Sitting of 8 July 1936

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Epsom and Walton Downs Regulation Bill [Lords],
As amended, to be considered upon Monday next.
Land Drainage Provisional Order (No. 2) Bill,
Read the Third time, and passed.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

  ITALY AND ABYSSINIA.
  Mr. ELLIS SMITHasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will inform the House as to the attitude of the French Government towards the proposed abandonment of sanctions; and whether they desired to abandon them unconditionally or with reservations?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Viscount Cranborne): The attitude of the French Government towards the proposed abandonment of sanctions was made clear in the communique issued in Paris on 19th June, in which it was stated that the French Government, having been informed of the position as regards the question of sanctions, considered that the existing circumstances tended in favour of accepting their removal. The French representative on the Co-ordination Committee agreed to the proposal, which the committee decided on 6th July to submit to the various Governments concerned, in which it was proposed that the Governments of the members of the League of Nations should abrogate, on 15th July next, the restrictive measures taken by them in conformity with the committee's proposals last autumn. He made no condition or reservation.
  Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: Are the French Government a Socialist Government?
  Mr. THORNE: No, they are a combination, like yours.
  Mr. RILEYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the British Government intend to oppose or acquiesce in the illegal conquest of Abyssinia by Italy?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which my right hon. Friend gave to the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Miss Rathbone) on 22nd June, and to that given by me to the hon. Member for East. Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) on 1st July, to which I have nothing to add.
  Mr. RILEYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the question of the conquest of Abyssinia by Italy was discussed at the recent meeting of the Council of the League of Nations at Geneva; and, if so, what was the attitude taken by His Majesty's Government and what decision was agreed to?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: The question of the conquest of Abyssinia by Italy was not discussed at the recent meeting of the Council, but at the Assembly. In the preamble to the recommendation passed by the Assembly on 4th July, it was stated that the Assembly remained firmly attached to the principles of the Covenant, which were also expressed in other diplomatic instruments, such as the declaration of the American States dated 3rd August, 1932, excluding the settlement of territorial questions by force. In favour of this recommendation, the United Kingdom Delegation voted, together with 43 other Delegations. I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the recommendation.
  Mr. RILEY: Does that imply no recognition?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: The terms of the League's recommendation make it clear that there has been no recognition of Italy's annexation of Abyssinia at the present Assembly.
  Mr. VYVYAN ADAMSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what was the reason for the additional expenditure last year in connection with the movements of the Navy in the Mediterranean and with the drafting of troops to Egypt and the western desert?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: I would refer my hon. Friend to my statement on this point during the Debate in the House on 24th February. There is nothing which I can add to that statement.
  Mr. MANDER: In view of the fact that we now know that the Government were never prepared to risk a single ship, why were they sent there at all?

  MEDITERRANEAN LEAGUE POWERS.
  Mr. MANDERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at what time, and under what conditions, the British guarantee to assist Jugoslavia, Greece and Turkey against an Italian attack will be terminated; and to what extent the guarantee differs from the terms of the Covenant of the League of Nations?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: As regards the first part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the statement made by my right hon. Friend on this particular point in the course of the Debate on 18th June, to which I have nothing to add. With regard to the second part, the assurances in question arise out of paragraph 3 of Article 16 of the Covenant and cannot, therefore, be said to differ from it.
  Mr. MANDER: Has any progress been made towards appointing a date for this arrangement to come to an end?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: I am afraid I cannot at present add to my right hon. Friend's answer.
  Mr. LEACHasked the Prime Minister in what way he proposes to implement the pledge of protection to Mediterranean League Powers?
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): The actual steps which would be taken by His Majesty's Government to implement the assurances in question would obviously depend on the circumstances of the aggression against which the assurances were intended to provide a guarantee. I would, however, remind the hon. Member that these assurances are purely provisional and that His Majesty's Government regard the eventuality to which they are intended to apply not only as hypothetical but as improbable.
  Mr. LEACH: While trusting that the right hon. Gentleman is fully restored to health, does not his answer mean the throwing over of the Home Secretary when he declared something very different quite recently?
  The PRIME MINISTER: Not that I am aware of.
  Mr. LEACH: Did not he say he was not prepared to risk a single ship in the Mediterranean?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I am not aware of that.
  Mr. MANDER: Is it clear that on this Occasion, and for this purpose, the Government are prepared to risk a British ship?

  DARDANELLES.
  Mr. H. G. WILLIAMSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Dardanelles Straits Convention is treated as being a part of the Treaty of Lausanne; and what modifications of the latter have been requested of the Turkish Government in exchange for the proposal that the former should be abrogated?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: Article 23 of the Treaty of Peace with Turkey, signed at Lausanne on 24th July, 1923, states that the parties to the Treaty recognise the principle of freedom of transit and navigation in the Straits as prescribed in the separate Straits Convention signed that clay, which was to have the same force and effect as if it formed part of the Treaty of Peace. Similarly the preamble to the Straits Convention states that the parties to the Convention desire to ensure freedom of transit and navigation in accordance with the principles laid down in Article 23 of the Treaty of Peace. No modifications of the Treaty of Peace have been sought from the Turkish Government.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: Would the Noble Lord tell me why we make this very important concession to Turkey, and whether we should not ask them for the recision of some of the concessions we have granted to them?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: For the simple reason that nothing affecting the Treaty of Peace arises out of these discussions.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: As the Straits Convention is an annexe to the Treaty of Peace, surely it must be regarded as part of the Treaty of Peace as a whole, and if one part of it is modified, surely other parts should be modified as well?

  DANZIG.
  Mr. MANDERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any statement to make with reference to the situation in Danzig?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: I have nothing to add to the statement which my right hon. Friend made on this subject in the House on Monday last.
  Mr. MANDER: Can my Noble Friend give an assurance that the High Commissioner will be fully supported by the British Government through the League, in the admirable and impartial way in which he has carried out his duties?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: His Majesty's Government always act properly as a member of the League.

  INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION.
  Mr. ANDERSONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what States are members of the International Labour Organisation which are not members of the League; and what States, whether members of the League or not, are not members of the International Labour Organisation?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: The following States are members of the International Labour Organisation which are not members of the League: The United States, Brazil, Japan, Egypt. All members of the League are members of the International Labour Organisation. Of the States with which His Majesty's Government normally maintain diplomatic relations, the following are members neither of the League nor of the International Labour Organisation: Germany, Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica, The Papal State.

  CONSULAR SERVICE.
  Mr. DAYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what changes have been made in the recruitment or
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  administration of the Consular Service since November, 1931; and the increase in numbers of this service since that date?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: No change has been made of recent years in the method of recruiting the Consular Service. As regards administration, the various branches of the service were amalgamated in 1934 and 1935, as far as future entrants were concerned, so that such officers will not now spend all their career in one area. The total number of salaried officers in 1931 was 351, and at present is 348, a decrease of three.
  Mr. DAY: Is every endeavour being made to obtain British nationals to accept this service, before the appointment of foreigners'?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: To the best of my knowledge, yes; but perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put that question down.

  LEAGUE OF NATIONS.
  Mr. De la BEREasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) whether, in view of the failure of the League of Nations to apply economic and financial sanctions, it is proposed to take any steps to reorganise the League along its present lines in September;
  (2) whether, at the next meeting of the League of Nations, he will put forward a proposal to consider the question of regional pacts as applied to the League?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: I cannot at present add anything to the reply given by my right hon. Friend to a question by the hon. Member for East Willesden (Mr. D. G. Somerville) on Monday last.

  UNITED STATES (CAPITAL SHIPS, CONSTRUCTION).
  Mr. A. HENDERSONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any notification has yet been received from the Government of the United States of their announced intention, in view of the non-adherence of Japan to the London Naval Treaty, 1936, to construct capital ships with 16-inch guns instead of with 14-inch guns?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: No, Sir.
  Mr. HENDERSON: Is the Minister aware of the statement made last week by the acting-Secretary to the Navy, to the effect that the United States intended to change her policy on those grounds?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: No notification has been received from the Government of the United States.

  ANGLO-EGYPTIAN CONVERSA TIONS.
  Mr. A. HENDERSONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make Any statement as to the present Anglo-Egyptian negotiations?
  Mr. LATHANasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give any information on the renewal of the negotiations for an Anglo-Egyptian treaty; on what subjects agreement has been reached; and what subjects remain for discussion?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: Conversations between the heads of the two delegations were resumed at once upon the return of His Majesty's High Commissioner to Cairo. Up to date, these conversations have been restricted to the military clauses of the treaty. No final agreement has yet been reached. The question of the Sudan, and the civil clauses of the treaty, still remain to be discussed.
  Mr. HENDERSON: Does the Minister expect to be able to make a statement before the House rises for the Summer Recess?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: A statement will be made at the earliest possible moment.
  Sir JOSEPH NALL: Is regard being had, in these conversations, to the importance of securing water rights for the Canal zone?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: All relevant matters will be borne in mind.

  MANCHURIA.
  Mr. MOREINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any official report has reached him as to the announcement by the Foreign Minister
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  of the de facto State of Manchukuo relating to the extra territorial rights of foreigners; what is the precise nature of the changes contemplated; and to what extent the rights of British subjects are affected?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: Yes, Sir. I understand that the authorities in Manchuria issued a statement in general terms on 1st July to the effect that it was their intention gradually to abolish the extra-territorial rights at present enjoyed by the subjects of Powers which have not recognised that regime. As my hon. Friend will no doubt be aware, a treaty providing for the gradual abolition of Japanese extra territorial rights in Manchuria was concluded between the Japanese Government and the Manchurian authorities on 10th June. This was mainly concerned with the gradual application of Manchurian taxes to Japanese subjects. The intentions of the Manchurian authorities in regard to the extra territorial rights of other foreign Powers are no doubt similar, though no details are yet available.
  Mr. MOREING: Is my Noble Friend aware that since the adoption of this policy by the Manchukuo Government there has been the very serious incident of the arrest of a British subject of Indian nationality in Manchukuo, and will the Government take all necessary steps to protect the interests of British nationals in that State?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: I have already explained that His Majesty's Government have yet no detailed information. We are closely watching the position, but until those details are known, it is impossible to know what action it would be proper to take.
  Mr. HANNAH: Is it true that Japan is the only country not inconvenienced by our non-recognition of Manchukuo?

  CHINA (SMUGGLING).
  Mr. MOREINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has yet received information from His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires in Peking on the question of the placing of Chinese Customs guards in the goods yards of the railway termini at Tientsin and Peking; and whether any attempt has been made to prevent the Chinese Customs service from adopting this safeguard?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: No, Sir. The necessary inquiries have been made, but there has not yet been time to receive a reply.

  MANDATED TERRITORIES.
  Mr. V. ADAMSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, as His Majesty's Government have in the Italo-Ethiopian dispute pursued a policy not in complete accord with that of the Dominion most closely concerned by Italy's breaches of treaty and unprovoked aggression, he will give an undertaking that in any future discussion with regard to the return of the former German colonies, he will relate his policy closely to the desires of the Union of South Africa?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: I would refer my hon. Friend to the statement made in the House on 12th May by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Dominions in answer to a question by the hon. and gallant Member for West Birkenhead (Lieut.-Colonel Sandeman Allen), to which I have nothing to add.
  Mr. ADAMS: Does not that mean that the Union is resolutely inflexible on the matter?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: My hon. Friend had better read the answer.
  Mr. E. SMITH: Is the Noble Lord aware of the large amount of propaganda that is taking place in the area mentioned in the question; and what steps are being taken to combat it?

  GERMANY (BRITISH NOTE).
  Mr. EMMOTTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the German Government have explained to His Majesty's Government the reason of their failure to answer the inquiry addressed to them by His Majesty's Government on 6th May?
  Viscount CRANBORNE: The German Government have given no formal explanation of their delay in replying to the British inquiries. They have, however, indicated that they have hitherto been reluctant to return an answer in view of the obscurity of the international situation.
  Lieut.-Commander FLETCHER: Is the Noble Lord aware of the open contempt with which the officially-inspired Press of Germany is treating this questionnaire?

  ROYAL NAVY.

    CHINA SQUADRON.
    Lieut. - Commander FLETCHERasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any orders have been issued to the Commander-in-Chief of the China squadron in connection with the customs incident between China and Japan?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Sir Samuel Hoare): No, Sir.

    PRIZE FUND.
    Mr. DAYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether there is any surplus still in hand of the grants which were made from the residue of the prize fund which came into operation by the passing of the Naval Prize Act, 1928; and, if so, whether he will give particulars and state when and to whom it is proposed to distribute the same?
    Sir S. HOARE: The entire residue Of the Naval Prize Fund has been disposed of. A final statement of account was presented to this House on 16th February, 1934.

  PALESTINE.

    SITUATION.
    Lieut.-Commander FLETCHERasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any statement to make on the latest situation in Palestine?
    Mr. T. WILLIAMSasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any statement to make on the present position in Palestine?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): While there has been some fluctuation from time to time in the number of acts of violence, there is little apparent change in the situation since my statement on 19th June. The broken nature of the country, and the opportunities which it affords for sniping and for acts of sabotage by armed persons at night, necessarily adds to the difficulties of Government in restoring order. Numerous arrests and

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    seizures of arms and ammunition have been effected in the course of operations, and collective fines in sums varying from £5,000 to £60 have been imposed on the towns of Lydda and Hebron and on a number of villages. On 28th June the garrison was further reinforced by a mechanised cavalry regiment, the 8th Hussars.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Has the right hon. Gentleman yet received the communications from the Supreme Moslem Council containing the original proposals of the Arabs and also explaining very clearly that they still support the strike?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Yes, Sir; communications have been received. I think the communications added to their original demands.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: In view of the continuance of the political strike, involving, as it is doing, not only loss of material wealth but loss of human life, what steps, if any, are contemplated with regard to the leaders who are inspiring this strike?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: We are doing all we can by military reinforcements to restore order in the whole country.
    Mr. CROSSLEY: Have not the Supreme Moslem Council made it quite clear that, while supporting the strike, they do not agree with the acts of violence?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: They have certainly said that.
    Mr. GALLACHER: Has the Minister paid any attention to the criticism of the Palestine High Court as to the method of conducting affairs in Palestine, especially the demolition of parts of Jaffa?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: It is not the duty of this House or of myself to comment on anything said by a Judge in the High Court, any more than it is the duty of Ministers here to comment on what is said by the Lord Chief Justice or any other Judge in this country.

    FOREIGN PROPAGANDA.
    Lieut. - Commander FLETCHERasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has now received a report from the High Commissioner, Palestine, on the existence of Italian
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    propaganda in Palestine and adjoining countries?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I have received certain information as to propaganda from outside sources, but I do not consider that it would be in the public interest to make any detailed statement. I would assure the hon. and gallant Member that the position is being carefully watched, and that all practicable measures are being taken to counteract hostile foreign propaganda.

    MUFTI OF JERUSALEM.
    Mr. PICKTHORNasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Mufti of Jerusalem was selected for his appointment by the High Commissioner for Palestine or elected by his fellow Moslems?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I am glad to have the opportunity to make this matter clear. The Mufti of Jerusalem holds the appointment of Rais el-Ulema or President of the Supreme Moslem Sharia Council. His Eminence was elected to this office in 1922 by a Moslem general committee which was itself elected by secondary electors.
    Captain PETER MACDONALD: Is it not a fact that the Mufti is not and never has been a Government official, as has been alleged?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I say that he was elected by Mohammedans, but he is recognised by the Government.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Is it not the case that the Grand Mufti does receive £600 per annum from the Palestine Government?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: As I explained before, in respect of purely judicial functions he receives, as do the Judges in Palestine, remuneration from public funds.

    JAFFA (DEMOLITION OF HOUSES).
    Mr. HANNAHasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any of the houses recently destroyed in Jaffa possessed archaeological interest; and whether the Government of Palestine is trying to preserve the ancient features of the country?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: It is most unlikely that any of the houses recently destroyed in Jaffa possessed archaeologi-

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    cal interest. As regards the second part of the question, the answer is in the affirmative. By an Ordinance enacted as early as 1920 a special Department of the Palestine Administration was established for the protection of the historical monuments and antiquities of Palestine, and this Department has been actively administered.

    MOSLEM RELIGIOUS COURTS.
    Mr. T. SMITHasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that during the past two years Jewish taxpayers in Palestine have contributed approximately £9,000 towards the cost of the maintenance of the Moslem Supreme Council while the Jewish religious courts and the Chief Rabbi have received no financial support of any kind from Government sources; and whether it is proposed that this arrangement should be continued indefinitely.
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The expenditure on the Moslem Religious Courts exceeds their income and this deficit is a charge on public funds to which both Arab and Jewish taxpayers contribute. No similar subvention is held to be required in the case of the Courts of the other religious communities. The President of the Supreme Moslem Council has agreed in principle progressively to diminish the deficit by the reduction of expenditure and the increase of fees. The deficit, which was £12,610 in 1933–34, was reduced to £9,520 in 1934–35; and it is expected that within the measurable future the administration of the Moslem Religious Courts will involve no charge on public funds.

    ITALIAN BROADCASTS.
    Mr. THURTLEasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is now in a position to state the result of his inquiries into the nature of recent broadcast messages in Arabic from Bari?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: No, Sir. I have addressed an inquiry to the High Commissioner for Palestine as to the allegation that recent Arabic broadcasts from Bari have included defamation of British troops, but I have not yet received the High Commissioner's report.

    NYASALAND (NATIVE LABOUR, EMIGRATION).
    Mr. BANFIELDasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps
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    are being taken to carry out the recommendations of the committee which was appointed by the Governor of Nyasaland to inquire into the recruitment of labour for work in Southern Rhodesia and the South African Union; and, in particular, whether any steps will be taken to promote an economic alternative to emigration, in order to prevent the serious consequences to native social and economic life outlined in the committee's report?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: As I informed my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Berwick and Haddington (Captain McEwen) on 1st July, I am awaiting the Governor's considered recommendations before coming to any decisions as to the various lines of action which would seem to be called for.
    Mr. BANFIELD: Will the right hon. Gentleman take into consideration, when he is considering this matter, the possibility of the development of cotton in this area?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Efforts have been made in that direction, as the hon. Member knows, but it is a very difficult country from the point, of view of growing economic crops for export. The principal crop grown by natives in Nyasaland is tobacco, but the market for tobacco is rather limited.
    Mr. BANFIELD: Might not that be a reason for paying special attention to the possibilities of cotton?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Efforts have been made for a number of years to introduce cotton in Nyasaland.

    TRINIDAD (RADIO SERVICE).
    Mr. CHORLTONasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has yet received the report from the Governor with relation to direct radio communication with the island of Trinidad?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Yes, Sir. I have now received the report, and am communicating with my hon. Friend on the subject.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    COLONIES (IMPORT QUOTAS).
    Mr. CHORLTONasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he

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    proposes any modification in the quotas now in force for imports into various Colonies; and whether any steps are proposed to be taken to restrict importation into Uganda and Kenya to the figures of 1924, or in proportion to that rate?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: As regards the first part of the question, no general revision of the quotas is proposed at present. As regards the second part of the question, international obligations under the Berlin and Brussels Acts and the St. Germain Convention prevent the introduction of quota restriction on imports into Kenya and Uganda.
    Sir J. NALL: Will my right hon. Friend take steps to prevent the importation, under the quotas, of cotton cloth which is only finished in this country, and is not really British cloth?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I shall be very glad to have any detailed representations as to whether these quotas are being evaded in any particular way.

    AUSTRALIA.
    Mr. DONNERasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the restrictions imposed by Japan on Australian goods following upon the declaration of His Majesty's Government in Australia and their subsequent action to maintain the Australian market for British goods, he will take steps to reduce imports from Japan into this country until Japanese discrimination against Australia ceases?
    The SECRETARY for MINES (Captain Crookshank): My right hon. Friend has not yet received a copy of the Ordinance, but I understand that it is so framed as to restrict the importation of certain commodities from Australia. The question of making representations to the Japanese Government, or taking other steps in regard to this matter, is one for His Majesty's Government in the Commonwealth of Australia. As my right hon. Friend has already stated, His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom fully recognise the value to United Kingdom trade of the recent revision of the Commonwealth duties on textiles.
    Mr. DONNER: Is not this an opportunity of intimating that action taken
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    against any part of the Empire is action taken against the whole?

  KENYA.

    LAND OCCUPATION (INDIANS).
    Major MILNERasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is willing, in order to meet the objections of the Indian community in Kenya and of public opinion in India, to leave the question of the occupation of land in the Kenya highlands to be dealt with as a matter of administrative practice as hitherto?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: There is not and never has been any intention of varying the procedure hitherto followed, by which this question is dealt with as a matter of administrative practice.
    Major MILNER: Is it not a fact that what has hitherto been merely an administrative practice has now become a legal obligation?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: No. As I explained very fully in answer to questions last week and the week before, that is a complete misapprehension.

    WHITE SETTLERS (FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE).
    Major MILNERasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can give particulars of the assistance granted to white settlers in Kenya since 1931, whether in the form of subsidies remission of taxation, licence duties, or railway rates; what sums have been advanced through the land bank; how much has been refunded, whether in interest or capital repayment; what sums are still owing to the Government by the settlers; and what number and proportion of the settlers have benefited by these measures?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I regret that I am not in a position to furnish full and accurate information on all the points desired by the hon. and gallant Member, but I am asking the Governor to furnish me with a full statement. With the hon. Member's permission I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a statement of such figures as are in my possession.
    Following is the statement:
    Under the Agricultural Advances Scheme sanctioned in 1930 sums have been advanced from surplus balances to farmers which are repayable with interest. The amount outstanding at the end of 1935 was £106,595. A land bank has been established with an authorised capital of £500,000 and steps are now being taken to increase that capital to £750,000 with a possible extension to £1,000,000. The total amount of advances made by the bank up to date has been £518,425, some of the original advances having been repaid with interest and re-lent. A subsidy to enable an economic price to be paid for maize has been approved for the current year amounting to £12,500. Railway rates on certain commodities have been reduced, but the reductions cover a variety of articles and are designed to benefit the trade of Kenya generally, native as well as European, and not any one section. Loans, totalling £116,090 have been made to the maize, wheat and barley industries. Provision is made for repayment by a levy on exported maize should prices hereafter permit.

    MALTA.
    Mr. THURTLEasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it is the intention of the Government, during the interim period before the new constitution for Malta is promulgated, to see that all persons inhabiting the Colony shall have full liberty of conscience in regard to religious matters?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The existing Constitution provides that all persons in Malta shall have full liberty of conscience and the free exercise of their respective modes of religious worship: and it is the intention of His Majesty's Government fully to maintain this provision in force.

    GERMAN AIRSHIP "HINDENBURG."
    Mr. V. ADAMSasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he is aware that on 30th June the German airship "Hindenburg" flew for the second time within a few weeks at a low altitude over Leeds; whether he has any statement to make on the matter; and, in particular, whether it is the policy of
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    His Majesty's Government to allow foreign aircraft to fly low over this country without adhering to a specified route at a reasonable altitude?
    Mr. LUNNasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he is aware that the German airship "Hindenburg" is regularly flying over various parts of this country; and whether there is any understanding between the British and German Governments on the matter?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Philip Sassoon): There has hitherto been no question of this airship regularly flying over this country. While, under the Anglo-German Air Convention, each of the contracting parties grants liberty of passage to the aircraft of the other, this is subject to the proviso that special formal permission would be necessary for the operation of a regular route by an air transport company of one of the parties across the other's territory. In accordance with this there is an understanding between the British and German Governments that the "Hindenburg" and the "Graf Zeppelin" will avoid flying over this country except when forced to do so by some urgent necessity of navigation. There is therefore no right under the convention for an airship undertaking a regular service to fly over this country: and an airship so engaged would only be justified in doing so if compelled thereto by stress of weather. The question of recent flights is being taken up with the German Government.
    Mr. ADAMS: Is the right hon. Baronet aware that on the last occasion that the "Hindenburg" flew over the industrial districts of the north she was right off her course, and would this kind of licence be granted to foreign aeroplanes?
    Sir P. SASSOON: I have given a very full answer.
    Mr. THORNE: Does not the right hon. Baronet think the Germans know all about our arsenals and dockyards without flying over them?
    Mr. EMMOTT: Is the right hon. Baronet aware that the hon. Member's constituency is not the only part of the country to which the "Hindenburg" appears to have paid particular attention?
    Mr. PERKINSasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he will invite the commander of the German airship "Hindenburg" to fly over London so as to give the inhabitants the opportunity of seeing the ship?
    Sir P. SASSOON: My hon. Friend's suggestion has been noted.
    Mr. PERKINS: Does my right hon. Friend remember that three years ago the "Graf Zeppelin" flew right over the centre of London and took Members of this House for joy-rides; and does he also remember the great pleasure which that trip gave not only to Members of this House, but also to the inhabitants of London?
    Captain BALFOURasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air (1) whether the Air Ministry meteorological reports of weather conditions over and around the British Isles on Sunday last were such as to render imperative the crossing of the British coast by an airship making for Germany, or whether conditions would have reasonably allowed of a course up channel to have been taken;
    (2) whether the German airship "Hindenburg" flew over or sufficiently close to allow observation of any prohibited area when crossing England on Sunday last; and, if so, what action the Air Ministry propose to take in the matter;
    (3) the number of journeys across the Atlantic undertaken by German airships during the past three months; and the number of times the English coast has been crossed during such passages?
    Sir P. SASSOON: As regards the need for the course taken by the "Hindenburg" on Sunday last, it is not possible to form an accurate judgment by a subsequent examination of the data contained in ordinary meteorological reports, particularly as the commander of an airship may have to take into account additional safety factors peculiar to lighter-than-air craft. I think it is therefore reasonable to assume that the commander of the airship exercised a proper discretion on this occasion. No complaints respecting low flying or failure to observe the regulations as regards flying over prohibited areas have been received, and there is no reason to believe that the regulations were not properly observed. German airships have made 11 return
    1186
    journeys across the Atlantic since the end of March, but as they (in common with foreign aircraft generally) are not kept under special observation, unless they are reported to be infringing regulations, I am unable to state the precise number of occasions on which they have crossed the English coast.
    Captain BALFOUR: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the very grave misgivings that exist in the country with regard to this airship, and will he take action to see that a repetition of these flights round these particular areas is not allowed indefinitely to continue without a protest being made by His Majesty's Government?
    Sir P. SASSOON: These flights are allowed only in case of urgent necessity, and certainly not as part of a regular service, and the avoidance of prohibited areas must be strictly observed, and, as I said in answer to another question, these recent flights, are being taken up with the German Government.
    Mr. V. ADAMS: What was the urgent necessity on the last occasion for the airship going north?
    Sir P. SASSOON: Bad weather.
    Sir ASSHETON POWNALL: Can my right hon. Friend say whether cameras are permitted to be carried on this airship?
    Sir P. SASSOON: Foreign aircraft flying over British territory are not allowed to carry cameras unless permission has been obtained.
    Captain P. MACDONALDasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Graf Zeppelin flew at a low elevation over the Solent and Portsmouth area on the evening of 5th July; whether there are any regulations to prevent such flying; and what steps are taken to enforce them?
    Sir P. SASSOON: As regards the first part of the question I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend, who, I assume, is referring to the airship Hindenburg, to the reply which I have already given to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Captain Balfour). As regards the second part, detailed regulations dealing with low flying in different circumstances, and with

    1187
    flying over prohibited areas, are contained in the Air Navigation (Consolidation) Order, of which I am sending a copy to my hon. and gallant Friend. As regards the last part of the question, any infringement of the regulations reported by the police would be taken up with the German Air Ministry.
    Captain MACDONALD: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this airship flew at a very low elevation over Southampton Water down the Solent, and over the prohibited area of Portsmouth on Sunday evening last; and as he says that no complaints have been received, will he receive the number of complaints which I have received from my constituents about this infringement?
    Sir P. SASSOON: I shall be glad to have any information the hon. and gallant Gentleman wishes to give me.
    Mr. PERKINS: Is it not a fact that a regular air liner from the Isle of Wight to London stops at Portsmouth and goes right over this prohibited area, and that a foreigner could go on that air liner and take photographs from the windows?

    ROYAL AIR FORCE (ACCIDENT, DRIFFIELD AERODROME).
    Mr. THORNEasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he can give the House any information in connection with the fatal accident to Richard Sygroves, who was killed at Driffield aerodrome; and whether he can give the cause of the accident?
    Sir P. SASSOON: This workman was an employé of a firm of contractors engaged upon constructional work at the Driffield aerodrome, which is being prepared for occupation as a Royal Air Force station. I regret that I am informed that he was struck by a scaffold board which fell from the roof.

    FOREIGN POLICY.
    Mr. E. SMITHasked the Prime Minister if he will arrange for a three days' Debate on foreign affairs before the House adjourns in July?
    The PRIME MINISTER: There have already been several Debates on foreign
    1188
    policy this Session, and further opportunities remain for the subject to be debated on allotted Supply Days and on the Appropriation Bill.
    Mr. SMITH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the motives behind this question are the same that he outlined in a recent speech at a school, and will he use his influence to avoid the repetition of what has taken place during the last six months so that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen responsible for Versailles, Gallipoli and the Dardanelles shall not be allowed to dominate these Debates?

  DEFENCE.

    SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES.
    Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCEasked the Prime Minister when it is proposed to present the Supplementary Estimates dealing with the Defence Forces announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Friday, 3rd July?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Supplementary Estimates for the Navy, Army and Air Services have been presented to the House, and will be available to Members to-morrow.

    TRADE UNION CO-OPERATION.
    Mr. MANDERasked the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence whether he is receiving full co-operation from the trade union movement in the production of the munitions required to support the present foreign policy of the Government?
    The MINISTER for the CO-ORDINATION of DEFENCE (Sir Thomas Inskip): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Short) and the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) on 25th March and 1st April respectively.
    Mr. MANDER: Has the right hon. Gentleman actually as yet been in contact with any representatives of trade unions in connection with the Government's rearmament programme?
    Sir T. INSKIP: No necessity has yet arisen.
    Mr. MANDER: Do we understand that the Government are perfectly satisfied with the progress made and that no consultation is to take place?
    Mr. GALLACHER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that intelligent trade unionists are not prepared to give cooperation?

    FOOD SUPPLIES AND RAW MATERIALS.
    Mr. SANDYSasked the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence whether steps are being taken to bring all matters relating to the maintenance in this country of adequate food supplies and raw materials into the framework of a coordinated scheme under a single Government Department?
    Sir T. INSKIP: If, as I understand, my hon. Friend has in mind the establishment of a new executive Ministry, the answer is in the negative.
    Mr. DONNER: Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that under present arrangements the question of increased production of foodstuffs is being examined?
    Sir T. INSKIP: Yes. I have on previous occasions given such an assurance.
    Mr. SANDYS: In view of the fact that my right hon. Friend seems to have misunderstood the question, can he say whether there is any intention on the part of the Government to bring these matters under one of the existing Government Departments?
    Sir T. INSKIP: All these matters are under one existing Department—under the Committee of Imperial Defence.
    Mr. SANDYSasked the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence whether any steps have yet been taken to increase the amount of grain stored in the United Kingdom?
    Mr. LENNOX-BOYDasked the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence whether any decision of His Majesty's Government, based upon the conclusions of the special sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence now examining the problems of our food supplies in the event of war, will be announced to the House prior to the Adjournment for the Summer Recess?
    Sir T. INSKIP: Substantial progress has been made in the inquiry into food supply in time of war, but it has many aspects and each is the subject of thorough investigation. No final decision can be arrived at with regard to grain
    1190
    storage apart from decisions on other matters now under examination. Grain storage itself involves many factors such as location, transport, security and naturally market considerations. Much of the Committee's task is concerned with matters of organisation including the preparation of plans for the defence of trade and for the distribution of supplies through all stages to the consumer. I could, of course, should the House so desire, give an account of the work in progress, but I think it would probably be more convenient if I reserved my statement until the results of the inquiry can be given.
    Sir J. NALL: Is not the main thing to get the grain into this country, and will not the port authorities give every possible assistance once that principle is accepted?
    Sir T. INSKIP: I do not know what my hon. Friend means by saying "the main thing is to get the grain into this country." If grain is to be stored, it must either be produced in increased quantities or brought into the country. When a decision is arrived at on many of the matters to which I have referred, then will be the time to decide whether it is necessary to increase the storage of grain.
    Sir J. NALL: Is it not a fact that ample accommodation is not yet fully used, and as and when it is decided that it shall be used, will not the port authorities come to an arrangement with the Government and make use of the existing accommodation immediately?
    Sir T. INSKIP: That is very true and, when a decision is arrived at, no doubt the co-operation of the port authorities will be available.
    Mr. THORNE: Why all this anxiety? Have you any country in mind that will make an attack upon this country?
    Mr. SANDYS: Are we to understand from the reply of the right hon. Gentleman the advisability or not of storing large quantities of grain in this country is still undecided by the Government?
    Sir T. INSKIP: As I have already said in my answer, if my hon. Friend will read it again, the ultimate answer to that question depends upon decisions on a number of other factors which are being closely investigated at the present time.
    Mr. CHURCHILL: In fact, therefore, apart from inquiry, nothing has been done?
    Sir T. INSKIP: No, that is quite a mistake.

    MINISTRY OF SUPPLY.
    Mr. SANDYSasked the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence whether His Majesty's Government have yet reached a decision as to the advisability of setting up a ministry of supply?
    Sir T. INSKIP: The Government will set up such a ministry if and as soon as they are satisfied that this would be in the public interest and calculated to facilitate or increase the rate of the completion of the Government programme.
    Mr. SANDYS: Are we to understand that this matter is still under consideration, or that a decision has been taken for the time being not to set up a separate ministry of supply?
    Sir T. INSKIP: It is a misconception of the position to speak of the decision as final. It is a matter which must constantly be under Government consideration, every day and every week.
    Sir PERCY HARRIS: How long will it take them to make up their mind?
    Mr. SHINWELL: If there is such keenness on the other side to secure adequate food supplies in time of war, why should not the Government start now and see that every family is adequately supplied?
    Mr. SPEAKER: This question cannot be made the subject of debate.

    UNEMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE REGULATIONS.
    Mr. SHINWELLasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the difficulty in recording an expression of opinion on certain aspects of the household means test in the forthcoming Unemployment Assistance Regulations, he will withdraw the Government Whips and permit a free Vote of the House.
    The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir.
    Mr. SHINWELL: Does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise that many of his supporters will be in a position of great difficulty?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I recognise, if the hon. Gentleman were in my place and I in his, the answer that I should have got.
    Mr. SHINWELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman advise the resignation of his Government and try it out?
    Captain HAROLD BALFOUR: If this means test really had to take into account all the earnings of the family, including widows and children, how does it differ from Circular 1069 of the Labour party?
    Mr. ATTLEE (by Private Notice)asked the Prime Minister whether he can make any statement with regard to the issue of the draft Unemployment Assistance Regulations?
    The PRIME MINISTER: In order to meet the convenience of the House, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour has done his utmost to arrange for the issue of the draft Unemployment Assistance Regulations some days earlier than 14th July, the date previously announced. He now finds that it will be possible to issue them to-morrow, 9th July. Copies of the draft Regulations and other relevant documents will be obtainable in the Vote Office to-morrow evening.
    Mr. ATTLEE: Is it proposed that these draft Regulations shall be debated before the House rises for the Summer Adjournment?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. ATTLEE: May I ask the Prime Minister to consider this point. These Regulations concern a vast number of people and time is extremely short to ascertain what their effect Will be. Further, they concern local authorities who will be presently rising for their summer vacation, and will have but a short time to consider them. Is it not possible to have a Debate but not to come to a final decision until the autumn?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I understood that the right hon. Gentleman desired to raise that point. While I have always been anxious since I have been Leader of the House to do what I can to meet the Opposition in any reasonable demand, I cannot see my way, after mature

    1193
    consideration, to accede to that request. By dint of a good deal of rather heavy work we have arranged to produce these Regulations some days earlier than was originally intended, and in our view ample time will be allowed—far longer than was allowed last year; the time was short then. In our view it is the duty of the House, as soon as they have had an opportunity of studying these Regulations, to see that they are passed, if the House think fit to pass them. I can say nothing at the moment as to the date, because I am anxious to give the House as long as possible for their consideration. We propose to give three days' full discussion to this matter, and we propose to complete it before the House rises for the Recess.
    Mr. ATTLEE: May I put another point to the Prime Minister? As he knows, the difficulty about these Regulations is that it is not possible for the House to amend them. The difficulty over the last Regulations was that they were unamendable, and if a preliminary discussion was held before the House rises for the adjournment it would be possible to review the whole matter, and if there was a necessity for amendment they could be reintroduced in the autumn; otherwise we shall be in the same difficulty as last year, when Regulations which had been passed had to be withdrawn.
    The PRIME MINISTER: What the right hon. Gentleman has said is the fact, and it is because of that fact that the Government have given so much time to a close examination of the details of these Regulations. I do not believe that the difficulties which the right hon. Gentleman anticipates will arise in practice. The fact that we have to take them as a whole or leave them is owing to the Statute.
    Mr. ATTLEE: Has not the Prime Minister really supported the point 1 made? If it took so long for the Government to consider these Regulations, is it fair for this House and the country to have to come to a final decision at such very short notice?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I do not quite see the force of that. I think the work we have done will render the work of the House very much easier.
    Mr. BUCHANAN: May I ask the Prime Minister to consider three points? First of all, is he aware that the local authorities are vitally concerned, that in Scotland at the present time all the local authorities are on holiday, that the town council of the second city in Britain—Glasgow—has now risen for the holidays, and that it is impossible to consult with the local representatives? Secondly, is he aware that on the issue of Income Tax in regard to children, the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that he thought that it was always desirable before finally making up his mind on legislation to hear what the Members of the House have to say, and will the Prime Minister employ the same practice on these Regulations as he does in the case of Income Tax for the rich? Thirdly, seeing that the Government and the board which has had to go into the matter have now taken 12 months to consider it, surely the Prime Minister might give the House of Commons at least a much more reasonable opportunity of examining the Regulations?
    The PRIME MINISTER: With regard to the last point, the hon. Member and the House must bear in mind that at the time of the last General Election it was made perfectly clear that these amended Regulations would be brought forward, and certain undertakings were given at the time by Members who contested seats at the General Election. It has been our endeavour—unfortunately a very protracted one—to get these Regulations as quickly as we could. We have been pressed by the Opposition to produce the Regulations, and not only to produce them, but to pass them into law. With regard to the hon. Member's point about local authorities, he is aware that there is no statutory connection between the public assistance allowances paid by the local authorities and those paid under the Regulations. The local authorities so far as they may be available have all the information that the hon. Member and other Scottish Members will require and they can get the information they may desire, and in our view there will be ample time for the examination of the Regulations and for them to get such information as they desire. I do not believe for one moment that with the period of time now remaining any Member of the House who desires to make

    1195
    himself sufficiently familiar with the subject to take part in the three days' Debate will be in any way hampered in doing so.
    Mr. BUCHANAN: Would the House or the Government lose anything by at least hearing what the Members of the House of Commons have to say before finally making up their minds? Having heard what the board has to say and what every other kind of people has to say, is it too much to ask the right hon. Gentleman, before bringing the Regulations forward in final form, that he should ask the public representatives of the people concerned what they have to say before making up his mind?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I trust that will be so. There will be a very long period, and in that time the House will have no difficulty in listening to what may be said by those who are qualified to speak on this very difficult subject, and come to a decision.
    Mr. ARTHUR GREENWOOD: May I put two points to the Prime Minister? The first concerns a matter to which he has already referred when he said there is no connection whatever between the public assistance committees of the local authorities and the new Regulations. I would point out that there is a very vital connection, that is to say, the question of the second appointed day, which is bound to come up. May I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that, in fairness to the local authorities, who will not be aware of the Government's proposals until Friday morning, an interval of time should elapse before the Government make up their mind in order that they may hear what the local authorities have to say? My second point is that the trade union movement of the country will not be aware of the proposals which are made, and their members are very vitally concerned by them. Surely there ought to be some interval of time in which they can make their representations to the Government? Would it not be meeting the convenience of the House on all sides, and would it not perhaps be wiser for the Government to allow representations to be made to them after a free discussion rather than to come to a decision which they might have to reverse when the House re-assembles in the autumn?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The right hon. Gentleman has put his points very clearly and very reasonably, but I cannot see my way to meet him, because in my view it is important that the House should come to its decision and that, particularly after the long time we have been waiting, there should be no further delay. With regard to the appointed day, I understand it will be announced to-morrow. We have been at pains to put the appointed day a considerable distance ahead, and this will give ample time for all the authorities to study the proposals and to make their necessary arrangements.
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I understand the new Regulations are to operate from 1st November. We are not asking for any change of date. There can be no delay if the House meets in October. There is no reason why the decision should be taken now. If it were taken in October, the right hon. Gentleman would in the meantime have had the advantage of being able to collect public opinion on this matter before the House comes to a final decision.
    The PRIME MINISTER: I think the right hon. Gentleman said 1st November; I believe it is 16th November.
    Mr. HARDIE: May I ask a question on behalf of the City of Glasgow, which has suffered more than any other city in regard to the strain put upon it? The Prime Minister has said that there will be time for the local authorities to consider these Regulations, but if a decision is taken now what will be the good of that consideration, since it will not be possible for any change to be made. It is no good telling us a certain thing has been decided unless we have power to say it is wrong and that it has to be put right. What right has any government to say that a local authority, treated as Glasgow would be, with a big surplus—[Interruption].

    AIRPORT, LONDON.
    Mr. LYONSasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air what arrangements have now been made for the development of a site in Essex for a central airport for London; whether any alternative sites are under consideration; and what transportation facilities are available to and from Central London for the site selected?
    Sir P. SASSOON: There is at present no information which I could add to that which I gave to my hon. and learned Friend on 20th May last.
    Mr. LYONS: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the Court of Common Council has given approval to the site in Essex, and whether consideration of any further site is before the Council or not?
    Sir P. SASSOON: We have received no formal application from the City of London, nor from other authorities.
    Mr. LYONS: While thanking my right hon. Friend for what he has said, is he satisfied that the Fairlop site is sufficiently centrally situated to be of real assistance in view of the existing transport facilities?

    Information is available for hackney and goods vehicles only and for the years indicated in the statement which follows. The figures relate to vehicles for which licences were current at any time during the quarter ended 30th September, 1935.

    Hackney Vehicles.

    Year

    Electrically propelled.

    Light Oil Fuel.

    Coal Gas Fuel.

    Other Fuel (Heavy Oil, etc.)

    Total.

    1932

    …

    —

    —

    Not available.

    —

    84,950

    1933

    …

    —

    —

    Not available.

    —

    85,077

    1934

    …

    1,002

    81,729

    1

    2,397

    85,129

    1935

    …

    1,176

    78,830

    —

    5,541

    85,547

    Goods Vehicles.

    Year

    Electrically propelled

    Stream driven.

    Light Oil Fuel.

    Coal Gas Fuel.

    Other Fuel (Heavy Oil, etc.).

    Total.

    1932

    …

    1,325

    5,849

    362,646

    280

    370,100

    1933

    …

    1,303

    5,100

    380,010

    1,074

    387,487

    1934

    …

    1,548

    2,735

    404,710

    10

    4,317

    413,320

    1935

    …

    1,891

    2,113

    425,276

    14

    5,429

    434,723

    ROADS (ISLAND OF LEWIS).
    Mr. MALCOLM MacMILLANasked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware of the widespread opposition among the people of the Island of Lewis to 10-feet roads with passing-places as being too narrow for the greatly increased traffic; and whether he will extend his 100 per cent. grants to carrying out a progressive widening and improvement of roads and help to preserve the present safety on these roads by maintaining the 16-feet width at all points?
    Sir P. SASSOON: The transport facilities are a matter for the City of London.

  TRANSPORT.

    MECHANICAL VEHICLES (STATISTICS).
    Mr. EDWARD DUNNasked the Minister of Transport the number of mechanical vehicles using as fuel petrol, oil, coal gas, or pulverised fuel, in use in the British Isles in the following years 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, respectively?
    The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Hore-Belisha): I will, with permission, circulate these figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the answer:
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I answered this question last Wednesday.
    Mr. MacMILLAN: May I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that though I put a question to the Ministry it was not this question; and that even the first question was not answered properly?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: It need not be the same question, but at any rate the same answer applies.

    COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS' CARS.
    Mr. RICKARDSasked the Minister of Transport whether he is now in a

    1199
    position to state what action he proposes to take with regard to the representations recently made to him by a deputation representing commercial travellers?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: The United Commercial Travellers' Association of Great Britain and Ireland recently represented to me that commercial travellers who slightly adapted ordinary private cars to carry samples not for sale were placed under certain disabilities through having to take out "C" licences for their vehicles as if these vehicles were commercial vehicles. I have made regulations which will relieve this hardship.

    UNDERGROUND GARAGES.
    Mr. CROWDERasked the Minister of Transport whether his Department has issued, or intends to issue, any circular to local authorities suggesting the desirability of building underground garages; and, if so, whether he can give any details?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA:A letter addressed on my behalf to local authorities on 15th August, 1935, contains the following paragraph:
    "35. By section 16 of the Restriction of Ribbon Development Act, 1935, the powers of local authorities to provide parking places are now extended so as to include the provision of buildings and underground parking places for the same purpose, with power to let on hire. The Minister regards the provision of adequate parking accommodation at reasonable charges as a potent means of reducing the inconvenience to traffic and the danger to life and limb caused by the presence of waiting vehicles in the streets. Where private enterprise does not meet public needs in this regard, the Minister trusts that in all appropriate cases this important matter may receive the very early consideration of local authorities."
    Mr. CROWDER: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider it necessary to get powers from Parliament to make grants to local authorities for building such garages?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I do not think that is necessary. The local authorities have power to make a charge to recoup their expenses.

    LEVEL CROSSINGS, BRIDGES AND ROADS (LANCASHIRE).
    Mr. PARKINSONasked the Minister of Transport the number of level crossings in Lancashire in 1935 and the
    1200
    number of level crossings abolished during the years 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, and 1935, stating the amount of grants made by his Department towards the costs of such replacements?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: The number of level crossings in Lancashire in 1935, so far as can be ascertained from the available records, was 253, of which 56 were on classified roads. Three level crossings were abolished or eliminated during the period 1st April, 1930, to 31st March, 1935, with the aid of grants from the Road Fund amounting to £56,221.
    Mr. PARKINSONasked the Minister of Transport the number of bridges in Lancashire which are scheduled as defective in 1935, stating the number of bridges which have been strengthened and the number of new bridges built during the years 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, and 1935, and the amount of grants made for this purpose during the same years?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: As the answer contains a number of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate such information as I have in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the information:
    Two hundred and sixty two privately-owned bridges on classified roads and the more important unclassified roads in Lancashire were scheduled in 1930 as bridges to which a weight limit might be applied under Section 30 of the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933. During the period 1st April, 1931, to 31st March, 1936, grants from the Road Fund were made for the strengthening of 12 privately-owned bridges and the construction of 29 new bridges amounting to £265,421. In addition, a number of other publicly-owned bridges have been strengthened and new bridges built in Lancashire but detailed information is not readily available as many bridges were included in comprehensive road improvement schemes assisted by grants from the Road Fund.
    Mr. PARKINSONasked the Minister of Transport the number of new roads or roads under repair which have received, or are receiving, grants from his Department during the years 1934 and 1935 in Lancashire, stating the total amount of such grants and the number of people employed on such work?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I will, with permission, circulate the figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the answer:

    County of Lancashire.

    —

    County Areas.

    County Boroughs.

    1934–35.

    1935–36.

    1934–35.

    1935–36.

    Number.

    Amount.

    Number.

    Amount.

    Number.

    Amount.

    Number.

    Amount.

    Grants in repect of:

    £

    £

    £

    £

    (a) New Road Construction.

    —

    Nil.

    5

    117,311

    —

    Nil.

    9

    76,607

    (b) Major Improvements.

    65

    121,083

    107

    240,495

    18

    32,778

    36

    118,200

    In addition grants amounting to £358,312 in 1934–35 and £362,415 in 1935–36 were made to the Lancashire County Council under the classification scheme towards the maintenance and minor improvement of all classified roads in the County Area.

    No information is available as to the number of men employed on these works.

    PROSECUTION, HOVE.
    Mr. THORNEasked the Minister of Transport in connection with the case of Messrs. Clarke's Bread Company, Limited, of Fonthill Road, Hove, who were prosecuted by the traffic commissioners for breaches of the road traffic regulations, how many summonses were issued for permitting men to drive for more than 11 hours in 24; how many summonses were issued for allowing men to drive for more than 5½ hours without one hour's rest; how many summonses were issued for allowing men to drive without at least 10 hours' consecutive rest in 24; what was the total amount of fines imposed in connection with these breaches of the law; and what action he intends taking in the matter?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I am informed that the following offences were alleged:

    Permitting driving for more than 11 hours in 24

    135

    Permitting driving for continuous periods exceeding 5½ hours

    93

    Permitting conditions under which persons driving had less than 10 consecutive hours for rest in 24

    5

    233

    The total amount of the fines imposed was £699, or with costs £821 odd. The requisite action appears to have been taken in the manner prescribed by law.
    Mr. THORNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that in consequence of the disorganised state of the men in
    1202
    many of these industries we are unable to get the records of the hours worked?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: The hon. Member can hardly put that question after the answer I have given. It is clear that this firm was fined a considerable amount of money in a prosecution. It is the desire of Parliament to see that the law is observed and every practical step will be taken to that end.
    Mr. THORNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the commissioner reported the firm and not the men in question, because they are afraid to make a report lest they should be victimised?
    Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of taking powers to impose cumulative penalties, and has he not enough experience of the working of the Act to enable him to take steps to reduce the very long hours that are now being worked on the roads?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: The hours are limited by law, and Parliament has done its best in that respect. It is true that men are naturally reluctant to give information, but I do not see how that could be overcome by any Act of Parliament.

    ROAD SCHEMES.
    Mr. LEEasked the Minister of Transport whether, seeing that in the next financial year, 1937, he proposes to take over certain specified roadways as a national responsibility, he is taking any steps to ensure that the present autho-

    1203
    rities continue their present schemes of widening and repairing such roads until the transfer is made?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I have no reason to suppose that highway authorities will neglect their responsibilities.
    Mr. EVERARDasked the Minister of Transport the estimated amount of expenditure to be made under the schemes submitted by the Leicestershire County Council under the five-year road plan; the estimated amount of expenditure under such of those schemes as have been approved for the purposes of Road Fund grants; and the amount of the Road Fund grants promised in respect of such schemes?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: The estimated cost of schemes included in the five-year programme submitted by the County of Leicester is £1,945,898. The estimated cost of the works for which, grants have already been made or indicated is £941,111, and the estimated amount of grant from the Road Fund in respect of such works is £623,818.
    Mr. EVERARD: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the grants are of the same average amount in the case of all counties of similar size?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Yes. Similar circumstances are treated in exactly the same way.
    Mr. LIDDALLasked the Minister of Transport the total amount of the estimated expenditure to be made under the schemes submitted by the Lincolnshire County Council under the five-year road plan; the total amount of the estimated expenditure under such of those schemes as have been approved for the purposes of Road Fund grants; and the total amount of the Road Fund grants promised in respect of such schemes?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: The estimated cost of the schemes submitted by the Lincolnshire County Councils under the five-year programme is £2,352,000. The estimated cost of the schemes approved for commencement in the first year is £268,774, and the estimated amount of grants to such schemes was £160,852.

    PEDESTRIAN CROSSING-PLACES.
    Sir GIFFORD FOXasked the Minister of Transport whether, inasmuch
    1204
    as Section 18 of the Road Traffic Act, 1934, authorises the making of regulations prohibiting foot-passenger traffic on the carriageway within one hundred yards of a pedestrian crossing, he will say what are the difficulties in framing regulations directed to this matter with the object of preventing road accidents?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Pedestrian crossings are not laid out at mathematically regular intervals, and consequently the Regulation which my hon. Friend has in mind would not only fail to achieve the desired purpose but would leave doubt as to the legal responsibility falling upon vehicle users and pedestrians in particular cases. The administrative duty resting upon the police would be equally difficult to discharge. I feel that the ultimate solution can more hopefully be sought in guiding pedestrians to crossings by means of a system of guard rails.

    ROOTES PROPERTIES, LIMITED.
    Mr. HARDIEasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air how many firms are controlled by Rootes Properties, Limited?
    Sir P. SASSOON: I understand that Rootes Properties, Limited, has no dependent companies. If, however, the hon. Member has in mind Rootes Securities, Limited, which is the firm to which I referred in my reply to him of 17th June last, the answer is that they control eight motor manufacturing firms and nine firms engaged in distributing or allied activities.
    Mr. HARDIE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether any of the shareholders of Rootes Properties hold shares in Bank Nominees, Limited?
    Sir P. SASSOON: I should like notice of that question.
    Mr. HARDIE: Since the Minister of Defence last spoke on the subject, has he given any orders for materials or anything else to the companies controlled by this firm?
    Sir P. SASSOON: This firm in question controls a great many important motor manufacturing firms, the experience of which is desired to reinforce the aircraft industry.
    Mr. HARDIE: Has the right hon. Gentleman given any orders for frames?
    Sir P. SASSOON: No actual orders have been given.
    Mr. HARDIE: Does that mean that nothing has been done?

    EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGE, WALWORTH ROAD.
    Mr. DAYasked the Minister of Pensions, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, the estimated cost of the new Employment Exchange to be erected in Walworth Road, Borough; whether any additional land has been purchased or leased for this purpose; what will be the area of the Exchange when completed; has the present site been purchased freehold; when this work will be commenced; and when it is anticipated it will be completed?
    The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Mr. R. S. Hudson)(for the First Commissioner of Works): The site of the existing Exchange is held on a lease until 1942 with breaks in 1938 and 1940. It is intended that the new Exchange shall be built on a site for which negotiations are now in progress. The estimated cost of the new building (apart from the site, the price of which is not yet known) is about £27,500 and the floor area of the Exchange will be about 24,000 square feet. I am afraid that until it is definitely known when vacant possession can be obtained, it is not possible to give any useful information as to building dates, but the hon. Member can be assured that every effort will be made to avoid delay.
    Mr. DAY: Can the hon. Member say whether the plans have been prepared for this site?
    Mr. HUDSON: I must have notice of that question.

    NEWFOUNDLAND.
    Mr. LYONSasked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he can give a further report on the financial position of Newfoundland, in view of the recent budget statement there.
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Marquess of Hartington): The approved estimates for
    1206
    the Newfoundland financial year ending 30th June, 1936, provided for a deficit of just under $2,000,000, which it was later expected would be substantially increased owing to the temporary set-back arising from the exceptionally poor fishing season of 1935. I am glad to say, however, that revenue has improved in recent months and at the close of the financial year on the 30th June had not only exceeded the estimate, but at nearly $10,000,000 had reached the highest point since 1929–30. Expenditure for the year also showed an increase over the estimate, partly as a result of increased expenditure on able-bodied relief during the winter months and partly as a result of increased capital expenditure on communications, and the year closed with a deficit of a little over $2,000,000. The approved estimates for the year 1936–37 provide for a deficit of approximately the same proportion, but it is hoped that if the recent improvement in revenue is maintained it may be possible for the deficit to be substantially reduced. The figures in this answer exclude, of course, the grant in aid from the United Kingdom Exchequer.
    Mr. LYONS: Can the Noble Lord assure the House that the facts show that there has been a definite improvement in the condition of Newfoundland since the advent of the present administration?
    Marquess of HARTINGTON: I think that is so.

    ALBERTA.
    Mr. LYONSasked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he can now give further information as to the financial position of the Province of Alberta; and whether any additional financial benefits have been issued by the present provincial Government?
    Marquess of HARTINGTON: As regards the first part of the question, the text of the Provincial Treasurer's statement of 27th May has now been received, and I am sending a copy to my hon. and learned Friend. So far as I am aware, the answer to the second part of the question is in the negative.
    Mr. LYONS: Has the Noble Lord any report of the attempted raid made the day before yesterday upon the Government buildings in the capital of Alberta

    1207
    by those people who are dissatisfied with the policy of the Social Credit Government, and can he make any statement about the failure of that Government to meet its obligations?
    Mr. THORNE: Is this one of the towns where they have tried to put the social credit policy into operation, and have failed?

    JOINT WATER COMMITTEE, LAN CASHIRE AND DISTRICT.
    Mr. CHORLTONasked the Minister of Health when the joint water committee for Lancashire and adjoining parts to co-ordinate the work of the existing two regional committees will be set up?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Mr. Shakespeare): There is no present intention of setting up such a joint committee.
    Mr. CHORLTON: Can the Minister say when it is likely to be set up? Will it be at the end of this year, or next year?
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: It all depends on the acquiescence of the authorities concerned.

    GENERAL LONDON AND URBAN PROPERTIES, LIMITED, CROYDON.
    Mr. H. G. WILLIAMSasked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the action of the General London and Urban Properties, Limited, in giving notice to quit to the tenants of several hundred houses in Croydon unless they agree to pay higher rents; whether he is aware that in many cases these houses are controlled under the Rent Restrictions Act; and what action he proposes to take?
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: My right hon. Friend has been informed by the General London and Urban Properties, Limited, that they have withdrawn or are withdrawing any notices of increased rent relating to controlled houses.

    LOCAL AUTHORITIES' EMPLOYES (HOLIDAYS).
    Mr. RILEYasked the Minister of Health whether all regular manual
    1208
    workers in the employ of local authorities in the United Kingdom already enjoy annual holidays with pay; and, if so, what is the approximate number of workers affected?
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: I regret that, as was stated by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour in reply to similar questions by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, East (Mr. Mander) on 25th June and 2nd July, the information desired is not available.
    Mr. RILEY: Is it possible, in view of the interest taken in this question, to obtain the information?
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: Even if we had the information we have no locus standi in the matter. It must be a matter of local opinion.
    Mr. MANDER: In view of the great national interest taken in this matter, will the hon. Member be good enough to consider whether it is not possible to get this information from the local authorities?
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: I will consider it.

    HOUSING (WORKING CLASSES).
    Mr. POTTSasked the Minister of Health whether he will authorise the introduction of legislation enabling local authorities again to proceed with the building of houses for the working classes aided by finance as hitherto?
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: Financial assistance from the Exchequer is already available for local authorities under the Housing Acts of 1930 and 1935 and the execution of their building programmes under those Acts will occupy the energies of local authorities for some time to come. The removal of unfit houses and the abatement of overcrowding are in the opinion of my right hon. Friend the most urgent housing tasks of local authorities.
    Mr. POTTS: I am asking whether the Government are making any provision for seeing that these houses are provided? In the County Borough of Barnsley there are 2,644 on the waiting list at this moment. What steps do the Government propose to take to remedy this situation?
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: The Borough of Barnsley, like every other local authority, has been actively engaged in an overcrowding survey and will present a report to the Minister.
    Mr. E. SMITH: Will the Parliamentary Secretary take into consideration the evidence produced in the report of the Unemployment Assistance Board?

    POOR LAW RELIEF.
    Mr. POTTSasked the Minister of Health the number of males and females, both upwards of 14 years of age, specified separately, in receipt of outdoor Poor Law relief; and the number resident in

    Year.

    Number of persons over 16 years of age.

    In receipt of out-relief.

    In receipt of institutional relief (excluding rate-aided patients in mental hospitals).

    Males.

    Females.

    Males.

    Females.

    1930

    …

    …

    …

    202,395

    326,322

    103,959

    72,340

    1931

    …

    …

    …

    189,259

    301,560

    99,566

    70,677

    1935

    …

    …

    …

    354,432

    448,485

    88,709

    61,437

    1936

    …

    …

    …

    338,366

    446,696

    83,363

    59,265

    The average numbers of males and females over 16 years of age in receipt of out-relief during May, 1936 (excluding persons in receipt of domiciliary medical relief only) were 312,203 and 422,769 respectively. Figures for institutional relief, distinguishing males and females, are only available in respect of 1st January.

    INDIA (PANDIT PARMANAND).
    Major MILNERasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he has yet received any reply from the Punjab Government as to the continued imprisonment of Pandit Parmanand; and whether, having regard to the fact that the pandit has now been in prison for 21 years, he can now be released?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Butler): Yes, Sir. The Punjab Government are not prepared to release Parmanand at the present time. His case is examined periodically by that Government.
    institutions in England and Wales for the years ending 1930–31 and 1935–36, or to the latest available date?
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: As the answer contains a number of figures in tabular form, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the answer:
    The returns made to my Department do not distinguish the sex of children under 16 years of age in receipt of poor relief. The following statement shows the number of persons over 16 years of age in receipt of poor relief in England and Wales on 1st January in the years mentioned.
    Major MILNER: Can the Under-Secretary offer any justification for keeping this man, whatever his crime, in prison for over 21 years? What justification is there for that?
    Mr. BUTLER: This man was originally condemned to death, but the death sentence was commuted to a life sentence which he is now serving. His case is reviewed periodically by the Government of the Punjab.
    Major MILNER: Has his conduct been good?
    Mr. BUTLER: I understand that his case was recently reviewed by the Punjab Government, who say that there is no sign of his having reformed.
    Mr. THURTLE: Will the Under-Secretary take steps to communicate with the Punjab Government and inform them that in the view of the House of Commons this man has already suffered adequately?
    Mr. BUTLER: A communication has already been made to the Punjab Government, and I have given the House the reply I have received.
    Mr. SILVERMAN: Was this man at the moment of his condemnation and sentence to death 18 years of age?
    Mr. BUTLER: I understand he was 28 years of age.

  SCOTLAND.

    JUVENILES (PHYSICAL CONDITION).
    Mr. HARDIEasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware that out of 126,443 young persons in Scotland between the ages of 14 and 16 medically examined for fitness to enter employment 1,906 were rejected and 3,816 conditionally certified from 1930 to 1934; and what provisions are being made for those so rejected?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Lieut. - Colonel Colville): Yes, Sir, but I would point out that 991 of the 1,906 rejections during these five years, and 1,353 of the 3,816 conditional certificates, were on account of pediculosis and other slight affections which are easily remediable without special medical treatment. Many of the young persons rejected were subsequently employed. The care of young persons so rejected will have the consideration of the Departments concerned.

    MILK (SCHOOL CHILDREN).
    Mr. T. JOHNSTONasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has made any arrangements to encourage the operation of the milk-in-schools scheme during the forthcoming summer holidays?
    Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: Yes, Sir. My right hon. Friend has approved for the purpose of Section 11 of the Milk Act, 1934, the arrangements made by the Scottish Milk Marketing Board for the supply of milk at reduced prices for consumption by children at centres in Glasgow. Particulars of the arrangements have been laid before the House.
    Mr. JOHNSTON: Is this provision to be made only in Glasgow?
    Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: It is only in Glasgow in the first place.
    Mr. JOHNSTON: Is the Under-Secretary aware that the schools in Glasgow are now closed for holidays?
    Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: The scheme to which I have referred is that four centres shall be open in Glasgow for the distribution of milk during the holidays. The right hon. Gentleman is now referring to schools throughout Scotland, which is a wider question.
    Mr. JOHNSTON: The question on the Paper is perfectly specific. Arrangements have been made in England. Cannot the Under-Secretary give us an answer with regard to Scotland?
    Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: I have given the answer. Arrangements have been made for opening four centres in Glasgow which will deal with a very large number of children.
    Mr. HENDERSON STEWART: How will the centres work? Will the children have to go to them?
    Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: Yes, the children will go there.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That this day, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 14, Business other than Business of Supply may be taken before Eleven of the Clock."—[The Prime Minister.]
Sir HUGH O'NEILL: I would like to raise a point with regard to the business to be taken to-day. I am not sure whether it is strictly a point of Order or whether it is a matter for the Leader of the House, but I will put it briefly. To-day is the 13th Allotted Day for Committee of Supply. It is proposed to move to report Progress in Committee of Supply and then to take a Motion to be moved by the Opposition. I would venture to recall to the House the circumstances of last Thursday which gave rise to this. When the Prime Minister was announcing the business of the week last Thursday, he said:
"Wednesday.—Supply; Committee (13th Allotted Day). Treasury Vote."
The Leader of the Opposition then said:
"On Wednesday we propose to put a Motion on the Paper dealing with the subject of Malnutrition, which concerns a

1213
number of Ministries. It will give an opportunity for discussing that subject without being hampered by an ordinary Departmental Supply Vote."
To this the Prime Minister replied:
"I take note of the right hon. Gentleman's statement of how he proposes to utilise Wednesday."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 2nd July, 1936; col. 620, Vol. 314.]
It seems to me that the institution of Allotted Days in Committee of Supply is one of the most ancient of the forms of procedure of this House, and it has become more and more a tendency recently—I think this is the second time within the last two months—for a Supply Day to be contemptuously cast aside and in its place for some Motion to be moved. All I desire to do is to draw the attention of the House to the fact that I hope this is a form of procedure which will not become more common, because it seems to me that if the Opposition do not wish to raise any matter on an allotted day, why should not the supporters of the Government be given an opportunity of raising some administrative matter in Committee of Supply rather than an allotted day should go by default and an official Resolution be moved from the Opposition benches? I hope that the Leader of the House and you, Mr. Speaker, will not mind my having drawn attention to this point, which really does concern the procedure of the House.
Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman has raised this matter in any way as a point of Order, because, of course, it has nothing to do with me.
The PRIME MINISTER: I quite agree in thinking that it is not a point of Order, but I shall be very pleased to refer to it. I am not aware that what we are doing this afternoon is a matter of very recent practice alone, for such a treatment of a Supply day has been taken advantage of more than once this Session. While I think it is perfectly right of my right hon. Friend to call attention to the matter, which is one in which naturally any Leader of the House must be guided by the sentiment of the House with reference to it, yet my own view is that if a request such as I received the other day be granted and prove to be for the general convenience of the House, I feel that the Leader of the House is quite
1214
right in granting the request. Had it been a question of discussing legislation, a question remote from Supply, that would be another thing, but here you have the case of malnutrition, a subject of first importance, a subject in which hon. Members on our side are interested no less than hon. Members opposite.
When the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition put a question and used the word "hampered," he had obviously not been very careful in his choice of a word in which my right hon. Friend might pick a hole, and he might have expressed himself more carefully, but what he meant was that here was a subject which can be brought up under four different Votes, those of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Education, all of which have to deal with this subject administratively, and of course administration is the very question which comes up for discussion, and sometimes for dispute, on a Supply day. Therefore I think that in this case we have not done anything against the spirit of the work of an Allotted Supply Day.
So far as I am able to exercise any control, I shall use my own judgment to see that what I believe to be the principles of a Supply day are not in any case infringed. I must just allude to the instance of the Foreign Office Debate the other day. That was a Supply day, and we agreed to the procedure that was taken in order that the Opposition might put down a declaratory Resolution. I think that sometimes such a Motion is one which should come before the House. It focuses our discussion on foreign affairs and is a very suitable debate to have on a Supply day in Committee. I think the House will feel that in coming to this arrangement to-day we have done nothing against the precedents which have been set, or against the spirit of the allocation of proper time for Supply days, and that in this case the procedure that has been adopted is for the general convenience. I am convinced that it will lead to a debate of very great interest to a large number of Members.
Mr. GREENWOOD: In thanking the Prime Minister for his statement, I would ask him what he proposes to do to-day in the event of the Eleven o'Clock Rule being suspended?
The PRIME MINISTER: We are not moving the suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule. We have moved only the first part of the Motion on the Paper.
Question put, and agreed to.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,—
Employment of Women and Young Persons Bill, without amendment.
Southern Railway Bill, with Amendments.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Manchester Ship Canal Company to construct certain railways; to extend the time limited for construction by the Company of certain other railways; to authorise the Company to abandon the Manchester and Salford Junction Canal; and for other purposes." [Manchester Ship Canal Bill [Lords.]

MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL BILL [Lords]
Read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
RETAIL MEAT DEALERS (SUNDAY CLOSING) BILL.
Lords Amendments to be considered upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 154.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY.
  [13TH ALLOTTED DAY.]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Captain BOURNE in the Chair.]

  CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1936.
    CLASS I.

      TREASURY AND SUBORDINATE DEPARTMENTS.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £203,851, 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, 1937, for the Salaries and other Expenses in the Department of His Majesty's Treasury and Subordinate Departments, and the Salary of a Minister without Portfolio."—[NOTE: £145,000 has been voted on account.]
      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.

  MALNUTRITION.
  4.8 p.m.
  Mr. T. JOHNSTON: I beg to move,
  "That this House has noted with concern the convincing evidence of widespread malnutrition, is of opinion that the destruction of essential foodstuffs is a crime against society, and regrets the continued failure of His Majesty's Government to take effective steps to deal with this grave and urgent problem of hunger and want in the midst of plenty."
  I do not propose to go into the question of dietetics. Doubtless we all eat things at the wrong time, and doubtless we drink the wrong kind of liquid at the wrong time and in wrong quantities. I am perfectly well aware that dietetics are being considered more and more by the medical profession. There is a tendency all through the world, from Russia to the United States, towards the disappearance of tuberculosis, in every class and every age, with one exception. Unfortunately tuberculosis is increasing in every country among young women, and it is believed by those who are best qualified to speak on the subject that that increase in tuberculosis is due to the
  1230
  modern practice of what is known as slimming. But I do not intend to speak on dietetics. I want to present the case of malnutrition arising from under-feeding, arising from poverty, arising from insufficiency. I believe that other than the question of peace and war there is no graver or more momentous issue that can be discussed by this Parliament.
  The hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Albans (Sir F. Fremantle) has committed himself, and without challenge I believe, to the statement that ill health costs this nation in cold cash every year no less than £300,000,000. I believe he included in that £300,000,000 a large sum of money due to loss of earning capacity; but Sir John Bray, the President of the Institute of Municipal Treasurers and Accountants, in his presidential address in 1931, said that the proper figure is £200,000,000. I can personally trace in the accounts here and in those of local authorities something in the neighbourhood of £113,000,000 per annum spent directly in cold cash every year upon ambulance work arising from disease. Evidences of malnutrition and under-nutrition in this country are legion. We shall doubtless be told to-day that things are getting better. We shall be told that the infant mortality rate has fallen from 150 to 80 in 20 years. We shall be told that the expectation of life of the average citizen in this country has increased in 50 years by 15 years per life. We shall be told that typhoid has gone, that typhus, infantile diarrhoea, leprosy and smallpox have been killed by the splendid efforts that this country has made in public sanitation. It may all be very true that these plagues and diseases have gone. It may be true that our death rate is decreasing. Yet all that will be largely irrelevant to the purpose of our discussion this afternoon. Sir Robert McCarrison, in his Cantor lecture to the Royal Society of Arts this year said:
  "To save a man's life by surgery does hot necessarily make a healthy man of him. What we should like to know is the number of semi-invalids carried by the nation, why all hospitals and nursing homes are full, why under National Health Insurance the increase between 1920 and 1930 of short-term sickness (that is sickness not exceeding six months in duration) is 109 per cent., and of long-term sickness 230 per cent.; why the enormous decline in quality of eyes and teeth."

  1231
  I suggest to the Minister of Health that when he is dealing with questions of averages in housing he does not include Buckingham Palace in his estimates. We take the area of housing that is urgently in need of treatment. The question of the general average decrease of mortality in this country is, as I say, irrelevant to our discussion this afternoon, but whatever may be said of averages, it is, unfortunately, true that there is accumulating a mass of evidence of chronic underfeeding and debility—what is described sometimes as sub-normality—among the poor. I propose this afternoon to prove that statement from official documents. Incidentally, there are more than four Departments of the Government interested in the question of malnutrition in spite of what the Prime Minister said, because we find that the Adjutant-General in his report for 1934 points out:
  "What is disconcerting to any citizen with a care for the good of his country is that over 52 per cent. of the men who went to the recruiting office did not come up to the physical standard laid down and in the big industrial areas of the North the percentage of rejections rose to 68."
  The Chief Medical Office of Health for the Department of Education in his report for 1934, dealing only with the routine medical examinations of schools, said that 12 per 1,000 of the children examined were mal-nourished and 14 per cent were under-nourished. The distinction is one which I find difficult to draw, but at any rate this official finds 26 per 1,000 of these children definitely requiring better food and more food. It is pointed out in the lecture by Sir Robert McCarrison, to which I have already referred, that our school medical officers are only judging by height and weight and that if we include such symptoms as round shoulders, protruding bellies, easy susceptibility to fatigue and poor muscular development it is not 12 per 1,000 that are shown to be malnourished or under-nourished, but several times 12 per 1,000. The committee of the Save the Children Fund extracted figures from the reports of the various medical officers for the larger cities in the country showing that the children suffering from sub-normal nutrition in Leeds were 9·2 per cent.—not per 1,000—in Merthyr 13 per cent., in Newcastle 17·2 per cent. and in Pontypridd 21 per
  1232
  cent.—one child in five reported by the medical officers should be suffering from sub-normal nutrition.
  It is true that there are wide variations in the standard of diagnosis. In the League of Nations report for 1935 one extraordinary illustration of that fact is given. Bootle, which for all practical purposes is a suburb of Liverpool, returns a malnutrition rate 12 times as high as the rate given by Liverpool. The Board of Education in 1931 set up a committee to examine and report upon the existence of adenoids and enlarged tonsils in our schools. They got Sir George Newman to preside over it and at an early stage in the proceedings the committee examined certain conclusions reached by Dr. McGonigle, of Stockton-on-Tees, whose work on the subject of malnutrition is beyond all praise. He drew attention to the close connection between rickets and enlarged tonsils and adenoids. Dr. McGonigle had found 83 per cent, of 2,676 children examined in Durham County showing definite signs of rickets. Sir George Newman's committee set out to test his figure and they made a careful examination by X-ray and otherwise of 1,638 children in London. Although they disagreed with Dr. McGonigle's figures, even Sir George Newman's committee found that 87 per cent. of the children examined in London had some abnormality which they said might have been due to rickets.
  There appeared in the "Times" of 11th December, 1934, a remarkable letter from Dr. Walker, a medical officer in charge of four hospitals in the North. I give just four statements from that letter. He said first that between the Tees and the Tyne there was a substantial and progressive deterioration in public health; secondly, that children and young adults were more prone to infections and catarrhs and recovered from those much more slowly; thirdly, that anaemia due to malnutrition was rapidly increasing in evidence; and, fourthly, that rickets were highly prevalent. The Ministry of Health again sent a body of professional experts to the area indicated to examine that statement. They made a special examination of 1,300 Sunderland children who were, I admit, specially selected from the poor areas. This departmental

  1233
  committee—the members of which were I think with one exception professors—discovered that 20 per cent. of those children were suffering from subnormality or malnutrition. They made a special examination in Durham County. They took children from Fence Houses and Seaham Harbour and they got nearly similar figures. They found 21·9 per cent. subnormal and 1·3 per cent. were definitely under-nourished. Worse than that, this committee·a Government committee whose report hon. Members will find in the Library of this House—proved from the records of the Sunderland municipal hospital that of 1,400 pregnant women 12 per cent. were suffering from anaemia and 7½ per cent. from debility and an examination of mothers of young children showed that in the town of Sunderland no fewer than 26 per cent. were subnormal, as far as nutrition was concerned.
  Recently, Sir John Boyd Orr published a book which aroused widespread attention. I only wish to make a brief reference to his conclusions. He is a man of international standing in these matters. He was of great assistance to the Government in 1930 when I was successful in pressing for an examination of the health of school children in Lanarkshire and the provision of free milk there as a test. I cheerfully pay my tribute not only to Sir John Boyd Orr's work, but also that of the present Minister of Agriculture, without whose assistance I should not have got the necessary grants from the Empire Marketing Board on that occasion. Sir John Boyd Orr shows that 10 per cent. or 4,500,000 of the people of this country are endeavouring to live on a standard which is below the minimum of the British Medical Association. They can only spend as a maximum 4s. per week on food and he says that their diet is deficient in every constituent. He adds that there are 9,000,000 persons in this country who can only spend 6s. per week on food and that while their food supply is adequate in fuel and tissue-building constituents, it is deficient in protective constituents.
  Then we had recently, the remarkable report—which I wish Ministers would read—issued by the Women's Labour Party. I do not know of any collection of budgets and reports dealing with this subject which is more sickening to read
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  than those contained in that report. I am not going to read a selection from them this afternoon, but I propose to give the House the net statistical conclusions drawn from them. The Women's Labour party took 476 unemployed families and discovered that 41 per cent. of those families cannot spend more than a maximum of 3s. per week per head on food, and a large number cannot spend more than 2s. a week. There are 179 of those families, or 37 per cent. of the total, who buy no fresh milk any week in the year. Thirty-two of these families can buy one pint of milk on Sundays, as a delicacy, but the rest are in semi-starvation. It is no use telling these poor people to go to domestic science courses, to go and learn how to make a succulent meal of potato peelings and old tea leaves. There can be no waste there, with a total expenditure of 6d. a day. There is no wise way of spending 6d. a day on food. They are in poverty before they begin. They must buy tinned food when they can get it at all, but they certainly cannot pay for fuel or gas, and many of them have long been bereft even of cooking utensils.
  There was a remarkable report issued, called the Jones-Cowie report, of an investigation made in Cardiff. I have drawn the attention of the Minister of Agriculture to this report on a previous occasion, but may I repeat in one word what the figures disclosed there are? It is published by "The Welsh Journal of Agriculture," and it is called "The Consumption of Milk in Cardiff." Is it credible, at this time of day, that while in the good middle-class houses every house gets liquid milk per day, in the good working-class houses only 91 per cent. get liquid milk per day, in the new housing areas, where they have to pay more in rent and therefore less on food, 85 per cent. only have liquid milk, and in the poor working-class houses 26 per cent. of them never get liquid milk at all? If the right hon. Gentleman is looking for a market for liquid milk, it is there. The Ministry of Health report on "Diets in Poor Law Children's Homes," published in 1932, states that the weekly minimum cost of food alone, purchased wholesale and for 200 children at a time, for the diet fixed by their own medical officer, comes to 4s. 6½d. per head. On the British Medical Association's diet scale the cost is 5s. 10d. per individual, and Dr.

  1235
  McGonigle now says that with the increase in prices that must be 7s. But Dr. McGonigle goes further. In his recent book—if I recollect aright it is in the last table in the book—he shows that the death-rate of the 25s. to 30s. a week family is more than double, year after year, the death-rate of the 75s. a week family.
  These are either statements of fact—and so far they are all official or semiofficial—or they are not statements of fact. If they are statements of fact, we are entitled to ask this afternoon, What are the Government going to do about it? "The British Medical Journal" in 1933 published an analysis of the effects of poverty and under-feeding on 1,000 unemployed families, and their statement is that 50 per cent. of the women were suffering definitely from anaemia. And all this in a world of actual and potential plenty, where we are busily engaged to some slight extent in destroying food or to a larger extent in preparing legislative and administrative restrictions upon the production of food. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture, when asked questions in this House about the dumping overboard of a third of a million herring, said the total destruction of fish only amounted to 0.1 per cent. of the total catch, but he forgets that it is not only the destruction of the fish that are caught; it is the prevention of the catching of fish that he must also consider. The report of the White Fish Industry Commission, recently issued, says that foreign landings have been reduced, through regulations, by 10 per cent., and yet you find trawler owners asking for complete exclusion of foreign landings, and so far as inshore fishing is concerned, the same Commission say that there must be
  "a limitation of the numbers engaged in the fishings."
  It is not only in fishing, however, that the Government are busily engaged in trying to prevent the production of food. In potatoes it is occurring. You cannot start now to grow potatoes unless you first satisfy certain conditions, and in regard to milk, from 27 per cent. to 40 per cent. of liquid milk produced in this country is deliberately turned into manufactured processes. I ask a question of the Minister of Health about dried milk, and he admits that they are converting
  1236
  half-a-million gallons a year of liquid milk into dried milk for export abroad. If you please, they are turning it into cans and tins and trying then to sell it to Czechoslovakia—to anywhere else but the stomachs of the people of this country who need it. These are not statements made by Socialists. I have taken care to cull these reports from authorities who would be respected by hon. Members opposite. Here is the London "Times" saying, in an editorial on the 13th February of this year:
  "One-half of the population is living on a diet insufficient or ill-designed to maintain health… Why should not some of the milk now poured into factories be poured down human throats?"
  On a previous occasion the Editor of the "Times" even more strongly made that point when he said:
  "There is clearly something wrong… Answers will have to be found for the economic riddles over which the world is now bewildered. Until they are solved or perhaps solve themselves, there can be no general return to prosperity."
  He also said this:
  "There are 140,000,000 inhabitants of agrarian Europe (not including the U.S.S.R.) the produce of whose labour is largely lying unused, and whose energies are idle or wasted."
  Coffee is destroyed deliberately every year; soldiers are sent out by the United States Government to stop the production of oil in the wells of Texas and Oklahoma; cotton growers are urged by the Federal Farm Board to destroy a third of their crops. But I ask this House to listen to a quotation from "Adventure," of a Rectorial Address delivered at St. Andrew's University by the late Dr. Nansen. He went up to St. Andrew's University to be installed
  as Lord Rector. He had been Famine Relief Commissioner for the League of Nations, and this is what he said:
  "The Russian famine in 1921–2, when the Volga region and the most fertile parts of Russia were ravaged by a terrible drought—when something like 30,000,000 people, or more, were starving and dying—dying by the thousand… There was in various trans-Atlantic countries such an abundance of maize at that time that the farmers did not know how to get rid of it before the new harvest, so they had to burn it as fuel in their railway engines. At the same time the ships in Europe were idle, and laid up, for there were no cargoes. Simultaneously there were thousands, nay millions, of unemployed. All this while 30,000,000 people in the Volga region—not far away and easily

  1237
  reached by means of our ships—were allowed to starve and die, the politicians of the world at large, except in the United States, trying to find an excuse for doing nothing on the pretext that it was the Russians' own fault—a result of the Bolshevik system.
  Fancy, if the unemployed had been put on board the idle ships, had been sent to South America, and had brought the maize to the Black Sea and saved the stricken millions, how much suffering they could have relieved. Do you not think the world would have been the better for it? I tell you that there is something rotten in the condition of the world."
  So, side by side with want and undernourishment, we have organised limitation of production and organised restriction of the market. Day after day, harvest after harvest, we turn aside the beneficence of Providence. Instead of welcoming the technical skill and the knowledge of man, we are engaged in their frustration. Long ago Carlyle said, "In the midst of plenty the people perish," and it is as true to-day as when he said it. Our capacity to produce has outrun our courage to distribute.
  I am forbidden to quote in this House the names of certain high personages, but a statement was made at the opening of the World Economic Conference in 1932 which might almost have been taken from a Labour party manifesto. The statement made was:
  "Discovery, invention and organisation have multiplied their possibilities to such an extent that abundance of production has itself created new problems."
  Yet the Minister of Agriculture knows that our cow population in this country has grown by 300,000 between 1930 and 1934, and I see from the last League of Nations Report that the yield is up by one-ninth per cow. Yet while that is so, we drink in this country of milk, per head, a third of what the Norwegian drinks, from a third to a fourth of what the Swede drinks, a half of what the Yankee drinks, a third of what the Dane drinks, a third of what the Canadian drinks, less than the German drinks, and less than the Austrian or the Belgian drinks. In regard to margarine, Denmark consumes six times as much per head as we do—and Denmark is a butter exporting country. It is butter abroad and margarine for the producer. I happened to be looking through the report for 1933 of the Director-General of Health for New Zealand when I observed that in that great land of butter exports
  1238
  no less than 10 per cent. of the share milkers' children never touch liquid milk. The Director-General for Queensland in his last annual report has a great article headed, "Our milk-starved children."
  This is not the occasion to discuss long-term policy. We have our views and hon. Gentlemen opposite have theirs. Nor is it the time to discuss monetary policy. I have my views, and some of my hon. Friends differ. Monetary considerations will require to be faced before this old world is put right, but this is not the occasion for considering them. What is urgent is that we should this afternoon get preparation for action next winter. If we cannot agree with the pleas made by Professor Julian Huxley and others in the "Times" for a free milk supply to our school-children, surely, as a temporary measure, we might take steps to bring the babies, the toddlers and the children under five up to the level of what is offered to the children of school age. If it is right that the children of 5 to 14 should get free milk or cheap milk in the schools, surely it is even more proper and fitting that the babies, the toddlers and the young children, who are more in need of milk than schoolchildren, should get equality of supply. There is no need for further inquiries, and I trust that the Government will not attempt to fob us off this afternoon with any promise that they are going to make further experiment and inquiries. We have had the Corry Mann inquiry and the Lanarkshire milk in schools inquiry, in which we proved that we can raise the height of the children by three inches, that we can raise their weight by six lbs. and that we can bring the blush of health to the cheeks of our bairns.
  I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture that, when we left office and he came in, he made use of the experiment we had carried out at the Scottish Office and developed it. I only hope that he and the Minister of Health will be able to press the claims of the younger children and the sick and nursing mothers upon their colleagues in the Cabinet. We have had too the experiment of milk in schools. What more do we want? Every local authority and headmaster tells the same story of better health everywhere. Mr. de Valera is making a bull point in his election manifesto of the physical results that have been achieved in the

  1239
  Free State during the past four years as a result of his provision of cheap and free milk in the schools. He did far more than that. He had a surplus of 60,000 fat cattle after the dispute with this country, and instead of doing what the old economists and politicians would have done, allowed that surplus to break the price and the farmer while the poor starved, he conceived the idea of letting the poor eat that 60,000 fat cattle off the market. It was an enormous success. I do not want to boost Mr. de Valera's campaign for him here. The point I am making is that there have been experiments in plenty. We know all that is to be known about this question, and we do not want to be fobbed off with half a dozen canteens in half a dozen distressed areas. It is no earthly use saying to the starving mother of a starving child who is just over an imaginary line from a depressed area, "You do not get milk and your baby shall cry, but the child over the imaginary line will get milk."
  The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health has deservedly achieved a great reputation as an administrator. When he was at the Post Office he did extraordinarily well. Here we are dealing with something greater than telephones; here is human life. I have given proofs of malnutrition and under-feeding. The right hon. Gentleman is the Minister of Health, and it is his duty and the duty of his Government, with this surplusage of milk, milk flowing over the cans so that farmers cannot get a price for it, to see to it that next winter the milk goes to the needy. It is not my place to make suggestions to the right hon. Gentleman how it should be done, but I will venture to make a suggestion to him. It is that he should send out to every medical officer of health a circular telling them that next winter they will get whatever supplies of milk they require from the Milk Marketing Board at manufacturing prices. If it is right that milk should go to chocolate and dried-milk manufacturers for 5d., surely it can go in the first instance to local medical officers of health for 5d. They should see to its distribution. In some cases mothers would go with their children to the clinics and there would be no costs of distribution. There would be other ways of distribution which could be arranged. I am suggesting that the beginning of the way out
  1240
  of the present mess is to authorise medical officers of health to get milk supplied at 5d., which would be within the competence of the local ratepayers, and to see to it that every human being gets an adequate supply of this most necessary foodstuff.
  The cost of two battleships would wipe out the scandal to which I have referred. I would call the attention of the hon. Member for St. Albans to the fact that if it cost the price of two battleships to prevent these scandals, we should save the cost of four battleships in ambulance work. If we cannot or will not, if we are so impervious to unnecessary suffering and anguish, if we arc so callous to the heartbroken struggles of the unfortunate victims of unemployment and maladjustments in our social order, that we will not at least feed the hungry from the surpluses, actual and potential, of our social economy, if this Parliament will not bend its energies to the grave issues we have placed before it this afternoon, then God help us as mere babblers, unfitted for the high responsibilities of our office.
  4.56 p.m.
  The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): The right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has made a most effective contribution to the Debate. I think, speaking as Minister of Health, that it is most desirable, for a variety of reasons which I shall endeavour to state. that we should spend a day in the House of Commons on a subject which is creating wide interest not only in this country, but in every country in the world. The subject of the Motion affects a number of Departments, and when I heard the right hon. Gentleman speak, I wondered whether there should not have been more Departments represented than those he enumerated, and whether we ought not to have had here the Foreign Office and the Russian Ambassador and people of that kind. This subject is of great moment to my Department. I propose to deal with the part of the Motion which affects the Ministry of Health, and later my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture will deal with those aspects which more affect his own work. The matters which I consider most affect the Ministry of Health are those contained in the first and third parts of the Motion, namely:

  1241
  "That this House has noted with concern the convincing evidence of widespread malnutrition,"
  and the part which makes allegations of "hunger and want in the midst of plenty." I propose to give certain facts which I regard as material to the adequate consideration of this question and to indicate the policy of the Government and some of the steps that are being taken. In this matter of nutrition, which is so vital to the good health of the nation, I think that it can fairly be claimed that the initiative has been taken by this country, not only in investigation but in action, and that, while as in other spheres more can and should be done, this country certainly leads the way in the services and the provisions which it is making for its people. As a result of those efforts there is in this country to-day a, rising standard both of health and social conditions.
  The word "malnutrition" has been inserted by the Opposition in their Motion, and it is the peg upon which the right hon. Gentleman has hung his indictment. Malnutrition is a word much used to-day and much abused. Few take care, and many refrain, when using it, to explain its true and full meaning, and the terms of this Motion, with its implication that malnutrition is solely concerned with lack of food, is one more example of how a problem largely scientific and economic can be twisted and turned for other purposes. I would also draw attention to the fact that the Motion alleges widespread malnutrition—it is not a matter of certain areas, I could understand that—and with its concluding terms linking up malnutrition with allegations of want and hunger it is a general fulmination against the whole condition of the nation. The right hon. Gentleman has referred as tin authority to Dr. Mc Gonigle, who recently wrote a book entitled "Poverty and Public Health," and I should very much like to give the House a statement by him which, I think, puts the matter in the perspective in which I should like the House to consider it in this Debate.
  He says:
  "There are those who maintain that the incidence of malnutrition is trifling. Others see it everywhere. One explanation of the apparently contradictory views expressed by men of science and able clinical observers is to be found in the loose and confused manner in which the word 'malnutrition'
  1242
  has been used. This confusion is unfortunate, for it has given rise in the public mind to doubts as to the motives activating the savants. The word 'malnutrition' has by many been used in its narrow sense to indicate a bodily state resulting from an insufficient intake of food and characterised by a loss of body weight. If the word 'malnutrition' is used to connote this condition"—
  and that is the matter to which the right hon. Gentleman has devoted his speech—
  "then those who assert that malnutrition is rare are correct."
  That is the statement of an authority which the right hon. Gentleman quoted. I would like to add this further quotation from the same authority:
  "The word 'malnutrition' is used by others in a different sense. These people use the word to signify deviations from normal bodily growth or function attributable to qualitative defects of diet rather than to insufficiency in the total of food eaten. If this latter interpretation of the word is accepted, it follows that a high percentage of the population of this country must be categorised as having been at one time or another victims of malnutrition."
  If we take that as a fair statement of what is the position I think it puts the matter very much as I, at any rate, would like it to appear before the House to-day; and I would like at once to say that if malnutrition is defined in the way Dr. McGonigle has put it, it is a real problem and certainly, as Minister of Health, I should be the very last to minimise it or its importance. The right hon. Gentleman, has also referred to the statements widely made up and down the country by Sir John Orr in his survey of this matter. Sir John Orr is a distinguished member of my Advisory Committee on Nutrition, and I should imagine that no one would be more surprised than Sir John Orr at the uses to which his contribution to this subject has been put and the deductions drawn from it. When Sir John Orr's book was published the other day I saw that one paper went so far as to announce it with this headline:
  "Sir John Orr's Indictment: 50 per cent. of the people starving."
  As a matter of fact, as anyone can see for himself, Sir John Orr deals not with minimum requirements but with optimum requirements, which, as he said, represent a state of well-being such that no improvement can be effected by a change in diet. Those who quote Sir John Orr ought always to remember the final conclusion which he gave in his book. He says:

  1243
  "There is need for further investigation and further discussion on the whole question in all its complicated relationships in order that the measures taken to deal with the situation may be based on generally accepted facts and well informed public opinion."
  And I should have expected Sir John Orr to have come to that conclusion, because his own examination, as we see from the book, was based only on the family budgets of 1,152 families, more than a third of whom were for the most part in the industrially distressed areas. Therefore, when we hear a great deal about Sir John Orr, and quote his statements, I hope that those observations will always be remembered. There is a League of Nations report on nutrition which reminds us that nutrition is an economic, agricultural, industrial and commercial problem, and it is, therefore, not surprising that doctors and scientists, like politicians, disagree on this subject very much indeed.
  We often hear Sir John Orr quoted rather incompletely, but there is another equally eminent member of the Ministry of Health Committee who can, I suppose, be regarded equally as an authority, and that is Professor Cathcart. He says that malnutrition is due not so much to poverty as to ignorance and other causes of the same kind; and another doctor equally entitled to be considered when we quote these authorities, Dr. Robert Hutchison, the President of the Royal Society of Medicine, asserts that diseases due to over-nutrition are increasing while those due to under-nutrition are decreasing. I may say, while we are discussing these differences of medical opinion, that I myself have some personal sympathy with the medical man who gave the opinion that, after all, comparatively small stature was not a bad thing.
  May I also say that if it were really true that the allegations in this Motion were accurate, if there were widespread malnutrition, everyone would agree that the health of the population would be rapidly declining and national deterioration would be widespread, especially in children and young people? What are the facts? Viewed over any period of time which enables just comparisons to be made, our national health is improving, not merely steadily but remarkably,
  1244
  and, as another authority has said, if any large proportion of the population were seriously under-nourished, as is sometimes represented, the existence of such low death rates as we have in this country would become difficult to explain. When a Motion submitted to the House of Commons contains allegations that there is widespread malnutrition in this country, it is a fair thing to adduce in evidence against it that in the last 20 years we have added some seven years to the expectation of life, and reduced the infant mortality rate from 100 to 57 per 1,000 births. Improvements of this magnitude in our vital statistics are not compatible with widespread malnutrition, under-nourishment, hunger and want. I am bound to put this side of the matter before the House; later I will indicate what I think is another side. When there is a general indictment of this kind the Government ought to put the other side without, I hope, being accused of complacency or anything of that kind.
  Take the still more direct test, so far as this country is concerned, of those diseases which we all know are specially associated with malnutrition, tuberculosis and rickets. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned those two diseases in his speech, but I did not quite follow him; however I will examine his point further when I see his speech in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The authoritative facts are that the death rate from tuberculosis is less than half of the rate in the first decade of this century, and less than a quarter of the rate 50 years ago; and as regards rickets, which is directly associated with this question, the number of deaths is only half of the number five years ago, and there has been a progressive diminution in the number of patients with active disease. The report—the right hon. Gentleman did not quote it, but I hope he will read it—which has just been issued by the Committee on the Scottish Health Services says that the decline in rickets, especially in its severer forms, is one of the most striking features of the evidence given before the Committee.
  Take another matter which is a very fair test, in face of a general indictment of this kind, and that is the condition of the children of the country. The right hon. Gentleman as far as I could follow him, quoted places here and there and various conditions in various districts, which I can assure him I will examine

  1245
  carefully when I have an opportunity of checking them, but I have the official figures which relate to the inspections by the school medical officers of this country during 1935. Inspections were made of 1,687,331 children. They were inspected at the routine medical inspections; what are the results, according to the report which is officially issued? The nutrition of 14·6 per cent. was found to be excellent, 74·1 per cent. were normal, 10·6 per cent. slightly subnormal, and 0·7 per cent. bad. Those figures speak for themselves.
  It is very interesting to consider the condition of the children and young people of this country. There is another report, quite unbiased, from no one who is engaged in any political controversy on this subject, a report just issued and which appeared in the "Lancet" two or three weeks ago, by the Chief Medical Officer of my old Department, the Post Office. In that report, Dr. Bashford, whom I know well as Chief Medical Officer, referred to the conditions of people who came to the Post Office for employment. He pointed out that adolescents examined at 16 years old for employment in the Post Office, weighed on an average 16 lbs. more, and were one and a-half inches taller than those of the corresponding social position 25 years ago, and that 16-year-old girls weighed, on an average, 10 lbs. more and were one inch taller than the girls of 25 years ago of a corresponding class. That is a very valuable contribution to this subject. I was interested very much—
  Mr. GEORGE GRIFFITHS: Why not quote figures for the Army?
  Sir K. WOOD: I will say something about the Army, if the hon. Gentleman wants me to do so. It is constantly said in the course of these arguments and Debates: "Look at the rejections, so far as the Army is concerned." That is used as part of the case respecting bad conditions of the nation. I submit, since the hon. Gentleman has asked me, that those statements are not well founded. In considering the standard of recruitment you have always to remember that it is based upon the principle that men have to be selected to serve all over the world, in tropical as well as temperate conditions, and must be physically capable of duty under all conditions. The rejection of
  1246
  recruits is not, therefore, an indication of the physique and nutrition of the general civil population. I may say that the standard of recruitment is still high, and that the lowering of physical standards which, I see, has been alleged in certain quarters, relates chiefly to slight reductions in chest measurements and to a small reduction in height.
  When you see the reasons why many men are rejected for the Army, on account of disabilities which incapacitate them from the military point of view, you see that a large number of the rejections do not reflect upon the general health. In 1933–34, about 35 per cent. of the recruits who were medically examined were rejected. It is very interesting to see why. The principal causes of rejection were: Diseases of the middle ear, loss or decay of teeth, defects of the lower extremities, diseases of the heart, insufficient weight, flat feet, defects of vision, under chest-measurement and under-height. I have come to this general conclusion, from the figures which I have had given to me, that, apart from dental defects, the only causes of rejection which could be ascribed to malnutrition were insufficient weight, under chest-measurement and under-height. The percentages rejected in these three classes were: 1·93, 0·75 and 0·59. It is well that those facts should be known, because these arguments are very often used.
  I could have understood if the right hon. Gentleman, instead of making a general indictment of this kind, had said that malnutrition or undernourishment obviously existed in certain parts of the country.
  Mr. DALTON: The right hon. Gentleman has given the House a considerable amount of information. We should like a little more. He has dealt with recruitment of the Army, but he now seems to be leaving the subject. Before he does so, may I ask him whether it is or is not the case, not during the period which he has taken, but over 50 years, which is the period he has taken for other comparisons, that the proportion of recruits presenting themselves for the Army who have not been rejected as physically unfit, has fallen? How does that compare with the statement he has just made?
  Sir K. WOOD: If the hon. Gentleman will put a question on the Paper I will answer it. I do not think that he has quite followed my point. You have to

  1247
  examine the reasons for the rejection of recruits, and to see what proportion affects the question of malnutrition, or under-nourishment, which we are considering to-day. Perhaps he will now allow me to proceed. I was saying that I could have understood if, instead of a general indictment, anxiety had been expressed and statements had been made, not in regard to the state of the whole nation, as appears in the Motion, but an anxiety, which I feel myself, in relation to the distressed areas. If signs of deterioration in the health of the people are to be found anywhere, one would expect to find them in the distressed areas. The problem of those areas has been my special concern. I need hardly tell the House that I have tried, as far as possible, with the information at my disposal, to arrive at a true assessment of the position. Anxious watch has been kept for any evidence suggestive of deterioration and the available vital statistics have been carefully scrutinised. Periodical surveys have been made, particularly of those sections of the population most likely to suffer from disturbance of nutrition. A visit by medical officers of my Department and the Board of Education, for the purposes of such a survey, is now in progress in South Wales.
  I hope the House will believe that I want to give a fair account. I am perhaps stressing the other side of the picture, because of the form of the indictment which the right hon. Gentleman has presented to the House. I will say at once that signs have indeed been found of the strain which depression and unemployment unhappily impose, particularly in the years of adolescence. I should also say that the vital statistics afford no evidence of a halt in the steady improvement in the health figures in these areas, which is so satisfactory a feature of the current social history of this country as a whole. I will give a few figures to substantiate that statement. The percentage decline in the general annual death rate between the period 1911–14 and the year 1934 was, for the whole of England and Wales, 31 per cent. The corresponding figure for Gateshead was 32 per cent., for South Shields 35 per cent., Sunderland 37 per cent., West Hartlepool 35 per cent., Newcastle-on-Tyne 32 per cent., Tynemouth 32 per
  1248
  cent. and Merthyr Tydfil 23 per cent. I would like to add that the percentage decline in infantile mortality between the same two periods is no less marked and compares well with the decline which is taking place in the rate for the country as a whole.
  There is another statement sometimes made, which the right hon. Gentleman has not quoted. It has been said that our efforts to improve housing conditions may even be harmful because tenants removed from slums to new housing estates may have less to spend on food. Figures have been produced to show that the vital statistics for a new housing estate were less satisfactory than statistics for a slum area. Such figures as I have seen were, however, derived from too small a population to be significant. I have accordingly arranged, because I want to get this matter cleared up, it being very vital from a housing point of view, for figures to be obtained from a number of large towns. Those from Manchester have already been received. The death rate for the whole of the city in 1935 was 12·9 and for the new housing estates, 7. The death rate in 12 slum areas, averaged over five years, was 17·3. These are crude death rates and, of course, standardised rates may qualify the situation; the crude rates are probably too favourable. The infantile mortality rates are, however, fully comparable and are even more striking. They show a rate of 71 in the whole city, 61 in the housing estates and 120 in the slums. Those figures show that when you take a wide area, such as is the case with the figures produced from Manchester, the benefit is seen of what housing is doing.
  Mr. LOGAN: Would the right hon. Gentleman include satellite estates in his survey?
  Sir K. WOOD: I have put certain facts before the House because I want hon. Members to see the position as I, as Minister of Health, see it. I should not like anyone to think that this is the end of the matter, so far as I am concerned. Notwithstanding those figures, which I think cannot be beaten by any other country in the world, there is great scope for activity and advance. Malnutrition in the true sense of the term exists and must be fought, and it is manifest that we must continue to pay increasing attention to the nutrition of

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  the nation as a potent weapon against disease and a great instrument for the promotion of mental and physical efficiency and well-being. I suggest that the special problem which we have to face is how to increase the consumption of those foodstuffs which modern science has shown to be of special health value. There are evident difficulties—and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me in this—in devising a system which will enable those foods to reach consumers at prices which they can pay, and at the same time secure for producers a just reward for their labours.
  The Empire, particularly this country, has played a leading part in the further elucidation of this problem. At the meeting of the Assembly of the League of Nations last September Mr. Bruce and Lord De La Warr were foremost in bringing this matter to the attention of the League, and much useful work is being done by the League organisations including an important committee presided over by Lord Astor. In this country, also, valuable work is being accomplished by the Medical Research Council and the British Medical Association. But I think the House will agree that it is wise for me in framing Government policy to look for guidance most directly to the Advisory Committee on Nutrition. That committee has been recently reconstituted and enlarged under the chairmanship of Lord Luke, and I may inform the House as I do not think it is generally known that the committee includes some of the leading scientific authorities of our tune—men like Dr. Buchan, Professor Cathcart, Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, Professor Mellanby and last, but not least, Sir John Orr. The committee have recently informed me that the available data regarding the consumption of various kinds of food in this country are insufficient to justify any safe and far-reaching conclusions, and they have recommended that further information in relation to family budgets should be collected.
  Having received that recommendation from this expert advisory committee, I have consulted with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and arranged for the required information to be obtained in the course of the inquiry which my right hon. Friend has
  1250
  recently set up in connection with the cost-of-living index. In the meantime the Advisory Committee have presented a report to me stressing the high nutritional value of milk and that report accords with, and reinforces, the special policy of the Government which has been, and is, to increase the consumption of clean, safe milk. I do not think there is any controversy or division of opinion on this matter. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that milk is usually regarded as an ideal health food, and one of the most nourishing and wholesome in the world. I do not think I need enumerate to the House all that has been done in furtherance of the Government's milk policy. Under the Milk Act of 1934 about 2,250,000 school children are receiving a daily ration of one-third of a pint of milk for ½d. The local education authorities give free milk to a large number of school children now totalling, I think, over 300,000; and as regards the point made by the right hon. Gentleman as to children under five, they can, if they are in need, obtain milk, as I dare say he knows, from the clinics of the country.
  I would also point out, because I think it ought to be known in view of the statements that have been made this afternoon, that nearly all of the 422 maternity and child welfare authorities provide milk for mothers and children free or at cheap rates, and the total annual provision in this respect has been roughly estimated to be equivalent to 7,000,000 gallons, including dried milk. I think that that ought to be pointed out when statements are made that we are indifferent to this aspect of the matter. I have been considering, in conjunction with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, the possibility of extending the scope of the schemes now in operation and I can give this undertaking to the House, with regard to the suggestions that the right hon. Gentleman has made. The Government will certainly be willing to give their support to any practical proposals for extension.
  The matter is, I may say, very closely linked with the whole question of milk marketing which is now under examination by the Milk Reorganisation Commission. It would, for example, be highly unfortunate that we should take any action which might have the effect of in-

  1251
  creasing the price of milk to the general consumer, but I hope that when the report of the Commission is received it may be possible to find means of enlarging the schemes which are now doing such valuable work. This, I believe, is the direction in which we can most profitably seek to advance at the present time. The House will see that action is being taken in many ways, and it is the desire of the Government to see the efforts that have been made expanded. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in this House a few days ago:
  "When we have reached a satisfactory conclusion as to what is the proper diet for persons living under the conditions in which they are to-day there are very many ways in which we can improve the health of the people."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd July, 1936; col. 825, Vol. 313.]
  I think the House will have welcomed the expression of the Chancellor's conviction that by a continuance of the policy which we have been pursuing for the last few years and which has so immensely raised the position of the country, we shall be able to provide the resources that are necessary to meet all reasonable demands in the future. That statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a very satisfactory one. I would, however, make this observation, that whatever we may be able to do in these special ways, the best nutritional policy of all was not referred to by the right hon. Gentleman in his speech. That is to reduce unemployment, to improve the standards of living and to increase purchasing power. Those are objects which the general policy of the Government is achieving. Increases in employment and wages are playing an important part in improving the nutrition of our people, and there can be no doubt that the Government's policy during the last few years has increased the purchasing power of the lower incomed groups and the average consumption of some of the commodities which are prominent in good dietary.
  I would say a word in conclusion about the terms of the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman. I know he will not think that I am making any personal reflection when I say that the Motion is not couched in particularly honest terms. We are invited to note with concern the convincing evidence of widespread malnutrition and then to
  1252
  "regret the continued failure of the Government to deal with this grave and urgent problem of hunger and want in the midst of plenty."
  We have there the usual twist that is given in certain quarters, and it is so, carefully framed as to insinuate what its authors hesitate to state openly in their Motion. Sometimes Socialists are less careful. I read an article the other day by Miss Mary Sutherland, which said:
  "Thousands of children in this country are systematically starved year by year."
  Miss WILKINSON: Hear, hear! That is true.
  Sir K. WOOD: Everyone knows that that is not true. There was a very frank admission on this matter in another article which I read recently. It said:
  "A very fine report on the subject of nutrition and food supplies; got up by the women's organisation, is now available at a penny and every effort should be made to interest the Annual Conference of the Labour party on the subject. No issue excepting peace and war is more vital or more urgent to Socialism."
  This article appeared in "Forward" of 30th May last, and the initials at the bottom are "T.J."; and in another article "T.J." says:
  "May I commend Sir John Orr's 'Food, Health and Income' to those who see in nutrition one of the great channels of Socialist propaganda?"
  The Socialists are asked to take an interest in nutrition because it is important to Socialism. I ask the House to reject the Motion, associated as it evidently is with party ends. In doing so the House can be assured from the facts that I have adduced to-day that not only is the nutrition of our people regarded by the Government as a vital factor in the health conditions of our people, but that with present and future policy and action we can look confidently to still further improvements in the standards of health and living of the nation.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (CAPTAIN BOURNE): Mr. Richard Acland.
  Miss WILKINSON: Before we go on with the Debate, may I call attention, to the fact that there is an escape of gas of some kind in this Chamber?
  Mr. MAGNAY: Is it not within the knowledge of most Members of the House that, when there is a high tide in the river, we get these abominable

  1253
  smells? May I ask you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to bring to the notice of the proper quarter the offensive state in which the House is?
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I had noticed the same thing myself.
  5.43 p.m.
  Mr. R. ACLAND: I will endeavour to put before the House the views of my right hon. and hon. Friends, who, I regret to say, have deserted me. I wish to ask the Minister of Health one question on the figures he gave with regard to recruiting. I have the figures here for 1934. I gather that the Minister was quoting the figures for 1935, and that he was giving the figures of rejections by the medical staff. The figures which I have correspond with his, but from his figures he drew the conclusion that only a very few of the rejections were on account of causes which could be attributed to under-nourishment or malnutrition. If he was quoting the numbers rejected by the medical staff, is it not right to say that the medical staff never see the recruits at all until they have been weeded out by the recruiting staff, who reject, without medical inspection, all those who are under height? In 1934, according to my figures, 46 per cent. of the applicants were rejected by the recruiting staff, including men who were obviously unfit, too short, and so on. Is that a fair inference?
  Sir K. WOOD: I have a statement supplied by the authority and it says:
  "Many men are rejected from the Army on account of disabilities which incapacitated them from the military point of view only, and do not reflect on their general health."
  Mr. ACLAND: The figures that I have say that 46 per cent. were rejected by the recruiting staff as under height before ever any of them went before the medical staff.
  Sir K. WOOD: I have found another statement. It says:
  "In 1933–34 about 35 per cent. of the recruits who were medically examined were rejected."
  Mr. ACLAND: That surely proves my point that before ever a medical test was applied at all 46 per cent. or thereabouts were rejected as under height. It is absurd to say that 06 were rejected on grounds of malnutrition or under-nutrition. But I will pass from that.
  Sir FRANCIS FREMANTLE: Why does the hon. Member pass from that, and why does he take it that those who are rejected on the ground of small stature are in any worse condition than the others?
  Mr. ACLAND: The Minister gave the figures for rejection and then said that only six or 6 per cent. of those who were rejected were rejected for causes which have any connection with malnutrition. I say that on a proper review of the rejection tests 46 per cent. in 1932 were owing to causes which might have been brought about by malnutrition. I think the Minister is an optimist if he thinks he can escape a charge of complacency. Government spokesmen are really wizards at complacency. By founding their figures on 1933, which was the turn in the world depression, instead of 1931, when they came into office, they would convince anyone that we are in a state of boom, which only requires an expenditure of £100,000,000 or £200,000,000 on armaments to convert it into the millennium. They have convinced the country that unemployment does not exist by pushing it all up into the Special Areas, which apparently do not matter, and now we are told that no one is under-nourished or is suffering from malnutrition. I am glad that Dr. McGonigle has been accepted as an authority on both sides of the House, because he gives figures that those who have wages of 30s. a week have 4s. 3d. per head to spend on food, whereas the diet laid down as necessary by the British Medical Association would have cost 7s. in the town that he was investigating, those with wages of 40s. have 4s. 4d. and those with wages of 50s., 4s. 11d. Even the well-paid workman earning £3 a week has only 5s. 9d. to spend on his food, on which he should have spent 7s.
  In view of these facts can anyone seriously doubt that very large numbers of our people are mal-nourished in the sense of getting an improper and ill-balanced diet, and that very large numbers, thought it may be relatively smaller, spend their lives in a state of real hunger or fear of hunger? Is not that a situation in which we cannot be complacent, in which it is not enough for the Minister of Health to chronicle the achievements of the past, for which we give him and his Government, and

  1255
  all Governments concerned, all the credit that they deserve? When you get statements such as these in the McGonigle Stockton report, is it good enough for the Minister to make a speech in which the House listened in vain for a single proposal of what the Government is going to do about this question? The only thing he could say they were prepared to do was to consider practical proposals put up by someone else for an increase in the distribution of milk, And they were not prepared to consider that seriously until the Milk Reorganisation Committee has reported, a committee which started its investigations 18 months ago and has not reported yet. Is that the whole of the practical proposals part of the answer that the Government is prepared to make to the recent discoveries of ill-balanced and inadequate diet? If we can get nothing from the Government in the way of practical proposals, perhaps we on this side may be allowed to offer some practical suggestions of our own. If it is proposed to deal with the problem of insufficient supplies of vegetable, animal and animal produced food, it seems to me that it will be necessary to extend further help than we have done to those who wish to grow their own vegetables. That would, no doubt, need legislation and perhaps should not be talked about now, but smallholders will need better security of tenure.
  Let me look at the Amendment which is shortly to be moved, welcoming the steps that are being taken to secure the maximum supplies of food to our people and reasonable remuneration for home producers. Those are noble sentiments, and they are rather well-drafted. May I suggest the addition of five words which seem to me to have been left out—after the word "food" insert "at prices they can pay." If those words were inserted, the Amendment could not be passed, because it would be impossible to welcome something that has not taken place. The argument that we hear from the other side, that as long as other industries receive assistance agriculture must have its share, is one with which we, particularly those who represent agricultural constituencies, have considerable sympathy, but only on three conditions. They are that the assistance given
  1256
  shall concentrate upon the foods which we produce best, and which by a fortunate coincidence happen to be the foods of which the poorest people are now the shortest and which are shown to be needed for their proper diet. The second condition is that the assistance shall be given at the consumers' end and not at the producers. The assistance should be designed to bring the food within the means of the poorest and not to restore the bank balances of the producers. Lastly, the assistance must be dependent upon efficiency. Assistance given at the consumers' end is politically permanent. The present schemes of the Ministry of Agriculture are in danger of being politically swept away, to the utter ruin of the producers.
  A proposal in relation to milk was put forward by the right hon. Gentleman who moved this Motion. I want to put up another one, which would not cost the Government a penny piece, although I think a case is made out for spending money on the distribution of milk. We are selling milk to-day at 2s. a gallon retail. Suppose we could select persons, such as expectant mothers, young children, the very poorest of the population and the sick, and supply them with milk for a shilling a gallon from their regular retailer. Of course that would not pay the retailer, because he has to pay 1s. 3d. a gallon, but if you make it a condition that the milk must be bought from the retailer's shop in containers supplied and cleaned by them in quantities of not less than a quart at a time, it would be an adequate reward for the retailer if he received 1s. 6d. per gallon. If the selected people were paying 1s., there would be sixpence to make up. We are now paying a subsidy of round about £1,000,000, which goes straight into the manufacturing pool and is distributed amongst the producers. That £1,000,000 would finance the distribution in that way of 40,000,000 gallons. But those 40,000,000 gallons are now being sold for manufacture at 6d. With this change they would be sold to the liquid market at 1s. 3d.—a gain to the pool of 9d. a gallon. On 40,000,000 gallons, that is £1,500,000. I believe that over a wide range of products by putting in £1,000,000 to bring the price down at the consumers' end you will get more than £1,000,000 going into the producers' pool

  1257
  and, in addition, you will bring about the improved health of the people.
  I come to the second point, that the subsidy must depend upon efficiency. This principle has been wholly ignored except in speeches. The Minister has conceived it to be his duty simply to put cash into the banking account of the producers so as to give them a credit balance at the end of the year. He has had a marvellous opportunity. When he came to office the producers were more ready than ever before to listen to proposals for reorganising the selling side of their industry, and in four or five years he has taught these producers to open their mouths and ask for a subsidy, and he stands there like a dentist and says, "Open wider." A marvellous opportunity has been lost. It ought to be almost out of order to use the word "policy" as applied to any scheme which merely transfers cash from one individual to another. It is to my mind a scandal that, when people are short of food, and producers are admittedly getting an unremunerative price, the whole intervening machinery is in a state of inefficiency, which cannot be justified on any ground. The facts are known. We have report after report. The Whitehead Committee in 1936 was deeply impressed with the unnecessary elaboration and waste of effort in the present distributive system, and said that proper organisation provided the greatest immediate scope for reduction in price. The Grigg Report in 1933 says:
  "There also appears to be an urgent need for some measure of quality, control and standardisation in home produced creamery butter if it is ever to command a more prominent place in the home market."
  Did the Government notice the word "urgent" in that recommendation? Is any recommendation of the Lane Fox Commission on meat going to be carried out in the legislation to be introduced this autumn? The Ministry of Agriculture Report in 1929 says:
  "It cannot be seriously maintained that our meat supplies, taken as a whole, are handled as efficiently as are the meat supplies of our overseas competitors with their up-to-date plant, where nothing is wasted and from which all supplies reach the consumer in the best possible condition."
  Is it not a tragedy that those splendid words should be applied to our competitors but never to ours? At Smithfield
  1258
  Market, where they are as anxious to sell British meat as any other, you can go, as I have done, and probably many other Members, and ask what is the complaint about British meat. You are told, "Poor conditions, irregular supplies, mixed lots, ineffective grading or none at all, requiring inspection of every item, and breed."
  I know that I shall be called various names by some of my constituents in North Devon when I next go there, for the criticisms which I am making of the state of mind into which agricultural producers have been allowed to slip. I am, therefore, glad to say that those who work in Smithfield Market approve of the small North Devon breed of cattle as being what the public wants. But with that exception, and, of course, with the exception of Scotland, the country as a whole is producing cattle which are too big and unsuited to the demands of the people. This is what they say in Smithfield about Uruguay. A few years ago the Uruguayans on their scrubby barren land produced a breed of cattle which, when they came over here, looked like dromedaries, but they say that the people of Uruguay have steadily improved the breed until Uruguayan meat to-day has now moved up to second quality, that is, second only to the Argentine. There is a very limited quantity of Scottish which is even above that.
  Is it beyond the power of this nation, with its Minister of Agriculture, to do the same sort of thing as Uruguay has done? If so, the only thing that I can say to the Minister is that he should go to Uruguay. I know, as I said before, that I shall be abused by producers in my constituency for what I am saying, but I sincerely believe that I am speaking in their interests as well as in the interests of the people who now need more fresh food. Without efficiency in agriculture, 2,000,000 agriculturists cannot maintain a policy of subsidy, levy, tariff and quota against some 20,000,000 of people, who, in one way or another, and in a more or less degree, are suffering from want of food every clay of their lives.
  6.3 p.m.
  Mr. J. P. L. THOMAS: I should like to come back to the Vote of Censure, moved by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. John-

  1259
  ston), which, on its face value, must attract a great deal of sympathy both in this House and in the country outside, and which is obviously and quite understandably drafted with that object. I think, in taking the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty as his text, the Mover of the Motion has painted the picture in high lights and deep shades, with none of the effects of ordinary daylight. The speech of the Minister of Health, the House will agree, has admirably supplied the missing tones, and after his speech the House and the country will have a somewhat different picture of the situation, and one which is very much nearer the truth. There were many quotations during the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Vote of Censure, and we have had many quotations in the Press of this country, from the scientists, and I in no way wish to belittle the views of those distinguished men. Great as the improvement is, the standard of nutrition is not what we should like it to be, but I am not convinced that scientific knowledge is always the most practicable for application.
  Hon. Members opposite have used the opinions of scientists as weapons against this Government on the subject of nutrition as if scientists had produced solid facts and the final word upon this whole question. The scientists themselves are much more modest than some of the right hon. and hon. Members opposite pictured them to be. Sir John Orr, in the Foreword to his book, "Food and Health and Income" emphasises the fact very strongly that knowledge on the subject of nutrition is both inadequate and by no means complete at present. In this other document which I have in my hand, the "Workers' Nutrition and Social Policy," published by the International Labour Office at Geneva, it says that
  "the phase of this subject of nutrition is still in its very beginning, and that while human requirements in general for the maintenance of perfect health have not yet been clearly defined, the requirements of various types and groups of workers are still less known."
  So that even the experts are still in doubt. They maintain that far more research is needed, and our question to-day on this side of the House in speaking in defence of the policy of the
  1260
  Government, is whether the Government have been active enough in their research or whether they are at a standstill and are neglecting their obvious duty? The speech of the Minister of Health has shown us, at least on this side of the House, that the Government are fully alive to the need for further research work—work which is complicated and at times very prolonged. I was glad to hear from him that the Advisory Committee on Nutrition has been at work ceaselessly for the last 12 months. The Government have taken their suggestions as far as they have gone with regard to milk, and both from what I have heard outside this House, and from the Minister this afternoon, further conclusions on other foodstuffs are very near at hand. I welcome also the statement from him that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be generous and by no means unsympathetic towards financing this nutrition research. That is what we expect of him. Those of us who remember his period as Minister of Health realise that he is not likely to be niggardly on this all important question.
  But I would beg hon. Members to approach this subject not merely through the eyes of scientists, but through the eyes of commonsense men and women. We must ask ourselves this question: If the standard of this country's nutrition is bad, is it the fault of this Government and is this Government responsible We have listened to facts and figures from the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health, and I am convinced that the answer of those who have studied the facts must be definitely "No." This question Members of the House know is not one merely of money. We all know in all quarters of the House that money is necessary in order to buy good food, and therefore, on this side of the House anyhow, there is all the more satisfaction when we compare this year with the position when the Government took office in 1931. The Minister of Health mentioned increased employment and the fact that a million and a quarter more people were drawing wages instead of unemployment benefit. Look also at the question of the cost of living. The figure of 44 per cent. for this year over the pre-War figure compares very favourably with the 60 per

  1261
  cent. of 1929–30. If you take food prices alone instead of the general cost of living index the figure of 26 per cent. to-day over the pre-War figure compares more than favourably with the figure of 50 per cent. in 1929–30.
  Quite apart from the question of money, there is another important problem. Are people gaining the knowledge of what is the right food to buy, and, having bought it, are they using sufficient industry and care in preparing and cooking it attractively for human consumption? Even in the country, where fresh food in the form of eggs, cheese, fruit and butter is at hand, I have often seen a working man go out to his day's work with tinned food as the basis of his midday meal. That is proof positive of one of two things, either profound lack of knowledge by some of our housewives on the value of the different kinds of food, or perhaps the fact that they are not sufficiently trained in the preparation of nourishing and attractive foods. There is a tremendous field for education along those lines. Much has been done both in the towns and countryside by the women's institutes, which are working ceaselessly to instruct the every-day housewife in how most wisely to spend what household money there is available for food. This House also owes a debt of gratitude to the Press and to the British Broadcasting Corporation for their constructive work in educating the people of this country along these lines.
  All this education is happening at home, but the reason why I have intervened in this Debate to-day is that during my experience of the last two years before I left the Colonial Office I have found that this drive for education on the nutrition problem is not only confined to this country but is also being carried on in our Colonial Empire. This is common knowledge in some quarters, but perhaps the House as a whole do not realise this fact. At the moment the Colonial Office, with the very strong and useful backing and co-operation of the Departments concerned, are going most thoroughly into the whole question of nutrition throughout the Colonies and Dependencies for the government of which this Parliament is responsible not only in relation to their health but in relation to the whole question of the
  1262
  general agricultural and educational policy throughout the Colonial Empire. I think they feel at the Colonial Office that while Great Britain has gained much knowledge upon this question of diet and nutrition during the last 30 years, that knowledge has not been so easily accessible to the people of our Colonies and our Dependencies. At the present time the Colonial Office is doing its utmost to further this work as part of the Government policy on nutrition, and that is why I mention it in the House to-day in view of this Vote of Censure by the Opposition. A very full review and inquiry is taking place through the proper channels in our Colonies and Dependencies, and before long the results will be in the hands of the Colonial Office.
  I do not suggest for a moment that the Colonies have already been backward in this matter. We have heard a lot of the proposals for supplying milk to school children in England but perhaps hon. Members do not always realise that those plans are going on in our Colonies at the present time and that the same scheme is being put into action both in Ceylon and Malta. As far as education propaganda on nutrition is concerned, you will find especially in Tanganyika and Malaya, that it is being pushed forward with great energy among the schools and school teachers of the Colonial Empire.
  Mr. HOLDSWORTH: Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to discuss what is being done in the Colonies on this particular Motion?
  Mr. SPEAKER: The Motion seems to be very wide and I do not think that the hon. Member is out of order.
  Mr. THOMAS: This general Vote of Censure upon the Government has been moved because of its so-called neglect of the question of nutrition. It has been shown by the Minister of Health what the policy of the Government has been at home with regard to nutrition, and at the same time I think that the House should know the position as regards our Colonial Empire, for whose health this Parliament is responsible. One of the main objects of the Colonial Development Fund is therefore being fulfilled by the Colonial Office. Financial assistance is being granted, and will be more freely granted when the surveys come in, for

  1263
  promoting public health and nutrition in our Colonies and dependencies.
  To-day a Vote of Censure has been moved on the Government, a Government which, as the Minister of Health's speech has shown, is pushing ahead faster than any Government that has gone before, to abolish the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty, not only here at home. but in those different parts of the Empire for which this Parliament is responsible. When we vote to-night we should bear in mind that this Vote of Censure has been moved by a party which is conducting at the moment a great deal of propaganda through its Press and in the countryside on the question of nutrition and the alleged lack of Government work on this question. I have searched the records of that party from 1929–31 and I cannot find an occasion on which either in Parliament or in party conference time has been given or practical suggestions have been made to deal with this question of nutrition. Therefore, I am glad that this Vote of Censure has been moved, because it has given the Government a chance to tell the House, and, through this House, the country, what is being done on this all-important problem, and to show how much safer it is to leave the nutrition and health of our people in the hands' of the present Government, with its record in regard to health services and employment and wages, than in the hands of a Government composed of hon. Members from the party which has moved this Vote of Censure.
  6.18 p.m.
  Miss WILKINSON: It is very tempting to deal with the last speaker. If we could only take him round the country and say: "This is a typical young Tory," it would show that a section of people in the Tory party are really on the left. One would have thought that the sort of speech that the hon. Member has delivered had died round about 1910. He says that in the countryside there is a plentiful supply of milk, cheese, butter and eggs available, but that the misguided working man insists on taking out with him tins of salmon or other tinned food. I do not know what constituency the hon. Member represents, but if he has any country housewives in his constituency
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  I think he will discover that even for the comparatively well-to-do artisans cheap tinned food is very much dearer than the commodities he mentioned. He suggests that having bought—but what is the use of worrying about the hon. Member? The important thing is to come to the speech of the Minister, because the Minister's speech was a classic of what we have to expect from that somewhat complacent gentleman.
  The right hon. Gentleman said that certain doctors are saying that there are more deaths from over-feeding than from under-feeding. I think he must be speaking very largely of his own acquaintances, and not from a knowledge of the country at large. He made one statement which hon. Members on this side of the House will not let him forget. When we quoted Sir John Orr the Minister said that Sir John Orr's figures were based on a standard which could not be improved upon, and he argued that that was too much to expect. Are we to understand that it is the considered view of His Majesty's Government that the working classes of this country cannot be expected to reach or hope for a standard of health which cannot be improved upon?
  The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): What my right hon. Friend said was that in all classes of the community it is hopeless to expect that a standard could be reached which could not be improved upon.
  Miss WILKINSON: Over-feeding is a dietary error, which is very different from sufferings due to nutritional errors, which mean that a person is not getting sufficient of the right kind of food. Overfeeding is a dietetic and not a nutritional error. The Minister quoted Dr. Cathcart and Dr. Hutchison, who have made speeches which are such a joy to the Primrose League and the Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor). We are given to understand that it is all a question of the ignorance of the working-class mother, but neither Dr. Cathcart nor Dr. Hutchison have ever told us how we are going to maintain health on 2s., 3s. or 4s. per head per week. If Dr. Cathcart would come down and teach working-class mothers, who have only 2s., 3s. or 4s. per head to spend, we might listen to him. It is merely a question of mathematics that those few shillings per head

  1265
  per week is all that these people have to live on, when they have gone through the sieve of the means test, and they have no other source of income. When Dr. Cathcart can show even the most ignorant mother how she can even begin adequately to feed a family on 4s. per head per week, to say nothing of 2s. per head, we will listen to him.
  The Minister of Health said that he might agree with the Labour party if they would only deal with the depressed areas, because then our case would be so much stronger. I am the representative of one of the most depressed areas in the country, and the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Mr. K. Griffiths) pleads for an area which is not one of the worst, and asks that it should be included in the depressed areas. If we take those areas that are on the schedule of the depressed areas, and those which are on the margin of it, what do we find? If we take Durham, the West and parts of East Scotland, West Cumberland, South Wales, and very large parts of Lancashire, and we look at the population figures, we find that in those counties there is 50 per cent. of the population of the country. Therefore, if the Minister says that he will accept our case for 50 per cent. of the population, there is not much left for his case.
  The right hon. Gentleman referred to improvements in tuberculosis. I do not decry those figures, but I would call attention to the fact that right up to the War period, or, at any rate, up to 1910, tuberculosis was a disease which was widespread through all sections of the community. It was perhaps through faults in hygiene, partly due to seclusion and the unhealthy clothing of women, and the fact that they did not play open-air games. There has been great improvement since then. There have been better schools, sports for women, improved hygiene, with the result that tuberculosis, except bovine tuberculosis and certain hereditary forms, has practically become a poverty disease. If we take not the figures for the whole country but the figures for the 50 per cent. of the population in regard to tuberculosis, they tell a very different story from that which the Minister so complacently put before the House.
  Take the question of rickets. The Minister guarded himself by saying that
  1266
  as regards rickets the improvement was considerable. I would quote the statement made by Dr. Janet Campbell, a woman official of the Ministry, that even a slight degree of rickets is dangerous in women, and that even a slight degree of pelvic rickets is the cause of a considerable amount of maternal mortality. Rickets is admittedly a disease due to malnutrition, bad or insufficient food, or lack of sunlight, and it is, therefore, a poverty disease. Therefore, it is not fair for the Minister to safeguard himself on the question of the severer form of rickets. We on this side object to the fact that good health is becoming a class question. It is a class question. The Minister has rightly said that standards of normality vary. A child of a certain standard may be classed as abnormal in Jarrow, but it would be definitely subnormal if it was attending a public school.
  We have recently had an investigation in the Newcastle-upon-Tyne area, where a section of working-class families, collected at random, have been compared with a similarly selected number of those of the professional class. The figures prove the contention that I am making. Take the question of weight. Fifty-five per cent. of the children of the poorer class were, on examination, found to be below normal weight, while only 13 per cent. of the well-to-do children were below the normal weight. Above the normal weight there were 11 per cent. of the poor children and 48 per cent. of the well-to-do children. As regards height, 45 per cent. of the poor children were below the normal height and 5 per cent. of the well-to-do children were below the normal height. Above the normal height there were 2 per cent. of the poor children and 11 per cent. of the well-to-do children. As regards anaemia, 23 per cent. of the poor children showed definite signs of anaemia and none of the well-to-do children showed signs of anaemia. That is what I meant when I said that good health is becoming very largely a class question.
  The Minister referred to the investigation that had been undertaken by the women's section of the Labour party. That is probably of its kind the widest and most careful investigation that has been made at the moment. I will not give the figures because they have been very largely published in the Press, but it is right that one or two sentences from

  1267
  some of the letters should be quoted. The hon. Member who spoke last spoke as if the increase in employment necessarily meant an increase in the amount of money available to spend on food. I wish that statement were true. In a good many trades the wages for unskilled labour are definitely below even the means test standard for a man with three, four or five children. Let me quote from a letter of a woman whose husband is a labourer. After paying for rent and other necessary outlays she has about 18s. a week for food for six. Perhaps the gentleman who was quite sure that it was ignorance on the part of these women might give her some good advice on how to feed a family of six on 18s. a week:
  "Some days I buy 3d. worth of pieces of meat to make a dinner and have a few potatoes. I buy a lot of bread. I can assure you we could do with a good deal more food, but when a man has got the name of working, you don't get much sympathy, whereas a man on the dole or the means test in this town can get boots for his children and also the school milk free. Three of my children are at school, but I can only pay for milk for one of them."
  That raises an important point with regard to the milk question. The Minister said that 7,000,000 gallons of milk per years came under the scheme of free or cheap milk as liquid or dried milk. It seems to me that 7,000,000 gallons is not very much about which to boast. An hon. Member behind me, with a much better turn for mathematics than I have, has calculated that this means 150,000 pints of milk per day. Is that much to boast about, when you have millions of gallons of milk which you do not know what to do with, and when you are selling it at 5d. per gallon for manufacturing purposes? The Government will have to do much better than that to convince even its own supporters. I would ask the Minister to verify these figures, but I have been given to understand that whereas in the beginning the surplus milk sold for manufacturing purposes amounted to 22 per cent. of the amount at the disposal of the Board, it now amounts to 40 per cent. If that amount is being sold to make cheap combs, sugar bowls, and other celluloid stuff I suggest that it is something like a national disgrace.
  Mr. ELLIOT: Really, my right hon. Friend did not say anything of the kind. The proportion used for manufacturing purposes is something far down in
  1268
  the decimal points. The 20 per cent. and the 40 per cent., are being used for the manufacture of foodstuffs, butter, cheese, dried milk, every penny of which is going down the throats of the people and being used for food.
  Miss WILKINSON: I am glad to have the correction. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will give a tabulated list of the uses to which this manufacturing milk goes. It really is important. A large amount of milk may be going to make chocolate, a foodstuff, but a foodstuff which the people about whom I am speaking cannot buy. I want to make two points in regard to this matter. I appreciate to the full the value of the milk sold at ½d. per pint per day. I have seen the difference it has made in the elementary schools in Jarrow. But there is another side to the question. There are many women who complain that if they have five children at school, not an unusual family in my area, it means 2½d. per day or 1s. 0½d. per week, which is a serious item for them. The Minister also threw out hopes that the Milk Reorganisation Committee might possibly consider an extension of the cheap milk system. However desirable it may be to be able to buy this cheap milk at manufacturing prices it really does not go far enough; and for this reason: On every quart of milk the housewife pays the present artificially high price, which is kept up by the Milk Marketing Board in order to subsidise the manufacturing section. If a larger amount is bought at manufacturing prices, even if the present price remains the same, the housewife who is buying for herself will still be paying higher prices in order to subsidise the manufacturing price.
  The Minister said that there is no real starvation in the country. I believe that is honestly the view of a large number of hon. Members opposite. However high party feeling may run in this country I do not think there is a single hon. Member opposite who would not raise his voice if he thought there was real starvation in the country which was going uncared for. The difficulty is to decide when under-feeding starts. It is most difficult to do, even when you have children under regular inspection in the elementary schools, and it is still more difficult when you are dealing with the adolescent, who really needs as much

  1269
  food as a grown-up man; indeed, a boy who is growing needs more food than a man whose bones are set. It is underfeeding at this time for two or three years which shows itself in cardiac and pulmonary troubles, and lower resistance to infection.
  The House will pardon a personal experience. Last winter I used to go to my constituency every fortnight. At first I did not notice the occurrence until it became so regular that it became a perfect horror. Every time I got out of the station I was met by some party workers who had always the same story to tell, that a worker in the party had suddenly died during the short period. At first I took it as one does in a case of death. I saw the bereaved family, and expressed my sympathy. But I discovered that these were young people. The vicar of one of the largest churches in the area pointed out to me that in a family of well-known church workers three young men had died within the month, their ages ranging from 21 to 25 years, and he said to me that these young men were just like eggshells. They looked all right outside, but when they were faced with the infection and cold of the winter they just cracked like eggshells. These are cases which it is very difficult to put into statistics, and doctors seldom sign that death is due to starvation or malnutrition. I remember one woman speaking to me and saying that because of the means test she had gone to live with her married son and daughter, who already had four small children. She said, "You know, I do not want to be a burden on them, so I slip out at meal times and say that I have had a bite at my neighbour's." I remember that case very vividly because the woman died. There was cardiac disease on the certificate, but her doctor told me that, of course, it was obvious the woman was more than half starved.
  These cases do not go into the statistics. I do not deny the statistics of the Minister. His Department can present a beautiful case showing that such things do not exist, but those who represent these areas and who have worked in them, who go into the houses and meet these people, know that they are not getting enough to eat. It is no use that young man saying that these women are ignorant. The chairman of my women's section, a first-class woman
  1270
  and capable organiser, otherwise I should not be here, on one occasion held out a newspaper parcel in which she had two cods' heads. When I laughed she said that she had got them cheap and was going to stew them with potatoes. Will that young man, who will presently have a good dinner at his club or in this House, tell that woman how she is going to make a better dinner of two cods' heads? That is what we also want to hear from Dr. Cathcart.
  The Prime Minister over and over again has made speeches which show that he understands. He is signing enormous sums for battleships; but what sort of people are you going to put into these battleships to man them? If the next war is to be won on nerve, muscle, and sinew, they cannot be built up as quickly as the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence can turn the machinery of this country into making shells. We must build up the nerve, sinew, and muscle of our people now. Surely this is the time, when these vast amounts of milk are available for distribution, when so much food is being destroyed, food which would mean all the difference to these women if it was distributed. The Prime Minister has put in a Minister to reverse the engine as regards the production of munitions. Could he not give power to the Minister of Agriculture to reverse the engine with regard to the policy of restriction? These facts are real and are crying to heaven for attention. They can be seen in the poor areas. We hear too much of London and the employed of London, but in these areas the situation is getting worse and there is also a lack of hope. I urge the Prime Minister, while there is yet time, to bring forward a comprehensive plan for dealing with the situation.
  6.45 p.m.
  Mr. GRAHAM KERR: The problem with which the House is dealing is really a biological problem, and therefore it is perhaps not unsuitable that one who has spent his professional life in dealing with that subject should indicate some of his views. The question which has been raised is indeed a formidable and alarming one. Such phrases as "widespread malnutrition," "a crime against society," and various other phrases are surely calculated to cause alarm. Yet I feel that when that formidable looking figure is punctured by a little bit of science, as

  1271
  it will be this evening in the further course of the Debate, it will cease to be so formidable in its deflated form. The House will not expect me to follow the impassioned appeals to which we have just listened in the extraordinarily touching speech of the hon. Lady the Member for Jarrow (Miss Wilkinson). It is unnecessary for me to assure her or any other hon. Member that hearts beat as warmly on this side of the House as on the other side for infants, toddlers, schoolchildren and grown-ups. Nor is it desirable that I should simply try to answer statements of alleged facts by other statements of alleged facts. I think the House will rather expect me to say something about how in biology we would approach a tremendous, complicated problem of this nature, and above all, I ought to indicate some of the pitfalls which we learn to try to avoid.
  One of the worst of those pitfalls is involved in the use of statistics. We learn that there is no surer way of hiding the truth and no easier way of distorting the truth than by the use of statistical methods. To get reliable conclusions from statistics one has, in the first place, to see that the number of cases dealt with is relatively enormous, far larger than those available for some of the conclusions we have heard put forward in this Debate. We have to take care that the facts of observation have been collected by one who is a trained and skilled observer and who is free from any prejudice in the course of his observations, for even the most skilled observer, if he enters his investigations with prejudice one way or the other, is liable in spite of himself to give what is really not an honest record of fact. There is another pitfall we have to avoid, and that is the evidence of the scientific specialist. To become a specialist, unfortunately it is necessary to lose one's sense of proportion. In working out some great problem of biology, the investigator has to work for months, it may be for years, in dreary drudgery. He may have to subject himself to great personal discomfort, and it may be even to deadly personal danger, and he simply will not do that unless he feels that the thing at which he is working is the most important thing in the world for which to work. In other words, he entirely loses his sense of proportion.
  1272
  Again, there is one particular sort of specialist of whom one has to be particularly aware in the world of biology, and that is the chemical specialist. It will surprise the House to know that chemistry is unaware of any difference between the protoplasm, the living substance, of the lowest, most primitive forms of life, and the highest, as we call man. The chemist is unable to detect any difference between the living substance—the protoplasm—of some lowly worm or slug and the human being, it may be a criminal, a savage or an imbecile, it may be a great scholar, a pioneer of human invention, or one of the great leaders of the world. The chemist, in fact, when he wanders into the world of biology, as he makes his way along his narrow path, does so in blinkers. He regards the cobblestones f chemical facts; he acquires an unparalleled knowledge of those cobblestones; and yet all the while he is unaware of the great world of beauty and complexity that lies around him, the world to which incidentally he owes his own life and existence.
  I warn the House against one or two of these obvious pitfalls. I would mention another, and that is the tremendous care which has to be taken to see that one is entirely cognizant of the possible disturbing factors, which may completely invalidate the whole of one's conclusions. I have noticed such disturbing factors cropping up again and again in arguments upon this particular subject. Let me take one particular item of diet, the kind of food which is known in biology to be the most valuable of all kinds of food in the animal kingdom, namely, the yolk of the egg. I have heard arguments dealing with the greater amount of money spent upon eggs in different classes of the community. Conclusions based upon such differences ignore entirely the fact that eggs, in monetary value, differ enormously, according to whether they are the eggs of the common fowl, the eggs of the plover, the eggs of the cod—cod roe—or the eggs of the sturgeon, that is to say, caviare. It is nonsense to base conclusions upon different expenditure on particular types of diet unless one goes carefully into the matter and sees that one is really comparing the same sort of thing.
  Another important disturbing factor which is ignored is the element of waste.

  1273
  Anybody who has lived in a humble household or in a wealthy household knows perfectly well that the economical housewife in poor circumstances wastes nothing, but pinches and pares; whereas in the houses of the wealthy, paid cooks and servants are completely uneconomical. In that way another important type of argument is invalidated. As a matter of fact, the problem of nutrition is one of the most tremendously complex problems in physiology. I have lived among the Gauchos of the pampas, who used to exist entirely on beef; I have lived among these splendid labourers, the Piedmontese, who lived almost entirely on macaroni. I have also lived among the savage tribes in the Gran Chaco, and I would mention that the most finely developed of all those tribes were Indians who were entirely dependent upon what they could hunt. But the fact that they were splendidly developed was not due to their nutritious diet; it was due, I am sorry to say, to the terrible selection that goes on in the case of these primitive fighting tribes whereby the weak are constantly being weeded out and in that way the standards of the race kept up to what is called an Al state. In connection with the Gran Chaco, I might mention that in that same part of the world I came across a particular kind of beetle grub that was able to build up the same living protoplasm, which the chemist tells us is not different from that of, shall I say, a university professor or on hon. Member of this House, out of dry cork and nothing else. Where in this case are all these proteins and fats and carbohydrates and other things which we are told are necessary? I have referred to these particular points in order to drive home the fact that nutrition is an immensely complex problem, and that it would be well for us to scrutinise with the utmost care evidence that is put before us before we allow ourselves to draw conclusions.
  Before sitting down, I would like to mention one other thing to which reference has been made in the course of the Debate, and which is in fact indicated in the Motion moved by the right hon. Gentleman, namely, the destruction of herrings, which has excited general attention lately. That is a problem with which I have been in intimate
  1274
  touch for 30 years or so. It is a well-known case that in any particular fishery district one finds that there are great variations in the prosperity of the fishery. In one year the fishing will be a failure, and if one talks to fishermen in that neighbourhood they will probably put it down to the felonious methods of fishing used by other people. The biological fact is that during those periods it is not a question of the number of fish there are in the sea, but a question of the fish in the sea migrating, going from place to place in the ocean.
  There, in the causes of this migration, you have one of the biggest problems which faces fishery science at the present time. At various laboratories for many years past expert investigators have been engaged working under deplorably unencouraging conditions to try to work out the cause of these fish migrations, due, in the first place, to the favourite food of the particular fish changing its position, that again depending on the migration of its food, and so you get a whole chain of food organisms depending ultimately on complicated physical and chemical conditions. It is the object of science to work this out, but so far science is still woefully ignorant about it. At present we are quite unable to say where these gluts of herring or any other fish will turn up. It may be here, there, at any point on the coast. Obviously, the ideal thing would be to have vast refrigerating organisations at every available point or to have a marvellous system of transport that could he concentrated in a few hours. But it is obvious that such things are not within the sphere of practical politics, although those who are interested in fishery science devoutly hope that the time will be reached eventually—after the country has spent a great deal more money than it has at present.
  May I conclude by quoting the view of that great authority, one of the most distinguished of my own pupils, Sir John Orr, who has been quoted at such length? I have cut out an important piece of that great work of his, which I am sure will please my hon. Friends opposite:
  "This is the first attempt which has been made to get a picture of the food position of the country showing the relationship of income, food and health. It was recognised that the data were

  1275
  inadequate and some of the existing data of doubtful accuracy, and that therefore the best that could be done would be to make an approximation to the picture which might be drawn if all the requisite data were available."
  This is the important section:
  "It is believed, however, that the picture is the most accurate which can be drawn under the circumstances and that therefore it can serve as a working hypothesis, provided it is always kept in view that it is only an approximation, which will need to be revised from time to time as further information accumulates."
  I think that when the jury of this House brings in its verdict it will show without any dubiety that it is a British habit not to bring in a verdict of guilty upon a mere working hypothesis, a mere approximation which requires further information in the future.
  7.5 p.m.
  Mr. LESLIE: We have just listened to an address which would not, I am afraid, go down very well if given before an audience of unemployed men in a distressed area. Another speaker on the other side asked us to view this through eyes of common sense, and mentioned that the Minister of Health is pushing along fast. The Minister cannot push too fast, when we know the distress that is rampant throughout the country at the present time. The public conscience has been stirred considerably by Sir John Orr's analysis and the valuable contribution which we have had from Dr. McGonigle. It is certainly a revelation to be told on the highest authority that 50 per cent. of our people live below a standard of diet which is considered necessary for health. Those of us who represent distressed areas know that prolonged unemployment has a terrible effect on the physique and stamina of the race, and while it is true that the rest of England shows a steady decrease in the death rate from tuberculosis, it is significant that there is a very high death rate from tuberculosis in the distressed areas. I have taken these figures from the report of the Minister of Health for 1933. They deal with people between the ages of 15 and 25, and everyone will agree that between 15 and 25 is a critical period in the life of young people. The male death rate from tuberculosis in Durham and Northumberland per 100,000 was 103 in 1914, but it jumped up to 112
  1276
  in 1930. The figure for females rose from 124 in 1914 to 163 in 1932.
  I have the report which all Members will have received this morning from the Durham County Council, and there is no denying that the council has been making heroic efforts to cope with this problem of tuberculosis. The cost has increased from £7,591 in 1914 to £82,486 in 1935. It was stated that as far as women are concerned the high death rate was largely due to fashion and to women attempting to slim. In the distressed areas the slimming there is not by choice. It is because they are unable to get sufficient nourishing food. The figures for Wales and other distressed areas are even worse than those for Northumberland and Durham. In Merthyr Tydfil County Borough the male death rate rose from 131 in 1925 to 197 in 1932. For women the figure rose from 185 in 1925 to 268 in 1932. The very fact that there is a decrease in the rest of the country but these enormous figures for the distressed areas, surely proves conclusively that lack of proper nourishment is, to say the least, a contributory factor in that high death rate. Only a fortnight ago at a conference of approved societies, this resolution was adopted:
  "This conference calls attention to the continued high death rate from tuberculosis between age groups 15 and 25, particularly among young adult females."
  Surely the approved societies ought to know what they are speaking about, and when they adopt a resolution of this kind I take it that they view the matter very seriously. Again, it is very significant that in the north of England 68 per cent. of potential recruits for the military forces were rejected as being physically unfit. How can you hope to rear boys of the bulldog breed under the conditions which prevail in the distressed areas? I remember during the last War the then Prime Minister stated that if we had had proper housing accommodation, proper feeding and proper wages for the workers, instead of having a C3 population we should have been able to place at least 1,000,000 more men in the field. A proper diet is a most important factor in nutrition, and the want of it is the cause of malnutrition. Food is required not merely to satisfy hunger but for building material right through the period of growth and as a protection against disease. We have heard a good

  1277
  deal about the experiments made in schools. We know that where those experiments have taken place they have shown not only an increase in height but it weight. If you take a distressed area where a large proportion of the workers are unemployed, and you take into account rent, rates, insurance, fuel and clothing and deduct that from unemployment benefit, what is left for food? Something like 2s. 6d. to 3s. a week. This means that they have to do without the most nutritious foods—milk, butter, eggs, fresh fruit and vegetables. Thousands of people in the distressed areas exist on bread and tea, with margarine or dripping. That is almost the only food which they are able to get.
  I want to pay tribute to the magnificent work done by the Society of Friends in the allotment movement in the distressed areas. They have done excellent work. But how disheartening it is to these men who work on the allotments when their produce is taken into account by the Unemployment Assistance Board. That is unfair and has taken from these men the very thing that could have been of value to them. Mention has been made of the destruction of fish. I happen to hail from a fishing port. These fishermen risk limb and life and after a hard night's toil arrive in the port, find the fish is not wanted and then have to go out to sea again and dump it. Millions of herring, one of the most nutritious of fish, have been thrown into the ocean during the past four weeks, and I myself on one occasion saw over 8,000 crans of herring dumped into the sea. People who are acquainted with the subject say that herring can be preserved by dousing them in salt and then putting them into cold storage. But if you call at a fishmonger's shop in any of our cities to-day you will find that the cheapest price at which you can buy herring is 2d. each. Why not preserve the herring instead of wasting them? Why not send them to the distressed areas? During the War the Government paid thousands of pounds for coarse Iceland herring from the Scandinavian countries, just to prevent the Germans getting them. If that sort of thing could be done by a Government in war time, why not do the same thing now in order to help the distressed areas?
  Mr. BOOTHBY: Does not the hon. Member realise that the best way to preserve herring is in barrels in salt; that those herring are sold all over the Continent, and that the reason why they are not sold to the same extent in this country is because the workers will not buy them? Does he not think that a little propaganda in favour of the herring as the cheapest and most nutritious food in the world would do more good than anything else?
  Mr. LESLIE: I agree that propaganda is very useful, but I do not for a moment believe that if the herring were sent to the distressed areas, the people there would reject them. Then, on the subject of milk, we find that we pay 3d. per pint for milk to-day and I understand that factories are buying milk which is called surplus, at 5d. per gallon. I say there can be no surplus milk so long as a single child or nursing mother has to go without. We have also been told that the consumption of milk here is much lower than in the Scandinavian countries, Holland or the United States. Why not supply milk to nursing mothers at as cheap a rate as we are selling it to the factories?
  There is also the question of the restriction of potato growing. We have seen the result of the Bishop Auckland experiment. A so-called surplus of potatoes was sent to Bishop Auckland and sold at less than the ordinary rate, and the result was an increase of sales there by 69 per cent. Again I would suggest that meals provided by education authorities and maternity and child welfare committees ought not to be taken into account by public assistance committees or the Unemployment Assistance Board in assessing the need of applicants. I hope the Government will take that point into consideration. Yesterday we discussed a Midwives Bill. I know that those engaged in maternity nursing in our hospitals are always much concerned about the patients who come to them from poverty stricken districts and are always doubtful of being able to bring them through the period of confinement. There is a case in which important help could be given by providing mothers and particularly nursing mothers with cheap milk. Surely the health and happiness of the people ought to be the first consideration of any Government.
  7.20 p.m.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: I was surprised at the statement of the last speaker to the effect that the produce of allotments was taken into account in connection with unemployment assistance.
  Mr. LESLIE: It has been done.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: I know that in a great many places, as long as the produce is not sold, it is not taken into account. I should like to know how vegetables grown on an allotment would be assessed, in determining the amount of money on which a man could live for a week. Of course in a case where the vegetables are sold it is a different matter. Throughout this Debate there has been, I think, a failure on the part of many hon. Members to realise the full value of allotment schemes. I have frequently found that until people have had allotments or plots, they have not realised the full advantage of vegetables in their diet, because in many cases they have not previously had the money with which to buy vegetables. Where cases have been brought to my notice in which the Unemployment Assistance Board has taken into account money derived from the sale of vegetables from allotments, I have felt inclined to point out that if these people only used the vegetables themselves it would be much better. As I say, the value of vegetables used in the household is not, as far as I know, taken into account, and if the people who grow the vegetables would make more use of them, it would be realised that vegetables can take the place of other foods which they were accustomed to buy in the past.
  I do not think there is any dispute between us as to the necessity for a proper diet. The majority of hon. Members will agree that the difficulty arises in knowing what is a proper diet, and it is because there is a lack of knowledge on that subject that I would urge the Minister of Health, when the Advisory Committee and the Committee on Nutrition make their reports, to have the information conveyed to the people of the country in a way in which it can be understood. It is no use having reports which can only be followed by those who know the technical terms and the long words employed by experts. What we want in this country to-day more than ever—and I think other countries have already awakened to the fact—is that ordinary people should be
  1280
  made to realise the kinds of food which are best for themselves and their children. I believe that the mothers of Great Britain are only too anxious to provide the best food for their families. I believe that in many cases there is malnutrition among mothers who spend the last available penny on getting the best food they can for their families, regardless of their own needs. The tragedy is that often they are spending those pennies on food which is not the best, and they could use the money far better if they knew more about nutrition values. I believe, that that sacrifice on the part of the mothers ought to be rewarded by the fullest possible information about the best food which they can give to their children.
  Once or twice in the course of this discussion references have been made to the new housing areas. I agree that food of itself without air and light is not going to be of much use to the people. This is not merely a question of diet. It is also a question of surroundings, and I think nothing more effective has been done recently to help the people, and especially the young people, than the tremendous housing programme which has been carried out in the last few years. The subject of malnutrition as we are discussing it to-day may be divided under two heads. First, there is the problem of the people who are not getting enough food. When I looked at the terms of this Motion, I thought how much agreement there could be on that subject and I came to the conclusion, perhaps wrongly, that the Motion had been framed by the Opposition in such a way as to preclude agreement. We are all agreed that there are people in this country who are not getting enough food, but that does not mean that under-nourishment is "widespread." I believe if we regard it as "widespread" we are not going to find a cure for the evil which does exist.
  Mr. E. J. WILLIAMS: It is widespread in the distressed areas.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: That is not what the Motion says. The Motion says it is "widespread" and if we are going to tackle it, as a widespread problem all over the country, we are not likely to succeed. I want to see the actual cases of under-nourishment which exist tackled in the proper way. As the hon. Member for Jarrow (Miss Wilkinson) says, those cases are not brought out in statistics.

  1281
  They are individual cases of hardship, and if we merely regard this as a widespread problem we shall not get at those particular cases of hardship. There should be further powers to deal with the cases of under-nourishment which occur. We shall not deal with them effectively if we treat this matter, as though half the working-class population of the country were under-fed as has been suggested. Nor do I think it would be the right plan to attempt to deal with the problem by arranging to supply milk to all children or all adolescents whether they are in need of it or not. Again, I fear that by dealing with the matter on such a wide scale we should fail to get at the particularly difficult cases which we want to relieve.
  The other branch of the subject concerns the balance of diet and the ignorance of food values which is, I think, widespread. I have already mentioned the need for further information on nutrition values of different foods. When I read the statement of Sir John Orr that the only person who is not mal-nourished is the person who is in such a state of well-being that no improvement could be effected by a change in his diet, I ask myself, is there a single hon. Member here who is not suffering from malnutrition? I believe that this ignorance of food values affects the people of the country as a whole quite apart from those who are actually suffering from lack of food. I know that when one introduces cases on this point one is accused of suggesting that money has nothing to do with malnutrition. Money has something to do with it but poverty is not the whole reason for malnutrition.
  Many people who could afford any form of food for their children give those children special diets which are not expensive. I discussed this matter today with an eminent man who has been studying the question of diet during the last two months in different areas and among different classes of people, and I have heard from him, as I have heard from many other experts, that the ignorance of people in all classes, rich and poor alike, on the question of food values is to a large extent at the root of malnutrition in this country. For instance, it has been pointed out to me that the majority of people in this
  1282
  country do not drink enough water. Wherever there is a good water supply people, and above all the children, should be encouaged to drink plenty of it. I have also been told by experienced people—and I do not pretend to be an expert myself—that raw carrots are very useful as part of the diet of children. Experts in the treatment of rheumatic diseases attach great importance to raw carrots as an element in diet, but how many people in this country know of that fact? It is simply because certain foods are ordinary and cheap that they have been overlooked. I give those two examples, but there are others.
  I am aware that hon. Members opposite may suggest that I am advocating that the poor of the country should live on raw carrots and water. One's statements are often twisted in that way, but I do not mind. I think those are two examples showing that what is really wanted in this country, above all else, is a knowledge of food values. We should try to get away from the idea that people are only under-nourished or wrongly nourished if they are poor and that if you gave them more unemployment allowances and higher wages you would, of necessity, improve the standard of diet. The hon. Member for Jarrow has pointed out that it is not only in the case of unemployed persons that this difficulty arises. She told us of the case of a man working at a low wage whose wife was unable to get for her children some of the advantages enjoyed by the children of unemployed people. I urge that any scheme for helping mothers or children to get extra supplies of milk or food, should not be confined to the unemployed. We should take into account the difficulties of particular cases such as have been mentioned. It might involve some sort of means test, but I would rather have that than have the people in want.
  I oppose this Motion, and I regret that it is drawn up as it is. Hunger is not widespread in this country, and it is because it is isolated that I beleve we should tackle these isolated cases. What is widespread is the total ignorance of real food values. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, who has already done so much for the housing of the people of this country, can, I believe, do a great deal for the right feeding of the people of this country if he will give us

  1283
  further information and give it us in a way that every one of us can understand.
  7.31 p.m.
  Mr. T. SMITH: I have taken a great deal of interest for many years past in diet and diet reform, and I have heard and read all kinds of dietaries, but I have never yet heard of raw carrots and water. It may be that that is a diet which is more beneficial than one has understood, but I should not like to advocate a diet of raw carrots and water in the industrial constituency which I represent. If I did, I am afraid that they would want to know if I had taken leave of my senses. It reminds me of what used to occur during the War, when well-intentioned people used to go down to working-class constituencies and tell working-class crowds that they could make a good meal out of cod-fish heads, and someone said, "Who is going to eat the bodies?" To talk of raw carrots and water is not treating this Motion with the consideration it deserves. The Motion speaks of "the convincing evidence of widespread malnutrition" and expresses the opinion
  "that the destruction of essential foodstuffs is a crime against society."
  We on this side are prepared to back this Motion. Malnutrition, as the right hon. Gentleman said, can be defined in more ways than one. I am not concerned, personally, with the rich man who chooses his own kind of food and suffers as a result. I am more concerned with the people who need food and cannot get it on account of poverty, and that is the basis of this Motion. I think my right hon. Friend the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) is to be thanked for bringing it forward, because there is convincing evidence in this country of malnutrition. There are areas in this country, which are not depressed in the ordinary sense of the term, that contain many people suffering from malnutrition. We hear a good deal of discussion in this House about the Special Areas, and they have their problems, but there are other areas which, although not defined as Special Areas, have a certain amount of poverty, and some of those districts are in Yorkshire.
  There is a human side to this problem, and it is not a question of statistics. Let
  1284
  any hon. Member opposite make a practice of addressing working-class meetings, especially in districts where unemployment and low wages axe rampant, and I guarantee that he will have the same experience as I have had, namely, that he will see from the platform evidences of malnutrition. Those of us who keep in contact with our constituencies can see it. Indeed, when I have visited my own old town of Sheffield and addressed my old comrades, I have been astonished at the deterioration which I have seen in some of the men with whom I used to work. I make this challenge: Is there an hon. Member in this House who can keep a household going on the amount of money which the wife of the ordinary unemployed man has to spend? Is there one in this House who could keep a household going on the amount of money that is laid down by the British Medical Association in their scale?
  We heard a great deal during 1935 about 3,000 calories being necessary in 24 hours, and what that ought to cost, and when we are told that an ordinary human being can be kept in health for a week on 5s. 4½d., it is just playing with the question. Indeed, 5s. 4½d. is just about the amount of money that the average Member of this House spends on one dinner, and you cannot go out into your clubs and hotels in the West End of London and get a decent dinner, including tips, for 5s. 4½d. Yet you expect an individual to live for seven days a week on that amount of money. I remember, in the days when I was a guardian in Sheffield, sitting with a well-respected steel magnate, who said to me, "Look sharp, I have a directors' meeting to attend. What about giving the old man 6s. a week to live on?" I said, "Hold on a bit. Will you be having lunch before you go to your directors' meeting?" He replied, "Yes." I asked, "How much will it cost you?" He said, "I shall be lucky if I get outside the Victoria Hotel for 10s." I said, "Yet you want this old man to live for seven days on 6s." He said, "I have never seen it in that light before," and, in fairness to him, I should say that from that time onwards he began to alter attitude towards people applying for Poor Law relief. There is not an hon. Member in this House who could manage to keep a home going on what we expect our unemployed to subsist on.

  1285
  What can we do about it? There is a number of things that can be done, and the right hon. Gentleman touched the root of the problem when he said, in his concluding remarks, that this is a question of purchasing power. Give the people the money, and they will get plenty of food. I agree straight away that in some cases there is ignorance as to the exact kind of food to buy, but there is more knowledge on the subject to-day among working-class people than there used to be, and there are more women to-day who would buy fruit, vegetables, fish, and fresh meat, if they had the money to do it with, than used to be the case. Anybody who goes into a working-class district on a Saturday night and looks at the market will find that the very poor people with limited purchasing power have to scour round the stalls in order to get a bit of cheap meat. You cannot expect a working-class mother to study a balanced diet when you give her but a few shillings on which to keep each individual member of her family. What can be done is for the Government to take a different attitude from that which they have taken up till now with regard to the people who are out of work. They have got to lift the means test, and they have got to give bigger allowances to the people who are out of work. We shall see, in the course of a day or two, when the new regulations come along, what their attitude on that question will be.
  There are other things that could be done. For instance, take the question of milk in schools. I know, from my own family's experience, that not all kiddies like milk, and I know that some folk in this House do not like milk, taken alone. But I admit that the giving of milk at cheap rates to school children has been beneficial to the 2,250,000 children who have participated in it. But what is to stop your making milk in schools general? Why cannot that be done? The hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture used to be at the Board of Education. Has he forgotten Circular 1437? We urge that the provisions of Circular 1437, insisting that free meals should not be given to necessitous children until the symptoms of under-nourishment have appeared, should be withdrawn. Why should you have to wait until a child is under-nourished before you give free meals? This request
  1286
  is backed up by the Association of Local Education Associations and the British Medical Association, as well as by many medical officers of health, who have strongly protested against this provision.
  There are a score and one different things that could be done if only we had a Government big enough to get down to it. I submit that purchasing power is at the basis of this question, and that wages are far too low in certain industries. I repeat that there is a good deal of credit to be given to the women of this country for the way in which they have managed during these last eight or 10 years. Anyone who knows a working-class district knows what they have to do. There is another cause of ill-health among working-class people that is often not recognised, and that is the anxiety of the mothers with regard to their children, the absolute anguish that many of them are in when the husband falls out of work. In colliery districts we have this position, that many of the men who have given their skill and the best of their lives in the industry are no longer wanted. You have thousands of men out of work, many of whom will never get another job, and the anguish of those poor fellows is almost appalling.
  The time has come when we ought to have a revision of some of our social reforms. We could give you at least five or six indications as to what we believe ought to be done. Take the question of workmen's compensation, and look at the position to-day of thousands of men who are off work through accidents, and who are getting between 20s. and 22s. 6d. a week, totally incapacitated. There is plenty of room for improvement there. There are three or four things that ought to be done. Hon. Members opposite are profuse with their sympathy, but they have forgotten their own votes during the lifetime of this Parliament. How many hon. Members opposite are there who express sympathy with the poor of this country who have themselves gone into the Lobby against any improvement suggested from this side? There are lots of things that could be done, and purchasing power is at the bottom of it. If we insisted on workers being treated better than they are treated to-day, and if we insisted on those who are unemployed being better treated and on the people who have to run the household being given a greater purchasing power,

  1287
  we should not see so much malnutrition as we do see at the present time.
  7.44 p.m.
  Mr. SPENS: I beg to move, in line 1, to leave out from "with" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  "satisfaction the increasing attention that is being given to the problems of nutrition, welcomes the steps which have been and are being taken to secure the maximum supplies of food to our people combined with a reasonable remuneration to our Home producers, and approves the continuous efforts of His Majesty's Government to promote better health and social conditions in this country."
  I would like, first of all, to say a word or two as to why we thought an Amendment was desirable. It would have been the easiest course to have given a direct negative to the right hon. Gentleman's Motion and to have done nothing else. The Motion was drawn in very wide terms, which would have enabled anyone to speak on the subject from his own particular point of view, and at first sight an Amendment appeared to add very little to the Motion, but let me suggest that the Motion, as worded, even if we give a direct negative to it, appears to concentrate the problem on malnutrition, which by itself is isolating an essential question from a number of other circumstances on which it seems to us to depend. Malnutrition as such does not depend merely on whether or not you have enough of or the right sort of food. It depends in a great number of cases on the circumstances in which you live, your surroundings, your personal situation, whether you have been in employment or out, whether you are living in a healthy or an unhealthy home, and whether your mind is occupied with worries or is free from worries. The real problem is something much broader and bigger than the question of whether people are given the right kind and quality of food. Therefore, our Amendment in the first place widens the problem into a problem of nutrition generally. It calls attention to the question of the supply of foodstuffs, and then to the necessity by social services and other efforts of that nature for better surroundings under which those persons who get an adequate quantity of food of the right kind may avoid the evils of malnutrition.
  1288
  The problem divides itself into various sub-questions. First, nutrition is a problem for all sections of the population. Apart from the really wealthy, with whom I do not propose to deal, there is a large class of persons who have adequate means to purchase food of the right quality if they want to. In their case, through ignorance, they do not purchase the right food, and to those persons a widespread education on the subject of foodstuffs is of the utmost importance. That is not without assistance to the next class which has difficulty in finding the money to purchase the right foodstuffs, because many of the essential foodstuffs which we want to make available for the poorest section of the country depend on the quantity of those foodstuffs which are produced and consumed by the community as a whole. I regard it as a fundamental economic law—to take, for instance, the most important food of all, namely, milk—that if we are to make it cheap throughout the country, we should produce as much as we possibly can, distribute as much as we can, and sell as much as we can. Then, by the reduction of overhead costs from top to bottom, we should be able to get far more milk in its liquid form available to the population than they would otherwise have.
  The education of those classes who have the money to purchase the best types of nutritious foodstuffs is of value to the real core of the problem, which is to get the right foodstuffs to the poorest classes of the population. It is of great importance because, although it is true, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health has pointed out, that if you take the figures of th edeath rate generally, of the tuberculosis death rate generally, and so forth, there is a vast and continuing improvement, there are certain cases about which those of us who take an interest in the subject have great anxiety. Hon. Members have referred to the question of young women. Tuberculosis is not uncommon among young women of the classes of parents who can afford to give them proper food, but who, through the temptation which so many households with limited means have to spend less money on food and more money on recreation, buy the cheapest and less valuable foodstuff. I have often been struck, in connection with this problem of health and food, at the change which has resulted from the introduction of the small motor car. Years ago in hundreds of

  1289
  thousands of small houses and cottages there was a certainty that at least one good meal a week would be taken by the family, and that was the Sunday dinner. That is all changed. Those families to-day are out on the roads. They are picnicking by the side of the roads, and, instead of eating fresh meat and vegetables, they are eating cheap tinned foodstuffs.
  We welcome the interest that is being shown in all quarters of the country in nutrition generally. We advocate that every effort should be made by everyone interested in this subject to go on trying to teach, in the simplest language to everybody, the values of various foodstuffs. It is not a waste of time, trouble, money or effort to try to teach that in every class in the country. I appreciate, of course, that it is useless to say to a woman who has only a few pence to spend on food, "Why don't you spend it on this instead of on something else?" When you get to that class, it is not so much a question of nutrition or malnutrition as a question of economic difficulty, a question largely of purchasing power. May I say a word on the policy of the Government in trying to get foodstuffs to the people, and on what further steps can be taken? It is common—and one realises it particularly if one represents an agricultural constituency—for Members of the Opposition to say that the Government are going in for a policy of restriction of supplies. It is well known in any branch of the industry what is the total consumption of any particular foodstuff by the people of this country. It is quite well known what proportion of a particular commodity comes from home and what comes from abroad. No step has ever been taken by the Minister of Agriculture which cuts down the total supplies of the country of any particular commodity.
  Mr. HOLDSWORTH: Is it not true that, so far as potatoes are concerned, there is a limitation of acreage and that a man must pay a fine if he grows any more? Is not that a policy of restriction?
  Mr. SPENS: I have heard the hon. Member argue that before, and I have never had an opportunity of replying to him. Before I come to his question, let
  1290
  me point out that if the total amount of any commodity which the country consumes in the course of the year is known, you do not deprive any person of that article as long as you secure that that amount is available on the market each year. The policy of the Government is to maintain what are known to be the total amounts of supplies required by the people of the country, but to carry a certain amount of switch-over, if they can, so that of the total quantity available in each year an increasing quantity shall be produced by our own people. When we deal with the cost at which foodstuffs will reach the consumer, it appears to me an obvious economic fact that the more our producers produce at home, the less will be their overhead costs and the more they will be able to compete with the foreigner. We are thereby able to keep down the cost of the competing foreign stuff. The more we can develop on those lines, the more progress we shall make towards getting to the consumers the stuff they want at the cheapest price. That is the policy I have seen operated under my very eyes. Hon. Members will say that it involves at the start a rise in retail prices. It did in some articles, because, when the policy started, we were in a period when there was a huge glut of foodstuffs coming from all over the world. Many hon. Members believe that it is desirable that that should be allowed to continue and that there should pour into this country from all over the world any amount of foodstuffs of every kind without any restrictions. Surely, however, the result of that would only be one of two things. Either it would ruin our own countryside and create a new unemployment problem there—
  Mr. HOLDSWORTH: You have less employed now with your new policy.
  Mr. SPENS: That is true, but how many less would we have had employed if we had not had our policy? How many more farmers, smallholders and cottagers would have been receiving public assistance but for our policy? All that I am submitting is that if we are really to get the foodstuffs that we want to our people, we must produce the greatest possible quantity in this country. We want these foodstuffs processed, so far as they need processing, in the greatest possible quantities. We

  1291
  want them carried on our railways and our transport in the greatest possible quantity. We want them retailed in the greatest possible quantity. When we have done all that we shall steadily reduce overhead charges from the first point of production to the last point of delivery, and have done something towards cheapening the foodstuffs of the people.
  Mr. E. J. WILLIAMS: Does the hon. Member appreciate the effect of that policy upon industrial exports to customers abroad? Restriction of imports must obviously impoverish customers who would take, for example, South Wales coal, and other things. Does he realise the effect of his policy in creating unemployment, lack of purchasing power and consequent malnutrition in distressed areas?
  Mr. SPENS: I am sure the hon. Member will give me credit for having devoted a great deal of thought to that point. It is the fundamental controversy between the countryside and the industrial areas. The industrial areas always want increased exports in return for increased imports.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: There was no real problem for the countryside in Glamorganshire when the miners were employed and receiving good wages, because they are specialists in consuming prime beef.
  Mr. SPENS: I should like to go with my hon. Friend into the reasons why Glamorgan lost its coal trade. Whether he and I would agree I do not know. Unfortunately, I have had through my hands many coal concerns in that part of the world which have gone through the process of being wound up, and I know a good deal about that particular problem. I believe that the Government's policy of increasing to the utmost agricultural production at home with a view to getting that produce to the people of this country will in the end prove to be a sound policy. In that way we shall decrease unemployment and have a chance of putting on to the tables of the people the foodstuffs they want at a price which the bulk of them will be able to pay; but even though unemployment be going down we shall still have to face the economic difficulties of those who receive
  1292
  the smallest sums in wages or public assistance, the question of how they, with the money available, will be able to purchase the foodstuffs they really require.
  Is it possible to do something beyond the general policy of steadily increasing employment and decreasing unemployment in the hope that by getting people back to work they will get higher wages and be able eventually to buy what they ought to be able to buy? We know that that problem is localised to some extent in what are called the Special Areas. I ask those hon. Members who are so keenly interested in the Special Areas to remember that it is also a problem in the so-called prosperous South of England. People in any one of the towns in my division or in the countryside who are out of work have the same problem. Although people out of work in the countryside can generally get the foodstuffs they want in one way or another, inside the towns it is still a question of giving those people purchasing power or assistance. We have already, through the milk experiments, begun to assist them, and I was delighted to hear my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health say that inquiries were to be undertaken to see whether anything further could be done along those lines. We should try to encourage the consumption of liquid milk by our people, particularly those who need it, and I specially welcome that statement by the Minister of Health.
  I have often wondered whether, when we get occasional experiences of the "kindness of nature," it would not be possible to make greater use of that bounty. A few years ago we had a tremendously heavy crop of fruit in Kent. Some farmers equipped with cold storage plant were able to store the fruit and put it on to the market in later months of the year, but the bulk of the growers found after the first two days that it was simply not worth while to pick it and send it to market, and in many cases they allowed children to come in and take it, getting rid of it in that way. There is a problem. At certain times certain parts of England have a surplus of foodstuffs which would be of the greatest value to the people in other parts. The prospects of the fruit crop can usually be foreseen some weeks ahead, and in that respect the position is different from the case where, unexpectedly, a heavy catch of herring is landed.

  1293
  Would it not be possible to organise the distribution of those surpluses in the districts where the foodstuffs would be welcome? Some people may say that that would mean merely sending in a casual load of herring or a load of fruit one week and nothing more for six or eight weeks, and that it would amount to very little, but I am not sure that there would not be an advantage to the country generally. If a producer is going to lose the whole results of the work he has put into a particular crop because there happens to be a bountiful harvest, it is a serious thing for the village where his land is situated, and I cannot help thinking that in addition to the inquiry into the milk surplus there ought to be an inquiry to see whether these other surpluses cannot be utilised. I agree that it will require organisation and expenditure and the co- operation of the transport authorities, but I believe we might be able to do something to assist the people who are in need.
  The right hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate made a suggestion which, as far as I could make out, was to the effect that milk at manufacturing prices should be made available for everybody in the country. It seems to me that would be attended with very great difficulties. In the first place, it would mean that the present retail price, which everybody pays who can afford to buy milk, will no longer be paid—and that will produce a very difficult state of affairs. If, on the other hand, the proposal is confined, as I understand was in the mind of the Minister of Health, to making this milk available for unemployed persons or other poor people there might be less difficulty about the proposal.
  I have moved this Amendment because I believe that it will concentrate the attention of the House on what is really the main problem, that of getting food to the people and generally improving social conditions in the country. I am sure that in saying this hon. Members will not think that I am being complacent or ignoring the problem, which I realise does exist, among those who have been long out of work in the Special Areas. But if one looks back to conditions at the beginning of the century and compares them with what they are to-day it must be admitted that, as a country, we may be very proud of the improvement which has taken place. When I look back to the condi-
  1294
  tions which used to exist in London, in Surrey and in Scotland, but have now vanished, I can only feel that if there is as much improvement during the next 30 years as in the past 30 years we shall have been very successful, but in my view that improvement will depend on the continuance of the financial stability of the country will depend on our being able steadily to develop our industries, and whether people can be confident if they embark on an undertaking they will be able to go on developing it right through their lives. It is by development along those lines that we shall bring about better and cheaper feeding of the population. If I may say it without offence to the other side, it is just because the threat to the general system contained in their nationalisation programme is so great that I can never find myself in agreement with them on any economic subject at all.
  Mr. LOGAN: Not even on the better feeding of the people?
  Mr. SPENS: That is not an economic problem solely. I feel that what the Minister of Health and the Minister of Agriculture are doing at the present time is on the right lines, and that if their policy is developed along those lines that not only will the question of nutrition be dealt with successfully but that it will also be possible to deal with the special subject of under-nourishment, which does exist at the present time, to some extent, in certain areas and among certain people outside those areas. This is not just a specialist question. We do not want to waste too much time over technical inquiries but ought to get on with the solution of the transport and economic difficulties and try whether we cannot solve the problem within the next generation.
  8.14 p.m.
  Major DORMAN-SMITH: I beg to second the Amendment.
  I hope that this Debate will not mean that this infant of nutrition will be thrown out into the somewhat rough seas of party politics, because I believe it is too young and too delicate to suffer such treatment. It is a matter of concern to all of us in this House, and an excuse for throwing it into the sea of politics would only be forthcoming if it could be shown that we on this side were doing

  1295
  nothing about it. The Minister has shown that we are doing quite a lot about it, on sound lines. It could not be otherwise. Not even the most flinty-hearted Tory could possibly be indifferent. He could hardly afford to be. I know that hon. Members on the other side do not ascribe very high motives to what comes from these benches, but, taking the very lowest possible motive, that of self-interest, it will be seen that, on this side, we must go into this matter very thoroughly, because no contented and well-fed nation has ever gone or ever will go, Socialist. Take it on the very lowest plane, and it is seen that we are interested in pressing ahead with nutrition perhaps even more than hon. Members opposite.
  I hope that we shall not make this matter the shuttlecock of politics. It is a much bigger and more important matter than that. It is not an old subject. I do not think that any of us thought in terms of nutrition or malnutrition until the scientists focused our attention upon them. I have looked through pamphlets and policies of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and I can find, no more than I can find in our own, anything about it. That may be blameworthy. I do not know whether hon. Members can show me anything. [An HON. MEMBER: "I will send the hon. Member something."] I shall be glad to see it, but it must date from the preJohn Orr age. That is the only stipulation I make. I do not think any Member of the party opposite could stand up and say that the party has a comprehensive scheme to deal with this problem, but I believe that they are working, as we are, to arrive at a proper solution.
  I am peculiarly interested in this question from the standpoint of producing the essential health foods, in order to carry out any policy of nutrition which we have to put into operation. You have to start from that standpoint before you can put a policy into operation. You have to be pretty certain about your food, and unless we get the producers in this country able to go on with their production, any scheme of nutrition will fall by the wayside. There will be nothing to eat or to consume. I believe that the policy of this Government tends to make it more and more possible for producers to continue in their job, and for that reason I support the Amendment. It has
  1296
  been the task of the Minister of Agriculture to see, as this Amendment states, that there is a maximum amount of foodstuffs coming into the country. We are told that there have been most serious restrictions, but in fact there have not been those restrictions. They simply do not exist. What could have been done, had we wanted it, would have been to allow gluts in the market, but that would have put all the producers out of production. We have managed to prevent that.
  Far be it from me to say that our agricultural policy is perfect. The Minister of Agriculture would have a great shock if I ventured to say anything like that. Complaints have been made from time to time from many quarters of the House that our farmers are inefficient. We are told that agriculture is living on doles, and so forth. I suggest that this is the first Government for over 100 years to give any consideration or encouragement to the farming industry. There has been great development since they came in, and great attempts at organisation. Foreign countries may have got ahead of us; I think they have; but that is because this country has encouraged them to do so and to use our market. We are now seeing that policy reversed. I hope that in the near future we shall see the production stimulated of the essential health foods, sold at reasonable prices which consumers are able to pay. Any policy must be started from the producers' end. It is no use merely having factories, or coal mines, or anything else; you cannot eat them. If your producers cannot produce, nothing else is much good to you.
  We are told that we have to go on considering and examining this problem. I believe that all the evidence, such as Sir John Orr shows us in his work, means that we have to do more examination. If hon. Members opposite were in office, they would have to do quite a lot more examination than they had done up to the moment. The Milk Board and the milk problem have been mentioned on more than one occasion. I can assure the House, as far as the producers are concerned, that there is nothing we want to see more than fresh milk going down the mouths of the people. That is obviously what we want to see. I believe I am right in saying that the Milk Board are going to see what they can do in the

  1297
  Rhondda. They have made tentative attempts in Merthyr Tydfil. I would appeal for retailers and middlemen to co-operate a little more than they have done in the past with the producers. We are prepared to co-operate to the very full, in trying to put over a policy of nutrition. I hope that we shall not be expected to do anything in five or 10 minutes, and so ruin the whole business by doing it hastily, without laying our plans properly. I commend to the House this Amendment, in the hope that it will lay a foundation for the nutrition policy which is urgently required.
  8.24 p.m.
  Mr. JAMES GRIFFITHS: I have listened with great interest for some time to the speeches which have been delivered. They seem to resolve themselves into an argument from hon. Members on the other side that the problem is not really one of lack of knowledge, and from hon. Members of our side that the root of the problem is not that the working class in these days do not know food values, but that their purchasing power is so depressed that knowledge is futile because they have not the means of putting that knowledge into effect. It has fallen to my lot during the last four or five years to be at the head of a great trade union, and in the course of my duties I have had to collect a good deal of information about men who were at work in one of our big industries. We took steps to find out what wages were being paid, what were the deductions from those wages, and, in particular, what was the amount available for the purchase of food. Some hon. Members opposite have spoken of lack of knowledge, and one hon. Lady alluded to the value of cold water and carrots, I think it was; but I would put it to them that the problem which exists in the special areas is not merely the problem of those who are unemployed. Very often it seems to be thought that the problem of the depressed areas is entirely confined to those people who are unemployed, and it is forgotten that there is also the problem of those who are in employment.
  I want to quote two typical cases. We have taken great care to ascertain that they are typical, and they can be multiplied by the hundred in South Wales and by the thousand over the whole country. One is that of a man, his wife and four
  1298
  children of school age. They were living in the only house available to them, a house which was owned by their employer, and the rent of which was deducted before the man received his wages. It amounted to 15s. per week. Over a period of seven weeks, for which the man's pay tickets are in the office of my union, working on the average 5½ shifts per week, and after the rent and other items had been deducted from his pay, the average wage per week left to maintain that family of six was 33s. 10d Allowing for three meals per day for the family of six, that works out at an average of 3¼d. per meal. That is a problem, not of lack of knowledge, but of lack of means to purchase the food required to keep the family in health and comfort.
  The other case is perhaps not quite so typical, but at the same time it is not entirely exceptional. It is that of a father, mother and six children, the wife being an invalid. Over a period of six weeks, after 15s. 5d. a week had been deducted for rent and after other statutory and other deductions had been made, there was available, in cash wages per week, 22s. 6d. to keep that family of eight. Allowing three meals a day, seven days a week, that is an average of 1½d per meal for that family of eight. Hon. Members on this side could all multiply cases of that kind. We urge upon the House and the Government that this low purchasing power, this inability to secure the food that is essential for the maintenance of health, is going to have in the end a disastrous effect upon the nation.
  We have also had to give attention to a problem that has not been referred to in this discussion. In the mining industry the men are subject to very grave risks, and we have been alarmed to find that during the last few years, for a number of reasons, the accident rate has increased. On this matter we speak from our own practical knowledge, and what I am saying will be borne out by every inspector in the mining areas. His Majesty's inspector for the Cardiff division has time and again called attention to the fact that the low wages in the industry are having the effect of increasing the accident rate. Men are so deprived of good, healthy food that their powers soon become exhausted, and in consquence they are not so quick-

  1299
  witted as they otherwise would be, with the result that the accident rate is increasing. On this question I want to quote an outside authority. In September, 1935, Professor K. Neville Moss, of Birmingham University, who had been making some investigations into the relationship of low wages and malnutrition, made a most interesting statement. Low wages and malnutrition mean the same thing; the one represents the other. There may be cases, though I believe the number is very small indeed, in which malnutrition is due to lack of knowledge, but that part of the problem is only a tiny part of the whole problem; in by far the greatest degree it is due to Jack of purchasing power through low wages. Professor Moss said:
  "If a miner's wages fell too low, one of two things must happen: either he had to do with less food, and in consequence reduce his work output, or he must maintain his work output and dietary standard at the expense of his family … A coal getter was of mature years and was invariably a married man. Whether he worked full time or not, he had to feed, clothe and house his family, and if his wages fell below the standard which enabled him to maintain his own food requirements, three things would happen. Firstly, his output of coal would fall; secondly, he would he more liable to absenteeism on account of illness caused by deficient nutrition; and thirdly, he would, owing to lack of alertness duo to fatigue, be more liable to fall a victim to underground accidents."
  The mechanisation of industry calls for greater quickness of mind and concentration upon the work, and it is a well-established fact, which no Member of the House would attempt to deny, that, if a man is to maintain his quickness of mind, and his power to concentrate on his work and keep alert for seven or eight hours, it is essential that he should be well and properly fed. We know, however, that there are tens of thousands of men who do not get the food necessary to enable them to do their work efficiently and with safety to themselves.
  Reference has been made to the fact that this may appear to be, to use the words of one hon. Member, the endless controversy between the countryside and the industrial areas. It is true that the countryside is depressed. In my boyhood there were wealthy agricultural areas in West Wales, and, when I was a boy working at home, my mother used to buy meat, butter, eggs and cheese from the
  1300
  farmers in the rural areas, who used to come round to the houses and sell them. But the industrial workers in these depressed areas, and in other areas in the country, cannot now buy agricultural products grown in this country because the prices are too high, or rather, because their wages are too low, and they have been compelled to buy cheap foreign products because of their depressed wages. Therefore, I would urge upon those hon. Members who represent the agricultural interest, and who certainly make on all occasions and at all times the stoutest fight for the agricultural industry, that the best way to enhance the prosperity of agriculture is to give the industrial workers wages which will enable them to buy home products. Agriculture is becoming depressed in the same ratio and for the same reasons as other industries. Their prosperity goes together.
  In working-class homes it is the mother who makes the sacrifice. It is she who goes short. She sees to it that, within the power of the wages, the man who goes to work gets the best that those wages can buy, low as they are. She sees to it that the children do not suffer. It is the mothers who suffer and go short. That is clearly indicated in the high increase in the maternal mortality rate. It is part of the price that the women are paying for the depression. I meet men in South Wales who went to school with me, and started working in the pit at the same time and who have been unemployed for three, four or five years or, even if they have not been unemployed, have been working for miserably low wages. They have put up a stout resistance and tried to keep their pecker up in the hope that someday they will again find a place in our industrial life. All one has to do is to walk the streets. It needs no close investigation. We do not need commissions. I wish it were possible for hon. Members to meet these men, women and children in an industrial area to whom fish and chips has become a luxury meal, something to look forward to once a week.
  This great problem lies at the root of all others. We pride ourselves on being a great and a Christian nation. Almost every day for the last month someone has called attention to the fact that food is being destroyed at one end and men

  1301
  and women are being destroyed for lack of food at the other end. The system that allows that stands condemned by any standard. I believe that hon. Members opposite would join us in paying tribute to my right hon. Friend was opened the Debate. In this Motion we are drawing attention to one of our gravest problems. There are at least 50,000 men in South Wales whose cash wages are less than 35s. a week. My division is a big steel and tinplate producing centre. I have heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer refer with pride to the fact that the great steel industry is reviving, owing to Government policy, and that increasing numbers are employed. There are hundreds of men employed in that industry who earn less than £2 a week. Purchasing power has been depressed, with the consequence of a shortage of food, and that is having a really serious effect upon the motherhood and childhood of the nation. I ask the Minister of Health at once to set about the real task that we have to face. If war broke out, the first thing the Government would do would be to set about organising food supplies. Why cannot we organise food supplies for peace as well as for war? It is essential to lose no time. It is not a question of finding out more about the problem. The problem is that the purchasing power of our people in the main is depressed, and the way to solve it is to grant an immediate increase in purchasing power. Malnutrition is widespread because poverty is widespread and wages are low. I hope that the Government will bear this in mind when the Regulations are issued to-morrow night.
  8.43 p.m.
  Mr. MARCUS SAMUEL: The subject of malnutrition is one in which Members on all sides of the House are bound to take an interest. It would be a horrible thing if it were made a matter of embittered political controversy and exploited as such. I have been reading something which is very relevant to the Motion, although it has not been mentioned very much to-day, the appeal made by the Leader of the Opposition to the electors of Derby. It says that a Government which allows half its people to suffer in semi-starvation is in no position to give a lead in dealing with the economic discontent, which creates
  1302
  a war atmosphere, and that only a Socialist Government can stop the drift to war and make full use of the bounties of nature. What is Socialism? It is Communism in fancy dress—dressed up to look pretty. The skeleton of Communism is the backbone of Socialism. When the right hon. Gentleman says there are 20,000,000 people suffering semi-starvation, that is a downright fabrication, so blatant that it falsifies itself. I am sorry to mention this point, but it may be rather more painful to me perhaps than to hon. Members opposite. Here we have a Motion blaming the Government for widespread malnutrition and hunger and want in a world of plenty. The Government are urged to deal with this grave and urgent problem at once. This evening probably our Socialists, our four Independent Labour party comrades, our comprehensive Communist, and perhaps our Liberals, will form a Popular Front and vote against the Government, and pop will go the Front.
  Let me give the House a few illustrations of what I should call the easy virtuosity and the thoughtless levity of some of the Gentlemen opposite who table Motions of this sort. The Motion is one which calls upon the National Government to settle a world-wide problem. Whence comes that "plenty" which is so glibly spoken of? It is not produced within the confines of this country. Time after time when the Opposition refer to the burnt wheat, coffee and other corn-modifies, they are dealing with matters which are going on in other parts of the world over which the Government have no control. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about fish?"] That is one of the fishy things. If you came to analyse what a person's share might be of what had been thrown away you would find that he would not get even the tail of a fish. Even assuming that the things that are going to waste in that way are capable of economic distribution, where do we come in? It is a world-wide problem. This country has a population of 40,000,000, while the world, when Mr. Whitaker last counted it, had a population of something like 2,000,000,000. In any scheme of equitable distribution, we, with our relatively higher standard of living, would not get a look-in, and would have to take less.
  Now I am coming to a point which hon. Members opposite may appreciate. Under the heading of "Is there a Glut?", I

  1303
  have in my hand the report of the National Council of Labour Women on nutrition and food supplies presented at a conference held on the 20th and 21st May of this year. It is rather remarkable. They call attention to this paragraph in a publication of the League of Nations:
  "The existence of surplus stocks and overproduction in general, at certain moments, in certain countries, does not in any way prove that the world produces too much food, or even enough to meet the needs of its population."
  Talking of the world at large I would remind hon. Members opposite that, by general consent, the Map Room in the Library of this House is allotted to them by courtesy, and I think that it is rather a good thing, because I do not believe that they know where they are, and it it quite time that they found out. Have they any plans? I am coming to the point which I would like to stress. Have they any plans to improve the standard of living in this country? If so, what are they? I am a dealer in facts, and I shall give a few examples to show that they have nothing in their heads, in their hats, or up their sleeves with which to deal with this problem. Here is my first example. At the Labour party conference at Hastings in 1933–and there has been no change since—Mr Smart, Faversham, moved what they call a composite resolution—it sounded very nice indeed—
  "instructing the National Executive Committee to prepare, in time for submission to the next annual conference, a scheme whereby socialised credit applied to retail traders may be used to enable the home market to absorb as much as it needs of consumable goods, so that the standard of living shall be raised substantially in the first few months of the next Labour Government."
  It added:
  "With this programme the Labour party would sweep the country and this plan would mean the final establishment of Socialism and the Socialist Commonwealth."
  Very smart, of course, but would it? What happened immediately after that? I am reading from the report I have here. Dr. Hugh Dalton, now the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bishop Auckland, at once jumped up to oppose the resolution on behalf of the executive. This is what he said:
  1304
  "I am going to ask the Conference to reject this resolution and not spend time upon it, because we have already declared a policy in the report which you accepted last year, providing for the extension of purchasing power sufficient to enable the production of the country to be absorbed. I ask you to reject this resolution."
  Now we seem to be tracking their policy to its lair. Apparently we have only to look at the policy that was adopted in the previous year. I have been to the trouble of discovering what policy the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland was referring to; the policy which would obviate this poverty in the midst of plenty. The report to which he referred was that of the Labour party conference held in Leicester in 1932. I hold a copy of it in my hand and, as can be seen, it is in a green cover. I looked through this document carefully—I always read these reports—in search of the comprehensive policy. On page 208 I found a complaint from a Manchester delegate that Miss Margaret Bondfield, when Minister of Labour in 1930, had decided that 24s. a week was enough for women workers under a Trade Board, and made an Order to that effect. I concluded that this could not be the policy referred to. However, after diligent searching, I found this remarkable policy which was to increase the purchasing power of the people. It was hiding under the heading of "Currency, Banking and Finance," and I understand the enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland for it, because he was the one who proposed it. Apparently the policy which was to sweep the country was one to stabilise wholesale prices and foreign exchanges and so on, and all sorts of nebulous propositions. But do you imagine that it was a concrete, definite policy? If so, you will be wrong, for the right lion. Gentleman finished up by saying:
  "We ask you to give us a further period for intensive study, and we will undertake to bring before you at the next Conference definite proposals for dealing with this matter."
  Mr. SILVERMAN: I wonder whether the hon. Member opposite feels that sufficient time has elapsed since then to enable the party to which he belongs to make all the investigations necessary.
  Mr. SAMUEL: It is not a question of making investigations. I was about to say that the Leader of the Opposition

  1305
  to-day stated that about 50 per cent. of the people were in a state of semi-starvation.
  Mr. JOHNSTON: I made no such statement.
  Mr. SAMUEL: I understand that the Leader of the Opposition is the right hon. Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee). I may be wrong. I was not talking about the right hon. Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston). I was saying that when this Member of the Labour party said that they wanted something definite, he was turned back to the conditions and proposals which had been mentioned the year before, and those conditions and proposals were proved to be null and void. Nothing has been done since.
  In regard to malnutrition, the word "malnutrition" does not appear even in the index of the reports of the Labour Conferences for 1934 and 1935. Maternal mortality did appear. That was a by word at by-elections. It was to be the password to power or, if you like so to describe it, it was to be the by-pass word, the short cut, to power. The most inexcusable use was made of this horrible scourge at the elections and other times. Now, malnutrition takes its place. Therefore, the only policy which hon. Members opposite have for a solution of the problem is some hotch-potch of currency and banking proposals, which will require "a further period of intensive study" before it reaches proper shape. I suggest that they would be better advised if they devoted their time to intensive study rather than to bringing forward what is really a futile and puerile Vote of Censure. I can best describe the Vote of Censure in three words, "tripe in type," and I shall feel all the better when I have registered my vote against it.
  8.57 p.m.
  Mr. DAVID ADAMS: The House is exceedingly fortunate in having an excellent Opposition which at all times, has recognised the obligation that is upon it to keep the Government in touch with modern affairs. Of all the services that the Opposition has rendered since this Parliament began, there is none greater than to call the attention of the country and the Government to the prevalence of the great and growing evil of malnutrition. The housing agitation has resulted in almost settling that problem, but it has taken 50 years to secure that achieve-
  1306
  ment. The age in which we are living is so rapid and intensive that we shall not require to wait 50 years before solving the nutritional problem. The Minister of Health waved his magic wand and almost convinced us, as he undoubtedly convinced his supporters, that there was no such thing as a nutritional problem in this country, that all was exceedingly well, that our standards of health were rapidly rising and that the problems of the distressed areas cannot be considered in regard to the question of food. If that be so, why have we had the agitation from this side of the House, and also partially from the other side of the House, as to the problems of the distressed areas? Are the distressed areas aesthetic problems? Are they some mild form of sociological trouble, or is there, in fact, a most serious problem arising from the circumstance that we have a great part of the population in this country who are underfed? That today, whatever may have happened in days gone by, the necessary commodities cannot be purchased by a large section of the population?
  It is instructive to observe the physique of hon. Members opposite all capable of purchasing the commodity of health. An examination would show that on the other side of the House there are at least 25 men of six feet upwards in height, with a physique and quality in accordance, and that they are well balanced by the intellectual stature on this side of the House. We have opposite an illustration of those who have had the benefit of heredity and environment, and none of the disabilities which have fallen in an intense degree in recent years upon the workers of the country. The standards of to-clay show that in certain respects we are growing a race of pigmies, in the days when foodstuffs the world over are supposed to be superlatively plentiful.
  It is little use quoting figures to hon. Members opposite. Sir John Orr has stated that there are 4,500,000 people living on a maximum expenditure of 4s. per week per head, and his deduction from that fact is that that section of the population is deficient in every requisite constituent for the calories required to maintain the body in a proper state of physical efficiency, and enable a proper proportion of work to be done. Whatever Sir John Orr's figures may

  1307
  prove, I know that in county Durham and in Northumberland there are many of our unemployed who have less than 35., and even less than 2s., per head per week for expenditure upon food. Those people are unable to purchase the necessary butter, milk, fruit, vegetables, cheese, and fish but were compelled to subsist largely on bread, jam, tea and potatoes. In fact, good nutrition is not possible for the poor.
  I was chairman of an important health authority for some years, and I have always been proud of the fact that the Corporation of Newcastle was well in advance of other corporations in regard to health services. Under the Slum Clearance Act we instituted the first slum clearance scheme. Therefore we were alarmed about two years ago by the very high incidence of disease in the poorer quarters of the city. There was a longer period of convalescence in our hospitals, a larger number making use of hospitals, and a high rate of infantile mortality. In England and Wales it was 64 per 1,000 births, but in Newcastle it was 76 per 1,000. We discovered on investigation that malnutrition was at work. An investigation was made by Dr. Spence, as the hon. Member for Jarrow (Miss Wilkinson) has mentioned, into the condition of 125 city children and 124 drawn from the professional classes between the ages of one year and five years. They were examined scientifically for general condition, height, weight, blood values, the incidence of anaemia and other nutritional diseases. The city children were found to be deficient in every direction. Among the 124 of the better-class children, only two suffered from pneumonia, while out of the 125 city children 17 had the same trouble. Only one of the better-class children suffered from pleurisy, and two others from a chronic and recurrent cough, while among the city children 32 were similarly affected by chronic or recurrent bronchitis. Only in six of the better-class children was there a record of an attack of measles; among the poorer children no less than 46 had had measles. It is worth while summarising the results of Dr. Spence's examination in order to have them on the records of the House. According to Dr. Spence examination showed that
  1308
  "55·2 per cent. were below the normal standard of weight, 47 per cent. below the normal standard of height; 23·1 per cent. were anaemic with haemoglobin values below 65 per cent. and five children out of 103 specially examined for the purpose had active rickets. There are at present no definite standards by means of which the physique and state of nutrition of children can be estimated with mathematical accuracy. An expression of the incidence of poor physique or malnutrition must therefore be regarded as an opinion, the validity of which will vary with the experience of the observer and the methods which he uses. Bearing in mind the limitation of the use of figures in this connection, I have drawn the following conclusions from my investigations:

  (1) That at least 36 per cent. of the children from the poor districts from the city which I have examined were unhealthy or physically unfit and as a result of this they appeared malnourished.

  (2) That since this high incidence of apparent malnutrition is not found in the children of better class families, it is due to preventable causes.

  (3) In my opinion, the main immediate cause of the apparent malnutrition of the city children is the physical damage done by infective diseases occurring in young children at susceptible ages, and under conditions which prevent satisfactory recovery.

  (4) The main factors which promote and perpetuate this physical damage are, the housing conditions which permit mass infections of young children at susceptible ages; improper and inadequate diet which prevents satisfactory recovery from their illnesses."

  That is so far as children are concerned. Then we had an investigation into 100 families of working-class areas with 231 adults and 304 children. The investigations were carried out by the staff of the Market Supply Committee, a statutory body operating under the Ministry of Health, and examined the consumption of the main items of foodstuffs. So far as meat was concerned, the total average consumption in Great Britain is, 46·5 ounces per person per week, but our employed, many of whom are grossly underpaid, consume only 24·7 ounces and the unemployed 19·4 ounces per head per week. The expenditure on meat per head of our employed was 1s. 2¼d per week, whereas the unemployed could only afford 7¾per head per week. With regard to eggs—and this is a strong point of the Ministry of Agriculture. The right hon. Gentleman likes to hear the word "eggs," and likes to have questions addressed to him as to what eggs are coming into this country from foreign

  1309
  countries to the detriment of the consumers. What is the situation in regard to eggs? The average consumption in Great Britain is approximately three eggs in the shell, per head per week: In Newcastle our employed have 2·1, but our unemployed average only 1·1 eggs per head per week, cheap imported eggs.
  With regard to an item which is now fundamental—the consumption of milk—fresh milk consumed throughout the country is slightly less than one pint per head daily. Our employed in Newcastle have 29 pints, or a little less than six ounces, and our unemployed 18, a little over three ounces. In a small way that illustrates what we have discovered in Newcastle so far as the average working-class home is concerned. With regard to milk generally, the Minister has properly urged local authorities to aim at one pint per person daily. The average in Newcastle is two-fifths of a pint. The difficulty, of course, is the inability, through lack of financial means, to purchase foodstuffs, particularly milk. In spite of the small quantity which is consumed on the average, a number of our people do not have fresh milk at all. We examined the case of 1,452 working-class families prior to the fixing of the winter price at 7d. a quart. 392 families, or 27 per cent., used condensed milk only. After the price had been raised, 500 families, or 34·5 per cent., found that condensed milk was the only form of milk within their financial capacity. It is true, I believe, that most of the working-class families, even the poorest, endeavour to have a milk pudding as a particular luxury for the children, if they have any, during the week-end. It is a fact that in Newcastle, apart from the three tons of dried milk supplied from our centres, annually many of our people do not know the taste of milk, excepting cheap condensed.
  The investigations were interesting as regards the question of fuel. Those investigations gave an interesting sidelight on the poverty of many of our people. We had a complaint from several of the tenants that the municipal houses in which they had been living for a few weeks were damp. We were surprised, because Newcastle prides itself upon its municipal housing. Consequently, a house-to-house investigation was instituted to inquire into the cause of this dampness. The housing committee discovered, as a result that no less
  1310
  than 75 per cent. of the houses of the poorest people, who had been moved from the slum areas, were atmospherically damp but not structurally damp, the cause being the inability of the tenants to purchase the necessary fuel for the proper heating of the home. These are genuine cases taken from statistics supplied by the Newcastle Corporation as to the lot of so many of their people whom they have been struggling to raise to a better standard of life by various remedial measures within their competence.
  We have made further examinations of the position of our poorest people, and have obtained identical results. For the Ministry of Health standard diet of 3,000 calories, which some say would mean an expenditure per head of 7s., we in Newcastle say would mean an expenditure of 5s. l½d. We have made inquiries into the position of a large number of our unemployed families, with similar results. So far as is known to-day, a diet containing the requisite calories should be made up of 100 grammes of protein, 100 grammes of fat and 500 grammes of carbohydrate. Our unemployed on the average were deficient in the first named by 26 per cent., in the second by 9·9 per cent. and in the third by 12·6 per cent., making an average over the whole of the population we examined of 13·7 per cent. Is it remarkable that the hospitals are well filled and that we require expenditure, at the instance of the Ministry of Health, to extend our hospitals both for children and adults? In spite of the new age in which we are living, the age of science which ought to put us on a higher pedestal, it is obvious that the necessity is to raise the purchasing capacity of the workers of the country generally, and particularly of those who are suffering from unemployment. Is there any reason why this Government, with the ability and power which it possesses, should not take into serious consideration the necessity of establishing a national minimum standard of living based upon a certain income below which no person would be permitted to engage himself, and no employer of labour permitted to engage a worker?
  9.21 p.m.
  Mr. MABANE: I think the House will agree that most of the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the other side who

  1311
  have spoken on this subject have, so far as we on this side are concerned, been speaking to the converted. We all recognise that there is a most important problem of nutrition, and of malnutrition, and the only matter at issue is exactly where the standard of malnutrition is to be determined. I followed very closely the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) and I observed that he did not endeavour to argue that there is at the present time any increased or increasing malnutrition, but merely stated in general terms that there is malnutrition. That is no new problem.
  Mr. JOHNSTON: I think I quoted, for example, Sir Robert McCarrison, who definitely declared that there was a large increase in the expenditure of friendly societies through sickness benefits.
  Mr. MABANE: I recognise that the right hon. Gentleman quoted many statistics, with which he endeavoured to show that other statistics of progress really did not make a complete picture, but I still recollect that he did not argue that at the present time there is increased or increasing malnutrition, as compared with other times in the past. Indeed, all the vital statistics show a record of considerable progress in this country. The Minister of Health quoted some of those statistics. He quoted the decline in the death date, which over a generation shows a decline from 14·3 to 12 per thousand. He quoted a decline in the infantile mortality rate which, also in the last generation, was from 140 per thousand to 57 per thousand. I think the only problem with which we are concerned to-day is whether the rate of progress we are making in this country in regard to these social problems, and particularly in regard to problems of nutrition, is as quick as it might be, and if it is not, how we can persuade the Government to increase the rate. I think that the best speeches made during the Debate have been those which have not been tinged with party flavour. I would say that I regret equally the speech of the hon. Member for Jarrow (Miss Wilkinson) and the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. M. Samuel), both of whose speeches were tinged with party flavour. In approaching this problem we ought to have in mind
  1312
  only the welfare of this country. Hon. Members opposite have damned their case a little by trying to insist too much that this is a question of poverty. If we were to examine the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate we should be led to believe that the problem was entirely one of poverty. If hon. Members argue that it is entirely a question of poverty they will prevent certain valuable steps being taken towards the diminution of malnutrition. While poverty is undoubtedly an important factor in this problem, ignorance is equally a contributory factor, and lack of efficiency in distributive organisation is almost equally contributory.
  I can speak on the effect of ignorance from practical experience. I spent some years living in the slams of Liverpool studying this and cognate problems as Head of the University Settlement in that city. We observed there a high infantile mortality rate, and that great damage to the health and the physique of children occurred between birth and the age of five. I was responsible for conducting an experimental ante-natal and postnatal clinic. We had in the district in which it was situated an infantile death rate of 108 per 1,000. The hon. Member for the English Universities (Miss Rathbone) assisted me. I was looking back to-day at a report we made, and I found this:
  "The diagnosis of the problem of ignorance has been the mast satisfactory feature of the Clinic's work. The ignorance of the mothers of their own bodies: of the care they should take of themselves during pregnancy: of the effect of such care on their future health and that of their children are startling.… But the experience of the Clinic has shown the mothers, even of the poorest district, to be eager for education. … The remarkable improvement in the physical standard of the children attending the Clinic, and the very marked difference in the death rate among them as compared with that of the district is largely attributable to this education."
  We succeeded in reducing the infantile mortality rate to 48 per 1,000, as against 104 per 1,000 in the surrounding district, and that depended in no way on increasing purchasing power but solely on the education we were able to give in the care of the child.
  Mr. LOGAN: I have lived 63 years in that district and mine has not been a survey of a few months. Does the hon. Member not attribute the whole position

  1313
  in Liverpool to the low rates of wages and the damnable conditions under which people have been living?
  Mr. MABANE: The hon. Member is, or was, a member of the Liverpool City Council which recognised the value of this work so much that it took it over and ran the clinic itself. I know there are other contributory factors, and that in Liverpool casual labour contributes substantially to malnutrition.
  Mr. G. GRIFFITHS: What was the date of the survey?
  Mr. MABANE: The clinic was operating in the 10 years before 1923, when it was taken over by the local authority. All of us must agree that ignorance is to some extent a contributory factor in this problem. No hon. Member of this House would endeavour to sustain a proposal that anyone in this country should lack adequate nourishment if able and willing to work and unable to earn an income. We would all like to see every man, woman and child able to attain that optimum standard referred to by Sir John Orr and quoted by the Minister of Health. We know there are people unable to attain that standard, and surely the purpose of this Debate is to enable us to make suggestions to the Government to enable that standard to be attained in so far as the Government can assist. I want to suggest certain lines of action that it might be valuable to pursue. It is not much use merely stating the case. That is my criticism of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate. He merely stated the case, and did not examine the causes or suggest a remedy.
  The Government should make more determined efforts to overcome the ignorance of people of how to spend money in the best possible way, and of dietetic problems. I hope that in pursuance of this purpose the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour will concentrate increasing attention on maternity and child welfare, and on nursery schools, so often advocated by the Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor).
  Mr. MUFF: Bradford was the pioneer of nursery schools, not the Noble Lady.
  Mr. MABANE: That may be, but it is also true that scarcely a day goes by
  1314
  on which the Noble Lady does not urge the provision of still more nursery schools. Perhaps too the two Ministries might endeavour to establish in schools and homes means whereby the population might be educated more carefully in dietetic problems. Next, we must make every effort to increase the income of the population so that more food may be bought. Perhaps in that direction this Government can claim a particularly good record compared with the last. In the last 2½ years there have been recorded wage increases representing an increased spending power of about £30,000,000 a year in the hands of the workers of this country. The best way to increase wages and improve income is for the financial and economic condition of the country to be sound, and in that direction the efforts of this Government have met with complete success. In addition, I believe it to be the duty of every industrialist to do his best to raise the wage level of his employés. I say that as one who is, in his own small way, engaged in business. It would be a good thing if we could get a spirit among employers to do their best to raise wages before they are forced to do so by strikes or other means. Perhaps we shall be on the way towards a solution of this problem when those engaged in business recognise that to be in business involves a social duty, first to the customers, second to the wage-earners, and perhaps only third to those who are to take the profits.
  I want to refer to a third line of action that the Government should pursue, and which up to the present they have substantially neglected. I have said that we desire that distribution should be more effectively organised. At the outset of my speech I admitted that poverty was a great factor in the problem, and I suggested that ignorance was another contributory factor. But I believe that the inefficiency of the distributive process is perhaps most important of all. What we really want to do is to make available to those who need it, this "plenty" which is referred to in the Motion. I believe that the greatest contribution which could be made to the problem by the Government is a determined effort to improve the efficiency of the distributive system. It is astonishing to contemplate the extent to which

  1315
  the distributive process has been neglected by Governments. This is a great problem of organisation, demanding investigation, careful study and ultimate action. It is no use bringing to the attention of the House isolated cases of food distribution as examples of the failure of the distributive process. They are only symptoms. We want something more comprehensive than merely dealing with isolated cases of that kind.
  The real problem with which we are faced is the cost of bringing foodstuffs from their point of origin to the table of the consumer. What is that cost? The answer is that no one knows. I think it incredible that in this year, faced with this problem, we should have to say in this House that no one in the Government knows officially the cost of bringing foodstuffs from their point of origin to the table of the consumer. It is an enormous problem. Distribution is the largest industry in the country. It employs 2,000,000 people and has a turnover of £2,000,000,000 a year. I say, definitely and deliberately, that there is not a Minister on the Treasury Bench whose Department knows officially any single fact worth knowing about the distributive industry. Statistically speaking, the distributive industry is in the Dark Ages.
  I asked the Minister of Agriculture—and perhaps he will deal with this point when he replies—what is the average retail gross profit on the sale of milk and the answer was that the information is not available. I asked what is the average gross profit on the sale of foodstuffs, and the answer was that the information was not available. You may ask any Government Department for important facts about the distributive industry, and the answer, I am afraid, will be that the information is not available. So long as the information is not available, it will be impossible to make any real progress along what I consider to be the important line of approach to the problem. What is the good of Ministers or any others saying that the major economic problem to-day is not production but distribution, when, at the same time, we have to admit that we do not know the facts about distribution. It seems ridiculous. Some retail distributors have tried, on a voluntary basis, to collect information about the distributive process but the area covered by them is
  1316
  very limited. It is important that we should now make a serious attack on the problem of distribution. If we were to investigate it, I believe it would be found possible to inaugurate a great era of progress and development in the whole distributive process, that would produce economies resulting in a decline of not less than 10 per cent. in the average price of foodstuffs. If we could achieve such an average decline we would have substantially destroyed a large part of the problem of malnutrition.
  Therefore, I urge the Government to institute a census of distribution, in order that the facts may be known. In this country we periodically undertake a census of production. but there has never been a census of distribution. Many of us have asked for such a census but, so far, a deaf ear has been turned to our plea. The United States has recently had a census of distribution, and it has also been done in Canada. The value of such a census would be inestimable. It would make possible economies which would result in a reduction in the cost of nearly every one of the important foodstuffs concerned in this problem. Think of the things that we could do if we had the necessary information. We could prevent overlapping, we could arrange the proper distribution of retail outlets, and even more important, we should know what we do not know now—the most efficient method of distribution. Not one of us can tell at present whether it is more efficient to distribute, thinking only of the retail process, by chain stores, departmental stores, the one-man shop or the Co-operative societies. No one knows whether it is better to serve the shop directly from the producer or by means of the wholesaler. I believe that if we knew these facts we should be on the way to that reduction of cost which is so important. Reference has been made to the organisation of production, or as some hon. Members would have it, the restriction of production. But we organise and restrict production today because we have not organised distribution. If we organised distribution, I believe that half the difficulties at present involved in the organisation of production would disappear.
  I urge these considerations on the Government in the most friendly spirit. I believe that no previous Government has paid such careful and continuous

  1317
  attention to the problem of nutrition as the present Government. It is no use for hon. Members opposite to say that Ministers have not paid any attention to this problem merely because it has not been debated in the House before to-day. I ask them to consider the general undertone of many of the Debates which have taken place since 1931. They will find that the undertone in those Debates has been one of concern on the part of the Ministers of the Crown with this great problem of nutrition, and has represented a desire to improve, to the greatest possible extent, the standard of living and nutrition of the people of this country.
  9.43 p.m.
  Mr. CROSSLEY: I have only seven minutes in which to address the House and my task is to compress what I have to say into that space of time. I am particularly pleased that the Minister of Agriculture is to reply to this Debate. I was profoundly impressed by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Motion, and I am glad that the Minister is to reply, because I believe there is a case to be met. There is much that is good and much that is complimentary to the Government in the report of Sir John Orr. There is the fact that there has been a rise in consumption per head of every foodstuff with the exception of wheat and margarine. The consumption of the latter has gone down in favour of butter. There is this tribute to the Minister of Agriculture:
  "The measures adopted in the United Kingdom were mild compared with those adopted in some Continental countries where the price of certain foodstuffs is being maintained at over twice the world price. Further, in this country the measures adopted were not based to any considerable extent on restriction."
  There is the fact that the Parliamentary Secretary gave the lead at Geneva and filially there is the fact that whatever our position is to-day—and I agree there is a problem to be faced—we are far better off than we were five years ago. Having said that, I want to make two pleas. There are Special Areas in the country, and I suggest that there are two special types of people who need special treatment. The one is the young. We have already gone some way towards giving special treatment to the young by giving milk in the schools, which I hope will be developed. The other is those who have been unemployed for some
  1318
  considerable time, and their need is much greater than that of those who have been unemployed for only a short time. I do not want to appeal for distribution in kind by the Unemployment Assistance Board or anything like that. The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), who is not now in his place, thought I did in a previous Debate, but I think that would be impossible, except conceivably in the case of milk. I do, however, appeal to the Government to face the issue of their surplus products, which are nearly all those products which are most nutritious, according to Sir John Orr, and that the Government should set up, not canteens, but distributing agencies, and should say, if necessary, to the private shopkeepers in certain areas, "For these special people it is the interest and the responsibility of the State that they should be better cared for, and we therefore are going to sell, under your price, at mere cost price, the surplus production of our agriculture to those people who most need it."
  I want to say one further thing. There has been much abuse of Hitler and Mussolini and other dictators, and I wholly agree that dictatorships are undesirable, but the dictators in their own countries have done a very great deal towards increasing the standard of physical fitness and physical health. It is partly a matter of food and partly, in some cases, a matter of training, but any really competent dictator would have gone some way towards solving this problem of bringing more food to the people who need it; and there are people who need it to-day. I believe that it is not the fact that we have not got a dictatorship which makes us more sluggish in facing this problem; it is the fact that it is a problem under no fewer than five different Departments. If my right hon. Friend the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) had been given this specific job to tackle when he was given his most unfortunate post, a post that I think was most unfair to him, I believe he would have tackled it and that we should have gone much further towards its solution than we have in fact gone, but when you get the Minister of Health dealing with the maternity services, the President of the Board of Education dealing with milk for schools, the Board of Trade dealing largely with the imports of food, the Unemployment Assistance

  1319
  Board and the Ministry of Labour dealing with the relief organisations in the country, and, finally, the Minister of Agriculture dealing with supplies, how can this problem ever be sat down to and tackled, as it should be, by one co-ordinate?
  It is a composite problem, which cannot be solved other than slowly by continual conferences between different Ministers and different Ministries, themselves often relying on the further decision of a third Minister. I believe there is something to be done along the lines of giving a specific Minister this particular task and letting him prepare a proper scheme. I have always felt that if there is need for a Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence, there is even more need for a Minister for the Co-ordination of Health Services. The Minister of Health at the moment is really the Minister of Housing and all kinds of other things.
  I must stop now. I would like to say, in conclusion, that I do not think the Motion that hon. Members opposite have put on the Paper can be proved against this Government. The position now is far better than it was, but I believe there is a case to answer and that there are people in this country who are not getting enough food because they cannot afford to get enough food. I think that that is a problem which the Government would be unwise not to realise is exercising the minds of a great many people on this side of the House as well as on the other side.
  9.52 p.m.
  Mr. ARTHUR GREENWOOD: When we put down this censure Motion to-day, we had thought there would have been a real clash of opinion, because the subject of the Debate to-day really goes down to the root of our political differences. This, with us, is the fundamental social problem, and I am sorry that hon. and right hon. Members opposite have not risen to the height of their opportunity. When my right hon. Friend the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) spoke, there were not broad beams on the faces of hon. Members opposite. The facts are too hard to be denied, and their contribution to-day, I am bound to say, where it has not been disgraceful has been negligible. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health did not show his
  1320
  usual lightsome spirit. He obviously felt some difficulty in the task with which he was faced. There has been a strange reluctance in the last few years, and again in the Debate to-day, to admit the existence of something called malnutrition. Malnutrition is an ugly academic word. I propose to use a more provocative term and to call it semi-starvation, and to refer to underfeeding and to this process of social suicide which the State is permitting to continue.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health, in his speech, asked what malnutrition was, told us a good deal about what other people had said it was or was not, never defined it himself, and then said there was not much of it. That, I believe, was really the burden of his speech. In spite of all that the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Crossley) said about the attention which the present Government and their predecessors have given to this problem, the truth is that the National Government have been too much concerned with painting pictures of returning prosperity ever to peer below the surface of our national life. To-day Members on those benches have not been a happy band of brothers. They know that what has been said about the existence of this problem is true. They do their best to close their eyes to all this tragic spectacle of poverty. They would, if they could, and if their consciences allowed them, blind themselves to all the social evils which flow from poverty. I have gathered to-day that poverty is a state of blessedness, is the ideal state of life, that people ought to live on water and raw carrots. If that be so, why do not hon. Members follow that law of life themselves? It is heroic to be poor when you are rich, but the rich very rarely voluntarily follow the path of poverty. Why? Because they know that poverty would kill all that they value in life.
  It is all very well for people in fortunate circumstances to speak as some of them have done to-day, but in their hearts they know they would not change the places they now occupy for the position of a person who is on unemployment benefit. [HON. MEMBERS: "Would you?"] Certainly not, but I have never made a virtue of poverty. It is left to Members of the Tory party to make a virtue of poverty, to regard poverty as something which leads to holiness. I am

  1321
  not pretending that I would be poor if I could avoid it. I am making the complaint that hon. Members opposite, never having lived the lives of the poor, never having known what poverty really means, are prepared to extol the virtues of poverty as a way of saintliness of life.
  Viscountess ASTOR: Who did that?
  Mr. GREENWOOD: The Noble Lady is the arch-apostle of the existing system. As I said at the beginning of my speech, this is the fundamental issue between Members on these benches and Members on those benches, and it is sheer hypocrisy on the part of hon. Members opposite to pretend that semi-starvation, privation and under-feeding have no evil results on the person who suffers from them.
  The Minister to-day was more than usually vague. This Government prefers to hide ugly facts under averages; semi-starvation does not exist if there is a good average. The average person does not exist in this country. To tell a miner who is earning 30s. a week that the average wage in this country is 50s. is little comfort to him. It is little comfort to his wife, because it does not give her the additional 20s. with which to buy food. Averages hide a multitude of social sins, and this use of averages does not help us very much. What are the broad facts of this situation I want to put one or two perfectly straightforward questions to the Minister of Agriculture to which I hope we shall get an answer. There have been inquiries into this problem of nutrition and certain conclusions have been reached. They may be provisional conclusions if you like, and it may be said that we must have more research. Research never fills empty stomachs. But certain provisional conclusions have been reached by independent authorities and by Government committees with regard to what is necessary for the maintenance of an ordinary physical standard—a minimum standard and an optimum standard. The Minister of Health complained this afternoon that Sir John Orr talked about an optimum standard. Why should he not? Why should the people whom we on these benches represent have to put up with the minimum? I do not want to quote a lot of figures, but let me quote the Ministry of Health Advisory Committee on Nutrition, the members of which were
  1322
  all experts. one or two were referred to by the Minister, and he ought to accept their words because he quoted some things they said. The committee was dealing with diets in Poor Law children's homes, and they said:
  "The weekly cost per head of the meals specified in the appendix"—
  I will not go through them, because there are recipes which I do not understand, but it is a very varied diet which, according to this committee, is really necessary for children in Poor Law institutions:
  "The weekly cost per head of the meals specified in the appendix would vary according to the locality of the home, the number of children in the home, and the conditions under which the foodstuffs are purchased. In a home containing about 200 children we assume the weekly cost, allowing one pint of milk per child per day, would be about 4s. 6½d. per head if all provisions were bought at contract prices."
  Some of the names which were signed to that statement were quoted by the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon. Does he believe that or does he not? Since this report was issued that food could not be bought for 4s. 6½d. Sir John Orr was quoted to-day, and the right hon. Gentleman had got somebody to go with a small tooth-comb through his writings and speeches to find some little grain of comfort that he could quote against us. What has the right hon. Gentleman to say against this? I quote from page 49 of Sir John Orr's book. The right hon. Gentleman's acquaintance with this volume is not very great, and I advise him to use it as his bed-book to-night.
  "The state of health of the people of the different groups suggests that as income increases disease and death-rate decrease, children grow more rapidly, adult stature is greater, and general health and physique improve."
  What is the right hon. Gentleman's answer to that? Are these facts about what is necessary to keep people, even at the minimum—not the optimum—denied? They are not denied. The right hon. Gentleman dare not deny them. Does he deny that there are a very large number of people in this country whose means do not permit them to buy the food necessary to live up to the minimum standard Let us take a low estimate. Let us assume that the cost of food for a man, wife and three children is 25s. per week, which is not extravagant. Add to that those overhead charges which have

  1323
  to be met even before food is bought—rent, clothing, insurances, household renewals, coal and light. There are hundreds of thousands of workers in this country who are not receiving, whether as wages or unemployment benefit or Poor Law relief sufficient to buy the food to maintain bare physical subsistence. Is that or is that not a fact? Will the Minister of Agriculture deny that?
  It may be that wisacres on the other side of the House know how to spend money better than the working-class housewife. It is idle to say, as some hon. Members have said, that working-class housewives do not buy the right food, do not buy it in the best market, do not cook it properly. If I were a betting man, I would back the working-class housewife against the ladies who rule in the houses of Mayfair. I object to Tories on those benches trying to explain away the poverty of the people by talking of the ignorance of the working classes. Let us admit—because we must be kind to our opponents—that people do not spend to the best advantage.
  Viscountess ASTOR: Hear, hear!
  Mr. GREENWOOD: Even if the working-class housewife could buy her foodstuffs on the scale that the Noble Lady does, and not have to go to the small shops round the corner; even if she had the most modern kitchens, with all the necessary appliances for cooking, instead of the old pots and pans that so many of them have; even if every working-class housewife had a diploma in cookery, could she then make ends meet on the wages that come into hundreds of thousands of working-class homes? The money that comes home on Fridays or Saturdays is not sufficient. Is that or is that not a fact? I have asked the Minister of Agriculture whether the Government deny the money expenditure required to maintain a bare physical standard of life. I have asked him whether every family in this country enjoys an income which would enable them to live up to that standard. Is the answer "Yes" or "No"? If the answer is "No," then malnutrition, semi-starvation, under-feeding exist.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health made play with the word "widespread." I say under-feeding is
  1324
  widespread. I say there is not a working-class district where you will not find people living below the poverty line. I returned early this morning from Derby, a prosperous town. The Prime Minister wrote a letter to them to tell the people there how prosperous they are. I saw people there who were on poor relief who were not receiving sufficient, on the Minister of Health's own showing, to keep body and soul together, and that in a relatively prosperous town. Of course malnutrition is widespread. I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he denies that? If the scientific investigations, which have not gone far enough for hon. Members opposite, represent anything near the truth, unless working-class families have hidden resources unknown to public assistance committees and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or unless they have a secret hump on which they live, there must be malnutrition in hundreds of thousands of homes. I should like the right hon. Gentleman to say whether that is so or not.
  Sir F. FREMANTLE: Does the right hon. Gentleman deny this statement from the Committee on Scottish Health Services?
  "although there is no evidence of widespread and gross malnutrition."
  Mr. GREENWOOD: I am coming to that in a moment. I have adduced a general argument that there are large numbers of people in this country who, as investigation has shown, have not an income sufficient to maintain a decent physical standard of life. If that is denied, well and good. But we have now proof that malnutrition exists. I know that the Government are very reluctant to admit it. Let us admit that the statement just quoted to us is the statement of an honest man. I could produce some Scottish medical authorities who would say that there is malnutrition. I am not going into the cases, because I have not got them here, but medical officer after medical officer has stated that malnutrition exists in the area for which he is responsible. Malnutrition is not something which comes to light like measles or diphtheria. It is a creeping paralysis among the people. It takes time to come to light. Are all the statements of medical officers, who have said for two, three or four years now, that malnutrition exists and is extending, to be

  1325
  repudiated from that bench? That is my second question to the Minister of Agriculture. It is a very important question. He happens to have against him some of the greatest authorities upon nutrition in this country, authorities who have given the Minister of Health a standard for the Poor Law child.
  Will the Government repudiate as unsatisfactory and untrue the statements which have been made by committees of independent people and by responsible medical officers, as to the existence of malnutrition? I say that there is sufficient evidence now to prove that malnutrition has become a grave and increasingly important national problem. There is a certain amount of converse evidence. I do not propose to quote it in detail, but there is ample evidence to show that where children, who are not enjoying the optimum diet, are enabled to receive the kind of foodstuffs necessary, their physique, their health, their general tone and their whole being are improved. Is that denied? Can it be denied, in face of the experiments in Lanarkshire, to which my right hon. Friend referred, and of other experiments, which have proved the phenomonal improvement in the physique of boys and girls when they get the right kind of food? Nobody can deny that? Good. We have got one admission, anyhow. Is it not fair to assume—and this is my third question to the right hon. Gentleman—that the absence from the diet of things which improve physique will result in a deterioration of health? I hope that the Minister of Agriculture will answer that question. What further proof is needed that, among large num hers of our people, there is a physical condition which is highly unsatisfactory and is no credit to us as a nation?
  What have this Government done in the past five years to deal with the situation? We have been told that they have done something. They began their very awkward and storm-tossed passage by reducing the rates of benefit of the unemployed and by forcing reductions of wages, when the people who were controlling the Government were not likely to suffer from malnutrition. There was a deliberate act of policy which pushed down to the poverty line large numbers of our people. The Government slowed down deliberately the social services. They said that the financial condition of
  1326
  the country would not permit of expenditure on what are life-saving services for the mass of the people of the country. Side by side with that standstill policy, there was a spate of tariffs, levies, restrictions, and schemes of one kind and another, for which the mass of the consumers in this country have to pay, either by doing without things or by paying more for them. The policy of the Minister of Agriculture has been one of prosperity for the farmer and paucity of supplies for the consumer. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] It has been admitted on those benches to-night. When, two days ago, the right hon. Gentleman made his announcement about his beef scheme, was he thinking about malnutrition? He was thinking about his friends the farmers. Is it going to mean more beef in the homes of the people? [An HON. MEMBER: "Yes."] We are glad to think that there is at least one optimist left on the Government benches.
  The whole trade policy of this Government, and of the one that preceded it, was to put money into some people's pockets in order to take food away from a large number of people. And now there are some new contributions to be made. What has been suggested to-day? More inquiry. Does it help a hungry child to be told that the Prime Minister, in whom everybody trusts, is having another inquiry? We are faced with stark realities. The problem is there. The answer to poverty is more money in the pockets of the people. I am not denying the necessity for further inquiries. Let us inquire. But we have inquired sufficiently to know that there is in this land to-day a volume of poverty which means that numbers of people are going without the necessities of life. Then the next great constructive proposal, and I hope this will ever be remembered, is that of raw carrots and cold water. I commend it as a diet to hon. Members opposite.
  Mr. EDE: It is what donkeys eat.
  Mr. GREENWOOD: I do not think it will in any way forward the Minister of Agriculture's policy. He cannot build up British agriculture on carrots and cold water; it is better that people should have more milk and more beef, and other vegetables besides carrots. To what a pretty pass we are reduced when hon. Members opposite, who would themselves

  1327
  never dream of living on carrots and cold water, suggest it as a diet for the poor. Mr. Speaker, I think that that is offensive. There is only one way to deal with poverty, and that is to give people more spending power. The Minister of Health admitted that himself this afternoon. The way out of this problem is not to teach people how to cook, but to give them utensils and the food to cook—
  Sir F. FREMANTLE: And the knowledge how to do it.
  Mr. GREENWOOD: I suppose the bon. Gentleman is a good cook himself. I am not, and do not pretend to be. There is a quotation which I should like to give, because it has a bearing on this question. It is from a speech made by Mr. Colin Campbell, when presiding at the annual meeting of the National Provincial Bank at the end of January this year, in which he was arguing for increased purchasing power among the masses of the people. He said:
  "It had been estimated that, if the undernourished classes in this country were able to enjoy a full diet, there would be an increased trade in foodstuffs amounting to about £200,000,000 a year, giving revived activity to British farming without harming overseas trade or shipping."
  I ask the House, is it not sensible, in a democratic nation facing the trials which we are facing now, to see that the people who are the backbone of the nation have at least the necessaries of life? Are we asking too much? All hon. Members on the opposite side of the House who understand the beginning of politics—many of them do not—know this to be true. If the drums of war began to beat, hon. Members opposite would be on the recruiting platforms asking the miners and the workers to go to war again. They would be heroes again then. When it comes to a national crisis it is not people who sit on that bench who matter. It is the common people. I have said before at this Box, that the one thing that matters more than anything else to our people now is the quality of the race.
  Mr. HANNAH: Who denies it?
  Mr. GREENWOOD: There are people in this House and outside who regard this Debate a great deal more seriously than hon. Members opposite. They try
  1328
  to ride off on a serious issue on a wave of frivolity. They have done it before. They will pay the penalty for it. I shall stand at this Box when many Members here are outside. [Interruption.] I am in the hands of the House. The right hon. Gentleman has to reply, and this kind of interruption does not make his reply any easier. I come back to where I started. It is as well that hon. Members should be reminded of the essential truths of the problem. The problem is one that divides us from hon. Members opposite. They have to-day treated the poor of our land as an inferior race. They have said things in the House which they dare not say in any working-class district. They treat a problem like this with levity. We have said that the curse of the poor is their poverty. That is true. We have said that hon. and right hon. Members opposite will do anything for the poor except get off their backs. We have said, and we shall reaffirm it to-night in the Division Lobby, defeated though we may be on this occasion, that there is no cure for poverty except a classless society and social justice for everybody. There can be no abolition of this canker which is eating at the very vitals of our national life except equality of opportunity for all people, based on common citizenship, and calling for common sacrifices. Until we get that, this disease will remain, and will rot the very fibre of the British Constitution.
  I believe in the British Constitution. I have been longer in this House than some of the people jeering. I have tried to be a good parliamentarian. I believe in Parliament, and I believe in a Parliament representing people who are equipped to exercise the responsibilities of citizenship. But if you deny them those elementary rights without which they cannot exercise these responsibilities, you are heading for ruin. I believe that there is enough common sense, even in this House of Commons, to realise that you cannot play for ever with the lives of our people. The more intelligent they become, the more they understand the possibilities of life, the more they realise the opportunities which are denied them, the more dangerous that poverty will become. The way to real democracy in this country is through prosperity for the common people. There is no other way. It will

  1329
  not come as long as we have yelping dogs on the other side of the House. [Interruption.] The House to-night on that side side has shown itself in a way which is a disgrace to the State. Those who are responsible for it will not reap the fruits of their action to-night, but sooner or later, and sooner rather than later, the shackles of poverty will be taken from the arms and the necks of the poor.
  10.33 p.m.
  Mr. ELLIOT: The right hon. Member opposite, I am glad to notice, has found in the concluding phrases of his remarks a sentiment with which we can all agree. He is a defender of the British Constitution and he believes in Parliament. We are willing to go so far with him the more readily, since we disagree fundamentally with him in everything else he said to-night, and not the least, that this was a dividing line between our party and the party opposite. What a piece of effrontery for the right hon. Member to try and score a point that way, and still more so after the statesmanlike speech with which the subject was opened by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston).
  Mr. LOGAN: Do not be insulting.
  Mr. ELLIOT: Are we on this side to remain in silence when called yelping dogs? Effrontery is a small word to use in regard to language such as that. The right hon. Gentleman used strong, if irrelevant language, and he cannot complain, and to do him justice he will not complain, of a little hard hitting back.
  Mr. LOGAN: He can stand it.
  Mr. ELLIOT: We will hear the right hon. Gentleman yelping in his time.
  Mr. SHINWELL: He can give you all you want.
  Mr. SPEAKER: That is not the way to conduct debate.
  Mr. SHINWELL: With great respect to you, Mr. Speaker, I venture to point out that the right hon. Gentleman opposite began his speech in a definitely provocative fashion, and, what is more, with the highest respect to yourself, I say that he will get all that he asks for.
  Mr. SPEAKER: One speech in this House must be answered by another. That is indeed the essence of debate.
  1330
  But it cannot be answered if hon. Members are not allowed to make their speeches.
  Mr. ELLIOT: I say that the allegation that the subject of the Debate to-night represents the dividing line between this side of the House and the opposite side is an allegation which was not borne out by the language of the right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Motion, not borne out by many speeches from that side of the House, not borne out by the speeches on this side, and it will certainly not be borne out by me, and least of all will it be borne out by the very bible of this Debate, the book entitled "Food, Health and Income," a book which was written by a scientist who is himself in the employment of the agricultural Departments of this country, and most of whose data were gained in conjunction with the Market Supply Committee set up under the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1933, presided over by Lord Linlithgow, now Viceroy of India, whom nobody will describe as a strong supporter of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  It has never been outside the tradition of our party to take an interest in the social condition of the people. It is a tradition of ours older than the Labour party itself, and it will be a tradition of ours long after that party has ceased to exist. The difficulty in which the House is placed to-night is the difficulty of hon. and right hon. Members opposite in having put down a Vote of Censure and having brought no evidence to support the main conditions which they said they would adduce. They bring forward these accusations of widespread malnutrition. The right hon. Gentleman opposite said that it was a growing malnutrition. Does he still stick to that?
  Mr. GREENWOOD indicated assent.
  Mr. ELLIOT: There is no evidence whatever to prove it, nor did the right hon. Gentleman try to prove it. He paid no attention to the evidence given by the Minister of Health, and numerous speakers who followed, of the improved state of health in this country, the fall in infantile mortality, the fall in, the tuberculosis rate, the fall in all the vital statistics of the country. The right hon. Gentleman does not deny that, and he cannot deny it. The Motion makes

  1331
  reference to the destruction of essential foodstuffs. I was waiting with interest for any cases of that sort to be brought forward from the opposite side of the House. I waited in vain. It is true that references were made to the destruction of herrings during the course of the year. Is it the first time that herrings have been destroyed in Scotland or off the Scottish coasts? Were there no examples of it during the tenure of office of the right hon. Gentleman opposite? Were there no evidences of it when he was responsible for the poor of this country as Minister of Health? Did he take any steps whatever to deal with it then? Did he introduce any organisation to deal with it? By what right does the right hon. Gentleman hurl it at us as the dividing line between hon. Members opposite and us, that we have taken no steps to deal with this matter?
  I have looked up the figures and I find that there was not a single year during which the right hon. Member for West Stirling was Under-Secretary of State for Scotland and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) was Minister of Health and responsible for the conditions of the poorer people of this country, in which food was not destroyed. In 1929, on 13th June, 518 trans were destroyed at Lerwick. On 18th June further large quantities were destroyed at Lerwick. In 1930, on 11th June, 280 crans were destroyed at Stronsay and on 27th May, 1,300 crans were destroyed at Lerwick. Again on 26th June, 8,000 crans were destroyed at Lerwick, more in one single day than were destroyed during the whole of the past 12 months. The right hon. Gentleman said that there was a vital difference between his party and ours in this matter. There is. The vital difference between them and us is that they stood still and looked at it, while we have instituted inquiries and organisations to deal with it.
  The right hon. Member for Wakefield talked about hypocrisy. It is a word which can be used on both sides of the House in this connection. He talked about other things. He talked about the condition of the poor. Has he no recollection of the inquiries into the condition of the people, inquiries as to how their conditions could be improved, which took place when he was in office, joint discus-
  1332
  sions with hon. Members on this side, to which the Minister of Labour was a party? Does he wish the books of that committee to be opened? Does he wish the minutes of that committee to be published? He knows better than anyone else what he was discussing with us in 1931. Since that time the condition of the Unemployment Insurance Fund has been improved and the allowance for children has been raised by 50 per cent. Does he deny that? Does he deny that steps have been taken to improve the condition of the people? Does he deny that the cost of living is 10 per cent. below what it was when the Labour Government was in office? He said that the poor have to pay more. How is it then that the figures of consumption have risen? How is it that the amount consumed has gone up, and that the cost of living has gone down? How does that square with his accusation? He recklessly hurls about these accusations without a jot or a tittle of evidence in support of them. He does not advance the great cause which we all have at. heart by such methods. An improvement in the condition of the people, the abolition of slums, are our objects as they are theirs. The right hon. Gentleman put some questions which he thought would be puzzling and teasing for me to answer. He said: "Do you deny that there are people who are not in receipt of sufficient, sums of money to get an optimum diet in this country?"
  HON. MEMBERS: Minimum diet.
  Mr. ELLIOT: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that people are not getting the minimum diet? That is something which can easily be seen. If people are below the minimum, it is the duty of the local authorities in this country to see that they are brought up to it. That is a statutory duty which they have. The relieving officer can be charged before the law courts of this country if he is not giving benefits where they are needed. Nobody suggests that there are not diets of the people of this country which are deficient. Deficiencies exist, but they are being reduced. There are 22,500,000 people in this country in receipt of the optimum diet, a figure never reached before in any period of any society. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is only half the people!"] That is true, but to have raised half the people to such a point that no further

  1333
  improvement of any kind or description can be made in their diet is a claim which is, at any rate, worth regard.
  Furthermore, an improvement is taking place in the condition of the others. No one would deny that the consumption figures, which I have here, for home foodstuffs and protective foodstuffs have risen steadily, more particularly during the terms of office of the Government. Nobody denies that. The right hon. Gentleman accused us a little while ago of frivolity; does he deny the evidence of statistics in this matter? He cannot deny it. His attitude does neither himself nor his hon. Friends any good. He asked what we are doing to improve the position of the people of this country. Let me take my own city, the city of Glasgow, which is well known to the right hon. Gentleman and to many hon. Members here, some of whom share his political convictions and some of whom do not. I hope the right hon. Gentleman has seen the figures for milk in schools in March, 1936. There were in March 53,000 children on a paying basis for milk and 54,877 getting daily milk without making a penny of contribution towards it. How many received it either one way or the other when he and his right hon. Friends were in office? What did he and his right hon. Friends do for the health of Glasgow? We have made positive advances towards improving the health of Glasgow which at any rate deserve something more than some of the adjectives which the right hon. Gentleman used and the attitude which he displayed in the remarks with which he wound up this great and important Debate.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: Is there not room for a great improvement in Glasgow?
  Mr. ELLIOT: There is room for a great improvement. Even with 54,000 children receiving milk free there is room for a great improvement, and that improvement is continuing. Only this week we have started a new scheme for Glasgow whereby not only schoolchildren, but the toddlers from two years onwards get milk at the stations which have been opened. That scheme is being tried in four constituencies in Glasgow—in the Gorbals Division, the Bridgeton Division, the Govan Division and in Anderston, one of the Wards of my own Division of Kelvin-grove, which is one of the poorest in
  1334
  Glasgow. These stations have been opened and 5,000, 10,000 and 15,000 children are attending at them and getting supplies of milk. Naturally more remains to be done in Glasgow, but more is being done and more will be done. The differences between us are not differences of ideal. The ideal of a fit nation, thank God, is the ideal of the whole of this House. It is on the advance towards that ideal that we have a reasonable and legitimate difference of opinion.
  The hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) delivered a speech whose tone all on this side welcomed—a tone of an advance towards a goal which we all desire and a desire to move still faster to that goal. But with all that we have to combine what we have said in our Amendment, "a reasonable remuneration to our Home producers." That is the real crux of this whole great problem. We know it more particularly from the side of agriculture, but the question of the primary producers is a question which is not confined to one side of the House. Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have it in the case of the miners. I agree that they themselves have more mining seats than we have, just as we have more agricultural seats than they have, and the problem of the miners bears more immediately on them than on us.
  Mr. GALLACHER: There is nothing for the miners.
  Mr. ELLIOT: It is true that over the country as a whole the price of coal is relatively much above the price of foodstuffs.
  Mr. BATEY: No, no!
  Mr. ELLIOT: The wholesale prices of coal as compared with pre-war are above the wholesale prices of food as compared with pre-war. In spite of that, the House and the country welcome an advance in the price of coal which would bring a better remuneration to the primary producers of fuel, and it does not lie in the mouths of those who desire and welcome that advance to complain of a reasonable remuneration for the primary producers of agricultural produce.
  Mr. T. SMITH: The miner is not getting it.
  Mr. ELLIOT: The miner's wage has gone up and is still above the wage of the agricultural worker. The wage of the

  1335
  agricultural worker has been held in the grips of a depression which has lowered the wages of agricultural workers all over the world. There is no other country in the world where the wages of agricultural workers have been held. In America, on the Continent and in the Dominions, in all the great progressive countries, the remuneration of the agricultural worker has gone down 10, 20, 40 and 50 per cent. In this country it has not only been maintained but increased. How has it been increased?
  Mr. T. SMITH: Through the trade unions.
  Mr. ELLIOT: It has been increased by the Measures which have been submitted to this House by this Government, and if it had not been for those Measures it would not have been increased, and if those Measures were taken away it would fall to what it was in pre-war days. Nobody in this House would contemplate that for a moment. I was accused by the right hon. Member for Wakefield of being the farmers' friend. I glory in that. I was accused of having put on tariffs, subsidies and quotas. These were necessary to maintain the supply of home-produced foodstuffs in this country and to maintain an adequate remuneration for the agricultural labourer. I look at the record of agriculture through the tenure of office of right hon. and hon. Members opposite, and I see that during their tenure of office home production of foodstuffs was not increasing but diminishing. There was a fall of 10 per cent. in wheat acreage and a rise of 50 per cent. when we come into power and passed those Measures to which reference has been made. There was a fall in the production of pig meat of some 20 per cent. during their tenure of office and a rise of about 35 per cent, when we came into power.
  I am not suggesting that it was due only to the advent to power of this Government, that agricultural production increased, although I say that had it not been for those Measures, the decline which manifested itself during the tenure of office of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite would have continued and extended, and widespread bankruptcy would have come upon the countryside. What is more, there would have been a subsequent rise in food prices which
  1336
  would have more than wiped out all the temporary advantages gained by the consumers in this country. Surely, the remuneration of the primary producers, one of the main objects of any Government, will not be denied by the party opposite to the agricultural producers. That reasonable remuneration demands the special Measures which we have taken. That being so, it does not lie in the mouths of hon. Members opposite to complain of those Measures which still mean a cost of living 10 per cent. below what it was when they were in power and an annual saving of £150,000,000 and more, compared with the cost of foodstuffs in the year 1929.
  The House is now being asked to pass a Resolution which would be a Vote of Censure on the Government. We have put down an Amendment which we believe more accurately represents the facts of the case. I do not ask the House to take that Amendment as a Vote of Censure on the Opposition, though I might have done so, if all the speeches from the benches opposite had been in the same tone and temper as that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield. I ask the House to pass the Amendment because it is, as I say, an accurate representation of the facts of the case. I ask the House to pass it in order to enable a continuance of the advance towards better nutrition for all, and the sweeping away of the reproach that many thousands, indeed millions of our people do not get the full advantage of modern powers of production and are not able to consume those foodstuffs which science is ready and waiting to offer them.
  It is true that great advances have yet to be made, but those will be made by co-operation and not by fighting each other across the Floor of the House. We have managed to keep agriculture largely out of the immediate clash of party politics. [Laughter.] The right hon. Gentleman opposite takes so little part in agricultural debates that he does not know the temper of the House on that subject. We hope to be able to continue the progress which has been made, nutrition and to maintain that co-operation which, as the right hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate said, has already been evinced in the experimental work initiated by him and carried on by us

  1337
  when we came into office. He did not treat his subject in the spirit of bitter gibing, which the right hon. Gentlemen who closed the Debate tried to introduce, and much greater progress will be made if we can keep that spirit out of our discussions. It is certain that, while great things have been done, great things remain to be done; and it is that and
  no other spirit that I ask the House to defeat the Motion and accept the Amendment.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 139; Noes, 359.

  Division No. 277.]

  AYES.

  [11.1 p.m.

  Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke

  Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.

  Owen, Major G.

  Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)

  Grenfell, D. R.

  Paling, W.

  Adams, D. (Consett)

  Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)

  Parker, J.

  Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)

  Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

  Parkinson, J A.

  Adamson, W. M.

  Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'Isbr.)

  Groves, T. E.

  Potts, J.

  Ammon, C. G.

  Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)

  Price, M. P.

  Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)

  Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

  Pritt, D. N.

  Banfield, J. W.

  Hardle, G. D.

  Quibell, D. J. K.

  Barnes, A. J.

  Harris, Sir P. A.

  Rathbone, Eleanor (English Univ's.)

  Barr, J.

  Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

  Richards, R. (Wrexham)

  Batey, J.

  Henderson, T. (Tradeston)

  Riley, B.

  Bellenger, F.

  Hicks, E. G.

  Ritson, J.

  Benson, G.

  Hills, A. (Pontefract)

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

  Bevan, A.

  Holland, A.

  Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)

  Broad, F. A.

  Hopkin, D.

  Rowson, G.

  Bromfield, W.

  Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

  Salter, Dr. A.

  Brooke, W.

  Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

  Seely, Sir H. M.

  Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (S. Ayrshire)

  John, W.

  Sexton, T. M.

  Buchanan, G.

  Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.

  Shinwell, E.

  Burke, W. A.

  Jones, A. C. (Shipley)

  Silkin, L.

  Cape, T.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Silverman, S. S.

  Cassells, T.

  Kelly, W. T.

  Simpson, F. B.

  Chater, D.

  Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

  Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

  Cluse, W. S.

  Kirby, B. V.

  Smith, E. (Stoke)

  Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.

  Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G.

  Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B Lees- (K'ly)

  Compton, J.

  Lathan, G.

  Smith, T. (Normanton)

  Cove. W. G.

  Lawson, J. J.

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Daggar, G.

  Leach, W.

  Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)

  Dalton, H.

  Lee, F.

  Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)

  Davies, D. L. (Pontypridd)

  Leslie, J. R.

  Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

  Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

  Logan, D. G.

  Thurtle, E.

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Macdonald, G. (Ince)

  Tinker, J. J.

  Day, H.

  McGhee, H. G.

  Viant, S. P.

  Debbie, W.

  MacLaren, A.

  Walker, J.

  Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)

  MacNeill, Weir, L.

  Watkins, F. C.

  Ede, J. C.

  Mainwaring, W. H.

  Watson, W. McL.

  Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)

  Mander, G. e M.

  Westwood, J.

  Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

  Marklew, E.

  Wilkinson, Ellen

  Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)

  Marshall, F.

  Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

  Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.

  Mathers, G.

  Williams, T. (Don Valley)

  Gallacher, W.

  Messer, F.

  Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)

  Gardner, B. W.

  Milner, Major J.

  Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

  Garro Jones, G. M.

  Montague, F.

  Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

  George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)

  Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Ha'kn'y, S.)

  Young, Sir R. (Newton)

  Gibbins, J.

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

  Green, W. H. (Deptford)

  Muff, G.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Mr. Whiteley and Mr. Charleton.

  NOES.

  Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.

  Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M.

  Bowyer, Capt. Sir G. E. W.

  Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)

  Baxter, A. Beverley

  Boyce, H. Leslie

  Albery, Sir I. J.

  Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

  Bracken, B.

  Alexander, Brig.-Gen. Sir W.

  Beauchamp, Sir B. C.

  Braithwaite, Major A. N.

  Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)

  Beaumont, M. W. (Aylesbury)

  Brass, Sir W.

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

  Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)

  Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

  Anstruther-Gray, W. J.

  Beit, Sir A. L.

  Brocklebank, C. E. R.

  Apsley, Lord

  Bennett, Capt. Sir E. N.

  Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham)

  Assheton, R.

  Bernays, R. H.

  Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)

  Astor, Major Hon. J. J. (Dover)

  Birchall, Sir J. D.

  Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)

  Astor, Visc'tess (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Bird, Sir R. B.

  Browne, A. C. (Belfast, W.)

  Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)

  Blair, Sir R.

  Bull, B. B.

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Blaker, Sir R.

  Bullock, Capt. M.

  Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

  Boothby, R. J. G.

  Burghley, Lord

  Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.

  Bossom, A. C.

  Burton, Col. H. W.

  Balfour, G. (Hampstead)

  Boulton, W. W.

  Butler, R. A.

  Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanet)

  Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart

  Caine, G. R. Hall.

  Balniel, Lord

  Bower, Comdr. R. T.

  Campbell, Sir E. T.

  Cartland, J. R. H.

  Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)

  Magnay, T.

  Carver, Major W. H.

  Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

  Maitland, A.

  Cary, R. A.

  Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)

  Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.

  Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

  Cayzer, Sir C. W. (City of Chester)

  Gridley, Sir A. B.

  Mason, Lt.-Col. Hon. G. K. M.

  Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)

  Grigg, Sir E. W. M.

  Maxwell, S. A.

  Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)

  Grimston, R. V.

  Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

  Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)

  Gritten, W. G. Howard

  Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)

  Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord Hugh

  Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E. (Drake)

  Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)

  Channon, H.

  Guest, Hon. I. (Brecon and Radnor)

  Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

  Chorlton, A. E. L.

  Guest,Maj. Hon. O.(C'mb'rw'll,N.W.)

  Mitchell, H. (Brentford and Chiswick)

  Christie, J. A.

  Guinness, T. L. E. B.

  Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

  Clarry, Sir Reginald

  Gunston, Capt. D. W.

  Mitcheson, Sir G. G.

  Clydesdale, Marquess of

  Hacking, Rt. Hon. D. H.

  Moore, Lieut.-Col. T. C. R.

  Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir G. P.

  Hamilton, Sir G. C.

  Moore-Brabazon, Lt.-Col. J. T. C.

  Colman, N. C. D.

  Hanbury, Sir C.

  Morgan, R. H.

  Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. D. J.

  Hannah, I. C.

  Morrison, W. S. (Cirencester)

  Cook, T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)

  Hannon, Sir P. J. H.

  Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.

  Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)

  Harbord, A.

  Munro, P.

  Cooper, Rt.Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh,W.)

  Hartington, Marquess of

  Nall, Sir J.

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Haslam, H. C. (Horncastle)

  Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H. H.

  Courthope, Col. Sir G. L.

  Haslam, Sir J. (Bolton)

  Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

  Craddock, Sir R. H.

  Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.

  O'Connor, Sir Terence J.

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.

  O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh

  Craven-Ellis, W.

  Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-

  Orr-Ewing, I. L.

  Critchley, A.

  Herbert, A. P. (Oxford U.)

  Palmer, G. E. H.

  Croft, Brig.-Gen. Sir H. Page

  Herbert, Capt. Sir S. (Abbey)

  Patrick, C. M.

  Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

  Hoare, Rt. Hon. Sir S.

  Peake, O.

  Croom-Johnson, R. P.

  Holmes, J. S.

  Peat, C. U.

  Cross, R. H.

  Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

  Penny. Sir G.

  Crossley, A. C.

  Hopkinson, A.

  Percy, Rt. Hon. Lord E.

  Crowder, J. F. E.

  Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon. L.

  Perkins, W. R. D.

  Cruddas, Col. B.

  Horsbrugh, Florence

  Peters. Dr. S. J.

  Culverwell, C. T.

  Howitt, Dr. A. B.

  Petherick, M.

  Davidson, Rt. Hon. Sir J. C. C.

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

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)

  Hudson, R. S. (Southport)

  Pilkington, R.

  Davison, Sir W. H.

  Hulbert, N. J.

  Plugge, L. F.

  Dawson, Sir P.

  Hume, Sir G. H.

  Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

  De Chair, S. S.

  Hunter, T.

  Porritt, R. W.

  Denman, Hon. R. D.

  Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir T. W. H.

  Pownall, Sir Assheton

  Denville, Alfred

  Jackson, Sir H.

  Radford, E. A.

  Despencer-Robertson, Major J. A. F.

  James, Wing-Commander A. W.

  Raikes, H. V. A. M.

  Dodd, J. S.

  Jarvis, Sir J. J.

  Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.

  Donner, P. W.

  Joel, D. J. B.

  Ramsbotham, H.

  Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.

  Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k N'w'gt'n)

  Ramsden, Sir E.

  Dower, Capt. A. V. G.

  Jones, L. (Swansea, W.)

  Rankin, R.

  Drewe, C.

  Keeling, E. H.

  Rathbone, J. R. Bodmin)

  Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)

  Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)

  Rawson, Sir Cooper

  Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)

  Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)

  Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

  Dugdale, Major T. L.

  Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)

  Reid, Captain A. Cunningham

  Duggan, H. J.

  Keyes, Admiral of the Fleet Sir R.

  Remer, J. R.

  Duncan, J. A. L.

  Kimball, L.

  Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

  Dunglass, Lord

  Kirkpatrick, W. M.

  Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

  Dunne, P. R. R.

  Lamb, Sir J. Q.

  Ropner, Colonel L.

  Eales, J. F.

  Latham, Sir P.

  Ross, Major Sir R. D. (L'nderry)

  Eastwood, J. F.

  Law, R. K. (Hull, S. W.)

  Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)

  Eckersley, P. T.

  Leckie, J. A.

  Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.

  Edmondson, Major Sir J.

  Leech, Dr. J. W.

  Russell, A. West (Tynemouth)

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Lees-Jones, J.

  Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)

  Ellis, Sir G.

  Leigh, Sir J.

  Salmon, Sir I.

  Emery. J. F.

  Leighton, Major B. E. P.

  Salt, E. W.

  Emmott, C. E. G. C.

  Levy, T.

  Samuel, Sir A. M. (Farnham)

  Emrys-Evans, P. V.

  Lewis, O.

  Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)

  Entwistle, C. F.

  Liddall, W. S.

  Sandeman, Sir N. S.

  Errington, E.

  Lindsay, K. M.

  Sanderson, Sir F. B.

  Erskine Hill, A. G.

  Little, S E. Graham-

  Sandys, E. D.

  Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)

  Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.

  Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir P.

  Everard, W. L.

  Lloyd, G. W.

  Scott, Lord William

  Fildes, Sir H.

  Locker-Lampson, Comdr. O. S.

  Selley, H. R.

  Findlay, Sir E.

  Loftus, P. C.

  Shakespeare G. H.

  Fleming, E. L.

  Lovat-Fraser, J. A.

  Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)

  Fox, Sir G. W. G.

  Lumley, Capt. L. R.

  Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)

  Fraser, Capt. Sir I.

  Lyons, A. M.

  Shepperson, Sir E. W.

  Fremantle, Sir F. E.

  Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

  Simmonds, O. E.

  Furness, S. N.

  MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.

  Fyfe, D. P. M.

  M'Connell, Sir J.

  Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.

  Ganzonl, Sir J.

  McCorquodale, M. S.

  Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)

  Gibson, C. G.

  MacDonald Rt. Hn. J. R. (Scot. U.)

  Smith, L. W. (Hallam)

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

  MacDonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)

  Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)

  Gledhill, G.

  Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)

  Smithers, Sir W.

  Gluckstein, L. H.

  McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.

  Somerset, T.

  Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.

  McKie, J. H.

  Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)

  Goldie, N. B.

  Macmillan, H. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

  Goodman, Col. A. W.

  Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.

  Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, E.)

  Gower, Sir R. V.

  Macquisten, F. A.

  Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.

  1340

  1341

  Spears, Brig.-Gen. E. L.

  Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (Padd., S.)

  Wedderburn, H. J. S.

  Spender-Clay, Lt.-CI. Rt. Hn. H. H

  Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

  Wells, S. R.

  Spens, W. P.

  Thomson, Sir J. D. W.

  Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'l'd)

  Titchfield, Marquess of

  Williams, C. (Torquay)

  Stewart, J.

  Henderson (Fife, E.) Touche, G. C.

  Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)

  Stewart, William J. (Belfast, S.)

  Train, Sir J.

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Storey, S.

  Tree, A. R. L. F.

  Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)

  Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.

  Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.

  Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)

  Tufneil, Lieut.-Com. R. L.

  Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

  Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)

  Turton, R. H.

  Wise, A. R.

  Strickland, Captain W. F.

  Wakefield, W. W.

  Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount

  Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw'h)

  Walker-Smith, Sir J.

  Womersley, Sir W. J.

  Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

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

  Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

  Ward, Irene (Wallsend)

  Wragg, H.

  Sutcliffe, H.

  Wardlaw-Milne, Sir J. S.

  Tasker, Sir R. I.

  Warrender, Sir V.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Tate, Mavis C.

  Waterhouse, Captain C.

  Captain Margesson and Dr. Morris-Jones.

  Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

  Wayland, Sir W. A.

  Question put, "That the proposed words be there added."
  The House divided: Ayes, 350; Noes, 141.

  Division No. 278.]

  AYES.

  [11.12 p.m.

  Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.

  Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)

  Everard, W. L.

  Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)

  Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)

  Fildes, Sir H.

  Albery, Sir I. J.

  Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord Hugh

  Findlay, Sir E.

  Alexander, Brig.-Gen. Sir W.

  Channon, H.

  Fleming, E. L.

  Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)

  Chorlton, A. E. L.

  Fox, Sir G. W. G.

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

  Christie, J. A.

  Fraser, Capt. Sir I.

  Anstruther-Gray, W. J.

  Clarry, Sir Reginald

  Fremantle, Sir F. E.

  Apsley, Lord

  Clydesdale, Marquess of

  Furness, S. N.

  Assheton, R.

  Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir G. P.

  Fyfe, D. P. M.

  Astor, Major Hon. J. J. (Dover)

  Colman, N. C. D.

  Ganzoni, Sir J.

  Astor, Visc'tess (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. D. J.

  Gibson, C. G.

  Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)

  Cook, T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)

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

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)

  Gledhill, G.

  Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

  Cooper, Rt. Hon. T. M. (E'nburgh,W.)

  Gluckstein, L. H.

  Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.

  Balfour, G. (Hampstead)

  Courthope, Col. Sir G. L.

  Goldie, N. B.

  Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanet)

  Craddock, Sir R. H.

  Goodman, Col. A. W.

  Balniel, Lord

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Gower, Sir R. V.

  Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M.

  Craven-Ellis, W.

  Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)

  Baxter, A. Beverley

  Critchley, A.

  Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

  Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

  Croft, Brig.-Gen. Sir H. Page

  Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)

  Beauchamp, Sir B. C.

  Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

  Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.

  Beaumont, M. W. (Aylesbury)

  Croom-Johnson, R. P.

  Gridley, Sir A. B.

  Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)

  Cross, R. H.

  Grigg, Sir E. W. M.

  Belt, Sir A. L.

  Crossley, A. C.

  Grimston, R. V.

  Bennett, Capt. Sir E. N.

  Crowder, J. F. E.

  Gritten, W. G. Howard

  Bernays, R. H.

  Cruddas, Col. B.

  Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E. (Drake)

  Birchall, Sir J. D.

  Culverwell, C. T.

  Guest, Hon. I. (Brecon and Radnor)

  Bird, Sir R. B.

  Davidson, Rt. Hon. Sir J. C. C.

  Guest, Maj. Hon. O.(C'mb'rw'll,N.W.)

  Blair, Sir R.

  Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)

  Guinness, T. L. E. B.

  Blaker, Sir R.

  Dawson, Sir P.

  Gunston, Capt. D. W.

  Boothby, R. J. G.

  De Chair, S. S.

  Hacking, Rt. Hon. D.H.

  Bossom, A. C

  Denville, Alfred

  Hamilton, Sir G. C.

  Boulton, W. W.

  Despencer-Robertson, Major J. A. F.

  Hanbury, Sir C.

  Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart

  Dodd, J. S.

  Hannah, I. C.

  Bower, Comdr. R. T.

  Donner, P. W.

  Hannon, Sir P. J. H.

  Bowyer, Capt. Sir G. E. W.

  Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.

  Harbord, A.

  Boyce, H. Les e

  Dower, Capt. A. V. G.

  Hartington, Marquess of

  Bracken, B.

  Drewe, C.

  Haslam, H. C. (Horncastle)

  Braithwaite, Major A. N.

  Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)

  Haslam, Sir J. (Bolton)

  Brass, Sir W.

  Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)

  Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.

  Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

  Dugdale, Major T. L.

  Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.

  Brocklebank, C. E. R.

  Duggan, H. J.

  Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-

  Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham)

  Duncan, J. A. L.

  Herbert, A. P. (Oxford U.)

  Brown, Rt.-Hon. E. (Leith)

  Dunglass, Lord

  Herbert, Capt. Sir S. (Abbey)

  Brown, Brig,-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)

  Dunne, P. R. R.

  Hoare, Rt. Hon. Sir S.

  Browne, A. C. (Belfast, W.)

  Eales, J. F.

  Holmes. J. S.

  Bull, B. B.

  Eastwood, J. F.

  Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

  Bullock, Capt. M.

  Eckersley, P. T.

  Hopkinson, A.

  Burghley, Lord

  Edmondson, Major Sir J.

  Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon. L.

  Burton, Col. H. W.

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Horsbrugh, Florence

  Butler, R. A.

  Ellis, Sir G.

  Howitt, Dr. A. B.

  Caine, G. R. Hall-

  Emery, J. F.

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

  Campbell, Sir E. T.

  Emmott, C. E. G. C.

  Hudson, R. S. (Southport)

  Carver, Major W. H.

  Emrys-Evans, P. V.

  Hulbert, N. J.

  Cary, R. A.

  Entwistle, C. F.

  Hume, Sir G. H.

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Errington, E.

  Hunter, T.

  Cayzer, Sir C. W. (City of Chester)

  Erskine Hill, A. G.

  Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir T. W. H.

  Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)

  Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)

  Jackson, Sir H.

  James, Wing-Commander A. W.

  Morrison, W. S. (Cirencester)

  Smithers, Sir W.

  Jarvis, Sir J. J.

  Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.

  Somerset. T.

  Joel, D. J. B.

  Munro, P.

  Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)

  Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k N'w'gt'n)

  Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H. H.

  Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

  Jones, L. (Swansea, W.)

  Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

  Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, E.)

  Keeling, E. H.

  O'Connor, Sir Terence J.

  Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.

  Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)

  O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh

  Spears, Brig.-Gen. E. L.

  Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)

  Orr-Ewing, I. L.

  Spender-Clay, Lt.-CI. Rt. Hn. H. H.

  Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)

  Palmer, G. E. H.

  Spens, W. P.

  Keyes, Admiral of the Fleet Sir R.

  Patrick, C. M.

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'l'd)

  Kimball, L.

  Peake, O.

  Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)

  Kirkpatrick, W. M.

  Peat, C. U.

  Storey, S.

  Lamb, Sir J. Q.

  Percy, Rt. Hon. Lord E.

  Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.

  Latham, Sir P.

  Perkins, W. R. D.

  Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)

  Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.)

  Petherick, M.

  Srauss, H. G. (Norwich)

  Leckie, J. A.

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Strickland, Captain W. F.

  Leech, Dr. J. W.

  Pilkington, R.

  Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw'h)

  Lees-Jones, J.

  Plugge, L. F.

  Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

  Leigh, Sir J.

  Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

  Leighton, Major B. E. P.

  Porritt, R. W.

  Sutcliffe, H.

  Levy, T.

  Pownall, Sir Assheton

  Tasker, Sir R. I.

  Lewis, O.

  Radford, E. A.

  Tate, Mavis C.

  Liddall, W. S.

  Ralkes, H. V. A. M.

  Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

  Little, Sir E. Graham-

  Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.

  Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (Padd., S.)

  Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.

  Ramsbotham, H.

  Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

  Lloyd, G. W.

  Ramsden, Sir E.

  Thomson, Sir J. D. W.

  Locker-Lampson, Comdr. O. S.

  Rankin, R.

  Titchfield, Marquess of

  Loftus, P. C.

  Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

  Touche, G. C.

  Lovat-Fraser, J. A.

  Rawson, Sir Cooper

  Train, Sir J.

  Lumley, Capt. L. R.

  Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

  Tree, A. R. L. F.

  Lyons, A. M.

  Reid, Captain A. Cunningham

  Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.

  Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

  Remer, J. R.

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Com. R. L.

  MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.

  Rickards, G. W. (Sklpton)

  Turton, R. H.

  M'Connell, Sir J.

  Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

  Wakefield, W. W.

  McCorquodale, M. S.

  Ropner, Colonel L.

  Walker-Smith, Sir J.

  MacDonald Rt. Hn. J. R. (Scat. U.)

  Ross, Major Sir R. D. (L'derry)

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

  MacDonald, Rt. Hon M. (Ross)

  Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)

  Ward, Irene (Wallsend)

  Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)

  Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.

  Wardlaw-Milne, Sir J. S.

  McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.

  Russell, A. West (Tynemouth)

  Warrender, Sir V.

  McKie, J. H.

  Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)

  Waterhouse, Captain C.

  Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.

  Salmon. Sir I.

  Wayland, Sir W. A.

  Macquisten, F. A.

  Salt, E. W.

  Wedderburn, H. J. S.

  Magnay, T.

  Samuel, Sir A. M. (Farnham)

  Wells, S. R.

  Maitland, A.

  Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)

  Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.

  Makins, Brig-Gen. E.

  Sandeman, Sir N. S.

  Williams, C. (Torquay)

  Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

  Sanderson, Sir F. B.

  Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)

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

  Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir P.

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Mason, Lt.-Col. Hon. G. K. M.

  Scott, Lord William

  Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)

  Maxwell, S. A.

  Selley, H. R.

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.

  Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

  Shakespeare, G. H.

  Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

  Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)

  Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)

  Wise, A. R.

  Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)

  Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)

  Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount

  Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

  Shepperson, Sir E. W.

  Womersley, Sir W. J.

  Mitchell, H. (Brentford and Chiswick)

  Simmonds, O. E.

  Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley

  Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.

  Wragg, H.

  Mitcheson, Sir G. G.

  Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.

  Moore, Lieut.-Col. T. C. R.

  Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Moore-Brabazon, Lt.-Col. J. T. C.

  Smith, L. W. (Hallam)

  Sir George Penny and Dr. Morris-Jones.

  Morgan, R. H.

  Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)

  NOES.

  Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke

  Charleton, H. C.

  Gibbins, J.

  Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)

  Chater, D.

  Green, W. H. (Deptford)

  Adams, D. (Consett)

  Cluse, W. S.

  Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.

  Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)

  Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.

  Grenfell, D. R.

  Adamson, W. M.

  Compton, J.

  Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)

  Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'Isbr.)

  Cove, W. G.

  Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

  Ammon, C. G.

  Daggar, G.

  Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

  Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)

  Dalton, H.

  Groves, T. E.

  Bonfield, J. W.

  Davies, D. L. (Pontypridd)

  Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)

  Barnes, A. J.

  Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

  Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

  Barr, J.

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Hardie, G. D.

  Batey, J.

  Day, H.

  Harris, Sir P. A.

  Bellenger, F.

  Debbie, W.

  Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

  Benson, G.

  Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)

  Henderson, T. (Tradeston)

  Bevan, A.

  Ede, J. C.

  Hicks, E. G.

  Broad, F. A.

  Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)

  Hills, A. (Pontefract)

  Bromfield, W.

  Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

  Holland, A.

  Brooke, W.

  Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)

  Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

  Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (S. Ayrshire)

  Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.

  Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

  Buchanan, G.

  Gallacher, W.

  Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.

  Burke, W. A.

  Gardner, B. W.

  Jones, A. C. (Shipley)

  Cape. T.

  Garro Jones, G. M.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Cassells, T.

  George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)

  Kelly, W. T.

  1344

  1345

  Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

  Owen, Major G.

  Smith, E. (Stoke)

  Kirby, B. V.

  Paling, W.

  Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)

  Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G.

  Parker, J.

  Smith, T. (Normanton)

  Lathan, G.

  Parkinson, J. A.

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Lawson, J. J.

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)

  Leach, W.

  Potts, J.

  Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)

  Lee, F.

  Price, M. P.

  Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

  Leslie, J. R.

  Pritt, D. N.

  Thurtle, E.

  Logan, D. G.

  Quibell, D. J. K.

  Tinker, J. J.

  Macdonald, G. (Ince)

  Rathbone, Eleanor (English Univ's.)

  Viant, S. P.

  McGhee, H. G.

  Richards, R. (Wrexham)

  Walker, J.

  MacLaren, A.

  Riley, B.

  Watkins, F. C.

  Macmillan, H. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Ritson, J.

  Watson, W. McL.

  MacMillan, M. (Western Isles)

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

  Westwood, J.

  MacNeill, Weir, L.

  Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)

  Whiteley, W.

  Mainwaring, W. H.

  Rowson, G.

  Wilkinson, Ellen

  Mander, G. e M.

  Salter, Dr. A.

  Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

  Marklew, E.

  Seely, Sir H. M.

  Williams, T. (Don Valley)

  Marshall, F.

  Sexton, T. M.

  Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)

  Messer, F.

  Shinwell, E.

  Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

  Milner, Major J.

  Silkin, L.

  Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

  Montague, F.

  Silverman, S. S.

  Young, Sir R. (Newton)

  Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Ha'kn'y, S.)

  Simpson, F. B.

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

  Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Muff, G.

  Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

  Mr. John and Mr. Mathers.

  Main Question, as amended, put.
  The House divided: Ayes, 328; Noes, 135.

  Division No. 279.]

  AYES.

  [11.26 p.m.

  Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Ellis, Sir G.

  Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)

  Cayzer, Sir C. W. (City of Chester)

  Emery, J. F.

  Albery, Sir . J.

  Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)

  Emmott, C. E. G. C.

  Alexander, Brig.-Gen. Sir W.

  Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)

  Emrys-Evans, P. V.

  Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)

  Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)

  Entwistle, C. F.

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

  Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord Hugh

  Errington, E.

  Anstruther-Gray, W. J.

  Channon, H.

  Erskine Hill, A. G.

  Apsley, Lord

  Chorlton, A. E. L.

  Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)

  Assheton, R.

  Christie, J. A.

  Everard, W. L.

  Astor, Major Hon. J. J. (Dover)

  Clarry, Sir Reginald

  Flides, Sir H.

  Astor, Visc'tess (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Clydesdale, Marquess of

  Findlay, Sir E.

  Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)

  Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir G. P.

  Fleming, E. L.

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Colman, N. C. D.

  Fox, Sir G. W. G.

  Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

  Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. D. J.

  Fraser, Capt. Sir I.

  Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.

  Ccok, T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)

  Fremantle, Sir F. E.

  Balfour, G. (Hampstead)

  Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)

  Furness, S. N.

  Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanet)

  Cooper, Rt.Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh,W.)

  Fyfe, D. P. M.

  Balneil, Lord

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Ganzoni, Sir J.

  Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M.

  Courthope, Col. Sir G. L.

  Gibson, C. G.

  Baxter, A. Beverley

  Craddock, Sir R. H.

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

  Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Gledhill, G.

  Beauchamp, Sir B. C.

  Craven-Ellis, W.

  Gluckstein, L. H.

  Beaumont, M. W. (Aylesbury)

  Critchley, A.

  Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.

  Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)

  Croft, Brig.-Gen. Sir H. Page

  Goldie, N. B.

  Beit, Sir A. L.

  Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

  Goodman, Col. A. W.

  Bennett, Capt. Sir E. N.

  Croom-Johnson, R. P.

  Gower, Sir R. V.

  Bernays, R. H.

  Cross, R. H.

  Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)

  Bird, Sir R. B.

  Crowder, J. F. E.

  Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)

  Blair, Sir R.

  Cruddas, Col. B.

  Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.

  Blaker, Sir R.

  Culverweil, C. T.

  Gridley, Sir A. B.

  Bossom, A. C.

  Davidson, Rt. Hon. Sir J. C. C.

  Grigg, Sir E. W. M

  Boulton, W. W.

  Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)

  Grimston, R. V.

  Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart

  Dawson, Sir P.

  Gritten, W. G. Howard

  Bower, Comdr. R. T.

  De Chair, S. S.

  Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E. (Drake)

  Bowyer, Capt. Sir G. E. W.

  Denville, Alfred

  Guest,Maj. Hon. O.(C'mb'rw'll,N.W.)

  Boyce, H. Leslie

  Despencer-Robertson, Major J. A. F.

  Guinness, T. L. E. B.

  Braithwaite, Major A. N.

  Dodd, J. S.

  Gunston, Capt. D. W.

  Brass, Sir W.

  Donner, P. W.

  Hacking, Rt. Hon. D. H.

  Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

  Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.

  Hamilton, Sir G. C.

  Brocklebank, C. E. R.

  Dower, Capt. A. V. G.

  Hanbury, Sir C.

  Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham)

  Drewe, C.

  Hannah, I. C.

  Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)

  Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)

  Hannon, Sir P. J. H.

  Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)

  Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)

  Harbord, A.

  Browne, A. C. (Belfast, W.)

  Dugdale, Major T. L.

  Hartington, Marquess of

  Bull, B. B.

  Duggan. H. J.

  Haslam, H. C. (Horncastle)

  Bullock, Capt. M.

  Duncan, J. A. L.

  Haslam, Sir J. (Bolton)

  Burghley, Lord

  Dunne, P. R. R.

  Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.

  Butler, R. A.

  Eales, J. F.

  Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.

  Caine, G. R. Hall-

  Eastwood, J. F.

  Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-

  Campbell, Sir E. T.

  Eckersley, P. T.

  Herbert, Capt. Sir S. (Abbey)

  Carver, Major W. H.

  Edmondson, Major Sir J.

  Hoare, Rt. Hon. Sir S.

  Cary, R. A.

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Holmes, J. S.

  Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

  Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

  Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.

  Hopkinson, A.

  Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)

  Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)

  Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon. L.

  Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)

  Smith, L. W. (Hallam)

  Horsbrugh, Florence

  Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

  Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)

  Howitt, Dr. A. B.

  Mitchell, H. (Brentford and Chiswick)

  Smithers, Sir W.

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

  Mitcheson, Sir G. G.

  Somerset, T.

  Hudson, R. S. (Southport)

  Moore, Lieut,-Col. T. C. R.

  Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)

  Hulbert, N. J.

  Moore-Brabazon, Lt.-Col. J. T. C.

  Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, E.)

  Hume, Sir G. H.

  Morgan, R. H.

  Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.

  Hunter, T.

  Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H.

  Spears, Brig.-Gen. E. L.

  Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir T. W. H.

  Morrison, W. S. (Cirencester)

  Spender-Clay, Lt.-Cl. Rt. Hn. H. H.

  Jackson, Sir H.

  Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.

  Spens, W. P.

  James, Wing-Commander A. W.

  Munro, P.

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'I'd)

  Jarvis, Sir J. J.

  Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H. H.

  Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)

  Joel, D. J. B.

  Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

  Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.

  Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k N'w'gt'n)

  O'Connor, Sir Terence J.

  Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)

  Jones, L. (Swansea, W.)

  Palmer, G. E. H.

  Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)

  Keeling, E. H.

  Patrick, C. M.

  Strickland, Captain W. F.

  Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)

  Peake, O.

  Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw'h)

  Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)

  Peat, C. U.

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

  Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)

  Perkins, W. R. D.

  Sutcliffe, H.

  Keyes, Admiral of the Fleet Sir R.

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Tasker, Sir R. I.

  Kimball, L.

  Pilkington, R.

  Tate, Mavis C.

  Kirkpatrick, W. M.

  Plugge, L. F.

  Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

  Lamb, Sir J. Q.

  Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

  Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (Padd., S.)

  Latham, Sir P.

  Porritt, R. W.

  Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

  Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.)

  Pownall, Sir Assheton

  Thomson, Sir J. D. W.

  Leckie, J. A. Radford, E. A.

  Titchfield,

  Marquess of

  Leech, Dr. J. W.

  Raikes, H. V. A. M.

  Touche, G. C.

  Lees-Jones, J.

  Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.

  Train, Sir J.

  Leigh, Sir J.

  Ramsbotham, H. Tree,

  A. R. L. F.

  Leighton, Major B. E. P.

  Ramsden, Sir E.

  Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.

  Levy, T.

  Rankin, R.

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Com. R. L.

  Lewis, O.

  Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

  Turton, R. H.

  Liddall, W. S.

  Rawson, Sir Cooper

  Wakefield, W. W.

  Little, Sir E. Graham-

  Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

  Walker-Smith, Sir J.

  Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.

  Reid, Captain A. Cunningham

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

  Lloyd, G. W.

  Remer, J. R.

  Ward. Irene (Wallsend)

  Locker-Lampson, Comdr. O. S.

  Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

  Wardlaw-Milne, Sir J. S.

  Loftus, P. C.

  Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

  Warrender, Sir V.

  Lovat-Fraser, J. A.

  Ropner, Colonel L.

  Waterhouse, Captain C.

  Lumley, Capt. L. R.

  Ross, Major Sir R. D. (L'derry)

  Wayland, Sir W. A.

  Lyons, A. M.

  Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)

  Wedderburn, H. J. S.

  Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

  Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.

  Wells, S. R.

  MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.

  Russell, A. West (Tynemouth)

  Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.

  M'Connell, Sir J.

  Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)

  Williams, C. (Torquay)

  McCorquodale, M. S.

  Salmon, Sir I.

  Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)

  MacDonald, Rt. Hn. J. R. (Scot. U.)

  Salt, E. W.

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  MacDonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)

  Samuel, Sir A. M. (Farnham)

  Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)

  McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.

  Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.

  McKie, J. H.

  Sanderson, Sir F. B.

  Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

  Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.

  Scott, Lord

  William Wise, A. R.

  Macquisten, F. A.

  Selley, H. R.

  Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount

  Maitland, A.

  Shakespeare, G. H.

  Womersley, Sir W. J.

  Makins, Brig. Gen. E.

  Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)

  Wragg, H.

  Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

  Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)

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

  Shepperson, Sir E. W.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Mason, Lt.-Col. Hon. G. K. M.

  Simmonds, O. E.

  Sir George Penny and Mr. James Stuart.

  Maxwell, S. A.

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.

  NOES.

  Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke

  Cluse, W. S.

  Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

  Adams, D. (Consett)

  Compton, J.

  Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

  Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)

  Daggar, G.

  Groves, T. E.

  Adamson, W. M.

  Dalton, H.

  Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)

  Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)

  Davies, D. L. (Pontypridd)

  Ha, J. H. (Whitechapel)

  Ammon, C. G.

  Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

  Hardie, G. D.

  Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Harris, Sir P. A.

  Banfield, J. W.

  Day, H.

  Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

  Barnes, A. J.

  Dabble, W.

  Henderson, T. (Tradeston)

  Barr, J.

  Dunn, E. (Rather Valley)

  Hicks, E. G.

  Batey, J.

  Ede, J. C.

  Hills, A. (Pontefract)

  Bellenger, F.

  Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)

  Holland, A.

  Benson, G.

  Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

  Hopkin, D.

  Bevan, A.

  Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)

  Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

  Broad, F. A.

  Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.

  Jenkins, Sir W. (Heath)

  Bromfield, W.

  Gallacher, W.

  John, W.

  Brooke, W.

  Gardner, B. W.

  Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.

  Brown, Rt. Hn. J. (S. Ayrshire)

  Garro Jones, G. M.

  Jones, A. C. (Shipley)

  Buchanan, G.

  Gibbins, J.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Burke, W. A.

  Green, W. H. (Deptford)

  Kelly, W. T.

  Cape, T.

  Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.

  Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

  Cassells, T.

  Grenfell, D. R.

  Kirby, B. V.

  Chater, D.

  Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)

  Lansbury, At. Hon. G

  1348

  1349

  Lathan, G.

  Parkinson, J. A.

  Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)

  Lawson, J. J.

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Smith, T. (Normanton)

  Leach, W.

  Potts, J.

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Lee, F.

  Price, M. P.

  Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)

  Leslie, J. R.

  Pritt, D. N.

  Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)

  Logan, D. G.

  Quibell, D. J. K.

  Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

  Macdonald, G. (Ince)

  Rathbone, Eleanor (English Univ's.)

  Thurtle, E.

  McGhee, H. G.

  Richards, R. (Wrexham)

  Tinker, J. J.

  MacLaren, A.

  Riley, B.

  Viant, S. P.

  MacMillan, M. (Western Isles)

  Ritson, J.

  Walker, J.

  MacNeill, Weir, L.

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

  Watkins, F. C.

  Mainwaring, W. H.

  Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)

  Watson, W. McL.

  Mander, G. le M.

  Rowson, G.

  Westwood, J.

  Marklew, E.

  Salter, Dr. A.

  Wilkinson, Ellen

  Marshall, F.

  Seely, Sir H. M.

  Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

  Mathers, G.

  Sexton, T. M.

  Williams, T. (Don Valley)

  Messer, F.

  Shinwell, E.

  Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)

  Milner, Major J.

  Silkin, L.

  Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

  Montague, F.

  Silverman, S. S.

  Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

  Morrison, Rt. Hon H. (Ha'kn'y, S.)

  Simpson, F. B.

  Young, Sir R. (Newton)

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

  Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)

  Muff, G.

  Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Paling, W.

  Smith, E. (Stoke)

  Mr. Whiteley and Mr. Charleton.

  Resolved,
  "That this House has noted with satisfaction the increasing attention that is being given to the problems of nutrition, welcomes the steps which have been and are being taken to secure the maximum supplies of food to our people combined with a reasonable remuneration to our home producers, and approves the continuous efforts of His Majesty's Government to promote better health and social conditions in this country."

  IMPORT DUTIES ACT, 1932.
  11.38 p.m.
  The SECRETARY for MINES (Captain Crookshank): I beg to move,
  "That the Additional Import Duties (No. 12) Order, 1936, dated the twenty-ninth day of June, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said twenty-ninth day of June, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, be approved."
  Perhaps it will be for the convenience of the House if I take this and the next Order on the Paper together. My first words must be of regret at the absence of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, who has undergone an operation. The House will join me in expressing the hope that the operation will be successful.
  The first Order, No. 12, deals with a proposed additional duty on rice, millet and buckwheat starches, and cornflour, custard powder and laundry materials containing such starches which at present are subject only to the general ad valorem duty. Something like 90 per cent. of the starch is used for laundry purposes. As the Committee in their report say that they have received no objections from
  1350
  the consumers—the laundry people—who have made no appearance, there seems to be no reason to suppose that the duty if enacted will cause any great hardship.
  The remaining use to which this starch is put is for the production of high-class writing papers. The Committee are of opinion that any increased cost that may be involved as a result of the duty in the making of high-class writing paper is not such as to warrant the withholding of a substantial degree of protection from the British manufacturer of such starches. The figures reveal that there has been a great increase in recent years in the importation of these starches into this country and also that the importations have been at a continually lower price. In fact, home production has been severely hit as a result of continental price-cutting. In 1933 the imports were just over 5,000 tons, and the average c.i.f. price £16 15s. 6d. Last year imports rose to 9,553 tons, and the average price £14 18s. 8d. In the early months of this year there was a still greater drop in the price. Home production in 1933 was about 65 per cent. of the total amount used in this country, but in 1934 it dropped to 57 per cent., and while the figures for 1935 are not yet available there is reason to suppose that the percentage has dropped still further. The principal importing countries are Germany, Belgium and Holland, and in this country the manufacturing centres are London, Norwich and Hull.
  The proposal is that there should be an additional duty at such a rate as will, with the ad valorem duty, amount to 7s. 6d. per cwt. on these categories of starch.

  1351
  The second Order deals with an entirely different subject, fabrics, which consist either wholly or in part of paper yarn, whether coated or otherwise treated or not. The proposal is that when these fabrics are of a weight exceeding 12 ozs. to the square yard, they should be dealt with under the Order. This fabric is used for the making of paper chairs and linen baskets. The order is intended primarily to cover fabrics which are wholly of paper yarn, but the definition has been extended, otherwise it might be possible to evade the new duty by inserting fibre or some other substance into it. The idea of having a limit of weight is in order to exclude the much finer fabrics, some of which we do not make in this country, and which are used principally for hat making. It is a new fabric in this country, and recently it was only made in the higher grade. Now British manufacturers have been able to make it also in the lower grades, but they think that if there is a progressive deterioration in the quality of the lower grades those who have begun to use the fabrics might be tempted to give them up. Imports used to come from Germany, but they are now coming from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, the United States and Japan.
  That is why these proposals are being made. If accepted they will not have any great effect upon the cost of chairs or linen baskets, as it takes only about 1½ yards of material to make a chair, and for a linen basket, only three-quarters to 1¼ yards. In the case of chairs the wholesale selling prices range between 7s. 6d. and £1, and in the case of linen baskets from 5s. to 9s. 6d.; any increase of the price as a result of this duty will not therefore be substantial.
  I hope with that description of these two Orders, the House will be good enough to accept the Motions.
  11.46 p.m.
  Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: It is a very great pity that, as usual, we should be-bate such an important question as this at so late an hour. In deference to the House, and more particularly to my colleagues, I shall not speak at any length, but this is really a first-class example of a ramp against the public that is worthy of long and careful consideration by the House. In the first
  1352
  place, let me say, on Order No. 12, dealing with starch, that the report is not true. Nothing is more derogatory to the conduct of business in this House than that we should grow into the practice of accepting White Paper reports, especially when they are recommendations for the taxation of the subject, which are not true. The Secretary for Mines himself stated, in dealing with starch, that the report says that the consumers had no complaint to make. That is an amazing statement. I put forward strong opposition on behalf of laundries employing 15,000 workers and on behalf of 7,500,000 registered consumers. Although I was not able to be present personally at the interview with the Import Duties Advisory Committee, I sent a representative of my committee. Yet we are told that the consumers have made no complaints. It is disgraceful that Parliament should be asked to pass taxation of this kind on the strength of a White Paper that is absolutely untrue.
  The next point I wish to make refers to the commodity. I hope hon. Members will realise what is really behind this duty. The Secretary for Mines said that this industry is centred in three places only—London, Hull and Norwich. That is true. The application comes from three firms: Samuel Berger's, J. J. Colman's and Reckitt's of Hull. Will anybody suggest that those firms are in need of protective assistance from this House? The record on 'Change of these firms shows that they are in a highly flourishing condition to-day. The quotations on the Stock Exchange to-night on the shares of these firms are: J. J. Colman's, £1 shares, £4 0s. 6d.; Reckitt's, £1 shares, £5 15s. 6d. The record of their distributed profits varies from 23 per cent. to 25 per cent. in interest, and there have been frequent bonuses of from 20 per cent. to 25 per cent. Those are the industries that are said to require this additional tax to be urgently imposed to save them from extinction or from the growth of imports from abroad.
  What is the nature of the increase? The report admits that the present rate of duty is 10 per cent. ad valorem. The duty now proposed is 7s. 6d. per cwt. That is equal to £7 10s. a ton. According to the report, the average price of the imported article last year was about £14, so that the duty is to be raised,

  1353
  by the vote of this House to-night, from 10 per cent. to 52 per cent. We heard a good deal about the high rate of duty on iron and steel last week. It was said that the 50 per cent. duty on iron and steel was almost unheard of. Here we have a duty which is to be fastened on to the backs of the consumers specially for the benefit of these three great firms which are paying such high profits. When it is said that this does not affect the consumers, let me point out that there are three classes of trade affected. There are the paper makers, who appeared before the Import Duties Committee and said that if this enormously steep increase was put on the duty, it would greatly affect their employment. It vitally affects laundries, employing tens of thousands of workers. The third class, which the Import Duties Committee did not think of at all, are the housewives. There is no grocery business in the country which is not still selling large quantities of starch to housewives. Although I am glad to see that laundries are expanding and the housewives becoming increasingly free from the drudgery of washing, there are still thousands of working women who have to augment the miserable wages we have been discussing to-night by taking in washing.
  11.52 p.m.
  Sir PERCY HARRIS: I would like to join in the expressions of sympathy with the Parliamentary Secretary, who, we hope, will soon be well and back in his place. I would have liked, for once, to have seen the President of the Board of Trade, who is really responsible for these Orders, coming down to the House to defend them. The Import Duties Advisory Committee have far less work than they used to have, but they insist on giving us these meagre reports. They should give the House a full report stating all the figures and facts. The Committee should do the House the courtesy of giving it as full information as they have available. It has always been a principle of supporters of the new policy of import duties that raw materials should be exempt. This is a material which, although it may not be in its primary state, is still the raw material of many industries, and we should hesitate before we put on duties as high as 50 per cent. One of the industries that has always held its own
  1354
  has been the production of linen collars. The export trade of that industry has to face severe competition in the Dominions and in foreign countries. We should discourage this growing tendency of taxing raw materials. It looks as if the Committee, having exhausted their job of giving protection to manufacturing industries, are now picking out raw materials, which in principle the House of Commons has laid down should only be subject to a tax of 10 per cent. That is an important departure.
  11.55 p.m.
  Mr. H. STRAUSS: I am not less anxious than other hon. Members that these Orders should not take an unnecessary time, but as a firm in my constituency has been attacked by the right hon. Member for the Hillsborough Division (Mr. Alexander) I am entitled to speak on this important Order, which I can show is necessary and reasonable. What conceivable thing does the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Hillsborough Division imagine to be proved by the fact that the shares of Messrs. J. & J. Colman, Limited stand at any particular height? As everybody knows, starch is not the only commodity which that company produces. Their prosperity as a whole, or the value of their shares, proves nothing material to the one issue which the House has now to consider. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman could challenge the fact—at any rate he did not attempt to do so—that the prices at which starch has recently been imported from Germany are uneconomic prices, having no reference to the cost of production in the country of origin and only rendered possible by the manipulation of exchanges and the bounty paid to exporters by the German Government. As regards the point made by the hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris), who spoke for the Liberal party, I think he was under the impression that the commodity used in the textile trade was affected. That is not the case. The maize, wheat and potato starches which are of importance to the textile industry are not included in the Order.
  The increase in imports of this commodity which has been so noticeable is almost wholly due to subsidised foreign competition, especially from Germany. Importation from France, where there

  1355
  is no subsidy, has practically ceased. I shall give the House a few figures to show what has been happening, in relation first to the prices and secondly to the quantity of the imports of starch from Germany to this country. In 1931 the average landed price in this country was £19 10s. per ton; in 1935, it was £13 13s. 8d. per ton—a drop of nearly £6 per ton. As regards quantity, in the same period there has been an increase in the importation from 1,631 tons in 1931 to 5,198 tons last year. That sensational increase can only be explained in one way, namely, that the price at which it is being sold to this country has no relation whatever to the price at which it is being produced. The Germans in their need, or imagined need, for sterling are prepared to subsidise the industry to almost any extent. There is another important point to be considered in connection with the production of starch in this country and in other countries. The home industry in this case is not an inefficient industry. It is a very efficient industry and it asks for relief from a highly artificial and unfair form of competition. It has proved its case to the satisfaction of the Import Duties Advisory Committee, and I ask the House, in view of those facts, to have confidence in the recommendation which has been made, and to support this most necessary duty.
  12.0 m.
  Mr. MESSER rose—
  HON. MEMBERS: Divide!
  Mr. MESSER: If hon. Members are impatient, I would remind them that it is not the fault of those who sit on this side of the House that we are debating important business of this character at this late hour. I want to refer to the second Order, Order No. 14, and to add my protest against the House being called upon to discuss business of this importance under conditions that give little opportunity for an adequate debate. The material in question, paper yarn, is something about which I doubt very much if many Members of this House know anything at all. It is used, as has been stated, for the purpose of enabling art furniture to develop as an industry in this country. The report of the Import Duties Advisory Committee states:
  1356
  "Official statistics are not available"—
  I do not know why not—
  "but our inquiries satisfy us that the quantities entering this country are very considerable in relation to the total demand."
  What does that mean? I am not at all satisfied, knowing a little bit about this trade, that there is any reason for any increase in this duty. I would have been glad of the opportunity to debate this matter, and I regret that the action of the Government in putting this business down for discussion at this late hour prevents my doing so.
  12.2 a.m.
  Captain CROOKSHANK: The hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) commented on the shortness of the report of the Import Duties Advisory Committee. I take note of that, and no doubt the committee also will do so. As regards the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Hillsborough Division (Mr. A. V. Alexander), the first answer which I would make, when he says that the report is untrue with regard to the statement that the consumers have entered no objection to the proposals, is that I thought it meant that no representations had been made on behalf of the general body of consumers.
  Mr. ALEXANDER: All I have to say is that if a Government Department like the Board of Trade does not know when my movement opposes a matter like this, it is time it woke up.
  Captain CROOKSHANK: The right hon. Gentleman was criticising the report of the Import Duties Advisory Committee, and from that report I understood that the representative laundry associations did not appear against these proposals. I think a careful reading of the report will show that that is the reference that is made in it to this question. When the report says:
  "Much the greater proportion of rice starch is used for laundry purposes, and we know of no reason why the proposed duty, if enacted, should cause hardship to such consumers,"
  I should have thought that that meant the people concerned with laundry purposes and not the general body of consumers. The representative associations of the laundry world, if that is the right term to use, did not make any objection,

  1357
  but I understand that the right hon. Gentleman did, in general terms, on behalf of his movement, as he calls it, which includes a, certain number of laundry undertakings. The normal representatives of the laundry industry outside that movement, however, did not.
  Mr. ALEXANDER: What does the hon. and gallant Gentleman mean by "normal"?
  Captain CROOKSHANK: I do not want to quarrel about words, but I do not think these words in the report of the Committee can be interpreted to
  mean exactly what the right hon. Gentleman says.
  The second point is that when the right hon. Gentleman says, on the question of paper, that this would affect the export trade of the high-class paper which is made, it is quite open to those manufacturers to apply in due course to the Import Duties Advisory Committee to see if they can obtain an Order, for a drawback on high-class paper exported.
  Question put.
  The House divided: Ayes, 247; Noes, 88.

  Division No. 280.]

  AYES.

  [12.6 a.m.

  Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.

  Cruddas, Col. B.

  Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir T. W. H.

  Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)

  Culverwell, C. T.

  Jackson, Sir H.

  Albery, Sir I. J.

  Davidson, Rt. Hon. Sir J. C. C.

  James, Wing-Commander A. W.

  Alexander, Brig.-Gen. Sir W.

  Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)

  Jarvis, Sir J. J.

  Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)

  Dawson, Sir P.

  Joel, D. J. B.

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

  De Chair, S. S.

  Jones, L. (Swansea, W.)

  Anstruther-Gray, W. J.

  Donner, P. W.

  Keeling, E. H.

  Apsley, Lord

  Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.

  Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)

  Assheton, R.

  Dower, Capt. A. V. G.

  Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)

  Astor, Major Hon. J. J. (Dover)

  Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)

  Keyes, Admiral of the Fleet Sir R.

  Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)

  Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)

  Kirkpatrick, W. M.

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Dugdale, Major T. L.

  Lamb, Sir J. Q.

  Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.

  Duggan, H. J.

  Latham, Sir P.

  Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanet)

  Duncan, J. A. L.

  Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.)

  Balniel, Lord

  Eastwood, J. F.

  Leech, Dr. J. W.

  Baxter, A. Beverley

  Eckersley, P. T.

  Levy, T.

  Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Lewis, O.

  Beauchamp, Sir B. C.

  Ellis, Sir G.

  Liddall, W. S.

  Beaumont, M. W. (Aylesbury)

  Emery, J. F.

  Little, Sir E. Graham-

  Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)

  Emrys-Evans, P. V.

  Llewellin, Lieut.-Col J. J.

  Bird, Sir R. B.

  Entwistle, C. F.

  Lloyd, G. W.

  Bossom, A. C.

  Errington, E.

  Locker-Lampson, Comdr. O. S.

  Boulton, W. W.

  Erskine Hill, A. G.

  Loftus, P. C.

  Bower, Comdr. R. T.

  Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)

  Lyons, A. M.

  Bowyer, Capt. Sir G. E. W.

  Everard, W. L.

  Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

  Boyce, H. Leslie

  Fildes, Sir H.

  MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.

  Braithwaite, Major A. N.

  Findlay, Sir E.

  M'Connell, Sir J.

  Brass, Sir W.

  Fleming, E. L.

  McCorquodale, M. S.

  Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

  Fox, Sir G. W. G.

  MacDonald, Rt. Hn. J. R. (Scot. U.)

  Brocklebank, C. E. R.

  Fraser, Capt. Sir I.

  MacDonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)

  Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham)

  Furness, S. N.

  Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)

  Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)

  Fyfe, D. P. M.

  McKie, J. H.

  Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)

  Gibson, C. G.

  Magnay, T.

  Browne, A. C. (Belfast, W.)

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

  Maitland, A.

  Bull, B. B.

  Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.

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

  Burghley, Lord

  Goldie, N. B.

  Maxwell, S. A.

  Butler, R. A.

  Goodman, Col. A. W.

  Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

  Caine, G. R. Ha-

  Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)

  Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)

  Campbell, Sir E. T.

  Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)

  Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

  Carver, Major W. H.

  Gridley, Sir A. B.

  Mitchell, H. (Brenford and Chiswick)

  Cary, R. A.

  Grimston, R. V.

  Mitcheson, Sir G. G.

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Guest, Maj. Hon. O.(C'mb'rw'll,N.W.)

  Moore, Lieut.-Col. T. C. R.

  Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)

  Guinness, T. L. E. B.

  Moore-Brabazon, Lt.-Col. J. T. C.

  Channon, H.

  Gunston, Capt. D. W.

  Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.

  Chorlton, A. E. L.

  Hacking, Rt. Hon. D. H.

  Munro, P.

  Christie, J. A.

  Hanbury, Sir C.

  Nall, Sir J.

  Clarry, Sir Reginald

  Hannah, I. C.

  Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H. H.

  Clydesdale, Marquess of

  Hannon, Sir P. J. H.

  Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

  Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. D. J.

  Harbord, A.

  O'Connor, Sir Terence J.

  Cook, T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)

  Hartington, Marquess of

  Orr-Ewing, I. L.

  Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)

  Haslam, H. C. (Horncastle)

  Palmer, G. E. H.

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Heligers, Captain F. F. A.

  Patrick, C. M.

  Courthope, Col. Sir G. L.

  Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.

  Peake, O.

  Craddock, Sir R. H.

  Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-

  Peat, C. U.

  Craven-Ellis, W.

  Herbert, A. P. (Oxford U.)

  Penny, Sir G.

  Critchley, A.

  Holmes, J. S.

  Perkins, W. R. D.

  Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

  Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

  Petherick, M.

  Croom-Johnson, R. P.

  Horsbrugh, Florence

  Pilkington, R.

  Cross, R. H.

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

  Plugge, L. F.

  Crossley, A. C

  Hudson, R. S. (Southport)

  Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

  Crowder, J. F. E.

  Hunter, T.

  Porritt, R. W.

  Radford, E. A.

  Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)

  Turton, R. H.

  Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.

  Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)

  Wakefield, W. W.

  Ramsbotham, H.

  Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.

  Walker-Smith, Sir J.

  Ramadan, Sir E.

  Smith, L. W. (Hallam)

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

  Rankin, R.

  Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)

  Wardlaw-Milne, Sir J. S.

  Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

  Smithers, Sir W.

  Warrender, Sir V.

  Rawson, Sir Cooper

  Somerset, T.

  Waterhouse, Captain C.

  Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

  Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)

  Wayland, Sir W. A.

  Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

  Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.

  Wedderburn, H. J. S.

  Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

  Spears, Brig.-Gen. E. L.

  Wells, S. R.

  Ropner, Colonel L.

  Spens, W. P.

  Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.

  Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'I'd)

  Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)

  Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.

  Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)

  Strickland, Captain W. F.

  Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T.(Hitchin)

  Salmon, Sir I.

  Stuart, Lord C. Crichton. (N'thw'h)

  Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

  Salt, E. W.

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

  Wise, A. R.

  Samuel, Sir A. M. (Farnham)

  Sutcliffe, H.

  Womersley, Sir W. J.

  Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)

  Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (Padd., S.)

  Wragg, H.

  Sanderson, Sir F. B.

  Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

  Sandys, E. D.

  Thomson, Sir J. D. W.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Scott, Lord William

  Titchfield, Marquess of

  Mr. James Stuart and Dr. Morris-Jones.

  Selley, H. R.

  Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.

  Shakespeare, G. H.

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Com. R. L.

  NOES.

  Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke

  Garro Jones, G. M.

  Potts, J.

  Adams, D. (Consett)

  Gibbins, J.

  Price, M. P.

  Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)

  Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)

  Pritt, D. N.

  Adamson, W. M.

  Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

  Richards, R. (Wrexham)

  Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)

  Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)

  Ritson, J.

  Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)

  Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

  Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)

  Banfield, J. W.

  Hardie, G. D.

  Rowson, G.

  Barnes, A. J.

  Harris, Sir P. A.

  Seely, Sir H. M.

  Barr, J.

  Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

  Sexton, T. M.

  Batey, J.

  Henderson, T. (Tradeston)

  Silkin, L.

  Bellenger, F.

  Hicks, E. G.

  Silverman, S. S.

  Benson, G.

  Hills, A. (Pontefract)

  Simpson. F. B.

  Bromfield, W.

  Hopkin, D.

  Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

  Brooke, W.

  Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

  Smith, E. (Stoke)

  Buchanan, G.

  Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

  Smith, T. (Normanton)

  Burke, W. A.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)

  Cassells, T.

  Kelly, W. T.

  Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)

  Cluse, W. S.

  Lawson, J. J.

  Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

  Compton, J.

  Leach, W.

  Thurtle, E.

  Daggar, G.

  Lee, F.

  Tinker, J. J.

  Dalton, H.

  Logan, D. G.

  Watson, W. McL.

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Mainwaring, W. H.

  Westwood, J.

  Day, H.

  Marklew, E.

  Whiteley, W.

  Dobbie, W.

  Marshall, F.

  Wilkinson, Ellen

  Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)

  Messer, F.

  Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

  Ede, J. C.

  Milner, Major J.

  Williams, T. (Don Valley)

  Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

  Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Ha'kn'y, S.)

  Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

  Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)

  Paling, W.

  Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

  Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.

  Parkinson, J. A.

  Gardner, B. W.

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Mr. John and Mr. Mathers.

  Motion made, and Question put,
  "That the Additional Import Duties (No. 14) Order, 1936, dated the first day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented
  to this House on the said first day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, be approved."—[Captain Crookshank.]
  The House divided: Ayes, 238; Noes, 84.

  Division No. 281.]

  AYES.

  [12.14 a.m.

  Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.

  Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

  Browne, A. C. (Belfast, W.)

  Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)

  Beauchamp, Sir B. C.

  Bull, B. B.

  Albery, Sir I. J.

  Beaumont, M. W. (Aylesbury)

  Burghley, Lord

  Alexander, Brig.-Gen. Sir W.

  Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)

  Caine, G. R. Hall-

  Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)

  Bird, Sir R. B.

  Campbell, Sir E. T.

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

  Bossom, A. C.

  Carver, Major W. H.

  Anstruther-Gray, W. J.

  Boulton, W. W.

  Cary, R. A.

  Apsley, Lord

  Bower, Comdr. R. T.

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Assheton, R.

  Bowyer, Capt. Sir G. E. W.

  Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)

  Astor, Major Hon. J. J. (Dover)

  Boyce, H. Leslie

  Channon, H.

  Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)

  Braithwaite, Major A. N.

  Chorlton, A. E. L.

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Brass, Sir W.

  Christle, J. A.

  Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.

  Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

  Clarry, Sir Reginald

  Balfour, Capt. H. H.(Isle of Thanet)

  Brocklebank, C. E. R.

  Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. D. J.

  Balniel, Lord

  Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham)

  Cook, T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)

  Baxter, A. Beverley

  Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)

  Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Hudson, R. S. (Southport)

  Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.

  Courthope, Col. Sir G. L.

  Hunter, T.

  Ramsbotham, H.

  Craddock, Sir R. H.

  Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir T. W. H.

  Ramsden, Sir E.

  Craven-Ellis, W.

  Jackson, Sir H.

  Rankin, R.

  Critchley, A.

  James, Wing-Commander A. W.

  Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

  Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

  Jarvis, Sir J. J.

  Rawson, Sir Cooper

  Croom-Johnson, R. P.

  Joel, D. J. B.

  Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

  Cross, R. H.

  Jones, L. (Swansea, W.)

  Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

  Crossley, A. C.

  Keeling, E. H.

  Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

  Crowder, J. F. E.

  Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)

  Ropner, Colonel L.

  Cruddas, Col. B.

  Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)

  Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)

  Culverwell, C. T.

  Keyes, Admiral of the Fleet Sir R.

  Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.

  Davidson, Rt. Hon. Sir J. C. C.

  Kirkpatrick, W. M.

  Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)

  Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)

  Lamb, Sir J. Q.

  Salmon, Sir I.

  Dawson, Sir P.

  Latham, Sir P.

  Salt, E. W.

  De Chair. S. S.

  Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.)

  Samuel, Sir A. M. (Farnham)

  Donner, P. W.

  Leech, Dr. J. W.

  Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)

  Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.

  Levy, T.

  Sanderson, Sir F. B.

  Dower, Capt. A. V. G.

  Liddall, W. S.

  Sandys, E. D.

  Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)

  Little, Sir E. Graham-

  Scott, Lord William

  Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)

  Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.

  Selley, H. R.

  Dugdale, Major T. L.

  Lloyd, G. W.

  Shakespeare, G. H.

  Duggan, H. J.

  Locker-Lampson, Comdr. O. S.

  Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)

  Duncan, J. A. L.

  Loftus, P. C

  Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)

  Eastwood, J. F.

  Lyons, A. M.

  Smith, L. W. (Hallam)

  Eckersley, P. T.

  Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

  Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)

  Ellis, Sir G.

  MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.

  Smithers, Sir W.

  Emery, J. F.

  M'Connell, Sir J.

  Somerset, T.

  Emrys-Evans, P. V.

  McCorquodale, M. S.

  Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.

  Entwistle, C. F.

  MacDonald, Rt. Hn. J. R. (Scot. U.)

  Spears, Brig.-Gen. E. L.

  Erskine Hill, A. G.

  Mac Donald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)

  Spens, W. P.

  Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)

  Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver(W'm'I'd)

  Everard, W. L.

  McKie, J. H.

  Srauss, H. G. (Norwich)

  Fildes, Sir H.

  Macmillan, H. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Strickland, Captain W. F.

  Findlay, Sir E.

  Magnay, T.

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

  Fleming, E. L.

  Maitland, A.

  Sutcliffe, H.

  Fox, Sir G. W. G.

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

  Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (Padd., S.)

  Fraser, Capt. Sir I.

  Maxwell, S. A.

  Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

  Furness, S. N.

  Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

  Thomson, Sir J. D. W.

  Fyfe, D. P. M.

  Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)

  Titchfield, Marquess of

  Gibson, C. G.

  Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

  Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.

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

  Mitchell, H. (Brentford and Chiswick)

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Com. R. L

  Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.

  Mitcheson, Sir G. G.

  Turton, R. H.

  Goldie, N. B.

  Moore, Lieut.-Col. T. C. R.

  Wakefield, W. W.

  Goodman, Col. A. W.

  Moore-Brabazon, Lt.-Col. J. T. C.

  Walker-Smith, Sir J.

  Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)

  Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.

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

  Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)

  Munro, P.

  Wardlaw-Milne, Sir J. S.

  Gridley, Sir A. B.

  Nall, Sir J.

  Warrender, Sir V.

  Grimston, R. V.

  Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H. H.

  Waterhouse, Captain C.

  Guest,Maj, Hon. O.(C'mb'rw'li,N.W.)

  Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

  Wayland, Sir W. A.

  Guinness, T. L. E. B.

  O'Connor, Sir Terence J.

  Wedderburn, H. J. S.

  Gunston, Capt. D. W.

  Orr-Ewing, I. L.

  Wells, S. R.

  Hacking, Rt. Hon. D. H.

  Palmer, G. E. H.

  Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.

  Hanbury, Sir C.

  Patrick, C. M.

  Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)

  Hannah, I. C.

  Peake, O.

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Hannon, Sir P. J. H.

  Peat, C. U.

  Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)

  Harbord, A.

  Penny, Sir G.

  Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

  Hartington, Marquess of

  Perkins, W. R. D.

  Wise, A. R.

  Haslam, H. C. (Horncastle)

  Petherick, M.

  Womersley, Sir W. J.

  Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.

  Filkington, R.

  Wragg, H.

  Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.

  Plugge, L. F.

  Holmes, J. S.

  Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

  Porritt, R. W.

  Mr. James Stuart and Dr. Morris-Jones.

  Horsbrugh, Florence

  Radford, E. A.

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

  Raikes, H. V. A. M.

  NOES.

  Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke

  Daggar, G.

  Hardie, G. D.

  Adams, D. (Consett)

  Dalton, H.

  Harris, Sir P. A.

  Adamson, W. M.

  Davies. S. O. (Merthyr)

  Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

  Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'Isbr.)

  Day, H.

  Henderson. T. (Tradeston)

  Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)

  Dobbie, W.

  Hicks, E. G.

  Banfield, J. W.

  Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)

  Hills, A. (Pontefract)

  Barnes, A. J.

  Ede, J. C.

  Hopkin, D.

  Barr, J.

  Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

  Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

  Batey, J.

  Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)

  Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

  Bellenger, F.

  Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Benson, G.

  Gardner, B. W.

  Kelly, W. T.

  Bromfield, W.

  Garro Jones, G. M.

  Lawson, J. J.

  Brooke, W.

  Gibbins, J.

  Leach, W.

  Buchanan, G.

  Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)

  Lee, F.

  Burke, W. A.

  Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

  Logan, D. G.

  Cassells, T.

  Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)

  Mainwaring, W. H.

  Compton, J.

  Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

  Marklew, E.

  1362

  1363

  Marshall, F.

  Rowson, G.

  Thurtle, E.

  Messer, F.

  Seely, Sir H. M.

  Tinker, J. J.

  Milner, Major J.

  Sexton, T. M.

  Watson, W. McL.

  Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Ha'kn'y, S.)

  Silkin, L.

  Westwood, J.

  Paling, W.

  Silverman, S. S.

  Wilkinson, Ellen

  Parkinson, J. A.

  Simpson, F. B.

  Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

  Williams, T. (Don Valley)

  Potts, J.

  Smith, E. (Stoke)

  Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

  Price, M. P.

  Smith, T. (Normanton)

  Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

  Pritt, D. N.

  Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)

  Ritson, J.

  Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)

  Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

  Mr. John and Mr. Mathers.

  MEDICINE STAMP DUTIES.
  Ordered,
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the duties of excise chargeable under the Medicines Stamp Act, 1802, the Stamp Act, 1804, and the Medicines Stamp Act, 1812, and any enactment amending those Acts, and to report thereon and make such recommendations for the alteration of those duties or otherwise as they think fit with a view to reforming the law relating thereto."
  Committee nominated of Mr. Acland, Mr. Baxter, Rear-Admiral Beamish, Mr. Benson, Sir Reginald Blair, Mr. Cary, Sir John Ganzoni, Mr. George Hall, Mr. Hardie, Sir John Haslam, Mr. Lewis Jones, MT. Keeling, Mr. Lathan, Captain Ramsay, and Sir Arnold Wilson.
  Ordered,
  "That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records."
  Ordered,
  "That Five be the quorum."—[Sir G. Penny.]
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock upon, Wednesday evening, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Twenty-five Minutes after Twelve o'Clock.

  MOTOR-CAR SPEED LIMIT.
  MOTOR-CAR SPEED LIMIT.
  ITALY AND ABYSSINIA.
  ITALY AND ABYSSINIA.
  INCOME TAX.
  INCOME TAX.
  CIVIL SERVICE (CLERICAL ASSOCIATION).
  CIVIL SERVICE (CLERICAL ASSOCIATION).
  POST OFFICE (TELEPHONE SERVICE).
  POST OFFICE (TELEPHONE SERVICE).
UNEMPLOYMENT.
  FERNDALE, PORTH, TONYPANDY AND TREORCHY.
  FERNDALE, PORTH, TONYPANDY AND TREORCHY.
  LEICESTER.
  LEICESTER.
  ASSISTANCE BOARD INQUIRIES.
  ASSISTANCE BOARD INQUIRIES.
  SPECIAL AREAS (ASSISTANCE REGULATIONS).
  SPECIAL AREAS (ASSISTANCE REGULATIONS).
  ARMY ORDNANCE FACTORY, BRIDGEND.
  ARMY ORDNANCE FACTORY, BRIDGEND.
  PALESTINE.
  PALESTINE.
  ASHANTI (NATIVE COURTS).
  ASHANTI (NATIVE COURTS).
  ROYAL NAVY (CHINA STATION).
  ROYAL NAVY (CHINA STATION).
  ITALIAN BROADCASTS.
  ITALIAN BROADCASTS.
  GERMANY (BRITISH QUESTIONNAIRE).
  GERMANY (BRITISH QUESTIONNAIRE).
  AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS.
  AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS.
AVIATION.
  AERODROMES (WIRELESS EQUIPMENT).
  AERODROMES (WIRELESS EQUIPMENT).
  LICENSED AERODROMES.
  LICENSED AERODROMES.
  AIR MINISTRY (PENSIONED EMPLOYES).
  AIR MINISTRY (PENSIONED EMPLOYES).
MERCANTILE MARINE.
  SPANISH PORTS (THEFTS).
  SPANISH PORTS (THEFTS).
  HATCH COVERINGS.
  HATCH COVERINGS.
  SAFETY AT SEA (CLEATS).
  SAFETY AT SEA (CLEATS).
  INTERNATIONAL TRADE.
  INTERNATIONAL TRADE.
TRANSPORT.
  MOTOR DRIVERS (AGE).
  MOTOR DRIVERS (AGE).
  ROAD ACCIDENTS.
  ROAD ACCIDENTS.
  MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (PENSIONED EMPLOYES).
  MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (PENSIONED EMPLOYES).
  AGRICULTURE (ONIONS AND BARLEY).
  AGRICULTURE (ONIONS AND BARLEY).
  WARBLE FLY.
  WARBLE FLY.
Preamble
The House met at a quarter before four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL.
Read 2a.
SOUTHERN RAILWAY BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL BILL. [H.L.]
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, in moving that Standing Order No. 171 be considered in order to its being dispensed with, I should like to explain that the Standing Orders of the House require that a Bill amended in Committee shall be deposited in certain Government offices three days before the Bill is read a third time. This Rill was only reported with Amendments from the Committee yesterday, so that it is necessary, if your Lordships should agree, to dispense with the Standing Order in order that it may be read a third time to-day. It is important that the Bill should get a Third Reading as it is a First House Bill and has to go to the House of Commons to get through Parliament before the Recess. The agents have given an undertaking that the deposits of the amended Bill will be made in the various Government Departments.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 171 be considered in order to its being dispensed with in respect of the said Bill, and that the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Onslow.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: Bill read 3a accordingly, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

MIDWIVES BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read la; and to be printed.

EDUCATION BILL.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
Clause 8 [Power of local education authority to make grants for enlarging, etc., non-provided schools]:
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (EARL DE LA WARR): My Lords, I have three drafting Amendments to this Bill about which I may perhaps say one word of clarification. They are Amendments proposed to subsection (3) of Clause 8 in order to remove any possible inconsistency with the proviso to subsection (2), which was inserted at the Report stage In the House of Commons and, therefore, too late to be corrected there. The Amendments leave quite untouched the main purpose of the subsection, which is that a school must be needed to meet the requirements of the school population as it will be one year after the appointed day—namely, on September 1, 1940. I beg to move the first Amendment standing in my name.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 20, leave out ("will") and insert ("would").—(Earl De La Warr.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
EARL DE LA WARR: My Lords, the next Amendment is consequential.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 23, leave out ("will") and insert ("would").—(Earl De La Warr.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
EARL DE LA WARR: My Lords, the third Amendment is also consequential.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 27, leave out ("will") and insert ("would").—(Earl De La Warr.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN AND YOUNG PERSONS BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
LAND REGISTRATION BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
PETROLEUM (TRANSFER OF LICENCES) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

TITHE BILL.
Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion for the Second Reading, moved yesterday by Viscount Halifax.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I would like with your Lordships' permission before embarking upon any detailed discussion of this Bill to make certain acknowledgments. Tithe-owners, through right reverend Prelates, made it perfectly clear yesterday that they did not ask for the Bill. Tithe-payers did not ask for this Bill, but they did ask for a Bill, and more particularly did they ask for an inquiry on the whole great subject of the tithe, hoping that thereby the grievances from which they suffered would be in some way relieved and the hardships they were enduring would be removed. It would be wholly improper on the part of any one who had the privilege to speak first in this debate from the standpoint of the tithe-payers if he failed to make acknowledgment of the great service that the Government have done to the tithe-paying interests in granting the Royal Commission which sat and so ably discussed the entire subject. There can seldom have been a Royal Commission more patient or more competent and the Report to which they signed their names will for all time remain a classic upon this subject. The pity of it is that the Government did not adopt the findings of that Report in their entirety. I would like, too, to acknowledge the services which the Government have rendered to the agricultural interest in finding time as well as will to give attention to a subject of such great domestic interest at a period when there is so grave a pressure of other affairs. Lastly, I would like to give expression to the satisfaction which I feel sure will be felt upon the Episcopal Bench as upon this Bench at the compliment which has been paid both to that Bench and to this by the fact that this Bill was introduced into your Lord ships' House by its noble Leader.
Last night the most reverend Primate gave short expression to an opinion that it would surely be impossible that any

541
person should desire to repudiate the right of the tithe-owner to the tithe. My noble friend Lord Bingley also added certain views upon that subject, and those two expressions of opinion would lead me before embarking upon a discussion of the Bill to say here and now that landowners in the corporate capacity of the body for whom I and others are entitled to speak have never even discussed the question of repudiation. It is entirely foreign to their views on the rights of property, as it would be entirely foreign to the appreciation which as a body they have of the services of the Church. Landowners do not share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Marley, that tithe is paid for little service. The incidence of the tithe is severe—I will come to deal with that directly—and it is perhaps not fairly shared as between the payee and the payer, but never at any time has there been any question of discontent or dissatisfaction with the services which the Church has rendered in return for tithe received. I could not permit myself for one moment to be thought as one who would stand here in criticism of the Church or as one who would link himself for an instant with the agitation which has for its object the repudiation of tithe obligations. I hope I have made that much clear.
Having done so, I would come to a discussion of the Bill itself introduced so lucidly by my noble friend the Leader of the House. In the noble Viscount's speech it would perhaps have been inappropriate, and that is the reason why he did not do it, to have gone back into any distant history of the tithe, but it is impossible for me to avoid altogether that aspect of the matter by reason of the fact that the obligations of the tithe-payers are so entirely tied up by it. The tithe-owner, for reasons which are perfectly obvious, finds it convenient to allow the public to think that tithe originated in the 1925 Act. But although, of course, the purposes of the tithe-owner are well served by that attitude towards the matter, the tithe-payer is bound, not to go back into distant history, but to go back at least to the basic Act of 1836. That Act gave for the first time the protection of Statute law to the tithe. It transferred the tithe from the production of the land to the land itself; it transferred the liability for the payment of the tithe from the
542
shoulders of the occupiers to those of the owners. To implement those two great changes it did what it was necessary that it should do: it caused a valuation of the tithable land of England to be made in order that a reasonable commutation of the production of the land into a land charge should be arrived at.
In 1836 we were some years before the repeal of the Corn Laws and, although there were some who, in the dim and hazy distance, anticipated some change in those laws, the majority were not of the opinion that any such change was likely to be practical politics. Before the repeal of the Corn Laws the land of England which was growing corn had a value which, after that repeal, was never again reached. Valuers are only able to take things as they find them at the time, and in 1836 that land which was most productive in the terms of the wealth of that day quite clearly carried and was charged with the just tithe. The valuations which were made according to the best ability of those who made them in 1836 are the valuations which not only prevail to-day but which are being perpetuated in the Bill of 1936. I should like, to impress that fact upon the House with all the emphasis at my command, because it is the valuations of 1836 which constitute and are the cause of the difficulties of tithe-payers in the high-tithe areas to-day, and those difficulties, although they are to be ameliorated in many senses by this Bill, are still to be perpetuated through the medium of those valuations.
If I may, I will give your Lordships an instance in my own knowledge, a perfectly simple one. I know of a tithe unit which in 1836—the tithe unit being in this case a whole farm—was let at 55s. an acre. The tithe rentcharge placed upon that land at par was 11s. 6d. an acre—not an unfair figure, because it was generally considered then that one-fifth of the rental value was a fair commutation of the production of the land changed into a rentcharge, and the 11s. 6d. was only a very trifling sum above that one-fifth. That land, which in 1836 was charged with a rentcharge of Ms. 6d. an acre upon a rental of 55s., has never since 1870 been rented at a higher figure than 10s. an acre. You may ask what happened to it during the War. I would remind your Lordships

543
that the raising of rents was restricted during the War. That land has never carried a rent of more than 10s. an acre since 1870. The tithe rentcharge has of course continued at its par figure subject to the septennial average of corn which, before the War, had reduced it at one time as low as £70 per £100 unit value. Since the War it rose until it was much more than 11s. 6d., and it was then stabilised at the figures with which we are familiar in the 1918 Act and the 1925 Act, and now it will be stabilised at the new figure.
I do not quote that case as in any way desiring to use it as an example of hardship to the owner, for that is all in the past. I quote it so that I may be able thereby to convince your Lordships that this land, which was only one instance of many, is going to carry for the next sixty years exactly the same valuation as caused it then to carry a charge of 11s. 6d. an acre. If it can sink into your Lordships' minds that the actions, the deeds, of the Act of 1836 are to be perpetuated—and I am not suggesting that they should not be—through the medium of these valuations, this House and the public will then realise where the real difficulty has arisen in respect of the high-tithe areas. You will be disposed to discount agitation, but you will not be disposed to discount the real grievance which, in the nature of things which nobody could control, was bound to arise by reason of those particular circumstances.
It is not the purpose of anything I may say in this speech, nor will it be the purpose of any Amendment that I may move in Committee, to pit tithe-owner against tithe-payer or in any way to exacerbate such feeling as may now exist. There is, however, one great point of difference to which it is quite impossible for me to avoid referring, and that is when tithe-owners, notably spokesmen for the Church, refer to loss. Loss can only be estimated by a comparison, and the basis of comparison is the gauge of what you lose. If I were to find a pearl necklace in the street and I were then to lose it, I should consider myself a very unfortunate person, but I should feel that the amount of my loss was less than if the pearl necklace had belonged to me before. May I, perhaps, compare the basis of comparison which is used quite naturally by the tithe-owner with that little
544
analogy? The tithe-owner is basing his loss upon the Act of 1925. The tithe-payer is bound, by reason of the facts which I have just ventured to describe, to compare his position under the 1936 Bill in large measure with the basic Act of 1836. It has never struck me as quite fair that one party to this dispute—if it can be called a dispute—should base his comparison on the Act of 1925 when the other party is compelled by circumstances to base his upon the Act of 1836.
Nobody need throw stones at the Act of 1925. The promoters of that Act were not the only people who made mistakes in 1925. They were not alone in supposing that the value of land would be maintained at a higher figure than it was. I have no sense of grievance, but, on the other hand, I think it would be wise to-day for all parties to regard the Act of 1925 as being no more than a transitional Act. In the early part of its currency the tithe-owner was severely restricted in his receipts; in the latter part of its currency it has had the effect of bolstering those receipts to a much higher figure than the Act of 1836 would have allowed. We have just about struck a balance; neither party is any the better or the worse off; and now comes the time when it is universally felt that the 1925 Act has served its purpose and that something new must be brought forward.
Once more, on this subject of loss: if I were to feel that the Church of England was really going to lose £11,000,000 by reason of the passage into law of the Bill which is now before the House, I really think that I would vacate my seat in this House. But although by comparison with the Act of 1925 that loss would be a real one, actually in fact by comparison with the Act which preceded it for more than eighty years the loss will vanish and disappear. I do not wish to stress the point too much, but when Church and other tithe-owners cry out about their loss, I feel that something should be said about the position in which the tithe-payer finds himself by being bound for the sixty years which are to run by an Act which has no reference to the basic Act of 1836. When the Act of 1836 passed through Parliament there were those who were sufficiently far-sighted—more far-sighted than those who introduced the Act of 1925—to see that the prices of corn were not going to be

545
stable for all time, and in order to provide for such fluctuations as there might be a clause was inserted in that Bill providing for the payment of tithe to be based on an average of corn prices over a seven-year period.
There were one or two speakers on that Act who did warn the House that the Corn Laws might at some time be repealed, and Lord John Russell, who was then leader of the House of Commons and who was impressed not by the probability of such a happening but by the possibility of it, inserted in the Bill this provision for the estimation of tithe on the basis of a septennial average of the price of corn. There is no doubt at all that that average enabled that Act of Parliament to continue for the number of years that it did, and in the Bill of 1936 now before this House that essential provision, though lost entirely, in itself is given effect to in the remission clause, Clause 14 of this Bill, which when we come to deal with it in Committee your Lordships will recognise as perhaps being the most vital of all clauses in the Bill, for it is the one and only clause which endeavours to do what the Act of 1836 did—namely, to provide for those hard eases which have been the mainspring of the Bill now before this House. When that fact is realised your Lordships will not be surprised at the importance which tithe-payers as a whole attach to that clause and the hope which they have now that it may be adjusted in some degree to their further advantage.
The Commission adopted the convenient practice of translating their finance into the terms of a balance sheet. The Government in their White Paper followed that excellent precedent and it is not unreasonable that tithe-payers should estimate their own potential advantage under this Bill by the same process; and if your Lordships will permit me I propose to state in terms exactly what this Bill will give to tithe-payers and exactly what it will take away, and when that position has been disclosed it will be so much more easy to form an independent opinion of the value of the Bill to that particular class of the community. In the first place, we have got to consider the value to the tithe-payer of the reduction of the period of redemption from the seventy-six years which the 1925 Act still has to run to the sixty years proposed in this Bill.
546
The actuarial difference of the redemption of the larger sum for the longer period as compared with the smaller sum for the smaller period is clearly great and the White Paper itself gives us the figure as twenty-two and twenty-seven per cent. respectively as regards clerical and lay tithe. That actuarial difference is one which is on the face of it of great value to the tithe-payer, and I do not in the least hesitate to conceal that fact, but I am coming back to it in a moment. The annual payment to be made under this Bill is to be £91 11s. 2d., as compared with £109 10s. inclusive of sinking fund made under the 1925 Act, giving a balance of advantage of £17 18s. 2d. to the tithe-payer. The actuarial difference between the redemption in seventy-six years and redemption in sixty years and the £17 18s. 2d. in respect of the annual payment—these are on the credit side of the account.
Now for the debit side of the account. It is unfortunately impossible to-day to make any financial calculation without the closest reference to taxable liability. The effect of the actuarial improvement in value of an estate which the Bill will create will be of importance for the purposes of Inland Revenue when estimating it for Death Duties and it is possible to calculate that the whole of the actuarial value which will accrue to the tithe-payer now will over the space of sixty years find its way entirely into the pockets of Inland Revenue. The man who first pays the Death Duty, that is to say on the first passing, will pay upon the greater value of his estate while continuing to pay out the figure stated in the Bill. It is the man on tire second payment, while paying on the larger figure, who will have the compensating advantage of the cessation of the annual tithe payment. So that it is merely a statement of fact when I say that the actuarial advantage which apparently accrues to the tithe-payer will in fact accrue to the Treasury, and not to the owner of the land.
Now in respect of the annual payment, in which I have shown that the apparent advantage to the tithe-payer is £17 18s. 2d. At the present time the tithe-payer is entitled to deduct £105 per £100 commuted value of tithe from his Income Tax return. Under this Bill he will be entitled to deduct five-sixths of £91 11s. 2d.; that is to say, he will be entitled to deduct £76 5s. 11d. for every

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£100 commuted value of his tithe. He will therefore pay tax upon an additional sum of £28 14s. 1d., which for convenience I will take at £7. So, while he puts in his pocket £17 18s. 2d. under the provisions of this Bill he will have taken out of that pocket £7 by the Inland Revenue, reducing his advantage to £10 18s. 2d. You may say that that £10 18s. 2d. is better than a rude remark. Unquestionably it is, but on the other hand, it is not a very large sum, and the reduction to £10 18s. 2d. will mean that the tithe-payer as an Income Tax-payer will continue to have his tithe charged upon him not at £91 11s. 2d., but at £98 11s. 2d. That is the effect.
It is true that a large number of tithe-payers are now owner-occupiers and those who are owner-occupiers are in all probability not payers of Surtax. But it remains a fact that the tithe is, in greater part, still paid by the greater estates, the owners of which are liable for it; and remembering that all charges go on to the top, so to speak, of the Surtax return, we are quite justified in taking a reasonably high figure of Surtax, and I take it at the 5s. rate. The tithe-payer who is a Surtax payer who will advantage himself to the extent of £17 18s. 2d. will lose £7 in Income Tax and £7 in Surtax. Therefore the net advantage to him will be £3 18s. 2d. Would it be inappropriate to suggest that the mountain has brought forth a mouse? £3 18s. 2d. from £100 commuted value is what the larger number of tithe-payers are going to gain by this Bill.
What are the tithe-payers going to give under this Bill for this inflated mouse? They are going under this Bill to surrender what has perhaps been that to which they have been all the time most greatly attached. The noble Viscount in introducing the Bill did not seek to conceal it from the House yesterday. They are going to consent to the transfer of tithe rentcharge on the land into a personal liability; in other words, the land on which tithe is charged may depreciate to a nil value, but so long as they have a penny in their pockets derived from any other source, earned or unearned, they will be liable to the penalties of the law if they do not pay the tithe rentcharge, which will then have been converted into a State tax.
They are also being invited to assume a liability for rates. Now a study of the
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White Paper and of the reasons leading up to it will reveal the fact that the Government did not find themselves able to deny to the local authorities a claim for the rates which redemption of the tithe would lose to them. And anybody with any knowledge of the whole question of tithe rentcharge will be aware that hitherto the liability for tithe rentcharge has been shared between the State and the tithe-owner. Never at any time in history has the liability for rates upon tithe lain upon the tithe-payer. This Bill squeezes the scheme to the extent of £600,000—that is an equated figure over the whole period of sixty years—in order to satisfy the local authorities in England, to compensate them for their loss of rates. I believe that the Ministry of Agriculture think that they have made a very good bargain in this matter. For myself, although I have the greatest respect for the Ministry of Agriculture, and more particularly for the right honourable gentleman who is at its head, I feel that the local authorities have one up on them.
However that may be, this £600,000 which is being squeezed out of the scheme may be regarded of course from two aspects. The tithe-owner may say: "Well, if it was not squeezed out of the scheme we should have it." The tithe-payer may say: "If it was not squeezed out of the scheme we should have it." But, as it happens, neither party has it, and we are entitled to say that the tithe-payer, who never hitherto has been charged with rates, is being charged with rates under this Bill. I feel the more justified in making that remark because the Royal Commission reported that in their estimation a forty years redemption period was the proper period, and the Government have stated that they have felt themselves compelled to raise that forty years to sixty in order that this particular charge may be met. And therefore, although the tithe-owner may feel in a sense that the scheme has been squeezed in some small way to his disadvantage, in actual fact it is the tithe-payer who is going to pay this rate because the redemption period is raised from forty to sixty years. This is an entirely new charge. It is imposed for the first time in the Bill of 1936.
The additional reason submitted by the Government for the increase in the period of redemption from forty to sixty years

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has been that in their view the requirements of the poorer clergy were undeniable and must be met. There is not one of your Lordships but would feel sympathy for the poorer clergy, but what would your position be if, as the trustee of an estate paying out a small annuity to a maiden aunt, you found that that lady said that she was unable to live on her annuity and demanded more? The trustees would say: "We have a certain legal obligation and we are fulfilling it. It is no concern of ours how the money is spent or indeed to whom it goes." The tithe-payer has never before been asked to accept responsibility for either the destination or the sufficiency of the tithe which he was liable to pay. For the first time the Government have required the tithe-payer to take cognisance of the poverty of the person to whom the rentcharge is payable. It is an entirely new obligation to place upon the tithe-payer. It is the third of the new obligations. He has to give personal liability; he has to assume responsibility for the rates; he has to assume in some measure responsibility for the poverty of the recipient of the tithe rentcharge.
I do not know how any organisation of landowners, however well disposed they may be, could conceivably consider that the terms of such a Bill were sufficient. It is impossible to expect any corporate body of landowners to view with joy any such suggested solution of their difficulties. That is the great difficulty which those who have the privilege of speaking for them have been up against since this Bill found its way into print. That which is being given away is really a very serious aggregation of matters, and I am not disposed in discussing this Bill to deny the necessity for any of the things which the Government have thought it necessary to impose on the tithe-payer. But I have felt, and those who act with me have felt, that in view of the tremendous concessions which are demanded, the financial advantage should be correspondingly greater. The Government do not seem to have fully envisaged how much they are asking the tithe-payer to give away. They do not seem to have realised how greatly the success of this Bill is bound to depend upon the good will of those who have the honour or the opportunity of leading the tithe-payers, and how greatly that
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good will is likely to be undermined by this charge of personal liability.
I do not wish to raise in too strong terms animosity in regard to that matter; but some two years ago, when a Bill affecting tithe was introduced into your Lordships' House, I did feel it incumbent upon me to speak about the tremendous risks which were then being run, by reason of this proposed change into a personal liability. There is to-day really only one chance of getting its acceptance in the country and more particularly in those independent areas of the country in which I have my home: if there is at the same time a sense that justice has been dealt out and that a settlement has been attempted which, while taking much, will give an adequate return. I have already said that neither now nor in Committee could I find myself in any way able to dispute the necessity of the State insisting upon this personal liability in return for the great liability that the State itself assumes in the collection of the interest and the creation of a sinking fund for not less than £70,000,000. I could not possibly deny the necessity for that provision; yet I do ask this House to remember that when we come to Committee, those who speak for tithe-payers must expect greater consideration for that surrender than this Bill at the moment proffers.
How is it going to be possible to improve this scheme? That is what everybody naturally wishes to know, and I feel that the Government themselves would be anxious to improve the scheme in any direction that would ensure peace. The whole motive behind those who pressed for the inquiry, the whole motive behind those who asked for the Bill, the whole motive behind the Government's decision to accede to that request, the motive behind this Bill itself, is to bring about a settlement of a vexed question, a question that has so gravely reacted to the disadvantage of the work of the Church of England, and has caused so much irritation among tithe-payers in the tithe-paying areas of England. No Bill passed through Parliament that does not give a prospect of a real settlement is worth proceeding with. I would like to endeavour to show how improvement may be possible, and I would not, in any suggestion I make, attempt to decrease that

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portion which is now allocated to the tithe-owners. But I do feel that there is money in the scheme which might be used to greater advantage to tithe-payers than has been done.
My noble friend who leads the House, in his speech yesterday, indicated that the balance sheet had been drawn on a very narrow margin. I have no doubt the noble Viscount believes what he says. Curiously enough, I do not, and with the greatest desire to be courteous I shall be asking him at a later stage for figures which will convince me that his estimation of the situation is the correct one and mine is wrong. In the matter of taxation the Government, at the bottom of their balance sheet in the White Paper, have allowed for a sum of £135,000 which they estimate to get out of savings in the administration of the Tithe Acts at present and for increased Income Tax they may receive. I have got out some figures to show whether that estimation of increased Income Tax is an under- or an over-estimate. These figures have been drawn with the greatest care and there is every certainty that they are correct. Under the provisions of this Bill tithe-owners receiving less will naturally pay less in tax, and there will be a loss to the Exchequer of £130,000 on that account, but under this Bill, by reason of the figures which I gave to your Lordships some time ago, tithe-payers will pay more. They will pay no less than £211,000 more. The Treasury will therefore receive the balance between £211,000 and £130,000—that is to say, an increase in round figures of £80,000. £80,000 from £135,000 leaves only £55,000 as the present cost of the administration of the Tithe Acts.
It is therefore apparent that the scheme will receive a very much greater increase in Income Tax than the Treasury has been good enough to admit. These figures I have given to your Lordships take no account of Surtax or of Death Duties both of which accretions will greatly swell that figure of £135,000. There is in the scheme a provision for remissions of £200,000. I think that in view of the fact that the remissions of recent years have never risen higher than £3,000, the reduction from two-thirds to one-third liability can hardly call for an increase to £200,000. I think the Treasury has left itself a very handsome margin in that regard. In the schedules we find also
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that the Treasury has provided for five per cent. as the cost of collection. Is it conceivable that when the Inland Revenue gets into the saddle in regard to this matter of tithe it is going to cost them five per cent. to collect? There is not one of us who would not be glad to arrange for the work at one per cent.
The question I am going to ask of the Government and to which I do not ask for an immediate reply but only when a reply is made at the end of this debate is this. There is an important figure in the balance sheet of the White Paper which says that the sinking fund accumulated under the Tithe Act of 1925 is estimated at £1,369,000. Under this Bill the new rate of tithe would become payable on the 1st October this year to sinking fund, so that half the sinking fund for the year—that is £2 5s. for the half-year—will still be payable by the tithe-payer. I should like to ask if that £2 5s. is included in the estimated sum of £1,369,000. If it is, of course there is nothing more to be said for it. If it is not, there is an additional figure available in the pockets of the Treasury to be used for the purposes of the scheme. Now, we shall naturally hear all about these assertions of mine from the Front Bench when their time comes to reply, but I hold, and those who act with me hold, that there is within the scheme a reasonable sum of money still available for the advantage of one or other of the parties to the scheme. I, of course, am claiming it for the tithe-payer, and Amendments which will at a later stage appear upon the Paper in my name will be directed to that end.
I come very briefly—I have spoken for as long as your Lordships are likely to be able to tolerate me—to a consideration of the clauses of the Bill which in my estimation will require amendment. In Clause 13 of the Bill there is set down a concession already made in respect of the amount of the deduction which is to be admitted for Income Tax purposes from the tithe-payer. That is now five-sixths; it was once two-thirds; and is still not sufficient, and I shall hope to be able to insert into the Bill a figure which will accurately represent the real deduction which should be made. In Clause 14—the remissions clause—there will undoubtedly appear upon the Paper an Amendment directed to the

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object of improving the scale of remission in really hard cases. But there are two other matters which must be briefly dealt with in connection with Clause 14. One of these affects the owners of land subject to remissions. The institution of catchment boards has clearly brought that matter into direct perspective. If, as appears in the Bill—I think it is Clause 33—it is proper to relieve land which has gone under the sea from all further tithe rentcharge, it is equally not unreasonable to allow as a deduction the cost to the landowner of keeping the sea from swallowing more land and there will be Amendments directed to that end.
Then there is another, a more controversial matter, arising out of Clause 14. Your Lordships will be aware that under the 1918 Act a certain number of persons clutched like drowning men at floating straws and redeemed their tithe, some few by cash payments—these were more fortunate and were able to afford it—some, a larger number, by means of fifty-year annuities. The Royal Commission considered that it was really impossible for them to report or to advise upon the treatment recommended by the 1918 Committee, and the Government, following that advice, have omitted the 1918 redeemers from the considerations in this Bill. I would be the first to agree that an agreement is an agreement, and it would be unwise in the highest degree to attempt to go back on anything agreed in 1918, but it does remain a fact that whatever you may call a tithe rentcharge, whether you call it a tax or an annuity or a tithe rentcharge, it comes out of the same pocket, and it is derived from the same source—namely, the rental value of the land itself. Those who redeemed their tithe under the 1918 Act have felt to an equally high degree as those who did it under the 1925 Act the hardships of the depression and the difficulty of meeting their annuity charges, and it seems to me to be not unfair that they should be brought into consideration in the remissions clause, particularly as the cost thereof will be exceedingly small. An amendment will be on the Paper with that end in view also.
Now we come to Clause 16, and with this I propose to close. In Clause 16 there is provision made for a charge of
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5 per cent. upon defaulters who do not pay their rentcharge on demand. Five per cent. in these days is not a reasonable sum to demand. More important than that is that in Clause 16 there is abrogated the old-time, and always prevailing, custom of giving three months grace for payment of tithe. To no tithe-payer can it be otherwise than difficult to pay his rent. From time immemorial the landowner has been in the habit of giving three months grace to his tenants. In many cases it is much more but it is never less. The Inland Revenue are taking power to recover their tithe rentcharge or whatever it may hereafter be called on the date it is due and the landowner who has no money with which to pay it, may—I do not say will, but may—be consigned to the county gaol. I am fully aware of the improbability of this prospect being given effect to, but it is one that must induce those with the interests of landowners at heart to endeavour to remove it from the Bill. I apologise to your Lordships for the great length at which I have spoken, but I thought it right and proper that I should give some slight indication of the direction in which the reasonable tithe-payer, not the agitator, feels that this Bill must be amended before he can accept it as a real settlement. If this Bill is not to be a settlement it had very much better not leave this House, for a settlement is what we all desire to see achieved. If that cannot be done our time will have been wasted and we had better try again. With that I will thank your Lordships for your tolerance of so long a speech.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, it is with very considerable diffidence that I rise after the most lucid and extensive analysis of the Bill which we have just heard so ably expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Hastings. The noble Lord has, in fact, persuaded me that I may probably have the novel experience of following him into the Division Lobby. If we, on this side of the House, discuss this Bill I am sure that no one will for one moment forget that we consider that this is only a very small part of a problem the only solution of which is public ownership of the land. But since we desire the general benefit of agriculture and recognise the immense disadvantage to agriculture that tithe constitutes at the moment, we venture to offer

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our suggestions to the Government on this present Bill in the hope that we may make it a better Bill. It is in no spirit of carping criticism but in a spirit of the fullest helpfulness that we make suggestions. The most reverend Primate apparently doubted the bitterness that is felt about tithe in the country. I think the most reverend Primate underrates that feeling. There is a very strong feeling all over the country. Because many tithe-payers pay regularly and quickly it does not follow that they pay it ungrudgingly. The things are not the same.
Perhaps I might sum up the position of my noble friends on these Benches by reiterating that in our opinion tithe is only a very small part of the rural problem, and that it must eventually be solved on lines in accord with our Party programme. But whilst we do not and cannot approve of State support for any Church we do not wish, and I am sure that nobody wishes, to cause hardship to any living beneficiary of tithe. On the other hand, we could certainly not approve of any gratuitous augmentation of the capital value of land which the suppression of tithe would immediately bring about, to the sole benefit of the landowner, since the existence of this tithe must have influenced the price paid for the land. When the tithe was imposed it was imposed in circumstances which have now made it out of date and in many cases grossly unfair. It is acting to the general detriment of agriculture. I believe it has been calculated that when the tithe rentcharge was instituted in 1836 the clergy gained about 50 per cent. owing to the saving they effected on transport and marketing and by getting rid of the other difficulties in coping with tithe in kind. That was before the repeal of the Corn Laws, which the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, so rightly mentioned. That in itself seems a considerable increase in income.
Noble Lords on this side of the House desire the earliest possible disappearance of a charge that is proving disastrous to the countryside and that is certainly morally obsolete. The peculiar nature of tithe has been frequently remarked upon in your Lordships' House and in another place during the last hundred years. It has been held to be a kind of State property in which the incumbents of livings are permitted a life interest. If noble
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Lords look at the Report of the Royal Commission they will see in a footnote on page 80 a quotation from a speech by Lord Melbourne. He, I think, could hardly be described as a particularly revolutionary statesman and even if he had been so regarded in his time I imagine that by this time he would be regarded as a respectable figure. I want to refer to this because of what was said by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich yesterday. These are Lord Melbourne's words:
"The tithes and landed property in the hands of clergymen do not belong to them, but it is a portion of the national property, which has been set aside, either by the institution of the country, or by the superstitions of former ages, for the maintenance of the established religion of this country; and being a portion of that national property, it is in the power of the State, from time to time, to increase it, should it be too small, or to diminish it if too large, and apply the surplus to whatever purposes might be considered the fittest to promote the great end and object in view. These are the only safe principles upon which the Legislature or Government can proceed."
Lord Palmerston said something similar, which is also quoted.
That seems to me a complete answer to the right reverend Prelate who maintained that the Church has a right and that that right should be considered in this matter of tithe. I should like to deny most strenuously that claim to a right. It is State property of which the State is perfectly entitled to dispose as it finds best. If it is found that this charge is damaging an important and essential interest in the State the State would be perfectly justified in abolishing it entirely. The right reverend Prelate spoke of rights. Well, Shylock had his rights! I have no doubt, and I really do not think that noble Lords on the other side except perhaps the right reverend Prelate doubt, that the country as a whole is opposed to the support of any Church by State taxation. I am certain that that is the universal feeling throughout the country. It is largely owing to that feeling that this agitation against tithe has arisen. In any case, supposing that a good case could be made out for supporting an ecclesiastical organisation by the State, then surely the charge should be universally shared and not merely borne by a certain class of the community and a class who happen to own land and may not be more benefited by the services of the Church than any

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other, and equally may not be any more interested in them, and very probably are not.
The Minister also, when he introduced this Bill in another place, made an interesting admission which is of great interest to us, since we on this side are particularly keen to see at least partial suppression. He said that on the present prices of wheat the figure should be £71 and not the £91 11s. 2d. which has been decided. I fully realise that it includes sinking fund. Even with the wheat subsidy it would only come to £80. I cannot quite follow why the Government have elected to stabilise this payment at so very much higher a figure. It seems to me most unduly optimistic. Their aim and object must inevitably be, I take it, to finish with this vexatious charge in the shortest possible time, but they appear to have done everything in their power in this Bill to avoid doing that. They have extended the period of forty years originally suggested by the Royal Commission, a period which we on this side consider already too long, to sixty years. This tithe rentcharge has existed for a hundred years, during which no fewer than thirteen Acts have been passed by Parliament altering and changing it. It has been an incessant source of discussion, dispute and recrimination. Surely the Government cannot suppose that their solution is so much more certain, so much more sure, so much more excellent than any of the previous ones that it will stand for sixty years when during the last hundred years there have been so very many failures. The whole experience is contrary to that.
We on this side consider that even forty years is considerably too long. We think that, without injustice to anyone, this anachronism which I venture to call tithe could be abolished in between fifteen and twenty years, and that within fifteen or twenty years one might conceivably make a settlement which one could hope would not require upsetting. But this Government settlement is going to be particularly difficult to upset, and that is what I and my friends would like to criticise in this Bill. This Bill sets up an organisation which is absolutely inflexible. Tithe rentcharge will smell no sweeter by another name. The Church will still collect odium from the exactions of the Inland Revenue in the same way
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as it did from the collections of Queen Anne's Bounty. It is inevitable that this charge will be resented. I hope, of course, that agriculture will be so much improved in this country that the tithe rentcharge will become negligible, but I think it is very unwise of the Government to be so optimistic on that point. I hope that noble Lords, when they read the Royal Commission's Report, also read the Minority report of Sir Leonard Coates, with which we on this side find ourselves in considerably more agreement and which seems to us to support our view that this charge not only should be but could be abolished in the shortest possible time. The most reverend Primate quoted Juvenal to show that an artist or a clergyman must have his livelihood in order to be able to fulfil his functions. Might I remind right reverend Prelates that another and perhaps a greater authority warned them of the danger of great possessions? Great possessions the Church has, and great possessions, I am convinced, are spiritually deplorable and have made the Church unpopular and vitiated its influence.
We have heard also a great deal about the unfortunate condition of the poorer clergy. My noble friend Lord Marley remarked upon that, but pointed out that less than one-tenth of the total of tithe rentcharge went to support clergy whose incomes were under £300 a year. I have made a very small calculation here which I dare say is inaccurate, but it cannot be frightfully far out. To keep the stipends of those clergy at the present level would cost between £25,000 and £45,000 a year. The Government—and here I should like to support Lord Hastings—have made more than adequate provision for this particular hardship. The most reverend Primate claims, of course—and I have no doubt that his claim is well founded—that the Church renders very definite services. I have no doubt that it does, and that the services are well rendered. At the same time, if these services are desired, why can they not be paid for by the people who desire them? The Church of England is not the only Church to render these services; there are other Churches, and there are people who consider that their spiritual state is healthier than that of the Church of England—perhaps just for the reason that they are supported by those who desire the services rendered by them.

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I beg your Lordships' pardon if I am mistaken, but I think it was the most reverend Primate who mentioned the other income of the Church and claimed that no one had any right to maintain that this income, since it had increased, could be used to some extent to offset any loss suffered by the Church from the suppression of tithe. The most reverend Primate is not entirely justified in his claim. This other income of the Church, since the tithe rentcharge was instituted, has increased by an annual amount greater than the whole of the tithe rentcharge. Though the increase may have been to a very large extent the result of careful administration, it must have been to a far greater extent the result of industrial development and the efforts of the community in general. For this reason I consider that the Church might easily, and should justly, draw upon these resources to make good losses from another source.
In passing, may I support the plea of the noble Marquess who spoke from the Liberal Benches in favour of a remission or a more complete arrangement for the treatment of arrears? The suggestion made in the Bill seems to me to be thoroughly unsatisfactory. It is much too vague and it is bound to lead to bitterness and recrimination, which it is the object of this Bill to dissipate. Again let me repeat, my Lords, that this is in no sense a partisan affair. I assure the Government that we on this side approach the matter in no factious spirit. We are all keenly desirous of solving this problem, and I hope that the Government will accept our suggestions in the spirit of purest helpfulness in which they are made.
LORD CRANWORTH: My Lords, I should like to associate myself with my noble friend Lord Hastings in the thanks that he proffered to His Majesty's Government for setting up this Commission. I do so with the greater pleasure because I regret to say that there are remarkably few flowers left in my basket after I have handed out that one. There could be no greater justification of those who asked for the setting up of this Commission, and of the Government which, perhaps somewhat tardily, granted that request, than the Report of the Commission itself. I would venture to quote just one sentence in paragraph 60:
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"We find that in the process of time the system has become, without fault on either side, inappropriate to contemporary conditions, and a cause of regrettable and unavoidable irritation. We believe that the complete abolition of the system is the only satisfactory method of dealing with its inherent and ineradicable difficulties."
I am sorry to say that I differ a little from my noble friend with regard to what he said about the Commission's Report. I personally feel some disappointment. The Commission sat for over eighteen months, during which time they held the not unduly excessive number of twenty public sittings, and in their Report, in many ways so admirable, I do find a certain lack of imagination, inspiration and even of information. I wish to suggest to your Lordships that really the crux of the problem before us, the chief difficulty, lies in the fact that, whereas over great portions of the country involved tithe is by no means a burden, it is hardly felt, it is readily paid, and it constitutes no problem at all, over other wide areas the burden is very great, and over considerable areas it is not too much to say that the burden is intolerable. If I am right in that—and I have at all events the support of the Bishop of Norwich—I should have expected to find in this Report definite statements of fact showing where the shoe pinched, where the heavy tithe was, what the rents were in those places, and generally the information which it seems to me is so essential on this important point.
The Commission say that they realised the need for that information, but that the difficulty of getting such information made it almost impossible. I appreciate their difficulty in getting it, but I do not appreciate the impossibility. There are three bodies to which they could have applied. There is the body which I have the honour to represent, the Central Landowners' Association, and there is the National Farmers' Union. Both of those bodies have a branch in every county in England, and would have been only too glad to give help. There is even a more authoritative body, that is to say, the body which in each county has the duty of collecting the rates. That body found no difficulty, in a very much shorter time, in bringing forward a case which convinced the Government of the hardships, and I submit that they could

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only have brought it forward by producing the evidence which the Commission failed to put in their Report. It seems to me impossible for your Lordships, or anybody else, to find in this Report a true picture which will enable them to judge on this appallingly difficult problem.
If, however, this Report had been accepted in its entirety, although I was disappointed in it I should have had nothing to say to your Lordships. I should have felt myself in the position of one who had appealed to arbitration in this matter, and was not going to find fault with the arbitration for which he had asked. But the Government seem to me to have upset entirely the balance of this Report. They talk about balance, but they have upset one balance pretty clearly, or so it seems to me. They have altered the term of redemption from forty years to sixty years, thereby imposing an additional burden of some hundreds of thousands of pounds, and have decreed that the whole of that burden should fall upon one of the parties to that arbitration. It is suggested now, I think, in the White Paper—not, I hasten to say, by the noble Viscount who introduced the Bill—that really the Commission did not lay a great deal of stress upon the period of forty years. If any one suggests that, you have only to read the Report, and indeed only to read the passage quoted in the White Paper by the Government, to disprove it. In paragraph 113 the Commission say:
"In the second place, the period of the redemption annuity should not be so protracted as to deprive the average tithe-payer of the prospect of some material advantage accruing to him during his lifetime."
I must say that to put the lifetime of an average tithe-payer at forty years seems to me somewhat optimistic, but sixty years is really two generations. Do your Lordships realise that it is possible, if not probable, that within sixty years we may see a Socialist Government in power? What will happen then? Tithe will be abolished, and I would remind Lord Faringdon of this—ownership will be abolished, and even Lord Faringdon will be abolished, too. That, I think, is worth remembering.
LORD MARLEY: Also Lord Cranworth.
LORD CRANWORTH: The matter is also even more strongly put in paragraph 84 where, if you will read it, you will see that such stress did the Commission lay upon this short period that they actually say that if this period had not been so short as forty years they would seriously have considered the alteration of the whole basis on which tithe was to be levied. If that is so, it seems to me that if the period of redemption was to be changed from forty to sixty years the Commission should have had a further opportunity of making that recommendation. Why have the Government made this vast change? As far as I understand it there are two reasons. The first, which has been mentioned more than once, is their sympathy for the poorly-paid clergy. Of course every one of your Lordships feels that same sympathy. It has urged the Government to that most popular form of generosity, the giving of a gift of £2,000,000 of someone else's money. Why should it be assumed that the Commission had not that same sympathy with the poorer clergy which every one of your Lordships has? I have no doubt that they had that sympathy, but they felt, I think without doubt, that it was no concern of theirs to advise the tithe-owners how they should put their house in order. Certainly I should consider it the grossest impertinence if I were to attempt to do so.
The second reason is on account of the loss occasioned to the rates. It is suggested in the White Paper that the Commission had really given little thought to this aspect of it Again a study of the Commission's Report will show most clearly that in paragraph after paragraph they considered the incidence of rates, and I venture to quote the very passage in the White Paper which His Majesty's Government make the justification for imposing this burden. This is what they say in the White Paper, quoted from the Commission's Report:
" Our proposals will mean a substantial loss, which will have to be made good out of public funds, central or local."
It does not say "out of the tithe-payer"; it says "out of public funds, central or local." And that is the passage that the Government quote in their support. I do not understand it. Clearly when they start by saying that a contribution should come from central or local funds they consider that is hardly their province.

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But I think it is fairly clear which funds they think should be appropriated for this purpose.
They talk about the burden on agriculture. They point to the case of Denmark, in which tithe was extinguished by the aid of a very large contribution from the Government, and they say in paragraph 65:
"There is thus a very strong case for claiming that in the final settlement of the tithe question which we are called upon to provide, any gap which may exist between what it is fair that the tithe-payer should contribute and what it is fair that the tithe-owner should receive should be provided by the State."
There seems to have been almost a conspiracy to shelve this part of the problem, because I think really it is an undeniable fact that most of the tithe-payers and the tithe-owners, and quite clearly the Commission, did anticipate that the State would pay something to settle this question. And why should they not? The tithe position is said on all hands to be bad. What made it bad? Parliamentary action. Parliamentary action has changed the nature of tithe, it has changed the amount of tithe, it has changed the people who collect it, it has changed the people from whom it is collected, and it has changed the persons for whom it is collected. Clearly whatever position it is in now it is due to the act of Parliament, and it does not seem to me to be unreasonable to ask that Parliament should find some money to put it right.
But I fully admit that before this question of tithe comes the question of our national safety, and all I would say on that point is that if they could provide nothing they might have been better advised to wait until conditions of finance were more favourable. At all events I think you can say this quite definitely, and I think without fear of denial, that if the Commission's Report was fair to the tithe-payer then the Bill is grossly unfair, and if the Bill is fair to the tithe-owner then the Commission's Report was grossly unfair. At all events, I venture to say that we are justified in considering this Bill as a Bill, and entirely without relation to the Commission which was set up. Before the Commission was set up I ventured to write down certain things which it seemed to me were essential to a settlement, and I put them down as four: To be fair to both parties
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and to inflict as little hardship as possible; to remove our Established Church from the arena of a somewhat sordid struggle; to make a settlement, permanent and decisive, which would leave behind the minimum of rancour; and to lighten the burden on the shoulders of those least able to bear it. I judge this Bill in as far as it will affect what I consider to be those, the main, objects to be attained. And I do not think as it stands now that the Bill is fair to both parties; if the Report was, the Bill is not. At all events that must be the view of a great many tithe-payers. And I do not think you do remove our Church from that sordid struggle. I agree with the most reverend Primate that I expect to see further legislation on this subject. I do not think this is a permanent settlement.
Now come to what I regard as the crux of the situation—to lighten the burden from the shoulders of those least fitted to bear it. That is Clause 14, and the question of what we may call the ability to pay. The ability to pay, or the placing of a point beyond which tithe could not go, really got its first legislative sanction in the Act of 1891. The Commission at all events said that it has been inherent in tithe from its very start. And I think all paragraph 31 should be read by your Lordships. I will just quote from it:
"Indeed, it is evident as a matter of economies that the only fund out of which tithe rentcharge is payable is the same as that out of which agricultural rent is payable, viz., the surplus remaining after the proper expenses of cultivation, including a reasonable allowance for the farmer for living expenses, have been met."
Does that exist under the Bill? I do not think it does. With regard to this two-thirds remission under Schedule B of the Act of 1891 the effect, as was pointed out by my noble friend Lord Hastings, was that in 1933 £1,415 was remitted and in the following year £3,525, a sum so insufficient that the tithe-owners, with their habitual good feeling, added to it in—I think the most reverend Primate said—over 10,000 cases.
I would ask your Lordships whether this percentage is really a good method of dealing with these hard cases. I would point out one very simple mathematical sum. If land is rented at £2 the deduction of one-third of that leaves £1 6s. 8d.—ample for other people and ample to

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provide something for the owner. But if Schedule B rent is 10s. the amount is 6s. 8d., which is clearly inadequate for either. In parts of the country there remain, and will remain under the Bill, very hard cases. I have had access to the accounts of an estate, or rather two small estates, between 3,000 and 4,000 acres. They were carefully kept over a period of ten years, and I find in them that the cost of repairs during that period averages 9s. an acre, and I well know the tenants on that estate would not say that the repairs had been in any way overdone. The other burdens upon that land—A and B tax, Land Tax, roads, insurance, agency, and estate staff—were such that there was no fund available to pay tithe or anything else; but in that case the owner had other resources and the tithe was paid and gladly paid.
But what about the occupier-owner? His case, to my mind, is very much worse. I have heard it said that when he bought his land he knew the tithe on it, and therefore he has only himself to thank. But in many cases—most cases I think—brought to my notice, accounting for this vast increase of owner occupiers—11 per cent. in 1913, 36 per cent. in 1927, and still increasing—occupiers bought their land owing to the break-up of large estates due to taxation and especially to Death Duties. The occupier had no option if he wanted to stay on in his own home where he and his father before him had lived; and many families in my part of the world have lived on the same farm for over 300 years. Moreover, in many cases he was led by the fact that corn production bounties were on to think that a golden era was at hand.
I would ask the Government a question which I hope in due course they will answer: Do they really wish to ask a man to pay that which he has not got? Do they really wish to bring the law in with all its severities to make a man pay that which, with the best will in the world, he is totally unable to pay? I am quite sure that right reverend Prelates have no such wish, considering their generous action in the last few years, and this Bill proves that the Government have no such intention, because, if they had, I do not think they would have made this a personal duty, for the Government must be as well aware as
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I am, and as many of your Lordships are, that the first man who is made bankrupt from this cause for a debt which he has no means of paying, and through no fault of his own, will raise a storm that will not only react badly on the Government but do incalculable harm to the Church itself. I hope to move an Amendment on Clause 14, and if the Government are going to say "No" to the question that I have put to them, I confidently expect not only their sympathy with the Amendment but their practical help in making it an acceptable one.
I only wish to say in conclusion that I do not find this a very good Bill. The best thing I find about the Bill is that it links the Government to the land, at all events to the tune of £70,000,000; but I have full confidence that they mean to give your Lordships' House every latitude to improve this Bill. I was strengthened in that belief by the statement of the noble Viscount when he said that your Lordships had an exceptional right to speak on this subject. Surely that is true, because not only are tithe-payers far more liberally represented in this House than in another place, but it is the only place where the tithe-payer has an undisputed right to speak at all. If it were not for that confident hope I should not leave this Bill without opposition at this stage, because in its present form I regret to say, for my part, I find it wholly unacceptable.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: My Lords, I should like at once to draw attention to the queer use, in the course of the history of this matter, of the phrase "permanent settlement." The word "permanent" is evidently a favourite one with the Leader of the House. If we read last night's OFFICIAL REPORT we find he used it three times in six lines, but it is not the first time, as the most reverend Primate wisely reminded him on which he has used the term. As Minister of Agriculture, when he was the Hon. Edward Wood, in introducing the Bill in the House of Commons in 1925, he used the word "permanent" and used it, I think, in a still more powerful sense than he did last night. I shall not trouble the noble Viscount with quoting his words on that occasion, but I assure him it has been a great pleasure to re-read his speeches at that time. It is fair to point

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out—and I do not think the noble Viscount will deny—that his Bill of 1925 was not a very popular one. Many people were asked to make sacrifices in that Bill which they made in the interests of a "permanent settlement." It is a pity that that permanent settlement is now to be thrown into the rubbish heap, and it is a pity therefore that when that phrase was used eleven years ago it was not built on a surer foundation.
Having made my protest on that point, I would like to join in congratulations to the noble Viscount on the very clear exposition of the Bill which he gave to us yesterday and which was a very great advantage to us. He delivered a long speech. My only complaint is that it was not a little longer, because there were one or two very important omissions from his speech, and I hope, before the end of the debate, that these omissions may be, if possible, made good. First of all, we have not yet, as far as I know, received any defence of the fixing of £91 11s. 2d. from the point of view of the tithe-owner. I accept the figure from the point of view of the tithe-payer, and I shall not oppose it in Committee, but the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich dealt very effectively with that point. He pointed out that the proper sum is £97 15s., and I hope we may have some answer to the very powerful argument which the right reverend Prelate used yesterday, and with which I entirely associate myself.
We have had no reason given to us why the lay tithe-owner is cut down from perpetuity to sixty years. The noble Viscount did tell us why the period was increased from forty years to sixty years, but he did not complete his argument by dealing with the other point. He did explain—and I suppose this is what was in his mind—something of the unpopularity of tithe as illustrated by the increase in the number of County Court orders which he quoted from the evidence placed by the Lord Chancellor's Department before the Royal Commission, which evidence, of course, I accept. But I think it is possible to explain this increase in the number of County Court orders by other reasons than the mere unpopularity of tithe. First of all, the
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number of tithe-payers has greatly increased since the War, due, I am told, to the breaking up of a number of large estates and due also to urban development, and you would naturally expect therefore an increase in the number of County Court cases. I am told by those who have knowledge of a number of these cases that most of them occur in urban and not in rural districts, and that they are often due to ignorance. The owner of the land does not ascertain that he is liable for tithe until the claim is first made, and he does not pay until he is brought into Court, whereupon, of course, an arrangement is made.
There is another reason which might account for the increase of these County Court cases due to the increased number of tithe-payers, and that is that, as your Lordships are aware, under the Act of 1836 arrears cannot be collected for longer than two years. Therefore, it is an elementary precaution to get an order of the Court if a tithe rentcharge payment becomes eighteen months overdue. It generally results, I am told, in an arrangement for payment by instalments, and the result is a satisfactory one, for the owner and the payer come together and make a satisfactory arrangement to suit each other. I should have liked to know very much in what parts of England this great increase in the number of County Court cases has occurred. I cannot help wondering if it has occurred in Kent and East Anglia where, of course, as everybody knows, the agitation has been most energetically and actively organised, and if my suspicion is correct—I do not put it forward as more than a suspicion—it is a very significant comment on the noble Viscount's figures. Elsewhere, I believe, the number of County Court orders has not greatly increased. I have it on the authority of the bursar of my college, Dr. Radcliffe of New College, that since he has been bursar of the college he has collected about £70,000 in tithe, and he has only once had to proceed to execution under a County Court Order. In that case the delinquent was a very rich man, who happened to be the chairman of the local Tithe-payers' Association, and he paid in a few hours.
It is very tempting to enlarge on a number of the points that have been dealt with in this debate, but I shall

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refrain from doing so. I do, however, ask for your Lordships' patience for a short time to deal with a side of the question which I do not think has been yet mentioned in either House of Parliament, except for a few sentences from the Leader of the House yesterday. I will put the case as briefly as I can, but I think I can show at once how important it is. This Bill is going to inflict very serious damage on higher education. I am not now speaking of the Church side; I am speaking of the lay side. If I may take the figures given by the Ministry of Agriculture before the Royal Commission—I have no doubt they are correct—they show that roughly there is rather over £3,000,000—the exact figure is I believe £3,150,000—of tithe rentcharge extant in England and Wales. Of this about £1,000,000 is lay tithe—let us say one-third for the sake of sticking to round figures. Of this £1,000,000, £577,000 is owned by colleges, schools and other establishments. That is to say, rather more than half of the lay tithe, and almost one-fifth of the whole of the tithe that is paid in England and Wales. Your Lordships will at once appreciate the importance of the work done by such institutions at St. Bartholomew's and Guy's Hospitals, which are important medical schools, the ancient colleges of Eton and Winchester, and Christ's Hospital, and I need not say anything further about them. I understand that the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge have an income in each case of £50,000 a year from tithe, and the result of this Bill will be a loss of 20 per cent. to each of the University Colleges. Each University is to lose at least £10,000 a year as a result of the passing of this Bill.
In the White Paper the Government tell us that the Commissioners did not take into consideration the hardships which their proposals might cause to any particular class of tithe-owner. I think that is a great pity, because they had ample evidence given to them on the subject—evidence which did not break down under searching questioning—and I think the recommendations of the Commission might have been more valuable if they had said something about it. But if the Commission had no responsibility in this matter, Parliament has, and I do not hesitate, therefore, to ask your Lordships to give it very serious consideration.
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I cannot, of course, speak with any authority for the other institutions that I have named, though it is fair to say that they communicated with the Commission. They said that they had seen the memoranda put before the Commission by the Cambridge and Oxford colleges, and that their circumstances were the same. I am, of course, not entitled to speak for the University of Cambridge, but I can give a few Oxford figures believing that they illustrate the position generally. These educational establishments have already suffered great losses in an attempt to find a solution of this problem. Figures are given—the reference is to page 532 of the evidence—which show that the seventeen colleges of Oxford concerned did not pick up Lord Hastings's pearl necklace in 1925. On the contrary, some of them have had these tithe rentcharges for over 400 years. A very interesting table shows that as the result of the passing of the two Acts of 1913 and 1925 the average loss in each year to seventeen colleges of Oxford in income has been £15,800 a year—that is to say, that has been their contribution to the permanent settlement of 1925 which is now being cast to the rubbish heap.
It is fair to remember that the Government anticipated this loss of tithe, and we were told when we raised that point in the course of discussions in your Lordships' House that there would be a loss at first, but that good years would follow and would eventually make good the loss. But the prospect of those promised good years is being wiped out by this Bill. What is proposed is a further reduction of over 20 per cent. I will not argue that that is necessarily unfair, because that is the sort of argument that does not get much sympathy, but I would argue much more that it is not only unfair but it is unwise. May I illustrate it very shortly but graphically by mentioning a piece of evidence which was submitted from my own college to the Royal Commission? It is a very interesting graph, but it has not been printed in the Report of the Royal Commission. I suppose it was too expensive for the Treasury to pay for the printing of it, the Treasury having determined that it will not contribute anything to the solution of this question. But this graph, a copy of which I shall be glad to show to any of your Lordships, gives the

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amount of tithe received by my college, New College, Oxford, in every year in the last fifty years before and after the payment of rates. Now the lowest year of any in the last fifty years—and I am assured that apart from this graph it is the lowest year of the whole hundred years—was the year of 1902 and that the gross annual value of tithe was £67 3s. 8¾ d. Deduct the cost of collection, which is five per cent., and the commission and the rates which were actually paid in that year and the amount worked out to the college at the net value of £51 2s. 10d., per £100. Under this Bill it will be permanently fixed at a lower figure than in any year in the last hundred years.
It is only fair to the Government that I should mention how that is worked out. We take £91 11s. 2d., we deduct 5 per cent. for the cost of collection (£4 11s. 6d.) then the rates at 10s. in the £l—I am informed in my college that the lowest rates ever paid are 12s. in the £l—£34 15s 11d., and finally this mysterious figure to improve the security, taken at £5 per cent. I am informed that the college had to collect £5,500 in the year 1934, and all that remains unpaid of that £5,500 is £53, and £53 on £5,500 is not 5 per cent. according to my arithmetic, but perhaps the Board of Agriculture have a different view. It is fair to say that in that year the college did remit £154. They let off the payment of £154, but I hope that tithe-payers will realise that there is going to be no letting off in the future. If you add that voluntary remission to the £53 unpaid, then the loss owing to bad security amounts to 3¾ per cent., which is lower than the 5 per cent. which the Commissioners have taken. Nevertheless taking that 5 per cent. we have to deduct £44 7s. 5d. from the £91 11s. 2d., so in future the college will receive £47 3s. 9d. per annum, which is less than it has received in any single year during the last hundred years. I use that as an illustration.
Now I come back to the round figure of £10,000 a year less to be spent on education in Oxford alone as a result of this Bill. Your Lordships will appreciate what the loss of £10,000 a year means. It means the loss of over thirty tutorial fellowships. It is equivalent to a loss of 110 scholarships. One college, Christ-church—which has many distinctions, one being that it took part in the education
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of the noble Viscount the Leader of the House—will suffer half the loss which falls on Oxford. Christchurch will lose £5,000 a year as a result of the Bill. The loss of a scholarship is a very real thing. A recent census taken in Oxford has shown that half the undergraduates are enjoying a scholarship of some kind, not necessarily a college one, not necessarily a University one, but a scholarship from somewhere. I need not emphasise the fact that the loss of a single scholarship means that a poor man loses the advantages of University education. Your Lordships, I know, will not imagine that these colleges are rich communities well able to afford this loss. They are not hoarders but are bodies doing their best to spend every penny they can for the advancement of learning.
I do not think your Lordships will consider that I use too strong words when I say that a serious blow is being caused by this Bill to higher education. The noble Viscount, Lord Halifax, did, for the first time that I remember in any speech by a member of the Government, deal with this point last night. He said:
"As regards the Universities and Colleges. I hope that because they are so provided with a marketable security, and considering that they pay no Income Tax and never die and therefore are liable to no Succession Duties"—
that has been the same with regard to tithe—
" they would not find it impossible to recoup themselves, at least in part, for such loss of income on re-investment."
I wonder what the noble Viscount meant to suggest by that. Surely the Chancellor of the University does not mean to suggest that the governing bodies of the colleges should have little flutters on the Stock Exchange, but I cannot read these words really in any other way. Surely he knows, as we all know, that the City of London is not an enchanted ground from which one can pick up gold and silver. I remember seeing a letter from a young lady friend of mine to her father, a well-known business man, in which she wrote: "Dear Father, next time you go to the City will you please make me £100?" I cannot help thinking that that young lady and the noble Viscount must come from the same financial family tree.
But seriously, there is nowhere in the market now that you can make up a loss

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of £10,000 on £40,000, which will be the net amount the colleges will have, without some depreciation of security. Yet we are being charged 5 per cent. for the improvement of security at the same time as we are being driven to less reliable investments. If it is not to be done by investment, how else is it to be done? Does the noble Viscount contemplate ground rents? I believe you can get higher interest from ground rents than you can from gilt-edged securities, but they are nothing like as secure. The only alternative is the purchase of land, and at present tithe rentcharge is a first charge on land. The colleges would be substituting the ownership of land which would be a much less favourable security than they have now. No, my Lords, the hope held out of profiting by fluctuations of the share market or in any other direction seems entirely illusory.
Yet something must be done. I hope it may be done before this Bill receives the Royal Assent. I want to make my position quite clear vis-a-vis my friends the tithe-payers. I should not agitate for their being called on to pay more than £91 11s. 2d. I should not ask for anything which would upset the new favourable arrangements with regard to Schedule B. I would not ask for any reduction in the proposed compensation to local rating authorities. And I know it is no use hoping that any contribution will come from the Treasury, which is at present contributing nothing except the credit of the nation, which is going to cost them nothing. What will be suggested, I know, is that the seventy-six years period of repayment in the 1925 Act shall be put into this Bill. Before I sit down all I would like to say on that point before we reach the Committee stage is that the most reverend Primate mentioned yesterday that this was barred by the Financial Resolution in another place. We all know that Parliamentary procedure is not a simple matter, but there is one thing quite clear and that is that no rule of procedure in one House has the smallest authority in another place. Both Houses are entirely masters over their own procedure. The noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, referred last night to our experience over the Irish Land Acts. I can think of many much more far-reaching Amendments that were made to those Acts than anything that is likely to be proposed to this Bill. However, we
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shall deal with the matter at the proper time. We certainly have the right to discuss anything we like in this House, and I hope that when we reach the Committee stage it will not be too late for the Government to be a little more liberal in view of the special considerations affecting a very large problem which I have ventured to put before your Lordships.
LORD DARYNGTON: My Lords, the last sentence of the noble Earl who has just sat down is one of great importance. I am quite sure that your Lordships will agree that we have the right to discuss anything we wish in this House. I want to say a few words on this Bill because I am one of the general treasurers of Queen Anne's Bounty and I am also a member of the Clergy Pensions Board. I want to refer to the remarks made yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Marley. He said:
"…tithe is a special burden on agriculture; and, as the Royal Commission pointed out, it amounts not only to a burden on agriculture but to a handicap on the agriculture of Great Britain in competition with that of other countries. It is unpopular because, as the Report says, it is a tax specially levied on agriculture and to-day it is no longer voluntary."
I want to put before your Lordships this afternoon what the Royal Commission did say on this point. It is contained in sub-paragraphs (5) and (6) of paragraph 59 on pages 24 and 25 of the Report.
This is what the Report says:
"Another cause of unpopularity is the belief that tithe rentcharge is in the nature of a tax specially levied upon agriculture…. Again, we doubt whether this view of the situation can be justified;…but the belief exists that tithe renteharge is a special tax upon agriculture and account of that belief must be taken as of a fact which has an influence on present conditions."
Then, after reference to the representation that the system is peculiar to England and Wales and that tithe rentcharge "is a burden upon English and Welsh agriculture which has no parallel abroad," the Commissioners went on to say:
"We express no opinion as to how far the allegation that English and Welsh agriculture is handicapped by tithe rentcharge in competing with the agriculture of other countries is justified, but here again account must be taken of a widely prevalent belief."
I thought it important that this point should be made this afternoon, because it puts the position quite differently.

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Lord Marley then referred to the fact that the services rendered by the Church are not rendered solely to tithe-payers, and stated that large numbers of tithe-payers do not want those services in return for tithe but actually resent the Church. I should like to point out, as a member of the governing body of Queen Anne's Bounty, that we have had comparatively little difficulty in obtaining the money during the last few years. The improvement has, of course, been very gradual, but it has been great during the last two or three years, and the number of people who do not pay their tithe is comparatively small taking into account the whole number. But the payment of tithe rentcharge is not a payment for services rendered by the tithe-owner, who is often not the Church at all but a college or a private lay owner. I am very glad that the noble Earl who has just sat down has mentioned this question of the colleges, and I should like also to emphasise the hard position of the deans and chapters of various cathedrals in this country. In paying tithe rentcharge the tithe-payer is meeting obligations which he impliedly undertook when he bought the land and which he should have taken into account in the price he paid.
The noble Lord, Lord Cranworth, in a very interesting speech this afternoon, referred to the fact that there would be a feeling against the Church if any legal action were taken by the Church in regard to these questions. I suggest, however, that the same law applies as far as rent is concerned, and a very large number of people in this country of all classes seem not to realise that tithe is merely a form of rent. I should also like to mention, before I sit down, that Lord Marley said that the Act of 1925 "raised the amount of cash and gave additional means to extract it from unwilling payers." That Act stabilised the value of tithe rentcharge at £105 per cent., and had it not been passed the value in 1927 would have been £133 per cent., a remarkable figure, and not £105 per cent. It was not until 1932 that the value on the seven years' corn averages would have fallen below £105 per cent., and, on the fifteen years' average—the average laid down for future payments under the Act of 1918—it would not have fallen below that figure until this year. I do not think that fact is generally known. The 1925 Act gave no additional powers
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of "extraction from unwilling payers." In his remarks on the income of the clergy Lord Marley was no doubt referring to certain tables, but I should like to suggest that those figures are not quite correct. I have little to add in conclusion because of the very full statement that was made by the most reverend Primate yesterday in regard to the whole question, but I see no reason why this should not be a final settlement. It is certainly true that in the last hundred years there have been fifteen Tithe Bills, but this is of a totally different nature, and I sincerely hope that it may be final.
EARL DE LA WARR: My Lords, I think we can all be agreed on one thing, and agreed most strongly, and that is that this debate is a debate of which your Lordships' House should be very proud. We are dealing with a subject on which there are the strongest feelings and on which, indeed, there is a very strong case to be put on both sides, a subject on which, as the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, told us yesterday, we are strongly represented on both sides. Nearly every noble Lord who has spoken in the debate can be said to be interested on one side or the other. Yet the whole tenour of the debate has been about as far from a wrangle of different interests as could well be imagined. Right through the speeches of the most reverend Primate and the right reverend Prelates who followed him there was running the whole time a full appreciation of the difficulties of the tithe-payers and the agricultural interests connected with them, and similarly, running right through the speeches of the noble Lords who spoke on behalf of the tithe-payers and agricultural interests, there was a deep sympathy for the problems of the tithe-owners.
The fact of the matter is that there is here represented in this question an absolutely fundamental and, in many ways, irreconcilable conflict, and it is particularly difficult to deal with because the two parties never meet; they deal with the question from completely different grounds. The only thing that just a little bit disturbs me in the situation is that, when two sides in a controversy in this country are unable to come to any decision or any form of agreement, they

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too often tend to get together on the one point on which they can agree, and that is their firm intention to kick His Majesty's Government. My only hope, however, is that the kicks that have been administered have on the whole been quite intentionally not hard enough to make us withdraw the Bill.
Certain points have been generally admitted, and they have quite clearly arisen out of the debate of the last two days. I say "generally admitted," but I think they are completely agreed by all except one or two noble Lords, notably Lord Marley, who I am sorry to see is not in his place at the present moment. It occurred to me, however, that his points did not need to be dealt with at any great length, because most of them seem to be almost complete irrelevancies to the question we are discussing and to have been inserted simply in order to make it quite clear to the House that, whatever noble Lords thought, he was determined to indicate that he had no intention of agreeing with anyone. He raised, however, one serious point on the question of the rates, and perhaps I might be allowed first of all just to deal with that point. He stated that local authorities were going to suffer because although this annuity of £600,000 for sixty years was allowed for this specific purpose, that was going to run out. Of course, as we know, the payment will start with the actual rating income derived in the year 1935 and then, of course, it will diminish year by year. That is perfectly true, but it must be remembered that under the existing law approximately two-thirds of the income which the rating authorities derive from the tithe rentcharge will have disappeared at the end of seventy-six years; and there is a point over and above that: that redemptions are being carried out all the time from year to year, and so far as those redemptions are being carried out from year to year the local authorities are at the present moment losing rates.
I am afraid I have got away from the point at which I started, which was an attempt to elucidate some of those points which have emerged clearly as points of agreement in this discussion. The first point that has emerged is that it is quite generally admitted by all sides that tithe, just like anything else, whether land or stocks and shares, is a form
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of property, and there has been no desire whatsoever on the part of those who have spoken most strongly on behalf of the tithe-payers in any way to question that point. So often we hear, and we have heard it, I think, from the other side of the House during this debate, the implication that certain people in the country do not like the Church and do not like parsons, and therefore they should not have to pay tithe to the Church or the parsons. Of course, what some of them are really getting at is the point made by Lord Marley and by Sir Stafford Cripps in the park at that great demonstration, that if only they can establish a definite questioning of a form of property first in the form of tithe, unquestionably the next attack will be on land itself, and indeed Lord Marley made that perfectly clear in his speech. But in doing so, he did introduce a complete irrelevance, because he tried to prove to your Lordships that if only land were nationalised the problem of tithe would disappear. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whether X passes a piece of property to Y, or whether the State buys it, tithe will remain a charge upon that piece of land, unless it is going to be confiscated, which nobody has suggested.
Then it is agreed that tithe is a form of property. I think it is agreed also, which was a point made by Lord Bingley, that tithe was a part of the land and recognised as part of the land when the land was inherited, or when it was bought, and that in so far as the land was inherited there was a saving on Death Duties, due to the incidence of tithe, and in so far as the land was bought it was bought at a cheaper price. Another point of agreement is that no form of property can in fact—and I do want, if I may, to emphasise this very obvious point for the purpose of future argument—be abolished. It can be transferred. The noble Lord opposite has talked about the abolition of tithe. All you can do is to transfer it from the existing tithe-owners to the tithe-payers, or if you laid it down that the owners should be compensated by the State, then it would be a transference of wealth from the State to the tithe-payers. Lastly, one other point, which I may say we were all glad to hear made by Lord Donoughmore, is that the payment of tithe is not simply a payment to the Church, for it is a payment

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which has to be made to a great number of other interests as well as the Church. That is a certain set of points, and mostly points which, if we were dealing in terms of controversy, are rather in favour of the owners.
What is the other side of the case? Various points have been put forcibly before your Lordships. The first is that since the beginning of time the owners of any form of property, however universally recognised, have always been prepared to make concessions. Landlords have always been prepared to make concessions in the case of rents. There are other cases where mortgagees have even reduced mortgage interests. Of course these concessions will always inevitably apply mainly to fixed interest payments, such as tithe, because such payments bear most hardly upon a depressed industry. Another point which was brought out by the noble Viscount the Leader of the House was the catastrophic fall in prices which has taken place since 1925. Then, again, there is the fact that tithe itself is a form of tax which has frequently been changed in the past. It was changed, as we all know, in 1925. At that time, as Lord Daryngton ton has perfectly fairly pointed out, there was an attempt to make concession to the tithe-payers, and a considerable sum was saved, but we all recognise to-day that the Act of 1925 is acting exactly in the opposite direction. We also recognise that occupiers have bought a great deal of land and that most of it was bought at a time of very inflated prices.
Lastly, I think we all recognise that whatever we may feel about the irrelevance of saying whether this form of tax is to be paid to the Church or to someone else, nevertheless there are a number of people in this country, perfectly sincere and honest people, who do feel a very great objection to the payment of tithe on possibly quite an irrational ground, but nevertheless a very sincere one. I cannot help feeling that in many cases there has been in regard to this a great deal of exploitation, and that people whose consciences have not greatly troubled them in other directions have felt a great stirring of their consciences in respect of the payment of tithe. Nevertheless, I feel that there has been this sincere objection in some quarters.
What is the position of the Government? I think it is a very clear one—
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that this is a difficulty that has arisen between two sections of the community. Our position is a judicial one. It is true that we have done our best to help in the solution of that problem by pledging the credit of the country to a very large sum—namely, £70,000,000, and by placing at the disposal of the scheme that has been worked out the very low borrowing powers of the Government. Actually our position is a judicial one. With all due deference to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, who says that the fact that neither side really likes the settlement is not an argument in favour of it, I venture to suggest that in this case, where there are these two almost irreconcilable views, the fact that there are complaints from both sides does show that a really genuine endeavour has been made to strike a fair and happy medium.
We recognise that, in the words of the Report, it is a charge that is quite inappropriate to contemporary conditions. We recognise that, if it had been possible, the right reverend Prelate might have been quite right and we should have been better advised to leave the matter alone. If we had not had a sense of responsibility we might have done so. But quite apart from the duties of a Government to deal with a problem that obviously needed to be dealt with, I do not think that any of your Lordships who knew the state of the country in 1934 would for a moment say that we could have got away with such an irresponsible attitude. The noble Viscount the Leader of the House has already mentioned the number of cases that were before the County Courts, but, in addition to that, in 1936 there were arrears of tithe amounting, I think, to £716,000, of which I think £40,000 had been in arrears for over three years.
There is one point about the Government attitude upon which I think it is quite essential that we should be clear from the beginning, because it really bears on nearly every point of criticism that has been brought out, and will have to be dealt with later, and that is that His Majesty's Government are not prepared to charge the general taxpayer with this liability. If a subsidy to agriculture is needed—and I think the Government have shown that they are quite prepared to put this particular

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pledge into operation—then it must be given on general lines. If a section of the industry is depressed—whether it is the wheat growers or the pig producers or the milk producers—then we will help agriculture on the basis of its being an industry. We have money available for the relief of the industry, but we could not for a moment consider giving it to one particular section, the tithe-payers, in order to help them deal with one particular form of liability. Your Lordships realise that there are farmers all over the country who are not paying tithe at all but who still have a difficulty in meeting certain liabilities.
What are the main lines on which the Royal Commission has proposed that we should proceed? I fully recognise the truth of what the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, has said. We have not in every case followed the recommendations of that Commission. But at the same time he will admit that the scheme is in general based upon its recommendations, with the qualification of the point which I have just made, that His Majesty's Government have had to make certain alterations because we are not prepared to pledge the taxpayer, and I venture to suggest before I leave that point that those who have uttered criticisms to-day, and those who are going without doubt to propose Amendments at a later stage, really must answer this specific question: If they want a greater relief for the tithe-payer do they really hope to get it out of the tithe-owner—many things in their speeches have suggested that they do not, because they recognise the difficulties—or do they intend to get it out of the general taxpayer? We really must be clear in our minds that greater relief cannot come down like manna from Heaven; it has to come out of somebody's pocket. It has to come out of the Church's pocket, out of the lay tithe-owner's pocket or out of the taxpayer's pocket. And I think it is a perfectly fair point to make to those who have uttered these criticisms that at some stage or other in these discussions they will have to answer that question.
Now what are the proposals? First of all that there should be a flat-rate reduction of tithe. I need not dwell in any detail on this particular item, because it has already been expounded so clearly
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to your Lordships, but actually it is a flat-rate reduction that amounts to approximately 16 per cent. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, has given your Lordships figures which question a great deal the benefit of that 16 per cent. He says it is written off by a great number of extra payments. What are those extra payments? In the main it is a fact that, because the property which has been liable to tithe will in future not be liable, it will be subject to greatly increased charges for Death Duties and Income Tax. But that is an argument for no reduction at all. The noble Lord might as well have said that if we abolished tithe it would be no use to him because he would have to pay increased tax. Really I do not think that that particular point of Lord Hastings can be substantiated. Now there is the question of a further concession, a concession to hard cases, modelled on this basis, that in the past no tithe-payer had to pay his full tithe if in fact it came to more than two-thirds of his Schedule B. In future that two-thirds will be reduced to one-third.
There lies the answer to the case of the noble Lord about the rent of the property which in the past has been rented at 55s. with a tithe upon it of 11s. 6d. He said that the amount, instead of being 55s., is now 10s., and he left us to infer that on a rental value of 10s. a tithe of 11s. 6d. would have to be paid. Under this concession it would only be one-third of the Schedule B value, and the Schedule B value at the most could not be more than 10s. If the property was in the actual occupation of the owner it would be less, because he would be able to deduct the value of his farmhouse and cottage, and, at the most, the tithe would be only 3s. 4d., which would be a concession to the tithe-payer of no less than 8s. 2d. There again, in this concession lies the reply to the noble Lord, Lord Cranworth. I made a note of his question: Do you want to ask a man for what he has not got? If the value of the land has in fact deteriorated to the point which the noble Lord suggested, then the Schedule B value has so declined that the tithe becomes infinitely reduced.
Then we come to the question of period. The period has been reduced from seventy-six years to sixty years. That is another concession. I fully recognise that

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that is not so big a reduction as was recommended by the Commission, but the noble Viscount the Leader of the House has already dealt with this point. All I would say, in addition, is that the real reply to the criticism that we should have followed the recommendation of the Royal Commission lies in the point I have already made—namely, that His Majesty's Government are not prepared to charge the general taxpayer with the liability for this charge. There would have been no way of keeping the period down to forty years without imposing a charge upon the general taxpayer. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, criticises us for it. He likened it to finding a pearl necklace in the street which at a later stage he lost, so that really it was not a very severe blow to him. Of course, he recognises he has never had the forty years. He did see it referred to in the Royal Commission Report, but he has never had it, and what has really happened is that he has had his liability reduced from seventy-six years to sixty years. That is what tithe-payers get out of this Bill.
What does the Church get? The Church gets a very much increased security. In some of the speeches which right reverend Prelates have made there was a certain belittlement of the value of this increased security, and I rather think that the noble Earl, Lord Donoughmore, did not treat it with the respect which we might have expected from him. I have put before your Lordships certain figures on which I need not dwell. There is the figure of arrears—£716,000 in 1936. A very large part of that sum was in arrear for over three years. Do right reverend Prelates, and does the noble Earl, Lord Donoughmore, really suggest that the security of the State, with prompt payment on the very day of every penny that is due, with none of the obligations of collection, is not worth a very great deal to them? Of course it is. There is something even more important with regard to the Church. While the Church requires these funds in order to carry out the spiritual work of the parishes, they know that a great deal more important to them than any amount of funds they have for the carrying out of that work is the good will of the parishioners. That is the real reason, I think, why the most reverend Primate, in that statesmanlike speech he made to your Lordships yesterday, closed his speech, which admittedly
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had a number of points of criticism in it, with the assurance that he intended to do nothing that would endanger the Bill.
What are the other criticisms that have been raised? I apologise to your Lordships for being so long, but a great number of points have been raised. I do not know that a great deal has been made of this point, but it has been suggested that the flat-rate should be less than £91. In justification of that, we have been given the figure of £76, which it would be on the average of prices, or £80, as it would be if we included the wheat subsidy. Actually I think the figure would be £85 if we included the wheat subsidy over a period of seven years, because the figure of £80 is based on last year only. Still that is virtually six per cent. less than £91. I do not want to make too much of this point, because it is rather a general point than a particular one, but actually, in addition to that flat-rate reduction, there is the reduction under Schedule B, and it has been reckoned to represent £200,000. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, did not think it would amount to so much as that, but I can only assure him that the Commission and the authorities have gone into the figure very carefully, and since he made the point I have taken some trouble to check it, and that is the figure as near as we can get to it. That £200,000 represents another reduction of nearly seven per cent. on the average over all the tithe-payers, which gets us down to nearly £85. I know that that concession does not operate on a flat-rate basis, and that a great deal more goes to hard cases and a great deal less, therefore, to the ordinary payer; but I think the real answer to the point that the flat rate should be less is the answer that might have been given in 1925 from the other side. If you take any set of seven years, you can establish any basis, but it is always certain to be unsatisfactory in a very short time. I think the Royal Commission took the right line in taking the average figure for eighty years.
Looking at it from the other side, with reference to the point made by Lord Donoughmore that the figure should be £97, my reply to that is that, whether there is mathematical justification for it or not, if we had put the figure at £97 we just would not have got it; but I

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think there are very much better reasons than that which induced the Commission definitely and consciously to omit the very exceptional years which they would have been quite out of order in including. The next point of criticism which noble Lords have made refers to the question of the concession under Schedule B. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, particularly, and I think Lord Cranworth, mentioned that point, and said they are going to move that there should be a greater concession than that. A great number of us live in the country, and we all know the countryman and the farmer. We all know that if we saw a farmer going into a field trying to sell a cow who did not try to get a better price for it than was in fact offered, we should not think much of his business capacity. Of course the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, is perfectly right in taking up that attitude and saying "One-third! What an absurd thing: we must have more than one-third." I come back to the point I made at the beginning, where is this increase going to come from?
LORD HASTINGS: I have told the noble Earl.
EARL DE LA WARR: My contention is that it can only come from the tithe-owner or from the State. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, says it can come from the scheme itself. Well, I can only tell the noble Lord that the financial basis of the scheme was originally gone into most carefully by what he himself has told us was a very first-rate and excellent Royal Commission. It has since been gone into not only by the Ministry of Agriculture but by the financial authorities of the Government, and, on the other side, by the financial authorities of the Church and the lay tithe-owners. If it happens that there have been mistakes in their sums here or there, that is a matter that can be gone into, and, naturally, if a mistake is discovered, then the scheme would have to be altered, but I do suggest to your Lordships that it is very unlikely that these authorities will have made any very considerable mistakes in their arithmetic.
LORD HASTINGS: I regret to interrupt the noble Earl, but there was one very big mistake found, and it may not be very singular that there should be another.
EARL DE LA WARR: I will certainly go through the figures again, and, if I find any mistake, I can assure the noble Lord full benefit will be given to it in the scheme before this Bill is put upon the Statute Book. Before I deal with the question of personal liability, I want to refer to a smaller point, but one which is I know a very important one. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, asked me a specific question with regard to Clause 19, subsection (2). There is a payment of £2 5s. which, in the noble Lord's opinion, would have to be paid by the tithe-payer into the sinking fund. If the noble Lord will read that subsection very carefully, he will see that it is a liability of Queen Anne's Bounty to carry over into the sinking fund and not one on the tithe-payer. There will be no liability on the tithe-payer to pay that £2 5s. for this reason, that the £2 5s. has already been paid by him last April into the sinking fund, and this will be a transfer from one account to another.
I come now to the question of personal liability, a matter on which I think there is a strong feeling; in fact a stronger feeling than on any other point in the Bill. Let us consider the position of the Exchequer which has pledged its credit to the extent of no less a sum than £70,000,000 in order to enable this scheme to benefit through Government credit by borrowing at a low rate. Are they not entitled to say: "If we take this step which enables this very considerable relief to be made to the tithe-payers, then we must insist upon being certain of being able to collect our money." I think that is a perfectly simple and a definite attitude to take up, and quite sufficient of itself to justify this change in the law. But I think that behind what the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, said, and I think also the noble Lord, Lord Cranworth, said, both on this occasion and in 1934, there is a very deep misconception of the reason why tithe-payers at the moment are not under a personal liability to meet this charge. I think the misconception is on this point. It seems to be thought that it was considered at the time when this method of collection was laid down—I am not stating what has been said in so many words, but what I think lies behind this point of view—that, as a special privilege to the tithe-payers, they should be granted a peculiar method

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under which their debts would be collected from them in order to enable them ultimately to meet that charge.
Actually the reason why there is this particular method of collection is not that it was laid down as a privilege at all to the tithe-payer, but simply and solely that in 1836, when it was laid down, that was the most effective way of collecting tithe. Let me read a quotation from the speech of the Minister in charge of the Bill at that time, Lord John Russell. He said:
"The object of this Bill is, that whatever the amount of the rentcharge which it gives the tithe-owner, whether one-third or a half, or one-quarter more or less than the present amount of his tithe, the tithe-owner should have a sufficient remedy for its recovery. Now I conceive these clauses to provide no more than the sufficient remedy; however, should the House think otherwise, I shall propose another, which I have now in my hand, giving him the power of bringing an action for his rentcharge. Some remedy he must have, or the Bill will be inoperative."
It is clear that the intention then was that the strongest power possible should be given to the tithe-owner to collect the charge. This is an important point. There may be, as I believe there is, as His Majesty's Government believe there is—and that is why they are introducing this Bill—a very strong case for the relief of the tithe-payer, both on a flat-rate basis and on the basis of special concessions to hard cases, but there is no case for relief to anybody on the basis of a person saying he will not pay his just debts and that he thinks he has discovered a loop-hole in the law whereby he can evade his obligations. I know that that is not the line that noble Lords behind me would for a moment begin to justify, but at the same time it seems to me that there is no getting away from the logic of the case and that this objection
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to personal liability can really only be justified ultimately on such a basis.
I venture to submit to your Lordships that this Bill is a fair solution of a problem that has never been in the past and never can be in the future—I pass over the point whether it is a permanent solution or not—settled on a basis that is absolutely satisfactory to all parties. It cannot be. But I do suggest that this Bill is a fair settlement. It relieves the Church of being in the unhappy position of collecting a charge from men who in far too many cases it is realised cannot meet the charge. It relieves the tithe-payer from the equally unhappy position of having to attempt to pay a charge which he feels he cannot pay, or of having to deny the Church of which very possibly he is a member or the colleges for whose work he has the greatest respect payment of a debt which he knows ha is liable to pay. For these reasons I say that this is a fair settlement. We shall be prepared to discuss in Committee every point raised by noble Lords, but at the moment I trust your Lordships will give the Bill the Second Reading it deserves.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT HALIFAX): My Lords, before your Lordships adjourn perhaps I might be allowed to say that I think it would be to the general convenience that we should meet at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon. We propose to take the Committee stage of the Tithe Bill on Thursday of next week.
House adjourned at two minutes past seven o'clock.

LONDON PASSENGER TRANSPORT BOARD BILL.
The King's consent signified; and Bill reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (ADDITIONAL POWERS) BILL.
The King's consent in respect of his land revenues and in right of his Duchy of Cornwall, signified: and Bill reported, with Amendments.

LONDON AND NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY (LONDON TRANSPORT) BILL.
SURREY COUNTY COUNCIL BILL.
The King's consent signified; and Bills reported, with Amendments.

AXBRIDGE RURAL DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL.
Reported, with Amendments.

LANCASTER ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION) ORDER, 1936.
Special Order in respect of part of the rural district of Garstang in the County Palatine of Lancaster:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

MID SOUTHERN ELECTRICITY (EXTENSION, ETC.) ORDER, 1936.
Special Order in respect of parts of the rural districts of Basingstoke Hartley Wintney and Kingsclere and Whitchurch in the County of Southampton:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

YSTRADGYNLAIS ELECTRICITY ORDER, 1936.
Special Order in respect of the rural district of Ystradgynlais in the County of Brecon:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME GAS ORDER, 1936.
Special Order proposed to be made on the application of the Mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the Borough of New-castle-under-Lyme:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

DRAFT UNEMPLOYMENT ASSIST- ANCE (DETERMINATION OF NEED AND ASSESSMENT OF NEEDS) REGULATIONS, 1936.
Draft regulations, dated July 8, 1936, made by the Minister of Labour under Sections 38 (3) and 52 (2) of the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1934:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVI- SIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (RIPON) BILL. [H.L.]
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments, and re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PRO- VISIONAL ORDER (TEES VALLEY WATER BOARD) BILL.
Reported, without amendment, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.