in India at the present moment.
    My last word is in regard to education. Many a time in this House, when constitutional questions have been discussed and suggestions have been made that Western reforms of government should be applied to India in any form, I have listened to hon. Members say that it is utterly ridiculous to make such suggestions in regard to a country where there are 350,000,000 human beings, most of whom are illiterate—they can neither read nor write. They say that it is utterly ridiculous to apply Western ideas and forms of Government to a community in which that is one of the outstanding facts. In that connection the Statutory Commission issued in September, 1929, an interim report on education which I read at the time with a great deal of interest. I was looking into it again the other day, and I found that they said on that subject:
    "The Indian boy and the Indian girl are not lacking in innate intelligence and in capacity to benefit by that training of body, mind and character which a well-planned system of education can give."
    In the opinion of those who wrote that report, there is therefore no innate defect in the Indian character which makes it impossible for them to benefit by a really efficient educational system. What is being done in regard to development of education in India? The innate capacity is there, and every Member of the Committee will agree that one of the roost dangerous things in this world is ignorance. I would like to quote some figures on the subject of education from a document recently presented to the Joint Select Committee. They show that, out of the provincial revenues for 1933–34 totalling £59,000,000, a little over £8,000,000 is to be spent on education. That does not seem a vast sum of money for the teeming population of that country.

    1603
    In conclusion, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and his Department will now use as much energy in improving the social and economic position of the masses of the Indian people as they have used in crushing and stamping out a political movement. If they do that, it will in the end redound far more to their credit and honour than destroying the Congress party and the Congress movement. It is a sheer illusion on their part to think it is destroyed. They may suspend its activities temporarily, but they cannot indefinitely keep down the opinion of more than 300,000,000 people. There is one thing they can do. The right hon. Gentleman laid great stress on the fact that people in India were now much more than formerly loyally co-operating with him and his Department in the work they were doing. In his future activities he should concentrate his attention on social and economic issues, and seek the loyal co-operation of those in India who will do all they possibly can to improve the working conditions, raise the standard of life and lift the people out of the darkness into the light and knowledge. Then he or some future Secretary of State for India can well come here on another occasion and, in presenting his Estimates, claim that our association with India has been of a highly beneficial character to the crowded millions who inhabit that great country.
    7.7 p.m.
    Captain HUNTER: At this moment Parliament is under a greater responsibility in regard to Indian affairs than at almost any other time, and it is only natural that hon. Members should show anxiety in regard to these matters. Labouring as we are under this feeling of anxiousness, the whole Committee heard the Secretary of State, when he opened the Debate, with a feeling of extreme relief in that he was able to give a review as hopeful and as satisfactory as was the case. There is no doubt that it was an extremely satisfactory statement on Indian affairs during the last year. It is particularly satisfactory to learn of the gradual breaking down of the civil disobedience campaign. It was suggested by the Leader of the Opposition that the only reason for that was that it had been stamped out. I would
    1604
    suggest, on the contrary, that this campaign of civil disobedience has died down far more because the people of India are always happier and more contented when they are under a strong, firm administration than when they are not. I suggest, therefore, that under the administration of the last two years this civil disobedience campaign has waned to a great extent. That, I believe, is the explanation of this extremely satisfactory change.
    It is always hard for us in this House to arrive at an opinion on any matter connected with India and to have the feeling in our minds that we know we are right, because almost all of us are without practical experience of Indian affairs. A number of hon. Members have lived in that country for years and worked there in a number of different capacities, but, none the less, the majority of hon. Members only know the country, as I do, from hearsay. We now feel a great responsibility and a great anxiety as to whether we are right in any conclusions at which we may arrive. The only way in which the situation can be looked at is that we must regard ourselves in the light of a jury and, to the best of our ability, arrive at our conclusions on the evidence which comes to our notice in many ways.
    The right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), in congratulating the Secretary of State on the highly improved condition of law and order in the country, drew the conclusion that, though it was possible under the existing situation to make that very important improvement in administration, it was therefore, he suggested, none the less impossible to advance constitutionally by the same means. Here I know I am getting near dangerous ground, and I hope I may not transgress the rules of Order. There is no doubt that in almost everything it is impossible to stand still. One always has to advance or to go back, and it is hardly ever possible to stand on the same ground. I believe, in the case of India, that is in very general terms the position at which we have to look. For very many years Government after Government, administration after adminstration, have made declarations and promises all tending to indicate to the people of India the desire of this country to further a more responsible form of government within the country. I doubt whether that can be put off indefinitely. Surely, if it be

    1605
    the case that it is the course of wisdom to grant to the Indian people some form of central government, then the obvious and the only way in which an advance of that kind could be contemplated would be with safeguards of a nature adequate to the welfare of India and the interests of this country.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Gentleman is now going into details of the White Paper, which I ruled earlier must not be discussed.
    Captain HUNTER: I must not pursue that argument any further. It may be that a change in the form of administration in India would, for a time, involve a downward tendency in many of the departments of administration. One realises that in the East and in India, wherever a local administration is operating, there are great apathy and a very large measure of corruption under the administration, but I suggest that the only way in which objections to that would or could be met is by the foundation of public opinion, and I believe that only by increased representation will a factor of that kind arise satisfactorily. One cannot compare East with West, this country with India, but none the less it is admissible to say that any one who casts his mind back 100 or more years in the history of our own country will find a state of administration that was corrupt and infinitely more inefficient than that which we know to-day. It is the force of public opinion over a number of years which has brought about the change and improvement.
    All the anxiety which has been expressed, not only in this House but on all sides, as to the interests of this country and the repercussion on other parts of the Empire in the event of Indian affairs going seriously wrong, is perhaps a little overweighted, not because those considerations are not of the highest importance, but because we tend to overlook what is, I know, the extremely real regard and feeling for the interests of the Indian people. Three hundred millions of people are indeed our responsibility. They have become so over a great number of years; whether we like it or not, this country and this House bear a. great responsibility for the welfare and happpiness of that huge and extremely diverse population. I believe that in anything which we may do in this
    1606
    country for the future of India, we shall have the backing, and on the whole the co-operation, of the Indian peoples. It may be that they have no extreme loyalty to this country. They are not of our race. It may be that their loyalty would not arise from any reason of kinship. What I believe is and always has been the foundation of it is that all these races have the utmost respect and regard for a nation which has always maintained a fair and trustworthy form of government, and in whose word when given absolute confidence may be felt. That, coupled with the maintenance of law and order, peace and tranquillity, makes up the reason for the loyalty which we have had in the past from the Indian peoples, and these things will, I believe, maintain it in the years which are to come.
    7.23 p.m.
    Duchess of ATHOLL: In the few minutes left I have only time to deal very hurriedly with one or two matters which have recently come under my notice and which arise out of the speech of the Secretary of State. My right. hon. Friend praised the health administration of India, but he said very little about the administration of the hospitals. I have had brought to my notice lately by a very senior officer of the health service in one of the Provinces, an officer who has recently retired, the fact that an increasing number of hospitals have passed under the control of local authorities, with a very grave loss of efficiency. That cannot be a surprising statement to anyone in this House who has studied any of the reports as to the work of many of the local authorities in India. The Secretary of State praised the Indian Medical Service. There we shall all agree. But my right hon. Friend did not remind us how largely the Indian Medical Service is being replaced by the provincial medical service, or the British medical officer in the Indian Medical Service by the Indian. It has lately been said to me by more than one person who has lived long in India that Indian rank and file are sometimes found to be very reluctant to go to a hospital of which the presiding officer is not a European, because, while there are many Indians who make admirable medical officers on the technical side, they do tend to be below the British standard in the administration and control of a staff. I am told that very often

    1607
    there is great reluctance on the part of Indians to go to hospitals that are not managed by a British medical officer for fear they will not get proper attention from the subordinate staff.
    The Secretary of State spoke of the lessening of the evil of terror in Bengal. I am sure we all wish to do the fullest justice to the most courageous and energetic efforts of the Governor and all those, British and Indian, who have worked with him. But do Members of the Committee quite realise what the position still is as regards the precautions necessary for the safety of members of the services 4 Members of the Indian Civil Service and of the police in Bengal have been ordered always to carry loaded revolvers. Magistrates and superintendents of police go about with armed guards, and judges and magistrates sit in their courts with loaded revolvers on their desks and an armed guard at the door. Therefore, although it may be that things are better than they were a year or six months ago, do not let us delude ourselves with the idea that life is quite easy and pleasant and safe for those who are carrying on the work of government in that Province. Nor let us run away with the idea that terrorism is confined to Bengal, though it is much more prevalent there than elsewhere.
    Then I wish to raise a point with regard to defence. It is unnecessary for me to point out how immensely important the railways must be in a country of the vast size of India, or how our troops on the frontier and elsewhere must depend on the efficient working of the railways for their security and supplies. The rising in the Punjab in 1919 brought home to the Government of India the need for securing a disciplined British reserve for the management of the railways, in case there should at any time be a failure of the Indian staff to run the railways efficiently and loyally. For that reason I understand that formerly the Indian Government trained every year some officers and men of the Royal Engineers in the management of locomotives on the Indian railways In reply to a question some weeks ago I ascertained that for the last four years no such officers and men have been trained in the management of Indian locomotives. This is at a time when, from figures supplied to me in answer to another ques-
    1608
    tion, I learn that the number of Europeans and Anglo-Indians in the railway service has very seriously declined. When the Under-Secretary of State replies I hope he will tell us whether the Commander-in-Chief is satisfied that, with a decreasing number of Europeans and Anglo-Indians on the staff of the railway, and without any of the trained British reserves to man the locomotives, the defences of that great country can be adequately secured.
    7.29 p.m.
    Mr. E. WILLIAMS: I do not propose to deal with the constitutional issue but I would like to draw the attention of the Minister to some matters of an industrial and economic character—
    It being half-past Seven of the clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman. of Ways and Means, under Standing Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  ADELPHI ESTATE BILL [Lords].
  Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [12th July],
  "That it be an instruction to the Committee to take into consideration the effect of the Bill on the architectural and artistic aspect and other amenities of the river front and, in the event of their approving the preamble of the Bill, to insert a clause in it requiring that the plans of any new building which it is proposed to erect shall first be submitted for approval to the Royal Fine Art Commission."—[Sir K. Vaughan-Morgan.]
  Question again proposed.
  7.31 p.m.
  Sir KENYON VAUGHAN-MORGAN: With the permission of the House I desire, on behalf of my hon. Friends and myself, to withdraw the Motion for this Instruction, in order that the House may proceed to consider, and, I trust, to accept, the Motion for an Instruction which appears lower down on the Order Paper in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland) and others.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  7.32 p.m.
  Sir ARTHUR STEEL-MAITLAND: I beg to move,

  1609
  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Adelphi Estate Bill [Lords] to take into consideration the effect of the Bill on the architectural and artistic aspect add other amenities of the river front, and to hear such evidence thereon as the Committee may think fit and, in the event of their approving the preamble of the Bill, to make provision requiring that drawings of the elevations of any new building to be erected on the Adelphi foreground shall be subject to approval by the Royal Fine Art Commission or the Crown Lands Advisory Committee, or such other body of persons as the Committee may consider suitable."
  I understand that the promoters of the Bill do not wish that this Motion should be opposed and that those who, on a previous occasion, spoke in favour of the Second Reading of the Bill are also willing to accept the Instruction. If it is unopposed, I believe that it is the wish of the House that the proceedings upon this matter should not occupy any considerable time as it is desired to resume in Committee the consideration of the great subject which has occupied us during the afternoon. The putting down of this Motion is not intended to imply that the Committee to whom this Bill will be entrusted would not take into account the points indicated in the Instruction or any of the other points which many of us think ought to be considered in relation to the Bill. We wish, however, to lay stress on those points which we think are of the greatest importance. They are moreover points on which there was a difference of opinion in the recent Debate. I merely mention them in order to emphasise them as considerations which we regard as being of peculiar importance. First: Is the Adelphi Terrace building of such artistic and architectural value that in the public interest it ought to be preserved? Second: What would be the effect on the amenities of the Thames-side at this point of the replacement of the Adelphi Terrace by a block of flats or offices 120 feet in height and 50 or 60 feet nearer the river front than the present buildings? Those are two questions which we conceive should be explicitly remitted for consideration in connection with the Bill. There is one other point to which I would allude. It is: Ought the view of the Adelphi Terrace and the view from the road that at present fronts it to be preserved for such passers-by as wish to see the river from that point and who are able to do so at present during the spring and early summer, and who would
  1610
  be able to do so at other times if certain unnecessary trees which now obscure the view were taken away? As this is, I am told, practically an agreed instruction I merely mention those points in moving it.
  7.35 p.m.
  Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: I wish to support what has been said by my right hon. Friend in commending this Motion to the House. We consider it important that this matter should be thoroughly examined so that the value of the concession which the public is asked to make should be ascertained. I do not think that attention was drawn in the recent Debate to the fact that Parliament has twice intervened in connection with this matter. Its first intervention was to allow the embanking of the river. Then when the promoters of the scheme found that not very much profit was being made out of the erection of Adelphi Terrace, owing to their large expense, a further Act was passed in two years' time to enable a lottery to be held whereby the scheme was again indebted to the public. Those are points which ought to be thoroughly examined by the Committee. Most important of all is the question of the view which the public can now enjoy from the Adelphi Terrace. If the Committee as I hope might be the case finds that Adelphi Terrace ought to be retained so much the better. If they think that a case has been made out for pulling it down and erecting another building, we earnestly ask that a new roadway should be placed in the forefront of the building, either with arcading or otherwise, so that the facilities which the public now have of overlooking the gardens and the river shall be maintained.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Ordered,
  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Adelphi Estate Bill [Lords] to take into consideration the effect of the Bill on the architectural and artistic aspect and other amenities of the river front, and to hear such evidence thereon as the Committee may think fit and, in the event of their approving the preamble of the Bill, to make provision requiring that drawings of the elevations of any new building to be erected on the Adelphi foreground shall be subject to approval by the Royal Fine Art Commission or the Crown Lands Advisory Committee, or such other body of persons as the Committee may consider suitable."

  SUPPLY.
  Again considered in Committee.
  [Captain BOURNE in the Chair.]
  Postponed Proceeding resumed on. Question proposed on consideration of Question,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £95,695, 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, 1934, for a Contribution towards the Cost of the Department of His Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council, including a Grant-in-Aid."
  Question again proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £95,595, be granted for the said Service."
  7.40 p.m.
  Mr. E. WILLIAMS: I was saying when our proceedings in Committee were interrupted that I had no desire to deal with the constitutional question, but I wished to emphasise the appeal made to the Secretary of State by the Leader of the Opposition in regard to the Meerut prisoners and also with regard to the desirability of some attempt on the part of the Government to meet the leaders of Congress. It is to be hoped that some way will be found whereby the Government, through the Viceroy, will be able to meet Mr. Gandhi and discuss whatever overtures he has to make in order to establish peace. I rise, however, primarily, to deal with wages and labour conditions in India. The Whitley Report which was presented a, few years ago contains a number of recommendations regarding the length of the working day and the working week, wages rates and the principle of indebtedness. These and other economic and social factors are dealt with at length in the report, and one of the recommendations is that instead of the 60-hour week which now obtains throughout most of India, a 54-hour week should be established. Has anything been done by the Minister through the administration to see that that recommendation will shortly become effective?
  With regard to the question of indebtedness, it is known that throughout India wages are not páid weekly but monthly, a system which leads to an enormous amount of bribery and to a. substantial amount of borrowing from
  1612
  moneylenders, who thrive on the misery of the people. The workers are obliged to work sometimes for six weeks before obtaining any wages. They are compelled to borrow from moneylenders or to obtain their provisions from what, we used to call in this country company shops. They become tied either to the moneylenders or to the company shops, which are shops promoted, owned and controlled by the companies. If a system of weekly payment of wages were established many of these evils would automatically be obliterated. In the report published by Mr. Whitley he instanced the fact that moneylenders were actually extorting from the people 30 per cent. to 75 per cent. interest for the loan of money during the period when no wages were paid. The people had to contract these loans in order to purchase provisions. He also cited instances in which moneylenders were obtaining from 150 per cent. to 325 per cent. from people for loans for just the few weeks prior to the payment of wages by the employers. We should like to know whether the Government intend in the immediate future to put into operation some of the recommendations contained in that report to deal with very glaring cases of that kind.
  I question whether the Government have any desire to do these things, and I question that particularly after hearing the speech of the hon. Member who said that the people of India apparently loved to have the foot of Britain upon their neck. That is a philosophy to which we on these benches could never at any time subscribe, yet that seems to be the philosophy that permeates the administration of the Government. We have to admit, in dealing with the political situation, that Congress and Congress leaders are not as vocal as they have been, but that is because they cannot be. It is true that while 12 or 18 months ago there were from 30,000 to 60,000 persons in prison in India, there are now, I am informed, not more than from 10,000 to 15,000, but it is an admitted fact that there would still be a substantial number of persons in India prepared to go to prison if they could obtain some maintenance for their wives and families. It is not that they have given up the battle.
  I am rather surprised that the. Members of the Government fail to appreciate why the Indians are clamant for self-govern

  1613
  went. Indians were brought into the Great War ostensibly, if we have to accept what the Press says on such occasions, to fight for self-determination for the small nations. Certainly none of us on these benches, nor, I should think, the lion. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), would be deceived as to the purpose of the Great War, but in order to obtain recruits, those are the things that, were placarded in practically every country involved in the War. Indians were brought in and played their part. They went back to India and they expect to have for India that for which they were fighting on behalf of other nations. Obviously, Indians coming to this country, graduating at the universities, and returning home, believe that they are as competent—it is difficult for us to say they are not as competent—as the politicians in this country to run their own country, so that, although Congress may seem to be stifled, although it is not vocal and is unable to ventilate its opinion, the Government should not be led to believe that the desire underlying self-government has been completely obliterated.
  If the Government would do the big thing, it would meet the people whom it considers to be defeated through their representatives, their Congress leaders, and heed the statement that was read by the Leader of the Opposition, not from Gandhi in particular, but from other eminent Liberal Indian politicians, in order to establish something that would meet the desires of the Indian people. I want to back up, if I may, the appeal that was made by the Leader of the Opposition and by the hon. Member for Bridgeton with regard to the Meerut prisoners, and also with regard to the Minister appreciating that although Congress may be defeated, a people that is down in the depths of destitution will rise in revolt against economic conditions or against any political power that endeavours to keep it in its place. I am anxious that the Minister should rise to the occasion and should permit the Viceroy to meet Gandhi, to hear what has to be said, and not heed the statements that are published in the Press from time to time.
  I am also anxious that the Government should observe some of the other recommendations contained in the Whitley Report, particularly with regard to educa-
  1614
  tion and public health. We have to presume that the reply that we should get from the Minister, if we discussed the expenditure of more money upon public health, education, and social reform generally, would be that it cannot be done because we cannot afford it. I have a few figures here, and I find that out of a Budget total of £58,430,000, £34,650,000 was for military expenditure alone. The Simon Report, in its second volume, pointed out that there was hardly any country in the world which spent so much on defence and so little upon agriculture, public health, education, and other constructive activities. In the latest Budget of the several Provinces in India, out of a total expenditure of £59,840,000, education accounted for only £8,860,000, medical and public health for £3,920,000, and agriculture and industry £2,170,000, while police accounted for £9,280,000 and prisons and justice £5,750,000. These figures are taken from Sir Malcolm Hailey's Memorandum submitted to the Joint Committee on the White Paper and printed as Records No. 1 on 6th July, 1933.
  There is something utterly wrong in a system of administration in which so much is needed for defence and police and so little is available for education, agriculture, public health, and so on. While it is satisfactory that India has met her financial difficulties so far, the Government cannot view the future with any feeling of assurance. India has maintained her financial security during the last two years by the export of large quantities of gold, amounting to £58,000,000 in 1931–2 and £65,000,000 in 1932–3. In other words, India can meet her immense obligations in this country such as pensions, payment for services, &c., by drawing upon her gold reserves, but how long can she afford to do it, and what will her financial position be when her gold supplies are exhausted? These are questions that I submit to the Under-Secretary of State for reply when he winds up the Debate. While I support the appeals that have been made by other Members in opposition to the Government, I want the Government to realise that the recommendations in the Whitley Report should have very careful consideration and should be applied as speedily as possible through some form of enactment.

  1615
  Particularly do I stress the question of the payment of wages. Most of the evils from which the Indian workers suffer are attributable to the fact that they are not immediately paid for the work that they do. The fact that from the time they commence to work they have to wait so long before they are actually paid for that work means that they have to become dependent upon creditors, who charge them immense sums in interest, and they are tied to those creditors all their life long. If the recommendations of the Whitley Report in that regard were carried out, much would be done to abolish the moneylender, and we certainly ought, from our experience in this country, to do something to prevent the employers themselves deducting from the wages of the workers the amount of money and interest borrowed by the workers from the moneylenders. That is one of the most vicious systems that one could possibly conceive, and yet that is a common practice throughout the whole of India.
  One could also deal with the amount of wages paid to the Indian workers. During the last 12 months, through Japanese dumping, wages have been brought down, particularly around Madras, from 60s. to 65s. per month to 32s. to 35s. per month. Factories have been set up by reducing the costs of production, mainly through wages costs, in order to enable them to compete more effectively with Japanese goods. It is almost impossible for that to be done. The goods that are coming into India and other parts of the world from Japan are produced upon a seven-day working week, with 12 hours per day, and the average monthly wage paid to the girls employed in Japanese factories is from 18s. to 22s. They are living like slaves in dormitories, and the goods they produce are being dumped into India in competition with Indian textile goods and Lancashire goods. The Indian employers are trying to meet that competition by reducing the wages bill of the textile workers and by stifling organisation. Trade union organisations that have been formed in an endeavour to maintain the standard wage have actually been crushed by the employers, and when trade unions have appealed under the Trade Disputes Act for arbitration, the Government have refused to enforce the
  1616
  provisions of the Act. The trade unions have to all intents and purposes been obliterated, and that of itself is causing a substantial amount of restiveness, which is fomenting discontent.
  We are placing these economic factors before the Secretary of State in order that he may visualise what may be the culmination. The workers should be as free to organise as the employers, and there is no reason why the Indian worker should be crushed to lower levels of subsistence in order to meet, Japanese competition in the way that I have described. I place these matters, which are more or less of a propagandist nature, before the Secretary of State in the hope that something will be done. I agree with the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. Member for Bridgeton that we are in India purely to exploit the people. We are there for the purpose of obtaining unearned increment. Many good things may have been done, but apparently the only good thing which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) could see was that during the British regime the population has increased by 100,000,000. That might be said of Japan and of all nations in the world where Britain has played no part. We do not believe that the people of India will be content with a philosophy which implies that private enterprise is the best of all possible systems, or that it can bring hope and comfort to the inhabitants of that land. I submit that the Government should review again such reports as the Whitley and Simon Reports, which were drawn up in order, I trust, that their recommendations should be put into operation. I hope that the Government will endeavour to put some of the recommendations into effect.
  8.3 p.m.
  Mr. SMEDLEY CROOKE: I am one of those who think that while the Select Committee is considering the matter we should not discuss the Constitution of India. We ought to wait until the Committee's conclusions have been arrived at before we form any judgment; otherwise, we might be doing more harm than good. I should not have taken part in this Debate but for the fact that to-day I have had placed in my hand a letter from a citizen of Birmingham, a man in a large way of business who holds a

  1617
  high position and is chairman of the Birmingham Rotary Club. The writer is the author of several books on economics, and the Committee and the Secretary of State may be interested to hear what he says with regard to our relations with India: He writes:
  "There is one aspect of the Indian agitation of which the Government apparently takes no notice, that is its effects on the sales of British goods in India. For most of 11.3 the outstanding problem is not political but economic, and the economic situation the Government simply does not seem to care about. If instead of arguing about civil disobedience the Government had the courage to insist on free import of British goods into India in return for the considerable amount that we purchase from India; and heavy tariffs against countries like Japan, who, by their own tariffs made it impossible for us to sell in their markets, it would he really tackling the problem in a useful way and helping employment this country.
  The trouble is we have a lot of people in Parliament who do not understand the point of view of those who have to work for their living. All they know about unemployment is what they read in textbooks. All they know about India is what they read in travel stories. What they seem to be utterly ignorant of is the necessity for increasing our export trade with our own Colonies and Dominions in view of the way in which the rest of the world is closing its markets to us. A heavy tariff on foreign goods and free admission of British goods into India would be a much more effective argument than anything we can do in the way of political discussions or even with armed force."
  I thought that the Committee would he interested, in a discussion of this kind, to know the opinion of a Birmingham manufacturer. I do not think that it needs any comment of mine. There may be something in the letter that is worth noting, and I hope that the Under-Secretary will bring it before the responsible Minister.
  8.7 p.m.
  Mr. HICKS: I think that we are entitled to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India on his speech introducing the Debate, but, if I express at the same time our dis-appointment at the range and depth of his survey, I am sure that he will not misunderstand our point of view. I was particularly interested in the fact that he said he felt that the main question that would be occupying the minds of most people in India to-day were social and economic questions, which, in his opinion, were transcending in importance the poli-
  1618
  tical agitation. He also mentioned that every effort which had been made by individuals to bring about any improvement in India redounded to their credit and that India was enriched as a consequence of their act. We subscribe to that view for we give full credit to every effort that has been made either by individuals or by the Governments of particular States. The fact that 40,000,000 acres of land would be brought under cultivation and not liable to suffer from the effects of drought when the scheme of irrigation is completed interests us all. We are glad that such a thing has been done. At the present rate of progress, however, it will be another 100 years before measures are taken to prevent the whole of India suffering from drought.
  The right hon. Gentleman also said, quoting from the senior trade commissioner, that the boycott has spent itself. If it has spent itself in India, it has not apparently spent itself in this House, for, judging from the attendance of hon. Members it looks as if Members of the National Government are boycotting this Debate. With a country of such enormous potentialities and of such importance not only to great Britain and the Empire but to the world, one would have thought that a Debate of this character would have attracted much more attention than it has done, and that hon. Members would have done something more than just come in in a flashy way to take part in the Debate and then leave the Chamber and apparently take no further interest in it. The absence of concentrated attention has been positively scandalous for the hopes of many millions of people are centred on a Debate of this kind. I said in the Debate last year that I had never visited India, and that consequently I was not able to speak with that detailed knowledge which comes from actual experience such as other Members would have been able to do if they had been present. The people of India will read the Minister's statement and other speeches in the Debate with great interest to see whether it contains any germ of hope of release from the present highly undesirable state in which the millions of people in India find themselves.
  While thanking the Minister for his statement, I feel that his examination of the position was largely superficial and did not get down to what I would regard as the economic reasons for the condition

  1619
  of India. Such an examination would have been a first step, at any rate, to understanding the great problem with which the Minister and the Government of India are beset. Everyone with a knowledge of affairs must be aware that vast changes are inevitable in India. Whatever immediate political changes are effected, whatever revisions are made in the Indian Constitution, and whatever reforms are granted, they can only be of a temporary character. India is in a stage of speedy transition, as is the whole world. World progress is certain to be more dynamic and more revolutionary, and India will be unable to escape the effects of world progress.
  India is a vast peasant country and is sure to feel the impact of world progress more than countries which have passed from the stage of being predominantly agricultural. In India there are 700,000 villages, where 90 per cent. of the population dwell, winning a scanty existence from the soil by almost prehistoric methods of cultivation. Therefore, we can judge of the impact which world progress will have on India. With the World Economic Conference in our minds we are all conscious that the world is growing smaller. The world is knit together in a thousand ways by railways, by ships, by aircraft and by trade and commerce. Sometimes I think the House is too much immersed in local and national affairs, and that the economic developments going on in the world are apt to be overlooked.
  We ought to look at India with the object of noting where she has been, where she is to-day and what her future will be in the mosaic of world economics, and ask ourselves what part she is going to play to-morrow. All the little things we have been talking about to-day are relatively superficial by comparison with the question of the economic position of India, which will command ever increasing attention not only in this House, but in other parts of the world. When we say that no country can live unto itself to-day because it is part of the larger world economic problem, that is particularly true of India. India is subject to world conditions. There are no Chinese walls around India. Even her most formidable geographical barrier, the Himalaya range, has been flown by our intrepid airmen. India cannot be isolated
  1620
  from the world. The economic, social and political factors in the modern world have penetrated into India and they will penetrate still deeper into India, and the character of India will change with the degree of penetration.
  Modern capitalism has taken firm root in India and is spreading. In Bombay, Calcutta and Cawnpore modern textile mills have been established, and all over the country modem industrial undertakings have come into existence—factories, workshops, mines and mills, all the agencies of the highest expression of the civilisation we have to-day. Modern ships trade at her ports, modern railways connect her principal towns. I felt very sad when I heard the Noble Lady the Member for Perth (Duchess of Atholl) referring to the railways of India and connecting them up with the movement of troops. I thought it was a tragedy to hear references to her internal means of transport connected up with troop movements. I should have thought she would have seen in them rather the means for the development of trade and commerce and the bringing about of a higher standard of civilisation. Already in India the basic economic foundations have been laid for a new social and political superstructure. More and more as the days go by will the old superstructure in India demonstrate its incapacity to fit in with modern economic and social developments. Therefore, I repeat what I said a moment or two ago, that whatever is done in the way of bringing about constitutional changes in India the speed with which India will develop will be conditioned very largely by world influences. Her industrial population numbers about 18,000,000—those working in factories, in workshops and engaged in transport and at the docks. It is as large an industrial population as is to be found in several of the great capitalist countries of the world.
  The Committee should realise the significance of these facts. If we did realise the full economic significance of India's development I am sure that greater importance would be attached to the Debate, and it would not become an occasion for attempting to score debating points First things first. The basic facts are the economic facts, and they demand our consideration. It does not matter how inherently conservative India may be. However much the Indian

  1621
  people may try to hang on to their traditions and customs, the inexorable economic conditions of the world will force them to change and to adapt themselves. The economic and political structure will conform to that progress. Modern industrialism will grow, modern capitalism will develop, in industry, in agriculture and in commerce. It is impossible to withstand it. The industrial populations in the towns will increase and mechanised agriculture will transform the countryside. The countryside as we know it to-day will appear very primitive by comparison with what it will be in a short time as the result of mechanised agriculture. I submit that that is the essential matter for consideration. A striking indication of the rate of progress was given the other day by a gentleman by the name of Mr. K. M. Purkayastha, secretary of the Merchants' Chamber of the United Provinces. He said on 10th July—it is reported in the "Manchester Guardian" of 11th July—
  "I am afraid the textile trade in India is posing for ever from English hands—with the exception of certain luxury articles for which we in India have not the necessary machinery. Every province in India is trying its best to develop a textile industry of its own, and in this sentiment and local patriotism play au almost incalculable part. The industry which was formerly centralised in Bombay has now spread outwards all Over the country. There has been a marked tendency, too, even amongst the smallest industries, to abandon the manufacture of the coarser goods for that of the finer, but for this foreign cotton has to be imported. England's hope of trade with India in the future must largely lie with the heavier industries, such as machinery, heavy chemicals and certain specialised forms of tools and implements. England, as I see it, must give up the small trades to the Indians themselves, and by concentrating on the larger industries she will meet the new conditions that new prevail in India. It is impossible any longer for Britain to swamp Indian markets."
  This economic development, accompanied with the other appurtenances of economic development and of innovation the Western world, such as the modern newspaper, motor cars, pictures—if you like—wireless and aircraft, is being introduced with increasing momentum at the present time. It is in this direction that I should like to direct the attention of Members of the Committee, and especially to the kernel of the matter, Indian agriculture and the Indian peasantry. That is where, I think the Committee could very pro-
  1622
  fitably spend its time and its examination. It may be that, my voice is a plaintive appeal among the advisers of the Government and of the Minister. I have never been to India, but I have tried to understand the problem and to understand the economic structure. I have tried to put my views as clearly as possible, in the hope that some of them at any rate will receive attention and may perhaps assist in formulating policy.
  A vast and menacing difficulty is bound to develop with the inevitable introduction of mechanised agriculture. The modern system of wealth production strikes at the very root of the old peasant economy. Ninety per cent. of the 300,000,000 people in India to-day come under the heading of peasants. Capitalist production imparts to the very land the character of a commodity and, consequently a value which is not determined by the number of inhabitants which the land nourishes, but by the surplus which it yields. That is a particularly important fact. The smaller the number of cultivators in proportion to the yield of the land and the less pretentious their standard of life, the larger the surplus and the greater the value of the land. That is totally the reverse from what happened under the old feudal system in this country. The feudal lords and barons tried to get as many people as they could upon the soil for the purpose of assisting them to produce in order to pay taxes and the rent for services, and also in order to employ them when necessary for the purpose of fighting. Modern agriculture does not consider how many people can be employed on the land. Capitalism is not engaged in agriculture in order to see how many people it can nourish, but is engaged in mechanising agriculture in order to see what surplus it can produce. The smaller the number of people engaged on the land, the greater the value. The fewer the number of people engaged, the greater will be the income.
  That is the change that will take place in India. That is the fundamental economic change, and is the reality. The political superstructure is conditioned by the economic reality. You think you can introduce Western ideas into a country with an Eastern background, but it cannot be done unless the economic conditions of the Eastern country have evolved to a position comparable with

  1623
  those of the Western country. All these things are not at their finality. Constitutional reforms, useful as they may be, are only a stepping-stone, and will only be of a temporary character. When we think of China to-day, it is of a country which, for the past decade, has been largely subject to bandit generals, whose enormous armies have been recruited from landless peasants. We are going to create landless peasants by the hundred thousand, and eventually by the million, by the industrialisation of India. In China, landless peasants have either to be soldiers or robbers; there is no other occupation for them. When we think of Russia to-day, we think of peasant communities which have been absolutely revolutionised by the introduction of the tractor, the harvester, the combine and the latest machinery of agriculture. When we think of China it is of a picture which, as I put it to the Committee a few moments ago, is, I suggest, not overdrawn. When we visualise those, we can visualise what is to happen to the 300,000,000 peasant population in India? That is the problem, and it is down to that that the Government of the day have to get their noses and their minds, and on that that they have to concentrate. There are no Chinese walls around India to bar the entry of 'Western progress. India cannot be shut away from the rest of the world. Even if it could, capitalism is already rooted within India and the process of disintegration of the old order is already widespread. Problems will come up in increasing quantities. Whether we like it or not, India to-day is in the rapids of social change. I do not think that it would be wrong to say that India is in social revolution.
  India is in the process of rapid social change. There are no frontiers to science and invention, to knowledge or to economic advance. Capitalist dynamics, already existent in India and forced from the outside, are pulsating through the entire fabric of Indian social and political life. The essential grasp of Indian problems is determined by the extent to which the realisation of that situation is at the back of our minds. We have to think of India, firstly, as being subjected to the impact of mechanised agriculture. When one remembers the prehistoric tools which are employed there to-day in
  1624
  agriculture, and, on the other hand, remembers what mechanised agriculture is able to perform, one realises that the revolution will be of a colossal character. I think sometimes of those 300,000,000 peasant folk, scraping a famished existence, who have not yet, established such a condition of life that they can be assured of one good meal per day. What a criticism and what a condemnation of our rule.
  Then I think of what modern means and methods can accomplish in respect of agriculture, and of the plight of the farmers in this country and of the farming community of the United states of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. I would like to illustrate the point in a very short quotation from that very gifted Secretary of the International Labour Office, Mr. Butler, who said quite recently in regard to Canada:
  "Mechanisation has already diminished the amount of labour required on the farm in astonishing proportions during the past few years. In Canada, it has already created a considerable amount of unemployment by eliminating work on which large numbers of men formerly relied for wages to help them through the winter. The invention of the combine,' a machine which both cuts and threshes the grain, and which, operated by two men, can harvest as much as 40 acres a day, has been mainly responsible for this displacement of labour. A large farm which formerly took on 30 men in the spring, and a further 120–150 during the harvest, now only employs 14 men throughout the year. An average small farm will employ 2–3 men instead of 8–10. These are just typical cases, which could be multiplied indefinitely. Roughly speaking, every combine deprives at least five men of a harvest job, so that the average expectation of harvest employment is 20 days in the year instead of 50–60. As a consequence, whereas the railways used to transport thousands of men annually from the Eastern cities to reap the crop on tie prairies, no harvest trains have been run during the last two years, though the crops were up to the average level. As the Minister of Labour of one Province put it: 'We have now too many people, because there is no work for them,' and that in a territory of great wealth, with a population of little more than two to the square mile."
  If mechanised agriculture is able to create that condition of affairs in Canada, what is it likely to do in India? The spectre of famine and death is stalking through India. The Secretary of State, commenting on the measures which are being taken to save the lives of victims of malaria, told us that roughly 10,000,000 people were

  1625
  affected by malaria every year, of whom 2,000,000 died, and that steps are now Toeing taken, by means of a new drug, to diminish the death rate. We thank him for that, and we thank medical science for it, and we hope that progress will be made in the elimination of malaria as far as possible from India.
  Beyond that there is famine, due to the terribly low standard of the people's existence. Some of my hon. Friends have referred to the fact that in certain mills which were moved from the Northern part of India to parts further South, the wages had dropped to about 15s. or 20s. a month for female workers, and in the case of the males to about 25s. or perhaps 30s. In addition to the wages being so low, there is the absence of prompt payment. Men have to borrow, first of all for the purpose of bribing someone to get them employment, and then, when they have worked a month and their wages are delayed, sometimes as long as two and three weeks, they again have to borrow money from moneylenders to tide them over, and they get into such a state of debt that it is impossible for them, whether in employment or out of employment, to escape from it; death brings them the only possible release from their liabilities. I am told by my hon. Friend the Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee) that, low as these wages are, they are four times as high as those of teachers in Bengal, who, as is stated in the Simon Re port, get something like 7s. a month. It is no wonder that the Minister was speaking about terrorism in Bengal. God knows what people would be like if they did not revolt against conditions of that kind. This Chamber ought to be filled with interested Members making themselves acquainted with these facts, in order that they might arouse the country and the world by speech and pen to a realisation of these terrible conditions, with a view to getting them remedied at the earliest possible moment.
  It has been said by a number of speakers and writers on social subjects that there are something like 40,000,000 unemployed to-day in India. This would mean, I suppose, that, including their families, something like 100,000,000 are affected. The pressure of these vast numbers upon the factories must be enormous. It is no use hon. Members saying that India is different. No country
  1626
  is different to-day, with our modern scientific methods, our large-scale methods of production, in agriculture no less than in industry. The newest, best equipped, and most up-to-date mills, factories and workshops are being introduced at an increasing rate into the ancient economic life of India. Our primary problem seems to me to be to conduct our legislation and administration with the consciousness that millions of the people of India are being drawn into the latest phases of capitalism, are being transformed from peasants and primitive craftsmen into wage workers—landless proletarians. They will no longer have the land to go back to; it will be taken away from them; the land is bound to be denuded of workers by agricultural mechanisation. That is the real background of the question of India's future.
  In the grip of capitalism—some British and some Indian—this infinitely cheap, poverty-stricken labour is being ground down in the profit-making process, with the same terrible indifference and abandonment that operated in this country 150 years ago. Wages are being driven down, and strikes are taking place. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. C. Brown) referred to the passing in 1926 of an Act of Parliament making it possible for trade unions to function, and laying it down that 50 per cent. of, their executives must be people actually engaged in industry; and the fact is that, when strikes took place, so far as our reports go, these persons were immediately discharged from their employment. In these industrial disputes, so far as we can gather, the Government have not taken any steps to assist in promoting a settlement, either before a strike or when a strike has occurred, or to get the matter referred to arbitration. If such steps have been taken we shall be glad to hear of it, but, so far as our information goes, the reverse is the case.
  Our first duty should be to the great toiling masses of the peasants in the country and the workers in the towns, who constitute the bulk of the population. Much of our work in the past has been window-dressing. It is all very well for us to be bedecking Princes and Rajahs with honours and orders. I do not object to that, but I object to it being our main function. We can go on creating franchises and privileges for

  1627
  the wealthy and educated class, and we can compromise with the trading and commercial class, but we do not appear to touch the problem of the working people, who have been denied opportunities of education and are living under such terrible conditions. If you could guarantee another meal a day to the mill workers of Bombay, Calcutta and Cawnpore, to the workers on the railways and at the ports and to the ryots in the fields, assuage the hunger that dogs them through their lives, make some provision for the unemployed and check the frightful starvation of the masses, more would be done for India than all the constitutional reforms.
  You have teachers getting a salary of 7s. a month in Bengal and women working for 15s. a month in the mills in Southern India, and they have to pay someone for the privilege of being employed. It is a pity that some of the recommendations of committees that have been set up in favour of the establishment of Employment Exchanges have not been adopted so that the unemployed workers could register and not be the victims of those who demand payment and hold them in financial bondage by crediting them with money. That would benefit them much more than constitutional reform. I am not against constitutional reform, but I consider that a good deal of this discussion is superficial. It lends itself more to spectacular debate than to tackling the root economic problems that are responsible for conditions in India. The facts are now widely known through the Whitley Report. I read that up very seriously last year, and I have been reading it again this year. It called attention to many evils and many wrongs. When I spoke last year, a number of Members who had been to India questioned my facts. I do not think they would question them to-day and, when we are discussing the problem in 12 months time, what I am saying to-day will be agreed to. No one who goes to India from any party, whether sent by the Government or by the Trades Union Congress, can deny that the conditions of the people are appalling. Wages are desperately low and the mill-owners are reported to be endeavouring to reduce them.
  1628
  It may be said that the cost of living has gone down. In a country like ours, where wages are paid every week, they can get the advantage of a drop in the cost of living. In India a supervisor in a factory goes out and says there is room for one, two, three or four people, and they have to pay him 10 or 15 rupees to get a job and they have to borrow the money. Then at the end of the month they do not get payment promptly. I understand the Government are introducing a Bill to ensure prompt payment. In these circumstances, the worker cannot get any advantage from a drop in the cost of living. His money is swallowed up in paying back what he has borrowed at rates of interest varying from 70 to 300 per cent. You should get right down to these facts and take steps to relieve people so situated from the haunting misery that surrounds their whole life. When they attempt any action to resist the lowering of their miserable standard of life, the police are brought in. So long as they are acting within the Constitution you should assist them. I have taken part in a number of strikes and in thousands of negotiations where strikes have been averted, but sometimes, with the best will, the negotiators are unable to prevent the pressure of one side or the other. The workers resist any attempt to lower their standard of life, or, if they see that there is prosperity in their industry, they wish to take advantage of the improvement to increase their standard of life.
  Wars sometimes have taken place when all other means have failed. This kind of war is perfectly right and proper. It may be irritating, but no progress would have been made without it. I do not remember any instance where directors have come to workmen and said, "In consequence of your efforts, together with the general state of trade, we have enjoyed prosperity, and we ask you to share it with us." It is only by threatening to withhold their labour that progress has been made. When these standards are legitimately challenged in India, you ought to see that the police are not brought in for the purpose of smashing those who are endeavouring to improve their lot. They ought to be given a fair opportunity. Trade union organisation is the only method by which they can improve their standards. Trade unionism, legally

  1629
  recognised and allowed to function freely, would do more for the welfare of India than any factor of which I can conceive. It would enable the claims of the Indian masses to become articulate. How can they make their claims at the present time? It is all very well to say that there is not much trouble in India. If you suppress trouble you may very well say that there is no trouble, but we know that at the present time there is trouble, and that the Indian workers have grievances. Give them the chance to make their grievances articulate through the trade unions as in this country, and it will be all to the good. They should be enabled to organise and to give expression to their troubles and difficulties, so than ameliorative action could be taken to put them right. Last year I complained about the miserable wages paid in India com pared with the wages paid in Lancashire. Hon. Members did not regard my observations too friendly when I said that our people in Lancashire required something more than a handful of rice and a loin cloth to sustain them. I know that in India the cost of sustaining the physique of the workers may not be as great as it is here, but I am concerned about the unfair competition.
  My hon. Friends have referred to the Meerut trial. I regret that for nearly four years these men have either been in prison or on trial, and that during the process one of them died. The administration of British justice in India is one of universal contempt rather than of respect. I know of no parallel in any part of the world where men have been held in prison for so long. Although the assessors appointed to help the judge unanimously declared the prisoners to be not guilty, sentence was passed. I hope that something will arise, at any rate, which will give these men their freedom. The trial has not settled the discontent of Indian labour, solved any problem or done any good. It has done nothing but invest Communism with the sanctity of martyr dom. That is the chief thing it has done as far as the trial is concerned. Everywhere, all over this country and throughout the world, stories have reverberated about the Meerut trial. Instead of repressing trade unionism, the Government should encourage it. A vigorous trade unionism in India, would prove the most beneficent power to real progress.
  1630
  The Whitley Report on Indian conditions was published in the summer of 1931, and there has not been much action taken upon the important recommendations. India has a 60-hour week, and the Whitley Commission recommended a 54-hour week, and, as far as I know, there has been no inquiry into the matter. There was a recommendation that consideration should be given to the question of social insurance. Although it might cost a good deal of money to initiate a social insurance scheme, and the Government might legitimately say to-day that they cannot afford to recommend it, no steps have been taken to consider whether such a scheme is possible. It is a question which affects millions of people who give life and purpose to India. There has been considerable unrest among railwaymen in India mainly because of large numbers of them being thrown out of work. The railway unions have asked on several occasions whether they might not consult with the companies as to the best way in which the hardships might be minimised. Every appeal which has been made has, apparently, been turned down abruptly.
  A big strike took place on the Madras and Southern Railway and lasted about two months. The union, which was registered under the Trade Union Act and federated to the Indian Railwaymen's Federation, applied for a court of inquiry on the matter, but could not secure it. Another instance was that of the Madura Textile Workers' Union, also a registered union. The workers were asked to dissolve the union, or to face a lock-out. The lock-out lasted from the 20th March to 3rd May, 1931. The workers applied to the Madras Government for the appointment of a board of conciliation and the application was rejected. The final settlement was at the instance of the Madura Municipality, whose report was unanimously in favour of the workers. How can one expect the people to be pacified in the face of such experience? Is it right for the Government to allow the workers in India to feel that they can expect no assistance, and that the help of the police is at the disposal of the employers? That is not an atmosphere which ought to be cultivated. It is the opinion of the workers that whenever they attempt resistance to the imposition of hardships in their conditions of life and legitimately withhold their labour,

  1631
  they are beset by the police, and not helped as they ought to be. The police should exist as much for the assistance and protection of the workers as for the employers or capitalists. The capitalists should not always have the police at their disposal. Everyone of the workers in the Madura Textile Union who has been on the executive of the union has been dismissed, and the Madras Government have done nothing to protect those workers.
  The housing conditions of the people beggar all description. I must read to the Committee what appeared in the "Daily Herald" the other day. It is a quotation from a report dealing with Bombay. It says:
  " 'Bombay's housing is more suggestive of the Black Hole of Calcutta than of any modern city pretending to sanitary living conditions.'
  This is the declaration of the just published Bombay Census Report, which presents a horrifying picture of India's greatest city. Only 4 per cent. of the population of Bombay, it is stated, know what it is to have a room to themselves. Housing is so inadequate that thousands are compelled to sleep in the streets, and the average number of people occupying a room sized 10 square feet is five. Sixteen thousand living rooms are occupied by more than 20 people each."
  When we hear of terrorism, the Congress, upheaval and unrest, we ought to encourage them, in view of such conditions. We ought to feel ashamed when we attempt to suppress them. We ought to remedy their grievances.
  "One hundred thousand people are living from 10 to 20 in a room, and 250,000 inhabitants live from six to 10 in a room. There are 200,000 tenements in the city which consist of only one room. Whole families have to share water taps and sanitary accommodation. It is impossible to view the situation with complacency."
  I should think so. These are some of the conditions which exist in India at the present time. When I began my speech I said that I thought the Secretary of State had not gone deep enough. I thanked him for his survey, but I felt that it was too superficial and that we were dealing with things that were responsible for much of the unrest in India. The House must understand that modern industry in India, modern capitalism, implies the complete economic, social and political modernisation of that vast territory. All these things must come in the wake of the
  1632
  industrialisation of India. More than all that, it implies great social measures for raising the standards of the people. We have to visualise great measures of education and public health, great measures relating to agriculture, great measures for the advancement of the communities.
  To the degree that this House promulgates and assists these measures it will prove realistic and helpful to India; to the degree that it neglects, retards or hampers such measures it will hasten calamitous, revolutionary disturbance. The Government must give heed to the lamentable conditions of the working class in India. It must provide protection in regard to working-class organisation and must do everything to ensure that the tragic standard of living is not further depressed but radically altered for the better.
  9.7 p.m.
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Butler): I feel sure that the Committee will join with me in congratulating the hon. Member for East Woolwich (Mr. Hicks) upon the serious attention which he has paid to Indian affairs. I am sure that we have listened with great interest to his speech, and if he will give me an opportunity I shall attempt to deal briefly with some of those social problems which he has raised. First of all, may I thank him for referring to that modern development in the world which has come so suddenly upon India. He referred to the magnificent flight over Everest, conducted by our hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Marquess of Clydesdale). The Committee will wish to pay a tribute to that great achievement, which has enriched the annals of aviation, as have the recent examples of daring which we have seen in the crossing of the Atlantic by the Italian airmen. We in this country have many things to be proud of, and I think we should lose no opportunity of paying tribute to the youth of this country when it undertakes ventures of this sort.
  The Committee will also wish to pay tribute to those many people who interested themselves in the Everest flight and helped it forward, the great landowners of the district, the district officials, and in particular the Prime Minister of Nepal. The Committee will wish also to pay tribute to the memory

  1633
  of the late Prime Minister of Nepal. He was always a great friend of this country, a great patriot and statesman and had many reforms to his credit, notably the abolition of slavery. The Committee will remember the great services which Nepal renders to the Indian Army, owing to the fact that so many intrepid soldiers and workers hail from that district.
  My hon. Friend who referred to these great developments will be interested to hear something about the development of civil aviation in India. India is developing along modern lines. There has been a notable advance in civil aviation during the past year. Branch services are now working connecting the Croydon-Karachi service with Delhi, Bombay and Madras. The Madras extension is notable for the fact that it has been started without Government subsidy, on the basis of a 10-year contract. As regards the main route, an arrangement has been arrived at whereby Imperial Airways shall operate, jointly with an Indian company, the Karachi-Singapore link of the England-Australia service. The first section of this Jink was successfully flown for the first time by a plane leaving Croydon on the 1st July. On the 11th July the first plane of the new service left Calcutta with a much larger weight of mail than had been anticipated. The extension to Rangoon is to follow after the monsoon, and that to Singapore in the new year.
  My hon. Friend was justified in saying that India is being linked up with the rest of the world. My right hon. Friend a short time ago opened for the first time telephonic communication with India, which was inaugurated in May last. The main Indian centres will now be connected with Great Britain. This service places India in radio-telephonic communication with the chief centres a Europe. Connections have also been established with Canada, Australia, South Africa, Egypt and the United States of America. Those who see romance in the development of communications may well say that in this matter India has taken an epoch-making step forward.
  My hon. Friend referred, as did his leader, to the social and economic conditions in India. It may perhaps now be convenient if I leave flights of fancy, if I leave my right hon. Friend on the telephone, and my hon. Friend's flight
  1634
  over Everest, and come down to those social and economic facts to which my hon. Friend opposite attached so much importance. If I deal in some detail with the points raised in the Debate the Committee will sympathise with me and feel that it is perhaps the lot of an Under-Secretary to give to the Committee the information which he has at his command. The hon. Member end the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition wished that in our administration in India we might give some hope to the millions of agriculturists and peasants who, they declared, were completely without hope under our Administration. The right hon. Gentleman opposite said that there were masses of them upon the brink of starvation, and he made the point that we in England are interested either in carrying our money back home for our own people or in erecting vast and costly monuments of capital either at home or in India. I think that I am interpreting his views correctly.
  Mr. LANSBURY: Rather widely.
  Mr. BUTLER: If hon. Members had paid some attention to the introductory speech of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, they would have realised that in most cases British administration in India strives and works unceasingly for those masses who are under our control and who look to us for help and assistance. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition referred to certain costly buildings. Did he refer to one of the most ambitious, and perhaps costly, buildings in the world; the Lloyd Barrage in Sind, which will bring water to a thirsty land and do for that Province what we have already done for Egypt and the Sudan 7 That has always been regarded as one of the triumphs of our Imperial policy, and it is a pity that the right hon. Gentleman should give some examples and forget others. Does he forget, too, that some of the finest examples of development in India have been achieved under the transferred side of government; that is, under Indian ministers? Does he remember,; hat what will one day be the largest hydro-electric scheme in the world, in the Punjab, was started and has been administered by Indian ministers? It will bring all the benefits which such a development brings in its train to the

  1635
  people of that Province. It is right to remember what we have tried to do.
  Although we mention specially some of these greater schemes, it is important to remember that land revenue, as the Moguls found, and as all administrators in India have found since the beginning of its history, is the basis of the prosperity and happiness of its people. I refer the right hon. Member the Leader of the Opposition to the many instances of remissions of land revenue which have been given in these extremely difficult times by several Provincial Governments. A proper administration of land revenue is the best way to encourage the prosperity and happiness of the working masses in the fields. There has been much talk about the sufferings of the peasants in India, and it is pertinent to remark that, thanks to the administration not only of the finances but of the services of the country under the present Administration, India has been saved some of the shocks and panics which other countries of the world have undergone. Had it not been for wise administration we might have seen one of the greatest cataclysms of modern times in the East. Under the wise guidance of the Government of India this has been averted; I hope with the aid and assistance of His Majesty's Government at home.
  Hon. Members opposite have referred to the need for social development and labour legislation. It will be opportune, I think, if I give the Committee some idea of what the Government of India are doing in the matter of labour legislation. In the Central Legislature four main Acts have already been passed on the subject of labour legislation. They are the Tea Districts (Migration of Labour) Act, the Trades Disputes (Amendment) Act, the Employers' and Workmen's (Disputes Repeal) Act and the Children Act. These four Acts are actually on the Statute Book, and when hon. Members realise that the Tea Districts (Migration of Labour) Act has introduced a new system of control over recruitment for Assam and provided rights for arbitration for labourers, they will see that the Government of India has not been idle in its labour legislation. Besides this there is a, Bill which will completely revise the Workmen's
  1636
  Compensation Act, and a Bill to amend the Land Acquisition Act will go through all its stages and be passed in the August Session. There is also a Payment of Wages Bill—considerable reference has been made to wages in the course of the Debate—which represents the first Indian Measure relating to truck. These are definite answers to the points which hon. Members have conscientiously raised on the question of Indian labour.
  In addition, it may satisfy hon. Members to know that the Government of India are canvassing, or have already canvassed, opinions on the subject of many other proposals contained in the report of the Whitley Commission, such as factory legislation, mining legislation, imprisonment for debt, and other questions affecting indebtedness, which has been rightly referred to as the scourge of India. Finally, I am able to say that the Government of India are now actively considering the preparation of a new Factories Bill which will replace all existing Acts, and which will be on the general lines suggested by the Royal Commission on Labour. Hon. Members opposite have made one or two gibes about the interest which supporters of the National Government pay to Indian affairs. I only ask those hon. Members who have raised these questions about labour legislation to remember that we have placed in the Library of the House an important document which refers to the steps the Government of India have taken on the recommendations of the Whitley Commission, and a great many of the points which they have raised find their answers in this document; which, I think, they might have studied. It is always our wish to keep the House well informed on these subjects.
  Some hon. Members have raised the question of unemployment in India. If they would turn to page 80 of this document they would find that the provincial Governments, when circularised on the question of industrial and other unemployment replied that it is difficult to say that there is much unemployment in the main provincial centres of India. Hon. Members will realise that to talk about unemployment in India in the same terms that we talk about it here is impossible. Owing to the migration from the towns to the country and the joint family

  1637
  system which prevails in many parts of India, and owing to the vastly preponderating agricultural element in the population such a generalisation as that to which we have listened, that there are 40,000,000 unemployed people in India, is a gross exaggeration. I feel sure that there was no intention to exaggerate on the part of the hon. Member, but it is important, especially when one has studied the answers given by various Provincial Governments on this point, that such a fact should not find currency in this island. Before leaving this question I should like to add that the Provincial Governments have been somewhat hampered in labour legislation by a lack of funds in this time of exceptional economic depression. It is, however, possible to say that many Governments have adopted a clause in public contracts designed to check child labour and to secure fair wages, and are taking steps for the medical supervision of large public works. In fact, the co-ordination of the health services to which hon. Members attach so much importance, is already receiving the earnest attention of the Government of India, and I have already given cases showing that the Provincial Governments have given it their attention.
  When hon. Members refer to the grave and increasing troubles of the Indian peasant, it is perhaps pertinent to take a statistic which never fails in its accuracy, the returns for railway freights. Hon. Members will be glad to see that, in the estimates for traffic receipts of the railways in the current year, an improvement of one and three-quarter crores has been estimated, and to hear that there has been a, definite rise in railway freights. That is an example showing that India is standing this depression as well as, or better than, any other country in the world. I am confident that that will be followed in due course by an increase in the passenger receipts on the railways.
  Hon. Members have referred in some detail to the Meerut trial. The best course on this occasion is to adhere to the statement made by my right hon. Friend in his intervention earlier in the Debate when he said that this matter is under appeal, and therefore may be said to be sub judice. I do, however, think it important to answer two points which have been referred to in somewhat exaggerated terms by hon. Members
  1638
  opposite. The first is that this has done great harm to Indian labour conditions and to the development of Indian trade unions. On that point it will be valuable for me to read a short extract from the report of the findings of the Sessions Judge, on page 300, in which he said:
  "All this evidence is put forward as material on a fair construction of which it wos reasonable to infer that these activities were not merely ordinary trade union activities, but that the accused concerned in them were using them for the purpose of furthering a Communist conspiracy and with the ultimate object of bringing about a revolution."
  That was, indeed, the object of those who have now been convicted, and I think it a great pity to mix up these objects with the objects of legitimate trade unionism in India with which we all agree. The second point I wish to answer is one that has been answered before—the time this trial has taken. There is no one who does not regret the time, but I wish to read from page 674 of the judgment and give the Committee one of the main reasons why the trial has been so protracted, namely, that the defence themselves have in certain instances deliberately protracted the proceedings.
  "The upshot of the whole matter is that, out of a period of three years and 10 months during which the accused in this case have been detained in gaol or out on bail as under trial prisoners, a period of at least one year could certainly have been saved, if not much more, had the accused not definitely laid themselves out to delay the case whenever they thought it safe to do so. In this connection it will be noted that the majority of the delays are due partly to the nature of the case and partly to the use made by the accused of the ordinary rights given by the C.P.C. to the accused person."
  Mr. HICKS: The hon. Gentleman has referred to the comments of the judge in connection with the actions of these individuals as being against the general principles of trade unionism. Does he not attach some importance to the opinion of the assessors which were appointed to assist the judge, all of whom declared the prisoners, except in one instance, not guilty?
  Mr. MORGAN JONES: Is it not a fact that the judge himself took six months in which to prepare his judgment?
  Mr. BUTLER: If hon. Members had waited for the second reason I was going

  1639
  to give for the length of the trial, they would have realised that, owing to the immense ramifications of this conspiracy and the immense documentation that was necessary, it naturally took much longer than many of us would have desired. As regards the intervention of the hon. Member for East Woolwich I do not think the opinion of the assessors has anything to do with Indian trade unionism. The judge gave full consideration to the opinion of the assessors and if the hon. Member will study their opinions in detail, he will see there was a definite difference as in many cases the assessors came to different conclusions. I would conclude my remarks about the Meerut trial by saying that I very much regret and resent the attack of the Leader of the Opposition on justice in India. We on this bench receive a good deal of criticism from some of my hon. and right hon. Friends on constitutional matters, but they always tell us of the excellence and purity of British justice. I, myself, agree with them on that point. If I may refer to my previous remarks, I would say that there is nothing the ryot morn appreciates in India than the administration of British justice, which is rightly one of the finest in the history of the justice of the world.
  Mr. MAXTON: Can the hon. Member tell us when the appeal is going to be heard'? Has a definite date been fixed, and have the men had adequate opportunities of preparing their defence?
  Mr. BUTLER: The appeal will take place certainly during the next few days, and I would hazard the opinion that it will be within not more than a fortnight. As to opportunities for defence, I need only remind the hon. Member that the prisoners have already been transferred from one class to another class in order to give them an opportunity of preparing their appeal. I am satisfied, from the investigations I have made into the case, that they have been given every facility. They have been moved from one goal to another nearer where the appeal will be heard, and have been given every facility for their case. Nine prisoners have been released on bail pending the appeal.
  The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross (Duchess of Atholl) raised two points
  1640
  which lead me to the consideration of service questions. The first was the question of Indian hospitals and the provision of English doctors where possible in Indian hospitals. It will be a source of some satisfaction to the Committee if I give the figures of recruitment to the Indian Medical Service. There has recently been a definite improvement in the recruitment of Government officers so far as numbers are concerned and, on the whole, the quality of the candidates has also improved. The number of European candidates has increased from 13 in 1931, to 23 in 1932, and during the first six months of the present year 27 have already been appointed. To those who are pessimistic on this point, I would draw particular attention to those figures, and there is every prospect of a larger recruitment this year than during any year since the War.
  As regards the recruitment for the other services, I am glad to say that for the Indian Civil Service from the open competition of 1932, 14 Europeans and 16 Indian recruits were obtained. Ninety-nine European candidates have entered for this year's examination, which is practically the same within three or four of the numbers entering in the last few years. There is no reason to think that a sufficient supply of European candidates to fill the vacancies available in the Indian Civil Service is no longer forthcoming. As regards the Indian police, there has been no difficulty. It has been found easy to find the right type of police officer to enter the Indian police. No difficulty at all has been experienced in obtaining an adequate supply of suitable European recruits. The number of candidates at the London competitive examination has actually risen in the last few years. I think the Committee will attach proper importance to this information. On this last subject of the police I am also able to say that the candidates are of exactly the type that have maintained the high traditions of the Indian police in the past, and they will, I am convinced, do so in the future. My Noble Friend made one other point which I do not wish to leave aside, on the question of defence and the railways. I can only say that the Government of India is satisfied that the safety of the administration of the railways is in no way endangered by the facts which my Noble Friend set out in her interesting question.

  1641
  I think that I have dealt at sufficient length with some of the many points that have been raised in the course of an interesting Debate. It only remains for me to deal with the question of civil disobedience. In reality I think it has been sufficiently explained by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and I cannot myself usefully add anything to what he has said on the subject. We have had appeals from the Opposition side of the Committee that we should not base ourselves merely on Press reports of the recent Poona Conference. My right hon. Friend has said that if Mr. Gandhi thinks that the reports of the Conference are inaccurate and do not represent his views, he has only to issue a denial and proper attention will be given to the denial.
  I would thank the hon. Member for Bristol, North (Mr. Bernays) for his speech from the Liberal benches. I think he is quite right to remind us that we must not forsake our old allegiance to those men who have stood by us in this time of doubt and difficulty. My right hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), who very courteously gave me notice that be was unable to return this evening, referred in a playful speech to the attention that we had given to his advice on the question of administration, and besought us to follow his advice on topics which it would not be in order for me to deal with in this Debate. I would remind him that ours is a twofold policy—a policy of order and progress. We have, we believe, kept the allegiance of the magnificent services, those who carry on the British administration in India, and of law-loving citizens of India, by the first, and we are convinced that we shall keep the confidence of all moderate men in India if we proceed with the second.
  9.40 p.m.
  Mr. LANSBURY: There are two or three things that I would add. First, in regard to the statement of the Under-Secretary as to my attitude towards Indian justice and the administration of it. It is never worth while repeating more than one can help one's view about either the goodness or the badness of people, but at this Box and on the benches behind I have often said my say as to the good things that have been done in India by British administrators. On this question of justice, certainly with
  1642
  regard to the Meerut prisoners or any persons charged with sedition, I am in exactly the same position with regard to Indian justice as I am in with regard to British justice. It has been my lot twice to be charged in this country, and I have never considered that I had a fair trial or a fair deal. It is the rule in any country, and it is not the fault of the Judges, that the established order is right and that those who challenge it are wrong. I have never accepted that view. But that statement does not mean that I think the men who administer justice are dishonourable. I do not think that right hon. Gentlemen opposite are dishonourable because I differ from them. That is my judgment.
  When a person is charged with sedition the whole balance of the court is against him immediately. It has been against me on two occasions, and I have witnessed it in regard to other people. That is one thing. I say definitely—and I do not want to be told that I have said something different—I do not charge anyone with dishonourable conduct in India. I have the highest respect for many of the men who are carrying out a very difficult task in that country, although I profoundly disagree with the policy which they are administering.
  With regard to the Meerut prisoners, the Under-Secretary in his extremely able speech has not attempted to deal with our fundamental objection, and that is that, whatever may be said about criminal conspiracy, not a single iota of evidence of a. criminal conspiracy, except pamphlets and leaflets and the sort of thing that would never hold water in a court of this country, has been brought against them. No overt act has been charged against these men. That being so, we do not understand why they have been sentenced, one to transportation for life and others for very terrible periods. When I say "no overt act," I mean that no act of violence has been charged against any of these men. The Under-Secretary has simply repeated the statement of his chief, that with regard to civil disobedience nothing more is to be said. I regret, first, that the Government do not see their way to cut the knot. The Under-Secretary told us how long a time the prisoners wasted during the Meerut trial, but he knows how much time the judge and the prosecuting counsel wasted also. The bald fact is

  1643
  that the prisoners have been four years in charge of the authorities, sometimes on bail and sometimes in prison. We thought that this would be an opportune time for the Government to recommend that the whole business should be washed out.
  With regard to Mr. Gandhi, we are all extremely sorry that the Government sticks to its position. It is not Mr. Gandhi's business to contradict everything that a newspaper says. We ask that he should be judged by what he
  said in his telegram to the Viceroy. It was quite an ordinary statement, asking that he might have an interview in order to discuss the questions at issue between them. We think that the strong, powerful Imperialist British Government, having used its power to the fullest extent, might have met the request made by Mr. Gandhi.
  Question put, "That a sum, not exceeding £95,595, be granted for the said Service."
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 32; Noes, 186.

  Division No. 271.]

  AYES.

  [9.45 p.m.

  Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)

  Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)

  Mainwaring, William Henry

  Attlee, Clement Richard

  Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvll)

  Maxton, James.

  Bonfield, John William

  Hicks, Ernest George

  Parkinson, John Allen

  Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)

  Hirst, George Henry

  Salter, Dr. Alfred

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

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

  Smith, Tom (Normanton)

  Buchanan, George

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Wallhead, Richard C.

  Cripps, Sir Stafford

  Kirkwood, David

  Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)

  Daggar, George

  Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George

  Williams, Dr. John H. (Llanelly)

  Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

  Lawson, John James

  Dobble, William

  Leonard, William

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Edwards, Charles

  Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)

  Mr. D. Graham and Mr. Tinker.

  Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur

  McEntee, Valentine L.

  NOES.

  Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

  Elliot, Major Rt. Hon. Walter E.

  Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)

  Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)

  Eillston, Captain George Sampson

  Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brigg)

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

  Emmott, Charles E. G. C.

  James, Wing.-Com. A. W. H.

  Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)

  Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)

  Jamieson, Douglas

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

  Essenhigh, Reginald Clare

  Joel, Dudley J. Barnato

  Aske, Sir Robert William

  Evans, David Owen (Cardigan)

  Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)

  Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

  Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univ.)

  Jones, Henry Haydn (Merloneth)

  Baldwin-Webb. Colonel J.

  Everard, W. Lindsay

  Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)

  Beaumont, Hon. R.E.B. (Portem'th, C.)

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)

  Bennett, Capt. Sir Ernest Nathaniel

  Fleming. Edward Lascelles

  Knight. Holford

  Bernays, Robert

  Ford, Sir Patrick J.

  Knox, Sir Alfred

  Bird, Ernest Roy (Yorks., Skipton)

  Fraser, Captain Ian

  Leighton, Major B. E. P.

  Blindell, James

  Fremantle, Sir Francis

  Lindsay. Noel Ker

  Bossom, A. C.

  Fuller, Captain A. G.

  Little, Graham-, Sir Ernest

  Boulton, W. W.

  Ganzoni, Sir John

  Llewellyn, Major John J.

  Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.

  Gillett, Sir George Masterman

  Llewellyn-Jones, Frederick

  Boyce, H. Leslie

  Goldie, Noel B.

  Lloyd, Geoffrey

  Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)

  Goodman, Colonel Albert W.

  Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander

  Broadbent, Colonel John

  Gower, Sir Robert

  Lyons, Abraham Montagu

  Brown, Ernest (Leith)

  Graves, Marjorie

  MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G.(Partick)

  Buchan, John

  Greaves-Lord. Sir Walter

  MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)

  Burghley, Lord

  Greene, William P. C.

  McEwen, Captain J. H. F.

  Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie

  Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John

  McKie, John Hamilton

  Burnett, John George

  Gunston, Captain D. W.

  Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton

  Butler, Richard Austen

  Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.

  McLean. Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)

  Campbell, Sir Edward Taswe H (Brmly)

  Hales, Harold K.

  Macguisten, Frederick Alexander

  Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm

  Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)

  Magnay, Thomas

  Caporn, Arthur Cecil

  Hamilton, Sir R. W.(Orkney & Zetl'nd)

  Mallalleu, Edward Lancelot

  Cassels, James Dale

  Hanley, Dennis A.

  Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.

  Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)

  Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry

  Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.

  Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)

  Harbord, Arthur

  Martin, Thomas B.

  Clarke, Frank

  Hartland, George A.

  Mason, David M. (Edinburgh, E.)

  Clarry, Reginald George

  Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kenningt'n)

  Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John

  Clayton, Sir Christopher

  Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)

  Merriman, Sir F. Boyd

  Conant, R. J. E.

  Heilgers. Captain F. F. A.

  Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

  Copeland, Ida

  Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmsford)

  Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

  Craddock, Sir Reginald Henry

  Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.

  Molson, A. Hugh Elsdale

  Craven-Ellis, William

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

  Monsell, Rt. Hon. Sir B. Eyres

  Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.

  Hornby, Frank

  Moore, Lt.-Col. Thomas C. R. (Ayr)

  Crooke, J. Smedley

  Horobin Ian M.

  Morris, Jana Patrick (Salford, N.)

  Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)

  Horsbrugh, Florence

  Muirhead, Major A. J.

  Curry, A. C.

  Howard, Tom Forrest

  Munro, Patrick

  Davison, Sir William Henry

  Howitt, Dr. Allred B.

  Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.

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

  Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)

  Nicholson, Godfrey (Morpeth)

  Edmondson, Major A. J.

  Hume, Sir George Hopwood

  Normand, Wilfrid Guild

  North, Edward T.

  Runge, Norah Cecil

  Stuart, Lord C. Crichton

  O'Donovan, Dr. William James

  Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray F.

  O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh

  Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)

  Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart

  Patrick, Colin M.

  Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield, B'tside)

  Summersby, Charles H.

  Penny, Sir George

  Rutherford, Sir John Hugo (Liverp'l)

  Thomas, James P. L. (Hereford)

  Perkins, Walter R. D.

  Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)

  Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon

  Potter, John

  Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart

  Wallace, John (Duntermline)

  Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.

  Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)

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

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

  Slater, John

  Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)

  Rankin, Robert

  Smiles, Lieut.-Col. Sir Walter D.

  Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)

  Rea, Walter Russell

  Smith-Carington, Neville W.

  Whiteside, Borras Noel H.

  Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)

  Somervell. Donald Bradley

  Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)

  Reid, William Allan (Derby)

  Soper, Richard

  Wills, Wilfrid D.

  Rentoul Sir Gervals S.

  Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.

  Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)

  Rhys, Hon. Charles Arthur U.

  Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.

  Womersley, Walter James

  Rosbotham, Sir Thomas

  Steel-Maitland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur

  Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)

  Storey, Samuel

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.

  Strauss, Edward A.

  Major George Davies and Dr.

  Morris-Jones.

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Original Question again proposed.
  Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again," put, and agreed to.—[Captain Margesson.]
  Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.
  The remaining Government Order was read, and postponed.

  ADJOURNMENT.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Margesson.]
  9.53 p.m.
  Mr. HOLFORD KNIGHT: I am aware that under the Rules of the House, this being a Supply day, it is not possible to proceed with the further Orders on the Paper, but I would like with great respect to point out what serious difficulties are created for many persons outside this House in respect of a Bill which remains on the Order Paper, and an opportunity of considering which would be afforded now, but for a technicality in the Rules of the House. The House willingly gives the Government all the time required for Government business and I respectfully urge that when the requirements of the Government are exhausted at this hour of the evening and when another hour remains, it should be possible for the House if so minded, to apply itself to other matters on the Order Paper. I sincerely and warmly protest against adjourning at this time especially having regard to one Bill which is on the Order Paper. The Bill which I have especially in mind is the Matrimonial Causes Bill. I do not want to
  1646
  detain the House unnecessarily, but they will allow me to say that I consider it a duty to make this protest in the interests of a matter which is causing grievous harm outside this House. There can scarcely be a Member here Who has not received from his constituents particulars of grievous cases—
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and learned Member will understand that by the Rules of the House we are unable to take other business before 11 o'clock.
  Mr. KNIGHT: I am aware of that, and it is on that that I am making my protest.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and learned Member cannot protest against the Rules of the House.
  Mr. KNIGHT: What I am saying is that while that is the Rule of the House, by that technicality we are prevented from dealing with most urgent business which the country outside desires to take, and I enter my most emphatic protest.
  9.56 p. m.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Captain Margesson): I must point out to the hon. and learned Member that, even if this were not a Supply day, I should still have moved the Adjournment of the House as it is before 11 o'clock, otherwise other hon. Members of the House who would be unaware that this highly controversial Bill was to be debated, would find that the hon. and learned Member had moved it when they were not present. Therefore, whether it was a Supply day or not, I should still, on behalf of the Government, have had to move the Adjournment of the House.
  Mr. KNIGHT: Allow me to say—
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and learned Member can only make one speech.
  Mr. KNIGHT: On a. point of Order. With great respect, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has made a personal reference to myself, and I ask him to allow me to make a statement on it.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The right hon. and gallant Member replied to the speech made by the hon. and learned Member for South Nottingham (Mr. Knight).
  Adjourned accordingly at Three Minutes before Ten o'Clock.

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