Sitting of 21 December 1938

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

MONUMENT TO THE EARL OF OXFORD AND ASQUITH.
The VICE-CHAMBERLAIN OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Mr. GRIMSTON) reported His Majesty's Answer to, as followeth:
I have received your Address praying that I will give directions that a Monument be erected within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster to the memory of the late Right Honourable the Earl of Oxford and Asquith, with an inscription expressive of the high sense entertained by the House of Commons of the eminent services rendered by him to the Country and Empire in Parliament, and in great Offices of State, and assuring Me that you will make good the expenses attending the same.
I will gladly give directions for carrying into effect your proposal to do honour to the memory of that illustrious statesman and devoted servant of his Country.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  PORTUGAL (MISSION).
  Mr. Manderasked the Prime Minister whether, as a result of the visit to Portugal of the Military Mission, adequate mutual arrangements have now been made for the defence of the British and Portuguese colonies?
  The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Butler): As the Mission have only just returned to this country on the conclusion of their duties in Portugal, His Majesty's Government have not yet had an opportunity of considering their final report.
  Mr. Mander: Are we not bound by treaty to Portugal, and was not the object
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  of the Missing to secure mutual protection?
  Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir, but we must consider the Mission's full report.
  Mr. Mander: If I put down a question after the Recess, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will give me an answer?
  Mr. Butler: I can always count on the hon. Gentleman to put down a question.

  SPAIN.
  Mr. Priceasked the Prime Minister whether he has any information that further steps are being taken by the Nationalist Government of Spain to repatriate any contingent of foreign volunteers; and when this repatriation may be expected?
  Mr. Butler: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative and the second part does not, therefore, arise.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: Is there any truth in the report this morning that further contingents of volunteers are being sent back from Government Spain?
  Mr. Butler: That is from the other side.
  Mr. Manderasked the Prime Minister what resignations have recently taken place from the membership of the Non-Intervention Committee, or any of its sub-committees; and what were the reasons given for these changes?
  Mr. Butler: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 5th December to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chatham (Captain Plugge). The Swedish Government have, so far as I am aware, made no statement on the reasons for withdrawing their representative on the Chairman's Sub-Committee. The Belgian Prime Minister defined the attitude of his Government in a speech in the Senate on 29th November, in the course of which he stated that the whole character of the Spanish problem had changed.
  Mr. Mander: In view of the fact that the Committee has not met since 5th July can the hon. Gentleman say whether it is proposed to continue the functions of this remarkable body?
  Mr. Butler: That raises a broader question than the question on the Paper.
  Mr. James Griffiths: May we take it that the Non-Intervention Committee is now ceasing to intervene?
  Mr. Butler: No, Sir.
  Sir Percy Harrisasked the Prime Minister when the Non-Intervention Committee last met; and what countries are still represented thereon?
  Mr. Butler: The Non-Intervention Committee last met on 5th July. I will, with the hon. Baronet's permission, circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a list of the countries represented on the Committee.
  Sir P. Harris: Can the hon. Gentleman say when this Committee is likely to meet again?
  Mr. Butler: I would require notice of that question.
  Captain Cazalet: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether any of these countries have failed in paying their contributions?
  Mr. Butler: I should have notice of that question also.
  Following is the list:

  Albania.

  Italy.

  Belgium.

  Latvia.

  United Kingdom

  Lithuania.

  of Great Britain

  Luxemburg.

  and Northern

  Netherlands.

  Ireland.

  Norway.

  Bulgaria.

  Poland.

  Czechoslovakia.

  Portugal.

  Denmark.

  Rumania.

  Eire.

  Sweden.

  Estonia.

  Turkey.

  Finland.

  Union of Soviet

  France.

  Socialist Republics.

  Germany.

  Greece.

  Yugoslavia.

  Hungary.

  Mr. Arthur Hendersonasked the Prime Minister what action His Majesty's Government propose to take to despatch supplies of food to the civilian population of Spain, as recommended in the League Commission Report?
  Mr. Butler: His Majesty's Government are at present in consultation with the United States and French Governments on this question.
  Mr. Henderson: Will His Majesty's Government bear in mind the recommendation of the League Commissioners that food should be sent by any Government in a position to do it, in order to relieve the 3,000,000 refugees from the danger of starvation?
  Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. His Majesty's Government realise the gravity of this problem. That is why they are in touch with other Governments, in the hope of dealing with this matter on international lines.
  Mr. Shinwell: Then will the hon. Member do something to expedite a decision in this matter, because of its gravity?
  Mr. Butler: Certainly, Sir.
  Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the possibility of making use of the excess of potatoes over 1 lb. in weight which the Minister of Agriculture is keeping off the British market, because these could be used to great advantage in this connection?
  Mr. Butler: I will certainly look into that point.
  Mr. Mander: Will the hon. Gentleman see that the British Fleet is available to protect the ships when they go there?
  Mr. Butler: The British Navy always gives protection to British ships on the high seas.
  Mr. Robert Gibson: Can the hon. Gentleman see that if this food is carried in British ships those ships will be free from attack from General Franco's ships?
  Mr. Butler: The whole question of the transport of food is under consideration with the Burgos authorities, as I have already informed the House on previous occasions.
  Lieut.-Commander Agnew: Is it not the best way for the food to go in over the French frontier, where no question of shipping can arise?
  Mr. Noel-Bakerasked the Prime Minister what reply His Majesty's Government have received from General Franco concerning the compensation to be paid for British ships sunk and damaged by General Franco's forces in Spanish waters?
  Mr. Butler: The reply of the British Agent has been delayed owing to the illness of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, but it has now been delivered to our acting agent and a telegraphic summary was received by my Noble Friend yesterday. This is necessarily much abbreviated and certain points need to be clarified. The full text will be communicated to the shipping interests concerned directly it arrives.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: Have any practical results yet been achieved from the agreement made with General Franco last July?
  Mr. Butler: I hope that when we get the full report we shall see that something has been achieved.
  Mr. Day: Does the report give the names of British persons who have been killed and injured?
  Mr. Butler: It does not exactly deal with that question.
  Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: Have the Government taken into consideration the situation which will arise about this compensation in the event of General Franco being defeated? Who will then pay the compensation, if General Franco is not able to do so?
  Mr. Noel-Bakerasked the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to protest to the Italian Government against the continued presence of Italian troops and armaments in Spain as constituting a breach of the Non-Intervention Agreements of August, 1936, and February, 1937?
  Mr. Butler: While the statements of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the course of Monday's Debate have made perfectly clear the attitude of His Majesty's Government on the whole subject of foreign intervention in Spain, the continued presence of foreign troops and material in that country is not in itself a breach of the Non-Intervention Agreement since it was precisely to obtain their removal by international agreement that the plan of the Non-Intervention Committee was devised.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: In view of the fact that the presence of Italian troops and material must be a breach of the agreements of August, 1936, and February,
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  1937, concerning men and material, and in view of the fact that the Prime Minister's speech is widely interpreted as legitimising the presence of those troops in Spain, would it not be very desirable that we should now make a protest in Rome against their continued presence?
  Mr. Butler: I could not accept the interpretation of my right hon. Friend's speech given by the hon. Member. The first part of his supplementary question is answered by my original reply.
  Brigadier-General Sir Henry Croft: In view of the fact that since the withdrawal of the Italian troops 65 pilots from Russia arrived in November, and 60 on 3rd December, will my hon. Friend see that if any protest is made, it is made to all parties?
  Mr. W. Roberts: Has the hon. Member any evidence in his possession whatever of the truth of such a statement?
  Mr. Butler—
  Mr. Speaker: We cannot debate the matter now.
  Sir Archibald Sinclair: Surely, Mr. Speaker, if an hon. Member makes a statement like that across the Floor of the House and the Tinder-Secretary is willing to answer a question as to whether the Government have any information on that point, the House is entitled to receive an answer?
  Mr. Speaker: If all questions are to be debated, we shall never get anywhere. There are 129 questions on the Paper today.
  Mr. Thorne: Do you recognise, Mr. Speaker, the very serious nature of the allegation made by the hon. and gallant Gentleman against another country, and should it not be answered somewhere?
  Mr. Speaker: So many allegations are made on this subject that it is impossible to distinguish the merits of one over another.

  CHINA AND JAPAN.
  Mr. Priceasked the Prime Minister whether in view of Japanese discrimination against British and United States trade in China, he will consult with the United States about retaliatory measures

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  against Japanese trade which may be jointly undertaken by the two Governments?
  Mr. Butler: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by the Prime Minister on 14th November to the hon. Member for Kingswinford (Mr. A. Henderson) that His Majesty's Government are prepared at all times to maintain close touch with the United States Government in matters of common concern to both countries.
  Mr. Price: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is a strong feeling in the United States at present against discrimination by Japan against American trade in China; and is not this particularly a time when close relations should be maintained with the United States on this matter?
  Mr. Butler: I believe what the hon. Member says to be true.
  Mr. A. Henderson: Are the Government maintaining close relations with the United States?
  Mr. Butler: The hon. Member will recall that in a previous answer, I indicated that that was the case.
  Mr. James Hallasked the Prime Minister whether, during the hostilities in China, the telegraphic communications have been adequate; and, if not, whether steps are being taken to improve these communications so that they are adequate in emergency?
  Mr. Butler: A certain amount of interruption has inevitably occurred, but it may be said that, in general, communications at present are adequate.
  Mr. Crossleyasked the Prime Minister what has been the result of his inquiries into the case in which Japanese soldiers entered the premises of Messrs. Andrew Harper and Company at Canton, and seized motor cars and accessories on the premises in spite of the British consular seals having been placed on the building?
  Mr. Butler: I expect my hon. Friend is referring to Messrs. Wallace Harper and Company, Limited. Although this company is registered as British, a substantial block of shares is at present in foreign non-Chinese hands. My Noble Friend has called for details additional to
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  those already received with a view to deciding whether any further action is called for beyond the representations already made by His Majesty's Consul-General at Canton.
  Mr. Moreingasked the Prime Minister whether British engineers are yet permitted to inspect the Shanghai-Nanking Railway; in what currency the revenue is being collected on the Shanghai-Nanking, the Shanghai-Hangchow, and the Peiping-Mukden railways; and what provision has been made to secure payment of interest to the British bondholders in these railways?
  Mr. Butler: As I informed my hon. Friend on 21st November, the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs indicated last September that inspection of the Shanghai-Nanking line could not be allowed for military reasons. In a note dated 8th December addressed to His Majesty's Ambasador at Tokyo it was stated that no change whatever had occurred in the last three months which would render a survey possible. On the Shanghai-Nanking and Shanghai-Hangchow railways the revenues are collected in Japanese yen and Japanese military yen notes. On the Peiping-Mukden Railway Federal Reserve Bank currency is in general use, except on the Manchurian section, where Manchurian currency is used. Interest on the Peiping-Mukden Railway Loan has been paid up to date. My Noble Friend is in communication with His Majesty's Ambassador at Tokyo on the subject of the other obligations secured on these railways.
  Mr. Moreing: Will the hon. Gentleman reply to the first part of the question? Are His Majesty's Government really satisfied with these continual excuses put forward by the Japanese authorities in connection with the inspection of the Shanghai and Nanking Railway? It is some months since I first raised the question, and I feel that some protest ought to be made.
  Mr. Butler: I appreciate the anxiety of the hon. Member, which is shared by His Majesty's Government. The Japanese Government have declared that the same military reasons which made inspection difficult before make it equally difficult now.
  Mr. Mander: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that all of us on these benches have just the same feeling of anxiety?
  Mr. Crowderasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn to the delays to British shipping at Chefoo occasioned by the granting of the monopoly of lighter transport by the Japanese authorities; and what action he is taking in the matter?
  Mr. Butler: My Noble Friend has no recent official reports on the subject. Representations have been made to the Japanese Government on the general question of discrimination against British shipping in North China ports, including Chefoo.

  LIBYA (ITALIAN FORCES).
  Mr. A. Hendersonasked the Prime Minister whether he can now state the numerical strength of the two army corps and the native division constituting the Italian forces in Libya?
  Mr. Butler: As it is understood that reliefs have not been completed, I regret that I am unable to state the numerical strength of the Italian forces in Libya.
  Sir A. Sinclair: Is there any reason to suppose that they have been reduced in accordance with the provisions of the Anglo-Italian Agreement?
  Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. In reply to a previous question I informed the House that that was the case.
  Sir P. Harris: How can the hon. Gentleman know that they have been reduced when he does not know the numbers, and never did know the numbers of these Italians?
  Mr. Butler: I am satisfied that they have been reduced.

  GERMANY.

    ARMAMENTS EXPENDITURE.
    Mr. Dayasked the Prime Minister whether he will state, according to information supplied by His Majesty's representatives abroad, the manner in which Germany is at present financing her rearmament?
    Mr. Butler: As I informed the hon. Member on 25th May for some years past no figures have been published regarding German expenditure on armaments, and I am not, therefore, in a position to give any particulars on this subject.
    Mr. Day: Has the hon. Gentleman received any reports on the statement that Germany has spent over £800,000,000?

    CAPTAIN WEIDEMANN.
    Mr. A. Hendersonasked the Prime Minister whether Herr Hitler's envoy, Captain Weidemann, during his forthcoming visit to London, will have conversations with Members of His Majesty's Government?
    Mr. Butler: My Noble Friend has no knowledge of any such visit.

    GREAT BRITAIN AND FRANCE.
    Mr. Manderasked the Prime Minister whether in view of the statement by the French Foreign Minister, that all the forces of France, land, sea and air, would be immediately and spontaneously used in the defence of Great Britain in the event of unprovoked aggression against us, he is prepared to make a similar and reciprocal statement with regard to British support of France?
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Chamberlain):
    The position has been made clear in recent public statements, and I would refer the hon. Member in particular to the statement which I made on Anglo-French relations in the course of the Debate on 19th December.
    Mr. Mander: Cannot we give the same generous and unequivocal assurances to France, that she has given to us?
    The Prime Minister: The French Government is quite satisfied.

    CZECHOSLOVAKIA.
    Mr. Noel-Bakerasked the Prime Minister whether he can now tell the House if the proposed military road across Czechoslovakia from Breslau to Vienna is to be regarded as German territory; whether that is consistent with the neutrality of Czechoslovakia in time of war; and how the existence of the road affects the new British guarantee of the integrity of Czechoslovakian territory?
    Mr. Butler: The text of the German-Czechoslovak Agreement on this subject has now been received, and arrangements are being made to place copies in the Library of the House. As regards the second and third parts of the question, I am not yet in a position to make any statement.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether in the statement which has been received, it is made clear whether this is German territory or not?
    Mr. Butler: I would refer the hon. Gentleman to the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Debate on Monday last in which he said that the territory would remain part of Czechoslovakia.
    Mr. Wedgwood Benn: Will this Paper be laid before the House; and does it state, as is stated in the "Times," that the Germans intend to police the road?
    Mr. Butler: I have said that copies will be placed in the Library of the House.
    Mr. Cocks: Has the hon. Gentleman any information yet that the British guarantee to Czechoslovakia is no longer required?
    Mr. Butler: I have said in my answer that I have nothing to add on the subject of guarantees.
    Mr. Benn: In the meantime we are subject to military commitments in respect of this.

    REFUGEES.
    Mr. Rileyasked the Prime Minister whether the status of refugees coming from Germany, as defined in the Convention of the League of Nations on 10th February, 1938, and ratified by His Majesty's Government, is applicable to refugees from the former Republic of Austria, now incorporated in Germany?
    Mr. Butler: The question of the applicability to refugees from Austria of the Convention signed at Geneva on 10th February, 1938, has been under consideration by the League of Nations. His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, who are themselves already applying the Convention to refugees from Austria, have put forward a draft Protocol making it clear that the provisions both
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    of the Provisional Arrangement signed at Geneva on 4th July, 1936, and of the Convention of 10th February, 1938, shall be interpreted as applicable to such refugees. At the request of the League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees coming from Germany, the Secretary-General of the League has circulated this draft Protocol to the Governments concerned for their observations.
    Mr. Riley: Has any reply been received from other countries?
    Mr. Butler: I think not yet, and that is why I cannot give a final answer.

    BRITISH EMBASSY, ROME.
    Mr. Davidsonasked the Prime Minister the total number of persons in the service of the British Embassy at Rome for 1937 and 1938, respectively?
    Mr. Butler: On 31st December, 1937, the figure was 38. It is the same to-day.
    Mr. Davidson: Will the existence of those people be recognised by the Prime Minister during his forthcoming visit?
    Mr. Butler: I am sure that every one of them will be much gratified to see the Prime Minister and my Noble Friend.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE.

    AUXILIARY FORCE.
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he can make a statement with regard to the provision of a balloon barrage for the North Staffordshire area; what are the requirements of the area in regard to personnel; and what is the position of the Auxiliary Air Force in the area?
    The Secretary of State for Air (Sir Kingsley Wood): It is not at present proposed to form a balloon barrage unit in North Staffordshire, nor is there a flying squadron of the Auxiliary Air Force in that area. There is, however, an active Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve centre at Stoke-on-Trent and a sub-recruiting depot for the regular Royal Air Force at Hanley, which is being converted to a branch depot. My Department does not lay down any definite personnel requirements for a particular part of the country, but the area in which

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    North Staffordshire is included is rendering considerable assistance to the Royal Air Force in this respect.
    Mr. Rathboneasked the Secretary of State for Air for what reason medical and dental officers in the Auxiliary Air Force are strictly forbidden to fly, while similar officers in the regular Royal Air Force are encouraged to learn to do so?
    Sir K. Wood: Medical officers in the Auxiliary Air Force are encouraged to fly as passengers in order to gain air experience, but it is not practicable to give them the same facilities for learning to fly as are given to regular medical officers, whose whole time is at the disposal of the Service. There are no dental officers in the Auxiliary Air Force.
    Mr. Everard: When a medical officer has previously been a flying officer, can he have facilities for flying?
    Sir K. Wood: I will examine into that.

    CADET CORPS SQUADRONS.
    Mr. Everardasked the Secretary of State for Air how many squadrons of Air Defence Cadet Corps have been formed, or are in the process of formation; and whether arrangements are being made for some members of these squadrons to attend camps for gliding training next summer?
    Sir K. Wood: Since the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. Grant-Ferris) on 14th December, six more squadrons of the Air Defence Cadet Corps have been formed, which makes a total to date of 37, and the Air League of the British Empire is investigating the possibility of forming new squadrons in various parts of the country. A suggestion to make gliding training available to Air Defence Cadets is now receiving consideration.
    Mr. Everard: When will my right hon. Friend be in a position to make a statement on this matter, in view of the fact that it would assist recruiting if boys knew this training would be available?
    Sir K. Wood: I will communicate with my hon. Friend.

    MEDICAL AND DENTAL OFFICERS.
    Mr. Rathboneasked the Secretary of State for Air whether the numbers of
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    medical and dental officers in the Royal Air Force are up to full strength and at how many Royal Air Force stations there is no medical or dental officer?
    Sir K. Wood: The officer strengths of the medical and dental branches of the Royal Air Force are at present below establishment, but the numbers are supplemented by the employment of civilian medical practitioners and dental surgeons. At all Royal Air Force stations the services of a medical officer, either service or civil, are available and a medical officer is always in attendance when there is flying. Adequate arrangements are made for the dental care of all Royal Air Force personnel, but it would be uneconomical to post a dental officer to each station for this purpose.

    CONTRACTS (SCOTTISH BUILDING FIRMS).
    Mr. J. J. Davidsonasked the Secretary of State for Air the total number of Scottish building firms that have been invited to tender for Air Ministry contracts in England and Scotland, respectively, during the present year?
    Sir K. Wood: I find that practically all the Scottish building firms on the Air Ministry list have been invited to tender for work in Scotland or England during the current year, and Scottish firms are also regularly invited to tender for structural steelwork in both countries.
    Mr. Mathers: Can the Minister say how these firms are distributed throughout Scotland? Is he aware of the desire in the east as well as in the west of Scotland for this work?
    Sir K. Wood: We have to go where the firms happen to be situated. If the hon. Member has any case he would like me to look into, I will inquire into it.
    Mr. Davidson: Can the Minister indicate the number of Scottish firms compared with the number of English firms who are allowed to quote for tenders?
    Sir K. Wood: No, Sir, as I have said, we apply to practically all the Scottish firms, so I hope Scotland is satisfied.
    Mr. R. Gibson: Does the expression "building firms" include manufacturers of concrete erections and installations, and, if not, will he see that such firms are included among those invited to tender?
    Sir K. Wood: I will inquire and communicate with the hon. Member.
    Sir John Haslam: Does my right hon. Friend include Scottish firms domiciled in England?
    Sir K. Wood: I have covered that in my answer.

    FACTORIES, SCOTLAND.
    Mr. Davidsonasked the Secretary of State for Air whether, with regard to future Air Force expansion work in Scotland, local authorities are being asked for special recruiting guarantees before factories or works are established?
    Sir K. Wood: No, Sir.

    AIRCRAFT PRODUCTION.
    Mr. Simmondsasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he can make any statement with regard to the increase in aircraft production in the British Isles during 1938?
    Sir K. Wood: During 1938 the monthly rate of aircraft production has more than doubled and is showing a marked upward trend.
    Mr. Simmonds: Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that this greatly improved position will be further improved during 1939?
    Sir K. Wood: Yes, Sir. My hon. Friend will remember that I made a statement in this matter in the House a few weeks ago, and I have no doubt that we shall be able to carry out the undertaking I then gave.
    Sir A. Sinclair: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether aircraft production in this country is catching up with aircraft production in Germany?
    Sir K. Wood: I cannot answer that.
    Mr. Paling: Is it not possible to say something more definite? Is not that the same statement that we had before the last crisis?
    Sir K. Wood: No, Sir. I have given a very definite statement this afternoon of the facts within my own knowledge with regard to aircraft production in this country.

    CIVIL AIR GUARD.
    Rear-Admiral Sir Murray Sueterasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he has any proposals for advanced training of the Civil Air Guard members; and whether he can now make a statement on this subject?
    The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Captain Harold Balfour): My right hon. Friend is considering with the Civil Air Guard Commissioners proposals for giving further training to a proportion of the members of the Civil Air Guard, and will subsequently consult with the light aero-plane clubs. It is hoped to make a statement on the matter at a later date.

  CIVIL AVIATION.

    EMPIRE AIR BASE.
    Sir M. Sueterasked the Secretary of State for Air whether the proposals known as the low-level scheme submitted by Messrs. Muirhead and Partners for the construction of a seaplane base at Langstone Harbour have been thoroughly examined?
    Captain Balfour: Proposals by Messrs. Muirhead and Partners for the construction of a sea plane base at Langstone Harbour were considered at the beginning of this year. As, however, my hon. and gallant Friend is aware, it was decided after a full review of the many factors bearing on the siting of the Empire Air Base not to proceed further with the proposal to construct a base at Langstone Harbour Messrs. Muirhead and Partners had been notified of this decision.
    Sir M. Sueterasked the Secretary of State for Air whether the present position of Imperial Airways, Limited, using Southampton as a seaplane base, is considered satisfactory; and whether any further proposals have been made to construct a seaplane base at Langstone Harbour by the Portsmouth town authorities or by private enterprise?
    Captain Balfour: As I explained in my reply to a question by my hon. Friend the senior Member for Southampton (Mr. Craven-Ellis) on 29th July last, it will be necessary to seek statutory powers for the reservation of an area in Southampton Water for the exclusive use of aircraft for the purpose of the Empire Flying Boat

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    base, and this is desirable for operation under most satisfactory conditions. I understand that an application for a late Bill on behalf of the Southampton Harbour Board was made on 15th of this month to the Chairman of Ways and Means. Meantime the control arrangements referred to in my reply are now in force, and are being operated jointly by the Southampton Harbour Board and the control staff of the base. I am aware that certain private interests contemplate putting forward further proposals for the establishment of a land and marine airport at Langstone Harbour.
    Mr. Craven-Ellis: Is it not a fact that the Southampton Harbour Board has rendered every assistance to Imperial Airways to make the service satisfactory and that the Bill which is now in preparation provides facilities which will be much more satisfactory and make Southampton even more suitable than it is at present as an Empire air base, and, further—
    Mr. Speaker: Question Time is not the time for making speeches.
    Mr. Beaumont: Is it not a fact that Imperial Airways always desired to operate from Langstone Harbour and still adhere to their preference?
    Mr. Simonds: Can my hon. and gallant Friend say whether in fact the Air Ministry is discouraging any construction at Langstone Harbour?
    Captain Balfour: As regards the first supplementary question, I would like to confirm my hon. Friend's statement that the Southampton Harbour Board have been most helpful in every way. As regards the second question, whether Imperial Airways wish to operate at Lang-stone, I would only say that that is impossible, for reasons with which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty is dealing on a later question, and I have no doubt that when legislative powers are obtained, if they are obtained, a satisfactory flying boat base can be made at Southampton, and, furthermore, that Southampton at the present time is operating in a satisfactory manner.
    Mr. Beaumontasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty why he has recently informed the Portsmouth City Council that the project for the con-
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    struction of an air base at Langstone Harbour is viewed with disfavour by the Admiralty, seeing that the council has not been made aware of any such objections at any time during the last two years which the negotiations for the construction of the base have been proceeding; what are the vital naval activities that would be prejudiced; and whether facilities could not be found for them without preventing the carrying through of a scheme which would be of the utmost benefit to civil aviation as well as to Portsmouth?
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Shakespeare): Until an alternative site for the Imperial Air Base had been found at Southampton the project appeared to be of primary importance to civil aviation and the Admiralty, despite misgivings, were prepared to acquiesce in the scheme, subject to it proving possible to resite elsewhere certain essential naval services. This was found to be impracticable, but as the Portsmouth City Council did not proceed with their scheme an expression of view by the Admiralty was not necessary. As soon as it was brought to the notice of the Admiralty that the new project of using Langstone Harbour was proceeding, steps were taken to inform the Portsmouth City Council of the Admiralty's objection before that council had committed itself to the new scheme. Of the naval activities which would be affected, perhaps the most essential is the A/A School at Eastney, which is the most important naval school for this type of training. This activity was materially advanced after the original air base scheme had been dropped, and has recently been completed. In addition, in view of the heavy traffic which must centre upon the proposed civil air base, gunnery and fleet practices of all kinds in the Portsmouth area would be seriously affected. In any case it is undesirable to have the main route for all aeroplanes coming to such an air base passing over our premier naval dockyard. For these reasons the Admiralty came reluctantly to the conclusion that they ought to indicate to the city council that the scheme was open to grave objection.
    Mr. Beaumont: Is it not a fact that there is already a recognised civil air zone, which would prevent any possible clashing of the two interests; and, further, is

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    my hon. Friend aware that Imperial Airways have always desired to operate from Langstone Harbour, and will he do his utmost to facilitate this scheme, which will provide an air base at no cost whatever to the rates or taxes?
    Mr. Craven-Ellis: Southampton being the premier passenger port of the British Empire, does not the hon. Gentleman think Southampton is a more appropriate place for an air base?
    Mr. Shakespeare: I am afraid that I cannot hold out any hope of the Admiralty changing its point of view; and in view of the fact that Portsmouth is our principal naval base, I do not think it is unreasonable that we should expect, or even ask, the city council, which benefits so greatly from having the dockyard there, that they should at least have regard to the primary interests of the Navy in considering their activities.

    BRINDISI-ALEXANDRIA SERVICE.
    Mr. Dayasked the Secretary of State for Air particulars of the manner in which the Brindisi-Alexandria service is now working; and of what country of origin are the flying boats operating on this service?
    Captain Balfour: There are eight flying-boat services each week in each direction between Brindisi and Alexandria. The route is a section of the Empire Air route operated by Imperial Airways with "Empire" class flying-boats constructed at Rochester. Some of the boats used are owned by Qantas Empire Airways, Limited, the Australian company associated with Imperial Airways, and bear Australian registration marks.
    Mr. Day: What is the present condition of these flying-boats? Are they practically obsolete?
    Captain Balfour: No, I would not admit that these flying-boats are obsolete. In fact, they are the envy of many foreign air lines.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    SHIP CONSTRUCTION.
    Commander Sir Archibald Southbyasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, how many cruisers, destroyers, and sloops were built and
    2862
    launched between November, 1924, and July, 1929?
    Mr. Shakespeare: Thirteen cruisers, six destroyers and two sloops were launched in this country for the Royal Navy from November, 1924, to July, 1929. In addition, two cruisers for the Royal Australian Navy were launched.
    Sir A. Southby: How many of these ships were in the 1923 and 1924 programmes?
    Mr. Shakespeare: In the 1924 programme there were five cruisers and two destroyers. I have not the figures for 1923.
    Mr. Davidson: Will any of these ships be allocated to Spanish waters?
    Mr. Ede: Are all these ships still in commission?
    Mr. Shakespeare: Yes, Sir.

    ANTI-SUBMARINE PATROLS.
    Sir A. Southbyasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether in view of the necessity for antisubmarine patrols in Home waters and the heavy cost involved in building the modern destroyer, he has considered the advisability of building a number of turbine-driven torpedo boats similar to the small coastal destroyers numbered 1 to 36 in commission before and during the War?
    Mr. Shakespeare: Anti-submarine patrols in Home waters would be carried out by escort vessels, patrol vessels, and anti-submarine trawlers which actually reproduce some of the qualities of the torpedo boats to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers.

    MERCANTILE MARINE (PROTECTION).
    Sir A. Southbyasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether as a result of the experience gained in the great War, any plans have been worked out for the protection of our merchant ships; and, if so, have any steps been taken to communicate them to the mercantile marine?
    Mr. Shakespeare: Yes, Sir. Complete plans have been drawn up and the collaboration of the shipping interests has been ensured by the formation two years ago of the Shipping Defence Advisory Committee. The details of such plans

    2863
    are, of course, secret, but the general outline has been communicated to the Mercantile Marine.
    Sir A. Southby: Was any communication made to the Mercantile Marine during the recent crisis?
    Mr. Shakespeare: We were in very close touch with them.
    Mr. Shinwell: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the vessels under the control of the Italian Government in the Mercantile Marine of Italy are being armed, and are we taking proper steps in our own Mercantile Marine?
    Mr. Shakespeare: I understand that the decks of the Italian ships are being stiffened for that purpose.
    Mr. Shinwell: Is not the Admiralty aware that statements have been made on unimpeachable authority that apart from the stiffening of the ships for armament purposes, guns have been installed?
    Mr. Shakespeare: I should like notice of that question.
    Mr. Ede: Have the Committee to which the hon. Gentleman alluded made any representations about the effect upon their policy of the present shrinkage of the Mercantile Marine?
    Mr. Shakespeare: That is a different question.
    Lieut.-Commander Fletcherasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether the recent mobilisation revealed any deficiencies in provision for defence against intensive enemy attacks upon British shipping in home waters; whether the Naval Staff is considering the matter; whether the building of certain types of craft to counter such attacks is contemplated; and whether a Supplementary Estimate will be presented for this purpose?
    Mr. Shakespeare: As the rearmament programme is not yet complete, the numbers of anti-aircraft and anti-submarine escort vessels available when the recent mobilisation took place were inevitably smaller than the Admiralty would have wished. The hon. and gallant Member may rest assured that the Naval Staff have this matter constantly before them, and that our deficiencies in the vessels in ques-
    2864
    tion are being made good, both by the construction of new vessels and by the rearming of existing cruisers and destroyers, with the utmost speed possible. No Supplementary Estimate in the current financial year is contemplated for this purpose.

    AUSTRALIA (DEFENCE).
    Lieut.-Commander Fletcherasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty by what date it is intended to station at Singapore a fleet adequate to obviate the necessity for Australia to acquire capital ships?
    Mr. Shakespeare: The hon. and gallant Member will appreciate that it is not in the public interest to disclose possible future dispositions of His Majesty's ships. With regard to the latter part of the question, the strength and composition of the Royal Australian Navy is a matter for decision by the Commonwealth Government, and their present intentions in this respect were announced by the Minister of Defence in the House of Representatives on 6th December, as reported in the Press of 7th December. I need hardly add that His Majesty's Government in this country welcome any steps taken to increase the strength of the Royal Australian Navy and Australian participation in the common task of Imperial defence.
    Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: Is the Naval Staff satisfied that in the event of capital ships becoming necessary for the defence of Australia in the near future, this country will be able to provide these ships?
    Mr. Shakespeare: The Minister of Defence, in the speech referred to, said that
    "Australia looked to the United Kingdom in an emergency to station at Singapore a fleet strong enough to safeguard the Empire's interests in the eastern hemisphere."
    That is an accurate statement of the position.

    MEAT SUPPLIES.
    Mr. Lipsonasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what was the total amount of beef, mutton, lamb, and pig meat provided last year for the Navy stationed in Home waters; and what proportion of each was imported?
    Mr. Shakespeare: Approximately 2,300 tons of beef, 600 tons of mutton and 45

    2865
    tons of pork were provided. Practically the whole of the beef and mutton was imported from the Dominions. The pork was all home-killed.
    Mr. Lipson: Is my hon. Friend able to state why so large a proportion is imported?
    Mr. Shakespeare: There are administrative and financial reasons for it which my hon. Friend will appreciate.
    Lieut.-Commander Agnew: Is it not possible for shore establishments to be supplied with home-produced beef?
    Mr. Shakespeare: We have considered this matter at frequent intervals. It is mainly a question of the extra cost, but in addition there are difficulties of administration.
    Mr. Lipson: Does not my hon. Friend agree that, in view of the importance of agriculture in the national economy, the cost should not be the over-riding factor? What would be the position of the stock-raising industry if every consumer viewed the question from that angle?

    TANGANYIKA.
    Mr. Vyvyan Adamsasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any statement to make as to the effect in Tanganyika of his recent statement upon the future of our Colonies and mandated territories?
    The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Malcolm MacDonald): I am informed by the Governor that the statement which I made in this House on 7th December has had a distinctly reassuring effect in Tanganyika.
    Mr. Adams: Can my right hon. Friend reassure us that he regards Tanganyika as being as integral a part of the British Commonwealth as is the borough of Westminster?
    Mr. McEnteeasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the numbers of students from Uganda and from Tanganyika now attending the Makerere College, as resident, and as day students; and whether, in view of the growing number of native boys now qualifying for an education such as the college provides, he proposes to establish another similar college under Government control in Tanganyika?
    Mr. MacDonald: The 1937 figures, which are the latest available, are 99 from Uganda and 17 from Tanganyika. All of these students were residents. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative. The Government of Tanganyika proposes, however, to increase the facilities for secondary education in the Territory.

  KENYA.

    JUVENILE EMPLOYMENT.
    Mr. Barrasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to paragraph 41 of the Report of Employment of Juveniles Committee, Kenya protectorate, in which it is stated that drinking among juveniles in employment does occur; and whether he will take steps to see that in Kenya there is a stricter enforcement of the Native Liquor Ordinance which prohibits the sale of liquor to persons under the apparent age of 18, and whether he will either insist that all employers of juvenile labour shall be made responsible for safeguarding their well-being during the term of such employment, or consider the advisability of abolishing child labour in the colony?
    Mr. M. MacDonald: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The Governor, with my approval, has adopted the Committee's report which includes, inter alia, a proposal that the Native Liquor Ordinance should be more closely applied. The Committee pointed out that employers are already under various statutory obligations in regard to the welfare of their servants, but drew attention to the desirability of close control by employers of juveniles outside working hours and of adequate facilities being provided for education and healthy recreation. I have no reason to doubt that such steps as are practicable will be taken by the Government of Kenya to ensure the observance of these recommendations.
    Mr. R. Gibson: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many prosecutions were instituted during last year for contraventions of this Native Liquor Ordinance?
    Mr. MacDonald: Not without notice.
    Mr. Edmund Harvey: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake a close review of the conditions of labour in that country?
    Mr. MacDonald: I am sure that the Governor will do that.
    Mr. David Adamsasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the fact that children in Kenya may be transported to labour lines far from their homes, in certain cases to a distance of over 500 miles, he proposes to take steps to provide that the employable age for such distant employment is raised to 14 years?
    Mr. MacDonald: I would refer the hon. Member to answers which I gave to questions that were asked on this subject on 14th December.
    Mr. Adams: Does not the Minister agree that the age of 14 is still a tender one, in view of the disabilities under which these children may live?
    Mr. MacDonald: The whole question was gone into carefully by the committee of inquiry, and I accepted their findings on the matter for the reasons given in their report.

    NATIVES (TRANSFER).
    Mr. Creech Jonesasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is now able to make a statement regarding the removal of groups of Africans from the Highlands of Kenya; and what procedure will be followed in carrying through the policy of His Majesty's Government?
    Mr. M. MacDonald: As the answer is rather long I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Creech Jones: What public good or administrative advantage results from the transfer of these native people to the reserves? What is it proposed to do? Will adequate compensation be given after the transfers are effected?
    Mr. MacDonald: To answer that question fully would obviously require a long speech, and that speech has been made on a number of occasions by another Secretary of State in this House. The policy was approved by the House. As regards the question of compensation, I
    2868
    hope that the hon. Member will be satisfied with the new arrangements which have now been concluded, in which there are proper safeguards for adequate compensation to the natives concerned.
    Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the policy of His Majesty's Government is driving an even larger number of people out of the Highlands of Ross and Cromarty?
    Following is the answer:
    With a view to ensuring that the transfer of certain natives from the Highlands of Kenya should be carried out with the minimum of hardship to the natives concerned, I have approved the adoption of the following procedure.
    Before the Governor issues an order for the transfer of any group of natives from the Highlands, the natives concerned will be afforded an opportunity to state any objections that they may have to the land to which it is proposed to move them. In any case where objections are raised the matter will be referred to the Land Trust Board, of which the Chief Native Commissioner will be chairman, and which will include the two members of the Legislative Council who are nominated to represent native interests, and the order for removal will not be issued unless the Governor and the Board are both satisfied that the new land constitutes a fair exchange for the land from which the natives are being moved. The Board will be instructed that, in considering these cases, they are to have regard to all the relevant considerations such as the quality, area and situation of the two areas of land, and the extent of the rights of the natives in the land on which they are now living. If it is found that the land which it has already been decided to add to the reserves is insufficient to accommodate all the natives concerned on the basis indicated above, additional good land elsewhere will be purchased for this purpose.
    As, in some cases, a considerable time may elapse before the transfers can take place, the Native Land Trust Bill has now been amended to provide that all natives whose removal is deferred will, pending the issue of the Governor's order for removal, continue in the enjoyment of the rights which they possess in the land on which they are at present living. The Bill, as amended, also provides that no order for removal shall be issued until the

    2869
    natives concerned have had an opportunity of reaping any growing annual crops, and this will hold even though these crops may have been planted after the Ordinance has come into force. Moreover, no order will be issued at such a time or in such circumstances as would prevent the natives concerned from taking advantage of the planting season either on the land on which they are now living or on the land to which they are moved.

    SENTENCE (GIRL).
    Lieut.-Commander Fletcherasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will recommend the Governor of Kenya to exercise his clemency in the case of a young girl recently sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment for inflicting injuries which proved fatal upon an old man, as the evidence showed that although wishing to marry a young man she had been sold for a valuable consideration to this old man who was repugnant to her, that the injuries were inflicted during a struggle after the old man had taken cords and a stick with which to bind and beat his young wife, and as the Crown prosecutor expressed great sympathy with the girl as a victim of forced marriage?
    Mr. M. MacDonald: Under Article XIX of the Letters Patent of the nth September, 1920, the prerogative of pardon was delegated to the Governor, and the exercise of clemency is, therefore, a matter for his discretion with which I am not prepared to interfere. I will ask him, however, for a report on the case referred to in the question, and will communicate with the hon. and gallant Member in due course.
    Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: If the right hon. Gentleman is making representations to the Governor will he point out that this girl was kept in custody for four months before being brought to trial and that she has now served two months of the sentence? Further, does the right hon. Gentleman not think that six months is a sufficient punishment in a case in which the judge said that to some extent this old man only got what he deserved?
    Miss Rathbone: Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Governor to reconsider this sentence by way of showing strong disapproval of these forced marriages of young girls?
    Mr. MacDonald: I am not prepared to interfere with the Governor's discretion in this matter, but I am quite sure that he will keep in mind whatever may be the full facts of the situation.

    AFFORESTATION (TANGANYIKA AND UGANDA).
    Mr. McEnteeasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether steps are being taken by the Governments of Tanganyika and of Uganda to prevent wasteful destruction of growing trees; and is any organised system of re-afforestation carried out by native councils under the direction of the British Governments in these territories?
    Mr. M. MacDonald: The general policy of the Governments of Tanganyika and Uganda is to conserve the forest resources of the territories, and the local native administrations are co-operating in carrying out this policy. The native administrations, encouraged by the Forest Departments, have for some time been making special plantations for the purpose of supplying wood to the natives for fuel and house-building.
    Mr. McEntee: Has any attempt been made to market within the Empire timber from the Protectorate?
    Mr. MacDonald: Yes, Sir; considerable efforts are being made to increase the sales of these timbers in overseas markets.
    Mr. R. Gibson: Are there, in fact, any exports of these timbers from Tanganyika?
    Mr. MacDonald: I think there are some exports, but I should require notice of that question in order to make quite sure of the facts.

  PALESTINE.

    CITRUS EXPORTS.
    Captain Stricklandasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the volume of citrus exports from Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jaffa ports, respectively, up to the latest date for which statistics are available; and how the volume of such exports compares with that for the 1937 season?
    Mr. M. MacDonald: As the answer contains a number of figures I will, with my hon. and gallant Friend's permission, circulate it with the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Crossley: Could my right hon. Friend add some particulars about the prices in those two years and tell us, further, how many trees have been cut down owing to over-production?
    Mr. MacDonald: I cannot state that now, but I will communicate with my hon. Friend on those points.
    Following is the answer:
    The following are the figures for citrus exports from Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jaffa for the seasons October, 1936, to May, 1937, and October, 1937, to May, 1938:

    —

    Jaffa

    Haifa.

    Tel Aviv.

    Cases.

    Cases.

    Cases.

    Oct., 1936—

    3,601,825

    6,662,051

    349,013

    May, 1937.

    Oct., 1937—

    3,928,774

    6,288,361

    1,010,094

    May, 1938.

    No statistics are yet available for the present season.

    JEWISH REFUGEE CHILDREN.
    Mr. T. Williamsasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies on what grounds it has been held that to let into Palestine 10,000 Jewish refugee children from Germany might mean that the forthcoming conversations with Jews and Arabs would not take place; and whether, in fact, His Majesty's Government have been informed by the Arab representatives that, if the application in respect of these children was granted, they would boycott the discussions?
    Mr. M. MacDonald: As I stated in reply to question on 14th December, the reason for His Majesty's Government's attitude on this matter is that to make any alteration in the existing rate of immigration now would be to prejudice the position regarding one of the main subjects for discussion in London. We have maintained this position in the face both of Jewish and of Arab claims. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative.
    Mr. Williams: In view of the extraordinary circumstances obtaining in parts of Europe, do not these children constitute a problem totally dissimilar to the
    2872
    ordinary problem of immigration, and does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the Government ought to reconsider the question?
    Mr. MacDonald: I have given that aspect of the matter careful consideration, and the Government have done the same. I can only say that, in the light of all the circumstances, we reached the decision which I announced last week, and we cannot alter it.
    Mr. Williams: If His Majesty's Government are unwilling to receive the whole 10,000 children, would they not reconsider the question of receiving a few of them, say 5,000 or something like that?
    Mr. MacDonald: We considered that possibility, but that would have been a breach of the principle which I laid down ill answer to the question. I would point out that the decision which has been reached is not a decision to exclude these 10,000 children from Palestine permanently but only a decision to postpone the question until discussions take place in London.
    Mr. Williams: Should not one of the first questions submitted to the delegates be the question which is stated on the Order Paper, so as to ascertain whether the Arab representatives would concede that point?
    Mr. MacDonald: I will keep that suggestion in mind.
    Mr. Crossley: Will my right hon. Friend dissociate the troubles in Europe from the problem of Palestine; and does he not think that, Palestine having taken 292,000 Jews, that is a very fair contribution towards a very difficult problem?
    Sir A. Sinclair: Will not the right hon. Gentleman at least discuss this scheme with those responsible for organising it, and show some interest in it and his willingness to bring it into effect at the earliest possible moment?
    Mr. MacDonald: I have discussed the matter with a number of Jewish representatives, and shall be discussing it again with a deputation that is to meet me to-morrow. With regard to the other question, I have stated on behalf of the Government the view that Palestine cannot provide a solution for the whole refugee problem of Europe, though it can make a contribution.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: As these refugee children would not affect the labour position, and, if necessary, the immigration rate could be adjusted in the light of the decision of the conference, will the right hon. Gentleman put this matter to the Arabs at an early date?
    Mr. MacDonald: As I have said, I will bear that suggestion in mind.

    EXPORT TRADE.
    Mr. Shinwellasked the Prime Minister whether he will consider the desirability of appointing a Royal Commission to examine and report upon the state of our export trade?
    The Prime Minister: His Majesty's Government have no reason to regard as inadequate the existing sources of information available to them in regard to the state of this country's export trade. The information thus obtained is kept under constant review by the Ministers concerned, who are moreover assisted by the advice of bodies representative of the various interests concerned. In the circumstances I do not consider that the appointment of a Royal Commission, as suggested in the question, would serve a useful purpose.
    Mr. Shinwell: As the right hon. Gentleman is unable to agree to the appointment of such a Commission, will he recommend his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to appoint, say, a Departmental Committee?
    The Prime Minister: I think the came answer would apply in that case.

    EIRE AND NORTHERN IRELAND (TRADE RELATIONS).
    Mr. Lunnasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn to a resolution passed at a conference of the Northern Ireland Labour party, and sent him by the hon. Member for Rothwell, to the effect that Ireland as a whole is an economic unit, that trade and the conditions of the workers could be materially improved by close economic co-operation between North and South, and requesting the Northern Ireland Government to approach the Government of Eire and the United Kingdom Government with a view
    2874
    to the removal of any barriers now restricting trade between the two parts of the country; and, if he has considered this proposal, whether he proposes to initiate any action in the matter?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. The considerations mentioned were not lost sight of in the course of the negotiations leading up to the recent Trade Agreement, and I do not think that there is any further action which I can usefully initiate.
    Mr. Lunn: Are we to take it that the right hon. Gentleman is not initiating any action in this matter?
    The Prime Minister: I am not initiating action.

    COLONIES (RAW MATERIALS).
    Mr. Dayasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether there are any British Colonies wherein British purchasers of raw materials have an advantage over foreign purchasers; and, if so, whether he will state the nature of the raw materials and what advantages accrue to British purchasers?
    Mr. M. MacDonald: No, Sir. The only apparent exception to this statement is the differential export duty on tin ore exported from Malaya to foreign countries, which has existed for many years; but these differential rates of duty are not dependent on the nationality of the purchaser. The duty does not apply to the smelted tin.
    Mr. Day: May we, therefore, assume that foreign governments have no grounds for the statement that they have put forward that we are interfering with the buyers of raw material?
    Mr. MacDonald: I am not sure what statements have been put forward by foreign governments but the position is as stated in answer to the question, and there would, therefore, be no legitimate ground of complaint.

    CYPRUS.
    Mr. Mathersasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can now state why the Cyprus newspaper "Proia" has been suspended, and the "Embros" brought under censorship by

    2875
    the Cyprus Government; whether he considers such action necessary in the public interest; and whether he will restore a greater measure of freedom to the Press in the island?
    Mr. M. MacDonald: I am not yet in a position to add to the answer which I gave to a similar question by the hon. Member on 14th December. The report which I have asked the Governor of Cyprus to furnish has not yet reached me. I will communicate with the hon. Member when the report is received.
    Mr. Mathers: In view of the evidence which I submitted to the right hon. Gentleman of the very trivial alterations that are being made in the newspaper "Embros" by the censor, can he not express an opinion that the interference which is being applied by the Government of Cyprus is overstressing the position and is interference with normal Press freedom?
    Mr. MacDonald: It would be a great mistake for me to express an opinion before I have had the full facts from the Governor. As I say, I will communicate with the hon. Gentleman as soon as I have received the report, and I will let him know what the position is.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Will the Secretary of State bear in mind that any interference with the liberty of the Press in British territories overseas creates a lamentable impression, especially in the Mediterranean?

    SIERRA LEONE.
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has information respecting the demonstrations in Sierra Leone concerning the alleged statement of the Governor that 15s. per month is a satisfactory wage for native labourers; and whether he will make a statement respecting unrest in Sierra Leone?
    Mr. M. MacDonald: Conditions under which native labourers are employed in Sierra Leone have been the subject of investigation for the past year, and the Governor considers the problem to merit the appointment of a special Labour Secretary, despite the fact that wage-earning labourers aggregate less than 1 per cent. of the population. I must
    2876
    make it clear that the Governor did not make the statement attributed to him. The alleged statement is a misrepresentation of a passage in a preliminary, and confidential, review of labour conditions prepared by the Governor in July, the unauthorised publication of which was followed by a number of meetings in Freetown organised to protest against the alleged meaning of the Governor's despatch. Copies of the resolutions passed at those meetings have been forwarded to me.
    Mr. Sorensen: In view of the disturbance that has broken out, has the Governor made it clear that he did not express the remarks that have been attributed to him?
    Mr. MacDonald: I hope that the answer which I have given makes it clear that those remarks do not represent his comments on the situation.

    NORTHERN NIGERIA (NATIVE MINERS).
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that whilst last year mining companies in Northern Nigeria distributed bonuses to their European staff, the native miners are still suffering from wage-cuts and poor leave conditions; and whether, in view of the dissatisfaction prevailing among native miners, he proposes to take or advise any action likely to appease them and to diminish the inequitable discrimination between white and black workers?
    Mr. M. MacDonald: I have no detailed information on this matter apart from a reference which appeared in the Press: and I am asking the Governor for a report.

    GOLD COAST (COCOA).
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the suspension of the cocoa buyers' pool, it is proposed entirely to dissolve it at an early date; and whether he is aware of considerable apprehension among the native farmers concerning the possibility of the pool again becoming operative and at the delay in implementing the recent Commission's report?
    Mr. M. MacDonald: As regards the first part of the question, the matter is one for

    2877
    the parties to the agreement, but I understand that there is no question of its being revived. As regards the second part, the Gold Coast Government, who are actively considering the Commission's report, are in close touch with African opinion, and they have not reported to me any evidence of uneasiness among the native farmers.
    Mr. Sorensen: Would the right hon. Gentleman agree that, as the cocoa buyers' pool is suspended, it will be beneficial to all concerned if some definite statement is made that it is now entirely dissolved?
    Mr. Cartland: Before declaring any policy will my right hon. Friend consult the interests in this country as well as the interests in Africa?
    Mr. MacDonald: I will certainly consult the interests in this country before any final decision is reached on this matter. As I said in answer to the main question, I understand that the position is that this agreement will not be renewed. It is not for me to make any more definite statement than that.
    Mr. Sorensen: Surely the right hon. Gentleman will agree that the interest of the natives is paramount?
    Mr. MacDonald: The interests of the natives are no less important than any other interests, and there are many interests involved. I am not satisfied that the interests of the natives and those of the traders cannot be perfectly easily reconciled.
    Mr. R. Gibson: Has the suspension of the pool been reflected in increased overseas trade?
    Mr. MacDonald: I think there has been some slight improvement in prices which has been reflected in trade, but I will let the hon. and learned Member know.
    Mr. Chorltonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the committee lately set up by the Gold Coast Government has a member representing cotton textile interests?
    Mr. MacDonald: No, Sir; the purpose of the committee is to examine the practicability of the Commission's recommendations for the marketing of the cocoa
    2878
    crop and the probable cost of putting them into effect in the Gold Coast.
    Mr. Chorltonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps it is proposed to take other than the commission and the committee to prevent a situation arising in the West African market which would be likely to result in a boycott of British goods?
    Mr. MacDonald: I have received no indication that the situation referred to by my hon. Friend is likely to arise, but the position is being carefully watched.
    Mr. Chorltonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, as a result of the report of the Commission followed by the committee just set up by the Gold Coast Government, he proposes to assist the marketing of West African cocoa by the introduction of a scheme designed to assure to the producer a minimum price for his cocoa?
    Mr. MacDonald: The recommendations of the Cocoa Commission, which did not favour the fixing of a minimum price, are at present under active consideration, and I am not yet able to say what decisions will be taken upon them.

    CEYLON.
    Captain Alan Grahamasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the nature, composition, and policy of the Sinhala Maha Sabha party in Ceylon?
    Mr. M. MacDonald: From the particulars furnished in a memorandum submitted to me by this society, I understand that the Sinhala Maha Sabha is a political body formed in 1936
    "to safeguard the legitimate interests of the Sinhalese and to work for the general advancement of the Sinhalese race."
    Its membership includes 16 members of the State Council, and it is said to have a number of branch associations throughout Ceylon.
    Mr. Grant-Ferrisasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is satisfied that it is in the public interest that the Minister of Home Affairs in Ceylon should remain in charge of his Ministry after having been disbelieved by an impartial tribunal whose appointment he had approved?
    Mr. MacDonald: I am not aware that the Minister for Home Affairs has indicated his desires as to the retention or resignation of his office. He has a signal record of distinguished service for Ceylon, and I am not prepared to prejudge his intentions before I know what they are or on what public considerations they may be based.
    Captain Peter Macdonaldasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can now state when the correspondence with the Governor of Ceylon on the subject of the Constitution is to be published?
    Mr. MacDonald: The correspondence is being published as a Command Paper this afternoon, and I understand that it will be in the Vote Office at about five o'clock.
    Captain Macdonald: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that, before any action is taken on that correspondence or the recommendations contained in it, the House will have an opportunity of discussing the matter?
    Mr. MacDonald: Yes, Sir; if the House wishes to take advantage of an opportunity, I certainly give that assurance.
    Mr. T. Smithasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the number of Tamil labourers who would be denied the right to exercise the franchise in future village committee elections in Ceylon under the amended Village Communities Ordinance; and what is the proportion of this number to the total Indian Tamil population in the country?
    Mr. MacDonald: I have not the information available which would enable me to answer this question, but I am asking the Governor whether he can give an estimate. I will communicate further with the hon. Member on the matter.
    Mr. Smith: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that this limitation, which affects both Tamil labourers and others, is in the best interests of Ceylon?
    Mr. MacDonald: I am satisfied that it is a perfectly proper provision, the facts being that estate labourers receive their roads and their social services, sanitary services, and so on, under a different authority altogether from the village committees.
    Mr. Smith: Is it not a fact that, when this proposal was before the State Council, a good deal of opposition to it was expressed?
    Mr. MacDonald: Yes, Sir; there was opposition expressed, as is always the case when any proposal comes before any council.
    Mr. Smithasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, under the Village Communities Ordinance in Ceylon, there are to be special registers for village committee elections?
    Mr. MacDonald: Under the Village Communities Ordinance, the preparation of a register of voters is not obligatory.

    JAMAICA (SUPREME COURT).
    Sir Percy Hurdasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps are being taken to carry out the reconstitution of the Supreme Court of Judicature of Jamaica following upon the memorial of the Jamaica Law Society?
    Mr. M. MacDonald: As I informed my hon. Friend on 25th May, the reconstitution of the Supreme Court on the lines suggested by the Jamaica Law Society has been approved. The necessary legislation, which has been delayed owing to the preoccupation of the Colonial Government with other urgent matters, will be introduced in the Spring Session.

AIR-RAID SHELTERS.
The Lord Privy Seal (Sir John Anderson): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement. When I first outlined to the House, on 1st December, the proposals of His Majesty's Government in regard to National Voluntary Service, I promised that at no distant date I would make a corresponding statement regarding my other duties, in respect of Civil Defence, I rise to-day to implement that promise. In the short time at my disposal I cannot attempt to make a comprehensive statement on Civil Defence as a whole; and I therefore propose to confine myself to-day to the problem which I believe to be uppermost in the minds both of Members of this House and of the public at large. I refer to the problem of air-raid shelters.

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Much criticism has been directed against the work of the A.R.P. Department on the ground that it has given undue attention to precautions against gas attack. It is true that our preparations against gas are more advanced than other aspects of our air-raid precautions work and that in this respect we are far ahead of all other countries: but, if the risk of gas attack seems less than it did, this may be due to the thoroughness of our preparations. We must now bring to the same state of completeness our preparations against the incendiary bomb and the high-explosive bomb. As regards incendiary bombs, the plans for augmenting our fire-services in an emergency have been fully worked out, and we are pressing forward as quickly as possible with the recruitment and training of the necessary personnel and the provision of the equipment required. To complete our preparations, we must now address ourselves to the task of providing equal protection against the danger of the high-explosive bomb.
A practical shelter policy must satisfy three primary conditions. In the first place, no plan would be satisfactory which made provision only for a proportion of those likely to be exposed to substantial risk. Our aim must therefore be to provide, in the areas vulnerable to attack, shelters which are well distributed over the area and are easily accessible on receipt of an air-raid warning. So far as possible, people must be given this protection in or near their homes and in or near their places of employment.
Secondly, we must recognise the fact that against high explosive there can be no Zoo per cent. protection. Shelters proof against a direct hit are not practicable, at any rate as part of a short-term policy. Apart from the difficulties and delays involved in any extensive scheme for deep bomb-proof shelters, I do not think we are prepared to adapt our whole civilisation so as to compel a large proportion of our people to live, and maintain their productive capacity, in a troglodyte existence deep underground. What we can, and must, provide is, not bomb-proof shelters, but adequate protection against splinter and blast and against the fall of debris.
Thirdly, no public authorities—neither the Government nor the local authorities—can make themselves responsible for
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providing this protection, at public expense, for everyone. As was indicated by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, in his statement on 3rd November, their responsibility is to provide this protection for all who cannot fairly be expected to provide it for themselves. All who can afford to do so will be expected to arrange for their own protection, but the Government will see that all necessary technical advice and guidance is made available to them.
Having indicated these governing considerations, let me proceed to break up the problem into its component parts. There is no single expedient which will solve all parts of the problem: we must attack it piece by piece.
First, we must see that people are reasonably protected while they are at their work. This is a responsibility which rests primarily on the employer. In the legislation which we propose to introduce, immediately after the Christmas Recess, certain obligations in this respect will be imposed on trade and industry; but we hope that employers are not waiting, and will not wait, for any measure of statutory compulsion. Under modern conditions, it is the duty of the employer to protect his workpeople from these risks, just as it has been his duty hitherto to protect them against dangers of injury or unhealthy conditions of work; and we are confident that employers generally will accept this new responsibility, subject to the necessary guidance being afforded to them. A revised Handbook on Structural Precautions will be issued very soon and, by the co-operation of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, the services of the factory inspectors will be made available to assist employers.
Secondly, we must give protection to those who, when an air raid comes, are caught in the streets, away from their homes and from their place of work. For these, communal shelters will be provided—either in trenches such as those constructed in the autumn and now being made permanent, or in other forms of communal shelter to be provided by the local authorities. These shelters must be carefully sited and adequately sign-posted. Advice has already been given regarding the types of communal shelter which could be provided, and steps will be taken to accelerate the surveys which local

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authorities have already been asked to carry out with a view to determining what provision should be made—for example, by strengthening large basements in warehouses and offices which could give refuge to numbers of people likely to be in the vicinity at the time of a raid. The provision of underground car parks may also contribute, in the course of time, towards a solution of this part of the problem.
Communal shelters of this kind will, however, serve the needs primarily of those who are caught in the streets. It is only in exceptional circumstances that communal shelters could cater for people who, when an air-raid warning is given, are at their work or in their homes. It is not possible to contemplate a system by which, as a general rule, people at home or at work would rush out, on hearing an air-raid warning, at any hour of the day or night, to a public shelter some distance away. Such a system would lead inevitably to panic and confusion, and there would be grave risk of people being injured, and perhaps killed, in their struggle to find a place in a public shelter which in all probability would not be large enough to accommodate all who wished to take refuge in it.
The hard core of the problem is, therefore, to provide protection for the ordinary citizen in, or close to, his own house. This is the problem on which my Department has been concentrating its attention since I undertook the responsibility for measures of Civil Defence, and I can now indicate to the House the lines on which the Government believe that a solution has been found. The method of protection must vary according to the type of the building and its surroundings. In houses with basements, the most practical means of providing shelter is to strengthen the basement; and we are making arrangements to produce a standardised fitting—consisting of light steel sheeting to be fastened to the ceiling joists of the basement, and steel supports to carry the weight from the strengthened ceiling to the level of the foundations. The steel sheets will be fixed in peacetime, but this will be done with the least possible disturbance of peace-time user; and the steel supports can be stored and need not be put finally into position until an emergency arises. In co-operation with the local authorities, we shall carry
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out a survey to see to which houses this method can profitably be applied.
In blocks of flats or tenements, the most satisfactory course will be to provide structural support—either in the basement or in the ground floor of the building—which will afford a shelter sufficiently large to accommodate the persons living in the other parts of the building. In buildings where an exceptionally large area can be strengthened in this way. arrangements will be made to enable the shelter to serve, not only the people living in the building, but also others living nearby for whom no other shelter is available. To this extent these buildings will play their part in the provision of public shelters. For houses without basements—primarily the two-storeyed house not very solidly constructed—we have, with the assistance of certain eminent members of the engineering profession nominated by the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and with the co-operation of the steel industry, evolved a special type of steel shelter which is in sections and can be easily put together, without any technical skill or professional assistance. To secure the maximum degree of protection, this shelter should be placed outside the house close to the house-wall—in a garden or yard—and should be sunk about two feet in the ground, the displaced earth being piled up over the top of the steel frame. In such a position it would be readily accessible from the house.
And now a word as to finance. The provision of the equipment for these private shelters is not a matter which could readily be undertaken by a number of local authorities up and down the country. It calls for central purchasing and central control. The Government therefore propose to reserve to themselves the responsibility for accumulating the necessary stocks of equipment, and so far as these private shelters are concerned the Government will bear the whole cost of the material. We shall proceed at once to place orders for a very large quantity of steel equipment. For the smaller type of house we shall arrange for a supply of the special steel shelters sufficient to afford protection for 10,000,000 people; and for the strengthening of private basements material will be accumulated progressively as we proceed with the necessary survey of the houses to be strengthened. The cost of providing all this material, which

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will be borne entirely by the Exchequer, will be of the order of £20, 000,000. This is a very large sum, but we are satisfied that it is necessary expenditure, and there are two important considerations which can be offset against the ultimate net cost to the Exchequer. First, the production of these large supplies of equipment will lead at once to increased employment in that part of the steel industry, particularly the steel plate section, in which there is at present considerable unemployment because it has been but little affected by the rearmament programme. Secondly, if happily there should be no occasion to use this equipment for the purpose for which it was intended, all the steel left in the hands of the Government would have a residual value, while the special shelters designed for the smaller type of house would probably have a considerable re-sale value.
These shelters for the poorer sections of the population in their own homes, will, as I have said, be provided by the Exchequer; but a balanced shelter policy is incomplete without the public shelter for persons caught in the streets and those for whom protection cannot be given in their own homes. The duty of providing these necessary public shelters remains with the local authorities. It is still an urgent and an onerous duty; but the Government's decision to make this provision for private shelters at the expense of the Exchequer will sensibly reduce the burden which would otherwise rest on them. The Government therefore feel confident that they can look to the local authorities—even the poorer authorities, for they are likely to benefit most from this new decision—to press forward without delay with the provision of public shelters to the fullest extent still necessary. The Exchequer contribution under the Act towards the cost of these public shelters will amount to several million pounds; and the whole programme which I have outlined is designed to provide protection for nearly 20,000,000 people.
On these lines we can build up a properly balanced shelter policy. For persons at work, protection provided by the employer at the factory or office. For persons at home, protection in private shelters within or adjoining the house. For persons caught in the streets and for those for whom no private shelters can be made available, communal shelter—either in trenches or in shelters specially con-
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structed in the basements or lower floors of offices, warehouses, blocks of flats or other large buildings.
Mr. Herbert Morrison: Could the right hon. Gentleman inform the House how he reconciles his estimate that these shelters will cover 20,000,000 of the population with his former statement that if we are to have shelters we must have them for the whole of the population? Secondly, will he inform the House how it is proposed to finance all the expensive work in connection with tenement dwellings, including municipal tenement dwellings?
Sir J. Anderson: The answer to the first part of the question is this: I said that in the view of the Government the shelter policy must be comprehensive in the sense that it must provide reasonably adequate protection against splinter, blast and the fall of debris for persons exposed to substantial risk. That is the first qualification. The second qualification I made was this: That the Government do not propose to provide shelter of this kind at the public cost for those persons who might reasonably be expected to provide it for themselves. The figure of 20,000,000 which I gave is the figure of the persons for whom protection will be provided under the special provisions which I have described this afternoon. It does not represent necessarily that proportion of the population to whom ultimately in one way or another protection will be made available. As regards the provision of public shelters, as I pointed out, the scale of the provision required is now reduced by the arrangements to be made for providing private shelters for persons in their homes in congested districts. Apart from this, the responsibility for public shelters remains unaffected by the statement I have made. The financial responsibility for public shelters is at present divided between the local authorities and the Exchequer, and nothing that I have said to-day involves any alteration in that respect, except that the scope of that responsibility is very substantially reduced.
Mr. Lansbury: Do any of the proposals that the right hon. Gentleman has outlined deal with high explosives? Will he tell us which part of the scheme will protect the people where high explosive bombs are dropped?
Sir J. Anderson: I made it quite clear in my statement, I think, that this scheme does not contemplate provision against what would be regarded as a direct hit by a high explosive bomb. It contemplates providing reasonably adequate protection against splinter and blast from a high explosive bomb falling close by, and provision also against the fall of debris as the result of such explosion.
Mr. Lansbury: There is no provision here for protection if a high explosive bomb drops in the middle of one of the very big blocks of dwellings?
Sir J. Anderson: The right hon. Gentleman is quite right.
Mr. Lansbury: I would like an answer to that question.
Sir J. Anderson: I have just said that the right hon. Gentleman is perfectly right.
Mr. H. Morrison: Are we to understand from the right hon. Gentleman's statement that the Government reject deep tunnel shelter, which would of course meet the point of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury)? Do they reject it solely on the ground that people do not want to live in them? Has the right hon. Gentleman assumed that if such deep tunnels were made the people would need to live in them, any more than in other forms of shelter? The right hon. Gentleman did not answer my question as to how the finance could be settled, the very considerable finance of the strengthening of tenement dwellings, principally municipal dwellings.
Sir J. Anderson: I apologise. I did fail to answer one part of the right hon. Gentleman's questions. As regards the strengthening of buildings with basements, such strengthening can be provided by the sort of device I have described, that is to say by fixing to the lower part of the ceiling-joists of the basement or of the lower floor a certain type of pressed steel and by providing steel supports which could be stored and quickly put into position in an emergency. So far as private shelters are concerned, that is included in the scope of the proposals for which the Government will bear the whole cost. As to the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's last supplementary question, I tried to make it
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clear that I was endeavouring to enunciate a short-term policy, a policy which could be put into effect very rapidly. I said that the provision of deep bomb-proof shelters could not, in the opinion of the Government, form a part of such a policy. The considerations that arise in regard to such shelters are not merely considerations of cost. There is the question of delay, and providing suitable access and exit in the case of shelters which presumably would have to accommodate very large numbers, and there is the question of how far, if resort had to be had regularly to such deep underground shelters, the better solution might not be the evacuation of the population. These are all matters which deserve very close consideration, but they are outside the scope of the statement I have made to-day.
Mr. Morrison: May we take it then that these considerations will receive further attention?
Sir J. Anderson: Surely.
Sir Edward Grigg: Can my right hon. Friend give any idea as to the period in which these shelters could be completed?
Sir J. Anderson: I should prefer not to be tied down too closely to an actual date. We propose that orders shall be given practically at once. The advice of the engineers and representatives of the steel industry who have collaborated with the consulting engineers, is that the manufacturing operation is a simple one, that the supplies of raw material available are already adequate and that, after an initial delay while plant was being got ready, production would proceed at a very rapid rate. But I think hon. Members will agree that my best course will be to lay before the House the report that I have received from the engineers. It will probably be found more informative on points like that than my statement has been.
Mr. Montague: The Minister has said that protection will not be given to people who could reasonably be expected to provide protection for themselves. In view of the pressure that there would be on the steel industry and other industries for raw material, has the Minister considered the question of protecting the rest in respect of the possibility of high prices in materials?
Sir J. Anderson: Yes, that has been considered and I shall be prepared to say something about it on a later occasion.
Mr. H. G. Williams: Will the forthcoming legislation also contain provision for ensuring the continuity of public services such as water, gas and electricity?
Sir J. Anderson: That is rather a different question.
Mr. Simmonds: Whilst congratulating my right hon. Friend and the Government on their praiseworthy action, I would ask whether it is proposed to accede to the unanimous request of industry that in regard to shelters there should be some relief under Schedule D of Income Tax?
Sir J. Anderson: At this moment I cannot add anything to what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said on that matter on 18th March last.
Mr. Logan: In view of the natural difficulty of evacuation in a city like Liverpool, with a population in congested areas, would the right hon. Gentleman not give facilities to the local authorities there to take straight away what are natural sites rather than to consider the question of evacuation?
Sir J. Anderson: The local authorities there require no facilities from me for that purpose.
Sir A. Sinclair: Can the Lord Privy Seal assure the House that by the time we return after the Recess he will be able to tell us what proposals there are for providing deep-shelter accommodation, particularly in the more congested areas?
Sir J. Anderson: I can give no undertaking of that sort at this moment.
Mr. Lansbury: Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to go and visit the East End, especially the low-lying parts of Hackney Wick and Stratford, and tell the people there what he proposes to do for them?
Sir J. Anderson: I have already gone into that matter. I should have thought that in these low-lying parts very deep shelters would have presented specially great difficulties.
Mr. Lansbury: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have not suggested anything of the kind? I do suggest that
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he ought, if he believes war may come, to evacuate these people now and not wait.
Mr. H. G. Williams: Now?
Mr. Lansbury: Yes, now.
Sir J. Anderson: The right hon. Gentleman raised the same question about 10 days or a fortnight ago, and I immediately instructed my advisers to go into the particular problem to which he called attention. I shall be very happy indeed to place at the disposal of the right hon. Gentleman the advice that my advisers gave me and to go into the matter.
Sir A. Sinclair: Ought it not to be at the disposal of the whole House?
Mr. Lansbury: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the Home Office inspectors who went to that district said that there was no chance for any of the people except by evacuating at least 80 per cent. of them?
Sir J. Anderson: I was not aware of it.
Mr. Lansbury: I am telling you now.
Mr. Benjamin Smith: Has the right hon. Gentleman given consideration to one aspect of local authority cost? In Westminster a penny rate yields £45,000, and there mostly employers and rich people live, who under this scheme will be doing their own work; but in places such as Poplar and Bermondsey a penny rate yields only about £3,000 a year?
Sir J. Anderson: Yes, I have indeed. The scheme I have put forward is designed to go some way towards redressing such inequalities.
Mr. Bossom: Can my right hon. Friend make the report to which he has referred available to all Members of the House as soon as possible so that we can examine it and talk intelligently when we meet again?
Sir J. Anderson: I propose to lay it at once.
Mr. Hicks: While in no way diminishing the value of the right hon. Gentleman's consultations with the civil engineers on the question of providing shelters for the civil population, on which subject every contribution is welcome, in so far as the right hon. Gentleman is dealing with buildings and other air-raid shelters, does he propose to consult other sections of the

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building industry? I am not asking merely for consultation with operatives. I am speaking about architects, surveyors, technicians of every sort, employers and operatives, who have a point of view not only upon the lateral bomb but upon the angular effect of a bomb. Does he propose to consult with them? In addition there is the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Hackney (Mr. H. Morrison) regarding structural alterations to buildings. While in the case of old buildings it is a matter of importance, in the case of new buildings it is fundamentally important. Will the right hon. Gentleman give consideration to the question of a financial contribution?
Sir J. Anderson: The question of new buildings will probably be dealt with in the forthcoming legislation and I prefer to say nothing more about it at present. As regards consultation with architects and surveyors and other sections of the building industry, I am most anxious that there should be the widest consultation. I only referred to consultation with civil engineers in relation to a particular aspect of the solution that we are offering to the House. In regard to the structural strengthening of buildings in general, if we are to make the progress that I hope we shall make the widest consultation will undoubtedly be necessary, and I hope to enlist the co-operation of all those sections of the industry to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
Mr. Sandys: Can my right hon. Friend give the House any indication of the radius of the area which will come within his definition of a direct hit under that scheme?
Sir J. Anderson: Not at present.
Mr. Lipson: My right hon. Friend used the phrase "areas vulnerable to attack." May I ask him whether he proposes to inform individual local authorities whether they are authorities which are responsible and come within that category or not?
Sir J. Anderson: It is quite clear that we shall not make any real progress at the maximum rate in our civil defence preparations unless we are prepared to face the necessity for classifying areas.
Mr. Hopkin: Has the right hon. Gentleman any plans prepared for the clearing up of the debris after an aerial attack?
Sir J. Anderson: Yes, Sir.
Mr. Noel-Baker: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the immediate provision of deep shelters for docks and munition factories, since the deep shelter has proved to be indispensable in Spain during bombardments?
Sir J. Anderson: I have given priority of consideration to the immediate problem—the short-term problem—of providing such shelters as I have described. I will, of course, consider all other aspects of the problem as rapidly as possible.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. Attlee: May I ask the Prime Minister to state the Business of the House for the week the House re-assembles after the Christmas Recess?
The Prime Minister: The Business will be:
Tuesday, 31st January.—Second Reading of the Bacon Industry (Amendment) Bill; Committee stage of the Cancer Bill.
Wednesday, 1st February.—Private Members' Motions will be considered.
Thursday, 2nd February.—Second Reading of the Census of Production Bill [Lords]; Committee stage of the Export Guarantees Bill; Motion for the appointment of Additional Judges. After this Business has been disposed of, I hope that there will be an opportunity for consideration of the Motion standing on the Paper in the name of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Lewisham (Sir A. Pownall) which relates to Members' Pensions. Friday, 3rd February.—Private Members' Bills will be considered.
On any day, if there is time, other Orders may be taken.
Mr. Attlee: Can the Prime Minister say whether the House, on re-assembly, will have an early opportunity of considering the very important outline of policy just given by the Lord Privy Seal and the very large operations which it implies?
The Prime Minister: Generally speaking, I think I can give that assurance, but no doubt the matter will be discussed through the usual channels.
Mr. Benn: Can the Prime Minister say when it is proposed to bring forward some legislation concerning the Czechoslovak loan; and will he bear in mind that it will then be four months during which public money has been dispensed without any authority from this House, and that there is a growing anxiety as to the purposes for which this money is being dispensed?
The Prime Minister: I do not wish to enter into an argument about it, but we should hope to introduce that legislation very shortly after we meet.

BILL PRESENTED.
  PUBLIC TRUSTEE (GENERAL DEPOSIT FUND) BILL,
  "to amend the law with respect to the manner in which the public trustee may deal with certain trust moneys, to confirm the legality of certain dealings by the public trustee with such moneys and to require certain moneys in the hands of the public trustee to be paid into the Exchequer; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid," presented by the Attorney-General; supported by Captain Wallace; to be read a Second time upon Tuesday, 31st January, and to be printed. [Bill 58.]
SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
  STANDING COMMITTEE A.
  Colonel Gretton reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee A: Lieut.-Commander Tufnell; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Porritt.

  STANDING COMMITTEE C.
  Colonel Gretton further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee C (added in respect of the Mining Industry (Welfare Fund) Bill): Mr. Rostron Duckworth; and had appointed in substitution: Wing-Commander Wright.
  Reports to lie upon the Table.

  MARRIAGE (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords].
  Read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Tuesday, 31st January, and to be printed. [Bill 55.]
  LIMITATION BILL [Lords].
  Read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Tuesday, 31st January, and to be printed. [Bill 56.]
  CENSUS OF PRODUCTION BILL [Lords].
  Read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Tuesday, 31st January, and to be printed. [Bill 57.]

REDISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION.
4.20 p.m.
Mr. Crowder: I beg to move,
"That this House is of opinion that an early resumption of the movement of the population within the Empire is most desirable, and urges His Majesty's Government to take every suitable opportunity for considering, in concert with Dominion Governments, all arrangements that may be practicable now and in the future for promoting and encouraging the settlement in the Dominions of people from this country and to indicate its readiness to co-operate fully in approved schemes."
I feel that this is a fit and appropriate occasion on which to introduce this Motion, because in four days' time messages of good will and good tidings will be sent round the Empire uniting us all in a great commonwealth of free nations with the same aspirations, namely, to live at peace with the world, to increase our trade and to better the conditions of the people, both in this country and overseas. This is an ideal upon which we all agree. We have to consider this afternoon what we could and should do to strengthen our position in the Empire in a troubled world, with dictators ruling the greater part of it who have no idea of allowing free speech or liberty as we know it in this country to-day.
Of course, any satisfactory scheme for emigration will cost money, and I propose to ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Dominions to say that he will grant more financial assistance than has been given hitherto. I maintain that, if he will so agree, it will be a good investment. Although I am no expert on this question, I do deplore the somewhat negative attitude which was adopted in the report on Migration of the Inter-Departmental Committee which was published in 1934. We have delayed too long, and now is the time to seize the opportunity to take some drastic action. It is necessary for the safety of the Empire. I hope that the Government will take an early opportunity of inviting the Dominions to consider a composite and well-thought-out plan, so that some of the empty spaces in our Empire may be occupied by our own people and people of the British stock. There are 46,000,000 people crowded together in this small island, and if we take Australia and Canada, to name only two, we see that there are thousands of miles of unpopulated or very sparsely populated country. We must come to the conclusion, there-
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fore, that the distribution of the population is unequal, and entails an enormous waste of men and materials. Other countries are quite aware of the position. The "Toronto Globe" recently published an article, of which the following is a short extract:
"Other countries are viewing our open spaces with envious eyes. If British Columbia cannot get rid of its Japanese settlers, it can at least help to offset them by opening the doors to more Britishers."
There is no doubt that in due course these lands will be populated, and I want to see settlers there coming from this country and not people whose ideas of government are diametrically opposed to our own. That is a very important point, because if we allow this to happen, it must mean the beginning of the disintegration of the Empire. There is no object in my explaining or trying to point out what that would mean, but I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House would agree that, if the Empire should start to disintegrate in this way, all hope of democracy and freedom would be gone. If we could populate these countries with people of our own stock by degrees, we should help now to save ourselves from a war between Fascism and Communism, either local or in Europe. We start miles ahead of any other nation, with great Dominions. We have opportunities that other countries have not got. The Dominions hold very strong and strategic positions and they are willing to work with us. Although as yet on their won, they are comparatively weak and undeveloped. all the material assets necessary for development are there, and I suggest that now is the time to co-operate with them. Great Britain would be reinforced in her efforts for world peace if the Dominions became stronger and wealthier. For instance, today Australia has a population of about 6,750,000. The Prime Minister of Australia, when he goes to Geneva or to any international conference, does not represent a great nation as regards numbers, but if there were, say, 20,000,000 people in Australia, the Prime Minister would, when he went to Geneva, be representing a very strong and powerful nation. Therefore, we must find some way to increase the population.
The expansion of primary production, namely, foodstuffs, is not sufficient. It would, no doubt, help to a great extent,

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but we must not discourage the setting up of secondary industries in our Dominions. It is very important that these industries should be economic. Secondary industrial development would not reduce exports from this country, because they would want material, machinery and the like, and thousands of pounds would be spent in wages, and, with more people drawing wages, there would be a greater buying power. Anyhow, whether we like it or not, secondary industries are being started in the Dominions, and we should co-operate with the Dominions and get them to take machinery from us, and not try to put any obstacles in their way.
England, not Scotland and Wales, but England itself is the most thickly populated country of any in the world, and there must be many young men and women who feel themelves crushed in the struggle and unequal competition for work and employment in this country who would like to strike out on their own, if adequate financial help and guidance were given them should they wish to go to the Dominions. We do not want to drive out of this country people who do not want to go, but we want to be able to give them financial help and guidance should they desire to go to the Dominions. They will not be going to a foreign country. They will be among people who have the same aspirations and the same ideals as we have in this country, and they will be welcomed and an accession of strength and a further guarantee of the future of the Empire. I am informed that there are many openings for professional men in the Dominions, and that some professional men in this country are out of work. I am told that there are many openings for them there. Some people have suggested that we simply urge emigration from this country in order to try to solve our own unemployment problem. That is quite a wrong spirit in which to approach this question. It really is a fallacy to suppose that our unemployment problem can be solved by restricting our own population. You do not necessarily increase your unemployed by increasing your population, nor do you necessarily decrease production by reducing your population. Between 1932 and 1936 twice as many people came to this country as left it, and yet there was a steady and rapid decline in unemployment during that period. In fact it is by increasing your population that you in-
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crease production and obtain increased employment and increased wages.
The policy of self-sufficiency which is being carried on to-day by the totalitarian States has naturally a restricting influence on our trade, but do not let us forget that if we are to pay for our rearmament programme we must expand our trade in every way we possibly can. I suggest, therefore, that we should do all we can to expand our trade within the Empire by helping the Empire to increase its resources and its population. Recently we gave £10,000,000 to the people of Czechoslovakia. I am not complaining, but what I do ask is that the Government should consider investing a similar amount, spread over a number of years, in Empire development. The details of such a scheme will, I believe, be given later on in the Debate. Such a loan could be repaid over a period of years, or it might be allowed to accumulate at compound interest to increase the establishment of British people in British lands. It was estimated in the "Times" some years ago that it took the income from £2,000 invested in gilt-edged securities to keep one unemployed family in this country, and there are thousands of such families being maintained in this country to-day.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft), who is to second the Motion, will explain that he asks only for £1,000 to equip a family in British Columbia on the free lands given by that Government, leaving them at the end of two years in a self-supporting condition. This is the only country in the Empire from which British stock can be drawn, and I suggest to His Majesty's Government that they should find the necessary money. I hope they will take immediate steps to offer it and strike while the iron is hot. The question is an urgent one. In the old days settlers in the Empire or some parts of it found nothing but bush and heavy trees which they had to clear away. They had to build their own houses and cowsheds, and had no one to advise them. To-day there are railways or roads, telegraphs or telephones, very often schools to accommodate the children of the settlers, and there are certainly experts to advise them.
In conclusion, I should like to mention the excellent work which 'is being done by the Big Brother Movement in Australia. As probably most hon. Members know, this movement was started in

2935
1925 by Sir Richard Linton, and I will read a short extract from an article which appeared in the Educational Supplement to the "Times" on 3rd December:
"The big brother who is a responsible Australian citizen, takes under his wing the British little brother until he reaches the age of 21 years. He acts as a buffer against difficulties which await the new arrival in Australia. He may not employ him and he cannot exploit him, but he sees that he gets fair play in his job from his employer, and is a clearing house for complaints and disagreements. By this means the little brother gets a square deal all round and feels that he can fall back on his big brother in time of trouble."
I hope the Government will see their way to encourage the leaders of this movement. Reports have been received from the offices in Melbourne and Sydney asking that 240 boys should be sent to each place next year, but again finance intervenes. They are having difficulty in finding boys who can produce the requisite amount of money to enable them to pay for their passage. A great deal of excellent work has been done by this society, and with more encouragement more could be done. Many of these boys have proved a great success on the land, and many have found their way into the Australian Navy, Army, Air Force and Police. But the question of finance is a very difficult one. The assisted passage rates are: Boys, from 15 to 17 years of age, £5 10s., plus £2 which it is necessary for them to have on landing; boys between 17 and 18 years of age are charged £11. Perhaps the Secretary of State will tell us why it is necessary for the passage money to be doubled between 17 and 18 years of age? I suggest that to stimulate the flow of suitable emigrants to Australia he might consider paying entirely the passage of suitable boys who are approved by his Department or who are approved by the Big Brother Movement.
I submit, finally, that as no definite scheme of Empire settlement on a really comprehensive scale has ever been submitted to the Dominions, it is not right to say that they have turned down any such plan. Therefore, I hope the Government will submit a comprehensive scheme, and will do it fairly soon. I move the Motion in no party spirit, and I hope that hon. Members in all parts of the House will support it. I hope I have been able to persuade them that it
2936
is to our own interest and in the interest of the Empire to co-operate with the Governments of the Dominions to consolidate the British race and enable us to retain our position in the world to-day. I maintain that it is essential that the man-power of our Empire should be increased by people of British stock—that is very important—so that we can make a successful stand, with the Dominions working as partners with us, for peace, freedom, liberty and tolerance.
4.40 p.m.
Brigadier-General Sir Henry Croft: I beg to second the Motion.
I am sure hon. Members will congratulate the hon. Member on his presentation of the case. He has done it in such a way as to secure the sympathy, and, I hope, the support of Members in all parts of the House. There is an Amendment on the Order Paper, and whether it is moved or not I take this opportunity of saying that the sentiments expressed in the Amendment certainly meet with my approval. I should be sorry to see the admirable words of the Amendment come into conflict with the Motion, and I hope therefore, it will come forward on a suitable occasion and be debated as a separate Motion. In 1918 and 1922, and again in 1933, I took the opportunity of asking hon. Members to realise that the population problem of this country was likely to be very severe in the years to come. At that time it received a considerable amount of sympathy, but very little was done. Up to and two years after the War there was still a stream of migration to the Dominions. Before the War people were going in such large numbers that it will be agreed that if the movement had reasserted itself after the War, there would be no serious problem of overcrowding in this country at the present moment, with its consequent aggravation of the unemployment situation.
Recently, more and more hon. Members have begun to realise that this is a problem which must be faced. When we see the Commissioners in the depressed areas in every case stressing the desirability of trying to give an opportunity to those who are suitable for settlement overseas, when we see so many public and charitable bodies in this country realising the need for grappling with this question, it was not surprising to find supporters of His Majesty's Government

2937
in the last Parliament to the number of 305 tabling a Motion far stronger than the present Motion and asking for immediate action. Only last Session a large majority of those who support the Government again urged a Motion in similar terms. In response to the demand which was pressed in this House in 1933 the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor set up the Overseas Settlement Board, and it is pertinent to ask how many people the Board have succeeded in settling since it was set up. We know that their sympathies are very great, but I would urge that these sympathies should be transformed into definite action. Up to the present it must be confessed, for reasons which are well known to us, that their policy has been a negative one of waiting on events, hoping that pressure might come from the Dominions.
But while nothing has been done hon. Members should remember that something like £1,400,000,000 has been spent in benefits and relief since the Great War. It is a staggering figure, large enough to equip entirely a new nation, to establish a new country. If half that amount had been spent in the development of settlement within the Empire, on the basis of the plan which I propose shortly to put before the House, we could have established something like 750,000 men in the Dominions overseas.
Mr. Paling: Does that sum include benefit for the unemployed and Poor Law relief?
Sir H. Croft: It is an approximate figure which has been spent in keeping alive our people since the Great War. Why has nothing been done? Why this continual stonewalling against any action? I think the reasons can be summed up as follow. It is suggested, first, that the Dominions would not have such a policy; secondly, that there were no open spaces left in the British Empire; thirdly, that settlers could not make a livelihood; fourthly, that there were no settlers available; and, in the fifth place, that we must rely on infiltration and not upon any organised scheme. These are interesting reasons, but I have never agreed with them. I am chairman of a private committee of both Houses of Parliament, with experts from migration bodies, and after an exhaustive study and examining something like 75 witnesses, we came to the conclusion that it was a policy which
2938
should be followed. I received an invitation from British Columbia to go out there with a colleague from the north, an ex-Lord Mayor of Newcastle, Mr. Stanley Dalgeish, who was anxious to do something for the unemployed in his district, and who organised an immigration conference in Newcastle. We went there to discover on the spot whether these arguments were really such as should prevent us from going ahead with the policy.
We took every point of substantial criticism that we had ever heard in this country, and I am delighted to say that we found the people of British Columbia ready to refute all those arguments. We found that in British Columbia not only did they not oppose such a scheme, but that it was generally welcomed throughout the whole Province. I am not exaggerating when I say that it was with open arms that they welcomed the idea. In all the great area which we traversed, far greater than the area of England, we had the declared support of every Member of Parliament, either Federal or Provincial. They all happened to be Liberals. Miracles do happen. They gave us public and generous support, and I am correct in saying that in every single constituency their Conservative brethen publicly associated themselves with the plan which we put before them. In addition, every single board of trade from Kamloops to Prince Rupert unanimously supported our plan.
We visited 55 settlers in their homes, the large majority of whom were people who had gone out from this country, and with one exception—and he was a strong opponent—the whole of those settlers said they would welcome additional men from this country to go out and establish themselves among them. They were not afraid of their competition, but desired to see the British population strengthened in that part of the Empire. Ours was a modest mission, but when I say that we were accompanied by all the soil, water and agricultural experts in the areas we visited, it will be agreed that we had to our hands all the best information available.
The climax to this really remarkable reception was when we arrived at Victoria, where we went at the invitation of a man of far-sighted vision, the Prime Minister of the Province, Mr. Pattullo, who in answer to the ideas we put forward and the plans we advanced told us definitely

2939
that if the home Government and the Federal Government would agree to the plan, or something similar to it, his Province, his Government, were prepared to give all the free land necessary for the purpose, and give every assistance in establishing the social services in the areas developed. That was very encouraging. We satisfied ourselves that there are great suitable areas available. We went into districts where the soil appeared to be suitable and on all the fringes of which the settlers, our own countrymen, told us that the adjacent soil was equally good. We looked over territories 20 to 30 miles in extent, and there is every reason to believe that, subject to soil survey, there is suitable land, suitable water conditions, and suitable climate for countrymen of ours should they desire to go, and should His Majesty's Government desire to stand behind them with credit or other financial assistance.
Hard though the conditions are for men to go pioneering in any Dominion, we are convinced that there is a brighter future out there for those who can go under an organised plan, and that there is a chance of making a home with real hope for their children and their children's children such as they could not find in most of our congested areas in this country at the present time. We may be asked, Would any of our own people go? I am sometimes insulted by persons saying to me that our countrymen are so soft they would not undertake this pioneering work. That is an insult, when we remember how our countrymen adapted themselves to the conditions of the Great War. Since this idea was published in the Press I have had hundreds of letters from applicants desiring that their names should be put on the first list, in order that they may settle overseas. Apparently they are the very type of people we want to go overseas—people who have left the country to look for better chances in the cities, and they want to get back into touch with the land.
There is one point of criticism with which I should like to deal. We know that there are many unemployed in the Dominion of Canada, mostly in the cities, and it would be most unwise to do anything to aggravate that situation. When we first arrived in Canada there were one or two Press notices to the effect that it was inadvisable to bring any more
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citizens into Canada. But when we pointed out that under the proposed development company we should be able to place some thousands of persons on the land to develop new areas, backed by British capital to an extent, as indicated in the report, of about £1,000 per family, immediately the original small opposition to our idea faded away. It was realised that if 30,000,000 to 40,000,000 dollars were to be expended in Canada among the Canadians themselves in the buying of lumber, cattle, stock, hogs, poultry, 20,000 agricultural machines in the first year, another 20,000 machines in the second year, and 40,000 implements for agricultural pursuits, this would give employment in all the cities, and that by so doing there would be reasonable hope that for every single family settled on the land we could give permanent employment to one worker in the industrial centres of the Dominion. With these facts before us, we received a reception from the Canadian Press, with only three exceptions so far as I am aware, of general good will.
Let me say a few words in regard to the plan. The plan that we offer, in all humility, to the right hon. Gentleman is that an Empire development company should be formed, that it should not be an ordinary company, but one which would be placed on a higher standard than any ordinary commercial concern, in that the original directors should have the assent in regard to character, etc., of the Prime Minister of whichever party might be in power. In this way we could get directors of the very highest character, and we should have the finest agricultural experts, financial experts and those who understand Imperial developments. The company would, therefore, be one which would have the confidence of the country fully behind it. It is our belief that such a company, with the support of His Majesty's Government, could get to work very early, probably a year after the initial stages. We do not ask or suggest that any expenditure from the State, which already offers under the Empire Settlement Act, £1,500,000 a year, or money advanced under Trade Facilities, as suggested should be in the nature of a gift or a dole. We believe that this is an investment and that the money would come back, probably in 23 years, through the company, which would be responsible for seeing that the settlers

2941
were not let down and for seeing that the whole arrangements were carefully organised and assisted in every way by agricultural experts.
For this small experiment in British Columbia—I am hoping to see a similar scheme adopted throughout the Dominions—we estimate that £10,000,000 would be necessary. My hon. Friend mentioned that, without a word of protest, without a groan, we decided to grant £10,000,000, in a moment of emotion, to the people of Czechoslovakia. I am not criticising that decision, but I am pointing out that that is just the sum for which we are asking. That is the amount of money which we suggest should be invested, and we are sure that it would come back. In the last fortnight or so we have been deeply moved by the sufferings of people on the Continent of Europe, and people from various quarters have suggested that we should settle 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 or 30,000 refugees in this or that part of the British Empire, All of us would wish to help any unfortunate people in any part of Europe at the present time to the best of our ability, but it is surely an equal duty, indeed it is our first duty, to do everything in our power to assist our own people who for years have been longing for an opportunity of productive work and the chance of making a new home.
Here is a subject on which we might all agree, namely, that we ought to make an experiment on a large scale, seeing the vast number of people in this country who are, unfortunately, unemployed. I do not think that many of the unemployed would venture on a pioneering scheme like this, but, at any rate, they could take the places of others who desired to go. We have nearly 2,000,000 people who are still unemployed. They also are refugees; they are refugees from despair, and when we see that Signor Mussolini at the present time is engaged in settling a very much larger number of people than I have indicated in the arid wastes of Libya, I do not believe that my right hon. Friend is going to admit that he, a great democratic leader, is less capable of pushing a great scheme for settling our people in the rich and fertile territories of British Columbia.
Since the Great War we have invested well over 200,000,000 of British money in Germany, Austria and other continental countries, in the hope of putting them
2942
once more upon their feet. Had we invested that money in developing the British Empire overseas and settling our own people, I think it will be realised at once that that sum of money would have given a great volume of employment to very considerable sections of people in this country who are seeking for the kind of productive energy which this scheme of ours presents to them. Recent events in different parts of the world have convinced us more and more of the imperative need for the peoples of the British Empire to get together—all the great self-governing Dominions, the British Colonial Empire and our great Indian Empire. Now is the time when we should cooperate. This is the great fraternity of democratic nations which still exists, and our united power would be immense. Here is an opportunity for His Majesty's Government to do something to strengthen the bulwark of our civilisation by seeing to it that the British people are more adequately distributed, where they will have the best chance for their own development, and where they can do more for the strengthening of the strategic safety of our Empire overseas.
When one sees thousands of people going into the middle of Canada from Central European countries, one realises the need there is for British settlers there, and I can assure the House that every person I met in Canada would rather have British stock. We know what the Government of one Province offers. It offers free land for our settlers and a cordial welcome. I had also the opportunity of meeting the Government of another Province, that of Saskatchewan, and they also equally want British settlers. I believe the Maritime Provinces are in exactly the same position, and I cannot believe that the Federal Government of Canada would be slow to act and to give assistance, because at this moment a man can go from Switzerland, Germany, Austria or the Ukraine—Czechs and Slovaks, and people of all the nations of Central Europe, can settle in Canada as long as they have 1,000 dollars in their pockets. Under this scheme, we ought to see to it that more money than that is behind our people. If that is so, the Dominion Governments would be only too ready to welcome them.
I am grateful to hon. Members for their tolerance in allowing me to put these facts before them. We are looking for

2943
a constructive policy which will do something to make people feel happier and more secure in face of the dangers which confront us in the world to-day. I believe there is no better means than to go ahead with the development of the British Empire. What is the good of this Empire merely being painted red on the map? What we should do is to populate it, to see that the urge of progress is once more established, to make of the Empire a real instrument for the advancement of mankind, and to help each other forward in these days of peril to greater prosperity throughout the King's Dominions.
5.2 p.m.
Mr. Lunn: The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) knows his subject very well, as we have often experienced in the House. He expressed his regret that the Amendment on the Paper is not to be called. I believe that he would have liked that Amendment to be added to the Motion, but as it is not to be called, we shall not be able to go into the whole question of the development of the Empire, as both the hon. and gallant Gentleman and I would like to do on this occasion. The hon. Member for Finchley (Mr. Crowder), who moved the Motion in such a delightful manner, is not as well acquainted with the subject of migration as his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth. He began by saying that what is necessary in this question is finance. I do not know how far the hon. Member wants to extend the powers of the Government with regard to the financing of people who are sent overseas. We used to have an Empire Settlement Act which provided that the Government should pay 50 per cent. of the cost on condition that the Dominions guaranteed in some way the same amount. A year or two ago that Act was amended, and it was decided that we would grant up to 75 per cent. of the cost, and possibly even more in certain cases.
In spite of that, the hon. Member was compelled to admit in his speech that more than twice the number of migrants who left this country for the Dominions have returned to this country. I believe that to be the fact, but perhaps the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State will give the House the exact figures as to the number of people who have returned to this country, and also the ex-
2944
cess over the number of people who have gone from this country to the Dominions. I have no doubt that the hon. Member was right when he said that there are many people, particularly young people, who would desire to go to the Dominions if opportunities could be given to them—by which I mean, not only the passage money, but guarantees of employment and security. The only scheme which the hon. Member mentioned was the "Big Brother" Movement. That is an excellent idea and an excellent movement, but the few people who have gone to the Dominions from this country under that movement shows that it cannot in any way solve the problem. I can tell the hon. Member that in 1925 a comprehensive scheme was proposed by this country to Australia. It was a question of guaranteeing £450,000 and sending 10,000 people each year; but Australia did not accept the scheme, and nothing came of it. Returning to the speech of the Seconder, the hon. and gallant Member did not give us a single concrete idea of anything that any Government in the Dominions is prepared to do in order to help migration. He spoke to private individuals and Members of Parliaments, and he had meetings with Cabinets, but he has not been able to tell us of a single direction in which they are prepared to do something in order to support his ideas with regard to migration.
Sir H. Croft: The hon. Member cannot have heard me tell the House that the Government of British Columbia, through its Prime Minister, met our Mission and definitely stated that if such a scheme were adopted, they would be prepared to grant the land free of any charge whatever, and also to assist in social services.
Mr. Lunn: I hope the Secretary of State will tell us definitely what the Government of British Columbia have said to him on that matter, and how far he has been assured that people from this country will be accepted and provided for. The hon. and gallant Gentleman gave no facts regarding what is to be done, and I cannot see that anything in his speech will help, as far as the Dominions are concerned, with the redistribution of population to any part of the British Empire.
Mr. Annesley Somerville: May I point out to the hon. Member that two years ago the Legislature of Saskatchewan, by

2945
a majority of some 54 votes to seven, passed a resolution stating that the time had come for a resumption of migration, and that we have heard from the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth that this Legislature also is prepared to make grants of land on very favourable terms?
Mr. Lunn: I have been going into the facts with regard to the Saskatchewan scheme. I would like to see some enthusiasm for that idea, but again, I ask the Secretary of State to tell us what is the position with regard to the Saskatchewan Government and what is it prepared to do to assist migration. We ought to be given that information. Moreover, I do not think the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth ought to exploit the position of the depressed areas as a means of getting migrants to the Dominions. The hon. and gallant Gentleman knows very well that, although we have spent £1,400,000,000 in relief, the Dominions would not accept one of those men as immigrants. He knows very well that, with regard to every scheme that there has been, it has been clearly stated that the Dominions are not prepared to accept our unemployed.
Sir H. Croft: They are not unemployable.
Mr. Lunn: No, I do not accept the position that our unemployed people are unemployable. I would like the Government to do something to provide work for them rather than relief without work. But the position is that the Dominions would not accept our unemployed people. They want very fit men. Some years ago, when I was in charge of emigration, I went to visit a ship that was leaving with emigrants for Australia. I saw turned back from the ship a man who, as far as he knew, had been passed to go. He was a most suitable man, sturdy and strong, and the only reason he was turned back was that he was wearing spectacles. When a man is turned back in that way, I think this aspect of the matter is worthy of consideration.
The Motion is a very innocuous one, and I do not suppose we shall vote against it; indeed, I do not see any reason why we should. The hon. Member who moved the Motion wants to see a resumption of migration. He has stated his conditions. I would extend those conditions
2946
by saying that there must be guarantees and employment for the people who go. The Mover and Seconder of the Motion know very well that there is no likelihood of an early resumption of migration. They have pressed the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State on this matter, but they have said that it must be done in concert with the Dominion Governments. When will that position be reached? I agree with the Motion from that point of view, because I believe that if migration is to be resumed, it must be in concert with the Dominions.
The Government ought to co-operate in approved schemes. Perhaps the Secretary of State will tell the House what approved schemes there are between the Dominion Governments and His Majesty's Government. I do not know of one. If the schemes are of a character that makes it suitable for migrants to go overseas, then I do not object to those schemes being carried into effect. However, it is remarkable that we can become enthusiastic upon such subjects as this, when there can be no realisation of that which the hon. Members who moved and seconded the Motion desire. All those who support the Motion know that nothing can come of it at present, although, like those who support it enthusiastically, I should like to see the time come when something can be done; for I realise that our people would rather be in employment than in receipt of relief.
But we must not regard the Dominions as Colonies. They are not Colonies; they are self-governing States, equal in status to us. Anyone who has read the speeches made at the New Zealand luncheon yesterday will have seen that it was emphasised very strongly that they regard themselves as equal in status. That being so, they must be consulted with regard to anything that is to be done, and their consent must be given. There are not many immigrant countries in the Empire; only New Zealand, Australia and Canada can be considered. I know there is plenty of room, but it is not enough to imagine that because there is plenty of space, people should be given their passage money and dropped in those places. They must be given some opportunities, and there must be guarantees of employment; they must not be left to sink or swim. There must be assurances, and there can be no assurances given that they will get a living on the land, as far as we can

2947
judge from some of the recent migration schemes.,
Then, again for some years, the number of migrants who have come back has exceeded the number of those who have gone out, which indicates that many more would return if the means to do so could be provided for them. Those who take an interest in this question know that very well, and I consider that it would be wicked to encourage people to go abroad and to be left there on their beam ends. The migrants must be carefully selected. As the right hon. Gentleman who formerly occupied the office of Dominions Secretary used to say, they must be the pick of the basket. They must be above the average in physique, intelligence and enterprise. We have not got large numbers of people of that quality who wish to go. There must be no compulsion. If they do go, it must be voluntarily. I agree, as I have said, with the second and third parts of the Motion if it can be done in concert with the Dominions. But if the principle of redistribution of population is adopted, it ought to be carried out according to a plan. Schemes must be considered carefully and the Governments on each side must take part in them. All the Governments concerned must cooperate, if anything is to be done. Resettlement cannot be left to haphazard methods, if it is undertaken again. If the right hon. Gentleman is correct in the statement which he made recently that there are many disintegrating forces in the Dominions, that makes the problem all the greater. Indeed if such forces exist it seems impossible to hope for success.
Further, if we propose to send people oversea, we must consider whether there are markets to take the products of their labour. There must be opportunity for them to market what they produce, and I wish to know what is being done about that aspect of the question. Has it ever been discussed or considered? Are trade and exchange so healthy that markets can be guaranteed? I do not think that is so, but without such guarantees disaster would overtake them as in the case of the Victorian settlers of some years ago, whose plight some of us remember very well. Then I would ask whether it is assisted or unassisted migration we are asked to support? If it is to be unassisted, that simply means that there will be none at all. If it is to be assisted
2948
migration, how far is it to be assisted? Is it to end with the provision of cheap passage money facilities? Will nothing be done with regard to the settlement and employment of the people and their opportunities of earning a livelihood? These are most important questions. The question of after-care when the people get there, is of as much importance as the question of starting them from this country. If it is to be assisted migration, as I suppose it will be, then all these matters will have to be considered by the Department here and by the Dominions Government.
We must ask ourselves which form of migration we ought to support most. I contend that family migration is the best. I agree that it would be the most costly, but I believe that the mother should remain with the father, and that the children should go with the parents. I know the amount of trouble that it has taken in one case to get a women into the United States to join her husband there. I realise the difficulties involved, but if we are proposing to send people from here to the Dominions, then I say we ought to let the wife go with the husband and do all we can to make the family united, comfortable and happy when they settle in their new home. To-day the only satisfactory method of migration that we have is the nomination method, under which people who are already settled in a Dominion can nominate a migrant from this country, a relative or a friend for whom they are prepared to provide. That is a very suitable form of migration. I am much opposed to child migration as we had it in Canada, and I hope it will never be instituted again.
I wish to ask what has been done under the Empire settlement scheme since the last Act was passed? Under that Act there is a board to deal with this matter. We ought to know whether anything has been done by that board. The hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Somerville) was a strong supporter of the idea of a board. He felt that it was the one thing which would start this business off again successfully. We ought to know from the right hon. Gentleman what is being done by the board to secure a larger number of settlers in the Dominions. I know that there is one way by which migration could be encouraged and developed without assistance from this country. If there were a gold rush in Australia similar to

2949
that which took place some 8o years ago, there would be no need to talk in this House about assisted migration. People would go there in very large numbers. I hope I am not encroaching on the Amendment when I say that some years ago there was a Development Board in Australia, and if the work of that board had been continued, something might have been done to open Australia to many British workers.
I conclude by suggesting to the right hon. Gentleman that he ought to be careful in his speeches. I have already referred to a statement which was made by him last week. It is very important, if there are any disintegrating forces in the Dominions, that he should tell us what those forces are and what efforts are being made to remove them and prevent anything which is likely to break up the family of the Empire. This is something apart from migration, but it is with regard to the Dominions and it is very important that we should consider it. I am concerned, as much as the right hon. Gentleman and, I believe, most Members of this House are concerned, that the links should be maintained, that the chain should be kept strong, and we must not allow these things to which the right hon. Gentleman referred to exist any longer than we can help. It is against our own comfort, and I believe against the possibility of the peace of the world, and if the facts are as the right hon. Gentleman stated the other day, that is the greatest danger that could arise. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman when he speaks to-night will clear the air so that we may know that there is nothing very serious, or nothing that will be to the detriment either of the Dominions or ourselves in the present position of affairs.
5.24 p.m.
Mr. Annesley Somerville: The House is under an obligation to my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mr. Crowder) for having brought this subject before us, because it is a subject which has been urgent for many years. We are also under an obligation to him for the clear and persuasive way in which he argued his case. The discussion, so far, has been remarkable for the concrete scheme put before the House by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft), on which I shall have something to say presently. First, may I refer to the speech of the hon. Member for
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Rothwell (Mr. Lunn). He, I know, is anxious to see migration and settlement set going again, but he desires that it should be on sound and sensible lines, and I thoroughly agree with him. He has undertaken the role of devil's advocate in this Debate and has, quite rightly, brought forward the difficulties and the objections to various schemes. I think he went a little too far in that direction, but we are grateful to him for saying that he is not going to advise his supporters to divide on the Motion. With regard to the Amendment I, like my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth, am thoroughly in favour of it. I think it might well be accepted as an addition to the Motion and I hope that that course will be taken.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth has put before the House a well-thought-out scheme which was submitted to the Prime Minister of British Columbia, and, as hon. Members heard, my hon. and gallant Friend received an offer of a free grant of land in British Columbia if this scheme were adopted by the British Government. I discussed that matter with the Prime Minister of British Columbia some years ago when he was Minister of Lands in Victoria. I discussed it with him and with Mr. John Oliver—who by the way used to be a Cheshire miner—and they were extremely anxious that British Columbia should be populated by British stock. One asks, therefore, what is being done with that scheme. Has it been put before the Oversea Settlement Board? Incidentally, the hon. Member for Rothwell suggested that I had been in favour of the establishment of that board. I was in favour of a board, but I wanted a board with a much wider and stronger constitution than the present body. But I would like to ask now whether this scheme will be submitted to the board, and, if so, what will the board do with it? That board is the lineal descendant of the old Overseas Settlement Committee and is much the same kind of body. To quote the French proverb, "The more a thing changes the more it remains the same."
The Overseas Settlement Committee, which was originated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery), under the Overseas Settlement Act, 1922, did good work as long as the country was prosperous and there

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was an urge to go abroad. But it had not any real power of its own, and the same difficulty is found in the present board. It has scarcely any executive power. It has to go to the Dominions Minister and the Treasury on every important step that it takes. It published a report in May of this year—an admirably written report and a wonderful marshalling of figures and facts. It was a very good book of reference, as was the previous report, published by the Inter-Departmental Committee of which my right hon. Friend was the chairman, but, as the hon. Member for Rothwell has said, what has that board done in the direction of settling people in a sound way overseas? You can find very little traces in the report of anything that it has achieved, and we want something done now.
There are some questions that one would like to ask, and two of them have already been asked. Why is it that Central Europeans should pour into British Columbia, and why is it that men from the United States should cross the borders and settle in British Columbia? Why should Dutchmen go there? This is what I find in a Vancouver paper published in June of this year:
"New settlers continue to pour into the Bulkley Valley area, most of them coming from the Central European countries. In addition, large numbers of prairie farmers (that is, from the States) are intending to settle in British Columbia."
The article goes on to speak of land being purchased by various foreigners, and it mentions that a number of Dutchmen are going into British Columbia. Look at Australia. There are numbers of Italians going there, and numbers of Germans too, but where are the people of British stock? It is essential that if our customs, our character, and our institutions are to continue to pervade the Empire, the people who go into the Empire should be people of British stock. That is one question, and that has already been asked in part by previous speakers. Another question is, Why should we give loans, and very large loans, to Germany—yes, Germany—to Austria, to Turkey, and to Czechoslovakia—I am not saying anything against these loans—and give practically nothing for the development of our own Empire?
What we are pleading for to-day is not merely land settlement; it is the develop-
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ment of the immense resources of the Empire. That is what we want, and that is what would produce a higher standard of life and prosperity, which would bring population. We want something that will grip the Empire. Here is a challenge to democracy. Is our democracy, as represented by this country and the countries of the British Empire, prepared to meet the challenge? Our young people are waiting for a lead to fill them with hope and vigour. Signor Mussolini can transplant 100,000 people—20,000 families, with an average five each—to Libya, and I have read with admiration of the perfect way in which the organisation of the transference of those people was, or is being, accomplished. Have we no answer? Is the British Empire so powerless that it cannot produce an answer to that? What is needed in the Empire at this time is, as I have said, a movement produced by wise leadership, in conjunction with the Dominions and the Colonies, to grip the Empire, to make it feel its strength, its resources, in order to develop them. In regard to loans to foreign countries, a well-known ex-Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in a speech in this House, once said that in the last 40 years £4,000,000,000 has been lent to foreign countries, and mostly lost. The money that was lent to the Dominions was not lost, or only a very small part of it was lost. If a tithe of that vast sum had been spent in the development of our Empire, what might not have been achieved?
The next question that I would ask is, Why should the Members of this House take such an interest in the German road through Czechoslovakia and take practically no interest in the Alaskan Highway that is being planned through British Columbia? I read a very informing article by Sir Evelyn Wrench in the "Spectator" recently on that Highway. I know a little about it, because I have travelled some hundreds of miles on the Pacific Highway, of which this is to be a continuation, and I have seen what that Pacific Highway has done in the way of opening up country and bringing prosperity to districts. That Highway runs from the Mexican to the Canadian border, 1,000 miles. The Alaskan Highway is to run from the Canadian border right through British Columbia and through Alaska—1,800 miles through British Columbia and 400 miles through Alaska.

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If that were made, it would open up vast areas of British land, it would afford employment to thousands, it would bring tourists there, it would improve trade, and it would be most valuable for defence.
That is the kind of development for which we ask. At the present moment the Prime Minister of British Columbia is conducting negotiations with the United States of America to get the money for that purpose. Is this country to stand aside and not to take part in an Empire development of that kind? I can hardly think the country realises the position. Take another case of the possibility of development. One of the chief obstacles to trade and communication in Australia is the want of uniformity in the rail gauge. Thousands of miles of railways have different gauges, and why should not we, in conjunction with Australia, undertake to unify that gauge? It would give employment to thousands and would produce great results in Australia. I give those two as instances of Empire development, and those are some of the questions that I would be glad to have answered, possibly not to-night, but by this House in the near future.
Now may I say a word about Australia? This question of migration is of the utmost importance to Australia. You have only to look at the map to see. There are certain territories mandated to Australia—British New Guinea, the New Hebrides, and part of the Solomon Islands. They form a regular barrier for the North of Australia. Supposing they were returned to Germany and remembering that Japan lies to the North, to which country the Marshall Islands, the Marianne Islands, and the Caroline Islands were mandated and have been fortified by her, in what position would Australia be? But the first defence that Australia needs is manpower, and she has to see to that. How are we going to get man-power? Not merely by land settlement, but by communications, by developing mines, forests, fisheries, and every kind of human activity, and, as the hon. Member for Finchley said, by developing secondary industries in conjunction with this country, so as to produce as little clashing as possible, and taking account of the Ottawa Agreements.
We want all these activities to be developed, and I would, in particular mention the question of shipping. Why is it that the British Empire has allowed our
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shipping almost to be run off the Pacific by the subsidised shipping of the United States of America and Japan? It is a disgrace to the Empire that it should have been done. At last they are waking up to it, and we understand that two fast ships are to be built for the Canadian Pacific Line, but if they had done that years ago, they would have saved 40 per cent. of the cost, and they would have preserved a great deal of traffic for the benefit of the Empire. We are asleep when we might have been awake and doing things, developing the Empire. This is not a matter of unemployment, and the proof of that is that there are thousands of people in this country in good employment who are prepared to take their chance, and who want to take their chance, overseas. If they had their chance—and they are the right people to go, people with enterprise, energy, and skill—they would be replaced by the unemployed. We have plenty of skilled people to take their place.
What is needed is strong, wise, vigorous leadership in this matter, and I feel assured that if that leadership were forthcoming, the Empire would respond to it, and in particular the young people would find the outlet for their energy and enterprise, and it would be the best form of defence against the doubtful and dark dangers that assail us. After all, what is the chief guarantee of peace in this world? It is British democracy. The stronger we can make the Empire, the stronger we can make British democracy, the more likely we are to have peace in the world, and I would ask my right hon. Friend the Dominions Secretary to take a broad and a long view of this question and to give a lead that would, as I say, grip the Empire. Let our principle be, "Develop and strengthen the Empire."
5.43 p.m.
Mr. de Rothschild: We have just listened to a most eloquent and moving speech by the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Somerville), and I feel sure that the whole House agrees with him that it would be a matter of great value and importance if the Empire could continue to be peopled with men of his own calibre, with men with that idea and vision of development and democracy which are imperative for the population of our Empire at the present time. In fact, I think there is general agreement, not only in this House, but throughout the country,

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that migration from this country to the Colonies and Dominions is greatly desirable. I should like to say, however, that there appears to be, in some circles, a difference of opinion as to whether the present time is altogether propitious, and there are, I believe, serious misgivings as to whether we can afford at present to lose the type which makes the best emigrants, whether we can afford to lose the young, healthy and enterprising young men while our own population is declining. Only yesterday we were debating the urgency of a register for national service, and some people are wondering whether this is the opportunity or the right occasion for relieving these islands of some of its best and most valuable population.
Although this is put forward as a serious proposition, I do not think it should stand hi the way of the emigration of a considerable number of people from this country. Any such sacrifice would be well justified in order to increase the British stocks in other parts of the Empire. We know that the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) is an authority on this question. He has given up to it a lifetime of study and travel. We all agree with his main argument and the point which he has put forward this afternoon that the Dominions should have as great a population of British stock as this country can spare. When I spoke a year and a-half ago in the House I pointed out how vital I thought it was for the Commonwealth to be populated by people with our great democratic traditions. I am not equally convinced about the proposal which is put forward by the hon. and gallant Gentleman as to the method of emigration. I do not know whether large schemes of settlement are altogether the best solution. Let us look at the scheme which the hon. and gallant Gentleman put forward for settlement in Canada. He published an interesting document which he sent to all Members who are interested in this question. The scheme involves the migration of as many as 10,000 families at a cost to this country of £1,000 per family. The scheme assumes that there are a large number of land-minded men in this country who are only waiting for £1,000 and 160 acres of land in British Columbia. Many people here might be inclined to ask, why British Columbia?
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Those of us who travel up and down the London and North Eastern Railway see that there are plenty of waste spaces much nearer home. There are plenty of people in these islands who would be delighted to receive £1,000 in order to develop the undeveloped acres in our own country. Why should the entire cost of the scheme which is put forward by the hon. and gallant Gentleman fall on the home Government? The Dominions would certainly be willing to receive the migrants and contribute towards the cost of the scheme. I do not believe that they wish the entire cost to be borne by this country. I remember reading an interesting article in a periodical by Mr. Forgan Smith, who is a distinguished publicist and politician in Queensland. It shows that from 1922 to 1929, which was a period of high emigration into Australia, the overseas national debt of that Dominion increased by as much as £200,000,000. Mr. Forgan Smith concluded that by spending so much money on the development of the natural resources of the country conditions had been created which favoured the best method of emigration, which, to his mind was the method of infiltration and assimilation. He did not appear to regret in any way this increase in the national debt, believing that the result justified the expense. Where there has been development of the natural resources of the Dominions whether on the Continent of America or in Australia money has come from this country and also from other sources and was borrowed by the Dominions. This was one of the main causes which enabled the colonists to settle and to develop.
My view coincides with that of Mr. Smith, that infiltration is the best way of settlement in the Dominions—infiltration of all classes and categories. But I think that we are inclined, even the hon. Member for Windsor, to magnify the contribution which this country can make to the populations of the Empire. The population of this country, after all, is only 45,000,000 and the population of the Dominions is already 20,000,000. I do not think we can add very many millions to the population of the Empire. The population of Canada is already 10,000,000, and the aim is that this should be doubled in the shortest possible time. I hope it will be. The aim, according to Mr. Mackenzie King,

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the Prime Minister of Canada, is that the population should reach 80,000,000, and well it may. This country could make only a small contribution to a problem of such magnitude, in spite of the impression which is current in many Dominions that we have a vast surplus of population.
If the population of the Dominions is to be greatly increased in a short time other countries I feel must also contribute. I said in a speech on the Floor of this House two years ago, with regard to migrants from some European countries, that I did not think they would be likely to contribute to the peace and harmony of the Commonwealth. When we see what is happening in the Protectorate of Tunis, the House will realise that my fears at that time were not altogether unfounded. But since then in many countries conditions have changed, and to-day the great totalitarian States have not really solidified their position. Thousands of people have been uprooted, and only the other day the Chancellor of the Exchequer extended his pity to the Czech refugees in their plight, and I understand he received the members of the Refugees Committee to discuss this point. To help Czechoslovakia this House has voted £10,000,000, of which the Chancellor has said that the first claim is that of the refugees. Could not something in the way of trans-migration be done for these people. The power of the dictators is spreading and is creating a position in which more and more men and women come under governments which are contrary to their democratic ideals.
It is possible that the troubled state of Europe may be an opportunity for the Empire to enrich itself as it has done in the past. The increase in the non-British population of the Dominions is sometimes looked upon with concern, as it was in the speech that preceded mine, especially in regard to Canada. It is true that there are certain classes of emigrants in Canada which have not been assimilated, chiefly owing to their low cultural outlook. The potential emigrant to-day is of a different type, of high cultural attainments and skilled in agriculture. The 150,000 Czechs who are at present seeking refuge in other countries are men on whom we were prepared to rely as skilled fighters and officers and men of a great Army who had contributed to building
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up a great industry in their own country. Such men and women would enrich the lives of the democratic nations which compose the Commonwealth and would become loyal and devoted citizens. When I talk of such men and women I am not thinking only of Jewish men and women, but of those thousands of all faiths with a democratic outlook who would be glad to become citizens of the Empire.
I should like to take this opportunity to welcome the decision of the Australian Government to take 15,000 refugees in the next three years. This is not only a sign of humanity, but an indication of the change in Australia's attitude to emigration. It has been fully endorsed by the Labour movement in Australia, and hitherto the Labour movement has not been favourable to emigration. From the point of view of national defence also it may be important to encourage suitable migrants from non-British countries. The hon. Member for Windsor pointed out the dangers that beset the far-flung confines of Australia, and it is valuable to encourage the settlement also of non-British migrants there. It has been argued that the population of New Zealand, one of the most vulnerable parts of the Empire, should be increased, but if New Zealand were in danger and there were a battle for her possession, it would probably not take place on her seas, but in the Yellow Seas or the North Seas. Therefore, it is fallacious to argue that the Commonwealth can be strengthened by the dispersal of man power. Defence would be better served by an addition to the total man power of the Commonwealth than by inter-Imperial emigration. But it may be said that by non-British emigration there would be a risk of creating minority problems. I do not think that is an argument which has any great weight because—
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Colonel Clifton Brown): I would remind the hon. Member that the Motion on the Paper speaks only of the emigration of people from this country, and not of non-British emigration.
Mr. de Rothschild: I quite understand, and have no desire to run counter to your Ruling. I am only discussing this as an alternative to what has been put forward in the Motion, and I do not feel that it is in any way contradictory. There is a question of a number of these

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people being moved into parts of the Empire at the present time, and therefore I thought the subject would be well within the bounds of this discussion. Personally, I do not suggest that we should not make the largest contribution from this country to the population of the Dominions. In fact I consider it is essential that the Dominions should benefit from the unique qualities of British stock which have built up the Empire; only those qualities can maintain it in its present conditions of liberty and conditions of life. We know what the English gift for colonisation and leadership has done for the Dominions, and how they have benefited by the outstanding ability of the people of this country to create stable and prosperous conditions. It is the British stock which has enabled the Empire to grow and develop in the way it has, and it is highly important that the largest proportion of migrants to the Empire should come from this country, as it is equally important that our Government should be active in the assistance given to this end. I submit that such assistance should not only take the form of mass migration schemes but should mainly be of assistance to individuals. There should be the closest contact between the home and the Dominion Governments in order to ascertain from time to time what types of migrants are required, and to ensure that adequate machinery exists in this country to bring to the knowledge of our people the opportunities which are offered by the Empire.
In conclusion, I want to express my thanks to the hon. Member who moved this Motion and to the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft), who seconded it in so able a manner. I think that the commonwealth of free nations which has been built up during the last 100 years, to the benefit of its inhabitants, on a basis of peace and freedom to-day acts as a steadying ballast for the rest of the world, and it must continue to be freely developed along the same lines on the same principles, with the same elements and with the same people, who have displayed until now their genius for democratic government, sound management, sound husbandry and sound industry, and have done so in a healthy atmosphere of peace and liberty.
6.3 p.m.
Mr. Ellis Smith: I welcome this opportunity of making a few observations on the Motion, but before proceeding I wish it to go on record in bold, black type that I differ fundamentally from the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft). Had the Amendment been in order we should have proceeded to show how our approach to this question differs fundamentally from that of the hon. and gallant Member, but as the Amendment is out of order we should be somewhat trammelled in that respect, not being able to produce evidence to the same extent. I consider that it is not practicable to put the terms of this Motion into operation unless the Government decide upon a plan, and unless they show a greater readiness to adopt a policy of give and take than they have shown in the past. In the past the Government, and many of their staunch supporters, have approached the question of the Empire and the Colonies from the point of view of, How much can we extract from those Colonies? I do not desire to proceed in that way, because I want to be as helpful as I can within the short time at my disposal.
During the past few weeks I have had the privilege of talks and consultations with Mr. Ernest Bevin, the General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) and the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Walker)—who, I regret is not able to be with us this evening—who themselves have had the opportunity, with others, of taking part in a Commonwealth of Nations Conference and I want very briefly to present the main ideas which they have learned as a result of those consultations with people in all walks of life in Canada, in New Zealand, in Australia and other parts of the Empire. In order to carry out the purpose of this Motion it will be necessary, first, to lay out a plan based upon the principles which have been brought out by the informative talks which have been given to Members of our party in particular and to members of our movement outside by those to whom I have referred. I hope the Secretary of State for the Colonies will be good enough to make a note of this aspect of the matter, in order to deal with it in his reply, because I can assure him that great interest is being taken outside the

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House in this question, and that a number of interested people would like a reply upon the specific issues which I propose to put forward.
First of all they said that the Commonwealth relationships, both in regard to external affairs and to defence, should be placed upon a perfectly reciprocal basis. That is the view of the Dominions. Secondly, they said:
"We are prepared, even at a greater cost than we now incur, to build up a greater defence force, if it is necessary for Austrialia itself, ready, in the Pacific, to co-operate with New Zealand. Ready to enter into any dovetailed reciprocal defence scheme, properly worked out, so long as it is our defence scheme and we can accept responsibility for the life and death of our own citizens."
They went on to suggest that the time had arrived when, in order that the population could be distributed more widely over the Empire, and the resources of the Empire better developed, that such a plan should be laid down as soon as possible, and that there should be the maximum amount of consultation and co-operation between all the Governments within the Commonwealth and the Home Government.
To sum up, they say that a frank discussion, as early as possible, between representatives of the whole of the Dominions and of His Majesty's Government is essential; that a plan should be drawn up and agreed upon, a plan in which all the ambiguities of the constitutional position could be frankly dealt with; that there should be a reciprocal defence and trade arrangement under which the peoples in the Dominions would know what facilities they may expect and what they are expected to contribute towards the plan, while we on our side should undertake to play our part both financially and in every other way. I should like the Secretary of State to tell us how we can carry out the terms of this Motion unless the lessons which have been learned from that Commonwealth of Nations Conference are carried out. So far as we are concerned, and this is where I differ fundamentally from the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth, we have visions of a Commonwealth of Nations, visions of a world order, and in working towards that objective we are of opinion that the development of the Commonwealth of Nations would be a big step.
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I have many relations in Australia and New Zealand, and this is what I have learned. Most sons and daughters admire their parents, in all walks of life. Most sons and daughters respect their parents. Most sons and daughters will assist their parents when they are in difficulties. What applies to sons and daughters applies equally to the Colonies and Dominions, providing that we play the game with them in the way that most people do with their children. There are millions of English-speaking peoples throughout the world, and in considering a Motion like this it is necessary to remind ourselves of that fact, seeing that some aggressive nations are drifting in a certain direction all the time and are treating certain nationals in a certain way. Some of us are coming to the conclusion that the time has arrived when we should bring out the point quite clearly that when it comes to a test of nationalities there are millions of English-speaking people in all the Colonies, in America, in Canada, in Australia, in India, and other countries. Some of us have many relations in Australia and New Zealand. They are blood of our blood and bone of our bone. They admire the mother country, they love the mother country, they are constantly writing home and proving to us that they desire to be on the best possible relations with us.
The lesson we ought to draw from this is that we should adopt a plan which would consolidate that good will which exists throughout the world. Why do we not adopt a plan in order to build a real Commonwealth of Nations? Why do we not adopt a plan by which we can rally round us all the English-speaking peoples of the world? I go a long way with the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. A. Somerville), except in the concrete illustration which he gave with which I will not deal now, and I am convinced that if we had in this country a real people's Government, with a clear vision and a plan, we could go a long way towards rallying round us all the English-speaking peoples of the world and be able to take constructive steps to carry out the objects of the Motion. I am limited in the matter of time now, but probably there will be other opportunities of developing this aspect of the problem, and I hope that before then the Secretary of State and his Department will give consideration to the lessons

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which have been learned arising from the Commonwealth of Nations Conference, in order that the steps we have in mind can be taken as early as possible.
What prevents us from carrying out what I have been dealing with? It is the vested interests in this country in particular and in certain other sections of the Empire. I was sorry to read the other day the statement issued on behalf of the Federation of British Industries. We are never going to bring about the confidence we desire or to carry out the objects of this Motion while we have bodies in existence like the Federation of British Industries. The statement that was put out last week has done more to undermine the confidence of the New Zealand people in this Government than has anything which has taken place during the past few months. Some of us remember that the authors of that manifesto were the authors of the mean means test that is in existence in this country.
I would like to deal with another aspect of the matter. At various times I have attempted to draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to it, but I do not think that at the beginning he treated it as seriously as he might have done. He has been forced to do so as a result of developments that have taken place. I have here a letter which I should have liked to get on the records of the House, but there is no time to read it in full. Perhaps the Secretary of State will be good enough to give attention to it if I hand it over to him. I will read an extract. The letter was sent to the Transport and General Workers' Office in this country. The extract will show the seriousness of the situation and what is going on in South Africa. The man writes:
"We are all jumpy; not scared but, owing to the situation, we can trust no one."
He also says:
"This is what some of us know who have followed the development in the Empire closely, that certain countries in the world are spending millions of pounds in espionage and subversive propaganda against British interests in the Dominions."
While that is taking place we know that it will not be possible to carry out the objects of the Motion unless we take early steps to prevent it happening in many parts of our Empire and in other parts of the world. I will read one other extract:
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"Do you remember that during the last War the Germans had a slogan, 'Gott strafe England'? This is once more being used. There is no need to treat this letter as confidential. There is no secret about it. These facts should be known to everyone. They are, out here and in Germany. I only hope that England would do something about it."
It would be out of order if I attempted to develop this aspect of the matter but I have touched upon it only to show that unless this matter is dealt with it will not be possible to carry out the objects of the Motion. I hope that the Secretary of State will be good enough to read this letter before he replies.
In conclusion, I hope that after this Debate and the carrying of the Motion an examination will be made of the Debate and that the people who were present at the Commonwealth of Nations Conference will be taken into consultation with the permanent officials of the right hon. Gentleman in order that this country and all the Dominions and Colonies can benefit as a result of that consultation that took place during the past six months in Australia. I hope, in addition, that an early opportunity will be taken of consulting the Dominions and Colonies in order to agree as far as possible to bring about the maximum amount of co-operation in working towards a real commonwealth of nations.
6.20 p.m.
Mr. Beverley Baxter: I shall be very careful not to exceed the very short time which the Minister has been good enough to allow me, by arrangement. I liked very much the speech of the last speaker. I was delighted to hear that he has many relatives in Australia and New Zealand. I am sorry that he has none in Canada. I sympathise also with the reproof in connection with replying to speeches of hon. Members who left the Chamber almost before their words had become part of England's history. I desired to reply to the Liberal party, but he also has gone. Not only is the number of absentees among Members of the House remarkable but, up to a moment ago, the occupation of the Government Front Bench consisted of only one Minister. It may be that Ministers are out planning some revolt of the junior Ministers. I do not wish to be unduly critical of ourselves. The High Commissioners of the Dominions have also not turned up. In all seriousness I say that this is not a healthy thing.

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Day after day and month after month we have discussed in this House that painted hussy of foreign affairs, and never once does the subject fail to draw a crowd till there is standing room only. When I go to the Licensed Victuallers' dinner once a year this House is always referred to as the Imperial Parliament. I know that is so, because I answer the toast, but I do not think that the Debates in this House would indicate that this was the Imperial Parliament. I do not wish to be disrespectful. I have the honour to be a Member of this House, but it does not matter what part of the troubled world we discuss, more interest is shown in the subject than when we discuss the untroubled but great areas of our own Empire. They will become troubled if we neglect them very much longer.
The question has been raised to-day of anti-British propaganda in the Dominions, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. E. Smith). It is perfectly true. Why is there so much anti-British propaganda in the Dominions? Partly because nature abhors a vacuum and, since there is no British propaganda, the other comes up automatically. I do not think anything is to be gained by hiding our eyes from the truth. There is no leader of the Empire spirit in this country to-day. There is no real leader of the Empire on our Government Front Bench. In the centre of this great Imperial Power that is a tragedy. I know how overworked our Ministers are, but I also know the outer Empire. If, in the heart of things, we do not take more interest in what is going on out there, that indifference which is the beginning of disintegration and decline will set in. I was gravely disappointed in the speech of the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. de Rothschild). I thought it was the speech of a man who has, to some extent, lost his faith in the future. To talk about not being able to afford to send men out to the outer Empire because it would weaken us was a very grave attitude to take.
Mr. de Rothschild: I said at the present time.
Mr. Baxter: I quite agree. The hon. Gentleman again and again made reference to the present time, but what is the future but the child of the present time? Some day in the future will be the present time, and because of our neglect now the
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great inheritance which our ancestors gave to us will recoil on us. This will be the country which will suffer most. I was disappointed because I have always counted on the hon. Gentleman as a great Empire builder. I agree with him that there must be an infiltration of men from the other countries in Europe unless we are to dominate the Empire with the strains of people here, but then you create a minority problem which will be very great in the future.
When it comes to emigration, the history of Canada shows that a country is not weakened by her immigration. It is like a mother with many children. We have often seen in human life that such a mother is healthier and stronger in spirit and body than the mother of one child, who worries herself sick in wondering what is going to happen. One of the problems in this country is that we have not set ourselves a big enough task. We have neglected what our ancestors gave to us, and the time is coming when that cannot go on for very much longer. I do not mean that lightly, but most seriously. Therefore, before the Secretary of State replies, I would like to suggest one thing that he might consider. I think that we shall have to scrap all existing machinery for emigration. We have to create something new and vigorous. I congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft), who has held aloft the banner with the strange device, "I believe in the Empire." I have often wondered why he sits so persistently on the other side of the House. He would bring to the Government a strength and a spirit which are needed, but it is a very long way from that bench to the Government Front Bench. Some day I would like to see him make it.
Mr. Ede: Why not make him into a Parliamentary Private Secretary?
Mr. Baxter: I was talking the other night with men of great consequence in the Empire. They have great faith in the spirit of the Empire and in its future, and they say that the only way to approach the problem of emigration and Empire development is to do it as the vested interests do it and as the British American Tobacco Company would do it, that is, to sit down with a management committee of about six men and to ask Canada, Australia and all parts of the

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Dominions and of the Empire: "What can you produce yourself? What can you do for the Empire? What must you buy from the foreigner?" By the word "must" I do not mean to freeze the foreigner out, but we should get before us a bird's-eye view of the whole proposition. Then let us go to industry, say the textile industry here and in Canada, and tell it: "You must combine, not necessarily your shares but your management. The textile industry which is providing for the Empire markets must allocate its Empire trade." No longer should we treat the Dominions like cattle. We have always treated them worse than cattle, because cattle are well looked after.
I am sorry that I cannot develop this point. I have some details which I would have given to the right hon. Gentleman in connection with this matter. These men say that the present exports to the Empire from this country could be doubled by having a centralised management, creating "Empire Industry, Limited," if you like. But we shall never do that as long as this House shows indifference to the subject. I would say to the hon. Member for Ely, do not let him ever allow himself to think that the strength that goes out from this country is lost to us. In peace-time the men who go out to the Dominions come back as newspaper proprietors and men of business; in war-time they come back as very fine and brave soldiers, physically the stronger because their ancestors belonged to this country. Do not think that you have to keep your cash in your pockets—Rothschilds should know better than that—to be deposited and not invested. I would have the hon. Member have faith in investing in the British Empire, as his ancestors did after Waterloo.
6.32 p.m.
The Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (Mr. Malcolm MacDonald): I think we are all grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mr. Crowder) for having drawn attention to this important matter, and for giving us the opportunity of discussing it this afternoon. The Government subscribe to the terms of his Motion, and I hope the House will accept it. There are, at any rate, certain broad principles on which hon. Members in every part of the House are agreed. One of them is that we should do everything that lies in our power to
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develop the Dominions overseas, in consultation and co-operation with the Dominion authorities themselves. There are a great many reasons why we should do that. Those countries to-day are among the young countries, the new countries of the world. Compared with other countries, they are undeveloped. I think there is sometimes exaggerated talk about the possibilities of the wide open spaces of the Dominions, but I am certain that we are all agreed that there are vast areas in those new, young countries which could support much larger populations than they are carrying to-day. If the British peoples do not develop those countries, if we do not create conditions which will allow of the settlement of much larger populations there, we shall lay ourselves open to the reproach that we are sitting on a vast area of the earth's surface and preventing it from being put to beneficial use.
There are other reasons why we should pursue this policy of development. Besides that negative reason, there are positive reasons. Let me mention just one of them. Increasing population, increasing prosperity, increasing power in the Dominions, is perhaps the best way of all to augment the strength of Great Britain herself. I am not thinking primarily of the reinforcement which such Dominions might bring to the physical security of the Empire, though that is no light consideration when one reflects on the strategic positions which the Dominions hold round the world: I am thinking more of the reinforcement which such Dominions could bring to the moral influence which the British peoples exert in the affairs of mankind. It has been referred to by a number of speakers in this Debate. The people of this country hold dear certain political beliefs. They have been for a long time the firm champions of certain great political causes. They believe in liberty, and democracy, and peace. Those ideas are not universally accepted to-day; they are being challenged; in some places they are being overthrown; and it is of great value, even to-day, that Great Britain, in her championship of those causes, should have the weight of the support of the populations in the British Commonwealth. The weight of that support is comparatively light, and always will be comparatively light, while the Dominions remain undeveloped. How far more

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potent the voice of the British peoples will be in the defence of freedom in the world if it is not merely the voice of the Government of a powerful Great Britain, but is echoed by the Governments of a fully developed and powerful Australia, Canada, and South Africa.
Therefore, from perhaps the highest of all political motives, I believe that the development of the Dominions is a question of absolutely supreme importance. It ought to engage the constant and most thoughtful and active attention of this Government and our sister Governments in the Commonwealth. It has engaged the constant attention of the present Government in this country. We appointed, two years ago, the Oversea Settlement Board. Hon. Members have asked, what is the board doing; has it made any contribution whatever to the practical solution of this problem of peopling the Empire? I will give only one example. It was partly as a result of the discussions and work of the Oversea Settlement Board that, at the beginning of this year, assisted migration to Australia was once more resumed. I have been asked whether the board is going to consider the plan which has been put forward by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft). Certainly it is. The board is looking forward to the opportunity, not only of considering it, but of discussing it with my hon. and gallant Friend himself. Then again, this Government brought down to the House a short while ago, and got the House to pass, amendments to the Empire Settlement Act, extending the Act for another 15 years. I have been asked this afternoon why the Government will not give more financial assistance to emigration. That is exactly what the amending Act did, and I would interpose to say that it did it very largely on the advice of the Oversea Settlement Board. It increased the contribution from the Government to voluntary societies from 50 per cent. to 75 per cent. To-day we are paying 75 per cent. of the expenses connected with emigration in the case of the Big Brother Movement, as well as other societies. Under that Act, also, we fixed the sum which the Government could spend on migration in the Empire at £1,500,000 a year; and I myself, in presenting that legislation to the House, gave the House a firm assurance that, if that £1,500,000 a year was not adequate,
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if schemes were approved which would require more finance, the Government would take the first opportunity to come down and ask the House to amend the Act again so as to enable those schemes to be put into operation.
The Government have lost no opportunity of considering this matter, in the words of the Motion, "in concert with the Dominion Governments." When Dominion statesmen were over here last year, I had long consultations with Canadian, New Zealand and Australian Ministers on this subject, and my predecessor, during the past summer, had further consultations on the matter with the Australian Ministers who were over here. We can only perform this task in consultation and co-operation with Dominion Governments. Hitherto, as the House knows, the Governments of New Zealand and of Canada have not felt that conditions in their Dominions justified the resumption of assisted immigration, but I shared the delight of the whole House when consultations with Australian Ministers resulted in plans being presented to the Australian Parliament which allowed assisted emigration of people from this country to Australia to be resumed. It was resumed in the earlier part of this year.
To-day my hon. Friend asked me one or two questions with regard to that matter. He asked why it is that a boy of 17, going to Australia, has to pay £11 for his passage, when a boy aged 16 years and 11 months has to pay only £5 10s. I would remind my hon. Friend that the normal rate of passage to Australia is something between £40 and £50, and the rate of £11 is a very considerable concession. The halving of that rate to £5 10s. for young people under 17 is a very considerable extra concession. But I appreciate, and I agree with my hon. Friend, that the rate of £11 in the case of young people of 17, 18 and 19 is to some extent acting as a deterrent, and I am sorry that it should be so. All I can say is that I am at this very time looking into that question to see whether there is any possibility of overcoming the difficulty. I was asked one or two other questions. For instance, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent (Mr. E. Smith) asked me about anti-British propaganda in the Dominions. I have not had an opportunity of reading the letter to which he was particularly referring, as I was

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anxious to listen to every word of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter). I can only say that I will study that letter when the Debate is over, and will communicate with the hon. Member about it.
On the general question of the development and peopling of the Dominions, I only wish to make a few observations on one or two aspects. The first point with which I would deal has already been referred to by my hon. Friend who moved the Motion. We are agreed in this House as to the desirability of the development of the Dominions, and we are agreed that in due course that development should proceed to the farthest possible limit. We are contemplating the settlement of very large populations in those Dominions ultimately. I do not think any wise person would seek to give any estimate of the exact number of human beings that this or that Dominion could support. But I do not think anybody in this House is thinking in terms of a few score thousands of extra people or a few hundreds of thousands of extra people settling in the Dominions. We are looking forward to millions of additional people getting a livelihood in the Dominions. This is what we are thinking of, as an ultimate objective, in due time. If that is so, we ought to think of this: Can we support the extra millions of people simply by an expansion of those Dominions' agricultural and pastoral resources?
I say, with the utmost respect to the advocates of land settlement schemes in this House, that I think too much importance is attached to the contribution that land settlement schemes can make to the Dominions. I do not want to minimise the importance of land settlement. It is a valuable contribution My hon. and gallant Friend has put forward this afternoon his own particular plan, land settlement in British Columbia. As he knows, I have not dismissed that plan; I have not rejected it. It is being considered, I understand, by the authorities in Canada in the first place, as it should be. The hon. Member for Rothwell (Mr. Lunn) cast some doubt on the accuracy of the observations made by my hon. and gallant Friend, and I would like to support my hon. and gallant Friend, if he will allow me to do so, and to say that he is perfectly correct in stating that the Premier of British Columbia has assured
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us that, should a satisfactory basis of settlement be arranged, his Government will make free grants of Crown land for the purpose of settlement. Of course, we have to be satisfied about the attitude of other authorities in Canada. So far as this Government is concerned, we must deal with the Dominion Governments, and, so far as the Act under which we can operate these schemes is concerned, we should have to be satisfied that the Canadian Governments were ready to make a 50 per cent. contribution of whatever the Government costs of this scheme might be.
Sir H. Croft: Is this Government still bound by the fifty-fifty ratio in regard to Canada? Is it not obvious that when you have such large numbers of Central Europeans going in, for whom no 50 per cent. contribution is asked, this is rather a deterrent? Cannot we get rid of that fifty-fifty scheme?
Mr. MacDonald: I would point out that these Central Europeans have to satisfy exactly the same conditions as unassisted migrants from this country. We are bound, by legislation in this country, to the 50 per cent. principle in dealing with the Canadian Government, as with the Australian Government. But we do not necessarily interpret that as meaning that their contribution should be a cash contribution. Naturally, we should be prepared to consider the possibility of a grant of land or any service of that kind being assessed as part of the 50 per cent. contribution. But I do not believe it is possible—in fact I think this is clear, it is a truism—that the Dominions can settle millions of additional people on the land in this age when, by improved methods of cultivation and improved machinery, the fertility of the land is being increased all the time, without the addition of any human labour at all.
If the House is thinking in terms of millions of people settling in the Dominions, it has to face the fact that this can only be brought about by the development of manufacturing industries. That is absolutely fundamental to this question. I am glad the hon. Member brought that out at the very beginning of the Debate. I know that if you say that sort of thing, as I have, at gatherings of manufacturers in this country they are shocked and horrified. They say that if we are going to encourage the develop-

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ment of secondary industries in the Dominions it means shutting out a number of our goods that go there. They urge, therefore, that we should not allow this development of industries. To that I would make two replies. The first is this: "All right, if we are not going to allow the steady expansion of secondary industries in the Dominions, do not let us talk about the development of the Empire overseas. It cannot be done under any other condition."
The second reply is that I am not convinced that if we encouraged the proper development of secondary industries it would mean a decrease in our exports to the Dominions. The industries which would be encouraged in the Dominions are those which can produce economically in the Dominions. Naturally, they go in for the simpler forms of production. I would like to see manufacturers in this country and in the Dominions enter, as they have done in some cases already, into discussions and understandings. I wish there were complementary production in the Empire, the Dominions producing the simpler forms of goods, and increasing, therefore, their army of consumers for the more complicated forms of manufacture that we should still enjoy, and be able to send in, under preference, to the Dominion markets. It seems to me not only an essential part, but the principal part, of a policy of Dominions development that secondary industries in the Dominions should be steadily expanded.
The other aspect of this problem on which I would like to say something is the immigration of foreigners in the Dominions. There has been some criticism this afternoon of the facilities which are being given to refugees for settling in Australia and other parts of the Empire. I do not agree with that. The situation is not normal, and, in common humanity, we have to do everything we properly can to save these people from a plight which is as grievous as any large numbers of human beings have had to face in peace time; and the question ought not to be dealt with by normal standards. But, quite apart from that, on other grounds, I, for one, do not view with displeasure these foreigners settling, making their homes, becoming citizens, in the Dominions. Let us face the facts. Let us look at this problem quite unemotionally and dispassionately. If it
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is true that we are contemplating the settlement of millions of extra people in the Dominions ultimately, from where will they come? Are they all coming from this Island? The answer to that is, "No."
Thank goodness, there are still large numbers of people in this country who are ready, given good conditions in the British Dominions overseas, to emigrate. I would encourage that to the maximum possible extent. But look at those statistics which tell us what is happening to our birth rate. We have to recognise that the source from which that emigrating population has come in the past is showing signs of diminishing, if not of drying up. I am inclined to think that, from the highest Imperial reasons, we have to see whether we can devise some policy of putting the birth rate up again. I confess that, personally, I am not doing anything about it. I have committed bigamy so far as Secretaryships of State are concerned, and my two offices are keeping me extremely busy. But the simple fact is that unless we can do something on those lines, this Island by itself cannot supply the whole of the immigrant population which is needed for developing the Dominions, without some foreign immigration. I am not in the least alarmed at that prospect. There are people who say, "If you allow too many foreigners to settle in the Dominions, you will alter the whole national character of the Dominions." That is right—if you allow too many.
But take the case of Australia. The population of Australia is 97 per cent. British. It will require an enormous flow of foreigners to reduce that percentage to a level at which the robust British character of the Australian nation is to be altered. The same is true, of course, of New Zealand. I admit that the position is different in Canada and South Africa: different considerations come in there. But I certainly would not criticise the Australian Government for doing all that they are doing to-day in giving facilities to the right type of foreigner to go and settle in Australia. These foreigners include some of the best specimens of the best agricultural populations in Europe. They may be rather strange in Australia in the first generation, but the second generation will be good Australians, and the third generation better Australians still. I

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would not regard even a fairly considerable amount of that immigration with alarm, but I agree that all the time we have to give the best facilities we can for our British emigrants to join that movement of population to the Dominions. Fresh British blood ought to be going in all the time.
I will end by reminding the House again that this year, after many years of depression, many years of stagnation—or rather not of stagnation; people have been moving in the opposite direction, coming from the Dominions back to this country—at last, in the case of emigrants to Australia, and, as a matter of fact, the same is true of South Africa, there are more people going to the Dominions than are coming away. At last, this year we have got working again an assisted emigration scheme with the Australian Government. At the end of this year, under that agreement, more than 1,200 assisted migrants will have gone to that Dominion. Next year, I anticipate that the figure will be something between 3,000 and 5,000 under that agreement. Under this arrangement no doubt the movement of people from this country to Australia will be an accelerated movement. I, for one, would very much like to see us approach something like the figures of the years before the depression came upon us.
I would only say this in conclusion. I would assure the House again, and those who are interested in the Dominions also, that when the authorities in Canada and New Zealand feel that their domestic conditions allow them to enter into agreements with us to start assisted migration again, we shall give the same good will and the same material assistance as we are giving under our agreement with the Australian Government. Well, we are in agreement on the main principles of this question. I think we are in agreement on the terms of this Motion. We have had this afternoon a most interesting discussion. It has been a sort of symposium of constructive ideas on this question of peopling and developing the Dominions overseas, and I hope that we shall finish the discussion at half-past seven by carrying this Motion without a division. If we do that, then, I think, that all hon. Members will deserve still more that Merry Christmas and Happy New Year which I hope they will all enjoy.
7.2 p.m.
Mr. Paling: I should like to assure the right hon. Gentleman that, so far as we on this side are concerned, we will not divide against this Motion. There is not enough in it. It is one of the most pious and innocuous Motions that I have seen on the Order Paper for a long time. We have discussed this question in the House on a good many occasions since the War. There has also been a fair amount of legislation dealing with emigration and the distribution of population in the Empire, but we do not seem to have made much progress. In spite of all that we have done, and although we are probably in agreement this afternoon, I doubt whether this Motion in itself will lead to much progress.
If one goes back to the time before the War, sometimes referred to as the "good old days," when the "great open spaces of the Empire" were attracting people from this country and other countries, it seemed fairly probable that in the course of time we should have huge populations in the Dominions, because emigration was on a fairly big scale and—what was perhaps more important still—the people were going from this country in very large numbers. Then the War came, and after the War except for a very short period, emigration stopped. Scores of people, like the hon. Baronet the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) have interested themselves in this matter, and scores of private societies have tried to get the stream of emigration started once again. But everything that has been done seems to have been, to a large extent, a failure. We have sent out some migrants, but the amount of money spent in doing so seems very large in proportion to the number of people who have gone out, and within the last few years, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, there have actually been more people returning to this country than going out—a thing which 20 or 25 years ago nobody could possibly have visualised. If we want to populate these open spaces, with their relatively small populations, something has to be done about it but I have heard nothing here this afternoon which in my opinion seems likely to lead to a solution. I have listened to the speeches made, and while the hon. Member who put down the Motion was himself very careful to say that so far as he was concerned he

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did not think this question was related to the question of unemployment here—
Mr. Crowder: I did not think that was the main consideration.
Mr. Paling: No, but it has crept into other speeches. The right hon. Gentleman himself spoke of the question of overcrowding and unemployment being solved to some extent by emigration. I think the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Somerville) referred to the same thing. So that it is in the minds of a good many people not only that it is desirable that the Empire should be populated, but that we shall thereby be sending people out of this country for whom we cannot find jobs. We on these benches do not agree with that proposition. We do not agree that this country is overcrowded—I do not, at any rate; and we do not agree that you must find a solution for unemployment by sending the unemployed out to other parts of the Empire.
One of the main reasons why the flow of emigrants has stopped is that the Dominions have themselves been suffering from unemployment just as acutely and in one or two cases more acutely, than ourselves; it is largely because of that that they themselves have put a stop to the free flow of migrants from this and other countries. While that state of things continues you will have greater difficulty in setting up any scheme for assisted or unassisted migration which will supply the number of people to populate the Dominions on the scale indicated by the Minister. The right hon. Gentleman said it is not a question of sending out 5,000, or 10,000, or even 100,000; if you are going to populate the Dominions on the scale that is desirable you must talk in millions. I wondered, when he said that, whether he was going to suggest that the millions should go from this country, but he did not suggest it. He was pointing out a certain factor to which I want to refer. But I wondered how that part of his speech would be received by many people in this country, and by hon. Members in this House. He referred to what in the minds of some hon. Members will be regarded as the very dangerous course of populating the Empire with alien immigrants. I do not disagree with him, but I venture to think that a good many Members on his own side of the House will dissent from that.
Mr. M. MacDonald: I should like to emphasise that I said there must be an active proportion of British settlers going out as well.
Mr. Paling: Yes, I quite agree; but the question of alien immigration was also mentioned, and it was said that it might be carried on alongside with emigration from this country. If you are to get the millions which are supposed to be necessary for the Empire, I think that must be so. But you have not only got unemployment in this country, which has stopped the tide of emigration to the Dominions, but you have another factor, too. You have a very poor market here for the commodities raised in the Dominions. The Dominions mainly send us wheat, meat, and wool, and you can hardly expect people from this country to go out by tens of thousands and millions to Australia or Canada to grow these primary products there when in this House we are introducing legislation, or prohibitions, or quotas cutting down the amount of commodities which they can send to us.
Sir H. Croft: May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman in order to clarify what I said? In the whole of the mixed farming area which I visited recently there is practically nothing exported and the areas are living very largely on their own fat, if I may so describe it.
Mr. Paling: If you can get people to go there and live on their own fat it might be a solution of the problem, but if people go out to the Dominions they want to have a market, and the Dominions themselves are finding that their main market, which is this country, is gradually contracting. Yesterday or the day before we discussed the question of a new quota or new regulations actually restricting the amount of mutton and lamb coming from Australia among other places. That surely must have a serious effect on emigration, and unless you can assure the Governments in the Dominions that they are going to have a market for the goods they produce, you cannot expect them to agree very readily to a scheme for taking more emigrants from this country.
I think that to populate the Empire on a satisfactory basis a good number of millions would be required, and after looking at the possibilities in this country I do not think we could possibly supply them. If we go back to the year 1905,

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when the emigration figures were satisfactory, when people were going out of this country by scores of thousands and hundreds of thousands, without assistance in the main, I find the number of births was 929,000, but in 1937 it was 610,000—a drop of about 33 per cent. When the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth talked about overcrowding, he must surely have regard to these figures and the possibilities in this country in the next few years.
Mr. Baxter: The history of the human race shows that a nation which is sending out emigrants almost invariably maintains a hight birth rate. Fertility is the natural corollary to emigration.
Mr. Paling: Yes, but the history of emigration shows that the pull from the country to which emigrants go must be greater than the push from the country from which they come. Certain figures published by the Ministry of Education in 1933 indicated that in the five years following, the number of school children on the registers of elementary schools was expected to fall by 629,000, and by the year 1948 the fall would reach the million mark. On the basis of the present percentage of children receiving secondary education the number of pupils is estimated to drop 42 per cent, by 1965, or from 449,000 to 260,000. That children are becoming more rare is within the experience of every person of middle age and over, to the State they are beginning to have scarcity value. More and more protective measures are likely as witness the milk scheme and all the other schemes which we constantly discuss in this House. So there does not seem to be much possible from that point of view, and the overcrowding referred to by the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth, if it exists at the moment—and I do not doubt that it does—is not likely to exist within a few more years and we shall find it more difficult to deal with the question of emigration on the basis suggested in the Motion.
We object to emigration being looked upon as a solution for unemployment. The Dominions do not want the unemployed in any case, and we suggest that under a sound reorganised scheme of society you could swallow up every unemployed man and woman in this country without the necessity of sending one
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individual out of the country if he did not want to go. We are not against emigration. If there are people in this country, and there are, and always will be, I suppose, who are of an adventurous spirit and want to go abroad or anywhere else, let them go. If you could help them by giving slight assistance in ensuring decent conditions when they get there, let them go, but do not make the fact that there are 2,000,000 unemployed in this country the reason for compelling these people to go to places to which they do not want to go. It is the wrong way in which to deal with the question, and it will meet with nothing but failure if it is dealt with from that angle.
7.17 p.m.
Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: This being a private Member's Motion moved on a Wednesday, I understand that it is the convention that a private Member should wind up the Debate, so the House can imagine my feelings this afternoon as I watched the hours speed by and discarded note after note and page after page, until, finally, at the moment I am going to restrict my remarks merely to one or two criticisms and one or two constructive suggestions, I hope, but certainly they will not occupy the time I have still at my disposal. I would like to share the regret expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter) in regard to the attendance at these Debates on Empire matters. This Empire or Commonwealth of Nations of ours may one day be faced with the duty of maintaining and preserving democracy in the world, and it is rather a sad and a disconcerting fact that when our emotions are stirred we fill the House, and fill it easily and give our money, and give it freely for some matter with which neither the Dominions nor this country is definitely or directly connected. The question of the future unity, progress and development of the Empire is one of the most stimulating and constructive topics of debate or conversation wherever a Britisher may find himself. We would each be able to get more from, and to give more to, each other if we made these Empire Debates occasions when the Whole House would rush not alone to listen and to learn, but to give of such of their hope or aspirations or knowledge or experience as might help towards the solution of this subject. I was disturbed to listen to the

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hon. Member for Rothwell (Mr. Lunn) who seemed to be in a spirit of resignation, almost despair at times, as to what could be done.
Mr. T. Smith: He was facing the reality.
Sir T. Moore: No doubt it may have been reality to him, but it gave the rest of the House the impression that the party he was representing felt that there was nothing they could do and that therefore the job might as well be given up. That is the impression I got. I listened to the Liberal party, missing as usual, and I got the same impression from the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. de Rothschild) who came in and pronounced the funeral oration of the Liberal party and then disappeared again, having made his contribution to the maintenance of the British Empire. The statement of the Secretary of State was soothing and persuasive as usual, but I am just wondering whether there was anything really to excite the imagination of the countries beyond the seas that may be listening in to-night or to-morrow morning. I got the feeling that although he volunteered that the plan of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) would be considered by the Overseas Settlement Board, there was very little else. In a way I felt sorry for him, because he could not actually commit himself to doing anything definite as long as there was not sufficient money available. According to the plan of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth it is obvious that £10,000,000 is the capital sum required.
I have been wondering whether there is another way of getting round this question. What are the difficulties facing us? As the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wentworth (Mr. Paling), who spoke as representing the Front Opposition Bench, says, before the War 200,000 was our annual emigration figure, and since the War that has gone almost into reverse. The difficulty is twofold. You have the reluctance of the Empire countries to receive any settlers of any description who are likely to be a charge on their local and national revenues. On the other hand, you have the reluctance of the unemployed or lower-paid artisan of this country to leave the comparative financial security given to him by our scheme of social services and to go out to a new home unless he is certain of a job to start
2982
with or sure of State assistance in case of unemployment on the same scale as he has had at home. If we cannot adopt the plan, why not work on these lines? We pay an average—small though it may be—of 30s. a week to an unemployed man with a small unearning family. In round figures that is £80 a year. Capitalise that sum, and you get £2,000.
My suggestion is, why not, if when you have got the two factors, that is, the unwilling emigrant and the unwilling Dominion, say to the unwilling emigrant, "I will ensure that your future is safeguarded in the Dominions either by a job or by your being maintained on the same scale as you are at home." I would say to the Dominions: "We will ensure that you do not lose money on this transaction, and therefore we will pass to the credit of your account the £2,000 for every family of three or more that is sent out, the sum to vary according to the size of the family." Let the trial period be for five years, which will give sufficient time to find out whether a man would fit into the economy of his new country and get a job, or whether he would not. In either case, after five years trial, if the man and his family fit in, the £2,000 is no longer required because he has become part of the economic fabric of the country. If he is not a success he can be returned with his family at the end of five years and the £2,000 will also be returned, so that no one loses and no one is worse off as a result of the experiment, neither the man himself, the Dominion nor the Home Government. While the suggestion may appear rough and ready it is only the result of comparing it with the plan of my hon. and gallant Friend, the difficulties of which I can see from the point of view of the Secretary of State. I thought that at any rate this might be a complementary plan to that of my hon. and gallant Friend, or a plan to accept pending the very long consideration which these plans seem to demand of the Overseas Settlement Board.
There is one more proposal which I suggest, and that is the method of preparation for the Empire population movement which we want to see. It is the scheme which the Red Cross have adopted in a small way, but very successfully, and, of course, voluntarily. They get children in certain schools to write to children in the Dominions and to establish a correspondence. I have

2983
worked out, again in rather a rough and ready way, that if every child in our elementary and secondary schools was, through the local education authority, given a 1½d. stamp per week and encouraged, under the supervision of a teacher, to write to a child, also selected from the secondary and elementary schools in the Dominions, it would thereby create a friendship even at a distance, and, later on in years, when the "battle" of life was started, instead of the Dominion presenting a grim far away land to the would-be migrants, they would look on it as a friend, as a home from home. It would prepare a way by atmosphere for the Empire development movement. If we do not make some effort of this kind, I believe that we are unworthy to retain our Empire, and we certainly have no justification for refusing to other countries the opportunities we ourselves are unwilling to use. I hope that the House, following the suggestion of my hon. and gallant Friend, will agree to this Motion and that the Government will accept it, and also that they will act, and act quickly.
7.28 p.m.
Mr. T. Smith: There are only a few minutes left to me, although I have sat here since a quarter to three. I wish that we could have had a full day to discuss this question. I have time to make only one or two comments with regard to the scheme which the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) has outlined. I did him the honour of reading that report through, and it treats the subject in a very attractive manner. While I have my own misgivings with regard to it, I certainly hope that the Empire Development Board will go into it thoroughly and see whether there is anything in it. The hon. and gallant Member spoke of the time he had spent in Canada discussing migration. I want to say to him and to the House that recently I had the privilege of travelling through Canada and had discussions with Members of Parliament in four provincial parliaments, and in the Dominion Parliament, and the information I got was almost the very opposite of that of the hon. and gallant Member. I put the question specifically to Ministers in different provinces: "Is the position of Canada such as to warrant any large
2984
scale immigration at the present time," and I was assured that, from the economic standpoint, it was not. I regret that time will not permit me to develop the matter, but I certainly hope that this scheme and other schemes will be considered and that at some time we may have a full day to discuss this very important question of migration within the Empire.
Question put, and agreed to.
Resolved,
"That this House is of opinion that an early resumption of the movement of the population within the Empire is most desirable, and urges His Majesty's Government to take every suitable opportunity for considering, in concert with Dominion Governments, all arrangements that may be practicable now and in the future for promoting and encouraging the settlement in the Dominions of people from this country and to indicate its readiness to co-operate fully in approved schemes."

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (MID-STAFFORDSHIRE JOINT HOSPITAL DISTRICT) BILL (By Order).
  Order read for Consideration of Lords Amendments.
  Motion made, and Question, "That the Lords Amendments be now considered," put, and agreed to.
  The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Dennis Herbert): The Amendments arise from the fact that this Bill was carried over from last session, and, therefore, certain dates had to be altered. The alterations of dates have been made, and there have been various consequential and drafting alterations.
  Lords Amendments agreed to.

  ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRY.
  7.32 p.m.
  Mr. Higgs: I beg to move,
  "That, in the opinion of this House, road transport is an essential feature of modern industrial life, that better roads for its accommodation are urgently necessary, and that the policy of His Majesty's Government should be directed to its encouragement and development without unnecessary restriction so that it may take its proper place in the transport system of the country."
  There is an Amendment on the Order Paper standing in the names of several

  2985
  hon. Members opposite—in line 5, leave out "without unnecessary restriction," and insert, "in co-ordination with other forms of transport." I am prepared to accept that Amendment. During the whole of our industrial development whenever an invention has been made there has always been opposition to it. I particularly refer to the industrial development which has taken place during the last 200 or 300 years. Whenever inventions have come forward there has been opposition. We can remember that particularly in connection with transport, when a red flag had to be carried in front of road vehicles. To-day we control road traffic by regulations, and I am convinced that in time to come future generations will consider that our actions and our opposition in regard to road transport have been equally absurd.
  There has been a colossal road expansion, but it presents a very difficult problem. We have made considerable headway, but the headway has not been satisfactory. The road transport system in this country is to a very large extent artificial, both in regard to the roads and the vehicles. I look at this problem from the manufacturer's point of view. The manufacturer is concerned with the use of the roads both for goods and passenger vehicles. Many industrial concerns employ anything from two to 100 passenger vehicles, primarily perhaps for their representatives. I consider that transport charges on the roads are too high, and that even with those high charges we have not succeeded in protecting the railways. The railways had no competition for 100 years. Then they met with a new form of competition, and they have had to endeavour to adjust their methods of working in order to meet it. In some instances they have done that successfully.
  The first legislation in regard to road transport took place 600 or 700 years ago. There were no vehicles in those days, but only pack horses. Charles I taxed coach-builders. That was an indication of legislation against road transport as we know it to-day. Since the War there have been only four years when there has not been legislation adverse to road transport. There are 220 Acts and Orders in existence adversely affecting road transport. The rail came before road transport, and my belief is that if road transport as we know it to-day had come before the railway, probably rail transport
  2986
  would never have been developed, [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] That is my opinion, and I think it is justified. The difficulty with transport on the roads was that there was no suitable material for making tyres. The object of legislation has been to get the traffic on to the railways, on the plea that heavy traffic spoils the roads. We must agree that the railways have not spoilt this country, and I am inclined to think that road transport is no more detrimental to the scenery of the countryside than the railway.
  With regard to taxation, the revenue from road transport amounts to some £90,000,000, a figure with which we are familiar. We are not, however, so familiar with the fact that private garages contribute £10,000,000 in rates to the various local authorities. From that £10,000,000 I am excluding the rate revenue from 24,000 public garages. Therefore, the sum that is being collected in taxation from road transport is in the order of £100,000,000 a year. The highway expenditure is something between £50,000,000 and £60,000,000. Why this indirect taxation upon industry?
  Motor transport was originally a luxury, and I believe that was the cause of the taxation in the form in which we have it to-day. I would not favour a turnover tax, but it would be more equitably distributed than the taxation of one section of industry in the way that road transport is taxed. Industry, obviously has to pay in the long run. This taxation of road vehicles has distorted engine design, it has to a great extent spoiled our overseas market in the private car industry in many parts of the world, it is artificial, and it has made the car itself distorted and different from the natural development that has taken place in other countries. There are 132 countries which tax their road vehicles, but only ten of those countries tax their vehicles solely on horse power as we do in this country. Our private car taxation is the highest in the world. The only countries that approach us in this kind of taxation are Ceylon, whose taxation is 40 per cent. of ours, France about 40 per cent., Germany about 70 per cent., and the United States about one-sixth or one-eighth of our taxation.
  There is the question of differentiation. When heavy oils are used on the roads the tax is 9d. a gallon, but when used on the rail the tax is 1d. per gallon. In

  2987
  1934, the entire direct tax on a car was taken off in Germany with the object of stimulating the production of motor cars, and we have seen the results that have been achieved. Complaints have been lodged in this House on many occasions about the recent importation of German cars, which has been made possible by the expansion of the German market due to the withdrawal of taxation on cars. Taxation on petrol was reintroduced in this country in 1928 with the object of giving relief in rating. I consider that that action was absolutely wrong. I would much have preferred to have had the rates as they were and no tax on petrol, from the manufacturer's point of view. What we gain in one respect we lose in another. I have pointed out the way in which taxation distorts the car. I would not advocate any violent change, but when amendments are being made in our form of taxation we might take steps so to modify our taxation as to allow car development in this country to proceed on normal lines as in other countries.
  Let me deal with the advantages of road transport from the manufacturer's point of view. Road transport is considerably quicker up to a radius of 100 miles. If one has to send goods to a port from a city like Birmingham, a matter of about 100 miles by rail, one has to allow two, or possibly three, days in order to catch the boat.
  Mr. Poole: Is the hon. Member not aware that from Birmingham there is a 24 hours' service to every industrial port in the country?
  Mr. Higgs: I am aware of the service which has been in existence. I have had practical experience of missing boats through relying upon the rail. I have never known an occasion where when we have placed goods on road transport at 5 o'clock at night they have not been delivered on the ship at 6 o'clock next morning.
  Mr. Remer: Can the hon. Member give one single instance where the rail has given any delivery within 24 hours?
  Mr. Higgs: I cannot, because I have no statistics. The rail is very efficient in many respects but not so reliable as the road. One reason is that there has to be transhipment on the rail, whereas on the road there is no transhipment. An-
  2988
  other great advantage of road transport is that less packing is necessary. For short distances packing can very often be eliminated. Packing has an important bearing upon the value of the article, because it may be anything from 2 to 10 per cent. of the cost. Therefore, the elimination of packing means a very considerable saving. From my own experience, the breakages are considerably less by road transport than by rail, because there is no necessity for transhipment. Even with the taxation and the difficulties which it has to meet, road transport is cheaper than by rail, and there is no reason why it should not be cheaper still. Transport charges are cumulative. Adam Smith said 200 years ago that man spent three-fourths of his time shifting material from one place to another. That is even more true to-day. We scarcely realise the amount of money we spend on transport. Road transport is very elastic in operation. It often covers areas not covered by rail. Another point in its favour is that pilferage is considerably less.
  The railways have their advantages. On the long haul undoubtedly there is considerable benefit by rail. I believe that half the goods transported by rail is fuel, and I see no objection to that being retained by the railways. In the case of very heavy machinery it is practically impossible to transport some of it by road. With regard to the transport of passengers, there is no better method of getting from the city where I live to London than by rail. The rail certainly has its alvantages. What I object to are the methods adopted to transfer traffic from one mode of transport to another.
  The roads have been provided by over 1,300 independent highway authorities, and, obviously, have been constructed to meet local needs. The Ministry of Transport has contributed to the expense. In 1937 over 4,000 miles of main roads were taken over. Prior to that we had no national roads. We have as many hard-cored roads in this country as any country in the world; unfortunately, we are paying the penalty of being pioneers. Many of these roads are unsuitable for modern traffic, the surface is unsafe, they are dangerous in construction, the cambers are wrong, they have sharp bends and they are too narrow. I do not know of one single bridge road-crossing.

  2989
  I may be wrong. I have visited Germany, Italy and America recently, and that type of crossing is general. I am drawing the attention of the House to the construction of the modern road in other countries as compared with the roads which we are endeavouring to use for modern transport. Roads authorised as long as ten years ago are unfinished—for example, Western Avenue.
  In England we have more vehicles per mile on the roads than any other country in the world. In Great Britain there are 13, in the United States 10, and in France six. Private car owners complain of the heavy traffic. I think that is wrong; it is the roads which are unsuitable. If the roads were suitable there would be room for the heavy traffic and for the private car owner. If we had better roads we should have fewer casualties. Do hon. Members realise that private cars on our roads are increasing at the rate of 150,000 per annum? Then there is the case of national emergency. The Road Traffic Act, 1933, actually contracted the number of certain vehicles, and when the crisis came it was admitted that there were not sufficient of the right class of heavy vehicles. From April, 1936, to April, 1937, there was a reduction of over 1,700 A licences. That is not a right state of affairs for an expanding industry. This industry is expanding throughout the world, but I am afraid that we are not keeping pace with the expansion in other countries. Then again, in the case of national emergency the rail is more vulnerable to air attack than the road. I agree that they cannot hit one better than the other, but it is quite easy to take an alternative course on the road almost immediately, whereas it may take days or weeks to repair a damaged railway.
  Let me say a word on limiting road traffic. There has been no limitation on rail traffic in the same way that there has been a limitation of road traffic. There has been no limitation of tramway traffic, but the limitation on road traffic has not achieved its object. It has retarded the development of a new industry and has given little or no assistance to the railways. Road transport to-day in some respects is worse than it was in 1933. The railways were developed with their feeder lines and horse vehicles, and then there was the advent or the invention of the internal combustion engine, which put an
  2990
  entirely different face on transport throughout the world. In regard to these limitations let me read two or three lines extracted from a report which appeared in the "Manchester Guardian" on 17th December:
  "The Traffic Commissioners, sitting at Manchester Town Hall yesterday, refused to authorise the North Western Road Car Company to carry 870 passengers for the Royton Co-operative Society to Belle Vue on Wednesday, 24th January. At a previous hearing permission had been given for 20 omnibuses to carry 600, but Mr. W. Chamberlain, the chairman, said that 20 omnibuses were the limit on a journey of this short distance. This was mass transportation and it made him railway-minded."
  That is typical of the limitations on road transport, to which I object. Another point which I desire to bring to the notice of the House is the necessity for the development of the use of home-produced fuels. A concession asked for by the town gas and producer gas vehicles and gas bottles for carrying the gas, is that they should not be included in the weight of the vehicle. The weight of this additional equipment often reduces the speed of the vehicle from 30 to 20 miles per hour. In the case of the electric vehicle the accumulator is not considered as part of the weight of the vehicle. The accumulator is a parallel case to bottles for using compressed gas, and I see no reason at all why the bottles should be included in the weight of the vehicle. The steam vehicle already has a rebate of one ton before taking into consideration its weight, and I consider that the same concession should be granted to the producer-gas vehicle. The development of these vehicles to a great extent has been retarded by taxation, and I suggest that the Government should permit the use of some 100 vehicles free of taxation to competent authorities in order that this method of transport could be developed. In Germany to-day there are 1,000 of these vehicles running, with 40 filling stations. In France there are 120 running with 25 filling stations. They are running in Russia, the United States, Italy and even in Australia. In this country we have one filling station and one vehicle running. In France owners of 10 commercial vehicles or more must have 10 per cent. of their vehicles running on home-produced fuel. In reply to a question last February the Minister of Transport said:

  2991
  "I shall welcome a study of further developments."
  Further developments will not take place unless some encouragement is given to that development. At Bolton, on 8th December, the Minister said:
  "He thought that by far the greatest difficulty in time of trouble would not flow from any inadequacy of the road system, but from the fact that so much of the road transport of this country depended upon imported fuel. He hoped industry would concentrate on making engines that would run on some kind of fuel that could be produced at home."
  The industry is ready to make this development. It does not ask the Government to do it, but it does ask for some encouragement. Only those people who have had experience of developing machinery of this description know the difficulties, and if we want these vehicles they are not going to he produced in a few weeks or months. The revenue which the Chancellor of the Exchequer would lose by permitting a limited number to be run would be negligible compared with the gains which would be obtained. It is argued that these vehicles already get a rebate on the fuel they use. Steam vehicles get a rebate on the fuel they use and also a rebate on the tax. We all remember the gas-bags during the last War, and the same thing will occur again if there is another national emergency. During the recent crisis the Birmingham Industrial Research Laboratory received inquiries as to the development they had made on the bottle-gas vehicle and one inquiry came from a Home Office representative.
  It may be asked what I would suggest. I would suggest the automatic renewal of A and B licences. I am aware that they now run for five years, and that there is not often any considerable opposition to their renewal, but if people are investing thousands of pounds in road vehicles and the life of these vehicles expires somewhat before the period of the licence, they are not going to invest money again without being assured of the renewal of the licence for a considerable period. It should be automatically renewed without any question. I would also suggest that the speed limit should be increased to 30 miles an hour for certain goods vehicles. The argument in favour of that is that passenger vehicles now have a speed limit of 30 miles, and if they are safe surely the goods vehicle is equally
  2992
  safe. I do not believe in regulations limiting free competition. I consider it unjust that the railways and canals and coastwise shipping services should have a right to object to the granting of an A and B licence. Sixty-eight per cent. of the objections come from the railway companies. These restrictions should be removed and the fleets allowed to increase. The difficulty of getting increases in the fleets is still very great. There was one action where it cost £320 to get one more vehicle on the road. I know that this was a test case but I say that on no occasion should it be necessary to pay £320 in order to get one more licence.
  The policy which I have been criticising is not the policy of any one particular Minister; it has been the policy of the nation for years to tax unnecessarily road transport, and to add irritating regulations which are quite unnecessary to prevent its development. It is really opposition to progress. It seems to me that certain industries get together and go to the Government, and if the majority in these industries want assistance they seem to get it. The minorities suffer, and it is very often the efficient minority; the minority which is really making headway. In this way the efficient minority is brought down to the level of the majority who have to ask for assistance. It is freedom that is wanted on the roads, and the Government's duty is to see that people are safe and that working conditions are moderately protected.
  Mr. Ede: Why only moderately?
  Mr. Higgs: It depends on what the hon. Member calls moderate.
  Mr. Ede: The hon. Member used the word.
  Mr. Higgs: I meant what I said. We do not want third-party interference. Road competition has caused the railways considerably to improve their services, but enterprise on the road has, to a very great extent, been throttled. The railways want de-control; the roads want control of rates. Can anybody imagine a more absurd state of affairs? Last March the road industry started asking for price-fixing and rate-fixing, and the railway companies have now come with their bombshell, asking to be relieved of rate-fixing. A state of chaos now exists. The position is an absurd one. Free competition is the only method of settling rates.

  2993
  Leave them alone. We hear a great deal about the freedom of the Press. Let road transport have the same freedom. I believe that if the road transport industry is freed of the restrictions it is labouring under at the present time, it will be to the benefit of the industry and the nation as a whole.
  Sir Henry Fildes: May I ask the hon. Member a question? Is he prepared to have the road transport industry scheduled as common carriers?
  Mr. Higgs: I am afraid I am not in a position to reply to that question.
  Sir Alan Anderson: In several parts of his speech, the hon. Member has spoken of road transport as though it were overburdened in comparison with the railways. Has the hon. Member compared the burden borne by the motor industry in the tax on petrol and on vehicles with the burden borne by the railways for capital expenditure on the maintenance of their track?
  Mr. Higgs: My argument is that there have been a great many unnecessary artificial restrictions on road transport. Had it not been for them, we could have had a road transport system very much better than we have to-day. I have taken into consideration the comparison which the hon. Member suggested.
  8.4 p.m.
  Captain Strickland: I beg to second the Motion.
  I wish, in the first place, to reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Fildes), who asked whether the road transport industry would be prepared to undertake common carrying. The road transport industry would be ready to-morrow to undertake to carry everything, provided it had the vehicles with which to do so; but as long as the number of vehicles is cut down to such an extent that there are barely sufficient to carry the goods which are required to be sent by road, it is impossible for road transport to undertake common carrying. The industry would have no objection to undertaking that task provided that the restriction on the increase in their fleets on the road could be removed, and they could have enough vehicles to undertake the work.
  I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Mr.
  2994
  Higgs) has had an opportunity of moving this Motion, because it is all too seldom that the House has an opportunity of discussing fully the question of road transport. I need not labour the point about the great utility of road transport. When one remembers how the cities are spreading out, when one remembers that men are living long distances from their places of work and women from the shops at which they wish to buy, one realises what an awful catastrophe it would be if the road transport services were to be withdrawn. On the passenger side alone, the passenger-vehicle services have earned the gratitude of thousands of our workers, to say nothing of making it possible for people to visit the more distant places in greater comfort by road transport than by the overcrowded excursion trains which are run to various places.
  But it is more particularly with regard to industry that I wish to plead with the House, the Minister and those responsible for the conduct of road transport to look very carefully into the results of the working of those many Acts which govern the conduct of road transport, and which in many ways, as I shall seek to prove, have hindered a progress which deserves better of the country, considering the great benefits which it has bestowed. First of all, I would plead the vast number of people who find employment in the industry, which is, I believe, the largest employing industry in the country; and the effect of any diminution of employment would react very largely on the workers engaged in the industry.
  Instead of being encouraged, the industry has been consistently hampered and harassed by taxes and regulations, the freedom of competition has been to a very large extent destroyed, and traders have been prevented from exercising that choice of the means of transport of their goods to which, as I think the House will agree, they are entitled. This country cannot afford to stifle the road haulage industry, for it is obvious that the railways of the country cannot, by the nature of their fixed ways, under the present system, cope with that largely increased and altered trade which now obtains in the country. In many cases goods can be delivered by road before the trucks have left the depot. That is the case not only with the distances within 100 miles mentioned by my hon. Friend, but in

  2995
  the case of considerably longer distances. The system of sidings, by which trucks are run into a siding and the truck nearest the building is unloaded first, and then has to wait until the last truck is emptied, must mean a considerable delay in the use of trucks on the railway lines and in delivery, which is not the case on the road.
  Mr. Poole: Surely, the hon. and gallant Member does not suggest that railway traffic is unloaded wagon by wagon. Surely, he has a better knowledge of the railways than that.
  Captain Strickland: I quite agree, but I think the hon. Member will agree that the principle is to unload the truck nearest to the factory at which it is to be unloaded.
  Mr. Poole: That is definitely not the case.
  Captain Strickland: That only makes it so much the worse when traders and manufacturers cannot get trucks returned very often for three or four weeks, whereas a motor vehicle can get back within 24 hours. I want to deal with road transport haulage itself, and I want to try to show the House some of the difficulties which a road haulier experiences. I will deal first with the courts to which application is made for a licence to be granted and the tribunal, which is the court to which an appeal can be made. I suggest that the whole principle of the courts as they exist to-day is wrong, and is an injustice to road transport. The Traffic Commissioners have the power to grant or refuse a licence. They are under the direct influence of the Minister himself, they are appointed by him, liable to be dismissed by him, and under his control all the time.
  Where freedom to conduct business is governed by Statute law, I consider that it should be under the control of independent adjudicators. Such safeguards are provided where the whole community is concerned, and they are much more necessary where a small portion of the community is dependent on the decisions that are given. Judges and magistrates are independent of the Crown, Parliament and Ministers. They are there to administer the law as it is. But the licensing authority can himself be an objector to the granting of a licence, and having
  2996
  objected, raised his points and urged his case, he can then adjudicate whether he himself has been within the law in the objection he has raised; and an applicant who has had his licence refused by the licensing authority, who has gone to appeal and has won on that appeal, has no means of proceeding against the licensing authority with regard to the objection raised in his own court on which he adjudicated.
  I will give the House one case, the case of William Boyer and Sons (Transport), Limited. This is an old-established haulage firm. It applied for A licences in the usual way. On 8th October, 1934, the application came before the licensing authority, and the licensing authority made persistent efforts to try to persuade the firm not to apply for A licences but to apply for B licences. The firm objected; it did not want to be tied down to the short distances and considered that it was entitled to A licences. The licensing authority adjourned the court. On the resumption of the court, he tried again to persuade the firm to accept B licences, but he was unsuccessful, and on that refusal, he adjourned the court until 11th October. On that date the applicants were represented by counsel, and the licensing authority granted the licences. Two years afterwards, on 2nd November, 1936, an application was made for a renewal of these licences that had been granted, and the application came before the licensing authority on 19th February, 1937. Again, the licensing authority urged the firm to accept B licences and again they refused and the court was adjourned. On the resumption of the court, the licensing authority refused to grant the renewal of the licences, and an appeal was made to the tribunal. The hearing was before Mr. Justice Harker on 24th May, 1937, over six months after the application was made; and Mr. Justice Harker ruled that the licensing authority was wrong in his premise—
  Mr. Dingle Foot: Surely, the hearing was not before a judge.
  Captain Strickland: I apologise—it was before Mr. Rowand Harker, K.C. He granted the appeal of the appellant firm and said that as there were no respondents to the appeal, he was not in a position to make any order as to costs. That is a concrete case of the sort of difficulty that arises

  2997
  not in one case, but in many cases. I have many cases which I could quote to the House, but that is a typical example of the licensing authority being the only objector in his own court and having the power to judge whether his objection is sound or not. Great inconvenience was caused to the firm, which had to hire vehicles over seven months in order to carry on its work because it could not get licences, and it was put to great expense; yet the firm had no means whatever of obtaining redress against that unjust decision of the licensing authority.
  Sir Ronald Ross: Does my hon. and gallant Friend suggest that the licence was suspended? The normal practice is that a firm which has appealed can continue to use its old licence until the appeal has been heard. I shall be rather surprised if the facts of that case are as my hon. and gallant Friend has stated them.
  Captain Strickland: I am afraid that I cannot reply to that point, but I am satisfied that the firm was put to considerable trouble and inconvenience.
  Mr. Remer: May I say that I have in my own personal experience in connection with appeals, known of licences having been suspended.
  Sir Ronald Ross: Of course licences are suspended, but that is an entirely different thing. My hon. and gallant Friend was dealing with a case in which the licensing authority decided against the renewal of a licence and the applicant then put in notice of appeal. I say that in such cases the normal practice is that the applicant continues to run his vehicles on his old licence until the appeal has been heard.
  Captain Strickland: At all events, my point was to show the inconvenience caused to the firm and the uncertainty which must have run through that firm's operations during all those months. They did not know whether at the end of the period their licence would be renewed or not, and whether they would be able to enter into contracts or not. They were placed under a heavy handicap by the fact that the licensing authority had refused a licence. The main point which I am seeking to make is that in cases of this type, the licensing authority is both objector and the adjudicator. That, in my opinion, is wrong and is something which ought to engage the attention of the Minister.
  2998
  The next instance which I will give is the case of T. Ball, of Leicester, who applied for an addition of one 2½-ton vehicle to a fleet of four. His application was refused by the licensing authority, but granted on appeal. The proceedings occupied 20 months and cost him £322 17s. 10d. plus the cost of hiring a vehicle to carry on the work in the meantime. The railways under statutory law can and do put applicants to enormous, and, I venture to say, in the majority of cases, unnecessary expense. A few nights ago, we debated the question of these costs in the courts. I suggest that the costs should be spread over all the people who participate in the proceedings, and that the railways should be asked to make some sort of cover for the cost of the hearing, when they enter an objection.
  There is also the case of the Smart Transport Company. They, too, applied for the addition of one 2½-ton vehicle to a fleet of 10. The licence was granted by the licensing authority in spite of opposition by two railway companies. The application was made in December, 1935, and the case was heard in the following March and April. On 24th June a decision was given in favour of the applicants, who were awarded £35 8s. 4d. costs. Anyone who has gone to the appeal court knows that the costs in that case must have been very heavy indeed. In May, 1937, having gained their point on the appeal, they applied for an increase of two vehicles and proved the need for the addition. They brought evidence that certain traders were desirous of using their fleet. The application was granted by the licensing authority, again the railway companies appealed and the case was heard in September, 1938, 16 months after the original application. I do not yet know the result, but the costs must be very heavy. I should like to read a paragraph from a letter which I have received from the head of this firm:
  "It is significant also that three important customers of mine, concerning whose business relationships I have been obliged under cross-examination to make the most detailed disclosures, have since been the subjects of negotiations for a fiat rate by the railway companies. I am an operator of good repute. I am interested in and work hard for the good of the industry. The licensing authority in giving his decision used these words 'Mr. Smart has been in Bristol as a road haulier since 1928. He is an efficient operator who observes the conditions of his licences and against whom there is no suggestion that

  2999
  undesirable practices have been resorted to for the purpose of inducing traffic.' Yet I am subject to the utmost restriction, fear that a case may be established by the appellants which may be quoted as a precedent in all applications for variations of licences, and fear of the high costs necessarily involved, which are no fault of mine. I am harassed with uncertainty and have to face the possibility of ultimate extinction if the point sought to be established by the appellants is extended from variations to renewals of licences."
  I quote these cases in order to get the House to realise the sense of unfairness which is felt by the road haulier in regard to the actions of the Government on this question. It is easy to raise objections, either to old-established businesses or to applications for licences for new vehicles, and I suggest that one thing which the Government ought to consider is whether the onus of proof should not in these cases be placed on the objector. It should not be necessary for a haulier to bring his customers into court and disclose the whole of his business with them, and then to have the railway companies going behind his back and under-cutting the rates.
  Mr. Poole: May I respectfully suggest that that statement is not quite in accordance with the facts? It is an established practice that railway companies do not quote a flat rate to any manufacturer unless that manufacturer himself applies for such a flat rate, and there is no question of going behind the man's back and under-cutting him. The initiative must have come from the manufacturer.
  Mr. Remer: May I from my own personal experience categorically deny that that is the case?
  Mr. Poole: I speak specifically from instructions, and also from some experience in handling flat-rate applications.
  Captain Strickland: Yes, but the hon. Member is speaking to those who have also had some experience in these matters. I have a case here—I do not wish to mention the names but I will undertake to give details to the hon. Member afterwards—of a transport firm carrying motor bodies. Their rate was £5 a ton. The railways objected to their licence and they went into court. The railways went round afterwards and quoted a rate of £3 11s. 3d. per ton. I can vouch for that case. That is the sort of thing which the House ought to know about, because it
  3000
  will give Members a better perspective on this question and a realisation of the difficulties under which road transport is working.
  Mr. Benjamin Smith: Is it not competition?
  Captain Strickland: If you want competition, let us have competition. But do not tie the hands of road transport, as the legislature has done, and then allow the railway companies to go behind backs and under-cut them. It should not be sufficient for an objector to urge his objection on the ground that he can supply alternative service. That is the usual form of objection by railway companies to the renewal of a licence. It is not enough. A manufacturer may have the railway at his door but may not wish to use the railway. He may have his own reasons for wanting to use road transport. If that form of objection can be urged against the grant or renewal of a licence, it may make the position of the road hauliers desperate. I urge that there should be an automatic renewal of all licences where the licensee has fulfilled the conditions of his licence and where there has been no material change. All those cases should go through automatically and thus save the heavy expense of hearings by the court.
  Quite recently I attended a meeting in the House at which one of the railway chiefs made the statement that it was no longer the policy of the railway companies to oppose the renewals of licences. Since then I have made inquiries and have found that objection has been lodged against a certain old-established business on the ground that "present facilities are in excess of requirements." This firm is at present hiring extra vehicles for 1,000 tons per month, and the railway objection is that the vehicles are in excess of the requirement. on that and nothing else, the railway company will proceed to object to the renewal of these licences. In this case the licences expire on 31st December and the court is so pressed with work that it can give no indication whatever when it will be able to hear the railway objections. It makes it impossible for the road haulier to carry on his business in those circumstances.
  I would like to stress another point, and that is with regard to what are known as causing or permitting. This is a very

  3001
  strong point with road hauliers. Road haulage is conducted as no other industry is conducted, in that it has not complete control over the actions of its employés. Repeatedly in Acts of Parliament and in regulations occur such phrases as "causing or permitting any person to drive," "causes or permits to be used," "causes to be kept," and so on. The holder of a licence is always responsible, whatever precautions he may take, for the deeds of his employés, wherever they may be. To quote a case in point, there is a fleet running 4,800,000 miles during the last licensing period of two years. This firm has 30 offences placed against it, and has received a letter written by the licensing authority asking the firm to explain. This is an average of one offence per 160,000 miles, or one per vehicle every six years. Nevertheless, the licensing authorities have seen fit to ask how it is that there are these 30 offences against the firm. Of these 30, 27 are for speeding, and of the 27 there are only 12 recorded on the firm's books.
  They had no knowledge whatever that there had been other offences committed anywhere by men in charge of their vehicles, and they have no means of ascertaining until they go to court for a renewal of their licences. The unions pay the men's fines, and the men do not report to their employers, who know nothing about it, but are held responsible when they ask for a renewal of their licence. The speed schedule of this firm lays down an average speed of 16 miles an hour for vehicles over 2½ tons and 25 miles an hour for vehicles up to 2½ tons. That allows an ample margin for any of those delays which may occur. In addition to that, the firm gives a bonus of anything from £1 to 30s. per man every month to those drivers who have a clear record for that month. Everything is done to encourage keeping within the law. Nevertheless, that does not save this firm from having this list brought up against it.
  Then, with regard to the weighing of vehicles, licences are granted, as hon. Members know, on the unladen weight of a vehicle, with a total load which must not be exceeded. When these vehicles are granted a licence, it may be for 8 or 10 tons weight, and that weight, owing to the inadequacy of the weighing machines about the country, has very
  3002
  often to be calculated by taking the different axle weights—so much weight on the front axle with the rear axle on the road and the front axle on the weighing machine, and then taking the back axle on the weighing machine and the front axle on the road. Added together, those weights are supposed to give the correct weight, but let me give a case to show how very inadequate this method is. The loading of a vehicle with long baulks of timber which extend a good way beyond the rear of the vehicle must throw a considerably heavier weight on the rear axle than on the front axle, because the centre of gravity is nearer to the rear of the vehicle. The case might be better illustrated, perhaps, where you get any sort of uneven road surface. A vehicle may weigh under its weight when despatched from the weighing machine of the transport operator, but when it comes to any uneven ground on which it is weighed, the centre of gravity must be shifted, and the weight must either go forward or behind the axle weight that is allowed. I think that is a point that ought to be considered.
  An experiment was tried by the road hauliers in which a vehicle was weighed at the Hendon weighbridge on all four wheels. It was a 12-tons permitted load, and when it was weighed it turned the scale at 11 tons 19 cwts. 3 qrs. 21 lbs., or 7 lbs. under weight. It was then weighed separately on each axle. The front axle weight was 12 tons 2 cwts. 1 qr. 7 lbs., or 2 cwts. 1 qr. 7 lbs. over weight. The weight on all four wheels was 7 lbs. under, but by this other weighing it was 2 cwts. odd over weight. It was reversed and weighed the other way round, and then it weighed 12 tons 1 cwt. 1 qr. 14 lbs. or 1 cwt. 1 qr. 14 lbs. over weight, by this system of weighing on the axle weight alone. It was weighed on the journey on six other weighing machines, and there were no two of them that weighed it out at the same weight, although allowance was made for fuel and so on. It was weighed at W. and T. Avery's works in Birmingham, and it weighed what it recorded on the four wheels at Hendon originally.
  I hope these few cases which I have given—I could give many more, but other hon. Members wish to speak—will convince the House of the necessity of this Motion being placed on the Order Paper

  3003
  and will induce the Minister to give the most careful consideration, as speedily as possible, to the operation of the Acts, to find out where these grievances occur, and, so far as is consistent with the public safety, to remedy them, and to give every encouragement to this growing industry, the road haulage industry, which has been of such great benefit to this country and brought happiness and trade prosperity to so many different undertakings.
  8.34 p.m.
  Mr. Simpson: I beg to move, in line 5, to leave out "without unnecessary restriction," and to insert "in co-ordination with other forms of transport."
  I do not propose, like the Mover of the Motion, to rely on Charles I, because, first, I do not want to go back quite so far, secondly, out of consideration for the time of the House, and, thirdly, for sound historical reasons. I do not propose, either, to traverse many of the narrow debating points that have been raised and the catalogue of individual grievances, which seemed to be somewhat beneath the national importance of the subject. However, there is apparently something of the Christmas spirit abroad, because I understand that the Mover and Seconder of the Motion are willing to accept the Amendment, although co-ordination did not play a very big part in their presentation of the case.
  Captain Strickland: We are prepared to accept the Amendment, provided it follows at the end of the Motion and does not leave out the words "without unnecessary restriction."
  Mr. Simpson: I am afraid, then, that I am not in a position to do other than act in accordance with the Motion as it is tabled and the Amendment as it stands in relation to it. I was thinking, as that was the position as I understood it, that it was indicative of the fact that we should be saved some of the feeling of rivalry and antagonism that is sometimes suggested between various phases of national transport. In order that I might avoid any possible suggestion of partisanship or rivalry of interests, I was prepared at one time to withdraw the Amendment.
  Captain Strickland: Would the hon. Member remember that we discussed this matter and it was agreed that the Amendment should not be moved?
  Mr. Simpson: I was in that position for the reasons I have stated, but I subsequently understood that the Amendment was acceptable to the Mover and the Seconder. I understand the Mover said so in his speech. My friends and I are concerned with eliminating any feeling between these two sections because we feel that it is imperative to secure a proper conspectus and objective consideration of the whole question of transport, in which the road plays an important part. We all recognise that transport in these days is a vital communal concern, and from that standpoint we regard the road interest as a component part and as complementary rather than competitive to rail transport. They have, of course, their differences of methods, but there is no reason why there should be any fundamental antagonism.
  Mr. Remer: In judging this situation does not the hon. Member think there is another interest, namely, the users of transport, like myself, which should also be considered?
  Mr. Simpson: I was coming to that part of the question, but I have hardly emerged from the preamble of my speech. The attitude which I and my hon. Friends take on this question is specially concerned with the public. In discussing this question it is first necessary to consider and relate the respective functions and status of the different kinds of transport. In considering the "proper place"—which are the words used in the Motion—of road or any other phase of transport, it is not so much a question of a square deal or of a fair deal for separate entities, but the necessity for a balanced policy in which each element assumes its most appropriate functions. We recognise that air, canals, and the coastal service should not be overlooked, and these, together with road and rail, should offer alternative means of transport where the question of speed and convenience should be related to economy and transport costs.
  The Motion refers to unnecessary restrictions. "Restriction" rather implies arbitrary or gratuitous interference. I take it that the only justification for regulation or control is that it confers greater freedom, fairness and advantage to all who provide the service, those who depend upon it and the public at large. In point of fact, the rail interests are not

  3005
  separate or isolated from the road. The railway companies in this country own no fewer than 10,000 goods motor vehicles. They were once literally railways only, but soon they had to undertake the collection and delivery of goods in addition, and now they undertake direct short hauls by road. When the question of restriction becomes a subject for discussion we remember that the railways have certainly operated under severe and costly forms of restriction. There is too large an amount of railway capital represented in efforts to secure Parliamentary and other authority for their undertakings. It seems rather strange that when the Mover was asked whether the road people would undertake to become common carriers, he was not prepared with an answer.
  In addition to the early necessity for Parliamentary authority to engage in the transport business, the railways to-day are involved in any number of statutory restrictions and obligations, and the latest publicity is associated with some phases of that impediment. From time to time the railways have been subjected to criticism because they have not adopted new and modern methods. They have been criticised because they have not done this or that thing, but they have been impeded by Parliamentary restrictions in many cases from undertaking services and providing modern means, of which hon. Members apparently feel the need but do not recognise the difficulties.
  Mr. Remer: Would any sensible trader who wanted to send goods from Manchester to be delivered to-morrow morning at Birmingham ever employ a railway company? My own firm pays 8d. a ton more for goods to go by road instead of by rail. Would any sensible firm ever employ a railway company to do anything quickly?
  Mr. Simpson: I like to assume, for the purpose of this Debate, that all traders are sensible. Railway companies were conveying goods from London to Glasgow and making delivery next day—
  Mr. Remer: May I say to my hon. Friend that the railways are thoroughly inefficient?
  Mr. Simpson: Do I understand the hon. Member to say that railway companies are thoroughly efficient? In that case I do not recognise the point of my hon. Friend's objection.
  Mr. Remer: May I repeat that my own firm pays 8d. a ton more for goods to go by road rather than by rail. Would any sensible firm pay 8d. a ton more if one form of transport were as good as the other? We pay it because the goods go more quickly by road.
  Mr. Poole: Is the hon. Member's point that his is the only sensible firm?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Dennis Herbert): Hon. Members ought to remember that this is a Debate.
  Mr. Simpson: I was dealing with restrictions and making good my argument that the railways have suffered as much in the way of restrictions as road undertakings. In point of fact, as recently as 1928 there was a fiercely-fought contest in this House over granting the railways permission to engage in road transport business. As regards restrictions, the railways have a more impressive case than the road operators. The Motion calls for better roads and extended accommodation, and in that case we should have to inquire how we could determine the dimensions of that claim without having regard to the whole system of transport.
  Let me give one or two indications of the magnitude of the problem. I cannot give the figures for road transport, because they are not recorded; and on that one point alone it is to be noted that the railways have been subjected to an administrative requirement which has not been imposed upon the roads. In 1937 no fewer than 1,216,000,000 passengers were conveyed by rail, and a large proportion of those were, of course, long-distance passengers. During the same year no fewer than 287,000,000 tons of freight were conveyed by rail. From time to time we hear rash and ill-founded statements that the railways could be scrapped and all that immense volume of passenger and freight traffic put on the public highways, and I was somewhat astonished to gather that the hon. and gallant Member for Coventry who, I assume, is somewhat of an expert in transport matters, seems to share that opinion. I think it will be admitted that such a suggestion is manifestly absurd.
  That point being granted, we must then ask, What is the economic or necessary proportion, if any, of that traffic which should be transferred from the rail to the road? On the other hand, I think it is not unreasonable to ask whether it is

  3007
  not the case that much of the heavy and dangerous transport on the roads ought to be conveyed by rail, where there is adequate accommodation, facilities for safety and reasonable rates in operation. After all, the initial purpose of the railways was to provide special tracks on which traffic could be run. In respect of land alone the outlay was £42,000 per route-mile, and then there is the annual outlay upon the upkeep, £20,000,000 a year, and the cost of all the other essential provisions in the way of signalling and other equipment; and the point we have to bear in mind from the public point of view is that whatever amount of traffic may be passing over the rails those fixed charges, representing the cost of insuring the efficiency of the system, remain.
  Road construction—and the Motion calls for extended and improved accommodation—would cost a huge sum of public money. At present the outlay is £54,000,000 annually, and that is a public charge, as against the private provision which is made by the railway companies. If increased road facilities are to be provided quite obviously the public will have to pay. The simple economic truth to-day is that the easy and discriminatory advantages secured by some sections of industry from the road services must be subsidised by those other sections of industry and of the public who of necessity have to use the railways, or, alternatively, railway labour and railway capital must make sacrifices to equate the difference. Again, when we talk of road accommodation we must remember that the roads are public highways. Reference has been made to the enormous increase in the number of private cars on the road. Some thousands per week are added to the already congested roads, and in addition to those who use motor cars or motor transport vehicles cyclists, pedestrians and other road-users are entitled to consideration.
  In recent Debates in the House hon. Members have been impressed by the appalling number and the terrific cost of road accidents, and the matter is causing very great concern in the country, and without becoming hysterical, or anti-motor, or anti-road, one can say that that aspect of the question is a very substantial social debit factor in the problem as a whole. We all know that there is a strin-
  3008
  gent and searching inquiry into every accident which occurs on the railways and that new safety devices are being introduced every day—at private and not at public cost—to the advantage, in the long run, of the travelling and trading public. That enterprise, that system of inspection and regulation, is in itself an enormous social asset to the safety and well-being of the public. Referring again to the question of restrictions, only last week there was an interesting Debate in this House on a Prayer, submitted by the Seconder of the Motion, and most of us were startled by the statements of the Minister—in reply to observations made by my hon. Friend who will second this Amendment—regarding the number of road offences and the general disregard of the laws which have been made in connection with road transport in the interests of public safety. The Minister said that no fewer that 26,000 road convictions were recorded in a single year, and many of them for offences associated with those considerations of safety which affect the general public. One might, without much exaggeration, have thought that instead of that Prayer being directed to the perfect justice of high Heaven it might more appropriately have been offered to the other place.
  I make no apology for referring to the vast army who serve in the realm of transport. For better or worse the distributive demands of modern society increase at an astounding rate. It is true that much of the road business does not represent diversion from rail but has been created by and has followed new inventions which undoubtedly confer social advantages on the people. With doubtful wisdom, perhaps, in these days, we seem to calculate progress in the variety and rapidity of movement. The extent of that advance is indicated by the fact that the huge total of 1,750,000 people are directly employed in transport. Together with their families, they represent approximately 3,000,000 of the population of this country. The social reaction in regard to the standard of life in that large proportion of the community will necessarily have considerable importance to the rest of the country. The stability of the employment is itself of great social value. The railway wage bill alone represents a figure of £100,000,000 a year.
  To mention only one subsidiary factor in addition to those huge figures affecting

  3009
  the economic and social life of this country, the railways are purchasers of 15,000,000 tons of coal a year, which is a very substantial contribution to the coal trade of this country. I am not pretending or suggesting by any means that the labour conditions represent Utopia, because a considerable number of employés do not receive 50s. per week at the present time. Improvements in service conditions are being sought; nevertheless, the freedom of negotiation and the standards that already exist represent an advance on many other industrial employments in this country. There are other secondary but not unimportant features, inasmuch as the rail side of the industry provides sick funds and there are widow and orphan schemes and superannuation schemes. While it is true that these do not embrace the whole of the staff, they represent a considerable amount of industrial self-help and of ambulance work for the community.
  We ought not to allow the Gresham Law to operate in social and industrial affairs. We ought not to allow the worse conditions to drive out the better. It is unfair to indict all road operators and road firms in this connection. I am certain that the best of the road employers hope for protection by means of regulations against their more unscrupulous competitors. That is the justification in the employing side of the industry for some of the restrictions that are complained of. I have in mind an important road firm which does not concede ordinary trade union recognition and does not give negotiating facilities to my own organisation. We hope to overcome these difficulties in the near future, but the fact remains that this firm, in contrast with the railway organisations, shows definite hostility and obstruction to elementary trade union rights of recognition. The hon. Member who moved the Motion said that he was in favour of moderate considerations for the labour interests in the industry. That seems to go hardly far enough.
  Finally—here possibly I enter on more controversial ground—I believe it is the case to-day that some of the least useful and most harmful employments of capital get the greatest industrial reward. I may be critical of railway capital from time to time when I am opposing attacks on railway wages, but when considering the claim of the capital which provides ser-
  3010
  vice so essential to the life of the nation, although it is dangerous ground to me, I am not shirking this aspect of the problem. If on these benches we enunciate new values and ways of economic organisation we must appreciate comparative values and the merits of here-and-now and of things as they are. Again I proceed on the principle of sustaining the better against the worse and the social against the anti-social service.
  As the Motion is drawn we did not intend to oppose it, but we urge that in the wider national interest some of the considerations which I have advanced tonight should be kept well in mind, if we wish to put road transport into its proper place and to ensure that broader communal concerns dominate and decide our transport policy. It is well known that on these benches the principle of public ownership and control is our direction in these matters. After all, we do not improve the mixture by changing the label on the bottle. We do not solve a complex issue like modern transport merely by reticketing the vehicles. I submit that most of the points which I have raised to-night are equally pertinent under changed ownership because they are fundamental social and economic factors which are inseparable from the problem, either to-day or to-morrow and in conditions of modified chaos, or on a basis of intelligent scientific co-ordination. It is equally important that they should be kept in mind. For those reasons I feel that it is necessary on the broad grounds of public interest and equity that the Amendment should be added to the Motion. I hope that the House will give that interpretation of public good in regard to public transport.
  9.3 p.m.
  Mr. Benjamin Smith: I beg to second the Amendment.
  What struck me was that the Mover and Seconder of the Motion contended that road transport was necessary to the life of the nation, but neither sought to justify the Motion. One took the line that we needed better roads but he had very little to say except to revert to what we had in the War, such as the old gas-bottle. The Seconder tried to introduce a series of hard cases extracted from approximately 500,000 vehicles. I think it is agreed that hard cases make bad law. The Amendment that I am second-

  3011
  ing is that it is necessary to work in cooperation with other forms of transport. Road transport is an essential feature of modern industrial life and no one would deny that better roads for its accommodation are urgently necessary if it is to take its place in the modern system. It must take its place with other forms of transport and must be subjected to regulation.
  Many of the disabilities and restrictions of road transport are due to the fact that it has grown up in an unregulated manner. Before the War, there were very few road transport mechanical vehicles on the roads; now there are over 500,000. It has had no conscious direction; it has grown up in competition, instead of in co-ordination, with other forms of transport. Other disabilities are due to the faults of road operators themselves. Road transport has developed rapidly since the War, and, in spite of licensing regulations, the number of vehicles on the roads is undoubtedly in excess of economic requirements, having regard to the existence of other efficient forms of transport. There are now in existence 93,216 A licences and 54,906 B licences, while of C licences, that is to say licences held by people who carry only their own goods, there are no fewer than 365,025, making a total of 513,147. In April, 1936, there were 102,855 A licences, 54,590 B licences, and 329,195 C licences, or a total of 486,640. The total number has thus increased by 26,507, but the increase in the number of C licences alone is 35,830.
  What is the significance of these facts? They mean that, if the A and B licence-holders are not giving the trader the service that he requires, and if the railways, the canals and coastwise shipping are not playing their part in a co-ordinated system, the trader buys his own vehicle, goes on to the roads and adds to the congestion and danger of the roads, whereas, if there were a properly co-ordinated system, it could be used to provide proper facilities for any trader. If we are to have such a co-ordinated system, something will have to be done to check the increase in the number of licence-holders carrying only their own goods. Already the figure is 365,025. Is this increase to be permitted to go on indefinitely, until we reach complete saturation on the roads, while at the same time, through lack of co-ordination,
  3012
  we see a dimunition of the railway services and of another important service the absence of which in time of war would be a real menace. I refer to coastwise shipping.
  The increase in the number of vehicles, and particularly of heavy vehicles, necessitates more and better roads. We have, of course, the Road Fund, the Petrol Duty, and also the assistance given by the Minister in the construction of trunk roads; but the main burden of expenditure on our roads and streets is borne by local authorities. They are not consulted as to the volume of traffic which their roads and streets have to carry, but they must bear their share of the cost. Huge sums have to be spent. It may surprise hon. Members to learn that last year the total expenditure on the roads for maintenance, including about £9,000,000, for new roads and widening, was approximately £55,000,000. Of that amount, only £20,000,000 comes from the Road Fund; £35,000,000 comes from the ratepayers of the country. This is an aspect of the question that some of our ratepayers' associations might look into. My own district of Bermondsey is practically the feeding centre for London. Only lately I had to go to the Ministry of Transport to seek assistance for road development, not in order to deal with local traffic, but to deal with traffic that comes through and over that area. Bermondsey is a borough which has something like 2,000 overcrowded houses, and will have, in a few years, to carry out no fewer than 44 slum clearance schemes. Yet that borough, where a 1d. rate yields £3,400, has to find one-third of the cost of bearing that traffic, which serves the rest of London and its environs with food. From the point of view of the rates, I think it is time that that factor was dealt with.
  I wonder whether the Minister, since we all know that roads are necessary, could not consider increasing what I would call new development on the roads. There is no doubt that much good has been done, but anyone who travels on the roads will be aware that constantly, after going 5, 10 or 20 miles along a good road, one finds that the virtue of that road has been utterly wiped out by a series of bottle-necks, which, at comparatively small cost, could have been by-passed. Again, take the question of the Severn Bridge. At one time the Minister went so far as to agree to the

  3013
  promotion of a Bill, and to pay 75 per cent. towards the cost of that promotion. The Select Committee which considered that and of which I was a member, sat for 19 days, and the railway interests were successful in killing the Bill. I do not blame them. They said that this bridge, which for the first time would have connected physically Wales with England, was going to be a danger to the Severn Tunnel. They paid no regard to the fact that, if this country should be involved in war, and Heaven knows it might be, the whole of our food and munitions traffic would have to come from the western side of the country. Without an efficient bridge system connecting the whole of our roads, we should be left, as we were in the last War, with that bottle-neck of the Severn Tunnel, through which every ton of goods for the service of the country had to come, and if one bomb dropped on it, we should be left in a state of complete starvation. The ratepayers have no voice in the spending of the money; they only have to find it.
  The Mover of the Motion, who has now left the House, is, I understand, connected with the motor industry. I would not be thought in any way to decry Lord Nuffield, who also is connected with the motor industry. One has to look upon him with respect on account of his munificence. But, on the other hand, is it fair that the ratepayers should be mulcted in rates to this extent when the producing side of the industry is making such fabulous profits that it can distribute millions without making any contribution to the road system of the country, on which its vehicles are going to operate?
  On the question of legal obligations, the road transport operators display a complete lack of social conscience. Regulations were properly imposed on the industry, in the interests of public safety, with a view to improving the standards of employment, in order to attract the best type of workers to the industry. But so high is the cost of enforcing these legal provisions, and particularly the safety provisions, that the Minister has just had to increase the fees for carriers' licences. In a Debate the other night, the Minister said that in the year 1937 among these unsocially-minded people there were 8,000 convictions for driving over hours and over the rest periods that the law insists shall be given to the employés in the
  3014
  industry; 10,000 convictions for hours not kept or improperly kept; 4,500 convictions for vehicles not maintained in a serviceable condition; 2,750 for using vehicles without a licence or outside the terms of the licence—that is a very serious statement; 200 convictions for using vehicles after an examiner had stopped the vehicle for inefficiency; and 550 in respect of heavy vehicles driven by men not licensed to drive them. The employer must know whether a man carries a heavy vehicle licence as well as an ordinary motor-car licence. Remember that the 1933 Act was a Road Safety Act, and yet there were 7,300 convictions for speeding.
  One hon. Member said it was the fault of the men. I will have this House know that daily and hourly men are forced to exceed the speed limit, to do a journey in a specified time which involves their breaking the law, under the fear of losing their employment. The legal provisions in question are not disabilities and unnecessary restrictions, but are fair and proper regulations which Parliament has imposed in the public interest. If road transport operators seriously disregard these provisions, as they do, how can they expect sympathy; and how can they expect financial assistance from public funds to continue?
  On the question of wages and hours I want to bring this to the notice of the Minister and of his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour. When the Bill came before the House one of my hon. Friends said to me, "Wherever I go I point to this Measure as the effect of real democracy in this House." The fair wages requirement in the Act of 1933 was first applied only to holders of A and B licences. A national joint conciliation board was set up, representing both employers and workpeople. The difficulties encountered by the board in its efforts to provide a stable basis for working conditions in the industry were so great that both sides on the board had to approach the Minister in 1936 for further legislation. That was done by the employers and the workpeople—the good employers and the workpeople—going to the Minister. The good employers in the industry were, and are, exposed to unfair competition. It is their continual complaint. They say, "You keep pressing these conditions; we keep paying your rates; but you do nothing to deal with the scallywags

  3015
  we have to compete with." That is a fair case. On the Order Paper to-day, I had some questions addressed to the Minister. I asked him,
  "whether he is aware that during the hearing of a case against the Gibson Road Transport Company, Limited, Clayton Street, Newport, Monmouthshire, for tampering with a driver's log, the defence attempted to discredit the driver by suggesting that he had been dismissed for the alleged theft of oil and for being involved in accidents and that his evidence was a deliberate attempt to get his former employers into trouble; whether he is aware that this line of defence is frequently pursued; whether the examiners for the Traffic Commissioners have experienced any difficulty in obtaining evidence because of the intimidation of drivers in this and other ways; and whether he will therefore consider increasing the number of examiners?"
  In my second question, I pointed out that this firm had been fined£15. Here is the Minister's answer:
  "I have caused inquiries to be made into this case and I am informed that the defence to the action was on the lines indicated by the hon. Member, and that the court found the case proved and inflicted the penalty which he describes. Licensing authorities in their annual reports have expressed the view that falsification of driving records is prevalent and that drivers are reluctant to give evidence about their records for fear of dismissal. I fully share the hon. Member's desire to stamp out this practice, and I have recently taken steps to augment the number of examiners, whose duty it is to scrutinise the records with a view to seeing if the law as to speeding and hours of driving and rest are complied with. I am satisfied that the maximum penalty of revocation or suspension of a licence is adequate."
  I would like to ask, how many licences have been revoked or suspended for offences such as that covered by those questions? I think I should be right in saying, less than 20. I am not certain about that. Not all the worst offenders are A and B licence holders, who are contractors; some are C licence holders, who are ancillary users. These licences were excluded from the fair wages requirement of the Act of 1933; and this was one of the factors that made it impossible to establish reasonable conditions in the industry. The privileged position which they enjoyed, and still enjoy—because if they cannot get satisfaction from the contractors they immediately put their own vehicles on the road—has been renewed under the Road Haulage Wages Act. When the Act comes into operation they will not be governed by the same authority as the A and B licence
  3016
  holders, but it will be left to the trade unions to submit complaints regarding unfair wages to the Minister of Labour for reference to the Industrial Court. It is a great pity that the Government yielded to pressure and departed from the recommendations of the Baillie Committee in this instance.
  That Act was passed last June, but the area boards are not yet established and it is doubtful whether the Central Board has ever yet been constituted. If there was a real desire among the employers to put their industry on a proper basis, if there was a recognition by them of the obligations of citizenship in regard to carrying out an Act with which they were in agreement, why are we still waiting for a settlement of the condition for the establishment of these area boards and the Central Board? It would appear that industry does not want to put its house in order; it wants, as the mover and the seconder so steadfastly claimed to-night, free competition; it wants freedom to do as it likes; and while this House exists no industry of its size and character would ever get the freedom which is demanded by this Motion. In the case of road transport the Council recommended that an opportunity be afforded for road hauliers to build up a rates structure. A committee was set up, and progress, they say, is being made, but the fact remains that after 18 months of discussion there is no approach to a rates structure. The mover and seconder will agree that there ought to be a rates structure, but how can you have a rates structure and free competition at the same time? A rates structure fixes the rates for the type of goods carried for a given distance.
  I want to say a word now about the railways. We are told that the claim of the railway companies is for a so-called square deal. After the Minister had received two deputations of the railway representatives he referred this matter, I understand, to the Transport Advisory Council, a body made up of all the elements of transport—coastwise transport, canals, railways, road transport, owners and labour. That is a pretty wide body to deal with co-ordination. But what happened? I am credibly informed that the railway companies, in going before the Transport Advisory Council, pressed that their case should not be publicly heard. I want to protest against that. The matter was referred to a sub-com-

  3017
  mittee of the Council, and the railway companies, I understand, pressed that the case should be heard in camera. After a lot of discussion it was decided, I believe, to take the case partly in camera and partly in public, but when it came to the question of the Baillie Report and workmen's compensation, that inquiry must be held in public. If it is good for the workman to have his conditions aired in public, it is right that the railways should come out and tell the public what they mean by a "square deal."
  I want now to refer to the question of roads. It is no use paying mere lip-service to co-ordination and then leaving it to be dovetailed in, as it were. It has to be planned. The railway companies, in my opinion, made a fatal mistake when in 1928 they had the right given to them to run goods vehicles on long-distance haulage and passenger vehicles. Certainly, they spent £13,000,000—£9,000,000 on transport vehicles and £4,000,000 on goods vehicles, but only to exist in competition with present goods vehicles, and, in fact, in competition with the railways themselves. That is not coordination. I understand the railway people say they welcome co-ordination. I understand the road transport people say they welcome co-ordination. Last week I saw representative owners of coastwise shipping and they said, "What do you mean by co-ordination?" My answer to them is that all forms of transport should act as the complement one of the other, and the most efficient form of transport should be used for the type of goods that have to be moved. That seems to me to be a fair way of explaining what co-ordination is. I believe—and I hope this will not be misunderstood—that the railways cannot launch out as they would like to, because of the amount of fixed capital. If a railway were going to launch out in a system of co-ordination, it would mean closing down all the unremunerative branch lines, and utilising road transport and passenger transport on the road in place of the unremunerative branch lines. Instead of saying, "The railway must stop at a dead end there," by a proper system of co-ordinated transport they should give all the facilities that are necessary to traders and passengers.
  Another aspect that is rather forgotten in this House is that when the railways were doing well and there was no road transport the road people used to buy and
  3018
  store goods. To-day they move goods quickly, and road transport is used because it operates from door to door; it is quicker in transit, and at the same time it allows a turnover to take place. That is a factor that has to be considered: it is the quick turnover of goods, avoiding price fluctuations, which has advanced the system of using the roads. Coastwise traffic surely is a complementary form of transport. I believe that 70 per cent. of coastwise traffic is by what I call coastwise liners, and the 30 per cent, is made up of what I call the tramp system of coastwise traffic. They are complaining of many forms of foreign transport—the Dutch family boat that comes in and competes against them from one port to another, then slips away to Holland and back again. That is a serious thing. But if this country is really going to be defended in a war, then road transport, rail transport and coastwise transport must play an important part in operating the traffic needs of this country, both from the military and the civic points of view. Therefore, I say that there is plenty of room for the road transport industry to exist side by side with other forms of transport, operating as a complementary, and not as a competitive, system. If we can get that, with the proper regulations and proper co-ordination, the cost to the public, to the trader, and to the Exchequer could be materially reduced, and the conditions of labour might as a result be very much better.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The original Question was the Motion which appears on the Order Paper. Since then an Amendment has been moved to leave out the words, "without unnecessary restriction," and to substitute" in co-ordination with other forms of transport." The Question I have to put is "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Motion." I think, perhaps, I ought to call attention to the fact that it is now the Amendment which is before the House, and it may be that one would be obliged to restrict somewhat the very interesting Debate we have been having. But I am given to understand that the Mover of this Motion does not oppose the Amendment, and it might be in the interests of the Debate generally, if the Amendment is carried, that the House should proceed in that case to continue the Debate on the original Motion. If hon. Members agree, I will put that to the House.
  Hon. Members: Yes!
  Amendment agreed to.
  Main Question, as amended, proposed.
  9.35 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Captain Austin Hudson): I understand that it would be for the convenience of the House if I intervened now, and I can assure the House that I will not take longer than is absolutely necessary, because there are many Members who wish to speak. May I say first of all that I welcome this Motion, as it gives the House an opportunity of discussing the important problem of the great industry of road transport, and I hope that the Motion, as now amended, may be carried unanimously in a proper Christmas spirit.
  I should like, first of all, to deal with the subject of difficulties and restrictions with which the Mover and the Seconder have dealt. It has been said that the road transport industry suffers from restrictions, but I would be disposed to say that the "restriction" is really "regulation" or an attempt to bring order out of chaos. I believe the whole House would agree that restrictions which merely hinder or irritate should not be encouraged, but I would ask hon. Members to throw their minds back to the time when the 1930 Road Traffic Act and the 1933 Road and Rail Traffic Act were before this House. Conditions in the road transport industry were little short of chaotic. Unrestricted cut-throat competition was such at that time that few could make a decent living, and what was far worse—and this point has been stressed by the Seconder of the Amendment—low wages and long hours were forced upon many employés, and the safety of vehicles on our roads was becoming a secondary consideration in the rush for orders.
  On the passenger side of the industry I have not heard a single responsible passenger operator say that after eight years' experience of the Road Traffic Act he would like to return to the conditions prevailing before 1931. Since 1931, I am informed, the number of passenger journeys per year in public road vehicles has grown from 5,200,000,000 to 6,600,000,000. We were told at the time the restrictions were put on that the industry would be inclined to slump. It
  3020
  was because the position in the goods industry was becoming impossible that the 1933 Act reached the Statute Book with comparatively little opposition in this House. Since that Act has reached the Statute Book some sort of order has been evolved. Inspections have turned the dangerous vehicles off the road, and conditions in the industry are improving; and, as we were reminded by the last speaker, the Road Haulage Wages Bill reached the Statute Book only this year. I think that we can say too, that the good employer now is no longer at the mercy of the bad, as he was before the passing of these Acts. But the necessity for continued vigilance is obvious. That, as many of us remember, was debated in this House only last week, and I do not want to go into the question again now as time is short. Far from throttling the goods industry, I find that in 1933 there were some 370,000 goods vehicles on the road, whereas in 1938 this figure has risen to 513,000 vehicles, so that on that side as well the industry still continues to thrive.
  On the subject of restrictions, raised by the Mover and Seconder of the Motion, I assure the House that we will study with the greatest care what has been said and what will be said in the remainder of the Debate. We do not want to see unnecessary restrictions imposed, any more than anyone else in this House. I would say one thing, though I do not want to go into details now. The Seconder complained of the difficulty in obtaining renewals of licences and said that the railway companies opposed applications. Over 90 per cent. of the renewals are unopposed, and it is only a small residue that are opposed at all by the railway companies or anybody else.
  I cannot let the remarks made about the independence of the licensing authorities go past without a word. The House will remember that these gentlemen were made independent. It is true that they are appointed by the Minister, but he cannot interfere with their decisions. Their day-to-day administration cannot be questioned in this House. That is a Ruling from the Chair. On the goods side there is an independent Appeal Tribunal to whom operators can go. That is different from the passenger side, where the appeal is to the Minister. An hon. Member of this House wrote to me and said that he would like appeals on the goods

  3021
  side to go in the same way to the Minister as they do on the passenger side, and then he added: "instead of to an impartial tribunal."
  Mr. Remer: I am the hon. Member who wrote to the hon. and gallant Gentleman. My point in this matter is that I would rather have my hon. and gallant Friend to be the judge of the matter than some of the impartial tribunals I have found dealing with road transport.
  Captain Hudson: I did not want to mention any names, but now that my hon. Friend reminds me, I rather think that it was he. He knows that I myself deal with these appeals on the passenger side, but I assure the House that, as far as I know, the decisions of the appeals, and certainly the conduct of the Traffic Commissioners, are independent, and no pressure, political or otherwise, is put upon them. It is remarkable the way the Commissioners carry on in a really difficult position. As regards the gas vehicle mentioned by the Mover, we are looking very carefully into the question of its encouragement at the present time. I would say a word or two about co-ordination mentioned in the Amendment which has now become part of the Motion. The House will recall that every investigation of recent years has urged that co-ordination and not unregulated competition between different forms of transport is the proper course to adopt.
  I do not want—the House would not expect it of me—to say much concerning the present claims of the railway companies, since they have now been referred to the Transport Advisory Council for advice. The Council has appointed a committee to deal with the matter, and that committee I understand has sat today and will meet again to-morrow. It is taking all possible steps to expedite this work, and the House will in due course be informed of the Government's decision on the request put forward by the companies.
  I want to say a word or two on a very important part of the Motion, that calling our attention to the necessity for adequate roads. Taking it all in all our road system in this country is probably the best in the world, especially having regard to the standard and condition of our secondary roads and the comprehensive network which they form.
  Mr. Edwards: That kind of thing gives such a false impression. I come from the North-East coast, and the road from Newcastle to London is a positive disgrace to this country. It is no good giving the impression that the roads are in a satisfactory state.
  Captain Hudson: I had not really finished what I was going to say.
  Mr. Edwards: I am sorry.
  Captain Hudson: I said, taking it all in all—and I have travelled on roads abroad—our system is probably the best in the world, but I was going to assure the House that we are well aware that this should not obscure the necessity for improvement, particularly of our main traffic arteries.
  Mr. Benjamin Smith: May we take it that the Government will be prepared to augment the money from the Road Fund for the purpose of developing the roads?
  Captain Hudson: The hon. Member has been mentioning the roads in his borough. I cannot go into that question. He knows the difficulty. The Trunk Roads Act does not affect the roads through boroughs of the kind in his constituency. I am, however, in favour of doing all we possibly can to improve the roads, and I think I shall be able to show that we are by no means neglecting our duty in that respect. It was because of the need for improvement that the Trunk Roads Act was passed in 1936, under which 4,500 miles of trunk roads were taken over by the Ministry. It is for the same reason my right hon. Friend has approved in principle programmes of highway authorities for improvement of other highways, not trunk roads, at an estimated cost of over £100,000,000. The House will understand that vast undertakings of this kind cannot be carried through all at once. Apart altogether from the question of finance, which is of great moment, at the present time particularly, the time taken by land acquisition is a governing factor. It is because of the conditions laid down by this House that the time cannot be shortened. We have to give ample notice by Statute to interested parties, and in any case of objection—the House can read the accounts of the different inquiries that have been held—local inquiries may be held. These conditions which are imposed upon us have involved an initial

  3023
  time lag, but we are hoping by special efforts made during the past year to improve and quicken matters. Constructional works will be pushed ahead as quickly as possible.
  Our plans are being made out not only for the immediate future but for years to come. I want to give some figures which I hope the House will find interesting. Some 215 orders for by-passes and diversions have been published and 127 of these, covering 178 separate diversions, have been sealed. Last March the figures were 73 and 33 respectively. Hon. Members will, therefore, see that whereas up to last March the average rate of progress was under seven orders per month, the present rate is over 17. As regards trunk road schemes, there are 500 upon which constructional work has already begun or which are in the final stages of preparation. These include a number of large schemes such as the Maidenhead by-pass, the Maidstone by-pass, the Northwich bypass and the Chester Ring road.
  In considering road works to be carried out or to be assisted by the Department, the possible demands of war are taken fully into account. In that connection I should like to mention a very important road in London, the Cromwell Road extension, which was recommended by Sir Charles Bressey. Tenders have been received for this road and the contract will be let before another month expires.
  Mr. Benjamin Smith: The Traffic Committee recommended that so far back as 1925.
  Captain Hudson: It is one of the schemes that come in the Bressey Report. The Bill went through the House long before the Bressey Report ever saw the light of day. I mentioned it so that hon. Members, if they so desire, can look up the scheme and see what it is. We hope that this scheme will be completed in the latter part of 1941. It is a scheme which is very vital, in consideration of the evacuation of London to the west, should that unfortunate eventuality ever have to take place.
  The last sentence of the Motion says that the policy of His Majesty's Government should be directed to the encouragement and development of the road transport industry. We believe that that is a vital necessity, and we believe that it is equally vital both for road and rail. We
  3024
  certainly would not be parties to any scheme to kill the road in order to save the rail, or vice versa. Let me say a few words regarding war-time measures, which I gather are covered by the last sentence of the Motion. My Department has been working on a scheme for a long time past and a special Department of the Ministry has been set up. In conection with this plan we are in constant co-operation with the Committee of Imperial Defence, and we have also the advantage of an advisory committee of leading men of the road haulage industry. In the light of the experience of September last, our scheme is at present undergoing a thorough review. I might, incidentally, inform the House, in view of recent public utterances on the subject, that plans are well advanced for the diversion of shipping from ports whose facilities and activities might be curtailed by enemy action, to other ports capable of receiving it. The Department's examination of that subject is not a matter of a few weeks ago but goes back for several years.
  Mr. Benjamin Smith: Be sure that your docking facilities are right.
  Captain Hudson: All relevant conditions are considered. The hon. Member will realise that this is a matter which is extremely complicated. I do not want to detain the House any longer. I would only repeat that the criticisms and suggestions which have been made during this Debate will be most carefully considered by my Department, and that my right hon. Friend and I welcome the discussion of the problems of one of the most important industries in our country.
  Mr. Bemer: May I ask my hon. and gallant Friend whether the efficiency of the railway companies is also taken into consideration by the Ministry of Transport?
  Captain Hudson: All relevant points are taken into consideration.
  9.52 p.m.
  Mr. Parkinson: I was rather surprised at the line taken by the Mover of the Motion. It appeared to me that he would follow the line of the Motion, but he immediately went right away from it, and the question of road vehicle transport and rail transport has been the subject of the discussion rather than what is expressed in the Motion. The Motion can be easily divided into three parts:

  3025

  (1) That in the opinion of this House, road transport is an essential factor of modern industrial life.

  (2) That better roads for its accommodation are urgently necessary.

  (3) That the policy of His Majesty's Government should be directed to its encouragement and development without unnecessary restriction so that it may take its proper place in the transport system of the country.

  Instead of debating the question as I expected he would have done, we had an immediate breakaway into the intricacies of motor transport service. The hon. Member said that there had been a colossal expansion of roads recently. I do not know where any colossal expansion has been taking place, but certainly in the present state of the country everyone will agree that a greater expansion of roads is necessary, owing to the emergency with which we are threatened. The hon. Member also referred to the number of acts and regulations of all kinds affecting road transport, and also the amount of money paid by the road transport services to the Exchequer. Later on he said that he did not agree with forcing traffic from one method of transport to another. I do not know what he meant by that. In the whole of his speech he showed that he was not in sympathy with co-ordination, practically speaking, of any kind.
  He wanted special facilities for road transport services as against any others, but he did not suggest the method by which he would force traffic from one method to another. Neither did he specify the kind of traffic, whether it is heavy traffic, medium weight traffic or light traffic. He did say that the roads were constructed to meet local needs. That may be the case, but in times like the present we want roads constructed for national needs. It is more likely that we shall require roads for much heavier traffic in the future. He also made the startling suggestion that wages should be moderately protected. Why "moderately"? Why should not wages be fully protected in order that we may have peace and tranquillity among the workers in the whole of the transport services? I should like to think that the hon. Member has made a mistake and would admit it if he had to make his speech over again. He said that free competition
  3026
  was the only method of keeping down rates. I think the time has arrived when we should get out of the muddle into which the transport services have got, and that we should get down to concrete proposals and regulations in the interests of the nation as a whole. The Seconder of the Motion dealt wholly with the licensing of vehicles which, to my mind, is not quite inside the terms of the Motion, although I am not the authority to decide that.
  I propose to deal with the Motion as divided into the three parts I have indicated. In the first place, that road transport is an essential feature of modern industrial life. Recent events have demonstrated that very fully. Modern industrial life demands not only the best we can get from road transport but the best we can get from railways and coastwise shipping. The complicated conditions of commercial life at the moment demand more from our transport services than ever they have in the past. Our present road system is unable to meet the requirements, and I look forward to the time when the roads of the country will be considerably increased and improved. There is no doubt that at the moment we are not prepared for an emergency should it fall upon us. The hon. Member for Rotherhithe (Mr. Benjamin Smith) referred to good straight roads for ten miles which suddenly run into a bottle-neck. That is a condition on the Great North Road. We should be in a very awkward situation in a national emergency if we had to depend on the roads as they are at the moment. They are too small; there are too many bottlenecks, too many ugly twists and too many congested areas.
  I thought that the Debate would have dealt with these matters rather than of playing off one industry against another. There is an insufficient number of through roads to meet the demands of our industrial and national life. It is a condition which demands the most careful consideration. There is congestion of traffic in particular areas. I can speak of Lancashire which I know. Road traffic has to slow down because of these bottle-necks. I think they are responsible for the large number of convictions of heavy traffic drivers who try to make up lost time on good roads afterwards, but I am not quite sure on that point. They certainly slow down the traffic and loss of business

  3027
  and time is money wasted. It has been said that we have the best roads in the world. I am not disputing that statement, because I do not know any other country. I have not had the opportunity of inspecting what they have done in other countries, but, according to what I have read, European countries have seen the dangers of delay particularly in regard to national needs and have been making new roads connecting all main centres and making provision for all future purposes. That is all I have to say on the first part of the Motion.
  The second portion is that better roads and accommodation are urgently necessary. That means that better roads for the accommodation of road transport are absolutely necessary. I believe they are. I do not think the country is at the moment able to meet the potential requirements of the future, and I strongly suggest that something should be done. What has become of the five-year plan? Is it being speeded up in view of present-day requirements? It will be needed. Special roads for heavy and fast traffic should be undertaken at the earliest opportunity. I know it will cost money, but everything you do costs money, and those things which are urgent should have first call. These special roads will be required for heavy traffic in a case of national emergency which might arrive at any time. I have listened to all the Debates on preparations for war, and I have failed to find one Minister who has laid any stress on the making of good roads in order to take the place of railways should they be so damaged as to be inoperative. I have never heard a Minister suggest that the transport of munitions and foodstuffs by road would demand a very heavy expenditure of money on the roads. These are essential services in time of war and they are things which have been neglected. They should have the first call on the national Exchequer. Railways may be destroyed, broken. What is our second means of supply? The southern part of England might be able to find a second means of supply. I remember that in the Tea Room we had a huge map showing about 14 new roads from the coast verging on certain centres of the country. I have heard nothing more about it.
  I want to put one point to the Minister which, I think, is worth considering. A
  3028
  royal ordnance factory has been built near Chorley. It is on the side of the railway but if anything happens to the railway, if it should be broken, there are no roads which will enable the factory to obtain its supplies or distribute its goods. There should be a second system to enable this factory to send its goods by road to places like Liverpool and Warrington, and also enable it to get supplies. There would be nothing to take the place of the railway there if it were destroyed. That is an illustration of my contention that road extension is an urgent necessity, not only in the interests of road transport at the present time, but in the national interest. Special roads ought to be made to meet such requirements, and such special roads ought to be built at the expense of the Government and not at the expense of the local ratepayers. An impossible amount of money would be called for from the local authorities if they had to build any great lengths of new roads. These roads would be to meet national requirements and national emergencies; they ought to be built as soon as possible, and they ought not to be a charge on the local ratepayers. The last part of the Motion says:
  "that the policy of His Majesty's Government should be directed to its encouragement and development without unnecessary restriction"—
  or, as the Amendment says, "in coordination with other forms of transport"—
  "so that it may take its proper place in the transport system of the country.
  What should be the policy? It should not be a policy of wrangling between road and rail. For the past few years, we have had this wrangle between the two, and if things continue as they are, the wrangling will be more bitter in the future than in the past. We never hear anything said about canals. I know that they are a slower means of transport, but to a certain extent they are sure; and they would be a great national asset in times of emergency. What should be our policy? Is it to be full co-operation between all forms of transport, coastwise, road, rail and canal; or are we to go on, one holding the bait and the other biting, barking all the time, and accusing others of not doing the right things in certain circumstances? The Government ought to bring together all these systems, to allay the suspicions which exist, and to

  3029
  try to arrive at a condition of things which would give a unified service that would fulfil the country's requirements. One system cannot be developed alone. All the systems must be taken into consideration for the purpose of meeting national requirements which are larger than any particular interests. The welfare of the community is the greatest of all interests. There ought to be that unification which would give protection and support to the whole population. This cut-throat competition must cease. National requirements must come first, and there must be national regulation of the whole of the transport services.
  The Government ought to initiate at once inquiries regarding the co-ordination of all forms of transport under Government control; for I do not see any other way of bringing the whole of the transport services together. We cannot allow this bitterness and bickering to go on until the transport systems of the country are thrown into a state of chaos all round. I believe I have stated the only way in which the national requirements could be met, and I think those requirements brook no delay. While I do not share any of that bitterness which has been expressed on both sides of the House, I believe that a real policy such as I have outlined would bring about a feeling of understanding between all these people. In particular, there ought to be an end to that financial bitterness which has caused so much trouble. After all, finance is not the only thing in the world. Everybody has a right to protect that which he possesses, but here there are four services all having financial needs. Is it not possible for them to come together with the common objective of serving the country in all circumstances? I believe it is. Delays are dangerous, particularly at this time, and I think that the Government ought to do as much as they can to institute those inquiries which are necessary in order to clear the ground for an agreement between the services. Let the Government get to work on this problem, and by co-ordination of the transport services make of transport, not a competitive business in which each man is grabbing at the throat of a competitor, but a great transport service that will be a real national asset.
  10.11 p.m.
  Sir R. Ross: I intervene in the Debate because in recent years I have had con-
  3030
  siderable experience of the problems of transportation, and in particular of the operation of the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933. I was surprised to find that one for whose sound common sense and abilities I have such great respect—the hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Higgs)—should have indulged in what I think were fallacies and inconsistencies in some of the things that he said. He suggested that all road users are on the side of the commercial road users. I assure him that no one detests a commercial vehicle on the road as much as do the other people on the road at the same time. If all commercial vehicles were removed from the road, it would give joy to the owners of small cars, who trail behind the big commercial vehicles for miles. Nearly all classes of road users dislike to see commercial vehicles on the road and believe, rightly or wrongly, that by the taxes they pay they are subsidising commercial vehicles.
  There was another matter in which I thought my hon. Friend was remarkably inconsistent. I was particularly surprised when he demanded that there should be more commercial vehicles on the road, that this business should be increased and encouraged; for at the same time he pointed out that the congestion on English roads was greater than the congestion on the roads of any other country. It is easy to answer that more roads should be built, but to do that we should have to spend millions of pounds. Moreover, it would raise a problem peculiar to this country, which is a country in which the land is very crowded, so that it is much harder to improve and straighten the roads here than it is on the Continent. A certain amount of goods has to be carried about the country, and the alternative to building more roads, at a cost of millions of pounds—and the money, of course, would not be provided exclusively by the commercial users of the roads—is to send by other means such traffic as can be appropriately sent by those means—the railways, canals and coastwise shipping.
  Mr. Remer Mr. Remer rose—
  Sir R. Ross: My hon. Friend has made the equivalent of two speeches by interruptions, and I do not intend to give way. He goes out of the Chamber and then comes back, and expects to make more interruptions.
  Mr. Romer: If my hon. Friend does not want to hear me—
  Sir R. Ross: No, I do not. To continue my argument, the question of the co-ordination of these systems is before us. In criticising rather sharply the operations of the licensing authorities under the 1933 Act, both the Mover and the Seconder of the Motion left out one very important thing. The licensing authority has one paramount duty, which is to consider the interests of the public as a whole, above the interests of the individual types of transport which are represented before it. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Coventry (Captain Strickland) was in error in saying that the authority could appear as an objector in his own court. He cannot do that, but even should there be no objector, he has a duty to see that the interests of the public are not jeopardised, either by the grant or by the refusal of a licence. In the execution of that duty it is clear that he must occasionally refuse as well as grant licences.
  This is not a party matter. This is a discussion in which, I think, we are all, irrespective of party, trying to make what contribution we can to a solution, and I would like to make some allusion to the criticisms which we have heard of the operation of this Act. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Coventry suggested that the licensing authorities were not independent persons. I am sure he made that remark in good faith, but I do not think he can have seen much of the operation of those authorities. I think, as the Minister said, they carry out a difficult duty to the best of their ability, and as impartially as they can. The licensing commissioners who arrange the affairs of passenger traffic are in a different position. Under the 1933 Act there is a legal tribunal whose decisions are reported and who decide the law, under a very distinguished lawyer and the licensing authorities have to administer the law as laid down by this tribunal. It has been suggested that there should be automatic renewal of A and B licences. I do not see why any class of vested interest should be created by the operation of this Act. Because a man has once received a licence in respect of a particular public need, is no reason why he should have a vested interest in that licence even when the public need has
  3032
  come to an end or why these people should be exempt from a control to which others are still subject.
  There is one basic principle involved in the consideration of the operations of this Act. The yardstick by which the need for transport is measured, is whether or not there are in existence, adequate and suitable means of transport. I emphasise the two adjectives. It is not a case of any means of transport, but of means of transport which can carry the desired quantity and are suitable to the needs of the trade and the traders. The Act does not consider the question of cost. It considers solely whether having regard to the public interest there are means to carry the things which need to be carried suitably and adequately. Some of the claims which have been made for the road transport industry cannot be sustained. In the early '30's we had in that industry the law of the jungle. There was voracious competition, there was no sort of control of hours and the wages, in the cases of bad employers, were terrible. I think in all these respects it has improved. We are now gradually getting the enforcement of the hours of driving which were first laid down in 1930, but which had very little respect paid to them until the 1933 Act brought in the necessity of filling the records. Those hours of driving, the 11 hours maximum, with due intervals for rest, and the 10 hours every night which the driver must have, are not hours which are recommended as being appropriate hours, but are hours laid down as being the very maximum for humane employment; and it took the passing of that Act before they were brought in.
  We have had the instance of the man who spent £320 on having to argue a case for an extra vehicle. I did not think that in that particular case the costs would be paid by the man. I thought the costs were paid by various road organisations—I am subject to correction—which wished, quite legitimately, to try out an important test case, which they tried out; and what I object to is that, having taken that course, they should then come and make an ad miseri cordiam plea of the amount of the costs which they voluntarily paid by employing particularly good lawyers to try out that important point. The problem which is facing us is that there are too many vehicles on the roads; there are not fewer vehicles.

  3033
  There may be fewer A licence vehicles, but there are actually, if you take A licence and A contract licence vehicles, which are of some value, more this year than last.
  Mr. H. G. Williams: Why not?
  Sir R. Ross: The hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. G. Williams) asks me why not. I did not know that there was anything that the hon. Member did not know. The fact is that the roads have reached saturation point, and that if you could get goods suitably and adequately carried by other means which would take them off the road it would be a very good thing. The great problem is that of the C licence vehicle, and I think the time has come when some sort of control of that vehicle will have to come. Although one could not possibly deny any industry or manufacture vehicles for legitimate collection and delivery work—that is, for a radius of 20 or 30 miles—I think the running of these vehicles all over the country is really becoming a vicious system and that it will not be long before some steps will have to be taken about it. I do not express any opinion as to the correctness or otherwise of the railway case, of which we have heard a lot recently, except to say that my opinion is that if we had the absolutely unrestricted competition of everybody, which the Mover and Seconder of the Motion advocated, the conditions of the transport industry would be far worse than ever before. I apologise for taking up so much time.
  10.24 p.m.
  Mr. Walkden: The Debate has been exceedingly interesting to those of us who are concerned with transport, and I am sure we all welcome wholeheartedly the statement made on behalf of the Minister. I only hope that he thoroughly meant everything he said and that he will continue to grapple with this problem and grapple with it more vigorously than ever. It is also very pleasing to see that, at any rate superficially, there is agreement in favour of the principle of co-ordination. Unfortunately, while there is apparent agreement on that principle, both sides of the transport industry, the railway companies and the road hauliers, are clamouring for the removal of restrictions and seeking, apparently, to go right back to nineteenth century competition, which, in my humble opinion, is wrong. I do not hold any brief for the railways.
  Mr. H. G. Williams: You are on their side.
  Mr. Walkden: I have had to fight the railway companies all my life, and I am not on their side. Hon. Members on the other side of the House are too much on the side of certain interests. I am not on the side of any interest but the public interest. There has been much evidence, even in this Debate, helpful as it has been, that there is a desire to get back to the chaos of nineteenth century competition. We want to get away from that situation, and that is why I welcome the acceptance of the word "co-ordination." I want to urge that there never was a more imperative need for that principle to be applied than to-day in view of what happened last September. Our transport system is not only vital to the commercial and social life of the country, but absolutely vital at any time when the country is in danger. One serious difficulty of giving road transport the right to please itself and to get rid of restrictions, as the Mover and Seconder desired, is that if it is left to fight with itself and with the railway companies there will be less coordination and less unity, and in the hour of peril we shall have an industry quite unprepared to give the national assistance it ought to give.
  I want to urge this point a little more strongly on the attention of the Ministry. I would remind them that whereas under the Act of 1871, which was carried just after the Franco-Prussian War, the State has the power immediately to take control of railways in the event of a national emergency—and it did take control within an hour of the outbreak of war in 1914—it has no such direct power and no organisation to take control of road and other forms of transport. It is absolutely necessary that it should have that power. In the case of the railways there is the Committee of General Managers. They were ready in 1914 long before trouble came; they are still in existence, and they are ready now to be at the service of the Government to become the railway executive, acting on behalf of the Government and the community, and to give a united and complete service to the State in the event of war. They carried during the War period 1914–18, 50 per cent. more traffic than they normally did, and they did it with marvellous efficiency.
  I should like to see the road operators as ready to do the same thing. The spirit

  3035
  shown in the Debate to-night on their behalf is a purely commercial spirit, and not a patriotic and helpful spirit. We get documents from the road side of the transport industry pleading for our support and consideration. Those documents contain the names of dozens of different conflicting organisations brought together for temporary purposes, such as defending themselves or fighting the railway companies. But they are nothing like as united as the railway industry is for the service of the community. I urge the Ministry to press on with the task of securing real co-ordination of the road and rail interests, together with canals and coastwise shipping, so that the moment the country is in danger the whole of our transport system will be ready to act in the national interest.
  The development of a transport war would be deplorable. The railway companies are now seeking to get the same freedom to carry on cut-throat competition that our road friends have been asking for. I say that that war is most deplorable. It can only be stopped by a higher authority, and it is the imperative duty of the Minister of Transport to intervene and to prevent it from deevloping.
  If it goes on it will mean that two of the most valuable documents in the transport service, the railway rate book and the railway classification, will be destroyed. Freight will be carried at any haphazard rate. There will be ruthless competition between the services, and that will not redound in the end to the public interest. Rates could be cut on packed consignments of finished goods—on manufactured articles like hosiery, boots, textiles and that type of freight, which is very valuable per ton. If rates are to be cut on those goods which can bear a high rate, and are rightly charged a high rate—it is the ad valorem principle—the principle of charging what the traffic can bear, which is the soundest principle ever discovered in connection with transport, will be destroyed. The railway rate book and the railway classification will be abandoned, and we shall go down into anarchy at the behest of the road motoring industry in conjunction with the ill-advised policy of the railway companies.
  In the result there may be lower rates upon those highly valuable goods which can well afford to bear the rates they are
  3036
  now charged, but inevitably there will be higher rates on other goods. I am certain that in spite of their apparently patriotic publicity the railway companies have that idea at the back of their minds. Higher rates will be imposed upon heavy goods, upon coal and goods of that type which can most conveniently be carried by rail and have generally to he put on rail. That will mean that every home in the land will have to pay more for coal—every manufacturer, every electricity authority, every gas undertaking. All the users of coal will have to pay more; and, of course, everyone uses coal, which is the very foundation of our industrial and economic life. All will have to pay more for their coal because other persons have been given unduly cheap rates on highly-valuable manufactured articles.
  Therefore, I plead that the Minister of Transport should do his utmost to prevent the destruction of the railway rates and take steps towards securing real coordination, taking full powers to lay down what rates shall be charged by any persons engaged in freight transport. There would be no insuperable difficulty in the compilation of a new national rate book for all forms of transport, simplified and codified in a much more sensible way than our rates are at present. Anyone could then have a copy and see quickly and easily on what terms he could move any freight, whether by road, rail, canal or coastal steamer, and naturally the rates would vary somewhat, according to the different forms of transport, some being slower than others. In that way the Minister would be keeping control of this matter and not letting it go down into destruction and anarchy. It would make it easy for people who want to tender for contracts or quote prices for goods to know exactly what they and their competitors would have to pay in connection with the business.
  I think that is what all business men want to know, but no one can provide the information unless we have the powerful intervention of the Ministry of Transport and the setting up of a rates committee with powers to fix rates in the way they have been fixed for years at the Railway Clearing House. There are any number of men who have been used to the work of rate-fixing whose services are not now in demand to the extent that they used to be. Fewer than 2,000 are employed at the Railway Clearing House now, and

  3037
  there used to be 3,000. Since the merging of the railway companies into the four groups there are plenty of such men doing other work. There is an abundance of such men in the country, highly skilled rates men, and he could also requisition skilled men from the great houses of industry who are continually concerned with traffic rates. There is no dearth of competent men who could help the Ministry to survey the whole of the rating structure and create a new structure without destroying the old; because I do not believe in destroying anything we have got until there is something else ready to take its place. That is a wrong principle in political, social or economic life. Let them create a new rate book without destroying the old one. In due course it will supersede the old one, and everything, so far as transport is concerned, will be on an understandable basis, with fair play for all the interests concerned.
  10.36 p.m.
  Mr. H. G. Williams: I listened with the very greatest interest to the hon. Member who has just spoken, taking apparently—I say it with great respect, because we all like him—a very impartial and independent view. He is, of course, well-known in the railway world, and rightly well known, as one who for many years has sustained, and rightly, the interests of that intelligent body of people, the railway clerks. Naturally, when he is thinking of them vis-a-vis their employers he is the enemy of the railway companies, but when he is thinking of the railway companies vis-a-vis the community he is a railway man.
  Mr. Walkden: I imagine that I am as impartial as the rest of the community.
  Mr. Williams: Not quite as impartial as he might have been. I believe he said that you always ought to charge according to the traffic conveyed. In my younger days, when I had a great deal more time to read, I read many works by eminent Socialists in which they denounced as incredible inequity the fixing of railway charges according to what the traffic would bear. They regarded that as the most anti-social thing that any capitalist could think of.
  Mr. Walkden: The hon. Member must not expect me to take responsibility for the Socialists of by-gone days.
  Mr. Williams: But the hon. Member cannot sit on that side of the House without getting a bit of the tar on his body. He was talking about the chaos that existed before 1921. If my memory serves me that was the year in which the railways brought about the great amalgamation, but that was not the end of chaos on the railways. I have not looked up the figures, but I think I am not far wrong in saying that in those days when the railways were reasonably prosperous they employed 150,000 more people than they do to-day.
  Mr. Walkden: The difference is due to the roads.
  Mr. Williams: They had a bit of chaos in those days.
  Mr. Walkden: Organisation gets you far better results than does chaos.
  Mr. Williams: The 150,000 railway workers who are missing might not hold quite the same idea.
  Mr. Walkden: The Act of 1921 required the railway companies to merge into four groups. In 1923, provision was made that any men who were retrenched were due for compensation, and in every case they were looked after.
  Mr. Williams: I am not doubting that, but there was a time when the railway companies reported the employment of 150,000 more people than they do now. Though it is true that ultimately the old soldiers do die, it is also true that the young soldiers coming forward used to look for employment on the railway companies but cannot do so to-day because the railways are so highly organised that they have ceased to be prosperous. I am inclined to say that there are some merits in chaos.
  Hon. Members: No.
  Mr. Speaker: Perhaps hon. Members would not interrupt quite so much and allow the hon. Member to make his speech.
  Mr. Williams: There was a time when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Gorton (Mr. Benn) was rather an advocate of chaos, but he has degenerated since. Another hon. Member wanted to know why the licences should be renewed. I am a little doubtful why we want them at all. I am sorry that that hon. Mem-

  3039
  ber has gone because he represents a part of the world where there are shipyards, linen factories and, even better, a whisky distillery. The whisky distillery has to have a licence but it can get its licence without difficulty. It is not a licence which is refused. I am one of those who think that it is not at all desirable that entrance to an industry should be denied to people. Surely the whole basis of opportunity in this life should be that if people desire to enter an occupation or profession they should be free to enter it. It is no use hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite denouncing Fascism. What is Fascism? It is merely the corporate State, or some long word like that, in which every industry is regulated, in which entrance to any industry is denied to those who are not already in it. Why is it that hon. Members opposite are always denouncing Fascism as a theory and ceaselessly advocating it in practice? [Interruption.] This desire that nobody shall take up a job unless he has a licence from the Government is Fascism.
  Mr. Poole: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that the placing of the same difficulties in the way of working-class children entering the legal and medical professions is also Fascism?
  Mr. Williams: When the hon. Member has studied these things longer, he will realise that any human being can enter the legal profession or the medical profession, subject to his establishing that he has the qualifications for doing the job, but neither the General Medical Council nor the Bar Council have the right to refuse a man because they do not like him, or because they think the profession is overcrowded.
  Mr. Poole: Or because he has not the finance to pay for his studies?
  Mr. Williams: A profession is one in which you serve the community, and the community want to know whether you have the requisite qualifications, because you act, not as a trader, but as an adviser. There we want a test, but anyone who can pass the test can get in. There is no closed door to the Bar or the medical profession, but the hon. Member would like to have a closed door to the industry of carrying goods on the roads. You can pass all the examinations in the
  3040
  world, but it does not give you an A licence. You can pass the requisite examinations for the medical profession or the Bar, and you are admitted. That is the difference. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman is a Fascist. He does not realise it, but he is. I am not; I stand for the principle of liberty.
  I am not unsympathetic to the railways. My only interest in road transport is a rather indirect one, and a personal interest. I am, in fact, a partner with a particular railway company. It is a roundabout interest, through a directorship of an individual company which is not concerned at all with the point I want to raise to-night. I am glad to say I am a senior partner; we do the work and others get the reward. There is not the slightest doubt that the preservation of the railway companies is vital to the economic interests of this country. We have all seen and received literature demanding a square deal for the railway companies, but up to now the railway companies have been a little chary of telling us what they mean by a square deal. We all want the railway companies to survive; we all want decent conditions of employment for those whom they employ; but I think they might be a little more precise. It is true that on this occasion none of those hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who happen to be connected with the railway companies on the directorial side are present, but the railway companies are represented on the operative side to a small extent—
  Mr. Walkden: That has nothing to do with this Motion. We are in no way subsidised by the railway companies.
  Mr. Williams: I did not say "subsidised"; I merely said that they are connected with the railway companies.
  Mr. Walkden: I am not connected with any railway company.
  Mr. Williams: There is nothing wrong in being associated with the railway industry. There is no one who has not some kind of direct or indirect vested interest. The hon. Gentleman has occupied a most distinguished position in connection with the railway companies. Anyone who was the chosen leader of 100,000 people ought to be very proud of himself, and there is not the slightest reason why, in addition to representing South Bristol, he should not educate the House from the great experience he acquired

  3041
  before he left those 100,000 people. I was merely pointing out that other distinguished gentlemen who represent their constituents and who happen to be connected with railway companies as directors are not present.
  Mr. Walkden: The hon. Member said that the railway companies were represented on this side of the House.
  Mr. Williams: Only the operatives. I said there were no representatives of the directorial side present.
  Mr. Walkden: The hon. Member himself has been present only during the last half-hour.
  Mr. Williams: The hon. Member is not accurate; he should have doubled the time. The railway interests in road transport are very large, not only in respect of freight transport but passenger transport as well. It is quite wrong to think there is the conflict between the two interests which people suggest. The majority of the well-known companies which one might select to deliver parcels are to-day owned by the railway companies, and a very large proportion of the buses running in this country belong to companies in which the railway companies have a substantial interest.
  On the other hand, there is a complaint which I hear ceaselessly from my constituents—because it happens that in my constituency are the headquarters of a number of long-distance coaching services, and their point of view is different from that of the bus companies rendering purely local service. In 1933, the then Minister of Transport made a limiting order in respect of long-distance coaching services, and this caused a great deal of embarrassment not merely to the proprietors of these services, but also to great numbers of other people who quite definitely desire to use road services for certain kinds of travel, particularly at holiday times. In 1934 there was a new order, of a somewhat unusual kind. At holiday times these coaching services were given permission to duplicate, or sometimes triplicate, their services. When those triplications were authorised, the curious condition was attached that, of the total number of services, two-thirds had to start from one terminus and one-third from another. That is to say, if a service from Croydon to Brighton was
  3042
  allowed at holiday time to have a larger number of buses running, all the additional buses had either to start from Croydon or from Brighton. If you bear in mind that people who have gone somewhere generally want to come back, you will see how stupid it was. It caused the greatest inconvenience not only to those people who make money out of the services, but to the public.
  If the railway companies have extra traffic to carry, they can put on as many extra carriages as they require. That is not a privilege which is shared by the road services, or by the public who want to travel on them. I have had three, it not four, deputations from transport organisations in my constituency about this, because they have peculiar difficulties. In certain respects they are in opposition to the largest transport monopoly in this country, the London Passenger Transport Board, and this introduces a new complication such as does not exist in parts of the country where the railway service is the main alternative.
  What happened? In October (I think it was) of this year certain passenger transport operators made an application as to services between London and the North of England and Scotland. They made their application jointly, I think it was, to the Traffic Commissioner for the Metropolitan area and the Traffic Commissioner for the Northern area—the one being the starting point and the other the terminal point. What did the Traffic Commissioners decide? They decided that the traffic regulations of 1934 were unduly hard, and that the plea of the applicants ought to be conceded; in other words, that a greater measure of elasticity should be granted in respect of those road transport services. The North Eastern Railway Company were the main, if not the only opponents. They grumbled, I understand, on the ground that the fares offered were too low, though I understand that since then they are offering services by rail at lower fares still. They did not succeed. The Commissioners, after hearing all the evidence, decided that the point of view put forward by these passenger road operators was a legitimate one under the Act—I suppose the Act of 1930, or perhaps the Act of 1934. An appeal was made to the Minister. I have great respect for the Minister and also for his Parliamentary Secretary. I think they are two of the most competent

  3043
  Ministers in the Government, and they do their job exceedingly well. But the Minister acceded to the appeal put forward by the railway company, and this very reasonable demand for greater elasticity was refused.
  In whose interest was this demand for greater elasticity in holiday time refused? It does not matter very much this next week-end in present weather conditions, but if you take the Easter traffic, the Whitsuntide traffic, or the August Bank Holiday traffic, it really is a grave injustice to deny the ordinary man the right to choose which way he will go from his home to the place he has selected for his holidays. Why should either the Minister, the Traffic Commissioner or a railway company deny to the ordinary citizen this right to select his own method of transportation? I do not know why the Minister has turned this down. I am sorry I am speaking late in the Debate, because the Parliamentary Secretary has already replied and there will not be an opportunity for a Ministerial explanation as to this decision, though no doubt the matter will be looked into, and possibly later, by means of an appropriate question, we may get some explanation as to this very extraordinary state of affairs.
  May I just summarise? A body owning passenger vehicles asked for sanction for greater elasticity in respect of passenger road transport between London and the North of England.
  Mr. Poole: You told us that.
  Mr. Williams: Well, it is not a bad thing for new Members to be told things twice over, and if there is tedious repetition Mr. Speaker has the remedy in his own hands. On the ground that the service is too cheap the railway company object. There is no question here of the rates of remuneration to the employés being unsatisfactory. The Traffic Commission, who study all these problems, accede to the request, and then, for reasons that one cannot understand, the whole proposal is upset by the Minister. I do hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will look into this point. I am not alone in saying that very considerable perturbation has been caused by this decision.
  The Motion moved by my hon. Friend, in addition to drawing attention to a number of other grievances, makes some reference to a road policy. I am one who
  3044
  thinks that the roads ought to be made to fit the traffic and not the traffic to fit the roads. On the other hand, it is only right that we should say frankly to the road interests that, having regard to the colossal burden which the nation is now carrying in respect of rearmament, and to the fact that the next Budget cannot be balanced, in the ordinary sense that there will be very heavy borrowing, it is obvious that in many directions there will have to be a scaling down of expenditure.
  Mr. Buchanan: Oh!
  Mr. Williams: It is obvious. I hope that that scaling down will not inflict hardship upon individuals. I do not think that we have yet reached that stage, but we are face to face with a financial problem of the greatest complexity and at the moment we ought not to undertake new commitments. That is the first step, and, although I am a supporter of the Motion in its general terms, it would be wrong to lead the road interests astray in thinking that the expenditure that was contemplated at the last election, when there was a declaration with regard to a five-year road plan, can be carried out to the full. I do not think it can. We are face to face with a financial problem of the profoundest difficulty, and we shall be rendering a good and not a bad service to those connected with the road industry, if we tell them frankly that they cannot expect to have that expensive scheme of road development to which we might have looked forward if the international situation had been a more pleasant one.
  Therefore, though I shall vote, if there is a Division, for the Motion because I like its terms as a whole, I do not think that anybody should vote for a Motion which continues certain phases about which there ought to be a qualification, without explaining frankly to the House what is the qualification. Everybody concerned with road transport has to realise that certain major improvements, which we should all like to see, almost inevitably have to be postponed. It is obvious that the maintenance of roads must be at the highest possible level because that is economy anyhow, but for any hon. or right hon. Member to think that we can carry a rearmament expenditure probably in the neighbourhood of £400,000,000 and still go ahead with everything else at the present time is a great delusion, and

  3045
  it is as well that I should tell my hon. Friends.
  Mr. Buchanan: The Government do not think so.
  Mr. Williams: They cannot expect this scale of expenditure to go on.
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  "That, in the opinion of this House, road transport is an essential feature of modern industrial life, that better roads for its accommodation are urgently necessary, and that the policy of His Majesty's Government should be directed to its encouragement and development in co-ordination with other forms of transport, so that it may take its proper place in the transport system of the country."

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  CUSTODY OF CHILDREN (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  As amended (in Standing Committee), considered; read the Third time, and passed.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

  SPAIN.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Hope.]
  11.1 p.m.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: I want to apologise to the Under-Secretary of State for keeping him on duty three nights running at a late hour. I have asked permission to raise on the Adjournment the statement which was made in another place some time ago by the Noble Lord who is Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, together with certain answers to questions regarding that statement which have been put to the Government in this House. The statement and the questions to which I wish to refer relate to the evacuation of foreign troops from Spain, the conditions upon which the Anglo-Italian Agreement was made, and the interpretation of those conditions given to this House by the Government, and especially by the Prime Minister in speeches which he has made. I submit that those issues
  3046
  have a very special importance at the present moment, in view of the forthcoming visit of the Prime Minister to Rome.
  I want to remind the House of some of the principal events connected with these questions, and the dates on which the events happened. Negotiations for the Anglo-Italian Agreement may be said, in one sense, to have begun in July, 1937, when the Prime Minister wrote his first famous letter to Signor Mussolini. They were rudely interrupted within a few days by Italian piracy in the Mediterranean, against which the Nyon Agreement was made. It was known by Christmas of last year that the Prime Minister was anxious to renew the negotiations, and we learned on 21st February of this year that the Prime Minister was so anxious to renew them that he was prepared to part with his Foreign Secretary in order to carry them on. It was on that date, 21st February, that he first explained the basic conditions upon which his negotiations, as we understood, were to be conducted. On 7th March—I believe I am correct, if not the Under-Secretary will put me right—the formal conversations between the two Governments began in Rome. On 16th April the Agreement and the Protocol were signed in Rome. On 2nd May, the Prime Minister brought the Agreement and the Protocol before this House, and on 26th July he made a speech in which he further explained the conditions upon which the Agreement was based.
  On 2nd November last, that is to say practically six months after the Agreement was first laid before the House, it was again the subject of debate here, when the Government asked for authority to bring it into force. At every stage the most important subject of debate in this House lay in the conditions upon which the negotiations had been begun, and the conditions upon which the Agreement was to come into force. It was because of these conditions—and the Prime Minister himself has stated so on more than one occasion—that the long interval of six months was allowed to elapse between the signing of the Agreement and the date on which it was brought into force. That long interval elapsed, although this was said to be a great act of appeasement, which was to help towards the peace of the world. However, Signor Mussolini made it plain later that he was extremely

  3047
  anxious that the Agreement should be brought into force without delay.
  What were the conditions which the Prime Minister laid down? Before I recite them, let me remind the House that it was over this subject of Italian intervention in Spain that the late Foreign Secretary resigned his office. In effect, he said to the House, on 21st February—I am not quoting him textually—" I am ready to negotiate with Signor Mussolini for a general treaty. I have offered to do so and I want to do so, but only when he carries out the four Treaties which I have already made with him, under which he has undertaken not to intervene in Spain." It was on that ground that the Foreign Secretary resigned. Faced by that firm attitude of one of his principal colleagues the Prime Minister on 21st of February was at great pains to explain to the House that he attached as much importance to the Italian question as the Foreign Secretary, and that by his method he was more likely than the Foreign Secretary to secure practical results. Let me remind the House what the Prime Minister actually said:
  "Once the conversations had started we should find good effects of the new atmosphere in many places, and notably in Spain, where the chief difficulty between us had lain for so long."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st February, 1938; col. 60, Vol. 332.]
  He went on to say that he told Count Grandi that a settlement of the Spanish question must be regarded as an essential feature of any agreement arrived at and that when the agreement was brought to Geneva it must not be possible for anyone to assert that Signor Mussolini had materially altered the situation in Spain by sending reinforcements to Franco or by failing to implement the arrangement contemplated by the formula. In order to prove his enthusiasm on this point and Signor Mussolini's good faith, he told the House that Signor Mussolini had accepted that morning the British formula for the evacuation of foreign troops from Spain. He confirmed these statements when he brought the question of the Agreement before the House on 2nd May. He recited the pledge which Signor Mussolini gave in the Agreement—a very good pledge indeed, in my opinion—that he would bring away his foreign troops under the Non-Intervention plan.
  3048
  He said that there had been suspicions frequently expressed that Italy when the time came would refuse to withdraw volunteers in accordance with the Non-Intervention Committee's Agreement. The Prime Minister scorned these fears and suspicions, and took the Italian pledges at their face value. He said that he was perfectly certain they would be carried out, and he said he had no doubt that time would show that he was right. On 26th July he again explained to the House that he still thought that the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Spain must be a condition of bringing the Treaty into force. Let me quote his actual words:
  "We shall do all we possibly can to facilitate the withdrawal of foreign volunteers from Spain in order that the country may cease to offer any threat to the peace of Europe."
  After a question by the Leader of the Opposition, he made it plain that in his view the withdrawal of volunteers was the minimum which could be carried out before a settlement of the Spanish question could be regarded as complete. Even as late as 2nd November, the Prime Minister used similar language when he told the House about the 10,000 troops which Signor Mussolini had withdrawn, and then he went on to say that he had three assurances from Signor Mussolini. The first was that the remaining forces of all categories would be withdrawn; secondly, that no further Italian troops would be sent, and, thirdly, the pledge about aircraft. He then went on to use these words, to which I attach great importance:
  "These three assurances, taken in conjunction with the actual withdrawal of this large body of men, in my judgment constitutes a substantial earnest of the good intentions of the Italian Government."
  I submit that this means, even on 2nd November, that the Prime Minister led the House to believe that the withdrawal of the 10,000 men was only the first step, that he still hoped that Italy would end her intervention altogether, that further steps would be taken within the measurable future, and that that was why he spoke of Signor Mussolini's good intentions with regard to Spain. I submit that it was by these pledges that the Prime Minister secured the approval of the House for his two Motions on 2nd May and 2nd November.

  3049
  Suddenly, on the very next day, after this House had voted that the Treaty should be brought into force, when it had committed the final act which it could not revoke, the Noble Lord the Foreign Secretary made a very different declaration in another place. He said:
  "Signor Mussolini has always made it plain, from the time of the first conversations between His Majesty's Government and the Italian Government, that, for reasons of his own, whether we approve of them or not, he was not prepared to see General Franco defeated."
  That was very different from the language used by the Prime Minister the day before. There was no mention there of Signor Mussolini's good intentions, no sign that he intended to end his intervention. It was a brutal declaration by the Noble Lord that Signor Mussolini was determined to see General Franco through to victory, and that our Government had known it from the time of the first conversations. Now, we had always believed, on these benches, that that was true. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton (Mr. Benn) had heard it as long ago as December last, in Rome. We had been forced to the conclusion that the Foreign Secretary resigned his office as a protest against the Aragon offensive which he knew was coming, and that he refused to negotiate whole that offensive was going on. The Prime Minister accepted that resignation. The Prime Minister believed that that offensive would be decisive, that the war would be over, and that Signor Mussolini could fulfil his pledges when General Franco had won. I submit that what the Foreign Secretary really told the House, on 3rd November was that we were right, and that that was, in fact, the case. I submit to the Under-Secretary that the Foreign Secretary's language was in reality perfectly plain. It meant that when the negotiations began between the two Governments, His Majesty's Government knew that Signor Mussolini insisted on General Franco's victory, that they accepted Signor Mussolini's condition, and made their Agreement on that basis.
  In consequence of questions about that declaration of the Foreign Secretary, there began a strange process of explanation from the Government Front Bench. We asked precisely what it was that Signor Mussolini had said in the first conversations to bring the Government to this
  3050
  view. The Under-Secretary replied that he had said nothing and that the Government were relying on public declarations. I then asked what were the dates of those declarations. I could find nothing in January, February or March that might fit into the case. We were told that it was not the conversations for the making of the Agreement that the Foreign Secretary means, but the conversations which came much later about bringing the Treaty into force. The original conversations were in March; the later conversations about bringing the Treaty into force were in June.
  Now, I submit that that was a very strange explanation. To begin with, the Foreign Secretary's words were quite plain. I have read them to the House. He spoke of the first conversations between the two Governments. He never mentioned anything about bringing the Treaty into force, and the Under-Secretary, in answer to our questions as late as 14th November, also spoke of the first conversations between the Governments without any qualifying phrase. I submit that, on the fact of the plain interpretation of the Foreign Secretary's words, it is the first conversations of March that must have been intended. Secondly, we asked what was the declaration by Signor Mussolini on which the Government relied. We were told that it was the speech he made at Genoa on 14th May. I have here a report from the "Times" of that speech. Signor Mussolini said on that occasion that he did not think that Franco-Italian conversations would succeed, because he said, on one extremely vital matter—the war in Spain:
  "We (that is, Italy and France) stand on opposite sides of the barricades. Their desire is for a victory for Barcelona. We, on the other hand, want Franco to win."
  I admit that that shows sympathy with General Franco, but it is not an adequate basis on which the Government should make up its mind upon a major matter of policy, affecting the great act of appeasement which they were trying to carry through. I have no desire to accuse the Under-Secretary or anybody else of lack of candour, but I find it extremely difficult to accept the explanations which have been put forward. They do not fit the words used by the Foreign Secretary. They do not fit the Under-Secretary's own answer of 14th Novem-

  3051
  ber. They do not fit the facts and above all, and most important, they do not explain why the Government did not come to the House on 14th May, as soon as they knew this situation, as soon as they knew that Signor Mussolini, far from intending to end his intervention was firmly resolved to win the Spanish war, and tell us frankly that that was so Let us accept every explanation that the Under-Secretary has given, everything the Government has said, that it was only on 14th May that they knew that Signor Mussolini had made this resolution. Still, it does not explain or justify in any way what the Prime Minister has told us in every speech he has made on this subject since. We were led to believe from his speeches that Italian intervention was going to end, that what Signor Mussolini said would make no material change in Spain, that he would send in no reinforcements but would evacuate his troops as soon as the Non-Intervention Committee had a plan and that he would not try to win the war.
  On 2nd November we were still adjured to believe in his good intentions with regard to Spain. On 3rd November, the Foreign Secretary told us the brutal truth. If the Prime Minister had told us the truth in those terms on 21st February, on 2nd May, on 26th July or even, I believe, on 2nd November, he would not have got his votes in this House. We say that the Foreign Secretary's revelations destroyed the moral basis of the Prime Minister's policy and the moral basis of the votes which this House had given and I now ask the Under-Secretary to tell us why we are wrong.
  11.19 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Butler): I must thank the hon. Member for his kind references to me, and to the fact that I have been brought here so frequently at this hour of the night. I can assure him that it is a pleasure to me to debate with him on any occasion. But I should have been more happy to do so had he adduced any new information or any new subject for the consideration of the House. Unfortunately, he has reiterated many of the old arguments and covered much of the ground which has already been covered by this House on frequent occasions, and I would point out to hon.
  3052
  Members that it is always this question of Spain that is pursued by hon. Members opposite in these Debates, which are raised on the Adjournment.
  Let us examine the hon. Member's speech. He went over the history of the bringing into force of the Anglo-Italian Agreement. He covered a great period of time and was, as far as I could make out, perfectly accurate in his statement of facts. The one thing which was, I think, inaccurate was the suggestion that if the Government had come to the House on certain dates and made statements of the type which the hon. Member described, then the House would have voted in a different way either on the Agreement when it was first signed or on the bringing of the Agreement into force. I am convinced that there is, has been, and always would have been a big majority for the bringing into force of the Italian Agreement, a Treaty on a new basis founded on the old friendship between our two peoples. I am convinced that that is strongly desired in this House and in the country. The hon. Member asked me several questions on the subject of my Noble Friend's speech. He quoted my Noble Friend as saying:
  "Signor Mussolini had always made it plain from the time of the conversations between His Majesty's Government and the Italian Government that for reasons known to us all, whether we approved them or not, he was not prepared to see General Franco defeated."
  He has questioned the replies given to him from these benches giving an explanation of the conversations to which my Noble Friend referred. These conversations related to the conversations in June about the bringing into force of the Agreement, and the particular statement to which my Noble Friend referred was the Genoa speech which had been made in May previously and which the hon. Member opposite has quoted. Signor Mussolini said on 14th May:
  "They (the French) desire the victory of Barcelona. We, on the other hand, desire and mean to see the victory of General Franco."
  Mr. Wedgwood Benn: Would the Under-Secretary tell us plainly whether from our Ambassador in Rome or from other official sources we had not received for months before the Genoa speech a perfectly plain statement of what Signor Mussolini intended, namely, the victory of General Franco?
  Mr. Butler: I am bound to apply myself to the question upon which the Adjournment has been allowed, and I cannot go off into the general question, but I am able to say that we are always kept fully informed by His Majesty's Ambassador in Rome on all matters, and it would be quite possible for me, had I the whole evening before me, to read out public statements of Signor Mussolini made chiefly in the latter part of 1937 on the subject of his aims in Spain. In fact, if everyone had read the Italian newspapers with the care and attention which many hon. and right hon. Members opposite do, as seen in the use they make of them in putting questions to me in the House, one would have been able to trace many statements by Signor Mussolini himself on his ultimate aims in Spain. I have answered what the right hon. Gentleman asked me, whether we were informed by our Ambassador, and I have told him that we are kept fully informed by him of all cognate matters of this sort. It is, however, impossible to lay before the House the documents contained in diplomatic correspondence.
  Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: Is it not the case that very many months ago, in fact, over a year ago, Count Grandi informed the Non-Intervention Committee that Italy would never retire from Spain until General Franco had been victorious?
  Mr. Butler: I do not see how all these interruptions alter the case. What has happened is that my Noble Friend made a statement in another place which appears to be borne out by many statements which have been adduced by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. My Noble Friend was making a statement of the aims which have been publicly stated by Signor Mussolini, and there are many cases which could be given of statements by Signor Mussolini of this sort. What we are debating to-night is that the Opposition are attempting to read into these statements, and in particular into the statement of my Noble Friend, something sinister which the Government have not told the House. That is not the case. Let me examine that insinuation. It is that by bringing the Agreement into force we were prepared to connive at the Italian Government ensuring the victory of General Franco. That is not so. Nor is it so that there was any sort of bargain such as that to which the hon. Gentleman
  3054
  opposite referred. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking on Monday last, made it perfectly plain that there has been no secret bargain whatever on this subject between Signor Mussolini and ourselves. When the hon. Member opposite makes out that there was some sort of secret understanding at the time of the Aragon offensive and that we here would have been happy to see the victory of General Franco because it would have brought the Spanish war to an end, I say that there is no truth whatever in this story.
  Our policy in the Spanish struggle has been consistent. It has been one of impartiality. We have pursued a policy of non-intervention in an imperfect world at a time of great difficulty. I know we have been attacked, but I would ask the House to appreciate my sincerity in stating that our policy has been one of complete impartiality in the Spanish war.
  The hon. Member made another insinuation, that by the statement of my Noble Friend we had in fact connived at breaches of non-intervention. I have stated frequently that we did not approve of the breaches of the Non-Intervention Agreement that had taken place. We have stated that from this Box, and I am ready to state it again. There is nothing in the statement of my Noble Friend that can be taken to mean that the Government are conniving at any breaches that have taken place.
  Take another point raised by the hon. Member. Knowing the Italian view, he says, we should not have brought the Italian Agreement into force. He read from the speech made by the Prime Minister on 2nd November, in which my right hon. Friend related the reasons which convinced him that it was wise to bring that agreement into force. He summed it up in the words which were used by the hon. Member, that the three assurances given us by Signor Mussolini, the actual withdrawal of a large body of Italians together with a phenomenon which occurred at that time, namely, the decision of the Spanish Government to withdraw their foreign nationals, all contributed to the elimination of the Spanish question as a menace to peace. The House debated that matter at great length at that time, and decided by a large majority that these were sufficient reasons for bringing the Italian Agreement into force.
  Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: Did they constitute a settlement in Spain?
  Mr. Butler: If the hon. and gallant Member will refer to my right hon. Friend's speech, he will see that in his view, in the view of the Government, and in the view of the House, they did, in fact, constitute a settlement in Spain such as my right hon. Friend had in view.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: The Under-Secretary has left out the vital words
  "They constitute a substantial earnest of the good intentions of the Italian Government."
  And yet the Foreign Secretary has told us that it is the intention of the Italian Government that Franco should win the war.
  Mr. Butler: I have been interrupted five times in a short debate in which I am trying to deal with a point of which I have not had much notice. The hon. Member has given us what has really been a history of the Spanish struggle and read out the words in question, and I did not repeat them owing to the short time I have at my disposal. I have the exact words as stated by the Prime Minister, and they are to be found in column 209 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of that date. He stated that the withdrawal of the foreign nationals
  "formed a considerable contribution to the elimination of the Spanish question as a menace to peace."
  3056
  That was regarded by the Government as a substantial reason for bringing the Italian Agreement into force, and I think it is really otiose at this late hour that the hon. Member should come here and try to make out that we had sinister reasons for not coming to the House in May to explain something about a bargain which had not in fact taken place. He is trying to confuse the issues. We have voted in this House on definite issues. The may be differences of opinion as to whether what has been done constitutes a settlement or not. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister regarded it as constituting a settlement, and we regard the bringing into force of the Italian Agreement as the best in the interests of world peace and best in the interests of the British Empire as a whole, and in view of that I trust that the House will disregard the attempt of the hon. Member to make out that there has been any surreptitious bargain, that there is anything extraordinary in what he has pointed out, and that my Noble Friend was other than perfectly clear in stating facts that were well known to hon. Members and the House in general.
  Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-nine minutes after Eleven o'Clock.

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