Sitting of 22 March 1938

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Private Bills [Lords] (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with),
Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bills, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely,

Lee Conservancy Bill [Lords].

Rickmansworth and Uxbridge Valley Water Bill [Lords].

Bills to be read a Second time.
Private Bills [Lords] (Petition for additional Provision) (Standing Orders not complied with),
Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the Petition for additional Provision in the following Bill, originating in the Lords, the Standing Orders have not been complied with, namely,
Salford Corporation Bill [Lords].
Report referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.
Blackpool Improvement Bill (by Order),
As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.
Caledonian Power Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Monday next.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  HIGH COMMISSION TERRITORIES.
  Mr. Mathersasked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he accepts, for the territories under his con-
  968
  trol, the policy against colour-bar legislation already adopted by the Government for the Colonies?
  The Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (Mr. Malcolm MacDonald): Yes, Sir, the policy obtaining as regards such legislation in the High Commission Territories in South Africa is the same as that applicable to the Colonial Empire generally.
  Mr. Mathers: Will this also apply in, for example, Southern Rhodesia?
  Mr. MacDonald: I had not understood that Southern Rhodesia would come under this category of territories under my control, but in Southern Rhodesia also there is no colour-bar legislation.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    COUNCIL FOR ART AND INDUSTRY.
    Mr. Bateyasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he proposes to publish the report of the committee of the Council for Art and Industry which he set up to examine the design and cost of the furniture and equipment of a working-class house?
    The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Oliver Stanley): I am sending the hon. Member a copy of this report, which has already been published.
    Miss Wardasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will give an assurance that no money from public funds will be granted to the British Council for Art and Industry in connection with the forthcoming exhibition at New York until there has been a reorganisation of the council which was responsible for the British pavilion in Paris?
    Mr. Stanley: All expenditure from public funds in connection with the exhibition at New York will be borne on the Vote of the Department of Overseas Trade. No arrangement is being made for the Council for Art and Industry to take part in the display in the United Kingdom Government pavilion.
    Miss Ward: Why is it that when one puts down a question to the Department of Overseas Trade about the Paris Exhibition, it is transferred to the Board of Trade; and when one puts it down to the Board of Trade, it is transferred to the Department of Overseas Trade? Would anyone really like to take responsibility?
    Mr. Stanley: I cannot say whether anyone would like to take responsibility. Unfortunately, the responsibility is mine, and the answer is the one I have given.

    HORSES (GERMAN PURCHASES).
    Mr. Crawford Greeneasked the President of the Board of Trade the number of horses bought in the United Kingdom and Ireland by the German Government or shipped to Germany during the last three years, and what proportion of those horses were stallions?
    Mr. Stanley: As the answer involves a number of figures I will, with my hon.

    Exports consigned to Germany.

    1935.

    1936.

    1937.

    From the United Kingdom—

    Number.

    Number.

    Number.

    Exports (United Kingdom produce)—Total

    17

    118

    13

    Of which

    Stallions

    —

    5

    1

    Re-exports—Total

    39

    7

    24

    Of which

    Stallions

    11

    2

    2

    From Eire—

    Domestic exports—Total

    —

    847

    (a)

    Of which

    Stallions

    —

    —

    (a)

    (a) Comparable figures for 1937 are not yet available from the published trade returns, but 734 horses were shipped from ports in Eire to Hamburg during that year.

    COMBINATIONS AND MONOPOLIES.
    Mr. Dayasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will consider appointing a Departmental committee for the purpose of inquiring into the tendency towards the effect of combinations and monopolies?
    Mr. Stanley: I have no evidence to suggest that a general inquiry into this question is desirable.
    Mr. Day: Does the Minister agree that the rationalisation of industry is a mysterious process?
    Mr. Stanley: The hon. Member will recall that the Prime Minister has just promised an inquiry into certain aspects of the position in the coal industry.

    GREAT BRITAIN AND UNITED STATES (TRADE AGREEMENT NEGOTIATIONS).
    Mr. Hepworthasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the arrangements which are being made to enable the members of all industries concerned in
    Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Greene: I am afraid I did not hear a word of that answer.
    Mr. Stanley: I am afraid that is not my fault. I was making as much noise as I could.
    Following is the answer:
    I am not in a position to state the number of horses bought in the United Kingdom and Eire by the German Government, but the following table shows particulars of horses (including ponies) exported from these two countries to Germany during the last three years.
    the United States of America to be heard in connection with the tariff changes which will be made as a result of the Anglo-American trade agreement; and whether facilities on similar lines can be granted in this country to the British industries affected?
    Mr. Stanley: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part, it is not the practice of His Majesty's Government in trade negotiations to communicate to trade interests a list of the commodities in respect of which concessions to this country are being sought, but I am always ready to consider representations from trade organisations who think that their interests may be affected. In connection with the negotiations with the United States, I have received useful information from a large number of such organisations, and I have asked certain other industries for up-to-date information, with a view to obtaining as complete knowledge as possible of the circumstances and views of every industry which, so far as I can foresee, is likely to be affected in any way.
    Mr. Louis Smith: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that the industrialists in this country will be put in such a safe position vis-à-vis his Department as the American industrialists?
    Mr. Stanley: Yes, Sir. I have taken steps to assure myself that any industry which is likely to be affected will have the opportunity of giving me the fullest possible information and laying its views before me.

  MERCANTILE MARINE.

    MERCHANT SHIPPING ACTS, 1894 AND 1906.
    Mr. Shinwellasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he intends to consider the introduction of legislation amending the Merchant Shipping Acts of 1894 and 1906, with a view to adapting these Acts to modern requirements?
    Mr. Stanley: These Acts give the Board of Trade power to make regulations and issue instructions by which modern conditions are, in general, satisfactorily provided for. Some amending Acts have been passed since 1906, but I am not aware of any amendments urgently necessary at present.
    Mr. Shinwell: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the seamen's organisation have been pressing recently for amending legislation, and will he not take their representations into consideration?
    Mr. Stanley: I was not aware of that. Our general procedure is by way of regulations and instructions issued under the legislation, and not by way of amending legislation.

    SEAMEN'S WAGES (WITHHOLDING).
    Mr. Shinwellasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that Section 28, Subsection (8), of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906, gives power to a shipowner to refuse release of wages to a seaman who has missed or failed to join his ship at a foreign port; that this creates hardship for seamen; and whether he will take any action in the matter?
    Mr. Stanley: I am aware of the provision to which the hon. Member refers. As at present advised, I see no reason to propose any amendment of the law in this respect.
    Mr. Shinwell: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that frequently a seaman who has been on a voyage of three or four months' duration, or even longer, has his wages refused by the shipowner on account of a minor misdemeanour, and surely in this instance the Board of Trade will use what influence it has to induce the shipowner to pay?
    Mr. Stanley: Using our influence is rather a different thing from introducing amending legislation. I am looking into the particular case which the hon. Member sent to me. He and the House will realise, of course, that there is always a right of action if a seaman thinks that his wages have been wrongfully withheld.
    Mr. Shinwell: But does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that action of that kind is not easily accessible to a poor merchant seaman, and cannot the right hon. Gentleman see that the present system places extreme power in the hands of the shipowner against the seaman?
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: Does not a seaman break his contract if he does not join his ship?
    Mr. Stanley: That, of course, is the basis upon which the claim to withhold wages is made.

    CREWS' QUARTERS (INSPECTION).
    Sir Walter Smilesasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the report of the Hull and Goole Port sanitary authority, any steps are being taken to make inspection of the crews' quarters a part of the regular routine of British steamers?
    Mr. Stanley: The Board of Trade issued revised instructions in regard to crews' quarters in September, 1937. Provision was then made for frequent and regular inspections of the quarters by masters and for the entry of the results of such inspections in the official log at least once a week. I am sending my hon. and gallant Friend a copy of the new instructions.
    Sir W. Smiles: Are the crews' quarters supposed to be cleaned out during the time they are on duty or in their spare time?
    Mr. Stanley: That is rather a different question. Perhaps the hon. Member will put it down.
    Viscountess Astor: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the conditions in which a great many of our merchant seamen go to sea are perfectly scandalous, and will he do all he can to bring about an improvement?
    Mr. Stanley: I am also mindful that the secretary of the Seamen's Union, in referring to the new regulations, spoke of them as making a revolution in the accommodation for crews, and expressed great satisfaction.
    Mr. Shinwell: Will the right hon. Gentleman understand that that does not indicate that the seamen's organisation are satisfied with present conditions?
    Viscountess Astor: And does it not mean that some of those regulations— [Interruption].

    INSANITARY VESSELS, CARDIFF.
    Sir W. Smilesasked the Minister of Health how many British steamers inspected by the Cardiff port sanitary authority during the past year were found to be vermin-ridden?
    The Minister of Health (Sir Kingsley Wood): I am informed by the Port Health Authority that the number was 114.
    Sir W. Smiles: Has my right hon. Friend any evidence that conditions on foreign steamers are very much superior to those on British steamers?
    Sir K. Wood: I will inquire.
    Viscountess Astor: If my right hon. Friend finds that they are working under these conditions, will he take immediate steps to put it right?
    Sir K. Wood: Yes, so far as is in my power.
    Mr. Shinwell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that since this matter was raised 18 months ago in this House, no improvement has been effected? Will he not use his good offices with the sanitary authorities to effect an immediate improvement?
    Sir K. Wood: Yes, Sir. As a matter of fact, in all these cases notice has been served on the owners requiring them to take certain steps. Advice was given as to the most effective measures to adopt, and verminous bedding was destroyed.
    Mr. Garro Jones: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that the same inspection as was carried out at Cardiff will be carried out at other ports, where these inspections are not carried out?

  BRITISH ARMY.

    RECRUITS.
    Major-General Sir Alfred Knoxasked the Secretary of State for War what was the number of applicants for enlistment in the Army in the month of February, and how many men were accepted?
    The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Hore-Belisha): 4,428 and 2,766 respectivly.
    Mr. Kennedy: Are there any statistics to show how many of these recruits were unemployed at the date of enlistment?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: No, Sir. That was not the question I was asked, but the major number of recruits are employed at the time when they make application to join the Army.
    Mr. J. J. Davidson: Were any of these recruits accepted under the temporary scheme for building up the physique of recruits by a course of better feeding?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: These were just ordinary recruits.
    Mr. H. G. Williams: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many of them were present at the meeting in Trafalgar Square the other Sunday which was asking us to go to war?

    UNIFORMS.
    Sir A. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for War what would be the cost of providing the Army with a full dress similar to that provided for the Guards?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: To provide all ranks of the Regular Army with full dress uniforms similar to those worn by the Guards would cost about £3,500,000 initially and some £900,000 annually. To provide for the Territorial Army as well would more than double these figures.
    Sir A. Knox: In view of the great impetus which this would give to recruiting, does not the right hon. Gentleman think it would be worth while doing it for the Regular Army?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: If I had another £3,500,000 to spend I think that in the first instance I should use it to improve conditions in the Service.
    Mr. Batey: Is the Minister aware that in the Debate last week the Parliamentary Secretary stated that the new Army dress was not, perhaps, so attractive? Could he put a specimen of it in the Library so that we could see it?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: I shall be only too glad to show one to the hon. Member if he will come to the War Office.
    Sir A. Knox: Although the new Army dress is very good from the practical point of view, surely it is not attractive as a walking-out dress?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: I was not disputing the question of attractiveness, but saying that, in the first instance, I thought it advisable to spend these large sums of money upon the soldiers. If one had unlimited sums of money one could use them for other purposes.
    Mr. Dayasked the Secretary of State for War what is the annual cost of providing ceremonial uniform worn by the Household Cavalry and the Brigade of Guards?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: At the present time, when two battalions of Foot Guards are serving abroad, the extra annual cost of providing full dress uniform for the Household Cavalry and the Brigade of Guards is approximately £43,000.
    Mr. Day: At what intervals are these uniforms renewed?

    ESTABLISHMENT.
    Sir A. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for War by what number the Army was under establishment on 31st March, 1937; by what number it is estimated it will be short of establishment at the end of the present month; and whether, in view of the expected transfer to the Reserve of 32,000 men in the next financial year, he is of opinion that the additional inducements offered will fill up the cadres?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: On 31st March, 1937, the Regular Army was deficient of 13,425 officers and men. On 1st April, 1937, there was an increase of 10,500 in the
    976
    establishment and it is estimated that the shortage at the end of this month will be about 23,200.
    Sir A. Knox: In view of the fact that 32,000 men are due to leave for the Reserve in the coming financial year, does not the right hon. Gentleman consider it will be very difficult to fill up the cadres, as there will be a shortage of 54,000?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: I do not take that view. If my hon. and gallant Friend will put down this question in a year's time we shall know which is the correct answer.

    SURPLUS HORSES (SALES).
    Mr. C. Greeneasked the Secretary of State for War who were the purchasers of the horses of British cavalry regiments lately mechanised, such as the Queen's Bays, or to which country the horses were shipped?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: AH sales by private treaty were to individuals vouched for by officers, but no record is kept of the purchasers at public auctions.

    ANTI-AIRCRAFT UNITS.
    Sir Nicholas Grattan-Doyleasked the Secretary of State for War whether any grant is made by his Department to assist commanding officers who are authorised to raise new anti-aircraft companies of the Territorial Army?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: The grant for antiaircraft units has been re-calculated, and I have announced very substantial increases over the existing rates. Special grants are also to be made to county associations towards meeting the cost of equipping messes and recreation rooms of new units.
    Mr. Davidsonasked the Secretary of State for War the total number of complete anti-aircraft units now established in Scotland up to date?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: Five, Sir.
    Mr. Davidson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the last time I asked this question there were only five anti-aircraft units in Scotland; is it his policy to increase the number in Scotland, in view of the very great importance of Scotland as a supply base during any war?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: The fact that the number five is not altered should not lead to any sinister conclusion. His Majesty's Government are conscious of their responsibilities towards Scotland.
    Mr. Mathers: May I ask where the units are distributed?

    DISCHARGED SOLDIER (FLAT FEET).
    Mr. C. S. Taylorasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Mr. L. G. Taylor, of the 1st Boys Battery, Royal Artillery, was physically fit when he entered the Army in September, 1936, and was discharged solely because he developed flat feet; and whether, in view of medical evidence that his disability could be cured and that it was caused by wearing too large a size in boots during his period of service, he will investigate this case further with a view to re-admitting this man into the Army?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: Mr. Taylor's flat feet were, I am advised, developed from constitutional causes. My hon. Friend will understand that it would only be possible for the Army to avail itself of Mr. Taylor's services if he came up to the required standard.
    Mr. Taylor: In view of the fact that there is medical evidence which shows that these feet were developed from service in the Army, will my right hon. Friend have this man examined again to see whether he is now fit and can be reinstated?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: Mr. Taylor's feet have received a great deal of attention. My hon. Friends asks me whether I would re-admit him to the Army. I can only say that that would depend upon the future condition of Mr. Taylor's feet.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: Could I send the right hon. Gentleman the name of a most excellent bootmaker of the name of Taylor, with whom I have no connection?

    CIVILIAN WORKMEN (WAGES).
    Mr. Whiteleyasked the Secretary of State for War whether the civilians, working as labourers side by side with soldiers in the various camps, are to receive any increase in their wages equivalent to that recently given to the soldiers?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: The remuneration of civilian workmen of the War Department is regulated in accordance with the Fair Wages Resolution of the House. There are relatively very few Army establishments where labourers have not benefited in recent months by improvements in wages.

  CAVALRY REGIMENTS (GERMANY AND RUSSIA).
  Mr. C. Greeneasked the Secretary of State for War the number of German and Russian mounted cavalry regiments and the strength thereof?
  Mr. Hore-Belisha: Neither the German Ministry of Defence nor the Russian Government publish information on this subject.

  SCOTLAND.

    PRISON SERVICE.
    Mr. Mathersasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether there are any officers in the prison service instructing in or supervising the cooking of food or baking of bread who, before joining the prison service, served no apprenticeship in cooking or baking; whether there are any officers qualified by apprenticeship in these trades whose services are not being utilised as instructors or supervisors in these trades; and, if so, will he have the matter remedied?
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Elliot): Of the five officers employed to instruct prisoners in baking and cooking one had previous experience in the Navy, one in the Army and one in the Prisons Service, but did not complete a trade apprenticeship. The other two served a complete apprenticeship. As regards the remaining parts of the question, there are some officers who have served as trade apprentices and are not employed as instructors. The qualifications of such officers are always considered when appointments as instructors are made but it would not be in the interests of the service to make any change in the existing appointments.

    CROFTERS' DWELLINGS (RATING ASSESSMENT).
    Mr. Mathersasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has any statement to make regarding the decision

    979
    of the Lands Valuation Appeal Court on Monday, 14th March, in the case of the Inverness County Assessor versus Sam Cameron and another regarding the assessment of crofters' houses for rating purposes?
    Mr. Malcolm MacMillanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what the position now is regarding the proposal to regard crofters' dwellings as separate subjects for assessment?
    Mr. Elliot: The hon. Members will have seen in the Press that appeals have recently been decided by the Lands Valuation Appeal Court in certain cases of proposed entry in the current valuation roll for Inverness. While it is not for me to interpret the decision which has just been pronounced, I understand the position to be that the court have in general confirmed the view that such entries should not be made and that effect will be given to this decision in the current valuation roll.
    Mr. Mathers: Will this apply to other authorities as well, and, in view of the fact that rates will not come in to the local authorities, will the Treasury be involved in further grants to them?
    Mr. Elliot: I could not say as to the second part of the question, but as to the first part, naturally this decision will rule in general.

    EMPIRE EXHIBITION, GLASGOW (RAILINGS).
    Mr. Davidsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is taking action to remove the danger caused by spiked railings surrounding the Glasgow Empire Exhibition before the opening date?
    Mr. Elliot: I am informed by the Exhibition authorities that a wooden barricade has been erected flush with the railings, which removes all possible danger from this cause.
    Mr. Davidson: Is the Minister not aware that there is a big area of spiked railings still standing around the Empire Exhibition—I can assure him that his information is entirely incorrect—and will he not give this matter further consideration in view of the danger and the impression that might be given to foreign visitors?
    Mr. Elliot: I understand that the barricade does cover all the spiked railings, but I will look further into the point.

    WATER SUPPLIES.
    Mr. Malcolm MacMillanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware of the lack of any safe and adequate water supply at Sand Street, Coulregrein, near Stornoway; and what steps he proposes to take in the near future in the interest of the health and convenience of the people of the district?
    Mr. Elliot: I am aware that complaints have been made about the water supply at present used by the inhabitants of Sand Street, Coulregrein, and the Department of Health has from time to time made representations to the county council on the matter. I am informed that the county council have decided that the formation of a special water supply district and the provision of a water supply is not feasible owing to the very low rateable value of the area.
    Mr. MacMillan: What does the county council intend to do in the matter, in the interests of public health?
    Mr. Elliot: That is a question that ought to be addressed to the county council.
    Mr. MacMillan: Will the right hon. Gentleman address it to the county council?
    Mr. MacMillanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware that the water supply at Smerclett, South Uist, has for several years been contaminated, inadequate, and inconvenient, and has been condemned by the medical officer; and what plans are at present under way for providing a proper and ample water supply?
    Mr. Elliot: I am informed that the water supply at Smerclett has been reported to be unsatisfactory. A scheme was drawn up by the Inverness County Council in 1934 for providing a gravitation water supply for this township but it was found that the burden on the ratepayers would be prohibitive and the scheme was abandoned. The question of a supply for the township will come under review by the engineers appointed by the county council who are presently carrying out a survey of water supply needs in the islands within the county.
    Mr. Levy: Does the Minister not think it is about time that there was a standard of purity for water supply?
    Mr. Davidson: Will not the right hon. Gentleman and his Department force the hand of these local people in the interests of what to him and to others must be a menace to public health?
    Mr. Elliot: We must await the report of the engineers.

    OLD AGE PENSIONERS (PUBLIC ASSISTANCE).
    Mr. Kennedyasked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of old age pensioners in Scotland who are now in receipt of other forms of public assistance or relief?
    Mr. Elliot: The number of old age pensioners in Scotland in receipt of poor relief at 15th November, 1937, the latest date for which figures are available, was 40,241.

    TEACHERS, LANARKSHIRE.
    Mr. Barrasked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of Lanark-shire teachers, including teachers of special subjects, not yet appointed to permanent posts, indicating whether they are available for non-transferred or transferred schools and the number of years they have severally been unemployed?
    Mr. Elliot: As the answer contains a number of figures I propose, with the hon. Member's permission, to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Barr: Can the Minister give me the total?
    Mr. Elliot: The total number of teachers on the waiting list who have not been appointed to permanent posts is 367.
    Mr. Barr: Is it not rather serious that some hundreds of teachers should be waiting two, three or four years?
    Mr. Elliot: That is a matter of opinion.
    Following is the answer:
    I am informed that the number of teachers on the waiting list of the Lanark-shire Education Authority who have not yet been appointed to permanent posts in Lanarkshire is 367. Of these, 147 are available for transferred schools and 58
    982
    for both types of school. Of the total, 66 are in the employment of other education authorities and a very considerable number of the remainder are engaged from time to time in temporary teaching work. The years in which the training of the teachers referred to was completed, and the corresponding numbers of teachers were: 1932, 3; 1933, 6; 1934, 64; 1935, 77; 1936, 107; 1937, 110.

    SCOTTISH ADMINISTRATION.
    Mr. Davidsonasked the Prime Minister whether the Government intend to introduce legislation in the near future establishing new and improved methods of dealing with Scottish business?
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Chamberlain): The report of the Departmental Committee on Scottish Administration presided over by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pollock (Sir J. Gilmour) is at present under consideration by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.
    Mr. Davidson: Can the Prime Minister promise any early statement with regard to the findings of the Government on this report?
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir.
    Mr. Davidson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the great desire of the people of Scotland for self-government?

    UNEMPLOYMENT (MAYBOLE, AYRSHIRE).
    Mr. James Brownasked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the increase in unemployment in the town of Maybole, Ayrshire, he will take steps to have the town and district scheduled as a distressed area?
    The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Brown): The number on the register of the Maybole Employment Exchange in February was lower than at the corresponding date of any previous year since 1930. May-bole is at present included in the schedule of areas to which a preference is given, other things being equal, in the allocation of Government contracts, but not in the schedule of areas covered by the industrial transference scheme. If the hon. Member has the latter in mind, I will examine the position and will communicate with him in due course.

    HOLIDAYS (STAGGERING).
    Mr. Mathers (for Mr. Robert Gibson)asked the Secretary of State for Scotland on what dates the summer holidays fall in the various industrial districts in Scotland; and whether he will enter into negotiation with the local authorities, the chambers of commerce, and the trades unions concerned with the object of introducing legislation to spread out these holiday periods and, in particular, of including the month of June in that period, and so relieving the congestion at holiday resorts and widening the scope for enterprise in the districts in Scotland suitable for tourist traffic?
    Mr. Elliot: The holidays fixed by town councils in Scotland vary from place to place, and are usually arranged to suit local convenience and avoid overlapping. Any question of legislation on this subject must await consideration of the Report of the Committee on Holidays with Pay.
    Mr. Mathers: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered bringing the different authorities into conference with each other under his auspices?
    Mr. Elliot: I would like to get the report of the Committee first, but I will keep that suggestion in mind.

    TRANSPORT FACILITIES, GOUROCK-DUNOON.
    Mr. Mathers (for Mr. R. Gibson)asked the Minister of Transport whether, in consultation with the local authorities concerned, he will consider taking steps to establish a road-transport ferry between Gourock and Dunoon or the Holy Loch for the purpose of giving ready access to the Western Highlands from the south and of stimulating tourist traffic in that part of Scotland?
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Captain Austin Hudson): There is at present a regular steamship service between Glasgow, Gourock, Dunoon and Rothesay which provides facilities, when required, for the transport of motor vehicles. Grants from the Road Fund are only made in respect of free ferries maintained by highway authorities and forming links between classified roads. In such cases, my right hon. Friend is prepared to consider proposals from the responsible highway authorities.

  COAL INDUSTRY.

    WORKMEN'S INSPECTIONS.
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Secretary for Mines how many inspections were made by persons appointed by the workmen, in exercise of their powers under Section 16 of the Coal Mines Act, 1911; and how many were made in the North Staffordshire area?
    The Secretary for Mines (Captain Crookshank): During 1937, 4,686 inspections at 495 mines were made under Section 16 of the Coal Mines Act, 1911. In North Staffordshire one such inspection was made at each of the three mines.
    Mr. Smith: Is the Minister satisfied with the number of inspections made, and if not, has he taken any steps recently to stimulate greater interest in the question of inspection?
    Captain Crookshank: I do not think it is for me to stimulate these inspections. There are other people who ought to do that.
    Mr. Gallacher: Is the Minister not aware that it is in the Act that workmen's inspections are permissive, and that in some districts they have a workmen's inspection every month; and will he not try to secure that there shall be a workmen's inspection every month?
    Mr. James Griffiths: Does the Minister say that it is not part of his duty to stimulate inspections which are provided for under the Act?
    Captain Crookshank: This is permissive.
    Mr. Griffiths: But it is in the Act.

    SAFETY TRAINING CENTRES.
    Mr. E. Smithasked the Secretary for Mines the areas where instruction in safety principles in junior classes for boys employed in the coal-mining industry is being given; and whether it is intended to encourage the instruction throughout the mining areas?
    Captain Crookshank: There are 299 training centres scattered throughout the coalfields. I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a list of the centres, with the number of classes at each. As regards

    985
    the second part of the question, the continuance and, where necessary, the extension of the already widespread facilities for instruction throughout the coalfield, receives my constant encouragement.
    Following is the statement:

    Safety Classes for Boys employed at Coal Mines. Session 1937–38.

    County.

    Number of

    Training Centres.

    Classes.

    Scotland.

    Ayr

    6

    7

    Dumbarton

    1

    1

    East Lothian

    1

    3

    Fife

    12

    24

    Lanark

    17

    30

    Midlothian

    3

    3

    Stirling

    3

    5

    West Lothian

    8

    10

    England and Wales.

    Durham

    53

    67

    Northumberland

    15

    21

    York

    53

    53

    Derby and Leicester

    25

    27

    Nottingham

    26

    44

    Lancaster

    9

    20

    Stafford

    4

    9

    Denbigh

    1

    3

    Brecon

    2

    2

    Glamorgan

    31

    45

    Monmouth

    8

    21

    Carmarthen

    9

    9

    Kent

    6

    6

    Salop

    4

    4

    Warwick

    2

    2

    ADVENTURE COLLIERY, DURHAM COUNTY.
    Mr. Ritsonasked the Secretary for Mines whether, having regard to the fact that Section 76 of the Coal Mines Act, 1911, and Statutory Regulations and Orders, 106 A.B., 107, 108, 109 A, 110, 111, and 112 are not carried out at Adventure colliery, in the county of Durham, he will institute proceedings in order that the regulations in relation to health can be carried out?
    Captain Crookshank: I have already sent the papers to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

    NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE.
    Mr. E. Smithasked the Secretary for Mines the number of face conveyers used in the North Staffordshire area in 1928 and the number in 1936 and 1937,
    986
    and also the percentage of output conveyed in 1928, 1936, and 1937, respectively?
    Captain Crookshank: As the reply involves a number of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the information:

    North Staffordshire.

    Year.

    Number of

    Percentage of Total Output of Coal Conveyed.

    Coal-face Conveyors.

    Gate Conveyors.

    1928

    120

    15

    22

    1936

    266

    108

    89

    1937

    261

    111

    90

    Mr. Dunnasked the Secretary for Mines when it is proposed to publish the report of the inquiry into the causes of the explosion at the Holditch or Brymbo Colliery, North Staffordshire, on 2nd July, 1937, in which 30 men lost their lives?
    Captain Crookshank: I have just received the typescript of this report, and it will be published as soon as the printing can be completed.

    PITHEAD BATHS.
    Mr. J. Griffithsasked the Secretary for Mines the number of pithead baths completed during 1937 and the number expected to be completed during the present year; whether the programme of construction outlined by the Miners' Welfare Committee is proceeding as planned; and whether he is satisfied that the income derived from the present levy is sufficient to carry the plan through, having regard to the increased cost of building?
    Captain Crookshank: Twenty-one new pithead baths and five extensions were completed in 1937; 64 new baths and six extensions are expected to be completed during the present year. The Miners' Welfare Committee's construction programme for 1937 and subsequent years is based on an estimated expenditure of £625,000 a year on baths. The building contracts placed during 1937 slightly exceeded that amount, and the preparations already made will, I am assured, result in contracts of about the same value being placed this year. The additional accom-

    987
    modation provided by expenditure of this amount will, unfortunately, be less than 18 months or so ago, owing to increased cost of building. Apart from that consideration, however, some fresh financial provision will be necessary if the programme of accelerated construction is to be continued after this year. This problem is receiving consideration.
    Mr. George Griffiths: Can the Minister say what proportion of voluntary finance is included in the £625,000, and how much comes from the ½d. per ton?
    Mr. J. Griffiths: If it is necessary, will the Minister consider the advisability of raising the levy?
    Mr. A. Bevan: Is it not a fact that, at the present rate of construction, it will be many years before all collieries are equipped with pit-head baths; and did

    Year 1937.

    —

    Estimated Total Amount of Wages. (Cash.)

    Estimated Total Value of Allowances in kind.

    Average Weekly Earnings per person.

    Cash.

    Value of Allowances in kind.

    £

    £

    £

    s.

    d.

    s.

    d.

    Great Britain

    …

    110,024,000

    4,081,000

    2

    15

    5

    2

    1

    Yorkshire*

    …

    20,661,000

    541,000

    2

    17

    8

    1

    6

    Durham

    …

    13,990,000

    1,742,000

    2

    8

    0

    6

    0

    Northumberland

    …

    5,493,000

    632,000

    2

    8

    4

    5

    7

    * Information is not available for South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire separately.

    EXPLOSIONS PREVENTION.
    Mr. J. Griffithsasked the Secretary for Mines whether he has further considered the report of the investigation by his officers into the comparative freedom of the French coalfields from explosions; and whether, as a result of such further consideration, he has issued any new regulations to raise the level of safety in British mines to that of the French mines?
    Captain Crookshank: The only information I can usefully add to that contained in the answer I gave to the hon. Member on 2nd November last, is that discussion of the draft General Regulations, referred to in the first part of that answer, has been actively proceeding with representative organisations of the industry. A
    not the last report of the Welfare Committee deplore the fact that they had not sufficient funds to provide these baths?
    Captain Crookshank: Perhaps the hon. Member will study the fairly full reply that I have just given, and will bear in mind the fact that the last words of it were:
    "This problem is receiving consideration."

    WAGES.
    Mr. T. Smithasked the Secretary for Mines the total amount paid in wages in the mining industry during 1937; the average weekly wage; and the separate figures for South and West Yorkshire, and Durham and Northumberland?
    Captain Crookshank: As the reply involves a number of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the information:
    revised draft, which it is hoped may secure general assent, will be issued shortly.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS REFRESHMENT DEPARTMENT.
  Lieut.-Colonel Heneageasked the hon. Member for Dulwich, as Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, whether accommodation can be found to increase the number of private secretaries of Members allowed to have hot meals, which is at present limited to 12?
  Mr. Bracewell Smith: I regret that it is not possible to agree to my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion. Any extension of the present privilege could only be made by restricting still further the limited accommodation now available for Members and their guests.

  AIRCRAFT FACTORY, SPEKE, LIVERPOOL.
  Mr. Kirbyasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how far progress has been made with the building of the Government's air factory at Speke, Liverpool; when the building will be completed and fully equipped; how many persons are now employed in its construction and equipment on the spot; and how many are employed there on aircraft production?
  The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Earl Winterton): The buildings at the factory referred to are now practically complete. About 300 persons are employed on its construction and equipment, and it is hoped that it will be fully equipped in a few months' time. The answer to the last part of the question is at present about 800 persons.

  TRANSATLANTIC AIR SERVICE (CONFERENCE, DUBLIN).
  Sir N. Grattan-Doyleasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air who will represent Great Britain at the forthcoming conference in Dublin dealing with the proposed Transatlantic air service?
  The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead): The senior official representatives at the forthcoming conference referred to will be: for the Air Ministry, Mr. C. J. Galpin (Director of Overseas Civil Aviation), who will be accompanied by departmental assistants; and for the Post Office, Lieut.-Colonel Crawley (Inspector of Wireless Telegraphy).

  WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION.
  Mr. W. Joseph Stewartasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, seeing that the report of the Departmental Committee set up to consider certain questions relating to the Workmen's Compensation Act has now been issued, it is the intention of the Government to implement this report and embody its recommendations in legislation at an early date?
  Mr. David Adamsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps the Government propose to take with respect to the report, recently issued, of the Departmental Committee
  990
  on certain questions arising under the Workmen's Compensation Acts?
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Samuel Hoare): I am afraid I cannot add anything to the previous replies on this subject on the 21st and 24th of last month.
  Mr. Stewart: Are we to understand that the right hon. Gentleman is just going to receive this report and do nothing to implement its findings?
  Sir S. Hoare: No, Sir; the hon. Member must not draw that conclusion at all.
  Mr. T. Williams: When are we likely to have some reply on this question?
  Mr. J. Griffiths: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that, if legislation on workmen's compensation is brought in to deal merely with what is recommended in this report, it will not be satisfactory to the workmen?
  Sir S. Hoare: I am aware of that fact, but I cannot add anything to the answers I have given.
  Mr. Williams: Can I have a reply to my question as to when we are likely to have a reply from the right hon. Gentleman on this matter?
  Sir S. Hoare: I cannot add anything to the answer; I cannot say at the moment

  AUSTRIA (REFUGEES).
  Mr. Arthur Hendersonasked the Home Secretary the grounds on which a number of Austrian refugees arriving at Folkestone on 15th March were refused permission to land by the immigration authorities?
  Sir S. Hoare: Of six persons with Austrian passports who arrived at Folkestone on 15th March, three were admitted at once, and a fourth has been allowed to enter this country after inquiries. Of the other two, one was a man who had been refused permission in November last to establish himself in this country, and the other, who did not claim to be a refugee, had no sufficient evidence that he would be in a position to maintain himself even for a short stay. As regards the general policy involved, I will, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, and the leave of the House, make a statement at the end of Questions.
  Captain Cazaletasked the Home Secretary whether he would be prepared to consider the possibility of offering to certain Austrian citizens who have resided in this country for some time the opportunity of becoming British citizens immediately, even if they had not fulfilled all the necessary domiciliary requirements normally required in such cases?
  Sir S. Hoare: Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will await the statement that I propose to make at the end of Questions.
  At the end of Questions:
  Sir S. Hoare: The question of the policy to be adopted as regards the admission of Austrians to this country has received the careful and sympathetic consideration of the Government. On the one hand, there is, I am sure, a general desire to maintain the traditional policy of this country of offering asylum to persons who for political, racial or religious reasons have had to leave their own country. On the other hand, there are obvious objections to any policy of indiscriminate admission. Such a policy would not only create difficulties from the police point of view but would have grave economic results in aggravating the unemployment problem, the housing problem and other social problems.
  While, therefore, it is proposed to pursue the policy of offering asylum as far as is practicable, and steps are under consideration to enable this policy to be carried out effectively, it is essential to avoid creating an impression that the door is open to immigrants of all kinds. If such an impression were created would-be immigrants would present themselves at the ports in such large numbers that it would be impossible to admit them all, great difficulties would be experienced by the immigration officers in deciding who could properly be admitted, and unnecessary hardship would be inflicted on those who had made a fruitless journey across the Continent. I am anxious that admission shall not be refused to suitable applicants, including persons whose work in the world of science or the arts or business and industry may be advantageous to this country. It must, however, be remembered that even in the professions the danger of overcrowding cannot be overlooked, whilst in the sphere of business and industry the social and economic difficulties must be taken into account.
  992
  As regards Austrians who are already in this country, as I have already stated, any applications for naturalisation from those who have the qualifications prescribed by statute will be most sympathetically considered. I do not, however, think that the special circumstances created by the present situation afford any grounds for an alternation of the law. In any case, no alteration of the Nationality Law could be made without consultation with the Dominions. The provisions of the law relating to British Nationality operate not only in the United Kingdom, but in the Colonies and Dominions, and it is the settled policy that no substantial changes shall be made in that law except in agreement with the self-governing Dominions.
  As regards Austrians who have been admitted here for limited periods, sympathetic consideration will be given to applications for extensions of their stay. Each case must, of course, be considered on its merits, but the general considerations governing the policy of admissions to this country will also be applicable to the question of extensions of stay.
  Mr. A. Henderson: May I ask the Prime Minister whether, having regard to what the Home Secretary has just said, it is not quite obvious that the question of the admission of Austrian refugees to this country only forms part of the larger problem of refugees, and whether he will take steps to bring the matter before the League of Nations?
  Mr. Bevan: Is the House to understand the Home Secretary to mean that, if there are professional persons who have means of their own or professional qualifications, they will have special facilities granted to them to land in this country, and will he see to it that, if there are poor people who have had to leave because of their political opinions, or loss of liberty or persecution in Austria or Germany, they will be allowed to land in this country and be given asylum?
  Sir S. Hoare: The object of my statement was to show that we shall give as sympathetic consideration as we can to all individual cases. As to whether a particular individual may or may not practise his profession in this country that is largely a question for the professional organisations, but I hope that the House will see that I have said that I intend to give the most sympathetic consideration that I can to every case.
  Captain Cazalet: Are we to understand that, in the case of all Austrians who are here now on temporary permits, their permits will be extended, or rather that they will have individual sympathetic treatment before their permits are withdrawn, so that they may discover whether it will be safe for them to return to Austria or not?
  Sir S. Hoare: My hon. and gallant Friend may not have noted the last paragraph of my answer, which says:
  "As regards Austrians who have been admitted here for limited periods, sympathetic consideration will be given to applications for extensions of their stay. Each case must. … be considered on its merits."
  Mr. Paling: Is it not the fact that the money test does play a large part as to whether they are allowed to come in or not, and in future will poor people be allowed to come in on their merits without any regard to whether they have money or not?
  Sir S. Hoare: My answer covers all cases. We are prepared to give sympathetic consideration to all individual cases within the limits of my answer.
  Mr. Mander: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether any special machinery is to be set up in connection with what he has said to help and guide those professional and other people as to their chances of coming in, or have they to write direct to the Home Office, as I think they would be very glad to know the course to pursue?
  Sir S. Hoare: I think that it will be necessary to have some further organisation. I am informed, however, that discussions will be needed between the Foreign Office and other authorities, and pending these discussions I cannot add to the answer that I have given.
  Mr. Edmund Harvey: Will the Government communicate with the Dominions as to the possible provision of special facilities in these cases?
  Sir S. Hoare: I will take into account what the hon. Member has said.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: Since, in fact, greater hardship must fall, broadly speaking, upon the poor people, since there are multitudes of poor people who will suffer innocently, and since the problems which
  994
  the Government have to face have to be faced by all other Governments in dealing with these problems, is it not: essential to create an effective machinery through the League of Nations, backed by adequate funds, for dealing with the refugee problem?
  Sir S. Hoare: The hon. Member raises a much wider issue. I think that that is a question which ought to be addressed to the Foreign Secretary.
  Miss Wilkinson: Would the right hon. Gentleman be willing, with regard to persons who are themselves without means, perhaps because their banking accounts have been sequestrated, apart from those who normally have no money, to accept the guarantees of British people who are prepared to offer them a home—that has been the difficulty with German refugees—and would his Department relax their rules on that matter?
  Sir S. Hoare: That is a factor which should be taken into account, and I will look into it.
  Mr. A. Henderson: Will the Prime Minister agree to consider the larger question of the position of large numbers of refugees who will not be able to enter this country but who will have to be taken care of by somebody; and will he bring the matter before the machinery of the League of Nations?
  The Prime Minister: It is quite obvious that I cannot be expected to deal with a question of that kind without notice.
  Mr. Davidson: With regard to the re-application for permits for Austrians now resident in this country, will the Home Secretary take care to see that no change in their conditions in regard to their employers results because of the present international position.
  Mr. Cocks: Has the Home Secretary ascertained from the Dominions whether they will be willing to accept any of these refugees fleeing from wholesale murder in Vienna?
  Mr. Manderasked the Prime Minister whether it is proposed that this country shall recognise the annexation of Austria by Germany; and whether Austrian State gold in the banks of this country will be retained here?
  Mr. Sorensenasked the Prime Minister whether His Majesty's Government recognise or propose to recognise the absorption of Austria in the German Reich?
  The Prime Minister: My Noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs made a statement on this subject on 16th March, to which I have nothing to add. As regards the second part of the question by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, East (Mr. Mander), any gold or other property of Austrian institutions held in the banks of this country falls to be dealt with in accordance with any lawful instructions from its owners, and His Majesty's Government have no power to take any special steps in regard thereto.
  Mr. Mander: Will the Government take care that it is not sent over to Germany, but rather retained as a guarantee for the various loans in which this country has taken part?
  The Prime Minister: I have already said that we have no power.
  Mr. Sorensen: Can we expect on Thursday some pronouncement on the subject of my question No. 48?
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir; I do not think I shall have anything to add.
  Mr. Manderasked the Prime Minister whether the pledges given to the British Government by the Austrian Government with regard to the treatment of Jews, Socialists, and Catholics, and the maintenance of the separate identity of the Austrian armies have been kept?
  May I say that the word "Austrian" in the second line is, of course, a mistake for "German."
  Mr. H. G. Williams: Have you recognised it?
  The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Butler): In answering the question, I have taken it to be "Austrian." The hon. Member will realise that the Austrian Government ceased to be an independent authority very shortly after the despatch of the instructions to His Majesty's Minister in Vienna.
  Mr. Mander: Will the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that every practicable step is being taken, in association with the German Government in this matter?
  Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir.
  Mr. Davidson: With the usual success?

  HOUSING LOANS (PUBLIC UTILITY SOCIETIES).
  Mr. J. Griffithsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether any form of relief is available or is contemplated for those public utility societies which contracted loans in connection with the Housing Acts, 1919, repayable over periods of 30 or 50 years at the abnormally high rate of interest then prevailing, on the basis of explicit Government assurance of equitable treatment and consideration?
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Simon): I am unable to agree with the implication in the question that these societies have not received equitable treatment and consideration. The State already grants assistance to these societies on a not ungenerous scale. The subsidy originally provided towards loan charges was increased by the Housing Act of 1923, and now stands in most cases at 40 per cent. for the remainder of the period of the loan, and specially favourable arrangements are in force for dealing with the sale of subsidised houses. The good work done by the societies is gladly recognised, but I do not feel that at the present time the State should be expected to grant them further assistance.
  Mr. Bellenger: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the rate of interest paid by many of these societies on their loans, which were raised at a time when interest rates were exceedingly high, is now very much in excess of the normal rate?
  Sir J. Simon: That may be so, but, looking at the matter as a whole, I do not think it is possible to say more than I have said in the very carefully considered answer which I have given.

  AIRCRAFT WORKS, BROOKLANDS (DISPUTE).
  Mr. Buchananasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the serious stoppage of work now taking place at the aircraft works of Messrs. Hawkers, Brooklands; that this firm is engaged on important Government contracts; and whether his Department have taken any steps to bring the parties together?
  Mr. E. Brown: According to my information this stoppage of work is not recognised by the trade unions concerned. I understand that efforts are being made by the unions to secure a resumption of work. When work is resumed the agreed machinery in the industry for the settlement of disputes can operate.
  Commander Marsden: Is the Minister's Department taking any steps to endeavour to bring together the employers and the workmen?
  Mr. Brown: We are in touch both with the employers' and the employés' associations.

  IMPORTED MILK PRODUCTS.
  Mr. Butcherasked the Minister of Agriculture (1) whether he is aware that milk products of foreign origin are shipped in bulk in this country and repacked in such a way that the ultimate purchaser is unable to distinguish them from British produce; and will he take steps to prevent this practice in the interests of British producers?
  (2) whether he is satisfied that the provisions of the Merchandise Marks Act, 1926, are observed in the case of milk products shipped to this country by foreign merchants?
  The Minister of Pensions (Mr. Ramsbotham): I have been asked to reply. Imported milk products are subject to the provisions of Section 1 of the Merchandise Marks Act, 1926, which prohibits the sale of imported goods in this country under a British name or trade mark unless it is accompanied by an indication of origin of the goods. Moreover, the Butter Marking Order made under this Act requires imported butter, when sold in this country, to bear an indication of its origin. So far as my right hon. Friend is aware, these requirements are being generally observed, but if my hon. Friend has any information which suggests that they are not, and will communicate it to my right hon. Friend, he will be glad to look into the matter.

  AIR-RAID PRECAUTIONS.
  Lieut.-Colonel Wickhamasked the Home Secretary what progress is being made in organising air-raid precautions in the county of Somerset?
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): The county council, which has been in close touch with the Air-Raid Precautions Department since its inception, has carried out a considerable volume of preliminary work. A county air-raid precautions officer was appointed over a year ago. The county has now been divided into eight areas for the organisation of its air-raid precautions work, and approval has been given to the appointment of an organiser for each of these areas. It may be expected that the county will now make rapid progress with its arrangements.

  MEASLES (COMPULSORY NOTIFICATION).
  Mr. Dayasked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that, during the 10 years from 1927 to 1936, there was an annual average of 527 deaths from measles in London alone; and, with a view to preventing any infectious disease becoming widespread, will he utilise his powers under the Public Health Act, 1936, to make regulations rendering all cases of measles compulsorily notifiable on a uniform basis?
  Sir K. Wood: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. With regard to the last part, this matter has recently been under consideration by the London County Council, and I have informed them that I should be prepared to entertain an application for the making of regulations in regard to the notification of measles in London.
  Mr. Day: Does the Minister agree that notification should be made compulsory, in order to prevent the spread of this disease?

  OLD AGE PENSIONERS (PUBLIC ASSISTANCE).
  Mr. Kennedyasked the Minister of Health the number of old age pensioners in England and Wales who, at the latest date for which figures are available, are in receipt of other forms of public assistance or relief?
  Sir K. Wood: On 1st January, 1938, the latest date for which figures are available, the number was 230,652.

  TRAVEL AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION.
  Mr. De la Bèreasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether, in view of the valuable services rendered by the Travel and Industrial Development Association of Great Britain and Ireland, he will consider increasing the grant made to them to enable them to extend the important work on which they are engaged?
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Captain Euan Wallace): I have been asked to reply. The Travel and Industrial Development Association of Great Britain and Ireland has made a request for an increased grant-in-aid, and the matter is now under consideration.

  PASSPORTS.
  Mr. De la Bèreasked the Prime Minister whether he will now consider bringing in regulations as regards stamping on passports, alongside the signature, the print of the right thumb of the holder of the passport for the purpose of identification when travelling abroad?
  Mr. Butler: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to him on 1st
  December last, to which I have nothing to add.
  Mr. De la Bère: Is my hon. Friend not aware that the world is a little less complicated than it was then?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. Attlee: Can the Prime Minister say for what purpose the Eleven o'Clock Rule is being suspended to-night?
The Prime Minister: It is desired to take the first three Orders on the Paper. I am moving the suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule merely as a precaution.
Motion made, and Question put,
"That this day, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 14, the Report of the Army Supplementary Estimate, 1937, and the Report of the Navy Supplementary Estimate, 1937, may be considered, and Business other than the Business of Supply, may be taken before Eleven of the Clock, and that the Proceedings on the Reports of Supply of 10th and 17th March may be taken after Eleven of the Clock and be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]
The House divided: Ayes, 272; Noes, 126.

Division No. 146.]

AYES.

[3.39 p.m.

Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)

Burton, Col. H. W.

Donner, P. W.

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

Butcher, H. W.

Dower, Major A. V. G.

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

Butler, R. A.

Duggan, H. J.

Albery, Sir Irving

Caine, G. R. Hall-

Duncan, J. A. L.

Allen, Col. J. Sandeman (B'knhead)

Campbell, Sir E. T.

Dunglass, Lord

Allen, Lt.-Col. Sir W. J. (Armagh)

Cartland, J. R. H.

Fastwood, J. F.

Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Ldn.)

Cary, R. A.

Eckersley, P. T.

Anderson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Sc'h Univ's)

Castlereagh, Viscount

Edmondson, Major Sir J.

Anstruther-Gray, W. J.

Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)

Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

Apsley, Lord

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. N. (Edgb't'n)

Ellis, Sir G.

Aske, Sir R. W.

Channon, H.

Elmley, Viscount

Assheton, R.

Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)

Emery, J. F.

Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)

Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)

Emmott, C. E. G. C.

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

Christie, J. A.

Emrys-Evans, P. V.

Baillie, Sir A. W. M.

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Erskine-Hill, A. G.

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

Clarke, Colonel R. S. (E. Grinstead)

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

Balniel, Lord

Clarry, Sir Reginald

Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)

Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

Clydesdale, Marquess of

Evans, E. (Univ. of Wales)

Beauchamp, Sir B. C.

Cobb, Captain E. C. (Preston)

Everard, W. L.

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

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

Fleming, E. L.

Beechman, N. A.

Conant, Captain R. J. E.

Fox, Sir G. W. G.

Bennett, Sir E. N.

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

Furness, S. N.

Birchall, Sir J. D.

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

George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)

Blair, Sir R.

Cox, H. B. Trevor

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

Boothby, R. J. G.

Craven-Ellis, W.

Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.

Bossom, A. C.

Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)

Boulton, W. W.

Cross, R. H.

Grant-Ferris, R.

Brass, Sir W.

Crowder, J. F. E.

Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

Culverwell, C. T.

Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)

Brocklebank. Sir Edmund

Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)

Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.

Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)

Davison, Sir W. H.

Gridley, Sir A. B.

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

Dawson, Sir P.

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

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

De la Bère, R.

Grigg, Sir E. W. M.

Bull, B. B.

Denman, Hon. R. D.

Grimston, R. V.

Bullock, Capt. M.

Denville, Alfred

Guest, Hon. I. (Brecon and Radnor)

Burgin, Rt. Hon. E. L.

Doland, G. F.

Gunston, Capt. Sir D. W.

Hacking, Rt. Hon. D. H.

Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.

Sanderson, Sir F. B.

Hambro, A. V.

Mander, G. le M.

Sandys, E. D.

Hannah, I. C.

Manningham-Bullar, Sir M.

Savery, Sir Servington

Harbord, A.

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

Seely, Sir H. M.

Harm, Sir P. A.

Marsden, Commander A.

Shepperson, Sir E. W.

Harrington, Marquess of

Maxwell, Hon. S. A.

Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.

Harvey, T. E. (Eng. Univ's.)

Mayhew, Lt.-Col, J.

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

Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.

Meller, Sir R. J. (Mitcham)

Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.

Hely-Hutchinson, M. R.

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

Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)

Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.

Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)

Smith, L. W. (Hallam)

Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-

Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)

Hepworth, J.

Mitchell, H. (Brentford and Chiswick)

Smithers, Sir W.

Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)

Moore, Lieut.-Colonel Sir T. C. R.

Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

Higgs, W. F.

Moreing, A. C.

Southby, Commander Sir A. R. J.

Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)

Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)

Spears, Brigadier-General E. L.

Hoare, Rt. Hon. Sir S.

Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)

Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)

Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

Munro, P.

Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'ld)

Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon. L.

Nall, Sir J.

Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)

Horsbrugh, Florence

Nicholson, G. (Farnham)

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

Howitt, Dr. A. B.

Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

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

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

O'Connor, Sir Terence J.

Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

Hunter, T.

O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh

Sutcliffe, H.

Hurd, Sir P. A.

Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. W. G. A.

Tasker, Sir R. I.

Jarvis, Sir J. J.

Orr-Ewing, I. L.

Tate, Mavis C.

Jones, Sir H. Haydn (Merioneth)

Owen, Major G.

Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

Jones, L. (Swansea W.)

Palmer, G. E. H.

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

Keeling, E. H.

Patrick, C. M.

Touche, G. C.

Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)

Peake, O.

Train, Sir J.

Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)

Perkins, W. R. D.

Tree, A. R. L. F.

Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)

Peters, Dr. S. J.

Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.

Keyes, Admiral of the Fleet Sir R.

Petherick, M.

Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.

Knox, Major-General Sir A. W. F.

Pickthorn, K. W. M.

Turton, R. H.

Lamb, Sir J. Q.

Pilkington, R.

Wakefield, W. W.

Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.

Plugge, Capt. L. F.

Walker-Smith, Sir J.

Law, Sir A. J. (High Peak)

Procter, Major H. A.

Wallace, Capt. Rt. Hon. Euan

Leech, Sir J. W.

Radford, E. A.

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

Leigh, Sir J.

Raikes, H. V. A. M.

Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)

Leighton, Major B. E. P.

Ramsbotham, H.

Warrender, Sir V.

Levy, T.

Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

Watt, Major G. S. Harvie

Lewis, O.

Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

Wells, S. R.

Liddall, W. S.

Reid, Sir D. D. (Down)

Whiteley, Major J. P. (Buckingham)

Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.

Reid, J. S. C. (Hillhead)

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

Lloyd, G. W.

Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

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

Locker-Lampson, Comdr. O. S.

Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

Loftus, P. C.

Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)

Wise, A. R.

Lyons, A. M.

Ropner, Colonel L.

Withers, Sir J. J.

Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

Ross, Major Sir R. D. (Londonderry)

Womersley, Sir W. J.

MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.

Rothschild, J. A. de

Wood, Hon. C. I. C.

M'Connell, Sir J.

Rowlands, G.

Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley

MacDonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)

Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.

Wragg, H.

Macdonald, Capt. T. (Isle of Wight)

Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.

Wright, Wing-commander J. A. C.

McKie, J. H.

Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)

Young, A. S. L. (Partick)

Maclay, Hon. J. P.

Salmon, Sir I.

Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.

Salt, E. W.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

Magnay, T.

Samuel, M. R. A.

Captain Waterhouse and

Maitland, A.

Sandeman, Sir N. S.

Captain Dugdale.

NOES.

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

Dobbie, W.

Jagger, J.

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

Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)

Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

Ammon, C. G.

Ede, J. C.

Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)

Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

John, W.

Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

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

Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.

Banfield, J. W.

Gallacher, W.

Jones, A. C. (Shipley)

Barnes, A. J.

Gardner, B. W.

Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

Barr, J.

Garro Jones, G. M.

Kelly, W. T.

Batey, J.

Graham, D. M. (Hamilton)

Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

Bellenger, F. J.

Green, W. H. (Deptford)

Kirby, B. V.

Benn, Rt. Hon. W. W.

Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.

Kirkwood, D.

Benson G.

Grenfell, D. R.

Lathan, G.

Bevan, A.

Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

Lawson, J. J.

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

Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

Leach, W.

Buchanan, G.

Groves, T. E.

Leonard, W.

Burke, W. A.

Guest, Dr. L. H. (Islington, N.)

Leslie, J. R.

Charleton, H. C.

Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)

Logan, D. G.

Chater, D.

Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

Lunn, W.

Cluse, W. S.

Hardie, Agnes

Macdonald, G. (Ince)

Cocks, F. S.

Hayday, A.

McEntee, V. La T.

Cove, W G.

Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

McGhee, H. G.

Daggar, G.

Henderson, J. (Ardwick)

MacLaren, A.

Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)

Henderson, T. (Tradeston)

Maclean, N.

Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

Hills, A. (Pontofract)

MacMillan, M. (Western Isles)

Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

Hollins, A.

Mainwaring, W. H.

Day, H.

Hopkin, D.

Marshall, F.

1002

1003

Maxton, J.

Ritson, J.

Tinker, J. J.

Messer, F.

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

Tomlinson, G.

Milner, Major J.

Salter, Dr. A. (Bermondsey)

Viant, S. P.

Montague, F.

Sexton, T. M.

Walkden, A. G.

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

Shinwell, E.

Walker, J.

Muff, G.

Silverman, S. S.

Watkins, F. C.

Naylor, T. E.

Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

Watson, W. McL.

Noel-Baker, P. J.

Smith, E. (Stoke)

Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. J. C.

Oliver, G. H.

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

Westwood, J.

Paling, W.

Smith, T. (Normanton)

Whiteley, W. (Blaydon)

Parker, J.

Sorensen, R. W.

Wilkinson, Ellen

Parkinson, J. A.

Stephen, C.

Williams, T. (Don Valley)

Pearson, A.

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

Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.

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

Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

Price, M. P.

Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

Quibell, D. J. K.

Thorne, W.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

Richards, R. (Wrexham)

Thurtle, E.

Mr. Mathers and Mr. Adamson.

BILL PRESENTED.
  MARRIAGE (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "to amend the law relating to the constitution of marriage in Scotland," presented by Mr. Elliot; supported by the Lord Advocate, the Solicitor-General for Scotland, and Mr. Wedderburn; to be read a Second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 108.]

AUSTRIAN REFUGEES IMMIGRATION AND NATURALISATION.
Colonel Wedgwood: I beg to move,
"That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Aliens Acts and Naturalisation Acts so as to give the Secretary of State for the Home Department powers with regard to the immigration into Great Britain and Northern Ireland of refugees from Austria for a period of six months from the date of the passing of this Act, and the granting of British nationality to such immigrants."
The Bill that I am introducing is not materially affected by the answers which have been given this afternoon by the Home Secretary. The Bill is drafted to do two things, first, to amend the Aliens Acts so as to give to the right hon. Gentleman powers to relax restrictions for six months for the entry of refugees of the late Austrian Republic into this country and, secondly, to give British citizenship to such approved Austrian refugees as may be deprived of citizenship in the German Reich.
I must at the outset explain to the sufferers in Austria that the First Reading given to any Bill in this House means little or nothing. They must not have their hopes raised, only to be dashed. In the second place, I must explain to the House that the urgent and vital feature of the Bill is to give to the Home Secretary powers to allow destitute refugees into this country. While I hope to be able to convince the Government and the
1004
House of the propriety of some temporary amendment of the Naturalisation Act to meet this special case, that is not vital, I do hope we may get a unanimous vote for an asylum, a proposal which commits no one to any particular conditions in this revived city of refuge and sanctuary.
While we sit here in peace, men and women like ourselves in Austria are suffering beyond human conception. The professional is thrown out of work, and must starve. The working man is thrown out of his job, deprived of all relief, and may be sent to a concentration camp. The shopkeeper is robbed of his life's work, of his shop, and of his goods. Private cars are taken so that the victims may not even be able to escape; there is no redress, only outlawry for a large section of the population, that part of the population which incurs the hatred of the governing Nazi class. House visitations go on daily. The furniture is ripped up to discover money, the jewellery is taken off the fingers of the women; everything is taken. While Nazi lorries carry away the goods from the shops, unauthorised bands of S. S. men do not the same by every house, by every Jewish house at least. The conditions are made even worse by the public humiliation and degradation that is inflicted on perfectly innocent and loyal Austrians. In the "Daily Telegraph" I read the other day something which the correspondent had actually seen. A Jewish woman, well dressed, was taken out of an hotel, forced to go on all fours and scrub with her hands and tongue, "Heil Schuschnigg" off the pavement, while the S. S. troops looked on jeering and the crowd took no steps except to join in this brutality.
We cannot conceive of these things. They have been growing worse in Germany gradually, but they have come suddenly in Austria. It is as if we were

1005
dealing with a different race of beings. We meet these people at luncheon, suave, well dressed, well-mannered gentlemen, and it is a horrible revelation to discover that underneath the skin you have this bestial sadism delighting in cruelty for its own sake, apparently, affecting not one abnormal beast here and there, but affecting a whole people. There is not a man in this House or in this country who could do a thing like this, or look on at it without being physically sick. There is not a man who could bring himself to hit a passive, defenceless man or woman; and yet here this is going on, a return to the state of the world 400 years ago during the wars of the religion; and it is going on while I speak here.
The victims of this terror, which is really worse than the terror of the French Revolution because it has come more suddenly, are trying to escape. They are deprived of their passports at the frontier and of their money so that they cannot escape from starvation. They are trying to escape, before 150,000 people are starved to death. We must not keep them out of this country. For our honour's sake we dare not keep them out. We cannot be less generous than the French. It would be a crime against the Holy Ghost, for which there is no forgiveness. I am thanking of ex-Burgomaster Seidtz, whom I last met at lunch at the British Embassy in Austria, and of ex-Chancellor Renner, who has often had tea on the Terrace of this House. These men are not Jews; they are people who have been ruling Austria in the past, and are therefore regarded as enemies by the German Reich. I am thinking of the pacifist lady whom the Secretary of State for Scotland managed to smuggle in his car out of Hungary into Vienna. All these people are undergoing these horrors now. I am thinking of a little Cook's tourist guide. I asked him where I could see some of the buildings which were damaged in 1934, and he said that there was nothing to see but "You must take it there is plenty we will not forget." It is these people who are being persecuted to-day, innocent people, people for whom we created Austria under the Peace Treaty and who have been depending on us all along. These people are now like rats in a rat pit, and if any of the rats manage to jump high enough to get out of the pit we are throwing them back.
It is not a question of any man eminent in any walk of life. All these people are
1006
being stripped of everything they have. They cannot produce £50; and it goes to the heart of every man who opens his paper to-day to see these people being turned away. We cannot stand it; we must stop it. It is not only the Socialists, the very mild pink Socialists of Vienna, it is not only the pacifists, it is not only the most highly trained and highly educated and cultivated of the Jewish nations, but the Catholics as well. They are all in the same hopeless position at the present time. May I read to the House a few sentences from a Catholic Austrian soldier of good family, perhaps a descendant of one of those Irishmen who went out and joined the Emperor to fight the Turk in the seventeenth century? He says:
"Why has the whole world forsaken us? What has happened to the great Kingdom of Britain? Why will it not act? Will it look on while the whole world is thus conquered? I put my trust in Christ and Almighty God, who will not desert us. I cannot believe that He will for ever allow so much injustice, so much suffering, so much misery, so much despair. I cannot and will not believe it. Help us, you English. Show that there are still people in the world who will not live at peace with beasts of prey."
We have lost the voice and the spirit of Cromwell, of Palmerston, of Gladstone. We have indeed "rolled up the map of Europe." But at least we may be spared the infamy of throwing back to the wolves those who have managed to escape. Give them this hope that, if they can escape, there is still generosity left in England.
As for naturalisation, do not be mean in your generosity. Above all, do not be guided by fear of the resentment of the wolves. We shall need friends and every man, soon enough. What does our Army record not show that we owe to the Huguenots, the Bosanquets and the Vandeleurs, and many others. The best fighting men in Spain are the German exiles. Let me quote from one of the many letters I have had from Austrians in this country.
"We would rather fight, and would die willingly for England rather than ever get a German passport and have to march with Hitler."
Are not these the men we want here? We want that spirit and that manhood. Let hon. Members cast their minds back to the time when the black slave who touched English soil or set foot on a British ship was thenceforth and for ever free. If we cannot do for these Austrian exiles what our grandfathers did for the

1007
negro slaves we destroy the traditions of our race and sacrifice to unworthy fears the honour of England.
Major Sir George Davies: At the risk of being gravely misunderstood I feel that I must rise to oppose the Motion. There is not one of us whose heart does not re-echo many of the eloquent words which the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) has spoken, in his description of the wretched position of many of these unhappy people whom we are called upon to consider for a few very brief moments to-day. But when it comes to a question of bringing legislation into this House I feel that we must for a time put out of our minds so much that is humanitarian, and in the best sense of the word sentimental, and think in terms of the legislation that we may be called upon to approve. I had hoped that the statement of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary this afternoon would have removed the necessity of my having to get up and voice what I feel I must say in the interests of the broader considerations which arise in connection with a proposal to introduce a Measure such as this. It bristles with practical difficulties. Here we are practical legislators and must consider this question from that point of view. From the point of view of the humanitarian side, I for one feel satisfied that the statement of the Home Secretary relieves many of the anxieties which I have been myself entertaining.
I would remind hon. Members of this: The aliens restriction regulations which are in force at the present time are issued under Order-in-Council under the Acts, and, therefore, they give a very large amount of discretion and elasticity to the Home Office. Moreover, these Orders-in-Council can themselves be modified without necessarily coming to this House for special legislation. I want to bring before the House two considerations. In outlining his proposed Measure the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has himself divided it into two parts. One is the question of admission into this country, and the other is the question of the naturalisation of those who are thus admitted. As I understand the suggested Bill it is to be limited to "Austrians," a difficult thing to define definitely and clearly, because, whether we like it or
1008
not, we know that notice has been given even to Geneva that Austria is no more and that it has been swallowed up by the larger body of the Reich. But when we are considering this legislation, Austria, or what was Austria, is not the only country even now concerned, and we know quite well that to the list of countries before long there may be others added. Are we justified, in legislating now, in making a distinction between one country and another when the conditions that appeal to the hearts of all of us may be the same in many other countries? I think the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is getting on to dangerous ground when the basis on which refugees or potential immigrants are to be allowed into this country is to prove or to claim that they are just Austrian. We have to consider a much wider ground than that. We cannot differentiate in that respect.
Then we come down to the very practical consideration that if that is to be the test, if those who are to come in are merely to be Austrians, fundamentally that cuts the ground from under those measures which exist now for the protection of our own people, measures which provide that when people come in, be they Austrians, be they Germans, or be they Poles, one of the tests is whether from the widest point of view they can be called desirable immigrants. It seems to me to be common sense to think that Austria, like any other country in the world, contains good, bad and indifferent. If we are to allow people here just because they claim or prove to be Austrians, regardless of these considerations, think of the difficulty after their landing, after their spreading amongst the population, of the police department, the safety department of this country, which has to see that our own people are protected against those who might quite easily slip in—drug traffickers, white slave traffickers, people with criminal records. [Interruption.] The test is at our own frontier. I maintain that that is a consideration of first importance in a matter of this sort.
Mr. Churchill: Is not that a matter for Committee?
Sir G. Davies: No, Sir, I think it is a matter that can be described in the words of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman himself. If we give permission to-day even for the First Reading of this Measure

1009
we are surely going to encourage those hopes which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman suggested should not be encouraged, because this legislation is not likely to reach the Statute Book, and that is another reason why I felt impelled to speak this afternoon. I do not want to take even a first step that will raise false hopes in the minds and hearts of those who would suffer the more when they found that their hopes were shattered.
The other consideration is the one of naturalisation. Naturalisation is a privilege, not a right, and the same test must surely apply to that as to other things. If we fly off the handle, moved by sentiment to break down barriers even for the limited time that is suggested, I consider that we are treading on very dangerous ground. We are going to give people blanket rights to a great privilege, regardless of whether they propose in future to throw in their lot with us, whether indeed they have any mastery of our language—all those tests which must quite properly be applied with due regard to the rights and interests and privileges of our own people, must be very carefully watched when we grant these rights and
privileges of naturalisation and citizenship. We come back to the difficulty alluded to by the Home Secretary, that agreement must be come to not only with our Colonial Empire, but with our self-governing Dominions. It seems to me infinitely wiser to go on the basis that has been forecast by the Home Secretary, that he will stretch the elasticity of the powers he at present has to the furthest extent consistent with his duties to the people and institutions of this country, bearing in mind the great claims that those whom we are considering now have on our sympathy and humanitarianism. It is for these reasons that I think it would be ill advised for the House to grant leave to bring in the Bill.
Question put,
"That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Aliens Acts and Naturalisation Acts so as to give the Secretary of State for the Home Department powers with regard to the immigration into Great Britain and Northern Ireland of refugees from Austria for a period of six months from the date of the passing of this Act, and the granting of British nationality to such immigrants."
The House divided: Ayes, 142; Noes, 210.

Division No. 147.]

AYES.

[4.13 p.m.

Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)

George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)

Macdonald, G. (Ince)

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

George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)

McEntee, V. La T.

Adamson, W. M.

Graham, D. M. (Hamilton)

McGhee, H. G.

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

Green, W. H. (Deptford)

MacMillan, M. (Western Isles)

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

Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A,

Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.

Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)

Grenfell, D. R.

Mainwaring, W. H.

Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

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

Mander, G. le M.

Banfield, J. W.

Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

Markham, S. F.

Barnes, A. J.

Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

Marshall, F.

Barr, J.

Groves, T. E.

Mathers, G.

Batey, J.

Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)

Maxton, J.

Bellenger, F. J.

Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

Messer, F.

Benson G.

Hannah, I. C.

Milner, Major J.

Bevan, A.

Hardie, Agnes

Montague, F.

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

Harris, Sir P. A.

Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)

Buchanan, G.

Harvey, T. E. (Eng. Univ's.)

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

Burke, W. A.

Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

Naylor, T. E.

Butcher, H. W.

Henderson, J. (Ardwick)

Noel-Baker, P. J.

Cape, T.

Henderson, T. (Tradeston)

Oliver, G. H.

Charleton, H. C.

Hills, A. (Pontefract)

Owen, Major G.

Chater, D.

Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)

Paling, W.

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Hollins, A.

Parker, J.

Cluse, W. S.

Hopkin, D.

Parkinson, J. A.

Cocks, F. S.

Jagger, J.

Price, M. P.

Cove, W. G.

Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

Quibell, D. J. K.

Daggar, G.

Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

Rathbone, Eleanor (English Univ's.)

Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

John, W.

Ritson, J.

Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.

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

Day, H.

Jones, A. C. (Shipley)

Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)

Denman, Hon. R. D.

Jones, Sir H. Haydn (Merioneth)

Rothschild, J. A. de

Dobbie, W.

Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

Seely, Sir H. M.

Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)

Kelly, W. T.

Sexton, T. M.

Ede, J. C.

Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

Shinwell, E.

Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

Kirby, B. V.

Silverman, S. S.

Entwistle, Sir C. F.

Kirkwood, D.

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

Evans, E. (Univ. of Wales)

Lathan, G.

Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

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

Lawson, J. J.

Smith, E. (Stoke)

Foot, D. M.

Leonard, W.

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

Gallacher, W.

Leslie, J. R.

Smith, T. (Normanton)

Gardner, B. W.

Logan, D. G.

Sorensen, R. W.

Garro Jones, G. M.

Lunn, W.

Spears, Brigadier-General E. L.

Stephen, C.

Viant, S. P.

Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

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

Walkden, A. G.

Withers, Sir J. J.

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

Walker, J.

Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

Watkins, F. C.

Thorne, W.

Watson, W. McL.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

Thurtle, E.

Whiteley, W. (Blaydon)

Colonel Wedgwood and

Tinker, J. J.

Wilkinson, Ellen

Mr. Wedgwood Benn.

Tomlinson, G.

Williams, T. (Don Valley)

NOES.

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

Erskine-Hill, A. G.

Patrick, C. M.

Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.

Everard, W. L.

Peake, O.

Allen, Col. J. Sandeman (B'knhead)

Fleming, E. L.

Peters, Dr. S. J.

Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Ldn.)

Fox, Sir G. W. G.

Petherick, M.

Anderson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Sc'h Univ's)

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

Pickthorn, K. W. M.

Anstruther-Gray, W. J.

Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)

Pilkington, R.

Apsley, Lord

Grant-Ferris, R.

Procter, Major H. A.

Assheton, R.

Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

Radford, E. A.

Astor, viscountess Plymouth, Sutton)

Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)

Raikes, H. V. A. M.

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

Gridley, Sir A. B.

Ramsbotham, H.

Baillie, Sir A. W. M.

Grigg, Sir E. W. M.

Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

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

Grimston, R. V.

Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

Balniel, Lord

Guest, Hon. I. (Brecon and Radnor)

Reid, J. S. C. (Hillhead)

Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

Hacking, Rt. Hon. D. H.

Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

Beauchamp, Sir B. C.

Hambro, A. V.

Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

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

Harbord, A.

Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

Beechman, N. A.

Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.

Ropner, Colonel L.

Bennett, Sir E. N.

Hely-Hutchinson, M. R.

Ross, Major Sir R. D. (Londonderry)

Birchall, Sir J. D.

Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.

Rowlands, G.

Blair, Sir R.

Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-

Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.

Boothby, R. J. G.

Hepworth, J.

Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.

Bossom, A. C.

Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)

Russell, Sir Alexander

Boulton, W. W.

Higgs, W. F.

Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)

Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

Hoare, Rt. Hon. Sir S.

Salmon, Sir I.

Brocklebank, Sir Edmund

Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

Salt, E. W.

Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)

Horsbrugh, Florence

Samuel, M. R. A.

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

Howitt, Dr. A. B.

Sandeman, Sir N. S.

Bull, B. B.

Hunter, T.

Sanderson, Sir F. B.

Bullock, Capt. M.

Hurd, Sir P. A.

Sandys, E. D.

Burton, Col. H. W.

Jarvis, Sir J. J.

Savery, Sir Servington

Campbell, Sir E. T.

Jones, L. (Swansea W.)

Scott, Lord William

Castlereagh, Viscount

Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)

Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)

Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)

Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)

Smith, L. W. (Hallam)

Channon, H.

Keyes, Admiral of the Fleet Sir R.

Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)

Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)

Knox, Major-General Sir A. W. F.

Smithers, Sir W.

Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)

Lamb, Sir J. Q.

Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

Christie, J. A.

Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.

Southby, Commander Sir A. R. J.

Clarke, Colonel R. S. (E. Grinstead)

Leech, Sir J. W.

Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)

Clarry, Sir Reginald

Leigh, Sir J.

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

Clydesdale, Marquess of

Leighton, Major B. E. P.

Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

Cobb, Captain E. C. (Preston)

Lewis, O.

Sutcliffe, H.

Colfox, Major W. P.

Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.

Tasker, Sir R. I.

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

Lloyd, G. W.

Tate, Mavis C.

Conant, Captain R. J. E.

Loftus, P. C.

Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

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

Lyons, A. M.

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

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

Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

Titchfield, Marquess of

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

MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.

Touche, G. C.

Courthope, Col. Rt. Hon. Sir G. L.

M'Connell, Sir J.

Train, Sir J.

Cox, H. B. Trevor

MacDonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)

Tree, A. R. L. F.

Craven-Ellis, W.

McKie, J. H.

Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.

Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

Maclay, Hon. J. P.

Turton, R. H.

Cross, R. H.

Magnay, T.

Wakefield, W. W.

Crowder, J. F. E.

Maitland, A.

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

Culverwell, C. T.

Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.

Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)

Davison, Sir W. H.

Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

Warrender, Sir V.

Dawson, Sir P.

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

Waterhouse, Captain C.

De la Bère, R.

Marsden, Commander A.

Watt, Major G. S. Harvie

Denville, Alfred

Maxwell, Hon. S. A.

Wells, S. R.

Donner, P. W.

Mayhew Lt.-Col. J.

Whiteley, Major J. P. (Buckingham)

Dower, Major A. V. G.

Meller, Sir R. J. (Mitcham)

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

Duckworth, Arthur (Shrewsbury)

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

Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

Dugdale, Captain T. L.

Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.

Duggan, H. J.

Mitchell, H. (Brentford and Chiswick)

Womersley, Sir W. J.

Duncan, J. A. L.

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

Wood, Hon. C. I. C.

Dunglass, Lord

Moreing, A. C.

Wragg, H.

Eastwood, J. F.

Munro, P.

Wright, Wing-Commander J. A. C.

Eckersley, P. T.

Nall, Sir J.

Young, A. S. L. (Partick)

Edmondson, Major Sir J.

Nicholson, G. (Farnham)

Ellis, Sir G.

Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

Elmley, Viscount

O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh

Major Sir George Davies and

Emery, J. F.

Orr-Ewing, I. L.

Mr. Wise.

Emmott, C. E. G. C.

Palmer, G. E. H.

Resolutions agreed to.

CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS ACT (1933) AMENDMENT BILL (CHANGED TO "CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS BILL").
Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee B.
Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be considered upon Friday, 20th May, and to be printed. [Bill 111.]
Minutes of Proceedings to be printed.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,—
National Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill,
Paisley Corporation (General Powers) Order Confirmation Bill, without Amendment.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to provide for the transfer to the Urban District Council of Saltburn and Marske-by-the-Sea of the Saltburn Pier and works in connection therewith; to confer other powers upon the Council; and for other purposes." [Saltburn and Marske-by-the-Sea Urban District Council Bill [Lords].
Prevention of Road Accidents,—That they request that the Commons will be pleased to give leave to Sir William Brass, baronet, a member of their House, to attend, in order to his being examined as a witness before the Select Committee appointed by their Lordships on the Prevention of Road Accidents.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  SALTBURN AND MARSKE-BY-THE-SEA URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL [Lords].
  Read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

PREVENTION OF ROAD ACCIDENTS.
So much of the Lords Message as requests the attendance of Sir William Brass, baronet, considered.
And Sir William Brass, in his place, having consented, leave given.
Message to the Lords to acquaint then) therewith.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY.
  [4TH ALLOTTED DAY.]
  REPORT [10TH MARCH].
  Resolutions reported:

  SUPPLY.

    ARMY ESTIMATES, 1938.
    1. "That a number of Land Forces, not exceeding 170,000, all ranks, be maintained for the Service of the United Kingdom at Home and abroad, exclusive of India and Burma, during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."
    2. "That a sum, not exceeding £10,819,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of the Pay, &c, of His Majesty's Army at Home and abroad, exclusive of India and Burma, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."
    3. "That a sum, not exceeding £9,775,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of the Army Reserve (to a number not exceeding 142,500, all ranks), Supplementary Reserve (to a number not exceeding 56,396, all ranks), Territorial Army (to a number not exceeding 201,707, all ranks), Officers Training Corps, and Colonial Militia, &c, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."
    4. "That a sum, not exceeding £6,515,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Works, Buildings and Lands, including military and civilian staff and other charges in connection therewith, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."
    5. "That a sum, not exceeding £1,622,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Miscellaneous Effective Services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939"
    6. "That a sum, not exceeding £3,639,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Rewards, Half-Pay, Retired Pay, Widows' Pensions and other Non-effective Charges for Officers, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."
    7. "That a sum, not exceeding £4,648,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea; of Out-Pensions, Rewards for Distinguished Service, Widows' Pensions and other Non-Effective Charges for Warrant Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, Men, etc., which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."
    8. "That a sum, not exceeding £254,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Civil Superannuation and other Non-effective Annual Allowances, Additional Allowances and Gratuities, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."

    ARMY (ROYAL ORDNANCE FACTORIES).
    9. "That a sum, not exceeding £684,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge (reduced by a sum, not exceeding £50,000, to be transferred from the Supplies Suspense Account), which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1939, for the Expense of the Royal Ordnance Factories, the Cost of the Productions of which will be charged to the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, &c."

    ARMY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1937.
    10. "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1938, for expenditure not provided for in the Army Estimates for the year."

    SCHEDULE.

    Sums not exceeding

    —

    Supply Grants.

    Appropriations in Aid.

    Vote.

    £

    £

    10.

    Works, buildings and lands

    100

    —

    4.22 p.m.
    Mr. Lees-Smith: I beg to move, to leave out "170,000," and to insert "169,900."
    I move this Amendment formally. The Secretary of State for War, in introducing the Estimates, began his speech by an examination of the rôle of the Army, an introduction which, I think, the House welcomed, because I do not think such an examination had been made for some years. I want now to make some comments on the rôle of the Army and the military doctrine which controls all conceptions on that subject. As one must start with some hypothesis on this matter, I am going to assume that this country and France are in conflict against a Power in Central Europe, and I am going to discuss the rôle of the Army with that conflict as an object lesson. As soon as one does that, it seems to me that some considerations of first-class significance immediately present themselves. The first is this. I understand that the prevailing military doctrine, and the generally-accepted one now, is that in land warfare, where there are fortified positions, the strength of the defence is about three times as great as the strength of the attack. On that account, we have frequently been told, on military authority,

    1025
    that the Maginot Line on the French side, for example, is practically impregnable to-day; but if that be so, we have to take into account the fact that since the occupation of the Rhineland, we must proceed on the assumption that equally powerful lines have been built on the other side of the frontier, which are also equally impregnable. The conclusion of great significance which emerges is that in any such conflict as has been imagined, both frontiers, on the French and the German side, would be locked, and a Power in Central Europe could proceed to do a great deal behind locked doors which, at any rate for a very long period, neither our Army nor that of the French, could break down.
    From that follow one or two conclusions, the first of which is that the general presumption which has been growing in discussions in the House during the last two or three years, that, at any rate in the early stages of a war, the role of the Army would not be to send a great expeditionary force to the Continent, seems to be maintained by the picture which I am giving to the House. There is another conclusion, however, which is of still greater importance. It is that if we envisage any such conflict, we should, as in the great wars of the past, and certainly in the wars from the days of Napoleon, have to depend for our chief influence upon the action of British sea power, which has greater superiority in Europe to-day than it had at the beginning of the Great War.
    Therefore, the conclusion which emerges is that at that time of conflict, which would be a long one, the Power which is likely to emerge is that Power which has the greatest call upon the resources of the whole world. It would be a war of economics, and as soon as one says that, one realises that the balance should eventually be tilted in our favour, since, apart from a blockade by sea power, Germany is already blockading herself by her policy of self-sufficiency, cutting herself off from foreign trade, from credits, from contacts, and most certainly from foreign sympathy, upon which, in a conflict of this sort, she would depend for the resources with which to continue it for a great length of time. Consequently, it seems to me that on this examination of such an issue the long-distance forces would be in our favour.
    1026
    This picture is an unhappy one, but it is not as dreadful a picture as that in which one contemplates sending thousands of young men to be slaughtered in mass warfare on the Continent. What we should first have to contemplate would be not so much dangers from the armies; the first problem which would confront us would be, of course, danger from air attack. Indeed, it appears to me that the hopes upon which many of Field-Marshal Goering's speeches are based are hopes of a knock-out blow at an early stage. This has led to the discussion of a six weeks' war which I think, has emerged from Field-Marshal Goering's speeches. I am fairly confident, from the experience of the rest of the world, and from what I know of the relative power of defence and attack, that the air arm cannot compel a final decision in any war. Therefore, the danger is not as great as we used to think two or three years ago.
    This brings me to my first criticism of the doctrine upon which the War Office has acted for some years, a doctrine which an examination such as I am now making, shows to be false. To meet air attack we must rely upon anti-aircraft ground defence. The responsibility for ground defence against air attack—guns, searchlights and sound locators—is, and has been, with the War Office. Until a year or two ago, the War Office treated this as the Cinderella of the Services, and kept for it all its old worn-out lorries and derelict guns and searchlights and sound locators, just as if the ground defence were some sort of poor relation getting cast-off clothes. The Secretary of State has now lifted this function of air defence from the lowest place to the first. He has given it priority and made it 1A, instead of allowing it to remain the Cinderella. In doing so he has reinforced the views which I expressed three years ago and has uttered the most complete condemnation possible of the policy of the War Office of only a couple of years ago—a policy and a false doctrine for which, if war were to break out soon, we should pay a very bitter price.
    It appears to me that such a result is inevitable, as long as one Department is given the responsibility for providing something which is concerned with the main work of another Department. Every Department has, naturally and properly, a strong feeling of departmental patriotism, and concentrates its attention

    1027
    upon that work which is its own, and is rather indifferent to the work which it does as ancillary to another Department. For that reason, I repeat the view which I have frequently expressed that the best method of securing, in the future, proper ground equipment for defence against aircraft, is that the whole of it should be the responsibility of the Air Ministry, just as we handed over the responsibility for machines dealing with the Navy to the Fleet Air Arm.
    Before I leave the subject of defence against air attack, I should like to put again to the Secretary of State a question to which I have not yet seen any reply. We depend for our defence against air attack on the Territorials, and I am told that because a technical type of mind is attracted to this kind of work, the Territorial learns the work quicker than the regular soldier. But I am also told that he never gets the time of the regular soldier. He requires, I am told, at least three months for this work, and I cannot see under what conditions a Territorial is to get three months for it. This is a duty for which we cannot wait. You can wait to fill your Army but you cannot wait even ten seconds for this function. But I do not yet see any machinery by which it can be ensured that the Territorial will have his three months' training and will be ready to the last bootlace before hostilities actually begin. On this point there is one suggestion which I would put to the Secretary of State. At the last Army manoeuvres Regular engineer officers who were dealing with anti-aircraft defence told me that they thought the Territorials could be adapted to searchlight work, but that the sound locators were so intricate that for this purpose a stiffening of Regulars ought to be introduced into the Service. I put that idea to the Secretary of State for his consideration.
    Now I come to another question on which I should like to initiate a rather fuller discussion than was possible a few days ago. The Army has now become a vast technical mechanism, and one of its most acute problems is not only to find the right number of officers—that may be solved—but to find officers of the mechanical and scientific type of mind which a motorised force requires. I am amazed that the War Office is still satis-
    1028
    fied that it can find this type of mind in a small circle of public schools, among boys, not one in ten of whom has passed the matriculation examination, and a number of whom cannot pass the school certificate examination and could not get a responsible position in a commercial firm. I noticed that we never get any sympathy on this matter from any retired officer in this House. However radical they may be in many other directions, on this question their minds are closed. It justifies the military correspondent of the "Times" in pointing out that the Army is a temple of ancestor-worship. I may say that the only satisfaction which I got from the speech of the Financial Secretary to the War Office, in which he defended the present system, was the comforting assurance that it will be a good many years yet before we have to say "goodbye" to dear old Colonel Blimp.
    There is one source from which thousands of young men of the right scientific and mechanical type are being turned out every year. I refer to the secondary schools. Great occupations such as the engineering and printing trades, and a number of others, have realised that these young men are a vitalising element in professional life to-day. They are making the running in competition with the public school boys. A number of trades are altering their age of recruiting to attract these boys. Anyone can see that a great proportion of these boys, if they knew anything about the Army, would be attracted by the open-air, athletic, regimental scheme of life which the Army offers. This is a class to which I would draw the attention of the Secretary of State. From my observations and inquiries I find that about half the Army officers at present have no private means at all, and live on their pay. I am sure neither myself nor my hon. Friends would grudge Army officers enough to enable all of them to live on their pay.
    It is clear to me that the present system is a very bad bargain to the country. It is not worth our while to have officers in the Army as a charity to the country, because then we are not able to insist on the same professional standards as other comparable and competitive occupations enjoy and enforce. You may raise the pay of officers but the officer will still remain a poor man as long as the

    1029
    Army takes it for granted that the officer must live the life of a country gentleman of rather expensive tastes, with all this hunting and polo and steeplechasing and shooting and regimental dinners which men in comparable civil occupations never dream of being able to afford at that age. I know the War Office has made regulations, and I know that mess accounts are inspected, but regulations are evaded by having voluntary instead of compulsory subscriptions. This problem will be solved only when the War Office deals with it far more drastically than it has done up to now.
    I would put to the Secretary of State a small but comparable proposal which has not been made, at any rate, for some years. Is it necessary to continue to occupy the time of the soldier upon amateur histrionics such as the Aldershot Tattoo and the various other tattoos? I know it is said that they help recruiting but it is impossible to go to the Aldershot Tattoo unless you have a motor car, and I see in the "Times" that if you have not a motor car you can be taken for £2. Now we do not draw recruits from the section of the community who can afford that expense, I am told, too, that they help Army charities, but if you calculate the time and man-power consumed by rehearsals, you will find that they are just as expensive a way of raising money as amateur theatricals usually prove to be. The soldiers do not like them. They may like the final night of the tattoo, but they do not like the rehearsals and preliminaries and these have no training value. The fact is that the soldier of to-day is a very hard-worked man in this country. In India he is not hard-worked, but then there are no tattoos in India. I do not believe that these absurdities for a serious profession would stand the test of a cold-blooded investigation by a civilian committee.
    I propose to put together all I have; to say about getting the right type of officer, and my remarks on the subject were rather suggested by the really staggering figures given in an answer last week with regard to the expenses of training cadets at Woolwich and Sandhurst. I find that a cadet at Woolwich, including the expense to the State and the fees paid, costs £800 a year, and a cadet at Sandhurst £700 a year. Now that the number of cadets is being cut down the expenses at
    1030
    Woolwich will go up to £900 or £1,000 a year. There is no university or college or other institution in the country where the expense of training a boy of 18 is more than a third of that cost. I cannot understand how the system has gone on for all these years without criticism. This reinforces the suggestion which I made last week that the time has come to close down Sandhurst and Woolwich, and to send these cadets at the age of 18 to universities instead.
    I have just been looking at the training regulations, and those for Sandhurst state that the purpose of Sandhurst is to give a general education with a military bias. You can get your military bias at a university, but you cannot give a general education at an institution like Sandhurst, where hundreds of boys are segregated like so many identical herrings. The result is that the Army is a sect of its own. It is almost like the Plymouth Brethren. Half the Army officers are drawn from fewer than 2,000 families. The Plymouth Brethren have a wider scope than that, and the War Office knows it. The War Office is always trying to correct it by bringing these young men back to civilian life, giving them lectures and courses, putting them upstairs in the Gallery to watch our Debates. But you cannot correct this narrowness by lectures; you can only correct it by experience. Let the young Army cadet, at any rate for two years of his life, take part in the main stream of national life, and let him learn to know his own generation, as practically every other comparable profession is enabled to do.
    Now I come back to the expense of Sandhurst, which means that a university will serve the same purpose for a third of the cost. If you adopted this plan, you would save money, and you would be able to take boys into the Army without charging them any fees at all, instead of the average fees of £240 a year which are charged at present. If you went to the secondary schools and told the athletic, masculine type of boys there that you were offering them two years at a university, and then a career in the Army in which they could live in certain security, your problem of obtaining the right type of mechanical officer would be solved.

    1031
    There is only one other suggestion that I wish to make with regard to officers. I think that in the long run it will be found that one of the decisions with the most far-reaching consequences which was contained in the Estimates this year was the decision to give non-commissioned officers command of platoons. To begin with, it makes the Army quite a different type of profession. There have been too many subalterns compared with the number of places higher up, and the consequence has been that, if you take Sandhurst, 50 per cent. of those who leave Sandhurst every year are out of the Army in 15 years. You cannot invite young men into a profession like that, but this is one method of dealing with the difficulty, and, therefore, it will have very far-reaching consequences. It will have another consequence also, which I do not think has yet been pointed out. If subalterns are not to take command of platoons, they will really become probationary captains, and as a matter of fact you need not give them regimental duties at the age at which you give them now. It means that they will have another year or two for their training as a result of this, and I suggest that the best way to spend that year is to allow them to have a year in the ranks. We are told that the Army officers and men understand each other very well, and perhaps they do, but you learn to look at a man from a different angle when you are in the ranks with him. There are Members of this House at the head of businesses whose sons are going to inherit those businesses, but who will start at the bottom, and I see no reason why Army officers should be more protected and more sheltered than those in civilian life.
    Major Dower: If you succeed in destroying Sandhurst, you destroy the chief merit that the cadet gets there, which is a much stiffer and harder training than your private in the Army. He gets no favours, and he sees all the rough side.
    Mr. Lees-Smith: The reason I made the observation about Sandhurst was the extreme narrowness of the education there, which you cannot overcome so long as you have what is really a monastic type of education. The last thing that I wish to say is this: There
    1032
    is the problem of the shortage in the number of officers, and there is the problem of the shortage in the number of men. The shortage in the number of officers can be solved by attracting this new class of boys, but there is a number of hon. Members, as was shown in speeches made in this House last week, who believe that the only way of dealing with the shortage of men is by military conscription. I would refer those Members who took that view to the opening passages of the speech of the Secretary of State, because he there pointed out that we already have 500,000 men and that therefore we are not under-insured, but that the problem is one of organisation and distribution. This is a complete refutation of the argument for conscription, because organisation and distribution are not solved by greater numbers. They are a problem of policy, a problem of new ideas, and conscription is merely a device for avoiding the trouble of thinking out new ideas, in favour of inertia and mental bankruptcy.
    4.53 p.m.
    Mr. C. Wood: I rise with some diffidence to address the House for the first time, but as I have only fairly recently left the Army, I felt that I should like to take part in this Debate. It seems to me to be a very satisfactory state of affairs that we are able so to increase the efficiency of the Army without the necessity of bringing in a large additional number of men, a necessity which, I think, would make it difficult to carry on our existing voluntary system of recruiting. I welcome very much the statement of the Secretary of State as regards the role of the Army. It seems that for the first time there has been laid down a definitely stated role for which the Army exists, and that there has been laid down an order of importance of the tasks for which the Army must be prepared. I believe that this will be a great help to the directing staff in forming their training policy, because I do not believe that ever before have we had a really clear-cut idea of the role for which the Army exists.
    I think it is clearly desirable that internal security is to be an important commitment of troops in this country at the outbreak of war, but I would like to ask how much this is going to affect the size and the organisation of any expeditionary

    1033
    force. It is interesting to see that the Continental rôle appears last in order of importance, and I presume that, in view of the many more numerous tasks of the Army, the possibility of sending an Army to the Continent is fairly remote. In view of the decreased importance of the Continental rôle, I should like to ask a question about the strategic reserve, to which the Secretary of State referred. Is it the intention that the strategic reserve should be stationed in the United Kingdom or that it should be stationed in the Middle East? If it is to be stationed in this country, I wonder whether it ought to be, whether perhaps a larger proportion ought not to be stationed in the Middle East. Then, again, if it is to be stationed in this country, I wonder if we could know a little more as to whether there would be an adequate amount of shipping immediately available to transport troops and their transport to the Middle East or to any other district where they were wanted.
    To turn for a moment to the question of recruiting, we have seen that men desirous of serving are coming forward in increasing numbers, and I should like to congratulate the Minister on the improvements that he has made in this respect, because, after all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we have all seen, from week to week, the greatly increased numbers of recruits. The Secretary of State said that the chief external assistance which would come to recruiting would be the habit of representing the Army always and everywhere in its true light. I think that is a true statement, which very often is not put into practice. I believe that a beginning could be made in the village school, where very often the Army is shorn of all its glamour and where it is rather put about that the young man who has joined the Army has had to do so because he could not find any other form of employment. I do not think it would do any harm at all to look upon it perhaps a little more in the light in which they look upon it in Germany, where the young man who joins the Army is looked upon as having definitely raised his social status.
    I should like to say a word or two about the scheme for engaging civilians to do certain work which is now done by the soldier, work which does not directly concern his military training. Perhaps a further source of employment for ex-
    1034
    service men could be found if all minor Government posts, such as those of messengers in Government offices, Post Office clerks and postmen, could be kept entirely for ex-service men, that is to say, as long as there were ex-service men to fill those posts. Again, could not this scheme be extended to other jobs which at the moment are filled by serving soldiers in the regiments, jobs such as washers-up in the cookhouse, barrack sweepers, storekeepers, or mess waiters, jobs which the soldier did not really join the Army to do? I believe it would not only help to find employment for ex-service men, but it would also help to encourage recruits, because I think that a great many young soldiers join the Army imagining that somewhere hidden in their equipment is a field-marshal's baton, and when they are turned over to do one of these jobs, that idea is very quickly and rudely dispelled.
    Next I would like to say a word or two about the money that is to be spent on adapting barrack accommodation to the latest standard. I see that soldiers are to be provided with better beds and bolsters, and I think that is definitely a step in the right direction, because there is no getting away from the fact that to-day the ordinary barrack room is very devoid of comfort. There is also a complete lack of privacy. There is no place where the ordinary private soldier can get away from his comrades to go and read or write. I suggest that these complaints can be met by dividing barrack-rooms into cubicles. Again, the washing arrangements in barrack-rooms could be greatly improved, for they are of a very primitive nature. It would add greatly to the comfort of soldiers if barrack-rooms could be centrally heated instead of having the one rather inadequate stove that exists to-day. All these improvements would help to add to the greater comfort of the private soldier and would indirectly help to stimulate recruiting, because recruits going to barracks and spending the night in the rather unattractive surroundings which exist to-day are very likely to think better of an Army career and depart next morning, and they are not likely to persuade their friends to make the same experiment.
    The decision to make the Royal Artillery responsible for the operation of

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    searchlights in connection with air and coast defence is a welcome decision, and the division of the Royal Artillery into two definite branches is a desirable reform. I would ask, however, that too drastic reform as it affects the every-day regimental life of officers and men should not be too far-reaching. I believe it is true to say that to a great many men in the Army the regiment is of more importance than the Army. In these days, when we talk much about national service and everybody doing their part, it seems a pity to put people in the wrong frame of mind for their duty, and I am certain that any too drastic reform affecting regimental life would be most uncongenial. I think, perhaps, that at no time more than to-day has it been so important that we should have an Army which is in good heart with itself. There is no truer statement than that contented regiments make a contented Army.
    5.3 p.m.
    Mr. Bellenger: I believe I am right in saying that the speech just delivered by the hon. Member for York (Mr. C. Wood) is the first he has made in the House. If that is a correct assumption, it falls to my happy lot to congratulate him on the very able speech he has made. Perhaps he himself might have wished that an older Member of the House should have spoken these words. On the other hand, he might feel that it is a question of deep calling to deep, and that, as my maiden speech was made only a very short time ago, he will appreciate the few words I have offered to him in congratulation on the speech which he has just delivered.
    We are bound, in discussing the Army Estimates, to refer to that able, eloquent and ingenious speech which was made by the Secretary of State when he introduced the Estimates. It fell into three parts. It dealt, first, with the strategical rôle of the Army, with which most hon. Members will wish to say a good many things; second, with matters relating to the personnel of the Army; and, third, with equipment and stores. The right hon. Gentleman was brief in his remarks on the latter item, and I do not propose to say much about it. I want to confine myself to the first two. In discussing the strategical rôle of the Army it would be as well if hon. Members had this matter in its true perspective. I should,
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    therefore, like to refer to the speech made last year by the Secretary of State for War in introducing the Estimates, because it throws a little further light on the matters which were raised by the right hon. Gentleman in his speech this year. Last year the Secretary of State started by reviewing, in a somewhat similar manner, the duties of the Army, and he informed us that during the previous 12 months there had been two matters which had arisen, one in Abyssinia and the other in Palestine, both of which would have made large calls on our armed forces. He went on to say:
    "Had there been any emergency then, the forecast of the possibilities would certainly have become a fact and our military resources would have been taxed to breaking point."
    Then the right hon. Gentleman went on to give a picture of the manifold duties which the British Army is called upon to undertake and would be called upon, in an emergency, to perform, and he gave a review of the 12 preceding years. He told us:
    "So during those comparatively peaceful years there were only two out of 12 in which no exceptional demands were made upon the British Army."
    In order to complete my perspective, I will quote the following from the speech of the Secretary of State last year:
    "In one at least of them the enemy whom we were considering was one of the great Powers of Europe, fully equipped with every modern invention, and in more than one case there was an ever present danger of our forces being brought into conflict with one of the great Powers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16TH MARCH, 1937; cols. 1887–8; Vol. 321.]
    I will not hazard a guess who that great Power was, but in discussing these Estimates we cannot overlook the fact that there are potential enemies about—there is no need to specify them—and that they have resources with which we may be called upon to compete at some near or distant date. I hope that it will not happen, but I take it that as practical legislators—to use the phrase of an hon. Member this afternoon—we must visualise the possibilities of this country coming into conflict with one, or perhaps more, of the great Continental Powers. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State defined the categories of action of the British Army. He put home defence as the most important, and then, as the hon. Member for York has just reminded us,

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    he told us that there might be a possibility of our Army acting in co-operation with a Continental army to protect the territorial integrity of the country of that army. In that case it might be necessary for us to go to their assistance with our military forces. In order to get our perspective complete, we have to visualise this possibility. A large part of our home defence will be undertaken by the Territorial Force, but if we are to understand correctly the strategical role of our Army on future occasions, we must have constantly in our minds the direction in which our Army may be called upon to act when we are called upon to use our strategical reserve, which, the right hon. Gentleman explained so eloquently, we would be able to do much quicker and more efficiently than hitherto.
    Therefore, I come to this point. If a crisis occurs—and it looks as if it may do—who will be the allies to whom the right hon. Gentleman has referred? Shall we have any allies at all, because I heard the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) suggest that it might be possible we should be left alone at the crucial time to fight our own battles. If, however, we are to have allies, the question arises of the tactical co-operation between them and us. Staff talks and co-operation cannot be set on foot in five minutes if the united armies are to be most effective. Hon. Members will not need me to remind them that it took four years in the last War before we were able to have the unified control of the Allied Forces fighting in France which enabled us eventually to gain victory. If it will be necessary, as the right hon. Gentleman suggests, for us to have allies, it naturally follows that we should try to visualise without going too closely into details who those allies may be. There is one certain ally that we must have in any Continental trouble, and that is France, because the Government, through the ex-Foreign Secretary, have stated that the armed forces of this country might be used in order to protect the territorial integrity and independence of France. It follows, therefore, that in all probability France would be one of our allies. The right hon. Gentleman will probably admit that we are closely related to France, both in politics and other directions, and I should like to ask him whether any staff talks or consultations are taking place between our General Staff and the General Staff
    1038
    of the French Army. It would be possible to develop the question of the strategical rôle of the British Army further, but there are other hon. Members who wish to speak on it who are probably more fitted to deal with it than I am. Although the right hon. Gentleman has told us that in considering the recruitment of the Army we have also to consider the strategic rôle of the Army, and that he is not so much concerned with recruits because he has placed a different conception on the rôle of the British Army than was formerly held, we ought to consider this subject more fully.
    I should next like to deal with the part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech concerning personnel. Two or three weeks ago, through the good offices of the right hon. Gentleman himself, I was able to go to Canterbury and to inspect the work being done by the Recruits Physical Development Depot, and I am able to say that the experiment there is more than an experiment to increase the establishment of the Army by bringing unfit recruits up to Army standards but is a great social experiment. I understand that this depot will be expanded in the course of the year. Not only are good soldiers being turned out there but good citizens are being made under conditions which could easily be introduced into civilian life. Of course, there are military restraints there, and a certain amount of military discipline, but I was particularly struck with the kindliness and the consideration shown by the officer commanding and his assistant officers to the recruits who go there. When they first arrive those recruits are very poor specimens physically. They have all kinds of complaints—flat feet, weak hearts, and sometimes weak spirits. They have been broken down, in many cases, by long periods of unemployment, and it is heartrending to see the condition of some of them. I would urge hon. Members who have the opportunity to visit this depot, because they would see that the Army is carrying out an excellent experiment which I think could be extended to other walks of life at very small cost. It may interest hon. Members to know that the additional cost per head to bring those recruits up to the standard which the Army requires is 2½d. per day. The House may like to know the rations they receive, and I have a specimen week's menu which was handed to me by

    1039
    the commanding officer. When I had read through it I was amazed, and I can honestly say—and I shall say this later to my wife—that I do not get such food as is given to these recruits.
    Mr. Ede: Send it to the Chairman of the Kitchen Committee.
    Mr. Bellenger: They have something like six meals a day. I do not know how it is done for the money, because I am told that these are the Army rations plus an expenditure of 2½d. a day, which I believe is spent mostly on milk. First thing in the morning they start with a cup of tea, or perhaps a cup of milk. Then they have breakfast. Breakfast consists—I am quoting one day—of porridge, rissole and tomato sauce, tea, bread, margarine, and marmalade. Hon. Members may wonder where the butter about which an hon. Member was so concerned comes in. The butter appears later in the day. For dinner on that day they had roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, butter beans, potatoes, fruit salad and custard. Tea consisted of tea, bread and butter—there comes in the butter—jam, and custard tart. For supper they had beef olive and mashed, tea, bread and margarine. Before they go to bed there is another meal, which consists of milk or something like that. If this can be done on Army rations plus 2½d. a day for these recruits, I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should pass on one of these specimen menus, and the remarks I have made, to some of his right hon. Friends in the Government. I believe this experiment could be extended, and that then it might not be necessary for us to have these physical training development depots in order to get recruits for our Army.
    Two other things came to my notice, one of them perhaps a little pathetic. I was told that quite a number of those recruits do their utmost to send home allowances to their parents, and in some cases, the commanding officer told me, he has had to insist upon the recruits reducing the amount of the allotments sent to their parents or relatives, because otherwise there would be very little pocket money left for themselves. The first thought when they get their pay is to send something home to their parents. If it were possible for the right hon.
    1040
    Gentleman to provide, through his Department or other Departments, some allowance to needy mothers or fathers who allow their sons to join the Army it might remove one of the main objections which parents have to their sons joining. After all, we have to consider the feelings of those mothers and fathers when they see their sons joining the Army and drawing away from the household income the small wages which they are able to earn. That is a factor which counts with fathers and mothers, and it is very comforting to know that those recruits are only too anxious to make whatever provision they can for their fathers and mothers from the pay which the Army gives them. As I have said, the consideration which the officers show to those young men when they arrive there is something of which I can heartily approve. We are not dealing with the normal type of recruit who goes direct to his regimental depot, but with sub-normal recruits, who need more sympathetic consideration before they can be placed under the conditions of a normal recruit who is physically and mentally fit when he joins his regiment and passes under normal Army discipline. It comforted me tremendously to see how the officers at that depot take a personal interest in each recruit who arrives, and go out of their way not only to make him physically comfortable, but to make him comfortable in other ways in his new life. Other hon. Members want to speak, otherwise there are other features of this experiment which I could bring to the notice of the House—I might say that I was told that no other hon. Members had taken the trouble to visit the depot—but I hope that hon. Members will take the first available opportunity of seeing something of what is not only an Army experiment but a social experiment.
    My final words to the right hon. Gentleman are these, and they lead on from the remarks I have made on the question of recruits. I do not think we can accept entirely what the right hon. Gentleman has said about the recruiting position. The fact remains that the Army, which is not a very large Army, there being only something like 150,000 troops at home, is short of officers and men. In view of the troubles which are facing us—and we all know them—I suggest that the position is not so satisfactory as the right hon. Gentleman has made out. He may

    1041
    be able by that ingenious use of ideas and words in which he is so very prolific, to tell us that all we need think about nowadays is fire power and not man power and he may refer us to the Navy Estimates, where we consider ships, and not men. But is that quite so? When we consider ships it follows arithmetically that if there are so many ships there must be so many men to man them. Therefore, I say to the right hon. Gentleman that if he will disclose to us what fire power it is that he is going to provide, it will be an easy problem to ascertain the number of men required to man the weapons. I do not think we can afford to leave the matter where it is and to let it go out that our recruiting position is satisfactory, because it is entirely unsatisfactory. It is the Government's responsibility to see that the recruiting problem is solved, and it will not be solved by words, however eloquent they may be. I say to the right hon. Gentleman, who is a pastmaster of eloquence, that we shall have to have much more practical methods if we are to solve the problem.
    5.27 p.m.
    Captain Alan Graham: There is one special point in that most able speech, which may yet come to be an historic speech, of the Secretary of State for War in introducing these Estimates to which I should like to draw the attention of the House. It was where he spoke of the discharge of British commitments overseas. He said:
    "Local forces are invaluable in reducing the number of regular British units to be maintained, and wherever it be possible to employ further local personnel for anti-aircraft and coast defence duties in particular, whether in combination with British personnel or otherwise, the practice will be followed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th March, 1938; col. 2137, Vol. 332.]
    At the risk, perhaps, of incurring the charge of being monothemistic, I should like to support very urgently the plea of the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery) and also the hon. and gallant Member for Knutsford (Brigadier-General Makins) in urging that greater use be made of the local indigenous potential forces in Malta and in the island of Cyprus. In Malta we do make use of one Territorial battalion, the King's Own Malta Regiment, and I maintain that it is perfectly possible to increase the number of available potential soldiers who can be utilised in Malta. The popu-
    1042
    lation of Cyprus is over 100,000 greater than the population of Malta, and at present for its protection there exists only the local police and one company of British troops, sent to Cyprus either from Egypt or the Sudan. At present Cyprus contributes £10,000 a year to Imperial Defence, and I maintain that that sum would certainly cover the expenses of the yearly maintenance of a Territorial battalion, raised on the spot and officered by British officers. It is possible to raise these two battalions in Cyprus of hardy countrymen who would be capable of giving a good account of themselves in the event of invasion of any of those garrisons, which is a possibility which we must contemplate, or of being utilised in substitution for British battalions in Palestine and other parts of the Near East. In the present state of affairs in the Mediterranean we have not the preponderance of naval strength upon which our conception of the numbers necessary in our garrisons in the Mediterranean and overseas formerly depended.
    In the War Office some years ago there was a totally groundless prejudice against the use of our Mediterranean subjects in war. One is prepared to admit that Mediterranean people might not make the best fighting material when used in northern climates, but in their own latitudes and against people from the same latitudes there is no reason, particularly if we look at the past, to question their very great potential value to us. In the Napoleonic wars we did not disdain to have a Corsican legion or even, I believe, to use Sicilians. In these days of the spread of education and of better nourishment, to which the people of these Mediterranean countries under our dominion are now used, there is every chance of making much greater use of them than we are doing or than we have done in the past. The greater utilisation of these peoples need by no means be taken as necessarily a threat in the political field against any other Mediterranean Power.
    I have suggested before that the primary use of these Cyprus battalions might well be as substitutes for the British battalions employed in Palestine. The Cypriots have already given proof of their quality in the sternest test which can be applied to regular troops, that of being called upon to fire upon their own relatives in civil disturbances. This they did in

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    I931. There is no sterner test of discipline for troops, and they did not fail. In any case, we have a responsibility for the lives of 366,000 British subjects in that island, and we are very far from being strong enough to dispense with or ignore any possible potential source of further strength to us. At all events, let the Cypriots be able to defend themselves and thus also to contribute to our strength.
    5.34 p.m.
    Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: I hope it is not too late in the day to congratulate the Secretary of State for War on his very remarkable speech when introducing his Estimates last week. The right hon. Gentleman has certainly rejuvenated the War Office. I wish he could be employed by this Government as a sort of political Dr. Voronoff, to go round to all the Departments in turn and give them his treatment. I feel particularly envious of him for the Admiralty. We are approaching what is known in football circles as the transfer season and there is, at the same time, talk of a reshuffle in the Government. I wish the Government would transfer the right hon. Gentleman from Arsenal to Portsmouth. It is an excellent idea of his to introduce Messrs. Lyons into the Army; it is all part of the process of lionising the Secretary of State for War which has been going on for some time. Perhaps he will consider going the whole distance and introducing a few Nippies into the barracks. I am sure that would solve his recruiting difficulties.
    The Statement accompanying the Estimates contains this passage:
    "Progress continues in the design and production of various weapons, including Bren guns."
    Grave doubts have been expressed about the Bren gun. This is a question of the first importance. The Secretary of State for War has himself said that fire power and not man power is the test, and the great lesson of the War was certainly the value of the machine gun. To decide on equipping the Army with a new machine gun is a most serious and anxious matter. Apart from the question of expense, which is considerable, the decision is one which may turn the scales of victory. Is the Bren gun really the best machine gun for the Army?—If I put my remarks rather in the form of questions it is not that I expect the right hon. Gentleman to answer
    1044
    all the questions at this stage—Is it true that the Bren gun was offered to others, for instance to the German Army, and refused? Is it not very remarkable that no British gunmaker has been able to evolve a suitable machine gun for the British Army? Has any British firm an interest in the production or manufacture of the Bren gun? I do not know whether the Bren gun now in process of issue is similar to that which was shown in competition with the Lewis gun at Bisley in 1936, but is it the case that while the Army Council have adopted the Bren gun the Indian Army and the Royal Air Force have rejected it? Is it the case that the Army Council have not tried out any machine gun against the Bren except the Berthier, which was accepted by the Indian Army in preference to the Bren?
    Now let me come to some particulars about the Bren gun. I believe that water is required for cooling changed barrels. Are the infantry to attack carrying water troughs for this purpose? How can a gun with the low muzzle-velocity of the Bren, short range and wide dispersal of bullets, be safely employed to supply overhead fire for advancing troops? In the past, the Bren gun has had, if it has not still, a bad reputation in some Army quarters, in spite of the official view concerning it. Has it been conclusively proved that the Bren is not inferior in accuracy and range to guns which are now in the hands of foreign countries? I can imagine nothing more ruinous to the morale of the infantry than to know that foreign countries are better armed than themselves with machine guns. The gun trade of this country is believed to be the most skilled in the world, but the experts in the trade condemn the Bren gun. I make full allowance for their business interests in the matter, but they say that no British gun ever put up to the War Office gave such a lamentable performance as did the Bren at the Alder-shot Rifle Meeting and at Bisley.
    I have seen this gun described as a gangster's gun, having a sawed-off barrel, the range of a Mauser, the magazine capacity of a rifle, the accuracy of a blunderbuss and a weight of 21 lbs. It is, therefore, lacking in the only commendable qualities of a gangster's gun, lightness and handiness. Lord Hailsham, when he was Secretary of State for War, said that on account of the urgent neces-

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    sities of the Army time could not be given for trying out a British gun. How is it that we could get into such a jam as that? Why was there such a pressure of time at the last moment that no British gun could be tried? What is the cost of the Bren gun as manufactured for the War Office, and what sum has been expended on it since its adoption?
    I have referred to the Bisley meeting of 1936. At that meeting very disquieting facts came to light regarding the Bren gun, which had been selected to supersede the Lewis gun. The Press gave no publicity to the matter, but the chief topic at that meeting was the very disappointing performance of the Bren. It was outclassed every time by the Lewis, for accuracy and reliability. It was described as too heavy for the ordinary man to fire from the shoulder and so inaccurate that it was of little use as a substitute for the rifle, and it was said that difficulties were experienced because of premature extraction. The War Office say that those defects are in the Bren guns of foreign manufacture and that they will disappear when the gun is manufactured at Enfield. I believe that actual demonstrations make this statement difficult to believe and that the gun manufactured at Enfield is a copy of the Czechoslovak model. I understand that the gun requires two men to serve it, which doubles the probable casualties as compared with a one-man gun. These criticisms are based upon descriptions furnished by many officers and machine gunners who have handled and watched the performance of the Bren, and who have had active service experience in India with the Berthier gun.
    What is the position as regards deliveries of this gun? It was to have been issued last year, but difficulties with its manufacture have been experienced at Enfield, I am told. What is the state of the deliveries? If the deliveries are backward, what is the reason? With what machine gun is the Army at present supplied? The Bren gun was to replace the Lewis gun, which was condemned during the War, but the Lewis gun has not yet been replaced. If we were involved in hostilities during the next few months with what light machine gun would our Army be equipped? If the Bren gun is not available, have we to rely upon the Lewis gun? Apparently we have been trying since 1934 to make
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    the Bren gun. Issue was promised two years ago, and in any case not later than November, 1937.
    I have inquired, but I cannot get particulars of any competition which was open to an all-British produced and designed gun. If any competitions have been held, may we have particulars of them? I know that the War Office offered to hold trials for the British Machine Rifle. The conditions were that the designer was to pay all the expenses of the War Office staff and of the cartridges, the whole sum amounting to over £500. At the same time he was told that the rifle would not be adopted, whatever might be the result of the trial.
    I would like to give some particulars of the treatment which a British gun has met with under tests and trials by the War Office. Let me say at once that I have no personal interest of any sort whatever in any gun or in any firm producing a gun and that my sole consideration is that there shall be a right expenditure of public money and that the Army shall be supplied with the very best weapon. My informant in this matter, let me say at once was Colonel Farquhar, who was associated with the gun known as the British rifle and the Farquhar-Hill gun. I have only a very slight acquaintance with him, but I think that anybody meeting him would be impressed with his moderation and reliability, and at any rate he is prepared to stand by everything he has told me. The story is a very strange and disquieting one, going back to before the War.
    The rifle never seems to have got fair treatment. In the trials at Enfield, the Small Arms Committee insisted on the rifle being brought to the firing point by Enfield officials; they never allowed the inventors to examine the gun before the trial. On one occasion the inventors complained to the present Lord Cottesloe against this unfairness, and he intervened and allowed them to examine the rifle. They stripped the rifle and found that a component had been wrongly assembled by the Enfield staff, so that the automatic mechanism could not function. Soon after that, a subordinate official at Enfield informed the inventors that steps would be taken to prevent the rifle being adopted. Further private trials were made, and the rifle always did well, but whenever it was brought to the firing

    1047
    point by War Office officials it always did badly. The inventors again intervened with Lord Cottesloe, and he allowed them to bring the rifle to the firing point and demonstrate 300 shots. It was perfectly successful, but they were told that that was a very exceptional permission, which could never again be repeated.
    The inventors then gave up trying the War Office, and approached the Belgian Government, and the rifle was to all intents and purposes accepted by the Belgian Government and had a final trial on 4th August, 1914. The War, of course, stopped everything. In 1915, the Admiralty took a hand in the matter. They had trials at Whale Island, and the Admiralty officials adopted the rifle and gave an order for 1,000 in January, 1916. After that, the rifle went back to Enfield for some more trials. On one occasion at Enfield the inventors saw a proof-master deliberately interfere with the cartridge feed and cause a failure. Colonel Farquhar took the rifle from the man and fired 200 shots with maximum rapidity, with no fault of any sort. Subsequently Enfield returned the rifle to the naval authorities at Whale Island with a message to say that they were to fire the rifle exactly as received, and not to strip it for examination. The rifle was fired, failures occurred, and the trials stopped. The rifle was then examined, and it was found that the spring tube had been coated with a substance which caused failure when the rifle became hot. The inventors reported this apparent sabotage; Enfield denied it; and the next step by the War Office was to represent to the Admiralty that the manufacture of their 1,000 rifles would interfere with work on some urgent supplies, so the Admiralty cancelled their order.
    Next the rifle was taken to France for trials. It was tried out against a Lewis gun on the sands with wind blowing. The Lewis gun jammed with the sand, but the Farquhar Hill rifle was unaffected. It was next tried out under a committee appointed by Lord Allenby, with British, French and Belgian representatives. The trial was perfectly successful. The committee accepted the rifle and told the inventors that the War Office would be asked to supply 20,000 for the British Expeditionary Force. Opposition developed again from Enfield. They were told that the order must be postponed until 20 rifles
    1048
    had been made and tried. There were 10 made, and these 10 were sent out to France for trial. They were tried out by men drawn from various regiments under trench warfare conditions, and, as a result of these trials, General Headquarters again applied for supplies. The two Colonels at Enfield who had been responsible for the opposition, confronted with this, said that the Army in France was not capable of testing or deciding what was a suitable gun for the British Army.
    The inventors of the rifle persisted, and Enfield again reported a defect. On examination it was found that the cylinders had been filled with thick oil, contrary to the written instructions, and the proof-master, when asked why this had been done, said he was carrying out the orders of his superiors. After this, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) informed Colonel Farquhar that he was to manufacture 100,000 of these rifles. But, believe it or not, the Small Arms Committee, in face of that, persisted in their opposition to the rifle, and again they reported that a breech had blown open during a trial, although it was found on examination that there had been no serious accident at all, but that at this trial the bolt carrier had been disconnected so that the breech was not closed and locked. Two hundred rounds had been fired at maximum rapidity to hot up the chamber, the bolt carrier was then disconnected, a cartridge inserted and the bolt closed just so far that the cartridge was in the chamber but the locking lugs not engaged. The rifle was then left until the heat of the chamber exploded the cartridge.
    The end of the War came, and, in spite of all these orders having been given, none of these rifles had ever been manufactured for the Army in France. The proof-master at Enfield subsequently said that he much regretted the hostile acts committed against the rifle, but in each case he had carried out the orders of his superiors. After the War, further trials were made. Colonel Farquhar was not at this time interested; he was a sadder and wiser man; but a certain firm entered a modified Farquhar Hill rifle for War Office competition, and, immediately they did so, they were warned that there would be interference. Surely enough there was. The gun failed at the trial. It was stripped

    1049
    down, and it was found that the spring tube and main tube had been damaged; and here, I think, is the most remarkable fact in the whole of this story. On examination it was found that someone had tampered with the gas vent, and had enlarged the gas vent from.040 to.0625. A court of inquiry was held, and the Army Council intimated that the gas vent had been enlarged while the rifle was in the possession of the War Office, but they said that there was no evidence to show by whom, and that it might have been done inadvertently. I do not know whether anyone has ever tried to enlarge a hole in a piece of quarter-inch tool steel, but it would certainly require a skilled mechanic to do it; and yet the Army Council reported that this might have happened inadvertently, and they refused any redress or retrial.
    The firm of William Beardmore then introduced a light machine gun on the same principle as the Farquhar Hill rifle. They immediately encountered the same hostility with which the rifle had met all along. Again there was a trial at Enfield, the gun failed, and on examination it was found that the compression of the magazine spring had only a quarter turn on it instead of the three turns provided for in the instructions. The non-commissioned officers on the experimental staff at Enfield said that the springs of all magazines had been run down by order of the sergeant-major. In the case of this gun, from beginning to end, we have this long story of what, really, one can only say appeared to be acts of sabotage, one after the other, committed against this British machine gun while it was undergoing trials at Enfield. The gun passed tests under the Admiralty at Whale Island, and a test in France against the Lewis gun; it passed a test under an Allied Committee in France, and a test under trench warfare conditions in France; and yet, in spite of passing all these tests, and of orders being given by G.H.Q. for the rifle, it was never brought into production.
    May I say, in conclusion, that I recognise at once that most of these matters occurred and were dealt with by the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, and not by himself? May I also say that I make no charge against anyone concerned? There is always another side to such matters as this, which has to be listened to. My anxiety is solely, as I have said, that there
    1050
    should be proper expenditure of public money on armaments, that the Army should have the best weapons, and that tests and trials should be carried out under perfectly fair conditions. I certainly think it is impossible not to feel great uneasiness about the history of this rifle, and I sincerely hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to dispel that uneasiness.
    5.56 p.m.
    Captain Macnamara: It is quite obvious that no one on this side of the House, without knowing the intimate details, could follow the hon. and gallant Member for Nuneaton (Lieut.-Commander Fletcher) through the technical arguments about the matters to which he has referred. At the same time, I do not think we can accept the idea that the whole Army Council and the Army generally, down to the sergeant-majors at Enfield, can be such despicable rogues as they have been painted.
    Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: I did not make any such charge as that.
    Captain Macnamara: If the hon. and gallant Member was not making a charge, I cannot understand what was the point of his speech. I may point out, incidentally, that the Bren gun is to replace the Lewis gun. The hon. and gallant Member said that the Bren gun would not be able to give overhead fire, but it is not meant to give overhead fire. Overhead fire is reserved for the heavier machine gun. The Bren gun takes the place of the Lewis gun for direct fire in the Army formation. Its advantages are that it is light and mobile, and that its barrels, so far as I know, do not often have to be cooled. In certain circumstances of heavy defence work they have to be cooled, but ordinarily it can be used without the water of which the hon. and gallant Member has spoken. Another very great advantage of the Bren gun is that it has very few stoppages, and my personal experience is that the troops who have come in contact with it and have had to handle it so far have the utmost confidence in this new weapon which has been decided upon by the War Office.
    I would like to make one remark on the subject raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Keighley (Mr.-

    1051
    Lees-Smith). He talked about the question of officers with mechanical minds, but I would like to suggest that a mere mechanical mind is not the only quality that one must look for in officers who have to deal with Army formations. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the secondary schools might be able to provide a great number of officers for the Army, but it is sometimes forgotten that there is already a channel open for such entrants. They can go to the universities already. I know that there is the usual channel of going through the ranks, but there is not the slightest reason why a bright boy should not rise from an elementary school through a scholarship to the secondary school, through a scholarship to the university, and go into the Army by the ordinary university method in the same way as other officers do, and I very much hope that that method will be extended.
    As to the question of officers going through the ranks, provided that the officer is sure of his carreer after he has been to the university or Sandhurst, I do not think that many of the young men concerned would themselves object to a period in the ranks. I am sure that a great number would not. In fact, every officers who joins the Territorial Army in London now has to go through the ranks. I understand that that system is to be extended to other parts of the country. I would be very happy if my right hon. Friend would look into cases of compensation, not only those with which his own Department is directly concerned, but also those relating to other Departments with which he must necessarily come into contact, such as the India Office, the Colonial Office and some others. I know of a young officer who rose from the ranks and who lost everything he had in an ambush. He was the only person to come out of that ambush alive. It was eight months before he received compensation for all the kit he lost. He had to borrow during that time from his regiment, from the bank and other sources. This young ranker officer was put in that position for eight months, before being finally awarded about one-third, I think, of the value of what he lost. These delays are due to mere obstruction and I am sure my right hon. Friend would not wish them to occur.
    1052
    My right hon. Friend said in his speech that we had an Army used for Empire policing and mobile Reserve. I want to appeal for a slightly different method of Empire policing and for more than one mobile Reserve and for a larger Reserve of man-power. Our commitments are very widely scattered. Our Homeland we now have to consider as a continental Power, and we also have to take into consideration that our communications between the Homeland and the widely-scattered Dominions can be easily snapped. Although our present forces may be able to deal with any one of these threats at any one time, could they deal with all three together? We have to make an enormous effort: more than we are making, in fact, at the present moment. The Navy is excellent, the Air Force is excellent, but neither can win a war on its own; and we must think, are we really a match for what we may be up against? We have at home four or five divisions of Regular troops, which may be able to send abroad in an emergency, and we have to prepare them for the conditions they may have to meet.
    In this connection, may I turn to the question of our strategy. In Europe, so far as I can see, at present we rely entirely on the French Maginot Line, of some 40 divisions, I think, of Frenchmen—who may be able to defend that line. I know some of my hon. Friends behind me may disagree with me on that. But is it not possible that that line may be turned by one of the biggest flanking movements in history? I must not go into questions of foreign policy in this Debate, but I always have seen a danger of a much bigger flanking movement than hitherto has been considered, and I feel that, instead of just defending the one Maginot Line, in our European strategy the French and ourselves have to consider, not the one frontier of 1914, but the possible three frontiers of 1938.
    In the Middle East, we have no very definite policy like the defence of the Maginot Line, but we rely on the hope that we shall not be troubled there and in India and further East and in Europe all at the same time; and that, perhaps we shall have only one rebellion in Palestine or Egypt; and that that will not come at the same time. Suppose we had to despatch these five divisions, either to the Near East or anywhere else, what have we left? Anyway, what are

    1053
    these five divisions that we have to despatch? Do hon. Members realise that the five divisions we have at home are mainly boys; young men, a depot, as they are really for the flower of our Army that is still kept in India. These are the young people who are being trained and sent out.
    Our strategy at home relies, in the first place, on somebody else's line abroad, and, secondly, on a very small army of very young men. I know my right hon. Friend is asking the Prime Minister to tackle this question of India, and I consider that this system does not suit India any more than it does us: this system of training these boys, keeping them as boys at home, and then sending them out to India for the flower of their soldiering. India does not need an army which is trained for Europe, and India knows perfectly well that if there is a European War India will lose all that army, because we shall have to take it away. Certainly the system damps down recruiting in this country. We must tackle our Army structure on a much wider basis than we have hitherto conceived. We have to tackle it more widely than by tampering here and there, or introducing this or that palliative. I consider that the Empire in general, and India in particular, need some form of Empire police force, a sort of Empire gendarmerie, light mobile policemen, semi-military trained perhaps, on the line of the North-West Mounted Police of Canada and the sort of formations that you see in other countries.
    Then I consider that instead of one striking force at home we need three striking forces, at any rate in present circumstances. I should mention that that Empire police force should be a long-service force, with a pension at the end of it, and a force which will not be withdrawn from India should there be a war in Europe or Palestine or anywhere else. Above that, we need three small striking forces who will be able to bear the first brunt of hostilities in the three parts of the world where they are most likely to break out in the near future. There should be one small striking force, mobile and very strong, in this country; another in the Near East; and another in the Far East or India, having nothing to do with the Empire police force.
    Lieut.-Commander Agnew: Can the hon. and gallant Member say what the
    1054
    strength of the Empire police force would be?
    Captain Macnamara: I cannot, of course, give the exact figures; but I am glad the hon. and gallant Member asked that question, because I consider it would have to be very much fewer than the number of British soldiers kept at the moment in India. If you have one older man, who knows his job and speaks the language, he will be able to do the job of 20 young boys armed with a Lewis gun, who are rushed up at the last moment to shoot when the situation has got out of hand. I consider that a great deal of money will be saved, even if one has to allow for bigger pay and pensions.
    Mr. Hopkin: How many would there be in the Far Eastern force?
    Captain Macnamara: I have envisaged three striking forces, each of about three strong mobile divisions. It would mean a slight increase on our present regular strength. I think that would be made up for by moving a certain number of these troops from India and recruiting Empire gendarmerie to take their place, and I do not think you would have any difficulty in recruiting that gendarmerie. Over and above these three small striking forces, you may have to consider the question of numbers. There are probably three stages of a modern war. The first is its outbreak, when you have to withstand the initial shock. After that, if you are going to withstand that—and we are not going to be the aggressors—surely the war will settle down to a long period when we shall want numbers. And that is what we have not yet got. I do not think it is wise to depend entirely on the voluntary system. I agree with the hon. Member opposite who saw in that Canterbury scheme a great social development. I also see in some form of national training a great social development. I am dealing here purely with the military and strategical side.
    Mr. Bellenger: When I praised the physical training experiment of the War Office, I said I praised it for two reasons: that it was making good soldiers and making good citizens. I am not advocating a similar form of training to be developed in civilian life. I said that the experiment could be developed in certain directions, but certainly not on military lines outside the Army.
    Captain Macnamara: I know that the hon. Member did not suggest it. I am suggesting it. I still consider that one should have one's voluntary Regular Army, and that one should also have one's voluntary Territorial Army for those who wish to take a more active part. I think hon. Members opposite will agree with me, and I put it to them earnestly and in all sincerity, that if there is a European war in future it is certain that it will be a totalitarian war, in which everybody is bound to be concerned. There is nothing undemocratic in preparing in advance for that danger which we shall eventually have to meet. We lost a great many lives in the last War through not being fully prepared. Need we make this mistake again? Is it enough merely to pay for our guns and our weapons and so on, if we ourselves do not make the national effort we ought to make? I do not think that it may be necessary to have full-time conscription, but, nevertheless, do not in the name of democracy, whatever happens, pooh-pooh compulsory military training, which may not necessarily take people away from their work. There will come a time when we shall want numbers, if war ever breaks out, and I hope that we shall have the sense to see it in advance rather than when it is too late.
    The greatest safeguard that we can make for peace now lies in a national effort on our part. I am perfectly certain that there is a willingness, in fact, an eagerness, among the youth of the country to make that effort. Some people in this Chamber make a great mistake in not realising it. There is a shyness and diffidence, perhaps, on the part of young men to come forward. It is uneconomic and unwise merely to expect a few patriots to do the work, and you are undemocratically hindering certain firms who make sacrifices while others do not. We never hesitate to use compulsion for other matters. I see nothing undemocratic in using compulsion for our own national safety, and I very much hope that politicians who are behind the times in this respect will give the necessary lead, which will do much more than anything else to ensure our future security.
    6.18 p.m.
    Sir Edward Grigg: I am sure that the Whole House will agree that we have just listened to a very interesting and
    1056
    courageous speech, upon which I should like to congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend. He knows that I share many of the ideas which he has expressed so well. I do not think that compulsory military service is necessary or desirable in this country in advance of a war, but other forms of organisation are not only necessary but overdue. I sincerely hope that all parties in all quarters of this House will give attention to this aspect of our Defence situation at the present moment. I should like also to follow the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) in congratulating the hon. Member for York (Mr. Wood) upon his maiden speech. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw paid him a very graceful tribute, so graceful indeed that all on this side of the House appreciated it almost as much as the hon. Member to whom it was very deservedly addressed. I do not think that I could add anything as graceful to it. But I will say this, that since to our regret we cannot have the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in this House, we are very glad to have a member of his family, and we hope that he will often contribute to our Debates.
    The hon. Member for Bassetlaw seemed to me to strike a note which needed striking when he said that the recruiting problem in this country is not solved. It is still a very grave problem and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has addressed himself with great courage, resource, fertility of mind, and complete freshness, to it. But it is far from being solved at the present time. We have to go more deeply into the reasons why the Army is unpopular in this country, as it undoubtedly is. The Army is an unpopular Service, as neither the Navy nor the Air Force is. It is very important to understand, if one can, why the Army is unpopular in this country even at the present time. One of the reasons which I always suspect is that there is an undercurrent of political suspicion running against the Army which does not in the least affect the other two Services, and which has never affected the Navy. That is a suspicion due to the fact that the Army can be used as an instrument to suppress popular movements and to arrest political development. That cannot be done with the Navy or the Air Force, but the Army

    1057
    can be so used, and that unquestionably is one of the reasons why in this country, with all its devotion to the cause of progress, there is suspicion of an instrument in the hands of the State which might be used for reactionary purposes. That goes back, no doubt, to some extent, to the time of Cromwell's major generals, but it also comes down to us laden with memories of Peterloo, and of the efforts of the agricultural labourers early last century to free themselves from impossible conditions. Those things tell against the Army all the time.
    I think that the difficulty from which the Army suffers is also weighted by the factor to which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith) referred. He said that the Army was a temple of ancestor worship. I would rather say that it is regarded in many quarters as a citadel of caste and because that is the case an unpopularity runs against it which we ought to remove. For that reason I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for tackling the question of commissioned rank, warrant rank, and promotion from the ranks of the private soldier, in the way that he has done. It is absolutely vital to open the doors of commissioned rank much more widely, and to spread the net more widely in recruiting for it if this suspicion against the Army is to be corrected, as it ought to be corrected at once. I therefore congratulate my right hon. Friend on having created this new class of warrant officer—Class 3. I believe that it is a very good step and opens a much wider career to a great number of able men who enter the ranks, become non-commissioned officers and ought to be able to go a good deal further. I would like to make a suggestion on this point. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of using warrant officers for regimental duty such as command of platoons. I hope he will consider using them for subordinate staff duties as well. There is a great opening for warrant officers on staff duties. I remember that when I was a junior staff officer in the War I was constantly doing things which a warrant officer or a sergeant or a corporal could have done a great deal better. There has been a great waste of junior officers in our staff organisation, and that matter really ought to be looked into and the staff thrown open, at any rate in part, to warrant officers who qualify.
    1058
    But that is not enough. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman who opened this Debate that the net ought to be spread much wider still. I think that he under-estimated the difficulty in this matter of dovetailing a new system into an old one. It is the period of transition which is so difficult. I do not want to go into these difficulties at any length, but I think that the very moving and suggestive speech of my hon. Friend the Member for South Nottingham (Mr. Markham) the other night was an index of what these difficulties really are. We do not want to particularise about them, but they exist. I belong to a regiment which I suppose sent more non-commissioned officers into the commissioned ranks during the course of the War than any other, with the exception of the Coldstream Guards. Those commissioned officers did admirably, but it must be remembered that the conditions of war are not quite the conditions of peace. The life is different and the process of dovetailing a new system into an old much more difficult. With the best will in the world we have to solve it slowly and patiently, although I very much want to see it done. I have served for a certain time on one of the boards entrusted with the duty of interviewing candidates for one or two of the Services, but not the fighting Services, and although my experience is comparatively short it shows that you have often to turn down a candidate when if he could have been trained on right lines a few years earlier he would have been one of the very best. He had had a wrong kind of training and that made him unsuitable for the work.
    My suggestion to my right hon. Friend in the matter of getting a much wider entry into the commissioned ranks is that he should consider whether in the Army as in the Navy he could not take the cadets at a very much younger age for commissioned rank. I should like them taken from the age of 12, and to have it laid down that those who were chosen at that age should come at least in equal measure from the elementary schools as from the private schools. You should get the ablest boys and then give them their education in a special military secondary school. Later, they should be allowed to go for a period to the cadet colleges and then they should be allowed to go for a short period to one of the universities. The latter I believe to be vital.

    1059
    The State m this matter should be generous. When dealing with picked boys, it should give them their education free. These boys coming at a very early age, and picked for their all-round qualities, should enter the Service when they reach the appropriate age without any sense of inferiority, from whatever stratum they came. They would be boys picked from the whole of the nation. [An HON. MEMBER: "AT WHAT AGE? "] About the age that boys go to public schools—12 to 13. They should have a special name to distinguish them, such as King's Cadets. I should like to see some system such as that introduced not only for the Army but for the public services—I am thinking of the Colonial services and other services—so that we should spread the net more widely than is being done at present.
    Captain Sir Derrick Gunston: If the Government adopted such a scheme for the Army and Navy would you not have to lay down a time factor, that the boy who obtained his education in that way should serve for a certain length of time in Government service?
    Sir E. Grigg: Oh, yes, I think so undoubtedly. If they obtain their education from the Government they would have to undertake to serve for a long period in the Service to which they went. I am saying that we should draw much more widely upon all the talent and quality of the nation for other services besides that of the Army. That is very vital at the present time. I personally feel very strongly that the immense opportunities offered to the youth of the country by services like the Colonial service should not be as they are at the present moment a preserve of the middle class. You are not going to give a real opportunity to the boys unless you pick them much younger and give them their chance. Therefore, I hope my right hon. Friend will consider that suggestion. He spoke of taking boys for the ranks much earlier, and I hope that he will consider taking them for commissioned rank much earlier, too. I welcome what he said about quicker promotion in the commissioned ranks. I agree that if he brings in a larger number of warrant officers he will reduce the disproportion between the base and the apex of the pyramid. I think he will also help matters very much by
    1060
    promising promotion after certain periods of service, whether vacancies exist or not. That will help the officer very much.
    One point more. In what I am about to say I realise that I am treading on very delicate ground. The matter was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for York. If you are going to give adequate opportunity for promotion, you have to consider the very delicate question of grouping or brigading certain regiments for that purpose. It is easy in the first two regiments of Foot Guards, which are three battalion regiments, but in the two battalion regiments it is not so easy to make promotion smooth or rapid enough. I would not weaken regimental spirit. It is the life and soul of the Army. The golden way to esprit de corps. But I do not think that it would be weakened by brigading suitable regiments together—rifle regiments, Highland regiments and so on—for purposes of promotion. I hope my right hon. Friend will take that into consideration. I admit that it is delicate, but he is courageous, and I trust he will face it.
    There is, however, one aspect of his proposals in regard to officers which presents some danger, and I hope he will give attention to it. One of the reasons why we have always had a high establishment of officers and one of the reasons why the establishment of the staff also is higher than it need be for the actual work, is that we have always had before us the necessity of keeping a big Reserve. If we reduce the number of officers coming into the Army we shall have no adequate Reserve. Casualties among officers are much heavier than casualties in other ranks. Therefore, you must have proportionately a higher Reserve of officers than of other ranks. If my right hon. Friend is going to take the line which he has stated in regard to officers, and I agree that it is right, he must take special steps to create an adequate Reserve of officers, and a very ready means of doing that would be through the Special Reserve. The Special Reserve was of immense service at the beginning of the last War, and I think it might be developed at the present time.
    The unpopularity of the Army is also, due, to a certain extent, to bad conditions. My right hon. Friend is doing a great deal to improve conditions, and I

    1061
    congratulate him and the Army on that fact. There is a great deal in the life of the soldier which ought to be improved. He has to live his life too much on parade. He ought to have more off periods. In some regiments the soldier has more off time than in others, but the fact that the soldier does not get many of the ordinary liberties enjoyed by men in other employments tells against the military profession as a matter of choice.
    My right hon. Friend was undoubtedly right in saying that one thing that affected the Army most adversely was the fact that India takes a large part of the Army, and pays for it. That has controlled the organisation of the Army, and made reform in the organisation of the Army immensely more difficult. I was, therefore, more glad than I can say when my right hon. Friend said that he has the consent of the Prime Minister to start discussions on this subject between his Department and the India Office. I wish all success to those discussions. Quite apart from everything else, quite apart from the prejudicial influence which India has exercised upon the organisation of the Army and the conditions under which the soldier lives, quite apart also from the unpopularity of service in India, it is a great mistake to keep so large a part of our strategic reserve at one end in the East.
    My hon. and gallant Friend opposite was for dispersing the reserves. That, if I may say so with respect, is not sound military doctrine. I do not think the great masters of strategy would follow him in that respect. It is wiser as a rule to have your strategic reserves in the centre when you are not certain what is going to happen on either flank. The place for the strategic reserves at the present time, the strategic reserves of the Empire, is unquestionably the Middle East. If we placed larger strategic reserves in the Middle East it might do something to get rid of the idea which is very common among our people that we need no Army at all, no military force for guarding our overseas bases, and that the Regular Army is only a most dangerous instrument which may drag us into mass warfare on the Continent of Europe. Very few people realise that without the Regular Army, quite distinct from other commitments, there would be no garrisons for naval bases and air
    1062
    bases. So much for the organisation of the Army.
    Let me say a few words on the question of broad policy, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred in a very interesting way in his speech in introducing the Estimates. I should like to enter two caveats on what he said. I will not say that he adopted them as his own, but he seemed to look with a friendly eye on two doctrines which, in my opinion, are very unsafe. One of those doctrines is the idea that man power counts less than machine power in modern war. That is an extremely questionable doctrine, and I hope my right hon. Friend will think very carefully and very hard before he acts on that doctrine. I do not accuse him of having adopted it, but he seemed to be flirting or philandering with it, and I thought that it might end in a complete embrace. I hope that is not going to be the case. It is an extremely comfortable doctrine, but more political than military. We are 20,000 men under establishment. How heaven sent! How providential! We do not really need them. How much better to be without! We are also, of course, a thousand officers short. How fortunate! We have too many already. More would have been a useless expense! That is a dangerous line of argument to use in a country facing difficulties and contingencies such as we are facing at the present time.
    As far as my right hon. Friend applied that doctrine to the organisation of the Army, I make no complaint. He spoke of lighter divisions and smaller battalions. Those are technical matters which may very properly be changed, owing to the difference in the arms and the methods of transport which are used, but when you are speaking of man power on a large scale, as compared with machine power, the case is very different. There are still, I believe, some good soldiers left in Germany, and there are certainly some good soldiers in France. I have not observed any indifference on their part to man power. Certainly, they are planning the use of machines on a tremendous scale, and have gone further than we have; but far from training fewer men both those countries are training every man that is fit. It is a dangerous doctrine to preach, that we do not need men; that we are able to produce machines, and that will be quite enough. I hazard this prediction, that if war does

    1063
    come upon us we shall find ourselves compelled to use the utmost of our man power before we get out of it. That is one reason why I am so anxious that steps should be taken in advance to save us from another awful sacrifice of the best of our youth.
    I have one further caveat to enter. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to be flirting with the idea that the power of defence was now so great that it is going to govern the conduct of future wars. In a sense that doctrine is self-evident. It is perfectly obvious that with the tremendous concentration of fire power which can now be established any prepared front is hard to pierce, but the history of recent warfare does not suggest that the defensive is much stronger to-day than it was in the Great War. I think it suggests that the offensive has, on the whole, gained a little on the defensive. This doctrine of the defensive was expounded in regard to Abyssinia. It proved to be wrong. It was expounded about China. It proved to be wrong. It was expounded about Spain. It proves to be wrong. The offensive succeeds in spite of all difficulties. It has certainly succeeded in China, in spite of the fact that there are German officers helping the Chinese.
    I am, therefore, a little doubtful whether the doctrine of the power of the defensive is one that we can trust. In any case, that doctrine is extremely dangerous if it is going to lead to reliance upon fixed defences and immobility. As always in the past, the nation which relies on fixed defences will be lost. It has always been so and it will be so again. My right hon. Friend's references to the Maginot Line, therefore, caused me some disquiet. The Maginot Line is a magnificent line of defence, but I do not believe that there is any first-rank soldier in France who regards that line as more than a delaying factor, behind which the greater preparations of the nation may be carried out. I do not believe that the book by General Fayolle on the Maginot Line would have been published were it not that the Army wished the French nation to understand that its fixed defences, however strong and magnificent, can only purchase a certain amount of time for preparation behind. If you rely upon fixed defences as the mainstay of your strategy you will certainly be lost. To preach the defensive to our Army
    1064
    would be an extremely dangerous thing. We are never going to fight an aggressive war. But certainly we are never going to carry out our defensive roles by taking up just a defensive attitude. The role of the British Army must be carried out by great mobility, great versatility and by training in that offensive spirit which it has always possessed. I believe that doctrine holds true wherever you may have to apply it—whether in the East, the Middle East or the West.
    6.45 p.m.
    Major Dower: I hope the hon. Member for Altrincham (Sir E. Grigg) will forgive me if I do not follow him throughout the whole course of his speech, but there is one point I should like to take up. I may have misunderstood him, but I thought he implied that the right hon. Gentleman was not really taking as much interest in recruiting numbers as he ought to take.
    Sir E. Grigg indicated dissent.
    Major Dower: I am glad that is the case, because the hon. Member seemed to say that the right hon. Gentleman was not worrying if numbers were not coming in as fast as they should. That, of course, is not the case. I intend to refer only to the anti-aircraft unit of the defences of London, with which I am personally connected, and to answer the question the right hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith) put with regard to sound locators. During the time I have given to the training of men on sound locators, I find that Territorial soldiers will make excellent manipulators of sound locators. There are a good many things we want the Minister to give us in other directions, and if we get them we can look after our searchlights and sound locators, and all the machines which are necessary in the air defences of London. I go down to my battalion every night, and a good many days as well, and I find that the proposal which has done most good is not the increase in pay and allowances, or even the grant to the Territorial Association, but the status which he has given to the Army, both Regular and Territorial. It has done more to encourage them than anything else.
    The Territorial Army has felt for a long time that it has been given some of the most responsible jobs in the Army—you

    1065
    could not have a more responsible job than the anti-aircraft defence of London.—and yet at the same time they have not been treated properly. They feel that the Minister has at last recognised them and given them the status which was so necessary if you want to get loyal cooperation from the Territorial Force. I can assure the Minister that as far as the troops of the Territorial Army are concerned, they consider that he is the finest Minister of War we have had since the time of Lord Haldane. Things which have been neglected for 20 years and more have been put right. As an officer holding a commission in the Regular and Territorial Army I speak with considerable diffidence, but there are two suggestions which I think it is my duty to make. I hope they will not be treated as criticisms, but as proposals to be put into a common pool which, when the Government have time, will be carefully considered.
    Take the case of an anti-aircraft battalion. The size of an infantry battalion is 613 men, a field brigade 366 men, and a yeomanry regiment 300 or more. But in an anti-aircraft battalion there are 1,350 under the command of the lieutenant-colonel. It is an enormous number, and many people wonder whether you can get 100 per cent efficiency when you take into consideration the tremendous area that has to be covered and also the administration. I want to say one word with regard to administration as it affects a company. The strength of an anti-aircraft company defending London is over 300, and at the present time there is no whole-time clerk in the office to attend to the correspondence. The amount of correspondence is immense. There are urgent letters which have to be answered, and what it amounts to is this, that if you happen to be a company commander with money of your own you employ your own civilian secretary to answer the correspondence, either in your own home, or your business office, or you take her down to regimental headquarters and attend to it there.
    That is a matter which really ought to be seen to. If you are a company commander with no money of your own, what happens is that the correspondence gets delayed, is behindhand, and accumulates, until you have time to reply in your own longhand, or get your permanent staff instructor to try his hand on an old type-
    1066
    writer, and you get him working for hours on a typewriter when he ought to be employing his time in training the non-commissioned officers in their important functions. We welcome the proposal that Territorial Associations should receive a larger grant, and I hope it is going to be used in some way to compensate us. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will be good enough to consider whether this extra generosity which is being shown might not best be spent by providing a clerk in an office with over 300 men, whether the money would not best be spent on paying for a whole-time civilian clerk, at any rate, to be divided between two companies. The strength of two companies is more than that of a whole regiment, and if we could have one clerk to help us it would be of the greatest assistance. That is my first suggestion.
    My second is this: a recruit in his first year's training gets no payment for his extra drills; it is only when he has finished his first year's training that he gets it. That may be right in normal times when we are sure of peace for a long time ahead, but if we want men it is not the right way to treat recruits to tell them that because they are recruits they cannot get anything for their extra drills. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider, if the money is at his disposal, that recruits shall be treated as men of more than a year's standing and be paid for their extra drills. I hope that when the Willingdon Report comes out, my right hon. Friend will see that more money is allocated to the Territorial Force. We really welcome the suggestions in the last Army Estimates. They have given us the greatest encouragement, and at my recruiting show last night over 30 more men were enrolled. We have the country behind us, all political parties are behind us, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will continue his excellent work until it is finished and we have brought our numbers up to strength.
    6.55 p.m.
    Mr. Ede: In the speech which the Secretary of State delivered on the Estimates a week ago there was one sentence which seemed to me to be of very wide application. He said:
    "The assumptions of an unforgettable past are not always the surest guide to an unpredictable future."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th march, 1938; col. 2138, Vol. 333.]

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    I hope that will be inscribed in many places in this country. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will have it in front of him on his desk as a reminder of where he has been and the uncertainty of where he is going. I would also wish it to be put in every staff officer's room, because as I have listened to this discussion and to other discussions I find on occasions creeping in the kind of thought that what we really have to do is to devise a scheme which would have enabled us to have won the last War in a little less time than it took. In my own view that is probably the greatest danger that confronts us at the moment, and it was one reason why I welcomed the action of the right hon. Gentleman in rejuvenating the higher branches of the War Office a few months ago. I was really alarmed when I saw that Sir Cyril Deverell said at the end of the last manoeuvres that what we wanted to do was to get back to the offensive.
    I differ from the hon. and gallant Member for Altrincham (Sir E. Grigg) in thinking that the defensive is not the proper role of the British Army, All the great victories of the British Army have been won in what were really defensive actions. Cressy, Agincourt, Waterloo, and most of the victories of the ancestor of the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) were really defensive actions. [An HON. MEMBER: "Blenheim!"] Look at the appalling cost of life of Blenheim. It was true it was spectacular, but it was one of the examples which proves the unsuitability of attempting to use an army, whose principal and inner core holding the army together was British, in an offensive action. I believe the history of the late War, and all the campaigns which have taken place since, show that probably the counter offensive by an army which has managed to preserve itself in defence is probably the best tactics and strategy that can be employed.
    There was one thing said by the hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford (Captain Macnamara) which should be borne in mind. Since 10th March, when the right hon. Gentleman spoke to us, events have occurred which might well make the Maginot line of less value to the French than it appeared to be on 10th March. With the possibility of hostile
    1068
    forces on the Italian and Spanish frontiers the rôle which the right hon. Gentleman assigned to the Maginot Line may not be as effective as it was formerly. The speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Penrith (Major Dower), to which, as an old volunteer, I listened with a great deal of support, illustrates one of the difficulties which confronts the Territorial Army in its recruiting. I believe that if the men in the ranks could go to their friends with whom they work or whom they meet socially and could say "We have now the machines and equipment, everything we require, but we need men," they could make a great deal stronger appeal than they can at present. I join with him in his plea for clerical assistance for company officers, and for other necessary expenses which are entailed in carrying out their patriotic duties. It is a great shame that any man should be compelled to use his private resources to supplement the allowance made by the Army for the equipment and management of his unit. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will listen to what the hon. and gallant Member said, and will take immediate remedial steps. I do not quite agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Altrincham as to the way we should select officers for the future. He took the view that selection should be made about the age of 12. I belong to a profession which was ruined for a good many years because selection took place at that age. Schoolmasters were unpopular, because they were taken away from the ordinary life of the community at 12, and were segregated together. They never met anybody but intending schoolmasters. One of the worst things ever done for the teaching profession was the way in which two or three generations ago intending schoolmasters were segregated in that way.
    After all, the real test of a company officer is his capacity to understand the feelings of other men, the way in which to appeal to them, to inspire them to heroic efforts, sometimes in attack, but I believe more often in our Army in resisting the onslaughts of other people The men who are going to have those attributes of leadership most highly developed will be those who will have met as wide a circle of people in as many differing circumstances as possible, and who will have made the very widest social contacts with other people. I should deplore seeing, in the attempt to democra-

    1069
    tise the recruiting of officers for the Army, the selection and segregation of boys as young as 12. The time you want really to pay attention to selecting the individual is towards the end of the secondary or technical school career, somewhere about the age of 15. At 12—I am speaking more of working class boys than boys of other classes—you are more likely to pick out the precocious rather than the type with the staying qualities that you may have to demand for this walk of life. I have always regretted that for so many purposes selection has to be made in the elementary schools at as early an age as 11 or 12. For this important purpose, if you can postpone the age of selection until 15 or 16, you will be far more likely to get the kind of youth that both the hon. and gallant Gentleman and I wish to obtain.
    Sir E. Grigg: I defer to the hon. Member's superior experience in regard to the age at which boys should be taken. I put up 12 only as a suggestion, because I thought it was important to give these boys an opportunity of education as young as possible. If 15 is more suitable, I am all for it but, so far from wishing to have them segregated, I should like them to have an opportunity to go on to a University.
    Mr. Ede: I do not think there is very much between the hon. and gallant Gentleman and myself on that. A very large percentage of the boys in secondary schools are now recruited from elementary schools and the opportunity for going to the University is already provided. I should like to see it wider and I gather that the hon. and gallant Gentleman shares my view on that point.
    There is one question on which I still have some misgivings, and that is the creation of the warrant officer, Class III. It seems to me that it will have quite the opposite effect on the structure of the Army from the one that has been suggested in these Debates. The right hon. Gentleman said:
    "Have we an adequacy of officers, or is there a shortage? It is significant that the responsibilities allotted to the officer have never been re-examined in the light of actuality. Could not other ranks be given an opportunity of discharging some of the responsibilities confined to the commissioned ranks? If this could be clone, the purpose for which higher education has been given to these other ranks would be justified, and
    1070
    the prospects before these other ranks would be enlarged. The warrant officer of to-day is surely capable of commanding a platoon and similar sub-units hitherto generally entrusted to subalterns."
    I do not know why he should confine that to the warrant officer of to-day. I do not know why he should think he is so much superior to the warrant officer of the past. The hon. and gallant Gentleman alluded to me as the hon. and gallant Gentleman but I was only an acting-warrant officer, and I am not entitled to be called "gallant." If the warrant officer of to-day is not entitled to be called "gallant" he is apparently entitled to be called "learned." The right hon. Gentleman went on to say:
    "We propose to enlarge the complement of warrant officers by the creation of a new Class III for this purpose. The number of entries into the cadet colleges will fall to be correspondingly diminished, and we shall enjoy the great advantage of being able to select only those who fulfil the highest standard. Another effect of a reduction in the subaltern class will be mathematically to increase the prospects of every officer joining the British Army, whether from the ranks or from the cadet colleges."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th march, 1938, col 2142, Vol. 332.]
    As an exercise in logic that whole argument appears to me to be highly defective. In the first place it seems to me that its effect—I do not say its aim—would be to restrict promotion from the ranks to commissioned rank. That is bound to be the effect. In the first place, the Secretary of State for War proposes to reduce the number of commissioned ranks inside the battalion by withdrawing a number of subalterns and substituting for them this new warrant officer Class III. By increasing the number of ranks below commissioned rank he increases the proportion of non-commissioned ranks to commissioned ranks. I asked him in a question if he would give certain particulars in the form of a White Paper including the establishment of a typical battalion after this change had been made. He gave me all the other information, which mainly consisted of amendments to the Royal Warrant, but he has not given in the White Paper any particulars with regard to the new establishment that is to be created. I believe he attaches very considerable importance to this new establishment and to the new duties to be assigned to this class of warrant officer. I should be very much obliged if he could further elucidate

    1071
    the position with regard to it. They appear to be a class of warrant officer who will come in rank between a sergeant and the company sergeant-major. I gather that they will, therefore, occupy a very different position in the organisation of the company—they will be company warrant officers and not battalion warrant officers—from the position now occupied by subaltern officers. I imagine that they will be under the company sergeant-major, who will remain, I take it, a warrant officer Class II.
    What is their exact position? What are the duties that they are expected to carry out? These are questions that are being asked in every canteen every night when these things are being discussed. Will they take the place of the orderly officer of the day? I gather that that is the kind of duty that the right hon. Gentleman expects this particular man to do, and expects the ordinary commissioned officer to escape by the proposals that he has made. I hope he will be able to give us some answer on that point, because I certainly think that, heavy as the duty of orderly officer may be, it is a very important task to be performed by company officers. It brings them in daily touch with the whole of the unit. It is always doubtful what would happen to a man who made a complaint when he was asked if he had any to make. Yet the orderly officer on duty gets opportunities for seeing things which enable him to keep in touch with the daily life and comfort of the troops in a way that nothing else can do.
    There are many other ways in which these subaltern officers, in doing the kind of duties from which the right hon. Gentleman seems desirous of relieving them, have had opportunities that they will not now get of knowing something about the spirit of the troops and all that internal organisation and that camaraderie of the ranks which goes to the making of an army, and which in the final resort is the spirit of the Army upon which the commander has to depend. I believe the proper thing to do is to have a considerable increase in the number of men who are genuinely promoted from the ranks. We have had the statement made that 17 per cent. of the present officers in the Army are recruited from the ranks. I should like to know how many of that
    1072
    17 per cent. are quartermasters, because I do not regard, and I do not think the serving soldier regards, the quartermaster as a concession to the desire for promotion from the ranks. In all these discussions we should keep the quartermaster out of the picture altogether.
    On the question of the marriage allowance for soldiers under 26, I want to read a sentence or two from the very remarkable speech of the Financial Secretary in winding up the Debate He said:
    "The reason why we do not want married men in the Army is, I suggest, the perfectly humane one that military life involves such conditions that we do not encourage or advise young soldiers to take upon themselves the responsibilities of a wife."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th march, 1938; col. 2240, Vol. 332.]
    If a man who had never taken on that responsibility had made the suggestion, I should have listened to it with respect, but I consulted Dod and found that the Financial Secretary did not wait to come of age before he took to himself a wife.
    The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Sir Victor Warrender): I had left the Army.
    Mr. Ede: The hon. Baronet left it a great deal too young and set a very bad example. I do not know whether he left the Army or the Army left him. However, that has nothing to do with the point. I am talking about the responsibility of taking a wife. Twenty-two days before the hon. and gallant Baronet attained his majority, he took to himself a wife; and then he got up in the House and lectured serving soldiers about the responsibility of taking a wife, in a Debate in which hon. Members had been talking about making the Army a career for the soldier. I think that the words came with particularly ill grace from the hon. and gallant Baronet, who had perpetrated matrimony before he was 21 years of age. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, in giving further consideration to the problem will, as a bachelor, consider the horrible example of improvidence and rashness sitting beside him, and that when he contemplates his hon. and gallant Friend, and the assistance which his wife is to him in his career, he will realise that even to a young soldier the right type of woman may be of assistance in the career which he has undertaken. Certainly, the state of affairs which exists at the moment whereby the young wife

    1073
    of a soldier, until the soldier attains 26 years of age, is regarded as being "off the strength," and becomes a charge to the public assistance authorities, is no advertisement for the right hon. Gentleman's recruiting campaign and does nothing to make the Army more popular or more respected in the country.
    There is one other subject with which I wish to deal, for it is a subject on which I managed to get some first-hand information in a very peculiar way. I happened to meet a couple of troopers of the Scots Greys. I expressed to them my congratulations that their regiment had been enabled to keep its horses. To my astonishment, they used language towards me which made me thankful that I had been an acting regimental sergeant-major—I understood nearly the whole of it. I want to mention this matter to the right hon. Gentleman as a warning. I believe the horses were preserved for the Scots Greys mainly as a result of the social pressure that was brought to bear. These two men said to me, "It is all very well for the officers, but, if our unit were mechanised, on leaving the Army we should be able to go to a job, but who wants a groom in these days?" I ask the right hon. Gentleman, considering the bold line of reform which he has taken in certain matters, to remember what has been said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Keighley about the Army being a place for ancestor worship and by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Altrincham with regard to the caste system. This is a great danger which confronts him, as it has confronted every Army reformer in the past. In giving his mind to this task, he must realise that he has to do his duty to the country. It is the country first, and the social affairs of the Army not at all, that has to be the basis of his consideration of the tremendous problems that will come before him, and upon the successful solution of which at any moment the safety of our country may depend.
    7.20 p.m.
    Mr. Anstruther-Gray: I think every hon. Member will agree with the sentiment expressed in the concluding phrase of the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). I would like to follow the example of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger), and to preface my remarks by reminding hon. Members of the speech
    1074
    made by the Secretary of State's predecessor in introducing the Army Estimates last year, in the course of which he said that if there were two simultaneous emergencies in different parts of the world, the resources of the Army would be strained to breaking point. I think we should consider that before we go too far in being satisfied or complacent in believing that all is well with the recruiting position in the Army to-day. On that occasion the right hon. Gentleman went on to point out that in 10 out of the last 12 years, one such emergency had occurred, whether it was in Cyprus, in China, in Burma or in Palestine. We must remember that the picture to-day is no brighter. Already there is a serious situation in Palestine, and the position in other parts of the world is far from reassuring; already, in fact, we are in the position where one other emergency would strain the Army to breaking point.
    Or can we say that that is not so? Can we say that the Territorial Army has made such progress in taking over home defence that the Army could meet this strain? Can we say that the position of our organisation, our reserves, our munitions and our recruiting is such that nothing short of a major war would cause us real anxiety? I should be interested to hear the answer of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to those questions. Personally, I doubt whether we have got to that stage, even on the basis of judging strength by fire units instead of by personnel. In that connection I sincerely agree with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Altrincham (Sir E. Grigg) that it is most dangerous to assume machine power as a basis for measuring strength in preference to man power. I still believe that the greatest need of the Army to-day is more men and more officers, and for that reason I am doubtful of the wisdom of reducing the establishment of officers by 1,000. I ask my right hon. Friend whether this is really a counsel of perfection, or whether he is merely making the best of a bad job. Is it simply because he cannot get officers to join that he is saying he does not want them, or is it because he cannot get the money to pay them that he is replacing them by warrant officers, Class III?
    I am by no means against the grading of Class III warrant officers, but I am not very clear as to what they are in-

    1075
    tended to be. Is the rank intended to be a stepping stone for young men who will go on afterwards to be promoted, or is it just a higher and better paid grade to which old non-commissioned officers may rise without necessarily expecting promotion? While appreciating the point about the contact between officers and troops made by the hon. Member for South Shields, I would say that I believe that in either case it would be possible to get men as Class III warrant officers who would be well able to command platoons either in peace or war; indeed, in both peace and war very frequently the officer commanding the platoon is absent on some course of instruction or other employment, and the platoon is, in fact, commanded by a non-commissioned officer. For all that, I should not willingly see a reduction in officer strength. I would like the warrant officer Class III to be created, but in addition to the full complement of officers. On the outbreak of war, it seems to me that there would be great need for Reserve officers. Moreover, with the new mechanisation and the introduction of new weapons, Reservists from the ranks returning to the Colours will need a great deal more training than hitherto has been the case. I think the extra officers or warrant officers, Class III, should be earmarked for that purpose.
    I am not quite clear what is intended. What is the proposed reduction in officer strength in a battalion to be? Does my right hon. Friend intend to enforce this reduction on regiments which can always get their full complement of officers? Does he intend this to apply to the remaining cavalry regiments whose officers are already in particular demand as Yeomanry adjutants and so on? Does he intend to apply it to the Brigade of Guards, where there is no undue block in promotion owing to the fact that a great many young officers join for a period of a few years, as I did myself, with the definite intention of leaving after that period of training in order to take up another profession? These individuals almost always remain on the reserve and can be called up in any emergency. I think that to reduce their numbers would be a mistake.
    I want now to deal with recruiting in the other ranks. In the first place, I wish sincerely to welcome the improvement for which my right hon. Friend is respon-
    1076
    sible. There was, however, one remark in the Secretary of State's speech which I heard with some misgivings. In a beautiful phrase, he spoke of the
    "progressive elimination from a soldier's drill of all superfluous postures requiring rehearsal." [OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th March, 1938; cols. 2141, Vol. 332.]
    I do not know whether my right hon. Friend really meant anything by that, or whether he merely said it because it sounded good. I hope he did not mean too much, because I would put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that drill is in many ways not unlike the procedure of this House; to an outsider it may appear very roundabout and unnecessary, but when one looks into it, one finds that there is a good deal of justification for most of it and that one cannot cut out very much of it without doing harm to the working of the machine. I put it to hon. Members that if one wants a body of men to go from one place to another, it is an advantage to have three speeds—slow march, quick march and double march. If one wants them to go along a broad road, it is an advantage to move in fours, or along a narrow road in file, or along a path in single file. It is a great convenience to one if all the men stop at once when one says "Halt," and things are much more simple if at the end of the journey they arrive in the same formation as they were at the beginning.
    That is the object of most drill. I put it to my right hon. Friend that it is not very much more complicated than the Highway Code. The only question is whether to spend time in learning to do this drill well or whether to be content to do it badly. I put forward the point of view that, first, drill is very good physical training; in my opinion, it is just about as good as physical jerks, and a great deal more stimulating and satisfactory; and secondly, I think my right hon. Friend will find that most regiments which have good drill are also good in other forms of training. If he will look into the records of the last War and of other wars, he will find that invariably the regiments having the tradition for good drill have been second to none in the fighting. Therefore, I hope he will not go too far in eliminating drill.
    On the question of employment after leaving the Colours, may I say that I would like soldiering to be regarded not so much as a profession in itself, but as a

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    phase in a successful civil career? The best way to raise the status of the Army and attract men of every section to it is to awaken the public mind to an appreciation of the fact that the best avenue to a good job is service in the Forces. If my right hon. Friend can do that, he will cater not only for the professional soldier but for other classes as well. You do not want too many 21 years' service men, because it affects your reserve and increases your non-effective vote. You want to cater not only for what I may call the soldier of fortune, the man who joins the Army simply because it happens to come his way to do so. It is necessary also to cater for the best type of man, the sort of young man who, probably in consultation with his parents, is mapping out a career which, if all goes well, will lead to success in life.
    I believe that is the type of man which my right hon. Friend is trying to attract to the Army, and the most attractive prospect you can offer to that type of man is the assurance of employment in the Civil Service afterwards. In that direction I believe the Government are doing fairly well but, as far as the police forces are concerned, there is considerable room for improvement, and although that is not a matter which comes directly under the War Office, I hope my right hon. Friend will use his influence with the Cabinet to get something done in that direction. But the public service cannot absorb all these men, and a method must be found of giving men of good character an assured career in industrial employment as well. Can that be done by means of vocational training centres? I wonder? I agree that these centres help men to compete with others in the labour market, but I do not think they can give the men any preference.
    We must do more, and I would like to see an extension of the King's Roll system. I would like to have it laid down that before firms qualify for the King's Roll, they must employ, over and above the 5 per cent. of disabled ex-service men now required, a further percentage of other ex-service men or serving Territorials. I know that this matter has been occupying the mind of the War Office and that they are, indeed, favourable to it. Only last week the Financial Secretary to the War Office answered a question about a proposal to this effect, relating
    1078
    to Territorials. He said that the matter had been considered, and it was found that it might react adversely on the existing King's Roll scheme. But he went on to say that his right hon. Friend was prepared to reopen the matter. May I deal with the suggestion that it would react unfavourably on the existing system? I do not believe that that is so. It would be stipulated clearly that this extra percentage should be over and above the original 5 per cent. of disabled men, and therefore harm could only be done if firms at present on the Roll were caused by this extension to remove their names from it. In view of the present volume of Government and local authority orders I do not think that many firms, if any, would withdraw from the King's Roll. It need not be laid down as a hard and fast rule. Special exceptions could be made in special circumstances.
    Not only would I suggest that the King's Roll should be extended in this manner, but also that membership of it should be made a condition of obtaining not only Government and local authorities' orders, but a condition of any Government grant, subsidy or monopoly. I do not think my right hon. Friend need fear that it would cause any delay in the costings department or in contracts which are urgently required. He could bring in this reform gradually. Secondly, I believe that feeling in the country to-day more than at any time since the War, among both employers and employés, is in favour of such a step and that they would be prepared to work this scheme in a spirit of co-operation. Another important advantage is that it would cost the country nothing, and that is more than can be said of most of the other proposals for improving the prospects of the soldier. In a time when the great expense of rearmament is falling upon us, that is a vital consideration.
    7.37 p.m.
    Mr. Hamilton Kerr: As a great many hon. Members wish to intervene in this Debate, I shall model my remarks on that excellent old Lancashire proverb "Stand up, speak up and shut up." My hon. Friend who has just spoken prefaced his interesting speech with some observations on the function of the British Army, but did not go on to develop what I believe to be the equally interesting subject of the weapons with which the Army shall

    1079
    carry out its functions. I imagine that the prime objective of modern war, as of war at all times, is the knock-out blow. Until recently, the general staffs of the great European countries always thought of the knock-out blow in terms of the offensive. "To advance is to conquer," was a precept of Frederick the Great. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War, in his admirable speech on the Estimates the other day, stressed the fact that the defensive had grown very strong in recent years. I believe that it is the machine-gun which has given this added power to the defensive. The machine-gunner in his concrete emplacement can mow down the ranks of advancing infantry, and is himself invulnerable to anything except a direct hit from artillery fire.
    Experience in recent wars has proved the contention of my right hon. Friend. As far back as the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian Army having repeatedly repelled along a front of 50 miles, at Mukden, the attacks of the Japanese, was only driven from its position by an outflanking movement. In the last War at Messines, after exploding no less than 19 miles and a bombardment of 19 days and an expenditure of 4,283,000 shells, we succeeded in obtaining from the enemy only 45 square miles of territory, and for every square mile gained we paid something like 8,000 casualties. I believe that the experience of the Madrid defence confirms this theory, and that the more the Nationalist artillery batters that city, the more each crumbling ruin becomes a forress for the concealed machine-gunners. The new German defensive line from Holland to Switzerland gives special significance to the power of the defence. The idea of the German High Command is based on the use of a comparatively small force along those frontiers and the use of this main strength in Eastern Europe.
    How can we get round this power of defence? There are only two methods. The first is the outflanking method. As far back as 1897 the German General Staff, impressed by the power of the French frontier fortifications evolved the famous Schlieffen plan which consisted of the use of a crushingly strong right wing to sweep through Belgium and France and scoop up Paris as you would scoop up a
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    fat and juicy fish in your net. That plan failed only because a shrinkage occurred towards the centre owing to casualties, with the result that the strong right wing lost power. The second method is that outlined in a series of admirable articles by the military correspondent of the "Times" last October. This method he defined as the "offensive defensive." According to it you stand on the defensive, while your enemy exhausts himself in offensive measures and when you judge that the crucial moment has arrived, you deal a tremendous counter-stroke. In support of this theory, he draws attention to the fact that at the beginning of the last War the French armies between the Meuse and the Vosges threw themselves, in a tremendous offensive, against the German forces and within a week were thrown back with immense losses. Had they, Captain Liddel Hart says, taken up the much shorter and stronger line between Antwerp and Namur they might have been able to check the German advance earlier and organise at an earlier date an effective counter-stroke.
    I believe that these two methods, both the method of outflanking the enemy and the "offensive defensive" method, rely for success on one condition, and that was outlined by my right hon. Friend in his speech the other day. It is mobility of fire power. As I see it, the future army will be like a boxer on his toes raining in his blows and always trying to find an opening. Let us say that an army is advancing towards it opponents. The commander-in-chief cannot always rely on aerial observations. There may be clouds or a low ceiling, or the enemy forces may be camouflaged or widely dispersed and advancing under natural cover. The only sure method of finding out where the main bulk of the enemy's forces lie, is to break through the advance screen of the enemy, much as one would tear open the paper wrappings of a parcel. I believe that mobility of fire power is essential to this. It can be obtained by the use of light vehicles such as tanks each with three men and 15-pounder guns.
    Let us say that the second phase of the battle opens and the commander decides that he must fight a delaying action. In order to deceive the enemy into thinking that he is facing a major position, it is

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    again necessary to produce heavy fire power and, again, mobility of fire power becomes important. He must be able to have machine guns as well as both light and heavy guns brought into the front at a moment's notice. When the last phase comes and time arrives for the counter-stroke, I believe that two totally different kinds of weapons will be required. I refer to the heavy gun and the heavy tank. I believe that experience has proved these two weapons to be the only effective "tin-openers," so to speak, of advance in modern warfare. It is often said that the Basque "iron ring" was broken by intensive aerial bombardment but the Basques had no air force to speak of, and very few anti-aircraft guns. Heavy guns can place heavy projectiles with immense accuracy, and heavy tanks can go forward and crush entanglements and concrete emplacements. So I believe the two phases of modern warfare require, first, mobility of fire power, and, secondly, the production of the heavy gun and the heavy tank.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: The hon. and gallant Member should not lose sight of the effect of gas attacks.
    Mr. Kerr: Gas will naturally play its part in war, but I think the gas-mask gives relative protection against that form of attack, while the heavy gun and the heavy tank are most formidable weapons to resist which an immense defensive organisation is needed. My right hon. Friend has distinguished his term at the War Office by so much sympathy, imagination, energy and foresight that I know he is only too willing to take up any new ideas which present themselves. He has made an admirable start and I think we can all draw courage from the old Scottish proverb:
    "Who does the maist he can, will whiles do mair."
    7.44 p.m.
    Colonel R. S. Clarke: As this Debate has now lasted for some time I hope my hon. Friend who has just spoken will forgive me if I do not follow him in the very interesting discussion which he has raised on questions of tactics and strategy. I wish to speak very briefly on another subject. I think it is just over 290 years ago since, in the days of the Civil War the British Army was cast in its present mould. It was the Protector's idea, even though it was Fairfax who made that
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    army, to concentrate on making a professional force out of civilian levies. Today that Army is being recast and the Secretary of State for War is concentrating more and more on bringing closer together the military and the civilian elements. I respectfully submit that he is right in that course, and I congratulate him on his energy and foresight. I feel that a major war is no longer the affair of professionals. The Regular soldier, officer or non-commissioned officer, will probably be commanding civilians and will probably be in close touch with civilian organisations. Therefore, liaison between the Regular Army and civil life is more than ever necessary, and I submit that the Territorial Army, of which I want to speak, is the finest agent for promoting such liaison.
    I would like to say, first, that I am deeply sensible of the great help and encouragement that the Secretary of State has given to the Territorial Army in the past year. In fact, I am really quite ashamed to ask for any more, but I was told as a child that those who did not ask did not want. There is another part of the proverb which I intend to forget. My first request will not be for the Territorial Army itself at all. I would like to ask for something for those permanent staff instructors to whom we owe so much. The Regular adjutants and the regimental sergeant-majors are now receiving the corresponding pay of their opposite numbers in the Regular Army, but in many cases the sergeants who are acting as warrant officers—Class II battery sergeant-major instructors, for example—are still only getting the pay of sergeants. I think their work is very much more responsible and harder than the work of sergeants in the Regular Army, and I believe that the experience which they are gaining will be of very great value to them when they get back to the Regular Army. I hope it may be possible, therefore, to give them the pay of the ranks in which they are acting.
    Also I feel that in many cases the quarters provided for them are not as good as they ought to be. In one town that I know of the War Office at present provide no facilities for heating water for baths, and they have to be provided by the Territorial Association. Next, I would like to ask, as a Territorial gunner, albeit one who is now on the Reserve, if when batteries consist of 12 guns instead

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    of six, brigades will still contain tour batteries. A number of Territorial gunners are very interested in that question. I would like to say that, like my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. C. Wood), I welcome the addition of searchlight units to the Royal Regiment, and I am certain that their coming in with us will be a very popular move.
    I understood, from his speech in introducing the Estimates, that the Secretary of State is not very keen on walking-out dress, but, with all due deference, I submit, from my own experience, that it has a very real value from the recruiting point of view. The Territorial officer, unlike the Regular officer, is largely responsible for recruiting as well as for training, and I certainly found that, having by private arrangement been able to obtain blue patrol uniforms in my old brigade ever since the War was a very definite recruiting asset, and worth a great many recruits in a year. With regard to the finance of the Territorial Army, I fully appreciate that until the right hon. Gentleman is in possession of the report of the Territorial Army Finance and Organisation Committee, he will not wish to commit himself, but I want to thank him sincerely for the provisional grants given, both as establishment grants and for general purposes. I assisted in answering that questionnaire in two county associations, and I would like to pay a tribute to its comprehensiveness. My only further comments on it are that I am sure that there is very real need for changes in the present system, which is largely a relic of old volunteer days. One thing, I think, is outstanding, and that is the placing of the establishment grants on the same basis, both for an association, which administers an agricultural county, and for one that is concentrated in a town, like the City of London, is very inequitable. I hope that the correspondence and the innumerable forms which we have to fill up now, often to the detriment of time that should be spent by officers, adjutants, and permanent staff instructors on other things, can be reduced. Arising out of that, in that questionnaire I was amused to read, in Section 28, this question:
    "Can you suggest any other means for reducing correspondence or the use of forms without loss of efficiency and adequate financial control?"
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    The answer to that questionnaire had to be sent in, not in duplicate, not in triplicate, not even in quadruplicate, but they actually wanted 10 copies. I also respectfully submit that it would be a great help if quicker decisions were sometimes obtained from War Office departments.
    To turn to another matter, drill halls are of paramount importance to the Territorial Army. I know it is not the policy of the War Office to compete with all other civilian counter-attractions, but there is room for more space for training and for the storage of those issues of equipment that we are beginning to get now; and apart from that there is a number of units, particularly in the Provinces, which are still using old halls, relics of Victorian volunteer days, that are unsuitable and for which they can raise no enthusiasm at all.
    That brings me to another matter. Cannot a specific grant be given for caretakers to be employed? At present, from the establishment grant, some units are able to find 15s., 20s., or 25s. to be paid to the wife of a permanent staff instructor, but that is not a satisfactory arrangement. Some of the new halls, costing £20,000, deserve better treatment, and I feel that if a civilian caretaker could be provided and paid, say 45s. a week, it would be well worth while. I name that sum, because in one county, on whose Territorial Association I serve, the county council are paying 45s. to-day for the cleaning of police headquarters and certain of the larger schools. I would also like to mention the question of furniture for these new drill halls. The present grant of from £40 to £50 is not adequate to furnish a modern drill hall. I know that in certain circumstances the War Office are ready to give loans, but I think most associations hesitate, and quite rightly hesitate, to tie themselves up with a loan for 10 years if they can help it.
    I want to touch on only one more subject in connection with the Territorial Army, and that is the question of recruiting. In 1937 there was a shortage of about 60,000 men in the Territorial Army. This year, from the Estimates, that shortage appears to be about 42,000, on an establishment of 202,000 men. Conditions for recruiting to-day are good, as good as I can remember since the War, but that being so, there should be no

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    shortage at all. It would be a tremendous advantage to have the Territorial Army completely up to strength. In the first place, in a voluntary force it would add enormously to one's discipline—the fact that one could weed out men who were not pulling their weight and who were not really efficient. Then, again, nothing succeeds like success, and no club is so popular as the one that has a waiting list, and if you can blackball a few people besides, it makes it still more popular. Lastly, I feel that the moral effect abroad would be most important.
    I feel that the Territorial Army is a really wonderful tribute to our voluntary system. Ever since the War large numbers of young men—never less, I think, than 100,000 in this country—have voluntarily learned a profession in addition to the one by which they have earned their living, and they have also during that time been ready to go anywhere they might be sent by order of this House, leaving their families, if they were married, and in that case they might be asking their wives to live on the ordinary separation allowance, a very much smaller income than many of them were earning in civil life—a big consideration. Particularly in the 10 years following the War, they received little encouragement, either from employers or from the country, yet they carried on. But this wonderful record is eclipsed to some extent by the fact that they are not really up to establishment strength, and what has been done have been rather clouded by that fact. I hope that in a short time the Territorial Army will reach the establishment. I believe it will, but to attain that ideal I think that all of us who are interested in it will have to be prepared to help. I think employers will have to let men go and, if necessary, will have to pay a certain amount for letting them go; young men must join, and older men must be prepared to do the work that those young men leave when they go to camp; and women must be prepared to spare their menfolk. I think also that we must hold to the real basic principle and the real basic spirit of voluntary service. It is not so much a question of how much time or how much money we ought to give as of how much we can give; and service to one's country is not only a duty, it is also a privilege.
    7.58 p.m.
    Major Sir Ralph Glyn: The right hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith) when he opened the Debate mentioned Sandhurst and the training received there. I was one of those who was trained there, and I always regretted afterwards that the university system had not then come into force. I would like to see more people go to the universities for the very reasons that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. There is one matter that I would like the Secretary of State to consider, if he will, and that is the possibility of using both Sandhurst and Woolwich for courses for Territorial officers, who are very ready, more ready than some Regular officers, to learn. At both Sandhurst and Woolwich there is already the paraphernalia to enable these keen officers to become more proficient. I believe that if that was done, it would have a very good effect in bringing together the cadets who are going to the Regular Army and the junior officers of the Territorial Army. There was another matter, which the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Wirral (Captain Graham) mentioned, and that was the possibility of raising local battalions in the Eastern Mediterranean. In Cyprus there is a great desire to have an opportunity of joining the local force. I served some years myself in the Macedonian Gendarmerie under the Turks. I know they make extremely good soldiers, and the best police they had were some of those that came from Cyprus.
    Another matter in regard to the Territorials which I should like the Secretary of State to take into account is the great importance just now of arranging for week-end camps. There is happily an increasing number of recruits for battalions, and it would help commanding officers and everybody concerned if facilities for training at week-end camps could be arranged so as to enable the annual period when the battalion goes to camp to be more usefully employed than in spending a great deal of time bringing the latest joined recruits up to the standard of the rest. The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor promised in November last year that week-end camps would be established. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman will be willing to consider them and reinforce what his predecessor said, but perhaps he will be good enough to do so if he can.

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    I do not think the cost of week-end camps would be very great, but I am certain they would be, for both officers and non-commissioned officers, an extra opportunity which would be very helpful. As a member of a Territorial Association I know that we have to decide between giving allowances to enable officers to attend a course or to have money for week-end camps, and that is not very good business. The training grants for battalions are the same when their strength is identical, and I wish the Secretary of State would take into account the fact, as mentioned by some hon. Members, that the conditions of a rural battalion are different from those of an urban battalion and that money does not go so far in rural districts as it does in urban districts. We would like to have more money so as to get greater efficiency in the scattered areas.
    Another question which is giving Territorial Associations some anxiety is the provision of the necessary equipment in regard to both munitions and landscape targets. We have been told that they cannot be obtained. Still another matter is the assistance that could be given to associations if the question of the band and drums of units could be gone into. It is not often realised that Territorial bandsmen have to supply their own instruments, and there is a great deal of difficulty in getting them all at the proper key and pitch. If something could be done to enable bandmasters of Territorial units to have the opportunity of going to Kneller Hall it would be to the advantage of the bandsmen of the Territorial army. There is a matter which the Secretary of State could deal with without the slightest difficulty, and that is to enable units to obtain badges from the Ordnance stores at the requisition of a Territorial Association rather than requiring them to buy them from outside contractors. Naturally they cost more to get from contractors than if they were available from ordnance stores.
    I would like the Secretary of State to pay particular attention to something which is causing a great deal of disturbance in my constituency, and to ask him about the establishment of the anti-aircraft group which is mentioned on page 212 of the Estimates. It is intended by the War Office to spend £1,250,000 on
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    providing barrack accommodation at Shrivenham, which is not far from Swindon. A portion of this has been spent. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will realise that the county council and the other local authorities have to make their arrangements, but they are still left in doubt as to what the number of families is likely to be there. I have had a great deal of correspondence with the War Office about it, but we do not know yet whether we have to provide schools for the children or what will be the probable cost of making up roads, providing water supply, and a hundred and one other things. We are told that we may have anything from 4,500 to 5,000 troops planted in this village, and it is essential that before very long those concerned should be informed what this establishment really involves.
    The Southern Command and the War Office are to be congratulated on the care they have taken in the type of building and material used for the barracks which are going up in one of the most beautiful parts of the country. It is quite near White Horse Hill and the downs of Berkshire, and the establishment of this military camp has caused some alarm. Everybody who lives in the district, however, would like to thank the right hon. Gentleman and those responsible for the care and trouble they have taken to make the presence of this establishment as little obnoxious as possible. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give some information about the establishment, because in their budget the county council must make arrangements for the schools and matters of that kind.
    8.6 p.m.
    Mr. George Griffiths: I hope that the hon. and gallant Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) will not feel that I am treating him abruptly if I do not follow him in what he has said, except only in respect to one statement that he made; it was made also by the hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead (Colonel Clarke). They said that they want more money for the Territorials. I have risen to ask for more money for another section. I think the posters and advertisements for the Army are a disgrace to the British Isles while there are soldiers in the Regulars whose wives have to take their places in the queues at the public

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    assistance offices. I have had letters on the subject from my division. I received a pitiful letter only the other week about the wife of a soldier who is living with her child under her father's shelter, and the only income she has is 8s. 6d. a week. The result is that she has to go to the Poor Law while her husband is in the British Army. The hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead said something about continuing to ask. I remember one of our speakers saying to me, "George, it is the squawking baby that gets the milk." I put that in my waistcoat pocket and I kept squawking about margarine until I got some butter. I am again appealing to the Minister. He has a fairly good reputation now and everybody has been throwing bouquets to him. I am not sure, however, whether he really understands this marriage business because he is a batchelor himself, but I shall continue to press him on the question of allowances to wives of soldiers, irrespective of the age of the soldiers.
    I cannot understand the way in which Government Departments cross each other on this question. Only the other week the Minister of Health was weeping at that Box because the population was declining. He introduced a Bill and got it through the House. Then the Minister of War said, "Population Bill or no Population Bill, I do not want any soldiers to be married until they are 26, and if they do get married before then I shall brand them." If they get married before 26 and there are children no separation allowance is allowed. I ask the Minister to work with the Minister of Health so that at least he will help his right hon. Friend while he is crying out for population. It is a disgrace that we should say to the British soldier, "You shall not get married until you are 26, but if you do you will be branded." He is branded in the sense that his wife gets no allowance and she has the stigma of the Poor Law put upon her, for she has to go in the queue to the public assistance office while her husband is standing by the country. And while this is happening the Minister of War is asking men to enlist.
    I mentioned something in the earlier proceedings about boys enlisting under age, and the Minister received my statement with a kind of assent. I suggest that the boy who goes to enlist should take his birth certificate with him. This question has been raised ever since I have
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    been in the House, and this is the third time I have raised it. The defence is put up that the War Office cannot be bothered with a boy taking his birth certificate, and the point is made that in order to do that he would have to get it from his mother and she would want to know where he was going and would prevent him enlisting. Almost every boy who enlists under age steals away from home, and his parents do not know that he has enlisted until he is in the Army. When a boy has enlisted under age and the parents make an application for him to be taken out of the Army, he ought to be allowed to go.
    The Minister made some concession last week with regard to the Unemployment Assistance Board scale for the ex-service man who gets a quarterly payment for pension, but he did not go far enough. I am asking again to-right, and I shall go on asking, that if a man who has been in the Army has a pension, it should not be taken into consideration when he is on the unemployment assistance scale. I do not care what amount he is getting as pension; he does not get anything from the War Office that he does not deserve. If he gets a pension, he is entitled to it and it should not be reckoned when he has to go in front of the public assistance committee.
    I was one of the first men in the country to serve on the local committee in the West Riding when transitional payments came into force. I do not know whether I did my duty properly or not, but when ex-service men came before us our committee never took into account a penny piece of any money which a man had as a pension. Even if he had a full pension we gave him what the scale allowed. The Ministry of Health sent down word to say "If you do not alter this we shall send commissioners," and some of us chaps said, "You can send the commissioners if you like, but we will not alter it." I feel keenly about this, and so do my constituents. I have thousands of colliers in my division, and they have raised this point with me. They say: "George, what did we fight for?" The Under-Secretary is looking at me, and I know that he will say that the first pound is not taken into account. It may not be in some cases, but in other cases all the pension has been taken into account. The Minister has been pretty bold since he took over this new job, and

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    I hope that he will be bold enough to say that where an ex-service man is applying for unemployment assistance his pension shall not be taken into account. I could say something further, but I will leave the matter now and bring it up next year.
    8.16 p.m.
    Mr. Wise: I think the House will have a good deal of sympathy with all three of the points raised by the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. G. Griffiths). I do not know that he can expect us to go quite as far as he does in advocating marriage allowances wholly irrespective of the age of marriage. There are many reasons why really young soldiers should be discouraged from marrying, but I agree that a certain case can be made out for a lowering of the age at which marriage allowances are granted. There will be sympathy, also, for the other two points which he brought forward, particularly the non-assessment of a service pension when an ex-service man is applying for unemployment assistance. He has raised a point of great value, which I hope will receive the utmost attention.
    I have heard nearly two days of debate on these Estimates, and I think my right hon. Friend should feel that if his new selection of generals should turn out to be unsatisfactory he need not look very far for substitutes. I have never heard so many, so contradictory or generally so fallacious lectures on strategy in so short a time. I only hope there is more common doctrine among my right hon. Friend's generals than there is among his colleagues in this House. But I am not going to follow them into the excursus on strategy. I do not entirely agree with the assumption on which we are basing the whole of our Estimates, which is that we can possibly contemplate a limited liability war. I am very doubtful whether that is possible. I certainly do not think that it is a doctrine which will commend itself very much to any of our possible allies.
    I rather gathered from the speech of the right hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith) that his theory of the next war was that we should fight to the bitter end, or as long as any Frenchmen remained alive, and that our own contribution should be more or less confined to policing the seas and supplying our brave
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    allies with the means of killing our hated enemies. I do not believe we can do that. Assuming that we base our theories on a limited liability war, if our contribution to any campaign in Europe is to be small then it must be superlatively good. I do not want to go into all the other duties of the British Army throughout the Empire, but for the purposes of a campaign in Europe the Army must be superlatively good. In other words it must be composed of adequate numbers, full establishments and men of very high quality. I doubt whether that is, in fact, the case to-day. It is perhaps a risky thing to say, but I do not believe that on mobilisation a British Expeditionary Force would be the equal in the field, in training and in practice, of a corresponding number of men in a Continental conscript army who had just finished two years' service. More than one-third of our battalions would be boys, and the remainder would be Reservists who had had no practice whatever in the use of the weapons of modern warfare.
    The secret of the remedy lies in attracting people into the Army. We have heard a lot about recruiting, but when we have not only to make up the deficiency but greatly to increase the standard of the applicants for military service we have to give the matter very serious thought. It is true that there are 60,000 young men trying every year to get into the Army, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend on having made it sufficiently more attractive to raise that number; but four years ago 80,000 young men were trying to get into the Army every year, and there has, therefore, been a drop of 25 per cent. in the number of applicants. Although the concessions which have been announced—the new system of training, improved barrack accommodation and all the other reforms which he has brought in—will raise the number of applicants, I do not think they will altogether solve the problem. I believe that the Army has to be made the part of a career. We must not merely guarantee a soldier employment, or try to find him employment, or to put him into Government employment at the end of his service. That is not anything like enough. What we have to do is to guarantee him pensionable employment, and count the whole of his military service towards his pension. Then we shall have a real career into which young men will willingly go.

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    At the moment what is stopping hundreds of young men, and very good young men, from going into the Army is the fact that if at the end of their six or seven years' service they join a police force—to take one example—they will be seven years older before they got their pension than their contemporaries who went straight into the police force without joining the Army. Also, if they want to get into industry they find they have lost six or seven precious years. Whatever the vocational training centres may do they cannot produce highly-skilled workmen. At the end of that six or seven years the young man, coming out of the Army, is unable to earn the skilled rates of pay in any trade because he does not know enough about it. He sees friends of the same age earning in a factory £4 to £5 a week, while he himself can probably get only just over 45s. or 50s. a week. That is not an encouragement to him.
    I know that the task is extremely difficult, but the situation is desperate enough to justify our tackling it, and if all Government Departments will co-operate with my right hon. Friend it can be done. The Post Office alone employs over 200,000 people, the police forces throughout the country at least another 200,000 and there is an enormous number of other jobs in the direct gift of the Government. When we add to those the enormous number of jobs over which the Government can exercise a very considerable influence—jobs under the control of local authorities and similar ones—I believe it is perfectly possible to guarantee to every soldier a pensionable employment in which his military service will count towards pension. I believe that there lies our solution to the problem of making the Army a real profession. Twenty-one years' service in the Army itself will not do the job. For one thing, we do not want 21-year soldiers; we want six-year soldiers, and a Reserve.
    There is a shortage of officers. I believe that my right hon. Friend is right in reducing the number of officers in a battalion of infantry. We are the only nation that has ever had such an enormous proportion of officers to control 800 or 900 men in action. In the German Army there are only about eight officers to do a job for which we used to employ 30. There is none the less a shortage of officers and it will continue unless
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    something is done. I hope no solution will be tried such as that which was suggested of training boys of 12 years of age as cadets. The result of that system is deplorable enough in the Navy without its being carried into the Army. It is not a sound system to take a boy and use the formative years of his life for this specialised training.
    I would utter a word of warning against what I might call being democratic for its own sake in the selection of suitable candidates for officerships. I am not in any way against promotion from the ranks, and I do not consider that secondary schools have contributed anything like their full quota in this respect, but let us not fall into the error of saying that we must have a certain proportion from such and such strata of society. Let us have entry into the Army on merit.
    If the Army is to be made a career for the officer, the only solution is more pay. Whatever stratum of society he represents, the subaltern officer cannot be expected to live decently on his present pay, although his life is not as expensive and luxurious as was represented by the right hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate. The subaltern's pay is not sufficient to maintain him in reasonable comfort, and it must be raised. At present it is based upon the old idea that the Army is not a full-time job and that men of leisure go into the Army as into a form of ordinary amusement. That is not the case to-day, and conditions should accordingly be altered so that the officer has a full day's pay and does a full day's job. I know of no serving officer who would not have it that way. I commend these points to the right hon. Gentleman, who has accomplished so much in so short a time. I hope that he will not enter another sphere of influence until he has reconstituted the land forces of this country.
    8.29 p.m.
    The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Hore-Belisha): Perhaps it will be better that I should rise now to reply to the points which have been raised in this Debate, particularly as the right hon. Gentleman who is now here has come to speak upon the progress of matters concerned with the sister Service. I will endeavour not to delay the House for one moment longer

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    than is necessary. I would first thank the House for the manner in which it received these Estimates, and for the encouragement which it has given to the Army. The theme of the speech which I made in introducing the Estimates was to define the role of the Army and to show that the problem was not one of man power but of correct organisation and distribution. I then proceeded to outline a new and more modern organisation to which we are seeking to conform, and I indicated to the House that it was not possible to obtain a completely satisfactory readaptation of the Army until the problem of distribution had been settled. For that purpose a conference between the Indian Government and our own Government is to take place.
    On the more human side of the problem I offered, on behalf of the Government, a number of concessions to soldiers, and I was also able to announce a change in the terms of service. I freely acknowledge that in enunciating these ideas I was indebted to several hon. and right hon. Members who have advanced them from time to time, notably my right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery). I thought he would be gratified that after so much advocacy he had won a case for his main points. Although I am called on to speak again to-night, nothing which seems to call for reply has been advanced against the general thesis of my speech. Most hon. Members who have been good enough to make speeches have stressed the various aspects of what I said in introducing the Estimates. Therefore, I do not rise in any quarrelsome mood, for there are few people who have desired to quarrel with me.
    Accepting the role of the Army as I have defined it, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith) said that the defence from air attack at home had, somewhat tardily, been given the first priority. That danger has of recent years become more menacing than it previously was and the Government have now recognised that it has first priority. The right hon. Gentleman wanted to know why the Army should retain responsibility for defence from the ground against air attack. Personally, I never think it matters who does a job provided it is done well. There would
    1096
    seem to be no particular reason for transferring this duty at this stage to the Air Ministry; indeed there would be a difficulty in doing so because anti-aircraft defence is required everywhere, whereas the Ministry has not stations everywhere. Nor does it provide a service of trained gunners. Furthermore, the Territorials who have the main charge of this important task, happen to be under the Army. I have no reason to believe that they would wish to transfer to the Air Force.
    I do not, however, wish to be rigid in any of these matters. If it were keenly felt that a change should be made, doubtless arguments would be presented which would countervail what I have said, but at the moment nothing has been said to convince me that any change should be undertaken. If you were going to make a change in that respect, and hand over to the Air Force the ground defences against air attack, you ought perhaps to hand over our coastal batteries to the Navy, and we could pass our time in a continual transference of duties from one Department to another according as the case seemed more logical at the moment. The right hon. Gentleman feared that individual Territorials might require a longer time in which to be trained to carry out anti-aircraft duties. But, of course, it is not the state of training of the individual man that matters; it is the state of the unit, in which there is a constant change of personnel as months and years pass. It will, however, reassure the right hon. Gentleman—indeed, I think he knows it—if I inform him that very competent Regular officers think the Territorials are quite adequate to these duties, and are fully skilled to protect this country against air attack. Let us hope so.
    The right hon. Gentleman next passed to a subject on which he waxes very picturesque. He talks about 2,000 famous families who provide the officers of the British Army. Officers, he says, are drawn practically exclusively from these 2,000 families. The entry into Sandhurst and Woolwich is about 500 every year, so that these 2,000 families must be particularly prolific. I do not wish to quarrel with the right hon. Gentleman on a class basis, and, if I assure him that the desire of the Government is to get into the British Army the best

    1097
    officers it can, from whencesoever they may come, he may think that I approach this subject in the right spirit. I would like to correct one or two misapprehensions that the right hon. Gentleman entertains, partially owing to my fault. I gave in the House some figures for the cost borne by the State in educating a cadet at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. I gave the figure as being £590 for a cadet at Woolwich, and £450 for a cadet at Sandhurst. This is the total cost of the training; it is not the cost per annum; and I think the right hon. Gentleman will find that the cost does not bear an unfavourable comparison with what is charged at the universities. The total cost of living in college, according to a pamphlet issued by the University of Oxford, is about £60 a term for a man who exercises reasonable care in his expenditure. On this basis, a student in his three years at the university would spend £540, in addition to providing for his keep during the holidays, which are considerably longer than those granted from Woolwich and Sandhurst.
    Mr. Lees-Smith: What did you spend?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: The right hon. Gentleman also was at the university. I think it would perhaps give him a false impression if I told him what I spent, because in the course of my Oxford career I accumulated a liability which was subsequently discharged by great industry on my part. Anhow, the figure comes to £540, excluding holidays and keep during holidays, whereas, if the full fees are paid at the cadet colleges, the cost is £380 at the Royal Military Academy and £370 at Sandhurst.
    Mr. Lees-Smith: For how long?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: That is the total cost of the 18 months' course.
    Mr. Lees-Smith: At the university it is three years.
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: At the university the cost is £60 a term, and, unless my mathematics mislead me, I think that that compares not unfavourably. I would, however, ask the right hon. Gentleman to notice that, under the existing system for the award of entrance scholarships, roughly 30 per cent. of
    1098
    successful candidates can obtain a reduction of fees which will relieve them up to 100 per cent. of the cost, and they get this reduction on a system which in other spheres is uncongenial to hon. Gentlemen opposite—on a means test. If they cannot afford to pay, there can be 30 per cent. of cadets receiving education at Sandhurst and Woolwich at reduced fees or free. I only mention these facts to prevent any misapprehension that these places are the preserves of a limited number of rich families. That is not the case. But this does not mean that I am unresponsive to the right hon. Gentleman's hopes that we shall make further and further provision for merit, as contrasted with any form of financial favour. I should hope, on a review of the whole matter, to be able to find a satisfactory way of making the system even better than it is.
    The right hon. Gentleman next said that officers lived the life, or are thought to live the life, of country gentlemen of expensive tastes, hunting and fishing and taking trips to Ascot. I think that that conception is becoming more and more antiquated; at least, I hope so, because the purpose of a man becoming an officer in the Army is that he should do his job. The right hon. Gentleman does not like the Aldershot Tattoo. That is a grave and serious subject upon which there may be two views. On the right hon. Gentleman's side it is said that it is a waste of time. On the other side it is said that it provides a training in the movement of large bodies of men with exact timing; that it teaches the Army to co-operate in traffic control with the civilian authorities; and that it shows the Army to the public. It is a general complaint that the Army is not well enough known to the public. It might be better, perhaps, if the historic aspects of Army life were less concentrated upon, and more modern aspects were stressed, but I do not feel in a position to say here and now that the Tattoo should be abolished. Incidentally, it has provided very large sums for Army charities. But, of course, as in all other matters, if a case were made out, and if it were to become the feeling that this is not an occupation in which the Army should indulge, we should be only too happy to entertain the objection. That, I hope, answers, I will not say satisfactorily, but at any rate substantially, the points made by the right hon. Gentleman.

    1099
    He was followed in the Debate by my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Wood), who made a maiden speech of the most promising quality. He showed, as, indeed, we knew he would, a close knowledge of Army life, and I hope that he will take part frequently in our Debates. I am glad to say Army Debates are not very frequent, but I am looking at the matter in a large sphere of time when I say that I hope he will frequently take part in them, I will try to answer the questions he put to me. He approves the role of the Army as defined, he was glad that greater attention was being paid to training in internal security duties, and he asked how our potential commitments would affect the size of any forces we would have to send to the Continent. I think I answered that question by implication in advance, when I placed in the first category internal security, and in the last category Continental commitments. In other words, we could not release any large part of our Army for the Continent until we knew that our internal security was assured. My hon. Friend next suggested that there should be a large portion of our strategical reserves in the Middle East, and what he said was endorsed by several other of my hon. Friends. As he will have gathered, it is our object, in having these discussions with India, to secure an arrangement whereby we should be able to keep our strategical reserves in a place where it would be possible to send it to alternative spots that might need reinforcement. Until such an arrangement is reached we have not a free control of our total forces.
    My hon. Friend suggested that it would be a good way to obtain recruits if we began to give them a love of the Army in the village schools. To do that, we should have to obtain the co-operation of education authorities. For some odd reason that has no basis in logic, those who have advocated pacifism in the past have been hostile to the Army; but the two things are not mutually inconsistent, and I hope that education authorities will direct the attention of people to the fact that one of the careers a boy might adopt is the British Army. I see nothing incompatible in that with love of peace; in fact, I think it is the best way to stress love of peace. My hon. Friend was glad to see that we were adding comfort to the barracks; and in that view he was
    1100
    followed by many of my hon. Friends. He welcomed the use of the Royal Artillery for air and coast defence and the formation of two branches of Royal Artillery for that purpose, but warned me that reorganisation should not be too drastic. I entirely agree with that.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Basset-law (Mr. Bellenger) was the next speaker. I wish that more hon. Members had heard his speech. He went down to Canterbury, and saw these recruits of lower physical standard being brought up to strength, and he commended very highly these arrangements by the Army. It will be very gratifying to the officers responsible for this scheme to know that my hon. Friend thought it to be so good. Indeed, he thought it so good that he considered it should be extended outside the Army into civilian life. He read to the House some menus about which he was candid enough to state—and I was not surprised when I looked into the items—that his own wife did not provide him with such ample fare. In order that this fare may be better cooked, we are to have the assistance in future of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow (Sir I. Salmon). He, I hope—for that is his aim—will make the cooking of the Army the best cooking to be found in any institution.
    My hon. Friend referred to one or two other matters such as recruiting to which I can refer later. The next speaker—I am proceeding on the principle of a catalogue in order not to do injustice to any hon. Member who has been good enough to speak—was my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral (Captain Graham)—I do not see him in his place at the moment, but I am gratified to know that his interest in Cypriot antiquities, which he did not mention, but of which I know, induced him to advocate the raising of local battalions in the Eastern Mediterranean. I have already said that we are in favour of using indigenous personnel wherever they can be found and wherever the colony in question is ready to make a contribution.
    After the hon. and gallant Member for Wirrall had spoken, we were given a speech by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Lieut.-Commander Fletcher). My hon. and gallant Friend has a great sense of humour, both gay and tragic; and while he entertained us with his sparkling wit, he did, if I may

    1101
    use the phrase, also give us the creeps. I thought that that long document, from which he was reading, which purported to be a speech, was the most exciting chapter of a spy novel. He brought some very grave charges against some persons undefined. One of these persons, I think, was my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill). The charges were, not only that a particular gun had been rejected, but that every time this gun was brought to the test it was subject to foul play—somebody interfered with the mechanism, in order to prevent it demonstrating its efficiency. I was very sorry to hear of that, but it happened many years ago. While I was glad that the hon. and gallant Gentleman got it off his chest, it was not concerned with any matter that I could answer for here, and I am sure that he realises that. What I want to ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman is that if he has anything of that kind to suggest about the present administration of the War Office, he should give me an opportunity of knowing what it is that is affecting his mind, because I am only too anxious that the system shall be up to date and receptive of invention. What happened in the past, and I am sure that the hon. and gallant Gentleman did not raise it with a desire to convict anybody of evil intent—he can hardly expect me to answer for now.
    Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the matters which I mentioned to-night went right up to the adoption of the Bren gun by the Army Council, and I have asked the right hon. Gentleman whether the Bren gun has ever had a side-by-side trial with an all-British machine gun?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: Yes, it has. The Bren gun was selected after exhaustive tests in comparison with many other light machine guns as the best and most reliable light machine gun obtainable. Some of the weapons mentioned by the hon. and gallant Gentleman were among those which were tried. He made a criticism of the Bren gun that it was air-cooled.
    Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: Water cooled.
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: I thought he said that it was air-cooled. It is air-cooled. The fact is that the gun, like all guns of this type, is supplied with a barrel which can be changed, and there is no
    1102
    gun of this particular type which is superior to it in that respect, and the General Staff are satisfied with it. But I was coming to the Bren gun. I only mentioned the first part of the speech of the hon. and gallant Gentleman firstly, to indicate that it was a thing of the past. The charges were grave ones, and, of course, if the hon. and gallant Gentleman wishes me to pursue them, and there is any advantage in doing so, I will. It sounded a little incredible that anybody should have tampered with a gun which was being examined, but if the hon. and gallant Gentleman will produce the facts, and if those who are alleged to have tampered with it are still in the Army, I shall go into the matter with most complete thoroughness, for I would not like a charge of that kind to remain on record.
    Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: Certainly. As I said during my speech, everything that I mentioned is fully at the disposal of the right hon. Gentleman, and it will be a good thing if he is kind enough to go into it in order to give confidence to British gun-makers that their guns are tried out under conditions of absolute fairness by the War Office.
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: I am sure that I would hope, with the hon. and gallant Gentleman, that that would be the result of any inquiry. I hope that at any time, if he has facts of that seriousness affecting my administration, he will give me an opportunity of examining them and will not expect me to stand up in this House and answer them without prior knowledge.
    Mr. Lees-Smith: I understood that the right hon. Gentleman was asking my hon. and gallant Friend to produce his facts?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: I was. If he had any charge against the present administration, I should have hoped that he would have given me the facts before this afternoon, and I could then perhaps have disposed publicly of any such charges and have given the impression which the hon. and gallant Gentleman would desire to be given, namely, that tests are carried out by the Army with complete impartiality. I have absolute confidence that they are, and if the hon. and gallant Gentleman will send to me the facts he has which seem to suggest the contrary, I shall go into them with alacrity and with great earnestness. The hon. and gallant Gen-

    1103
    tleman, I think, made no other point, except that I should examine these charges. I am satisfied that the Bren gun is, in fact, the best that we can produce. I will not deal further with that matter.
    My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Captain Macnamara) made some answer to the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Nuneaton. He mentioned the case of an officer who, he stated, was entitled to compensation, and about whom he promised to send me the facts. I need hardly assure him that when he sends me the facts, I shall look into them. He suggested that we should have an Empire gendarmerie engaged on a long-service basis quite independently of our present British Army. If we did that we should have another force competing in recruitment in this country, and we could only hope to obtain this gendarmerie by outbidding the terms offered by the British Army. I think that it will be found that the best system will be to keep both forms of recruitment under one umbrella. I am offering a long-term engagement, although I have already said that I am not yet satisfied that there are very large numbers of men who wish to avail themselves of a long-term engagement. As my hon. and gallant Friend is not here, I will not take up the time of the House by dealing further with his speech.
    The next speaker was my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham (Sir E. Grigg) who said that the Army was unpopular. I hope, if that be true, the sentence will always be used with the verb in the past tense. It might be true to say that the Army was unpopular for a period, but I hope that it will be the most popular of all the Services. It is only by making it so that we can get recruits. If it is constantly denigrated and represented in a bad light we, naturally, shall not get recruits. When I said that the real test of an Army was machine power, fire power and mobility and not man power, I did not mean to say that men were useless or that I was reconciled to having an Army 20,000 below establishment, as it is now. I have never made any proposal for reducing the establishment of the British Army. I am most hopeful that we shall get the Army up to establishment over a
    1104
    period. We are already running on an even keel for the first time for many years. Our wastage is being made up by the new recruits, and that has happened owing to the improvement in the last six months of the present financial year. Next year I hope that we shall start accumulating a balance and that the 20,000 by which we are below establishment will begin to be made up. I did not propose to reduce the number of officers because we are short of officers but because I think that non-commissioned ranks should be given an opportunity of discharging responsibilities for which they are fitted, and that, by giving this additional opportunity to other ranks, we shall increase the number of other ranks who can be passed into the commissioned ranks. These are among the purposes that I have in view.
    Sir E. Grigg: I congratulated my right hon. Friend upon that.
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: I did not say that my hon. Friend was quarrelling with it, but I was explaining that a doubt persisted in the minds of some people. To all my hon. Friends who have dealt with officers, I would say that I would be grateful if they would wait for the complete scheme, so that they can see the establishment, the exact proposals and the additional prospects that will be offered both to the new class of warrant officer and to officers in general. When I outlined the scheme in advance of the complete proposals it was in order that the House might have an opportunity of knowing what was present in the mind of the War Office. I said that if the House would wait for the complete scheme I trusted they would not be disappointed. I am not in a position to give the exact figures of the establishments of the new class of warrant officer at the moment, or to explain in greater detail than I have done what is in mind.
    Mr. Ede: When does the right hon. Gentleman expect to be in a position to do so?
    Mr. Hore-Belisha: I hope very quickly—in a month or so. I shall not keep the House waiting one moment longer than is necessary, but, as I have explained, there are reactions on the other Service Departments, and I have to put

    1105
    the matter into harmony with them before I can announce my new proposals.
    I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham (Sir E. Grigg) will expect me to deal in detail with all the subjects that he raised. He delivered a very thoughtful speech, as one would expect from one who has previously spoken on the Army and has also written on it. I do not know that I quite accept his strategic notions, but on these matters there never can be complete agreement. I think the power of defence has increased considerably. He thinks it would be perhaps a mistake to rely upon that. I am sure that neither of us is going to draw very dangerous conclusions from our respective points of view.
    My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penrith (Major Dower) was good enough to welcome all that has been done for the Territorial Army, but he rather complained that a clerk has not been provided in every case. I pointed out that we were giving increased grants, so that for all units with a strength of 300 a full-time clerk would be available. We make our grants to the associations, and it is from them that the units must look for sustenance. I think it was carrying the responsibility of the War Office a little far when my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Grinstead (Colonel Clarke) expressed the view that we should not only provide a clerk but a caretaker. I suppose the next demand will be that we should provide a broom. It is the responsibility of the associations to dispose of the grant in the best interests of the units, and I hope they will do so, particularly as they will have more money this year than before.
    The hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) dealt with warrant officers. I would ask him to defer pressing me upon that matter, and to await the full proposals. He also mentioned marriage allowances. We have given 17s. a week to those who are recognised as married, in place of 7s. or 10s. previously. I am now asked to reduce the age of entitlement from 26 to some earlier age. The hon. Member who raised that point will realise that here, again, the other Services follow a similar rule, and therefore I can hardly be expected on the Report stage of my Estimates to get up and cheerfully say that I will do that.
    I want to make it clear that while a case can be made out about the distress
    1106
    of some men who are married, there is no deception in this matter. The man is told when he joins the Army that he will not be eligible for marriage allowance before a certain age. He is not a conscript soldier. He is a man who goes voluntarily into the Service on these conditions. If he were employed in private industry he could not go to his employer and say: "I have now married, and I should like another 17s. a week." It is only because there is a marriage allowance in the Army that the demand now arises for giving the marriage allowance at a lower age. Whatever the merits of the question may be, do not let us lead the public to believe that if soldiers are in distress before they are entitled to a marriage allowance, they have been misled by the Army authorities. They need not join the Army, and they can, in fact, leave if they do not desire to go on. In saying these words I am not intending to be unsympathetic, but I simply wish to remove a misapprehension.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham (Mr. Hamilton Kerr) made a speech which, I am sure, the House admired, showing deep strategic knowledge, but he will not expect me to examine it. The hon. and gallant Member for East Grin-stead mainly dealt with the Territorial Army. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) wanted to have week-end camps. Officers Commanding in Chief already have power to provide such camps. My hon. Friend the Member for North Lanark (Mr. Anstruther-Gray) wanted to enlarge the King's Roll. He had already been told that I am only too ready to examine that question. I have dealt by implication with most of the other points he raised. The vocational training system in the Army being now open for the soldier who can benefit by it—not the tradesmen soldiers—has enabled a very large percentage of men on leaving the Army to get jobs. At any rate, it has improved their prospects. If there are any other ways in which we can further improve their prospects by guaranteeing them employment on a larger scale in Government Departments, no one would be more happy than the Secretary of State for War.
    There are two more pronouncements that I should like to make. My right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair), in a

    1107
    most stimulating speech which he made on the Estimates—I do not propose to examine the points of his speech, because we are so much in agreement on them—said that some Territorials were discouraged by the thought that if they went into camp and had an accident they would be treated harshly if they made a claim for compensation. I want to inform my right hon. Friend and the House that compensation for injuries received during camp has perhaps been given on too narrow a basis. Territorials when at camp are treated under the same code and are subject to the same conditions in this matter as Regular soldiers, and hitherto only such injuries as could be shown to arise directly out of their military duties or from certain organised games have been regarded as attributable, and so giving rise to a claim for compensation. That is, they could make a claim for compensation when the injuries arose directly out of their military duties, or through an organised game. We have, however, recently widened considerably our interpretation of the regulations to cover, for example, all cases of injury received on duty, other than those due to negligence or misconduct. Territorials at camp will share with Regular soldiers the benefit of this wider interpretation. Therefore, apart from negligence or misconduct any injury received on duty will give an entitlement to compensation. I trust that this announcement will be appreciated not only in the Territorial Army but in the Regular Army also.
    As an additional testimony to the desire of His Majesty's Government to show consideration to those citizens who give up their holidays, or part of them, to attend camp, the new rates of family allowance now payable to regular soldiers of 17s. per week in respect of a wife, together with 5s. 6d. for the first child, and 3s. 6d. for the second, will, subject to the usual conditions, be paid to Territorial soldiers during camp. This higher rate of allowance will come into operation on 30th April next. I have made no provision for this in the figures I have announced to the House, and it is estimated that this concession will cost another £60,000 a year for the benefit of the Territorial soldier. I hope I have not left any hon. Member under the impression that I desire to evade any question.
    1108
    If I have omitted answering any question which I am capable of answering I shall be only too happy to be reminded of it, and will do so in writing. It has been a great pleasure to know that the House is on the whole satisfied by the progress being made in the Army. It is our endeavour to do everything we can to make it an efficient instrument, and also to treat those who are in it with the greatest consideration. These, as the House knows, are our motives. Our reorganisation is by no means complete and will continue until we have for its size the best and happiest Army in the world.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    REPORT [17TH MARCH].
    Resolutions reported:

    NAVY ESTIMATES, 1938.
    1. "That 119,000 Officers, Seamen, Boys and Royal Marines be employed for the Sea Service, together with 913 for the Royal Marine Police, borne on the books of His Majesty's Ships, at the Royal Marine Divisions, and at Royal Air Force Establishments, for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."
    2. "That a sum, not exceeding £15,027,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Wages, &c, of Officers and Men of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and Civilians employed on Fleet Services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."
    3. "That a sum, not exceeding £4,421,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Victualling and Clothing for the Navy, including the cost of Victualling Establishments at Home and Abroad, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."
    4. "That a sum, not exceeding £5,718,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of the Fleet Air Arm, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."
    5." That a sum, not exceeding £2,317,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Works, Buildings and Repairs at Home and Abroad, including the cost of Superintendence, Purchase of Sites, Grants and other Charges connected therewith, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."
    6. "That a sum, not exceeding £3,049,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Non-Effective Services (Naval and

    1109
    Marine)—Officers, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."
    7. "That a sum, not exceeding £5,485,500, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Non-Effective Services (Naval and Marine)—Men, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."
    8. "That a sum, not exceeding £1,362,200, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Civil Superannuation, and other Non-effective Annual Allowances, Additional Allowances and Gratuities, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."

    NAVY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1937.
    9. "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1938, for expenditure not provided for in the Navy Estimates for the year."

    SCHEDULE.

    Sums not exceeding

    —

    Supply Grants.

    Appropriations in Aid.

    Vote.

    £

    £

    2.

    Victualling and Clothing for the Navy

    300,000

    —

    8.

    Shipbuilding, repairs, maintenance, etc.—

    Section I—Personnel

    400,000

    —

    Section II—Matériel

    860,000

    —

    Section III—Contract work

    Cr. 930,000

    —

    9.

    Naval armaments

    Cr. 360,000

    —

    10.

    Works, buildings, and repairs at home and abroad

    Cr. 269,900

    —

    Total, Navy (Supplementary), 1937 £

    100

    —

    9.24 p.m.
    Mr. George Hall: I beg to move, in line 1, to leave out "119,000" and to insert "118,900."
    I think it is not unreasonable for me to register our protest that these very important Estimates should be taken at this rather late hour. The Navy Estimates are the highest we have been debating during the last two weeks, and I want to indicate to the Parliamentary Sectary to the Treasury that in the future we shall ask for a full day to deal with the Report stage of the Navy Estimates. We regret that the First Lord, owing to ill-health, is still unable to be present, but we trust that he is well on the way to complete recovery and will soon be able to undertake his duties again. The right hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) dealt with the general question
    1110
    in the main Debate, and I can only say that the huge expenditure provided for in this and other Service Estimates is a sad commentary on the work of the Government during the last five or six years. We see a few Powers allowed to create such international unrest that we are witnessing the biggest race in armaments the world has ever seen in peace time. It is arms, arms, and more arms. After all, these are the weapons of despair, because there is no certainty as to where these arms, through the policy of the Government, are going to lead us. The times are almost similar to what they were in 1914 with regard to the expedition with which arms are being provided, but the expenditure on arms has easily outstripped even that period. For all the Services it is three times as high, and in the Navy there is an increase from £51,000,000 to £123,000,000, with the promise of a very large Supplementary Estimate for new construction, and possibly there will be provision to increase Vote A.
    As the Parliamentary Secretary said, we are providing for a personnel higher than at any period since 1922. We do not doubt the gravity of the situation. We on this side, and the country at large, have very much more confidence in the Navy than in the foreign policy of the Government, because it is left for the statesmen to do the mischief and for the Navy particularly to get the country out of the difficulty into which the statesmen have put them. I do not want to exaggerate the difficulties. I suppose we must have ships and, therefore, we must have men, and the nation will be called upon to pay for them. I, like everyone else, welcome the concessions that have been made in the marriage allowance and the improved conditions for officers and men in the Navy, but, as has been pointed out, it is a drop in the bucket. I was at Portsmouth when the concessions were announced, and it was interesting to hear the comments made by officers and men. Everyone is not satisfied with them. A circular has been issued, I do not know whether by a naval officer or an ex-officer, but the comment is such that, if this is the feeling among officers, it does not speak very highly for the Admiralty. It points to the difference in the treatment of naval officers and that of officers of the Army and Air Force, and winds up by saying:
    "The Government scheme for marriage allowances is a mockery of justice, Ministers

    1111
    ought to know that for years past the younger naval officers' contempt for them has been becoming more and more deeply ingrained. The scheme will aggravate this deplorable fact."
    I hope that is not the view expressed by the majority of officers, but one sailor said to me, "Thank God the seamen think their wives are worth more than the Admiralty think they are worth in the allowance granted to them." After all, with these concessions, a rating is expected to exist with a wife and four children upon 29s. a week. It is a concession, but it has not gone far enough, and, while we welcome it, we think it should be very much more generous. The Parliamentary Secretary said that the allowance for the first child of officers would be 2s. and that that applied to all officers, but when he came to warrant officers, he said the allowance for the first child would be 1s. 6d. Why make this distinction? I think the Parliamentary Secretary, with the Board of Admiralty, should look into the matter and see if they cannot all be treated alike. He said that the changes would not apply to the Accountant Branch. In order to encourage zeal and to improve the prospects of reaching commissioned rank, they had decided to double the number of appointments as paymaster-lieutenant open to commissioned officers from warrant rank in the Writer and Supply Branches. These are not early promotions to commissioned rank as in the mate and sub-lieutenant class from the executive and artificer branch, but after long service from one to four, five, six, seven or eight or just a few years before these men retire. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will look into the matter again.
    The statement issued by the First Lord states that recruiting is satisfactory. I notice that in the Estimates there has been an increase of something like 50 recruiting officers—from 120 to 170. I should think that is a very substantial increase, but I should like to ask whether there has been any relaxation in physical conditions at all, or whether the same conditions apply and whether anything has been done to reduce the period of training to enable recruits to be fitted for what is expected of them. We have heard nothing with regard to the question of reserves. Possibly the hon. Gentle-
    1112
    man will deal with that aspect. Again, very little was said with regard to the personnel of the Fleet Air Arm. There is going to be a very large increase in aircraft carriers during the next two or three years. I think there are some five on the stocks. This must necessarily lead to some comment upon the personnel that will make up the Fleet Air Arm. Are the numbers provided for in the increase in the personnel as stated in Vote A? In addition, we ought to know when the contemplated arrangements for transfer will be completed. It is now eight months since the decision with regard to independent control of the Fleet Air Arm was announced. Eight months after the announcement was made, it is stated that the method of effecting the transfer from the Air Ministry of functions for which the Admiralty will be responsible is being examined. It would be unfortunate if suddenly there were a dangerous situation and the control of this vastly important service were still in process of being examined, as it is at the present time.
    In view of the situation which has been revealed by the Minister for the Coordination of Defence, there also arises the question whether there are available adequate supplies of aeroplanes for the Fleet Air Arm, having regard to the expansion of the Fleet as a whole and the additional services which the Fleet Air Arm will be expected to provide. It must not be forgotten that, whatever may be said about other Naval methods of guarding vital supplies of food and raw materials which come to this country from overseas, the danger to merchant ships, single or in convoy, in narrow waters must increase, and that aircraft must necessarily play some part in their protection. What requisitions have been made for aeroplanes for the Fleet Air Arm? What is the supply up to date? Moreover, it is vital that we should know whether any of the aeroplanes which may be sent overseas or which may be used in active service with ships are of the most improved and up-to-date types. Hon. Members will remember with concern the statement that was made by the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence about the obsolete character of large numbers of these aeroplanes which have been manufactured during the last few years. There must be no question of priority of supply of these up-to-date machines being ex-

    1113
    ercised by the Air Ministry. Therefore, I hope the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty will satisfy us both with regard to the date of the transfer of this valuable service to the Navy and the adequacy of the supplies of personnel and machines.
    I regret that particulars as to the new programme were omitted from the First Lord's statement. I know that the size, the armament and the cost of battleships and large cruisers depend upon decisions arising from discussions which are now proceeding between this country, France and the United States, but I think it is true to say that the present situation has no precise parallel in the past. Before 1914, the new ships of the great Powers were the most powerful that naval science could produce, but at the present time, many countries are in a position to build ships of war of substantially greater power than those now afloat. They are restrained only by some treaties, and in some cases by the knowledge that any move by them would be followed by similar moves by other Powers. Naval costs will play an important part, of course, because of the very great increase in costs which is taking place. As far as I can see the race in Naval armaments is on. More ships and perhaps larger ships are being built without any security being given to this country; if we build ships, other nations build ships; if we build larger ships, they will build larger ships.
    It is very interesting to compare the cost of ships to-day with the cost before 1914. The total cost of the construction of all the combatant ships in the Royal Navy from 1893 to 1913–14 was £166,000,000. It would cost almost as much as that to replace the 15 capital ships of the Navy at the present time. The 68 battleships which we had in 1914 were built at a total cost of £83,000,000, and the 107 cruisers at a cost of £52,000,000. That is a great contrast with the situation to-day. The Parliamentary Secretary replied to a point which was put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) about the increasing cost of ships for the Navy at the present time. We have no recent figures with regard to the cost of battleships, but the cost of the "Nelson" and the "Rodney," which were completed in 1927, was more than double the cost before the War. If one takes light cruisers
    1114
    and cruisers, the cost per standard ton has increased from £71 in 1913–14 to £200 per standard ton in 1937. The cost of destroyers has increased from £108 per standard ton to £228; and that of submarines, average for large and small, from £132 to something like £350. That is an indication as to what defence is likely to cost the nation. It is almost impossible to look for a Fleeet of the magnitude of that which we had in 1914. It was recently reported in a newspaper, for instance, that the two 35,000-ton battleships which are being built in America cost about £400 per standard ton, and that the cost, when they are completed, will be about £14,000,000 apiece. I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary can give the House any idea as to what is likely to be the cost of the five capital ships which we have in course of construction at the present time. Unfortunately, we cannot get any guidance from the Estimates as to what is the estimated cost while the ships are in construction, but only the cost of new construction after the ships are completed. I ask that such information should be supplied.
    In the matter of the ever-increasing costs of Naval craft, I would remind the Parliamentary Secretary that almost the only recommendation of the May Committee of 1931 which was not put into operation was the recommendation that a representative committee should be appointed to inquire into the whole cost of Naval design and construction, and to consider whether any modifications might be adopted either with or without international agreement. The committee said that such a course would lessen the cost of Naval Defence without endangering national security. So far, nothing has been done with regard to that recommendation. I also ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether the Admiralty are satisfied about the system of costing for this new construction. There is a formidable programme of building and there is no doubt that large profits are being made by the shipbuilders. There is nothing which creates greater moral indignation among the people of this country than the thought that a number of companies are making huge profits out of the nation's necessity.
    Only on Saturday last I saw in a newspaper that two companies which are very large contractors for the Admiralty had. shown record profits. Vickers showed a

    1115
    profit of over £2,000,000 upon their trading last year, and we are only at the commencement of this construction programme. Another firm of contractors, John Brown, it is reported, show record profits for last year. I well remember the expression of disgust of millions of people in this country at the report of the Commission which was appointed in 1919–20 to inquire into the question of war wealth. A highly respected Member of this House, who was a great friend of mine, the late Mr. Vernon Hartshorn, told me that he was amazed at the profits which had been made by armament contractors during the War. Notwithstanding the heavy Income Tax and the Excess Profits Duty and the Super-tax a small number of people in this country found themselves, when the War was over, wealthier to the extent of £4,000,000,000 as a result of profits made out of the blood and sacrifice of the people of the country. We ask that the Service Departments, the Army, the Navy and the Admiralty, should see to it that no system such as that will be allowed to continue during this process of rearmament. The people of the country will not stand for it, and I hope that in the consultations between the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence and the representatives of the trade unions on Thursday next, that question will be discussed and that some safeguard will be provided in this case against excessive profits being made by armament firms.
    I wish to touch next on the question of fuel. We cannot allow the question of the fuelling of the Navy to pass with the few remarks which were devoted to it by the Parliamentary Secretary on Thursday. Like him, I am not going to argue the merits of the Navy going back to coal or even to dual-firing. It is recognised that no naval constructor of repute would on technical or strategical grounds maintain that he could design a coal-fired or dual-fired ship having the same military characteristics as an oil-fired ship of the same displacement. Notwithstanding that, let it be said that it is only the British and American Navies which almost exclusively use oil as fuel. The only ship in the British Navy which can burn either coal or oil, apart from some small craft, is the light cruiser "Adelaide." Consider the position of some of
    1116
    the other great naval Powers. We have just one ship which can burn either coal or oil, America has none, Japan has eight or nine battleships which can burn either coal or oil and one which burns oil only. France has five capital ships which burn coal or oil and two which burn oil only. Italy has two which burn coal or oil and two which burn oil alone. In the case of Germany they are very old ships, but two can burn coal or oil. Japan has 20 cruisers, some of them built as recently as 1926 which can burn either coal or oil. France has three modern 10,000 ton cruisers completed in 1930–31 which are fitted to burn coal or oil. Japan and a number of other Powers use coal exclusively in some of their small ships.
    I think we take oil-firing too much for granted. Notwithstanding the disadvantages of coal, I think one or two ships ought to be used for the purpose of trying out new boilers and the system of dual firing. I am not asking that more than two or three ships should be used for this purpose. They should also be used to try out colloidal fuel. This question is of vital importance. There is no need to point out the absolute dependence of all branches of the fighting services on oil. Like many other Powers we produce little or no oil from our own natural resources. In fact there are only two great Powers, Russia and the United States, which have all the oil they require within their own boundaries. A well-known Italian marshal rightly said the other day that Great Britain, Germany, France and Japan, together with Italy, were the victims of sanctions imposed by nature in that they had not an abundance of this valuable fuel within their own borders. I have no doubt that the Board of Admiralty and the Committee of Imperial Defence are keeping this matter in mind, but it should be noted that no mention of the question has been made in any of the Debates on the Defence Estimates or in any of the general Debates.
    Germany does not hide its concern about this question. The Germans realise that in any future war, one of their great weaknesses will be in the matter of oil supplies, and they are endeavouring to build up a supply from coal. It has been said in the last two years that Germany hopes to make herself independent of outside supplies by producing from coal something like

    1117
    5,000,000 tons per annum to meet her normal consumption. I do not suppose that that figure has been achieved, but there is no doubt about the effort which is being made by Germany to become self-supporting in this respect. During the last War, when oil fuel was not nearly as important as it is now, the Allied Powers, it is estimated, used 500,000 tons a month irrespective of the amount required for naval purposes or for the civil population. In the next war it is estimated that the consumption of oil will, in some cases, be three or four times what it was in the last War, and I think it is reasonable to estimate that the oil consumption in war-time would be about twice the normal peace time consumption. That means that we in this country would require between 25,000,000 and 28,000,000 tons per annum to meet all our requirements. Last year we imported 3,000,000,000 gallons.
    There is an ever increasing dependence not only of fighting services but of whole nations upon this very valuable fuel. This is not the occasion on which to deal with the report of the Falmouth Committee, but one criticism which can be offered of the published report of that committee is that not sufficient consideration is given in it to this question of the use of fuel in defence. The report is based on present-day prices. I wonder whether the committee had their attention drawn to the fact that fuel oil cost the country anything from £20 to £30 per ton during the War? As late as 1920 we were paying in this country 2s. 3d. a gallon for oil on Thames-side, and I wish the Falmouth Committee had based their prices, not only upon the price of oil during a period such as the present, but taking into consideration the excessive cost for this valuable commodity during the period of the war.
    I know it is an axiom of our Defence policy that we must obtain and retain the command of the sea, but the command of the sea is never absolute. It is a term compatible with the sinking of ships, and it will be especially tankers, with the value of oil as it is recognised at present by those nations which will be out to cripple this nation during a war. Moreover, it should be recognised that every ship assigned to the protection of tankers is diverted from other important duties. The transport of oil by sea would
    1118
    be subject to many hazards, and the supplies might be withheld because the oil upon which this nation is dependent is drawn from many foreign countries* Less than 5 per cent. of the oil which we consume here is produced here. We think that no risks should be taken in this vital matter. Oil is the lifeblood of our Defence forces, and everyone will admit that supplies in wartime are liable to interruption. Even if we are to continue to rely mainly on imported oil for the bulk of our requirements, it would be, in our opinion, wise statesmanship to have other sources of supply, so that if the one fails, the whole mechanism of Defence will not be thrown out of gear. What practical action is being taken by the Admiralty to give to this nation that supply which she will require in the event of an emergency such as that to which I have referred? It is no use looking to the production of oil from natural sources in this country. We know that already 50 licences have been granted under the Petroleum Production Act with no results.
    Then I take it that something should be said with regard to the question of storage. One would that the cost of storage should be taken into consideration. I know that in the Estimates something like £6,500,000 is the expenditure which is to be incurred for the storing, not only of oil, but of munitions and mines as well, and I would ask the Civil Lord, whose Department is responsible—and may I say that I hope his period at the Admiralty in the position which he now occupies will be as happy as was my only too short period there—whether he can indicate that these matters are being considered and that the nation may rest assured that the fuel question is not being forgotten. I would like to ask whether the Admiralty in this matter is co-operating with the other Service Departments in providing this accommodation or is acting separately. We would ask, though I will not press the Civil Lord for a reply on this point, whether there is a programme to which the Admiralty is working and whether it is a joint one between the three Services.
    One other matter which is of vital importance is whether the Admiralty is in consultation with the oil companies with regard to the places at which storage tanks are being placed. The Thames side may be the most convenient spot for the stor-

    1119
    age of oil for commercial purposes, but it certainly is not the safest place in the event of war, and we think there should be consultations going on between the Admiralty and the oil companies with a view to arriving at an agreement as to where these oil storage tanks should be placed. Can anyone imagine a more vulnerable situation for the storage of any commodity, important or unimportant, than the Thames-side, where we see these hundreds of oil tanks being situated, which would be a very easy target for hostile aircraft.
    I would join in the plea which was put up by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pembroke (Major Lloyd George), in which he suggested that, with regard to this matter as with regard to the importation of foodstuffs, consideration should be given to the ports on the Western side of this island. I do not know whether it would be too much to ask the Admiralty to consider the question of putting much of their oil storage there, and even of doing what is being done in America, that is to say, conveying oil overland through a system of piping. In America, I was informed the other day, they have no less than 90,000 miles of pipe lines. It may be costly, but the construction of battleships is costly, the construction of the whole of our Fleet is costly, and what will be the use of the Fleet, the aeroplanes, the tanks unless they can get this vital fuel? Without it they will be absolutely useless. I would that the Admiralty and the other Government Departments would consider this question, and I have not given up hope even yet that a very substantial portion of the petrol and fuel oil which will be required by the fighting Services of this country could be obtained from our coal supplies. I am not discouraged by or despondent about the report of the Falmouth Committee on this matter, for I am satisfied that in the event of an emergency coal will play a very much more important part in the defence of this country than it is playing at the present time.
    In summing up what I have to say upon the Report stage of these Estimates, I would say that the world is paying a very heavy price for its failure to organise peace and security after the last War. These Estimates provide for £120,000,000 expenditure upon the Navy.
    1120
    The total cost of the Defence Services to the British people for the coming year will amount to some £340,000,000 or £350,000,000, and in almost every other country proportionately large sums are to be squandered for the same purpose. If, at the end of the road, peace was clearly visible, the sacrifice might be worth while, but is the end of the road in sight, is peace at that end, or does it lead to war, which is a return to barbarism and economic ruin, with sorrow and suffering for millions of peace-loving people? Surely the lesson to be drawn from the present world situation is that Britain must cooperate with other Powers which desire peace, to ensure the maximum effectiveness at the minimum of cost to all the nations working for peace. That means collective security. When is Britain going to take the road for which the world is waiting?
    10.5 p.m.
    Sir Ronald Ross: It is always a pleasure to hear the hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberdare (Mr. G. Hall), and to see how it is possible to combine a robust Socialism, from which I dissent completely, with a very keen interest in the senior Service, with which I have the most profound sympathy. I do not propose to follow the hon. Member into the matters to which he has alluded, except as regards the cost of the fleet and the cost per ton. We all realise the enormous proportionate increase in the cost of naval shipping, but I would make two observations about that. I would point out to the hon. Member, whose interest in those who work on the ships is as great as mine or that of anyone else, that between 70 and 80 per cent. of the increased cost goes to the workmen who build the ships or who work in other factories and provide the instruments with which the ships are fitted. The increase of cost is to a great extent owing to the greater elaboration of the instruments required by present-day naval warfare. As to our own position in the matter, the cost per ton of the German 10,000-ton battleships, which I think are the last big ships for which we have the cost-per-ton figure, was two-thirds as much again as the cost per ton of the "Nelson" and "Rodney." So far as one can form any conclusion, the costing arrangements of the Admiralty and the efficiency of naval establishments and private yards are as

    1121
    high as, if not higher than, those in Germany to-day.
    There are two matters to which I wish to address myself. One is the question of destroyers. In the Statement Relating to Defence there is no provision for any flotilla of destroyers for the coming year. That is a feature which, for various reasons, strikes with dismay everyone who has the interest of the Navy at heart. It was a point made during the Committee stage of the Estimates, which both my hon. Friends who are responsible for the Admiralty to-night did their best to answer. Although yielding to none in admiration of my hon. Friends, I do not think that their answer was convincing. There was, first the Financial Secretary who, with his customary persuasive method of addressing us, pointed out that there were 40 destroyers in course of construction and that it was unnecessary to consider building the usual annual flotilla. The Financial Secretary in another part of his remarks pointed out that three flotillas, that is, 24 destroyers, would be finished in this financial year. By the next Estimates, therefore, there will be only 16 destroyers under construction, and that is below the normal number. In any case, to judge our standards by the number of destroyers or ships of any class that we have building would lead us into all sorts of fallacies. The proper yardstick is surely the needs of this country and its Fleet for a particular class of vessel.
    Then there was my hon. and gallant Friend the Civil Lord, whose technique is perhaps more robust and who does not adopt the persuasive method. He straightly said that we could not have all that we wanted, and that there was so much building going on that the destroyers ought to be left out. As he knows, the firms which are on the destroyer list and which build destroyers are very largely specialists, such as Thorneycroft's, White's, Denny's, and Yarrow's. I do not think any of these firms build anything bigger than a destroyer, and they would be capable of taking on two each in a new programme. It would prevent gaps in the work and would prevent skilled men being put on other types of building. There appears to be a prospect of a decline in the near future in the building of merchant ships owing to the high cost of metals, and it
    1122
    may well be that this is an opportunity to build another flotilla of destroyers.
    That is only the lesser part of the argument. The real test is what our needs are. I take the standard of 200,000 tons which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) adopted in his period at the Admiralty in 1929. That was the standard for a situation in which there was unrestricted building of submarines. I do not think anyone would suggest that the building of submarines is in any way restricted now, because I have never known a time when they were being laid down in larger numbers. Although it has been pointed out by the spokesmen for the Admiralty that we might be better off in destroyers than in some other class of ships, that is to some extent due to the fact that there is a shorter lag between the order and the completion of a ship and its commission. Therefore, those destroyers which were ordered in 1936, when the spurt was put on in naval shipbuilding, are within sight of being ready. Even so, we are now well short of the standard of the 200,000 tons of destroyer tonnage.
    Of the destroyers on hand, some 60 are over age. When we add all the destroyers we have to the 40 under construction, we shall be well over the 200,000 tons, but, meanwhile, some of the 60 old destroyers will have become unserviceable and the greater number will have been reduced to the position of convoy vessels. I understand it is the policy of the Admiralty to re-equip the older destroyers up to the V and W classes as ships not fully prepared to carry out all the manifold duties of the destroyers as maids of all works of the Fleet, but to specialise them as convoy vessels and therefore as vessels which can really do the work which in the last War was done by sloops.
    As regards the absence of this flotilla from the building programme, there is this final argument, that it is entirely contrary to the doctrine and policy of the Admiralty, a policy which was established in 1927 and was a policy of continuity of replacement. It was desired to avoid the unfortunate position in which this country, and even more so the United States, found itself, as a result of building a very large number of ships in one year. The United States built a vast fleet of destroyers all of which became over-age at the same time. The policy of this country has always been

    1123
    to build destroyers steadily at a rate which was never less than a flotilla a year, except for one year, and in order to keep the party cheerful I will not say in which year it was that the "C" class destroyers were divided by two and only four were laid down. I cannot see why we should fall into the error of having a rush of building followed by the absence of any building at all of this type of ship, because it is not only unfortunate but also uneconomical.
    There is one other matter to which I wish to address myself, and it concerns some remarks which fell from the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) who, I am sorry to see, is not in his place to-night. He speaks with such authority on this subject, and I myself have such a particular regard for his observations, that when he makes a pronouncement which does not appear to be sound I think it is always worthy of a rather close examination. With one suggestion that he made I certainly disagree, and disagree rather strongly. It was that there should be more 10,000-ton cruisers armed with 8-inch guns built for the Fleet. The technical description of 8-inch gun cruisers of that type, according to the latest Treaty, is "light surface vessels, subcategory A." There are two good reasons against building any more such ships. I think they are two very convincing reasons. The first is that it is illegal, and the second that it is unnecessary. It is illegal owing to the Naval Treaty of 1936, to which we were a party. By Article 6 of that Treaty this country has undertaken not to lay down any more such ships until 1943, so for five years we cannot even begin to build them, unless we can find some way out of Article 6. There are three ways out of it, but none of them applies. If we had a ship of that class shipwrecked we could replace it, under Article 23. If we had a war, then we could start building, under Article 24, but that does not apply. There remains only the Clause in Article 25, sometimes called the "escalator clause," but that comes into operation only when vessels not in conformity with the limitations of the Treaty are being constructed or acquired by a Power not a party to the Treaty. In that case the high-contracting parties, which include this country, can depart from the terms of the Treaty to the extent to which they consider de-
    1124
    parture necessary, but nobody is building 10,000-ton cruisers not in conformity with the limitations of the Treaty.
    Mr. Cocks: Japan?
    Sir R. Ross: The hon. Member mentions Japan, but there is no real evidence about that, nothing more than suspicion, although, of course, we are all in the difficulty of having the general naval building situation put in some confusion owing to the quite unnecessary concealment and strange policy of the Japanese Admiralty. I do not think there is any evidence about their building anything of that sort. The right hon. Member for Epping brought up the question in connection with the German 8-inch gun cruisers. Germany denounced the Treaty of Versailles. I do not propose to comment upon that action. We have all commented upon it. Germany made an agreement in 1935. The more we criticise a country for breaking agreements the more scrupulously we ought to appreciate that country when it keeps an agreement. Germany, according to all the information at the disposal of this country, has kept the Naval Treaty of 1935 not only in the letter but in the spirit. We must not look askance when we find these countries keeping their obligations, and we must recognise that they have done so.
    That agreement was very reasonable. The German Government accepted a percentage of 35 of our strength, and, with one exception, they did so by categories, which meant that they would not concentrate and outbuild us in one category at the expense of the others. Germany is entitled to build five 10,000-ton cruisers, and is building only three. At present we have 15, so our proportion is five to one in that class. Some of the earlier of our ships have already undergone big reconstruction and will not be far short of new ships of that type.
    The second point, that they are unnecessary, is based upon the fact that the 8-inch 10,000-ton cruiser was the modern equivalent of the armoured cruiser, a ship whose function it was very difficult to define. In the War the armoured cruiser was the most unfortunate type with which any Navy was equipped. It had a very large proportion of casualties. The "Defence," the "Warrior," the "Black Prince," the "Blucher," the "Scharnhorst" and the "Gneisenau"

    1125
    were all armoured cruisers and were all sunk. As to the risk of war against commerce by the big ship and by the 10,000-ton cruiser, I do not think there is any instance in history of heavy ships having successfully carried out war against commerce. Very rarely have they been sent out to do any such thing, because the big ship is too valuable. These cruisers would cost over £2,000,000, they would carry between 600 and 800 men and would be very difficult to maintain at sea without bases. In the case of Germany, the ships would have to come out past our main fleets and would have to go back.
    As tar as we can take any analogy from the late War, it was not the big ships such as the "Scharnhorst," the "Gneisenau" and the German China squadron that destroyed our commerce. These ships did our commerce very little harm and their operations ended in the destruction of the squadron. The "Emden" and the "Koenigsberg," much smaller ships, did our commerce very great harm, but they were eventually caught and destroyed. The disguised merchant ship at the end of the War did our commerce even greater harm than did the "Emden" and the "Koenigsberg."
    I have only one more observation to make at this late hour at which it is apparently and unfortunately necessary for us to discuss this important matter. I am trying to keep my remarks in rather smaller compass than I would wish. I would ask the hon. Gentleman one question about flying boats. After an agreement which has been come to as regard to the Fleet Air Arm, a compromise which has been honoured by the Navy and the Air Force. I think may of us regret that the flying boats were not transferred to the Fleet Air Arm. I would like to ask my hon. Friend whether the flying boats are under the operational control of the Navy. They are its long-distance reconnaissance machines in the air; they are expected to fulfil the function which was quite usefully fulfilled by the German Zeppelins for the German Fleet in the last War. It seems to me that to deprive the Navy of the operational control over flying boats is really to put a patch over their eye; and, although there was a glorious occasion in the British Navy connected with a patch over the eye, I do not think it is a thing that should be
    1126
    made a universal practice. That is all that I wish to ask my hon. Friends. I would congratulate them on a programme which, if I may humbly say so, is a programme worthy of this country and worthy of the dangerous times in which we live.
    10.26 p.m.
    Major Lloyd George: I should like to support what has been said by the hon. Member for Londonderry (Sir R. Ross), especially with regard to destroyers. I think I am right in saying that a good deal of apprehension was felt last week in all quarters of the House with regard to the absence of destroyers from the Government's programme. The impression I got was that the reason why they did not appear was that on the whole the Admiralty were satisfied that they were building enough. The Civil Lord said that they were very happy in the fact that they had still kept their old ones, and were in a better position as regards destroyers than as regards any other ships of the Fleet. I think it will be generally agreed that, relatively speaking at any rate, from the point of view of the defence of these shores against attack by a hostile fleet, the Navy to-day is more powerful than it was in 1914; but, as I said last week, the greatest danger came to this country in the last War at a time when we had undoubtedly complete command of the sea. I believe that, at the worst period of all, we lost something like 500,000 tons of shipping a month, and we lost something like 3,500,000 tons in 1917. The serious part of the matter was that not only did we lose ships, but sailors. That was a very serious matter, and it will be still more serious in the future, if one is to judge by the conditions of the present time.
    The only thing that saved this country at that particular juncture was the convoy system, and it was said by those in authority that one of the obstacles in the way of starting that system was a shortage of destroyers. Eventually the difficulty was overcome, as a result of prodigious efforts on our part, but I would point out that the crews were greatly overworked. Officers broke down under the heavy strain, and the ships themselves, owing to the constant work they had to do, suffered considerably. That is what actually happened at that time, and I think it is relevant now to compare the situation as regards these craft with

    1127
    what it was in those days, when admittedly one of the obstacles to the only system that overcame our difficulties was a shortage of destroyers. In 1917 we had 263 destroyers in this country, and I believe there were some American destroyers as well. At that time there were about 175 German submarines working in the various seas. To-day, including some 60 destroyers which are over age, and to which reference has already been made, we have about 149, with about 40 building, making a total of just under 200. We had 263 in 1917. With the 40 building, we have now 200. With regard to submarine building, Germany, as far as one can estimate, has about 61. I have an idea that, as far as submarines are concerned, they have some right by which they can increase the number. The Italians have well over 100 at present. Our destroyer position, therefore, is considerably worse than it was in 1917. Another difficulty which makes the position even more serious is that Italy, with over 100 submarines, was an ally in the last War.
    Reference was made by my hon. Friend to oil. The Mediterranean route is vital for oil, at any rate; and the position to-day is much worse than it was in the War, because not only have we not the friends we had then, but they have bases, either actual or potential, on what must be considered the most vital of our trade routes, especially as far as the Navy is concerned. I saw in a newspaper the other day the statement that, with regard to the protection of our shipping in connection with the dispute in Spain, something like 64 craft were required. That is very different from what we would have to face in the event of real hostilities. If it took 64 craft to look after ships in those circumstances, I cannot help feeling that our destroyer programme at present bears no real relation to the situation we would have to face. The Government should really consider the position in regard to our destroyer programme. As a result of the things that have happened recently, the very work that destroyers have to do is bound to be increased, because the route that our ships have to travel in certain circumstances will be much greater, and places where, in the last War, we could look, at any rate, for neutrality will now be bases hostile to
    1128
    ourselves. Great efforts were made before the last War to increase our destroyer programme, but it was not done and the one cry during the War, especially in 1917, was about the shortage of destroyers. That was made up by prodigious efforts on the part of the people of this country, which managed to save the country from disaster. I agree that destroyers are much more easily built, and will not interfere to any great extent with the work that is going on.
    I want to ask one question with regard to officers' marriage allowances. Obviously, there is a good deal of misapprehension as to what is actually meant. As far as I can gather, a married officer ashore on a job gets a lodging allowance of £80. That also applies to an unmarried officer. Therefore, the allowance is in lieu of accommodation that he has on board ship. The married officer now, I gather, is to get a marriage allowance. Therefore, when he is afloat he will be so much better off; but when he goes ashore to any job he will lose his lodging allowance which he now gets. In the case of a married officer, he would get, say, £45 odd, and lose about £80. I cannot understand why they mix up the two things. If you decide to give the marriage allowance, I should have thought that it would be treated as marriage allowance, and that, if you give a man lodging allowance, it would be treated as lodging allowance. Suppose an officer decides to take marriage allowance when he is serving afloat can he, when he goes ashore, revert, if he wants to do so, to the lodging allowance which he had before? If he cannot do that, he stands to lose about £35 a year. If he decides while afloat to take marriage allowance, can he, if he goes back to a shore job, go back to the lodging allowance? I shall be grateful if my hon. Friend can give me a reply to that question.
    10.36 p.m.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: I wish to support very strongly the plea which has been put forward for the continuation of the building of destroyers, but I wish first of all to deal with the question of marriage allowances. Naval officers, when they heard that at long last the principle of marriage allowances was to be granted and put into the Navy Estimates, I am sure, heard it with great satisfaction. But now that they know the details of the scheme, I

    1129
    believe that the majority of naval officers will be filled with dismay and keen disappointment. The scheme, in my opinion, is an extremely mean and shabby one, and is not worthy of our great naval Service. I would like to go into some detail with regard to these marriage allowances. The marriage allowance for officers of captain rank, which is quoted as being at the rate of 5s. 6d. a day, and for officers below that rank at 4s. 6d. per day is, in fact, 2s. less than those amounts because their basic rate of pay has been cut by 2s. Therefore, the marriage allowance which is being granted to these officers in fact means an increase in their pay of only 3s. 6d. in the case of captain and 2s. 6d. in the case of officers below that rank. The Parliamentary Secretary said, when presenting the Estimates, that captains would receive £100 a year, and that those below the rank of captain would receive £80 a year marriage allowance. I asked him at the time he made that statement whether it was a net allowance, obviously meaning, would they receive those amounts over and above the 2s. cut? They will not receive it. The actual amount which officers of the rank of captain will receive as marriage allowance will be £63 10s. a year, and the actual amount which officers below the rank of captain will receive will be £45 12s. a year.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Shakespeare): Perhaps it will help my hon. and gallant Friend if I remind him that the case which I gave was that of the married officer with one child, which is the average case. I am not disputing his figures, but I am just explaining mine.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: The fact is that a captain is to receive an extra 3s. 6d. net a day if he is married. Three hundred and sixty five times 3s. 6d. is £63 10s. The officer below the rank of captain receives 2s. 6d. a day. Three hundred and sixty-five times 2s. 6d. is £45 12s. I do not understand why the Parliamentary Secretary interrupted me. That is the actual amount of money in excess of the pay they are now receiving which they will get from marriage allowance. The unmarried officers of 30 years of age and above, on their next promotion, or officers who marry and decide to co-opt into this scheme, or on next promotion, will have a reduction of 2s.
    1130
    a day on their basic pay. I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary a question in regard to that. A lieutenant when he has servied seven years as lieutenant automatically becomes a lieutenant-commander. Will that be counted as promotion, and will that lieutenant who automatically becomes a lieutenant-commander have 2s. a day deducted from his pay in order to pay marriage allowance to officers in the Service?
    This marriage allowance is to have effect only when an officer is serving at sea. When a married officer serves on shore he is not to receive the marriage allowance, but if he serves on shore in an appointment where service quarters are not provided for him, he will receive marriage allowance, or, as I understand, he may, if he wishes, receive lodging allowance instead of marriage allowance. He may take whichever he pleases, but he does not receive both. A single man who takes up an appointment where service quarters are not provided for him, receives lodging allowance, if he is a captain, at the rate of £100 a year, or at the rate of £80 a year if he is below the rank of captain. That is £100 a year and £80 a year in excess of the pay these officers are receiving to-day. That is the sum which the Admiralty considers necessary to compensate them for having to find accommodation and mess themselves.
    The Parliamentary Secretary says that in order to place the married officer in an equitable position with the unmarried officer when he goes on shore and takes up an appointment of that nature, he will get marriage allowance instead of lodging allowance. The marriage allowance which he will obtain, as I have already stated, amounts to £45 12s., although the Admiralty have laid it down that it is an equitable thing for an officer who has to provide his own quarters and mess himself to receive £80 a year. But under this scheme the married officer is only to receive £45 12s. a year instead of £80. How is he better off? He is going to lose the difference between £80 and £45 12s. If he chooses to have lodging allowance instead, there is no difference in it, perhaps 15s. or a £1. That seems to me to be a very unfair position—he ought to receive the full lodging allowance laid down by the Admiralty.

    1131
    There is another point which I wish to make in this connection. The unmarried officer when he has to provide himself with accommodation is satisfied with one or, at most, two rooms. Does the Parliamentary Secretary consider that two rooms which are sufficient for an unmarried officer are also sufficient accommodation for a married officer, his wife and one child? It is obvious that the accommodation which is required for a married officer, his wife and child, is greater than that required for an unmarried officer and, therefore, there is a greater expense on a married officer if he has to provide his own quarters. The Parliamentary Secretary stated that he wanted these two to be treated on an equality in this matter, but they will not be under this scheme. I hope he will give a reply to this point. When the Parliamentary Secretary presented the Estimates he said:
    "We have aimed at giving them"—
    that is, married officers—
    "such benefit as will put them approximately in the position of officers who, being employed on shore, are entitled either to quarters or lodging allowances, which directly relieved their family expenditure."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17TH MARCH, 1938; col. 633, Vol. 333.]
    From the facts I have given all I can say is that his aim is very bad and that he has scored a bad miss. I should like to compare the position of the married naval officer with that of a married officer of the same age in the Army and in the Air Force. Between the ages of 37 to 42 a lieutenant-commander with marriage allowance receives £627 12s. a year, a major in the Army of the same age, with his marriage allowance, receives £782 a year, and a squadron leader of less age receives £822 a year. Therefore, under this scheme a married naval officer, a lieutenant-commander, is £155 a year worse off than an Army officer of the same rank and the same age, and £194 a year worse off than an officer in the Air Force. It must be remembered that there is no restriction on the officer in the Army or in the Air Force; he always gets his marriage allowance wherever he is serving and gets bachelor allowance as well, while the naval officer only gets marriage allowance while at sea.
    The naval officer is entitled to fair and equitable treatment in this matter. He is entitled to as generous a treatment as an
    1132
    officer in the Army or in the Air Force. From the facts I have given—and they cannot be disputed—a naval officer is being most unjustly treated in comparison with officers in the other Services. What justification is there for a cut of 2s. in naval officers' pay, robbing Peter to pay Paul—robbing Paul too to pay himself? What a mean scheme. What justification is there for laying down that an officer on half-pay shall receive no marriage allowance? At the one time in the whole of his life when he requires it more than any other he does not receive it. What justification is there for only giving marriage allowance to an officer when he is in a post where no quarters are provided for him? What justification is there for the suggestion that the married officer does not require any more accommodation than the unmarried officer? No wonder the right hon. Gentleman who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench said that when he was at Portsmouth he heard severe criticisms against this scheme. The naval officer is certainly being very shabbily and meanly treated. I do not think this scheme can commend itself to hon. Members of this House, nor to the nation as a whole when they know the details of the scheme, and realise the way in which the Service of which they are so justly proud is being treated as regards marriage allowance. I beg the Government to reconsider the scheme and to do justice to the naval officer who so thoroughly deserves it.
    The question of flying boats was raised by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Portsmouth (Sir R. Keyes). Flying boats are for reconnaissance work in the protection of trade routes. They cannot be used for bombing any military object. Their work is purely naval and yet they are manned and trained and are under the control of the Air Ministry. The Admiralty is responsible for the security of our trade routes and yet the flying boats, which form a very important part of the craft used for the protection of trade, are not under their control. They are not manned by naval ratings and are not trained by the Admiralty. For operational control they are to be turned over to the Admiralty, but there is no guarantee that they will always be at the disposal of the Admiralty. Supposing the Air Ministry is short of pilots or wants the boats for some other purpose, what will happen? There are certain qualifica-

    1133
    tions required for the personnel of flying boats. Seamanship and a knowledge of the sea are of the utmost importance. The Air Ministry has acknowledged that fact by advertising for young Mercantile Marine officers to join up for the flying boats. One would imagine that the Navy could supply personnel which understood the sea and naval matters, and obviously the Navy should man these flying boats. They should be trained by the Navy and should be completely under the operational control of the Admiralty.
    Last year it was decided to do away with the dual control system in the Fleet Air Arm because it had such a disastrous effect on the efficiency of that all-important arm, but now this dual control is to be continued and will exist so long as the flying boats are under the control of the Air Ministry instead of that of the Admiralty. This controversy is not at an end and is not settled for good and all and will not be settled until the Navy has complete control of all craft required for the protection of trade. The dividing line between those flying machines under the control of the Air Ministry and those under the control of the Admiralty should not be as to whether they take off from the shore, the sea or a ship but what is the function of the machines, and, if it is a purely naval function, they should be under the control of the Admiralty.
    I wish now to make some remarks about the design of our battleships. It is necessary to remember that although we have equality in battleships with the United States of America, we have a considerable superiority as far as every other naval Power is concerned. The best and quickest way for a navy to fulfil its functions is to bring about a fleet action between the two main fleets. What will be the position between this country and some other country on the outbreak of war? This country will have a vastly superior battle fleet, and, therefore, our enemy will not seek an action between his main fleet and ours. He will do everything he can to postpone the evil day. On the other hand, it will be our aim and object to force a fleet action on an unwilling enemy, and having made contact with that unwilling enemy, to close him to a decisive range in order that the action may be decisive. Therefore, I wish to emphasise the necessity for speed in our newly-constructed ships.
    1134
    I am not suggesting that they have not the speed, because I do not know what the design is, but it is not sufficient for them to have the same speed as the battleships of foreign Powers. If our ships only have the same speed as the enemy he will be able to deny action and to prevent our closing his fleet to a decisive range. In the new design of foreign ships, the speed is 30 knots, and in that case, if we are to be able to force an action on an unwilling enemy, our ships must have a speed of three or four knots in excess of the foreign ships.
    Mr. Alexander: With the bulge?
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: I do not wish to be discourteous, but I do not think it is necessary for me to go into the question of whether it is with the bulge. I say that our ships should have an excess of speed over the foreign ships of three or four knots. The next point with which I wish to deal is that of triple turrets. For a long period of years, it has been the practice in the Navy to mount our main armament two in a turret, and to distribute the turrets over the ship. That practice has been abandoned, and the main armament is now mounted three in a turret, and the three turrets are concentrated together. I think there are very grave disadvantages in that. We are putting too many eggs in one basket. We have to visualise the possibility of one turret being disabled and if that happens, one-third of the main armament will be demobilised, a most serious matter. The same thing applies to the practice of having the turrets so close together. I at once recognise the great advantage in the saving of armoured protection by having triple turrets, and having them close together; I also recognise the advantage in the saving of available space; but I think the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.
    There is then the question of the size of the guns. There are ships which mount a 16-inch gun. We hear about the Japanese possibly mounting 18-inch guns, and we have 15-inch and 14-inch guns. However, it does not always follow that the fleet which has the largest calibre of guns and the most of these large calibre guns which wins the action. It was not so in the Russo-Japanese war. I think it will not be denied that at the Battle of Jutland the fire effect of the

    1135
    German 11-inch and 12-inch guns compared not unfavourably with that of our 13.5-inch and 15-inch guns. My point is that it does not follow of necessity that because some other nation mounts 16-inch or 18-inch guns we should follow their bad example. What we require is hitting fire effect. The more guns we can fire in a salvo, and the greater the rapidity of the fire of those salvos, the greater is the possibility of hitting and the greater the rapidity of hitting and volume of fire. Therefore although, of course, the size of guns must have relation to the armour carried by a potential enemy, I should be surprised if I were told that the 13.5-inch or 14-inch gun was not sufficiently large to do what it is required to do.
    So, I advocate a greater number of guns in the main armament with smaller calibre rather than guns of huge calibre and few in number and mounted in double and not triple turrets. We must remember that no decisive action can take place at the opening range of 30,000 yards or over. In order to bring about a decisive action between the main fleets the battle fleets must close to within 15,000 yards or so and the closer the range the more important becomes the rapidity and volume of fire. I, personally, hope that we shall not follow the example of other nations in mounting 16-inch guns or guns of even greater calibre. I believe we shall do much better and our ships will have a much greater fire effect, if we have a greater number of guns of smaller calibre.
    Lastly, I wish to refer to the size of the modem ship. All Capital ships today are suffering from elephantiasis. They bear no relation whatever to the function which a heavy ship has to carry out. I do not like quoting personal experiences but I cannot help recalling that 40 years ago when I went to sea in a 12,000 ton battleship. It was quite big enough. Gradually, the size has increased. The first Dreadnought was commissioned in the summer of 1906. Ever since then size has gone on increasing. Now we have 35,000 ton ships and we are told that Japan is building a 40,000 ton ship. When is this mad race in size to cease? To begin with, the economic side of the question must be considered. We must have regard to
    1136
    the immense cost of these leviathans. It is unnecessary to have ships of this size or, I would put it in this way, that it is only necessary because one nation wants to go one better than another, by building a larger ship. For the fulfilment of the functions of a battleship, vessels of this size are unnecessary. We require our battleships to go through the Panama Canal, and there is not too much room there now. The cost of these immense ships is not confined merely to their construction, but to their upkeep and to the alterations, and the building of new docks at home and in our overseas bases to take them, such as Singapore. We could not fight out in the Far East till Singapore was constructed, and the nation will be very glad to know that the Civil Lord has just returned from the opening of that base—a very happy event.
    Then we had the unfortunate grounding of one of our latest battleships twice on leaving Portsmouth Harbour. I am not casting any reflection whatever upon the officers of that ship or upon the dockyard pilots by saying that. Anybody who has had any experience whatever in handling these immense ships knows perfectly well that, given certain conditions of tide, wind, draught of water, and speed of ship, they are extremely difficult to handle, and regrettable as it is that in going out of a harbour such as Portsmouth one of our latest ships grounded twice it is not an impossible contingency and must be considered; it must have a considerably deleterious effect on the mind of the commander-in-chief, if he is not certain that in all weathers and at all times he can, if he wishes to do so, take these huge ships to sea. I think that is an important point. I also think that these immensely costly ships must have some psychological effect upon the mind of the commander-in-chief.
    Before the War we set the example to the remainder of the world in building such ships in such numbers, and of such a size as we desired to have, and all other nations followed our example. Since the War we have abandoned that policy, and I would ask, quite seriously, whether within reason we cannot again set the example to the world and reduce the size of these immense ships. Obviously we could not come down very much, but we could make a start. The gain to the world would be so stupendous that I believe other nations would welcome it

    1137
    and would follow our example. I hope that something may be done in the directions which I have indicated as regards the design of our new heavy ships.
    11.8 p.m.
    Sir Robert Young: In a previous discussion arising out of some suggestions that I made, the Admiralty met me to a certain extent, and I am trusting that some further crumbs of comfort may fall my way this evening. I am not qualified to follow the hon. and gallant Member for South Paddington (Vice-Admiral Taylor) in the remarks which he has made, except to say that if his criticisms in regard to officers are correct, I trust that steps will be taken to rectify any injustice. I do not intend to refer to the policy which has led us to the state in which we find ourselves to-day. I am content with what my hon. Friend sitting below me has said, and I fully endorse his criticisms. But I would like to say that those of us who heard the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary last Thursday must have felt, as I felt, that under the present circumstances, and however much we may regret the expenditure of such vast sums of money for Naval purposes, money that might be used in many ways in a sane world for important economic progress in our country, the international situation generally and the European situation in particular make it imperative on our part to make sure that we have a British Navy equal to and ready for any task that may be imposed upon it for the defence of our own country should attacks come from any other country.
    As long as we are assured that our military and naval forces will not be used for the purpose of aggression nor for anything inconsistent with the Covenant of the League of Nations, I feel that it is our bounden duty, until agreements are reached limiting the size of armaments and settling international difficulties without recourse to war, to provide all the men and material necessary to protect our shores, our lives and our freedom from the possible attacks of those who, by their methods of persuasion, chase all freedom from the earth and intellectual honesty to a concentration camp. I trust that while spending these large sums of money, and while providing this great and terrible military and naval strength, the people of the country and the Empire will remain peaceful in thought and purpose. There is no need
    1138
    for war scares. I deprecate public demonstrations which may incite public feeling in the direction of war. I am one of those who believe that differing methods of Government need not lead to international strife. It is only necessary, as has already been hinted to-night, for the nations to agree that they will pursue peaceful methods and avoid war in settling international difficulties of any kind. That must be the first agreement, and on that agreement all other agreements must be built. Without that agreement no treaty, pact or understanding can be relied on. In fact, it may prove nothing more than a snare and a delusion. As I look abroad I feel that the situation demands the rearmament of our own country.
    Having said that, I turn to matters in the Estimates and in the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, and particularly to matters which chiefly concern that part of the personnel of the British Navy in which I am interested and which to some extent I represent in this House. I am sure that hon. Members were interested, if not satisfied, when they learned from the Parliamentary Secretary the concessions that were to be made in marriage allowances to warrant officers and the slight improvements that were to be made for the purpose of facilitating promotion.
    These concessions have been granted after much advocacy in this House. In my view they are tardy and belated concessions, not nearly adequate to popularise the Navy as a means of livelihood for young men skilled in the engineering and cognate professions. If I could persuade myself that these concessions were made not so much for the purpose of recruiting as because the rank held and the work done were worth such pay, I should feel more pleased than I do, for in my view they fall far short of what they ought to be.
    The very tentative steps taken to improve promotion from the lower deck are far from satisfactory. Some of my hon. Friends have already referred to the matter and it has been pointed out that during the Great War many officers were appointed from the lower deck and they served our purpose nobly and well. The men to-day are equally efficient and should not be passed over in favour of those of more opulence or other social status. The Parliamentary Secretary has said that promotion from the lower deck

    1139
    has been refused because applicants found that warrant officers could not live on their pay. I sincerely trust that the concessions made will enable them to do so. I agree with him that this disinclination to accept promotion, for that reason or any other, is greatly detrimental to the best interests of the Service, and I therefore urge the Admiralty to do more to expedite and to increase promotions from the lower deck and to stimulate the desire for promotion among the men of the lower deck.
    In that connection I ask the Admiralty to remember two things: First, that the number of commissioned officers is now more than at the pre-war expansion and that the number of executive warrant officers is only one half. Consequently the opportunities for promotion from the lower deck to warrant rank are much fewer. In the second place, I ask the Admiralty to do what they can to prevent the promotion from petty officer to chief petty officer being endangered by the re-engagement of chief petty officers after having served 22 years for pension. My hon. Friend will know of the scheme whereby these men are going back to the Navy, and there is a good deal of heartburning and discouragement among petty officers.
    The Parliamentary Secretary may know that I am interested in and concerned with the status, pay and promotion of engine-room artificers. Some men of the engine-room artificer class are members of my trade union. Recently some young men from my constituency have become engine-room artificers, and I am informed that very good mechanics they have proved themselves to be. I trust that their experience of the Royal Navy will not bring regret and cause others not to join them in the Service. The Admiralty should know and should not forget that artificers who joined the Navy received at one time several shillings more than they would have done in civilian employment, and that that is now no longer the case. That class of man is now paid from 10s. to 15s. per week less than he could obtain in the district in which he previously worked. Kit upkeep allowance and marriage allowance do not fully compensate him for that loss. The artificer's working week is also of seven days instead of the five-and-a-half of civilian employment. The
    1140
    Admiralty will get all the men they need without the great expense of advertising which they now incur, when they make the status and pay of these men equal to that obtainable on shore.
    There is one other matter to which I hope the hon. Gentleman will give some attention. Why is it stated that a very limited number of midshipmen will be promoted by selection from artificer boys. What is that limited number? One, two, three, 12 or 20? I should certainly like to know, especially as I know that 31 of the seaman class are being trained in the "Ramilles" eventually to become sublieutenants. Why are artificer boys not given the same opportunities for such special training and why is there this differentiation? Surely the boys should be encouraged to take an interest in their profession and, by that interest, make others realise that the Navy is a Service worth being in.
    In spite of a large increase in the number of officer entries, only three apprentices were promoted to the rank of Cadet E in 1937. The hon. Gentleman may say that that was 50 per cent. over the year before, but that means only one over 1930. There should be a much larger number of apprentices promoted to cadet. Only by democratising the Navy can that Service be popularised and can it get all the men it needs of the standard of efficiency that the work of the Navy requires. At this late hour I do not intend to take up any more time, and I hope that the Minister, if he is not in a position to give me information on all these points, will let me know his opinion by letter in the near future.
    11.24 p.m.
    Sir Walter Smiles: I want to raise only one point, and that is the position and status of the engineering service in the Royal Navy. Most of us here know the history of that service. In 1903 and onwards, Admiral Fisher did his best to improve its status. Eventually, just before the War, there was a common entry to the executive branch and to the engineering branch. After the War, this was done away with, and I quite agree with that, because, after all, the engineering service and the executive branch are separate branches, both exceedingly specialised. When any engineer goes into a battleship, he cannot help being impressed with the

    1141
    intricate mass of machinery that has to be worked, and efficiently worked, in order to be able to go to sea if the Navy has to fight. The services of the late Engineer-in-Chief of the Navy have been recognised, in that Sir Harold Brown has now been put on the Army Council, but at the same time the Engineer-in-Chief of the Navy has not been put on the Admiralty Board. Seeing that 30 per cent. of the personnel of the Navy are in the engineering branch, and seeing that the Engineer-in-Chief is responsible for the training of all these men, and has to appoint the engineers who design and look after gun mountings, torpedoes, and so on, and to see that efficient officers are appointed to the engineering works and shipyards at Barrow, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Belfast, and to look after the engineering branches of the Royal Dockyards, I think that, with all that responsibility on his shoulders, the services of the engineering branch of the Navy ought to be recognised. There are many ways in which it should be recognised and made more popular, as suggested by the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. In my opinion the first thing to do is to put the Engineer-in-Chief on the Admiralty Board, and then he will be able to look after the personnel under him and raise the whole status of the engineering branch of the Navy. We talk about the Navy being the silent Service, and when you hear of the exploits of the "Broke" and other vessels like that, you never hear of the engineers below, without whose efficient work these ships could not fight. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary or the Civil Lord will consider this question very seriously. I believe it would remedy a great grievance, and bring a sense of contentment and fair play to the men in the engineering branch of the Navy.
    11.28 p.m.
    The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Colonel Llewellin): I rise now only to deal with two or three points which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary wishes me to take, in the first place because one or two of them are my direct concern. I will not, therefore, follow the last speaker, except to say that the value of the engineering branch is very fully recognised at the Admiralty, and that, indeed, in his speech introducing the Estimates, my hon. Friend referred to the
    1142
    Engineer-in-Chief personally. Everyone in the Navy knows what tremendous services the engineers render in His Majesty's ships. In saying that, however, I am afraid I do not hold out any hope that we shall put an engineer on the Board of Admiralty, because the functions of each member of that Board are carefully laid down at the present moment, and, if I may say so, after having been there such a short time, I think the divisions of the different staff branches at the Admiralty are very well organised under the respective members of the Board who have control of the different departments.
    I come now to the three matters with which I was going to deal. The first is that raised by the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. G. Hall), and I thank him, if I may, for greeting me to the office which he once held. He first dealt with recruiting. The House will be glad to know that recruiting for the Navy is extremely satisfactory. In the five years between 1933 and 1937 we have increased the naval personnel by no less than 25 per cent. We aimed at getting 17,000 recruits in this last year, including the increased numbers and the making up of wastage, and we are within 100 or 200 of our numbers at present. For the coming year we aim at obtaining 14,000. Although there was a shortage in one or two categories—for instance, of cooks; as a result of extensive propaganda there is now no shortage of that type of personnel, which must be very satisfactory, not only to the House, but to the ratings who depend on them for their well-cooked food. We had a shortage of direct-entry artificers to the extent of 248 at this time last year, but we are within 20 of the figures which were given to the recruiting officers at the beginning of this year. The only black spot, if I may call it that, is in respect of the blacksmiths. There we are having a slight difficulty, but we are hoping to train them in our dockyards in the same way as we train shipwrights. That shortage is merely because the blacksmiths' trade is a dying one in this country. The hon. Member for Newton (Sir R. Young) can rest assured that none of the concessions which we gave this year were caused by lack of recruits; they were given simply because we were determined to do our best for the welfare of all concerned. The great thing about the naval recruiting figures is that the greatest number of

    1143
    candidates apply to join in the months of January and February and of August and September, and those are the leave periods. We find that the existing ratings are our best recruiters, and that when they come back from leave they bring friends with them to join the Navy. I hope that that will also happen with the artificers from the hon. Member's constituency, whom he mentioned. While I am referring to the hon. Member, perhaps he will allow me to say how much we appreciate what both the employers' federation and the Amalgamated Engineering Union have done to help us with the direct-entry of engine room artificers. I thank both those bodies.
    The hon. Member asked whether we had obtained recruits by reducing the physical standards. The answer is, No. We have been able to get our numbers without doing so. The only recruiting standard we have lowered at all is that for artificers. We allow them to come in with a slightly lower dental standard. I am told that they need to have only two back molars that connect with one another. I would like to say just one word in praise of our recruiting staff, who have done extremely well in the past year or two. The hon. Member who opened this discussion referred to their increase in numbers, which is quite true. They are getting recruits at 15s. a head less in overhead recruiting costs than they were in 1935–36, so that, at any rate, upon those figures our increased recruiting staff is well justified.
    The same story can be told with regard to the Reserve Services. They are all recruiting extremely well, and especially the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. In some Divisions of that Reserve we have ample officers, and we can confine our waiting list to candidates who are young enough to come in and enter as midshipmen. With regard to other ranks, especially in the London Division, we now restrict our entry to those who are prepared to promise to qualify as signalmen. We are in fact doing extremely well in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as in the other Reserve Services. I am glad that I have a bright picture to give to the House with regard to recruitment, and, unlike my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War, who hoped that the Army would one day be the most popular Service in the country, I think
    1144
    that I can stand up here and say that undoubtedly the Navy at present is the most popular Service, and rightly so.
    The other point to which I want to refer is the comparison which the hon. Member made of building costs. He referred to the difference between 1914 and to-day. Various factors have to be taken into account. There are, first of all, higher wages; secondly, shorter working hours; thirdly, advanced cost of materials that we have to buy; and, fourthly, the greater quantity and complexity of equipment. For instance, the gunnery gadgets have increased considerably. We now have to put anti-aircraft guns of all sorts on to the ships which we had not to do before the War. The wireless machinery is very much greater, and there are many other items to which I could refer. It would be well to compare the cost of wages in the dockyards in 1914 with what it is to-day. I give them for the three main classes. The labourer in 1914 received 24s. a week of 48 hours. Now they work 47 hours, and he gets 33s., plus a 20s. bonus, so that his wages have gone up from 24s. to 53s. The wages of the skilled labourer ranged from 24s. to 28s., and now they range from 34s. to 37s., and a bonus of 20s. The wages of the mechanics are up from 39s. to 68s. Thus wages have considerably increased, and obviously, this increase increases the cost of the goods which we produce, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry (Sir R. Ross) has said, the greater part of the cost of building a ship is the increased labour costs.
    I now come to the particular point raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) on the last occasion on which we were discussing these Estimates. He referred to the £50 per ton difference between the submarines built in 1935 and those built and completed in 1937. As I saw that he was not satisfied with the answer I gave on the last occasion, I have gone into the figures more fully. The figures, on the average of 1935, were based upon two submarines, the Snapper and the Sea Wolf, one a dockyard-built ship and the other a contract-built ship. The price worked out at £349 a ton, on the average, for the two. The 1937 figure was in relation to one submarine, the Sunfish, the same size as the others, 670 tons, and the price came out at £399 a ton. So that

    1145
    the one that has gone up in price is a dockyard-built ship, built at Chatham. The greater part of the increase in cost was in labour charges. We raised wages 1s. in July, 1934; 1s. in July, 1935; 1s. in June, 1936; 1s. in September, 1936 and 1s. in December, 1936. There were also wage increases of 1s. 6d. in August last and 1s. 6d. in November last, but those increases did not come into the 1937 ship. The other increases did come into the 1937 ship and worked out at about 8 to 10 per cent. of the extra cost of that ship, which was 15 per cent. more expensive than the average of those built in the year 1935. But this ship has a much higher engine power; she can steam 15 knots as against a little over 13 of the earlier vessels, and there was a considerable amount of money spent on the tests of the new engines. Therefore, when it comes down to the facts, we find that this increased cost, to which the right hon. Gentleman quite properly called attention, was in a dockyard-built ship, and I have given the reasons for the increase.
    I want, finally, to deal with the question which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberdare raised in regard to oil. He asked about tankers. There is a committee dealing with that particular problem. The numbers of tankers available and their use have been worked out in the event of any possible contingency. With respect to the amount of money spent on oil storage, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Navy has laid up, and is laying up, ample supplies of oil in all parts of the world, and a large proportion of the supplies are being stored in places which will give a 100 per cent. security. Further than that he will not wish me to go. The same remarks apply to munitions. With regard to dual firing, we find that oil is the most effective fuel for the propulsion of any kind of naval ship. If we tried dual firing on three or four ships we should have three or four ships less efficient than if we stuck completely to oil. We do not intend to do it as we intend to have all our ships thoroughly efficient.
    Mr. A. V. Alexander: I do not think the Civil Lord is answering the case in regard to the experience of foreign navies, and whether the experience of dual firing in foreign navies has been successful.
    Colonel Llewellin: I have made inquiries. With regard to France, our information is that she is giving up any sort of coal in the firing of her ships, and going back completely to oil. With regard to consultation between the Admiralty and oil companies with regard to oil supplies, that is not being done direct by the Admiralty but by a committee on which the Admiralty is represented. The hon. Member asked whether we were acting together with the other Defence Departments in the matter of stores. We are acting with the other Departments in supplies where we both need similar stores, but in the matter of storage we are acting independently; we have our own storage facilities. I have intervened for the purpose of dealing with the points which have been raised which are the direct concern of the Vote for which I am responsible at the Admiralty, and I thank the House for bearing with me for so long. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will deal at the conclusion of the Debate with the general matters raised in it.
    11.46 p.m.
    Mr. Cocks: When I came into the House last Thursday the hon. and gallant Member for Chertsey (Commander Marsden) was making some disparaging remarks about Socialist specialists airing their views on Navy Estimates. As one of these unfortunate people I should like to welcome the hon. and gallant Member back to our Debates. I want to urge that further opportunities should be given to engineer offices of the senior class. I am sorry that the Civil Lord dismissed so summarily the suggestion that an engineer officer should be appointed to the Board of Admiralty. I hope that the suggestion will still be considered. But if it is impossible, may I suggest another way in which they may be considered? I do not ask that engineer officers should be given Fleet command, but surely the appointment of Admiral-Superintendent at one of our dockyards is a position eminently suitable for an engineer officer. I suggest that the next time a vacancy occurs at a place like Devonport, where an engineer officer gets his early training, it would be a good thing to appoint an engineer officer as Admiral-Superintendent.
    I want to deal also with the position of warrant officers, which I raised last year.

    1147
    The hon. and gallant Member for Chertsey said that the warrant officers have been considered as the backbone of the Service, and the Admiralty last year said that in their view the best way of promotion from the lower deck was through warrant officer rank. For some time past there has been a deficiency in the number of men coming forward for the warrant officer rank, chiefly because they consider that they suffer some disadvantage in doing so. Last year I put forward certain considerations to the Admiralty, and I was told that they would all be sympathetically considered. I am sure they have been sympathetically considered, but we have not got them all. About two out of the seven have been accepted, and I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to go further than he has so far.
    The first point is the question of marriage allowances. I associate myself with the criticisms that have been made on that matter. I think they might be more generous though certainly warrant officers will be very grateful for the allowances. The warrant officer is to have 3s. a day marriage allowance with 1s. 6d. for the first child and 1s. for the next. In nearly every other case the allowance is 2s. for the first child. I do not see why there should be the differentiation. Why could he not be given the extra sixpence? Another point I raised last year was that a warrant officer should be entitled to qualify for promotion to commissioned rank after eight years service instead of 10. That has been granted and I thank the Admiralty for the concession. Hitherto a man promoted to warrant rank has had a gratuity for the purchase of uniform, but on promotion from warrant to commissioned rank there is no gratuity. The Admiralty have done a rather curious thing. They have increased the gratuity on promotion to warrant rank from £50 to £70, a request that was not made though they will be grateful for it, but they have not done it on promotion to commissioned rank. The warrant officer promoted to commissioned rank is rather at a disadvantage in that respect. Very often when he gets his commission his pay is not much more than it was before. Under the new system, if unmarried, he will get a cut of 1s., 1s. 8d. or 2S. so he may be worse off than before. I should like
    1148
    the Admiralty to consider that again and see whether they could not give a grant on promotion to commissioned rank. According to the Financial Secretary's statement the ward room allowance has been increased from 1s. 6d. to 1s. 10d. The subscription to the wardroom is 2s. Why could they not give the extra 2d. and cover the complete subscription? It would give great satisfaction if they would do that.
    Another point put forward last year was the question of pensions for widows of commissioned officers promoted from warrant rank. Lieutenant-commanders' widows receive £65 a year, lieutenants £50, commissioned officers from warrant rank £50 and warrant officers £35. Warrant officers felt that the spacing between the four was rather too wide. Could it not be revised upwards from the lower level? Another point was that broken periods might be counted for pension, that three months should be counted as a quarter of a year, six months a half and nine months three-quarters. Another point was better adjustment for climatic pay. At the present time, the position in that respect is not very satisfactory, and in view of the very trying conditions of tropical weather, the men concerned would, I am sure, be very grateful if the matter could be looked into. Another point on which I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to give a satisfactory answer is whether there cannot be better cabin accommodation for warrant officers in vessels of the cruiser class. I have made certain criticisms which I hope will be sympathetically considered. I think the warrant officers will be very grateful for the concessions which have been made, but I hope that still more concessions will be forthcoming. If the Parliamentary Secretary will try to meet the points which I have made, I do not think that "love's labour will be lost," and it will be "all's well that ends well."
    11.56 p.m.
    Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes: I wish to apologise to my hon. and gallant Friend the Civil Lord for not being in the House when he answered some remarks which I made in my speech last Thursday. I had expected to get a few broadsides from my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence, but I really had not expected an answer from my hon. and gallant Friend, because I realise that it is very difficult

    1149
    for one Minister to talk about matters which affect another Department. As my hon. and gallant Friend knows very well, it is absolutely essential for the Navy to have shore bases and aerodromes in order that it may train personnel and maintain material for the Naval Air Service. With the exception of one aerodrome in Scotland, the aerodromes which originally belonged to the Navy and which have since been used by the Fleet Air Arm, and the one which has recently been completed at Thorney Island to meet the needs of the expansion of the Fleet Air Arm, are all situated in the vicinity of my constituency.
    It is common knowledge that there have been considerable misgivings about the delay in handing over those aerodromes to the Navy, which so urgently requires them. Therefore, it was a great pleasure to have the assurance of the Civil Lord that the Air Ministry is now offering these aerodromes to the Admiralty and is doing all in its power to help. If the Air Ministry could now make some generous gesture to bring about some arrangement which would enable the Navy to have all the aircraft it needs to carry out its great responsibilities, irrespective of whether those aeroplanes are carried on ships or based at strategic points on the trade routes, or whether their undercarriages are floats, wheels or boats, it would be a welcome conclusion to the 20 years' controversy, which nobody regrets more than I do. If the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence could do something to bring about that happy result, the Navy would owe him an even greater debt than it already does for what he has done.
    I had intended to refer to and correct some inaccuracies in the speech made last Thursday by the hon. Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon), but at this late hour, I will refrain from doing so. I hope to have an opportunity of referring to it later. Before concluding, however, I wish to refer to a matter which has been dealt with by other hon. Members, namely, the very great disappointment which has been experienced by naval officers in regard to the marriage allowances. The question has been referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Paddington (Vice-Admiral Taylor), and I hope it will be referred to in detail by another naval Member. I would like to tell the Ad-
    1150
    miralty that they must really think again and insist on naval officers being accorded the same sort of treatment as their brother officers in the Royal Air Force and the Army. The men of the lower deck have been brought into line with the men of the Royal Air Force and the Army. Why should the officers be treated differently? I listened to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War the whole of one afternoon telling us what wonderful things he was doing to improve the lot of the officers and men of the Army, not as an incentive to recruiting, but to give them the humanity and justice which were their due. I can well imagine what a gallant fight my right hon. Friend must have put up and all the opposition he must have encountered from the Treasury, that most hard-hearted and flint-hearted body. I suggest that it is up to the Admiralty to do likewise. If they want to retain the respect and trust which they enjoy to such a high degree to-day from the Navy, they must insist on naval officers being given the same scale of justice and humanity as has been accorded to every other individual in His Majesty's Services, but denied to them.
    12.2 a.m.
    Commander Marsden: I wish to associate myself with all that has been said about marriage allowances. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will fully realise that this has been unanimous throughout the House. I will only say one thing further about it. I hope that Members who have had circulars or who have read newspaper reports will realise that naval officers have never complained, are not complaining now, and, I have not the slightest doubt, will not complain in future. That is all the more reason why we who are not in the Service, and especially Members of the House, should see that they get treatment which is up to the standard of allowances made to the Air Force and the Army. Lord Fisher used to say that whatever was done for the other Services, the Navy at least must travel first-class. It is not doing so in the case of marriage allowances. I should like to raise a point with regard to the pensions of retired officers. Many officers when they retire are not satisfied with the provision that is made for those dependent on them in the event of death. This, indeed, applies to all sections of the naval Service. An officer may wish to

    1151
    commute his pension, and I would draw attention to the unfair terms on which it is commuted. The Pension Commutation Act, 1871, states that in calculating the amount payable in respect of any pension, interest shall be reckoned at the rate of not less than £5 per cent. per annum.
    To take a concrete case of a man at 50, it means that if he wishes to commute £1 of his pension, he gets £12.79 cash in return. If, on the other hand, he wants to buy a pension of £1 from the Government, he has to pay £17. If a man wishes to sell £100 of his pension for cash at the age of 50, he can get £1,279 for it. But suppose he thinks he has made a mistake and that he would sooner have the pension, his only way of getting it is by means of a Government annuity, and, having just received £1,279 for his £100 of pension, he would have to pay £1,709 to buy a Government annuity of the same amount. That wants alteration. What it amounts to is that the Government, if borrowing money, pay 3 per cent., but, if lending money, charge 5 per cent., and they charge this to naval officers and ratings. If I raised this matter at Question Time I would probably be told that it would require legislation. That is true, but that is what we are asking. The legislation required would not be very intricate. I am advised that a one-Clause Bill, substituting the figure 2½ or 3. or whatever it might be, for 5, would meet the situation. I am aware that this point cannot be answered now, but I hope it will be considered.
    The Civil Lord said that the Admiralty were satisfied with the numbers in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He did not mention, as I had hoped he would, the Royal Naval Wireless Auxiliary Reserve. I particularly draw his attention to this branch of the Reserve. Generally speaking, the ordinary Volunteer Reserve are enthusiastic officers and men with no great knowledge of the sea, but keen and willing to learn. The Wireless Reserve is in a rather different category. They are mostly volunteers who have great technical knowledge of wireless, and who are willing to serve in the Navy and to undergo training in order that their knowledge may be adapted to naval needs. My information is that when this body was established a short time ago the men were full of keenness and enthusiasm, but, owing to the way
    1152
    they are treated, the numbers are going down. In fact, I am told there have been some serious resignations of some of the most influential officers. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether it is intended to place the Royal Naval Wireless Auxiliary Reserve on the same footing as the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as regards obligations, discipline and uniform. If so, I ask him to make it known as soon as possible. Secondly, I ask him to make it clear what the duties of the Royal Naval Wireless Auxiliary Reserve are in case of mobilisation. At present there is no binding obligation to serve in the event of hostilities, no discipline and no uniform. I hope this very keen body may have from the Admiralty the terms they deserve. I conclude by saying that I was very glad to hear the speeches of hon. Members opposite. I think they now realise that a strong and efficient Navy is the biggest power for peace that this country possesses.
    12.9 a.m.
    Commander Sir Archibald Southby: I am sorry to detain the House, but I am even more sorry that the Report stage of the Navy Estimates should have to be taken at this late hour. In view of the lateness of the hour, I do not propose to raise certain points which I was particularly anxious to raise, but there are one or two matters to which I feel I must draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary. I am sorry that the Civil Lord has already spoken, because I wanted to ask him some questions on the subject of personnel, but perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will answer them. First, there is the question of Royal Naval Reserve ratings and officers. There is, undoubtedly, a shortage of merchant service officers at present, and I would like to know whether a sufficient number of merchant service officers are coming forward to do their training in the Royal Navy and whether every effort is being made to encourage them to do so. The last War showed plainly the necessity of giving a great deal more training to Naval Reserve officers than they had been receiving in the days of peace before 1914.
    The other question relates to the trawler section. The work done by the trawler men in the last War was beyond all praise, and everybody in the Navy bitterly regrets that times have been so hard for our fishing population. But

    1153
    trawler men cannot be trained all at once for mine-sweeping and the various patrol duties which they perform in war time. What steps are being taken to organise and train the trawler section on the lines of the experience gained in the War? The hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. G. Hall) rightly called attention to the enormous size of these Estimates. I do not think it can be too clearly understood that, big as they are, they will not provide a Navy as great as that with which we finished the last War. It is poor consolation to the many officers who, through no fault of their own, were "axed" when the post-war reductions took place to know that, now, when it is too late to be of any use to them, the inevitable expansion is taking place.
    But the point to which I particularly wish to draw attention is the question of the marriage allowance for naval officers. The more one looks into the scheme, the more mean and shabby it appears. I thought I detected considerable complacency on the part of the Parliamentary Secretary when he introduced the Estimates. Knowing him to be a kind-hearted man I think that complacency must now be in process of removal. The more we examine the scheme the more unfair it proves to be. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Paddington (Vice-Admiral Taylor) gave figures, but the case is even worse than his figures indicate. He compared officers of relative ranks but in one case he overlooked the question of relative ages, and I trespass on the forbearance of the House to make the details a little clearer. This is the only opportunity we shall get and I make no apology for taking advantage of it to put before the House and the people of the country, as far as I can, the fact that the scheme which has been so much commended by hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench is—I was almost going to say, a piece of hypocrisy.
    Take the case of a lieutenant-commander at the age of 37 who is a bachelor. He gets £582 a year and no special allowances. If he is married he is to be given 4s. 6d. a day, or about £82 a year. That is the gross figure, but to get that he has to surrender 2s. a day and the net increase brings his total emoluments to £628 instead of £664. Compare that with the case of a major in the Army. At the same age, he has less experience
    1154
    in his service than the sailor has had in the Navy and he has not to keep up two homes as has the sailor. The major, if he is a bachelor gets £643 a year with considerable allowances, none of which cease when he marries. If he is married, he gets £752 a year, and he is able to share many of his allowances with his wife and family at home. If, for service reasons, he is separated from his wife and family he gets an additional allowance. Nobody will suggest that the conditions of separation for service reasons are not much harder and the occasions of it more frequent in the case of the naval officer, yet if separated by service conditions, the major in the Army gets £780 a year. Compare that with the gross figure, which is arrived at without taking into consideration the loss of income of 2s. a day, in respect of the lieutenant-commander, who, when he is separated from his wife and family by service conditions gets, at the same age as his confrere in the Army, £116 a year less. How can anyone suggest that a fair deal is being given to the naval officer?
    Take the position of a naval officer compared with a squadron leader. You have to take into consideration what my hon. and gallant Friend omitted, and that is the difference in ages of the two officers. The lieut.-commander of 34 years of age, which is the average age of promotion of the squadron-leader, gets, as a bachelor, £549 a year. Add the so-called £82 a year marriage allowance, making it £631. The squadron-leader as a bachelor gets £685 with allowances and with provision for servants. If he is married and separated from his wife by reason of Service conditions he gets £822 a year. Therefore, at the same age as the naval officer, he gets £191 a year more, although he is not so experienced as the naval officer. If you take into consideration the 2s. a day that he is losing, the naval officer has £227 a year less than the squadron-leader.
    That is not the whole story. There are no deductions of any kind from the pay and marriage allowances of the soldier and the airman. I do not grudge them those conditions, but I say that if you pretend to be equalising the conditions and pay of the officers in the Services you might at least be honest enough to say what the real figures are. The servant supplied to the soldier or the airman may be used in their private

    1155
    house. That is not so with the naval officer. The soldier and airman have by custom the right to have their wives and families looked after by the regimental doctor. That is not so in the Navy. The former have arrangements for the free conveyance of luggage which are denied to their brothers in the Senior Service.
    Most important of all, the soldier and Air Force officer are given married quarters. That is a thing which naval officers dream about but never hope to see. No sailor gets married quarters until he reaches the exalted rank of captain or flag rank, or unless he is employed as senior naval officer abroad. The Army officer stationed in barracks at Tidworth, Aldershot or Colchester is given accommodation for his wife. It may be that the quarters allotted to the subaltern are not very big but there is at any rate a roof over his head, and he is given a certain amount of allowance for their upkeep. No sailor employed in the barracks at Portsmouth, Plymouth or anywhere else is given anything but quarters for himself. If he is a married officer and has to keep up a separate home in the port in which he is stationed, he sees very little of those quarters and can make no use of them.
    The officers of the Service to which I belong know full well that the naval officer's wife is not officially recognised, at any rate until he reaches flag rank or is employed as captain at some foreign station in a shore job. I rather suspect that the reason his wife is recognised then, is only because she is useful to perform some official service. Perhaps the meanest thing of all is the deprivation of the naval officer of his lodging allowance. An officer serving at sea to-day is appointed to-morrow, say, to the Admiralty. It is understood and recognised that because no quarters are provided for him he should have a lodging allowance of £80 a year. That is little enough, in all conscience, as one can well imagine, for an officer who has to live in London. That allowance is given to him because the Service cannot provide him with accommodation. If he is a bachelor he gets it, but if he is a married man the Admiralty say: "We are going to give you marriage allowance to bring you into line with officers in the other two Services, but only if we first
    1156
    take from you the provision which we have given you in lieu of the accommodation with which we are not able to supply you and which we have heretofore agreed you must have.
    I do not think this House yet realises that the basis of this arrangement of marriage allowances for married naval officers is a cut in their pay for all time of 2s. a day. Naval officers joining the Service now will be paid at a lower rate. Every rank, as it reaches promotion into the next rank, will be mulct 2s. a day, bachelor and married alike, in order to provide the generous sum of money which has been defended by the Financial Secretary as such a gift to the naval officer. I do not believe that there has ever been any reference of this question to the junior officers. They have not had a real opportunity of expressing their views. Those with whom I have come into contact have all said the same thing to me, that marriage allowance is all very well and that they realise that they may have to give up some pay for it, but they all said that they did not agree to the bachelor being asked to provide marriage allowances for the married officer.
    In his speech when the Estimates were introduced, the Financial Secretary said, in answer to a question by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Paddington that the naval officer was to receive £80 a year in marriage allowance, and he specified that that was for the officer with one child. By specifying that, he admits that 2s. of that money is the allowance for the child and that therefore the marriage allowance for the officer without a child is not £80 a year but considerably less; indeed, only 2s. 6d. instead of the 4s. 6d. it is supposed to be. If you take into consideration the fact that the pay of the officer has been reduced by 2s. a day, you will find that at the present time the able seaman and the lieutenant-commander receive precisely the same marriage allowance. I have often heard a request from the other side of the House for democratising the Navy; we have gone a long way towards it to-night. There is very little inducement for a man on the lower deck to apply to pass examinations for a commission and to try to come into the ward room when he is not going to be any better off by so doing.

    1157
    There were one or two other points I wanted to raise, but in view of the lateness of the hour and of the natural desire of the House to get home, I shall not raise them; but I ask the Financial Secretary to do his best to get the Admiralty to think again. I ask him whether he will make some considered and detailed answer to the points which not only I but other Members have put to him on the subject of the naval marriage allowance.
    12.25 a.m.
    Mr. Alexander: Before the Parliamentary Secretary replies it may be that if I take up a few moments I shall save time later on. I do not want to be butting in afterwards. We are very much obliged to the Civil Lord for the manner in which he replied, both last week and to-day, and for the care which he has taken in dealing with details. That is the kind of thing which the House of Commons always appreciates. We hope that he will maintain the advantage with which he has started.
    The discussion which has taken place upon marriage allowances for officers reminds me very forcibly how very well organised and firm about their case a professional class like this very important body of naval officers can be, when it comes to arguing in favour of remuneration. Those who have argued from time to time for good conditions for other people have always been able to point with good effect to the solidarity of the professional classes when arguing for salaries and conditions for themselves.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that those who work in industry have their trade unions to fight for them? The naval officer has no-one, and he is not permitted to do so. He relies on the naval officers in this House, and I am thankful to say that we shall stand up for him every time.
    Mr. Alexander: I am making no complaint. I have simply been drawing attention to the fact of that solidarity and to the manner in which the organised case is put. I wish the same vigour could be displayed in putting the case for dockyard workers' remuneration as has been displayed to-night in respect of naval officers. I think the officers have a sound case. I hope that the Finance Department of the Government will take note of
    1158
    it, and that the Financial Secretary will not only also take note of it but will convey the obvious feeling which exists in the House to-night, on this matter.
    I shall not go over the details which have been given. I know from experience what it means to many an efficient naval officer, on arriving at the senior rank of lieutenant-commander or commander, to go for a long period on to half pay. They are not men who are to be retired but who have been marked out by the Board for higher and more important work in the future. To say to them that although there is to be a marriage allowance they are not to get any while they are on half pay seems to me to be an insult. I could understand it happening if there were no marriage allowance and if the remuneration were based on active service. That is a very powerful case, and I hope that the proper representation will be made to the Treasury to deal with the matter.
    I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary has not been pressed so much on the subject of marriage allowances that he will forget to reply to the points of detail that were put to him by my hon. Friend on the subject of the Fleet Air Arm. On this side of the House we are particularly interested in those points. I do not want to have to be jumping up for questions afterwards if those points have not been covered in the Minister's reply. He must remember that we shall not meet again on Navy Estimates this year, in all probability.
    There is one thing that I want to say to the hon. and gallant Member for Chertsey (Commander Marsden) as to the very great emphasis which he laid on the word "now" in dealing with the views of my hon. Friends on this side of the House in regard to the Navy. May I say to him that there are hon. and right hon. Members on this side who have never wished the Navy harm and who have never ceased to work for it in relation to the strength of other navies in the world at the time. Perhaps he will do us the honour of reading the facts on that subject, and perhaps he will arrange with the Patronage Secretary for the hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth, North (Sir R. Keyes) to have his promised debate with me, taking category for category and ship for ship, and then he will see that we have done our best at the right time to conserve the essential

    1159
    superiority and concentrated force of the Royal Navy. At any time the Government of the day asks this side of the House to vote a Navy which is necessary in relation to the commitments of this country, in proper peaceful international relationship and backing up the rule of law, they can depend upon it that they will get the vote from this side of the House for the money.
    Sir R. Keyes: I am beginning to be sorry that I let the right hon. Gentleman off the remarks that I would have made but for the lateness of the hour.
    Mr. Alexander: I do not wish to enter into detailed controversy with the hon. and gallant Member to-night. The other matter that I wanted to refer to was the very interesting statement of the hon. and gallant Member for Paddington, South (Vice-Admiral Taylor) with regard to battleships. No one can shut his eyes to the seriousness of the position and to the increase in the size of ships, to which he refers, but I wish I could feel the kind of optimism he displayed as to what would happen if we had suddenly made an example in what he advocated regarding smaller ships. It is the sort of thing I want to happen, but I remember that when the question of cruiser replacement in the period 1929–31 came up, we were considering plans, and some of us thought we might get a kind of cruiser that would be suitable for the trade routes at a smaller sum than had hitherto been arranged for. That was really the reason for the laying down of the Leander class, but so far from that being then the example followed by other navies we found—and I accepted the explanation from subsequent Ministers—that other navies had begun to build 10,000-ton ships and 9,000-ton ships with six-inch guns, making it imperative for us to reach the same position. So I am rather nervous about the advice given by the hon. and gallant Member for Paddington, South, to-night unless we can be certain that we shall have a firmer agreement than we have at present that that example will be followed, and that at all times when we are dealing with actual strengths of battleships the officers and men we send to sea are not sent in inferior conditions to those whom they have to fight. This is a very important point to get clear. I would have said a great deal more but for the
    1160
    lateness of the hour. I apologise to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty for intervening before him, and I hope we shall completely finish the Debate when he has answered.
    12.34 a.m.
    Mr. Shakespeare: I am very sorry that we have to conclude this very interesting Debate at this time of night, and I will do my utmost to be as short as I can, consistent with clarity. I think I shall be interpreting the mood of the House if I deal chiefly with the point most in the minds of hon. Members—that is, the question of the marriage allowance, and, if the House wishes it, I will give as short a reply as I possibly can to a number of other points which have been raised. The intervention of the right hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) was well worth while in that he identified himself and his party with the principle for which we stand, namely, that at all times, and particularly at this time, a strong Navy is vital to our national safety. No Minister can stand at this Box without being aware of the contribution made by his predecessors and particularly by the right hon. Member for Hillsborough and his colleagues on that bench. Constantly I am coming across his work and the Navy is grateful to them.
    One point which has been raised was that dealing with warrant officers, but as there is a question on the subject to be asked to-morrow I shall not answer it to-night, if I have the permission of the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Cocks) to take that course. He said he raised several points in last year's Estimates and two and a-half of his requests had come true. I make it out that much of what he asked for has been granted. The hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. Hall) asked about reservists. Let me say briefly that recruiting in all Reserve branches is very satisfactory indeed, even in the wireless Reserve, to which particular reference has been made. Let me add that when these reservists join up and go for training in the Navy they will have the same concessions as regards the new marriage allowances as other branches of the Naval Reserves.
    Commander Marsden: Will they be granted permission to wear uniform, which I understand they have not had hitherto?
    Mr. Shakespeare: That is so. One of the points raised in that connection is not altogether satisfactory but I should like more time to look into the matter. We have in the various Royal Naval Reserves, and in those outside the Reserves who are now drawing pensions, some 70,000 men on whom both the Navy and the merchant service would be able to rely in time of need. Over and above these, there must be something like 150,000 men now living who have served in the Navy, in addition to the 70,000 in the Reserve or on pension. That fact must be borne in mind when we are considering the falling off in the fishing fleets and in the merchant service. In reply to the hon. Member for Aberdare, I very much regret that I cannot go very much further regarding the date of transfer of the Fleet Air Arm. I have already made a considered statement, and had the Estimates fallen a month or two ahead I could have made a very much more satisfactory statement. I can give an assurance that we have really wasted no time at all. The problem is an extremely complicated one. In the taking over of control there are all sorts of pitfalls and legal points, but if hon. Members will wait, I think that within the next two months they will see much more substantial progress than before.
    Sir A. Southby: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the subject of Reserves, will he say something about the trawler section? Are special efforts being made?
    Mr. Shakespeare: Yes, recruiting there is very satisfactory indeed, and the training, particularly in anti-submarine work, is proceeding on lines that the hon. Member would approve. As regards the question of costs, perhaps the House will accept my assurance on this matter, as it is my particular job to see that when a contract is signed the country gets full value. I can say I am surprised at the experience which the Admiralty has acquired in these matters. I ran into a friend in the City the other day and he asked me where I was, and when I replied, "At the Admiralty," he said, "I have long experience of the Admiralty, and if you can get the better of them you can get the better of the devil."
    The hon. Member for Londonderry (Sir R. Ross) raised the question of destroyers, and here again I would like to develop
    1162
    the point, but there is nothing of substantial importance to add to what I said earlier, in view of the fact that we have not yet ordered the last flotilla of destroyers in the 1937 programme. There does seem to be a good deal of unanimity, both behind me and opposite me, on this question, and when I report the result of these discussions to the First Lord I shall point out to him that it is the considered opinion of the House that we should press on with this smaller type of craft. The hon. and gallant Member for Pembroke (Major Lloyd George) asked me a question on marriage allowances, but I will deal with this in my general statement on the subject. The hon. Member for Newton (Sir R. Young) made some very interesting suggestions about the artificer branch. He is always fighting for them, and although I cannot stay I shall accept his suggestions I shall always give them the serious consideration that any suggestion coming from him deserves.
    On the question of promotions from the lower deck I can assure the House that if I gave the figures I have here they would not create any impression that we had really only one system for officers, but that on the contrary we take steps to get the best men from every section of life. The hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth, North (Sir R. Keyes) returned to the question of the transfer of shore bases, and I can assure him we are well seized of the importance of that matter. The hon. and gallant Member for Chertsey (Commander Marsden) raised technical points about commutation of pensions, about which, if he will allow me, I will write to him.
    We then come back to the main criticism, and I think the unfair criticism, which has been launched at the Admiralty. I am not going to differentiate myself from the Treasury as we are one on this matter, and I think the Admiralty is grateful to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the generous provision he has made to meet a long-standing grievance. I can only say that if hon. Members refer to this scheme as shabby or shoddy I take the blame on myself alone for not having made the new provision plainer, and if the House will bear with me I will put the position as I see it. I do not blame those hon. and gallant Members who have been in the Navy for fighting on behalf of their own colleagues, but

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    I want to put a question, and those who are not in the Navy can judge impartially between us. How is it that no previous Government since the War has granted the principle of marriage allowances for officers? It cannot be alleged of the five, six or seven Governments since the War that they were all indifferent to this overwhelming claim for marriage allowances for naval officers. There have been Conservative Governments, Labour Governments, National Governments and Coalition Governments, and not one of them has introduced this change until now. I want to ask the reason for it.
    The reason, in my judgment, is that in 1919 the Fisher Committee reviewed the different emoluments of the three Services, and when the Navy had to decide what form these emoluments would take the Board of Admiralty chose for naval officers a uniform rate, with no distinction at all between married and single officers, whereas the Army and the Air Force took a lower standard rate and marriage allowances for married officers. That means that although the uniform rate resulted from 1919 there must have been an element of marriage allowance in that uniform rate with which the Admiralty were then satisfied. The Gilmour Committee subsequently examined the claims of naval officers for marriage allowances, and they, in fact, reported that there was this marriage element in the uniform rate which the Navy had chosen and, therefore, they could not accept, over and above this, an additional marriage allowance, unless there were some contribution from the Navy, as otherwise it would be quite unfair both to the Army and the Air Force. This is the simple reason why the marriage allowance has never been conceded; the Gilmour Committee said exactly what I am saying.
    Sir A. Southby: I do not think the hon. Member has stated the facts quite correctly. Even supposing it was proposed by the committee that officers should have contributed something towards marriage allowances, that took for granted that the marriage allowances given would bring them into equality with the Army and the Air Force. The Anderson Committee said that if the Admiralty wished to follow the practice of the Army and the Air Force in granting special allowances to married officers, the changes
    1164
    should be made at the expense of pay. It was always understood that, when you did make a change, you should do it on a basis of equality.
    Mr. Shakespeare: I do not know whether that means that the hon. and gallant Gentleman accepts my first point, because if the House accepts the first point—I do not know whether he accepts that or not—I will come on to the point that now arises. If it is true that before you can get the marriage allowance for married officers of the Navy you must accept a certain readjustment from them then the next question you are entitled to ask, is: When you now introduce a scheme like this can you stand up and say that the total emoluments of married officers under our scheme compare favourably with the total emoluments in the Air Force or in the Army? On that I produce this evidence: that every naval officer, of course, thinks that every Army officer and every Air Force officer is overpaid. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Well, many do. Many Air Force officers think that Naval officers are over-paid and many Army officers think the Air Force officers are over-paid.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: It is not a question of being over-paid. It is a question of relative pay.
    Mr. Shakespeare: Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman will listen. If he cannot follow my argument he can read it to-morrow in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: I object to the hon. Gentleman stating that we say Army or Air Force officers are over-paid. We do not say anything of the sort.
    Mr. Shakespeare: I thought I was just saying what everybody thinks: that everyone in every Service thinks that everyone in the other Services is paid more than in his own Service. The only way to determine whether the total remuneration is fair is to ask for an impartial review, and that we have done. I have been doing nothing else for at least six months. It is common knowledge that there has been this review of the emoluments of the Service, and there was an impartial arbitrator who went very carefully not only into the pay of naval officers but into the total emoluments of the Air Force and Army. It is on that account and on these scales I claim that this form of marriage allow-

    1165
    ance is fair in total emoluments as compared with the emoluments of the other Services.
    Let me now deal with the point raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Pembroke. If I followed his argument aright it was this. Take the case of a lieutenant-commander afloat who will get an increase of £45 under our marriage allowance provisions. He opts now to come into the scheme before the next promotion and having opted, and the cut having operated, finds himself better off to the extent of £45 marriage allowance. He then gets sent to a shore billet and arrives at Portsmouth or Devonport. He is not provided with official quarters, and he rents a house. Now, the marriage allowance under our scheme is in lieu of the old lodging allowance. If our scheme had never come in my married friend about whom I am talking going to Portsmouth and finding his own house would have received roughly £80 lodging allowance. If I understand the point aright it is: if the marriage allowance is in lieu of the lodging allowance, how can you ask the man who has opted to come into the scheme and who receives the extra £45 afloat to come back to the shore billet and, instead of getting £80, to get only £45? I think this is the gist of the argument.
    Let me make it quite plain. The whole basis of the scheme is that when the officer is separated from his family he shall get something towards the maintenance of his family, but when he comes back to shore billet he shall not be penalised. In the scheme the House will have noticed that this officer about whom we are talking opted to come in. Say he is in the "Hood." Clearly it is not fair that he should come home in receipt of £45 marriage allowance, rent a house, and get only £45 marriage allowance, whereas previously he got £80. What I want to explain to the House is that that option between the marriage allowance or the lodging allowance, as the case may be, will always operate, until the next promotion, on every new appointment. That prevents any child-less officer suffering. I hope I have made that plain to the hon. Gentlemen.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: While the hon. Gentleman is on this point about the £80 a year for lodging allowance, when quarters are not provided. That is a lump
    1166
    sum of £80 without any deduction whatever from pay. But to-day he has 2s. taken off his pay. He is not getting £80. He is getting only £80, less 2s. a day. He ought to get £80, but he is not getting it.
    Mr. Shakespeare: My words mean exactly what they say. When he is given an option he should not be penalised by exercising an option which he thinks is to his advantage. If in the particular case to which I have referred, the officer serving in the "Hood" drawing £45 marriage allowance comes back, he will come on shore, and if, as he naturally would, he then opts not to enjoy the benefit of marriage allowance he will receive £80 lodging allowance, and the cut, of course, does not operate.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: He will not have to pay two shillings?
    Mr. Shakespeare: No. I said, the cut does not operate.
    Sir A. Southby: The hon. Gentleman took the case of the "Hood." The officer going to Portsmouth would not get the £80 allowance. He would get no lodging allowance at all. He would be accommodated in the barracks.
    Mr. Shakespeare: That position is not differentiated. There is no change now or in the future. If the man is accommodated in barracks at present he gets no lodging allowance for his wife.
    Sir A. Southby: He gets two shillings a day more.
    Mr. Shakespeare: If he comes back to official quarters at Portsmouth or elsewhere he will be better off in the future in that he will carry with him his marriage allowance, whereas heretofore he has not got marriage allowance or lodging allowance. These are extremely difficult questions to understand until one has the chance to look into the whole scheme.
    Commander Marsden: Is the option to go into the scheme made once, finally and for all?
    Mr. Shakespeare: No. I think I did say that until the officer has gained promotion he will have the option on each new appointment, and he will be able to decide between the marriage allowance and the old lodging allowance. Let the House look at this scheme as a whole.

    1167
    When it is understood I think the House will agree—
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: May I ask one question in regard to this two shillings not operating in the case of the married officer who goes to some appointment where official quarters are not provided? He can decide if he likes to take the lodging allowance of £80, and there is no two shilling deduction from his pay. Does that only operate until he is promoted, and once he is promoted then he never gets that chance again?
    Mr. Shakespeare: I have said twice that until the next promotion he has this option on every new appointment, and it is to be a real option. That applies only in the case of a limited number of childless officers, because clearly for an officer with one child the marriage allowance is equal to the old lodging allowance, and therefore he will not be penalised. If you take an officer with four children, when he is afloat he gets £136 more than hitherto, and when he returns to shore and rents a house, instead of getting £80 as in the past, he will get £136. Therefore, I submit to the judgment of the House that if you are offering to married officers who have received nothing for the support of their families something between £45 for the man without any children and £136 to the men with four children, and successively increasing it, you are doing something to remove anxiety from officers serving afloat. Those who criticise this scheme surely must admit that it is a great gain to have secured this advantage for married officers. I do not for a moment believe that when the scheme is understood it will be treated by officers of the Fleet in the same way that it has been treated by some hon. Members in the last two Debates. Indeed, I know, for I discussed it with a number of officers when I was with the Home Fleet who knew in advance what the scheme was going to be, and who knew of the alternatives of the two schemes which were offered as well as I did, and they said they would be exceedingly grateful if the second scheme could be secured. We have secured that second scheme.
    Let me assure the House that we shall get another opportunity of discussing the whole principle when the Supplementary Estimate is presented. I hope in the short time which has been at my disposal
    1168
    I have been able to do something to make this whole question clear, and I conclude by thanking the whole House, irrespective of party, for the way in which they have received the main Estimate this year. It has been a very great encouragement to me in the first opportunity I have had of taking part in the Navy Estimates discussions.
    Mr. G. Hall: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Ordered, That the Resolution which upon the 21st day of March was reported from the Committee of Supply, and which was then agreed to by the House, be now read:
    "That a number of Air Forces, not exceeding 83,000, all ranks, be maintained for the Service of the United Kingdom at home and abroad, exclusive of those serving in India, during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939."
    Ordered, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide, during 12 months for the discipline and regulation of the Army and the Air Force; and that Mr. Hore-Belisha, Mr. Duff Cooper, Earl Winterton, and Sir Victor Warrender do prepare and bring it in.

    ARMY AND AIR FORCE (ANNUAL) BILL,
    "to provide, during 12 months, for the discipline and regulation of the Army and the Air Force," presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time this day, and to be printed. [Bill 109.]

  WAYS AND MEANS.
  REPORT [17TH MARCH].
  Resolutions reported:
  1. "That, towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ended on the 31st day of March, 1937, the sum of £12,737 9s. 6d. be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."
  2. "That, towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the

  1169
  year ending on the 31st day of March, 1938, the sum of £2,573,824 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."
  3. "That, towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1939, the sum of £316,701,700 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."
  Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolutions by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Lieut.-Colonel Colville.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (NO. 1) BILL,
  "to apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the years ending on the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-eight, and one thousand nine hundred and thirty-nine," presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill no.]
  PUBLIC MEETING ACT (1908) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.
  DIVORCE AND NULLITY OF MARRIAGE (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords].
  Read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

  MARRIAGE BILL.
  Read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  It being after half-past Eleven of the Clock upon Tuesday evening, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Fourteen Minutes after One o'Clock.

  NATIONAL DEFENCE CONTRIBUTION (ASSESSMENT).
  NATIONAL DEFENCE CONTRIBUTION (ASSESSMENT).
  SOMERSET HOUSE (SEARCH FOR WILLS).
  SOMERSET HOUSE (SEARCH FOR WILLS).
  BRITISH ARMY (SOLDIERS' BEDS).
  BRITISH ARMY (SOLDIERS' BEDS).
SCOTLAND.
  PRISON SERVICE.
  PRISON SERVICE.
  POLMONT BORSTAL INSTITUTION.
  POLMONT BORSTAL INSTITUTION.
COAL INDUSTRY.
  MINES ACCIDENTS, SOUTH WALES.
  MINES ACCIDENTS, SOUTH WALES.
  BRITISH AND FRENCH MINES (STATISTICS).
  BRITISH AND FRENCH MINES (STATISTICS).
TRADE AND COMMERCE.
  GREAT BRITAIN AND RUSSIA.
  GREAT BRITAIN AND RUSSIA.
  COTTON TEXTILE INDUSTRY.
  COTTON TEXTILE INDUSTRY.
  AGRICULTURAL WORKERS, LANCASHIRE.
  AGRICULTURAL WORKERS, LANCASHIRE.
Preamble
The House met at a quarter past four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
SALTBURN AND MARSKE-BY-THE- SEA URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons
RATING AND VALUATION (POSTPONEMENT OF VALUATIONS) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and to be printed.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (SCARBOROUGH) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed, and referred to the Examiners.

SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS ELECTRICITY (DORNOCH AND DISTRICT) ORDER, 1937.
THE EARL OF ERNE: My Lords, I beg to move that these Special Orders, as reported on Thursday last, be approved.
Moved, That the Special Orders as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last be approved.—(The Earl of Erne.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (HALIFAX) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (NUNEATON EXTENSION) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Amendments proposed by the Committee made.
PAISLEY CORPORATION (GENERAL POWERS) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

INFANTICIDE BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
VISCOUNT DAWSON OF PENN: My Lords, the intention of this Bill is to secure recognition by Parliament that under certain circumstances the killing of infants is provoked by illness and not always by criminal intent, and to procure for such cases appropriate handling. The subject matter of the Bill belongs to the territory where law and medicine meet, and to some extent carries with it difficulties which attach to both. Though the Bill is small in compass it deals with a subject that has vexed the minds of both lawyers and the public for no less a period than seventy years. If we go back to the sixties, seventies and eighties of last century, child murder was prevalent and such institutions as baby farms and other means were put into operation, ending in the destruction of many children. At that period no fewer than 5,000 inquests per year on children under five years of age would be an ordinary happening. The horse sense of the public detected that amongst these cases of child murder there were two groups. There was what we know as the child-birth group, and there was the group which constituted the murdering of unwanted children; yet offenders in both groups of cases alike were treated for murder and condemned to death, and in course of time public feeling became so moved that juries refused to convict. That, of course, led to a certain number of guilty people escaping the punishment for murder.
Then, about 1861, a Bill was passed for offences against the person which gave a loophole and created the offence of concealment of birth. Thereafter juries

293
escaped from their difficulties by finding the defendants innocent of murder but guilty of concealment of birth, and that resulted in a number of people escaping who should not have escaped. The next episode was that the Judges began to feel uneasy and they were often finding pretexts whereby they could avoid bringing forward charges of murder by means which permitted of an escape from those charges. So it happened that the divorce between law and opinion became complete. Towards the end of last century many attempts were made to get through the impasse. Several attempts were made by legislation, but they all came to nothing. When we come to this century we find that an attempt was made by Lord Loreburn in 1908 to solve the problem. That failed, and, finally, in 1909, a Bill passed your Lordships' House of which Lord James of Hereford was the substantial author. That Bill, briefly, provided that, should a Judge think proper, he could direct the jury to acquit the defendant of murder and to convict of manslaughter and the sentence was left to the Judge.
So, even up to this late date of 1909, there was no comprehension that there is a group of cases in which the cause is illness rather than criminal intent. At last there came, in the year 1922, a more far-seeing measure of which the late Mr. Arthur Henderson was the author. This Bill was amended in your Lordships' House and became the Infanticide Act of 1922. Thus it happened that: theory lagged behind practice for no less a period than sixty years. This lag of theory behind practice can be embarrassing, for it cannot be in the interests of justice that Courts should be forced to find loopholes to get away from Acts of Parliament, or, when they fail to find those loopholes, forced to put up these wretched people on charges of murder and to pass sentences of death which both the Judge and jury know perfectly well will be respited within twenty-four hours, or at any rate a few days. Such procedure is unjust and even cruel to a number of these defendants. The 1922 Act did try to remedy this disability, but, unfortunately, it was drawn in such a way that it has resulted, in a large measure, in being of no effect. At the same time it did establish that diseases of the mind, temporary though they may be, do con-
294
stitute an illness which renders the defendant irresponsible.
With your Lordships' permission I will read the first subsection of the first section of that Act:
"Where a woman by any wilful act or omission causes the death of her newly-born child, but at the time of the act or omission she had not fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to such child, and by reason thereof the balance of her mind was then disturbed, she shall, notwithstanding that the circumstances were such that but for this act the offence would have amounted to murder, be guilty of manslaughter."
That section has difficulties. There is no definition in the Act of what was meant by "newly-born," and it soon became apparent that "newly-born" was a description that was restricting the operation of the Act to a short period after birth. That can be illustrated by a case not so long ago, which was heard at the Old Bailey and in which I was called as an expert witness. This was the case of a woman who had given birth to her second child. Under ordinary circumstances she was sane; she was happily married, and a good mother. She had given birth to a child, and when the child was three weeks old the nurse appeared one morning to put the child to the breast and left the room. She came back in about ten minutes to find that the mother and the infant had disappeared. A search was made and the infant was found with its throat cut by means of a patent razor blade, and there was a small incision in the mother's throat also. That defendant was put on trial at the Old Bailey for infanticide.
Then the question arose: Was that child newly-born? and it turned out that there was no legal definition of "newly-born." I was asked afterwards for a medical definition of "newly-born." I had to reply that there was no such definition, but that there was a custom, a practice which was acted upon both at the Ministry of Health and elsewhere, that any child at any rate up to four weeks old was newly born. This child was killed at the age of three weeks. The Judge said he was controlled by the judgment of the Court of Appeal in a previous case which had decided that a child three weeks old was not newly born and therefore he would have to try this unfortunate woman for murder. As the proceedings went on, however, it was so

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obviously discordant with the Judge's feelings to try this woman for murder that when he summed up he expressed the hope that some amendment of the infanticide law would be made. When it came to the prospect of a verdict he suggested to the jury that if they thought the woman was not responsible they should pass the following verdict—that the defendant did the act with which she was charged but, not being responsible owing to illness, she was not guilty. The jury adopted that and so she was brought in "Not guilty" without the necessity of saying she was insane.
The hardship of these cases is that these people have the alternative either of being convicted of murder, with all the slur that that involves to themselves and their families, or of being committed to Broadmoor, which leaves upon them the stamp of insanity, because, however well Broadmoor may be administered—and we know that it is very well and justly administered—nothing can affect its associations and it has the associations of criminal insanity. That is the reason why this debate is taking place to-day and why I am asking your Lordships to give this Bill a Second Reading. The Bill has been altered in the following way. The term "newly-born" has been deleted. The words "including the effect of lactation" have been added, and a time limit of one year has been inserted. Clause I therefore will read:
"Where … at the time of the act or omission she had not fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to such child, including the effect of lactation following upon such birth, and by reason thereof the balance of her mind was then disturbed"—
as a result of that the woman shall be tried for infanticide. I may add that the jury will have power under subsection (2) to bring in a verdict of infanticide on their own initiative.
I would further submit that when illness is the cause of an offence of this kind, we should go a little further, and that in so far as it is compatible with the administration of justice the machinery of crime should be avoided. For instance, when the defendant is before the court of first instance it is not fair, nor is it necessary, that such a defendant should be remanded to prison. On the contrary, where possible bail should be given or if bail cannot be given
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the remand should be to a hospital or a home. It is damaging to such a defendant and it is damaging to the prospects of her recovery of health to be remanded to prison. I would remind your Lordships that a large proportion of these cases, unless severe, get perfectly well. The problem is not such a small one as might be thought. Taking the returns of female admissions to Broadmoor in one year no less than 42 per cent. were for child destruction, and of these women admitted for child destruction 5o per cent. got well. It is an unfortunate thing that no less than 5o per cent. of these people have to be stamped with the Broadmoor stamp, and it is a direct reinforcement of the desirability of treating them as they ought to be treated and recognising them to be clear cases of illness. They are as much cases of illness as any other complications of child-birth, as much as the physical complications, quite as much as streptococcal septicæmia, quite as much as white lead. The majority of them, not all of them, get quite well. They are in a short time able to be restored to their families. It is not difficult for those acquainted with this subject to demarcate. They bear perfectly clear evidence of temporary insanity.
We all admit that in wishing to be merciful to these people we have to be careful that we do not provide a means of escape for the murderer of the unwanted child. That is one of the reasons why I have limited it to one year. I have received a good deal of correspondence on this point. There is quite a group of influential people who think that I should have tried to extend it beyond a year. My reason for being against that is that the group of people for which I am concerned at this moment is quite clearly a group of ill people, of people who can be proved to be ill. When you get past a year there will be very few of these cases which will not have been dealt with. It is rare to have the insanity following child-birth not better within a year. At any rate the cases which escape are so few that I think the argument would be all on the side of limiting the period. On the question of bail I speak subject to correction by my noble and learned friends, but I believe that by statute law it is possible to give bail to any person except one charged with high treason. It is the practice of the law,

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however, never to give it in charges of murder. I would like to see discretion given to the magistrate and that he should have the power of remanding either to a home or a hospital. It is in his power to do that for children, I understand, but he cannot do it for adults.
When the case goes to the Assizes, I hope it will be possible to follow what I submit to your Lordships is the excellent precedent set by Mr. Justice Humphreys when he avoided a verdict which practically amounted to "Guilty, but insane." It has long been a matter of surprise to me that my colleagues in the law as masters of reason have so long stuck to the verdict of "Guilty, but insane." It seems to me fundamentally unsound. Surely it should be "Insane, therefore not guilty." I now find that until the year 1883 the verdict which was brought in did amount to "Insane, therefore not guilty"; that is, when insanity was proved, the defendant was brought in "Not guilty." That seems to an amateur not only more logical but certainly more merciful. I find that a bit of history explains the change in practice. It is rather a matter of interest in these days. In the year 1882 Queen Victoria was shot at by a lunatic with a pistol. He missed her, and was tried for high treason. As a result of that trial he was established insane and therefore declared to be not guilty. This verdict caused that great Queen considerable annoyance, I take it, and she said that it was not the way to deter people from crime, and that in any case of murder or attempt to murder the first word in the verdict must be "guilty," and that anything you added was another matter. As a result, I take it, of her intervention in the year 1882 an Act was passed—I again speak subject to correction—in the year 1883 which altered the verdict to "Guilty, but insane." There was an interesting account of this change in a letter to The Times in December, 1920, written by that distinguished man Sir Herbert Stephen.
May I commend to your Lordships this small but, I venture to think, not unimportant measure? The Bill implies that certain offences can be due to illness, and if and when that mental illness amounts to irresponsibility for the offence charged, I suggest that the patient should neither be punished nor dubbed a lunatic but bound over for appropriate treatment. I suggest that that would be a practice
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more in harmony with present-day thinking and with sound humanity, and I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Dawson of Penn.)
LORD SNELL: My Lords, my noble friends on this side would wish to give to this Bill their general support. As the noble Viscount has explained, this subject is a technical one on which differences may develop between the medical profession and legal practitioners. It will probably be our privilege to look on while they settle the more difficult matters between them. We all, however, have a very keen general interest in the subject with which the Bill deals. The noble Viscount has explained that as time has gone on there has been a divergence between the law as it is written and court practice. This Bill, I think, is designed to bring the matter more nearly up to date. We therefore welcome the Bill as far as we, with our laymen's minds, understand it. While, however, one would hesitate very greatly to criticise a Bill which has such an authoritative backing in your Lordships' House, we are perplexed with what looks to us to be one or two limitations. It is agreed that it is frequently a cause of ill-health rather than of criminality.
As far as we see, one cause is stated in the Bill as being subject to consideration, but there are other causes, I am told, of equal importance which are excluded. I will not attempt to use either medical or legal terms, because I do not understand either; but if a patient is to be sentenced to a hospital, we are concerned with the kind of hospital to which she should go. Everybody agrees, I hope, that a criminal place is not suitable, and I also feel that a mental hospital is not really the right place for a patient of that kind to go to. It is true that in a mental hospital the patient gets the advantage of specialised treatment. At the same time, some kind of certification is necessary, and as the illness may be quite temporary it seems inadvisable that certification and the stamp of insanity should be placed upon a patient if it can be avoided. When I was a member of the Royal Commission on Lunacy and Mental Disorder I learned from the evidence before us that a prisoner might have to be sent to a mental hospital, but that the causes of that dis-

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order of mind were physical, and physical treatment was required and would probably quickly cure the mental disorder. All that I wish to say to-day is that we welcome this Bill as far as it goes, and we should like to think over seriously whether we shall not put down an Amendment for the Committee stage to enlarge its scope in the direction that I have indicated.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I merely desire, following the noble Lord, who leads the Opposition, to express the satisfaction which I feel that my noble friend Lord Dawson, speaking with all the authority that he has in your Lordships' House, has been able to bring in this important measure of reform. For many years it has been an occasion of serious distress to all of us laymen outside that in these cases a woman, who if not technically insane is undoubtedly not sane, should have been condemned to death with all the terrible ceremonies of the law—the black cap and the solemn words of the Judge. It has been found, as my noble friend explained, extraordinarily difficult to discover a form of law which, without allowing the escape of those women—and there must always, I am afraid, be a number of them—who merely desire to get rid of unwanted children, will provide a remedy for the difficulties which the noble Viscount described. I trust that noble and learned Lords who speak will give the Bill their support. The particular point which the noble Lord who leads the Opposition has raised will, no doubt, receive full consideration when the Bill is dealt with in Committee, but I feel sure that your Lordships will desire to give it a Second Reading.
LORD ATKIN: My Lords, perhaps I may be allowed to say a few words in hearty support of this proposal. I speak as one who has been acquainted with the difficulties in administering the law, having unfortunately tried a number of cases such as those that are contemplated to be dealt with under this Bill. The trouble in the law is, of course, as it has always been, not to weaken the protection that is given to the lives of infant children. Of course it would be an example of the very worst that it should be thought that taking the life of an infant child is not as serious a form of murder as taking the life of anybody
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else. That has always been present, I am sure, to the minds of persons responsible for the making and administration of the law. On the other hand, cases of alleged murder by mothers who have not recovered from the effects of childbirth are always of a most distressing kind, and until the Infanticide Act was passed in 1922—which provided that where a woman who has killed her newly-born child has not recovered from the effects of child-birth and her mind is affected she can be convicted of infanticide and not of murder—there used to be a series of most distressing cases in Court in which either the Judge, counsel and jury were in a kind of friendly conspiracy to see that the woman should not be convicted of murder, or else the woman was convicted of murder and the well-known form of solemn ritual was gone through in a case where everybody, except perhaps the woman in the dock, understood that the sentence would never be carried out.
To my mind that was a very serious defect in the administration of justice and a most unfortunate one ever to have come about. The effect of the Infanticide Act has been that where a child is newly born—and I thought the Court of Criminal Appeal had rather accepted the view that the time could be extended to four weeks or a month—a woman can be convicted of infanticide, although she is far from being technically insane, and thereupon the Court is able to deal with the unfortunate woman in the way she should be dealt with, and, if necssary, order institutional treatment. As I understand, the effect of the Bill now before your Lordships is to preserve all the conditions of the present Act. The condition will still be there that the woman has not recovered from the effects of child-birth, as well as the condition that the balance of her mind is still disturbed; and in those circumstances, acting on the medical knowledge which my noble friend possesses and which I know he shares with his medical colleagues, where it can be said that those conditions extend beyond the month then the verdict can still be returned of infanticide, with the consequence that sentence of death is not pronounced and the woman can be given the necessary treatment. Perhaps I might be inclined to extend the period further, but as a lawyer I rather fear that if you went beyond the twelve months you might be

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imperilling the lives of infant children, and I am therefore inclined to think that my noble friend has adopted, in this case, the happy medium.
I would not like to say anything further about the verdict of "Guilty, but insane," to which the noble Viscount referred. It is a very old problem, but in reference to his criticism of that verdict I might perhaps say this. More than fifteen years ago I presided over a Committee appointed by the then Lord Chancellor to consider this very matter. We had a Committee which consisted of Sir Herbert Stephen, the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office, Sir Richard Muir, Sir Archibald Bodkin, and Mr. Marshall Hall, and other persons, who made the Committee very representative of persons acquainted with the administration of the criminal law, who were not likely to err on the side of leniency. We made certain recommendations, and one recommendation was that this very verdict should be altered on the ground mentioned by the noble Viscount—namely, that it was illogical and ridiculous to say that a person was guilty of an act when one really meant that he was not guilty of a crime. No step was taken upon that recommendation. The recommendation of lawyers, who know something about the subject, I can quite understand is not quite so convincing as the suggestion of a layman who comes with the professional knowledge and weight of my noble friend. Now I hope that a change such as was recommended by this Committee may come about. So far as this Bill is concerned, I think it can be heartily recommended to your Lordships' acceptance.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I think there can be no question that the women with whom this Bill deals are entitled to our compassion; women, that is to say, who, owing to the effects of child-birth and the instability of mind which it sometimes occasions, have committed an act for which they either cannot be regarded as responsible or of which they could not, at the time, be supposed to be able to discern the wrong. Nor, I think, can there be any question that the old custom of bringing in a verdict of murder, when it was well known that it would be immediately followed by a respite, was both very cruel to the woman and also inconsistent with the due solemnity which
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ought to be attached to the administration of the law.
I confess, however, that I have a difficulty about this Bill. There is abundant evidence that too often the mother of a child that is unwanted, because its conception was due perhaps to the failure of precautions which it had been hoped would be sufficient to prevent birth, or through some sudden act of passion whose consequence might be inconvenient, has taken steps to prevent actual birth by procuring miscarriage or other means. I wondered whether there would not be a risk under this Bill that the mother of such a very unwanted child might be tempted to avail herself, after the child was actually horn, of the merciful provisions of this Bill in order to get rid of it; but I am assured by my noble friend that by no possibility could the mere act of infanticide alone be regarded as evidence of disturbance of mind, but that in every case it would have to be clearly proved that there was, quite apart from the act itself, evidence of that natural illness. I am told that the evidences of this unhappy form of insanity are well known and can easily be recognised. I have also a little difficulty about the time of a year. It is arguable that it might be shortened, but that is a matter for medical opinion. I do hope, however, that no attempt will be made in Committee to lengthen the time, for I am sure that that might lead to abuse. I suggest that in cases of infanticide after the period of twelve months the procedure should follow the ordinary cases when a plea of insanity is made.
I think we should all agree that if there be clear evidence that the act was due to mental illness the treatment of the woman should be as little as possible associated with crime. I am sure we should agree with my noble friend that, both before the magistrates and on committal for trial, it should be permissible to send the woman to a remand home or hospital, certainly not to prison. As to a hospital, with regard to what the noble Lord, Lord Snell, has said, I was surprised that he thought it necessary that there should be certification in such a case, but that is a matter for experts. At any rate, where there is clear evidence that there was no criminal intent in the act, it is, I think, most unjust that the woman should in any way be regarded as a

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criminal. For these reasons on the whole I cordially support the Bill in the interests of justice and pity.
LORD ARNOLD: My Lords, like other noble Lords who have spoken, I desire to support this Bill, which appears likely to receive unanimous or almost unanimous approval in your Lordships' House. While supporting it, I would express the hope that its provisions may be extended. I was rather discouraged to hear the noble and learned Lord, Lord Atkin, deprecate the extension of the term beyond twelve months. As a matter of fact, if the Bill is to be passed as it stands it would not have applied to any one of the cases of this kind—or rather cases of the "black cap" kind—which the noble and learned Lord and the most reverend Primate spoke about so eloquently, which have occurred in the last ten years—not a single one. In the last ten years, or rather, in the ten years down to 1936, there have been fifteen cases which come under the category of what the Press call the "black cap farce," that is, the sentencing of a woman to death for the murder of her child when it is perfectly well known that the sentence will not be carried out.
No mother has been hanged for the murder of her child in this country for ninety years, and it is of course inconceivable that there will be any retrogression in that respect. In those circumstances the Bill, admirable as it is, would in practice have been inoperative in all those "black cap" cases during the last ten years. Therefore I submit that there is prima facie strong ground for considering the extension of the term. I am not going to dilate upon the horrors of what is called the "black cap farce," but I believe I am correct in saying that some Judges in these cases in pronouncing the sentence deliberately utter the words unintelligibly so that the wretched woman in the dock cannot understand what is being said. In one of these cases in the last few years the Judge told the woman not to take any notice of the words, and in another case a learned Judge said "For God's sake tell her it will not be carried out." We shall all agree that happenings of that kind ought to be stopped if it is possible, but this Bill will not do it. In these cases in the last ten years, of which there are fifteen, the age in several of them—I think about six
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out of the fifteen—was more than one year; in every case, with the exception of one, it was below three years.
But there is another consideration. It is not merely a question of the time limit, it is the question of the cause of the crime; and there also I think consideration should be given in this Bill to the extension of the causes of the crime—not merely the mental disturbance due to the birth, or to the effect of lactation, but also I would like your Lordships to consider—because this would cover the cases of which I am speaking—whether the Bill could not be amended so as to cover mental disturbance due to distress and despair arising from solicitude for the child and extreme poverty, or either of these. I recognise that this is a matter for Committee, but I am just making the point now. If those words were incorporated in the Bill and the Bill had been on the Statute Book, then all the "black cap" cases of the last ten years, with the exception of one, would have been avoided.
We are very fortunate in your Lordships' House in having the highest legal authorities here, and the Lord Chancellor, by the by, a few days ago told us that even lawyers may be sincere. That seems to suggest that even Judges may have feelings, and as a matter of fact those of us who have the privilege of knowing some of His Majesty's Judges know how very true that is. I cannot help thinking that some change would be welcomed by the Judges themselves. But I know how very difficult it is to get any change effected in the law of this country. No doubt many of the objections have great substance in them. I am not suggesting that if I were to put these Amendments down that would be the best way of carrying out what I personally and a great many other people desire to see, but what I would like to add is this. As I say, we have the highest legal authorities here. In fact I am so over-awed by their presence that I am sometimes nervous of even mentioning the word "law" when they are here; but they have been from time to time extremely helpful, and I should like to appeal to the noble and learned Lord who has spoken in this debate as to whether he would bring his great experience to bear on this problem to see whether some Amendment could not be introduced which would end the "black cap farce."
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I think it appropriate that some remarks should come from this Bench to give your Lordships an indication of the view which His Majesty's Government hold on this Bill. In so far as the object of the Bill is to reduce the number of cases in which sentence of death has to be pronounced by a Court on a woman who has killed her child in distressing circumstances, and to whom it is clear that a reprieve will be granted, everyone, I think, must sympathise with my noble friend's object. It was with a view to relieving the Courts in certain cases from the necessity of passing such sentences that the Infanticide Act of 1922 was passed. The proposal in this Bill is to get rid of the limitation under the Act of 1922 to cases where the child is newly born, and to substitute a limitation to cases where the child is not more than twelve months old. It is true to say that the term "newly-born" has been criticised on the ground that it is somewhat indefinite. I am informed that in a case which came before the Court of Criminal Appeal in 1927 the judge had ruled that a child four weeks old was not "newly born," and the Court of Criminal Appeal upheld this ruling. I do not think this decision will settle the question whether a child aged one week or a fortnight can properly be regarded as "newly-born" within the meaning of that Statute.
It can, of course, be contended that it is theoretically possible that in some future case the Court might have difficulty in determining whether a child was or was not "newly-horn," but experience does not suggest that this difficulty will in fact be felt. In the cases where a verdict of infanticide is returned, the death of the child has generally occurred within the first few hours of birth. If, therefore, the only argument in favour of getting rid of the term "newly-born" were its indefiniteness, it is very questionable whether an amendment of the law could be defended on that ground. I am advised that the Courts have had no difficulty whatever in interpreting that term. No doubt the indefiniteness of this term is not the only, nor indeed the main, ground which has prompted my noble friend to bring forward this Bill. The main object of the measure, as I see it, is to extend the verdict of infanticide to cases where a mother kills her child several weeks or months old, if at the
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time of her act she is still suffering from the effects of child-birth and the balance of her mind is, by reason of these effects, still disturbed.
The question for how long a period child-birth may be liable to have a disturbing effect on the mother's balance of mind is undoubtedly a medical question. In certain exceptional cases there may be a very long and possibly lasting effect on a woman's mental balance. But in considering these questions it is necessary to have regard to what normally is the longest period in which the effects might produce a state of comparative irresponsibility for an act leading to the death of a child. At first sight it would appear that twelve months is a long period if regard is to be paid to normal cases and not to quite exceptional cases. It has been recognised by the noble Viscount who moved the Second Reading of this Bill that legislation of this kind cannot properly be extended to those very exceptional cases where the effects of childbirth may still be operative after a period of twelve months. But if the general principle be admitted that the Bill cannot be extended to exceptional cases, I might ask this question: Is it right to fix the period at twelve months? Is it not a question whether some shorter period would be sufficient to cover the generality of cases? This is a question which will require the very careful consideration of this House, and no doubt your Lordships will be assisted by the views of my noble friend who has moved the Second Reading, and whose great experience in the world of medicine qualifies him to speak with great authority on this subject.
Whatever period is fixed, it must necessarily be an arbitrary period, and the result of fixing that period is that two cases may arise in which the circumstances are identically similar, but in the one the woman would be liable to be convicted of murder because the child was just over the age limit and in the other to be convicted of infanticide because the child was just under the age limit. The contrast between the treatment of similar cases cannot be avoided if a time limit is to be inserted, and it is generally recognised that some time limit must be inserted if the term "newly-born" is to be omitted from this Bill. It would, of course, be quite inappropriate that a verdict of infanticide should be returned in cases where a woman may kill her

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child aged fourteen on even twenty. On the question how far the substitution of a time limit of twelve months for the term "newly-born" will result in an increase in the number of verdicts of infanticide and a decrease in the number of verdicts of murder, the following facts which I have ascertained should be taken into account. Since 1930 there have been thirteen women who have been reprieved after being convicted of child murder. One killed an imbecile son aged thirty, one a daughter aged eight, and four killed children whose ages ranged from twelve to twenty months. In six of the thirteen cases which have occurred during the last seven years, the Bill with its limitation of twelve months would have had no effect whatever. The remaining seven women killed children whose ages ranged from one to nine months.
So far as an examination of the information available about these cases shows, there was no suggestion that in any of these seven cases the mother's mind was still unbalanced by the effects of child-birth; but whether in some of these cases, if the Bill had been law, further investigation might have shown that it was possible to put up a plea for a verdict of infanticide, is a point on which it is quite impracticable to express a definite opinion. All I can usefully add is that the experience of the Department which I represent does not suggest that the effect of the Bill will be to enable verdicts of infanticide to be substituted for verdicts of murder in any considerable number of cases. While, of course, His Majesty's Government appreciate the motives which have prompted my noble friend to bring forward this Bill, they believe it necessary to indicate to the House that the practical effects of this measure may be comparatively small. Nevertheless, should the opinion expressed by my noble friend, whose authority on medical matters is unquestioned, influence your Lordships to think that this measure is of a very desirable character, the Government would not wish to oppose the Second Reading of the Bill, and would be prepared to give it most careful consideration when we reach the Committee stage.
VISCOUNT DAWSON OF PENN: My Lords, there have been some very interesting questions raised. When the
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very painful case at the Central Criminal Court was brought up, which had an effect on everyone who heard of it, and is typical of others, I did not go into the question in my personal capacity, but took good care to refer it to a committee of experts, as I was able to do in my capacity as President of the College of Physicians. They went into the matter, and the conclusions I have put forward to-day are the result of that united wisdom. When their report was in my hands, I got together an interesting gathering of leading King's Counsel and some of these medical men, and there was an agreement such as I have indicated. I would remind my noble friend opposite that, thank Heaven, infanticide is not a common thing if you take into account the number of births per year. We are dealing with something which appeals to us not so much by its quantity as by its quality. But if I could demonstrate six cases that brought about such an unfortunate state of affairs that innocent women were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, I say that is a discredit to the law of this country and has been a discredit for years. I submit, therefore, that the law ought to be put into order and brought into shape.
I now turn to the question which the noble Lord, Lord Snell, raised. It is a very interesting one. He asked, as I understand him, should it not be a mental hospital? I purposely did not put in "mental" because my own view is that there should not be this division in hospitals between mental and physical. For instance, if I may refer to the distinguished body over which he recently presided, there is in one of their recently constructed hospitals, St. Pancras, a ward for psychological cases, and when they occur, either in the hospital or outside, instead of the patients being sent off to a place labelled "mental hospital" they are sent to the psychological medical ward in St. Pancras. This I hold to be a much better arrangement.
As regards the interesting point made by the noble Lord, Lord Arnold, my first difficulty is this. If I were to accept what the noble Lord suggested, I would have to alter the title of the Bill. We all recognise that an infant ceases to be an infant when twelve months old. That is understood, and if I were to widen this Bill I think His Majesty's Government

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might be even more nervous than I find them to-day. I am astonished at their nervousness as it is, and I am very glad that I did not widen my Bill in the sense suggested. I will tell my noble friend this. I am well aware of the figures; I have studied them. Recent figures have shown that the killing of children only takes place within a very short time of birth. That illustrates very well the danger of founding conclusions on too small a number of cases. I referred that question to a number my distinguished colleagues who know about these things in the mental world, and they very soon showed me that the insanity which follows child-birth is often delayed and occurs during the period of lactation. These cases were far more numerous than even I thought myself, and, therefore, the noble Lord's list of cases, with which I am well acquainted is, I think, a little misleading.
If I may say so, I think the Bill does follow the middle course. People who, whether for mental reasons or not, kill their children when they pass the stage of infancy, must, I am afraid, go through the ordeal provided by the law, but in the case of a woman who has, after all, done a great public service in bringing children into the world, and who goes through a time of great stress, especially in these days, I think we are entitled to treat her better than the law does at present. It is reasonable, I submit, to keep this Bill within the limits to which I have referred, and I have stated the reasons why I have done so. I was interested in what my noble friend the most reverend Primate said about the unwanted child. If he will permit me to intervene with a rather professional answer to the question it is this: that the woman who gets rid of her child before it is born is not in the same psychological position as the mother who looks down upon her living child and has held it to her breast. The maternal instinct then is much more profound, and in such a case is stirred to its very depths. If she has not got that feeling—there are very few women who have not—there is nothing to be said. You cannot legislate. Still it is an interesting point. You cannot, however, in my view, put the woman who kills her child before it is born in the same category as the woman who kills her newly-born child. I hope, my Lords, you
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will be so good as to give this Bill a Second reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a.

NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE (AMENDMENT) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

HOUSING (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, the noble Earl the Leader of the House has already explained to your Lordships why this Bill has been presented to you at such short notice. I can only repeat that I regret that circumstances have so brought that about. It is a Bill to provide for housing subsidies for the future. The present subsidies for new building expire at the end of this month, and we propose to continue them and make some alterations in them. As we have not had a housing debate for some time perhaps I had better begin by reminding your Lordships of what the subsidies are which are being paid for new building at the present time. They are, firstly, the slum clearance subsidy of £2 5s. payable to the local authority for every person displaced from an unhealthy building and rehoused; secondly, the discretionary subsidy up to £5 a year for each house constructed by a local authority in connection with the decrowding programme. Both these subsidies are increased, where it has become necessary, by reason of the expanse of land and buildings to carry out the housing schemes in blocks of fiats. Thirdly, there is the small subsidy for reconditioning granted in connection with the Housing (Rural Workers) Act, which is not affected by this Bill.
As to what has been done under those Acts your Lordships will remember that 1933 was the year when it was decided to launch the major attack upon the slums. A survey was made, and some 280,000 houses were ear-marked for demolition, and an undertaking was given that as far as possible that programme would be complete within five years. By the end of this year—that is the end of the five years to which I referred—that part of the programme will be practically com-

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plete. We calculate that about 250,000 houses will have been demolished and upwards of a million people rehoused; but, as sometimes happens when we try to carry out a major long-term programme through the somewhat complicated machinery of local government, the problem has appeared larger than we imagined it would be. The local authorities have discovered more slums in the last few years, and, instead of the 280,000 houses, we find ourselves confronted with 400,000 houses that have to be demolished. This has added 120,000 houses to our slum clearance programme, and that additional programme will not be complete by the end of this year. That is the present situation in regard to the slums expressed in the simplest terms.
In regard to decrowding, your Lordships will remember that the Act was passed in 1935 and that various principles were laid down in it—firstly, that a survey should be made of all the overcrowded houses; secondly, that the local authorities should submit schemes for building to accommodate the population that was to be displaced, assisted by the subsidy as the Minister thought fit; and, thirdly, that a date should be fixed in each district after which overcrowding should be a penal offence. The present position in regard to decrowding is this. The survey has been completed, and it is estimated that about 200,000 new houses must be provided to accommodate the displaced population. The survey has taken some time and only about 17,000 houses have been built towards the programme. But in every case the appointed day after which overcrowding would be forbidden has been fixed.
Before coming to our new proposals I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to two points. Firstly, as compared with 1933 we are now dealing with a problem that is a measured problem. You can criticise the details of our proposals and the standards we have set up and you can say that the standards ought not to be final standards—indeed my right honourable friend has said so himself—but I think everyone must agree that we are right in trying to reduce the problem to concrete proportions. We now know where we stand and we know what progress we are making. Another advantage is that we can tell with some degree of accuracy what will be the probable
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effect of an alteration in the subsidised It is very easy to say, of course we ought to be spending a more money on housing, but expenditure somewhere in the neighbourhood of £1,000,000,000 a year obvious even in the very important matter of housing there must be some limit. Subsidies are expedients designed to produce certain results, and the question must obviously be considered from time to time whether the total amount of money that is being spent on housing is being spent to the best advantage.
The second point to which I would invite attention is the effect of pooling of subsidies which was introduced under the Act of 1935. Your Lordships no doubt realise that rents now are not charged according to whether houses were built under the Act of 1919 or 1924 or under the Act of 1933 or 1935. It is quite true that local authorities receive subsidies on that basis, but having received them they are given very wide discretion as to how they, spend them, provided always that they fulfil the obligations laid on them by Parliament and carry out the schemes that have been entrusted to them. The vital factor which local authorities want to know before embarking on fresh building is not what precisely they are going to get under one subsidy or another but the total amount they will receive from the Government. The question that has to be solved is whether, having regard to present day problems, that total is being calculated in the most scientific way.
As I reminded your Lordships, there is a very big subsidy for slum clearance and slum clearance is well under way. In fact, the programme is about two-thirds complete. There is a smaller subsidy for decrowding which local authorities may or may not get, and that programme has only just begun. Yet from the health point of view it is equally important that people should be removed from unhealthy, overcrowded conditions as from unhealthy buildings. The conclusion the Government have reached is that, having regard to all these different considerations, the total amount of Exchequer money that is now being paid out could be more scientifically allocated and that further simplicity could be introduced into the administration. What we propose to do accordingly is to bring down

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slum clearance subsidy and to bring up the decrowding subsidy so that they both can be combined into one subsidy which will be available for both purposes as it suits the convenience of the local authority. The amount of subsidy we propose is £5 10s. for each house for forty years from the Government and £2 15s. for the rates. We calculate from the schemes before us that we shall be paying out slightly more money from the Exchequer than we are at present, but as I have already said we think that the division of the spoils, if I may use that expression, will be more appropriate to the needs of local authorities than at present.
It is true that those who have a great deal of decrowding to do in comparison with the amount of slum clearance will be better off than before and those in the reverse case rather worse off, but as I have said we can now make a forecast with considerable accuracy and we believe that every local authority will be able to provide new houses for either purpose to let at rents between 6s. and 7s. a week exclusive of rates. We have, of course, made most careful inquiries before reaching this decision. We have consulted the Rural District Councils' Association, the Urban District Councils' Association, the Association of Municipal Corporations, the County Councils' Association and the London County Council, and they all approve the new principle. It is quite true that they have contended that the Government should pay more and they themselves less, but that is perhaps a not unnatural line of argument when local authorities are trying to make a bargain with the Government.
In trying to be as simple as possible I have omitted one or two details of some importance, and I must now turn to them. Firstly, in deciding to unify the subsidies we had to decide whether it should be done on the per capita basis of the Act dealing with slum clearance or on the per house basis of the Act dealing with decrowding, and we have decided, with the approval of these representative organisations, to adopt the latter course. In saying that we believe that every local authority can with the help of this subsidy build houses and charge rents within the capacity to pay of those who are going to be rehoused, I should make an exception in regard to some of the very poorest urban and rural districts, par-
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ticularly in some parts of Wales. In spite of the block grant formula we believe that some of these local authorities will still find it difficult to build houses and charge rents within the means of the occupiers without additional assistance. In Clause 1 (3) the Minister is given discretion to supplement the amount by an additional £1per house per annum.
Perhaps I ought to say a word about flats. On general grounds, as your Lordships are no doubt aware, we are not in favour of flats, but we are convinced that in some of the largest cities flats provide the only possible solution of the housing problem. Your Lordships will see from the Schedule that the proposed scales are somewhat more generous than before. The minimum is £11 compared with £6 under the 1935 Act, and as compared with slum clearance we are more generous in respect of sites costing more than £8,000 an acre. In every case we calculate that it will be possible to rehouse the population in these flats at rents of 7s. and 8s. a week, exclusive of rates.
Before turning to rural housing I think I ought to say something about the very important question of the rate of building in the future. Houses are now being constructed by local authorities at the rate of 7,000 a month. On that basis the entire rehousing programme ought to be completed in about five years. But I am conscious of the dangers of prophesying in these troublous times. It is true that prices are higher than they have been, although they are fairly steady now. They went up last May from an average of £370 per house, but they have since returned to £365 per house, and at that figure they have remained. This compares with the £340 average when the Labour Party originally introduced the 193o Act. The rise has been more than offset by the drop in interest rates, which are now about 1⅜ per cent. lower. To secure our primary object, the provision of low-rented houses, it is necessary to maintain a constant scrutiny of tender prices. My right honourable friend has not in the past hesitated to reject prices which he considered too high, and this policy will be continued. Then, as regards the date at which these changes will be brought into effect, your Lordships will see in Clause 10 that the present rates of subsidy will be available for houses constructed not later than the end of this year. That has been for the sake

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of continuity, but as far as decrowding goes the proposed higher rates of subsidy will be available for houses started after the introduction of this Bill even if they are completed before December.
Now I must turn to the new proposals for rural housing. Your Lordships will be aware that the obligation to construct houses to rehouse the population from rural slums and to provide for the de-crowding needs are just as great and rest just as much on the shoulders of the rural authorities as they do on those of urban authorities. A great deal of progress is being made under existing Acts. Unfortunately, however, this does not solve the whole question of rural housing. It is unnecessary to remind your Lordships that to build rural cottages costing between £350 and £400 is not an economic proposition when only about 3s. to 4s. can be obtained in rents for them. Indeed, the difference between charges for loans obtainable, for instance, from the Lands Improvement Company and the annual rent represents a loss of some £12 a year to the owner. As your Lordships are aware, the agricultural depression has not improved matters in this respect, and the result has been that very few new cottages have been built for rural workers. It is not possible to see exactly how far the absence of good modern housing has contributed to the drift away from the land, but I think it would be generally agreed that it does, in part, explain why agriculture and its associated industries fail to attract a large proportion of the younger men, and particularly of their wives, into those industries. Accordingly my right honourable friend submitted this problem to a Sub-committee on Rural Housing, presided over by my right reverend friend the Lord Bishop of Winchester. These proposals follow almost exactly the recommendations of that Sub-committee, and I do not think we could have paid him a greater compliment than that!
In brief, what we propose to do is to give the district councils assistance, not only to abolish unhealthy conditions in the countryside, but also to provide for the general needs of the agricultural population. Your Lordships will notice that under this Bill the slum clearance and de-crowding subsidies for rural areas will be amended to £10 from the Exchequer, £1 from the district council and £1 from the
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county council, and in certain Exchequer contribution may £12 at the discretion of the Minister is proposed to make this same subsidy £10—available to provide for these general needs as well. Your Lordships will notice that the subsidies are intended for genuine agricultural workers and their dependants, and if, as sometimes happens, a rural worker leaves the land for some other profession, the local authority will be empowered to charge a higher rent. It is a statutory condition of the payment of the higher rate of subsidy from the Exchequer that the local authority should reserve for the agricultural population as many houses as they originally specify in their schemes. In certain circumstances this subsidy may be extended and paid to private owners. In the words of Clause 3:
"Where the council … are satisfied that in any particular case"—
and I must emphasise in passing that that means that each case must be judged on its merits—
"housing accommodation required for members of the agricultural population of the district could be more conveniently provided by some person other than the council, they may, subject to any conditions imposed by the Minister, make arrangements for the provision of such accommodation by that person."
Later on the clause empowers the authority to pay over the iI0 Exchequer subsidy to the person erecting the house, subject to certain specified conditions, and if those conditions are not observed they are required to withdraw the subsidy.
As this matter was the subject of a good deal of criticism in another place on the ground that it subsidised the tied cottage, perhaps I might draw attention to the fact that the reasons for recommending it are fully set out in the report of the Rural Housing Sub-Committee, and the Government endorse those reasons. They agree in general that rural houses ought to be built in villages, but they also think that cases may arise where it would be more convenient, as for stockmen and in other particular cases, to build isolated cottages. They think that in those cases the cottages might well be more conveniently built by the owners. They agree that in certain cases retired agricultural labourers may want to build their own cottages, and that they should be encouraged to do so. Might I perhaps be allowed to advance a further reason? District councils are custodians of the

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money, and they may quite properly require some evidence of necessary before they construct houses themselves. If this proposal which is under discussion is excluded, it occurs to me that the less humane owner might well see to it that that evidence of necessity was provided by throwing the widows and dependants, the less profitable of their tenants, on to the mercy of the district council as opportunity arose, and the more humane owner might hesitate to do that and thereby put himself under a disadvantage.
With this provision in the Bill, it seems to me that all owners are alike given the right to go and make a case to the district council. It is, of course, for the council to decide how to meet the situation, and indeed their option in the matter is strictly limited by the wording in the clause. But it does seem to me important that opportunities for consultation between the owners and the authorities should be established by the Bill. Whatever may be said about the agricultural owner, he is still the head of a very important unit in the rural economy of the country. He has had of recent years several obligations imposed on him by Parliament under the Public Health Act, the Town Planning Act, the Decrowding Act, and so forth, not to mention several new obligations imposed by legislation emanating from the Ministry of Agriculture. These obligations have not added to the landowner's income, and I venture to think that the Government's decision to encourage cooperation between him and the local authority on this very practical basis will do more for the housing of the agricultural worker than could be effected by any attempt to drive the owner and the rural district council into opposite camps.
One point on another subject. There is a great and welcome enthusiasm, to-day, for the preservation of the amenities of the countryside. The Government share that enthusiasm, and they desire to express their gratitude to Lord Crawford and his Committee for the very practical help they are giving in the preparation of a book of model plans, which will soon be published by the Ministry. They think, however, that it is not a very simple matter to ensure the preservation of amenity by legislation alone, and they propose to exercise their interest by examining and approving all plans for the
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erection of cottages under this part of the Bill.
That is all I have to say about this Bill. May I conclude with one observation on the general housing situation? Since the Armistice about three and a half million houses have been built, and of these about a million have been built by the local authorities. This pool of houses gives facilities to local authorities which they have never enjoyed before. In spite of that fact, there are, I know, still people living within a few miles of this House who are living under conditions which I can only describe as unspeakable. I know there is no cause for complacency, but I feel that what has been done is an encouragement not only to ourselves and to the country but to these unfortunate people in respect of their own future. It is, I think, a considerable achievement. In other circumstances I might be tempted to compare what has been done with what noble Lords prophesied would be done when former Government measures were being discussed, but as I hope to be in the novel and very fortunate position of anticipating some outside support for a Government Housing Bill I will not enter into fruitless discussions as to who should be entitled to the credit for anything which has been done. As, however, the policy has not been changed since his day, perhaps I might make some reservation in favour of Lord Kennet. But that is beside the point. The point is that we must consider the future and not the past. Let me conclude by thanking those noble Lords who are members of the Central Housing Advisory Committee for their constructive assistance, which I am sure they will continue to give so as to make future success assured. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.— (Viscount Gage.)
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I hope you will allow me to offer a few observations on a Bill that is really of absolutely first rate importance so far as our national housing policy is concerned, although it is, of course, a Money Bill and cannot be modified in any respect by decisions taken in your Lordships' House. As the noble Viscount: has already pointed out, there are features of this Bill which will undoubtedly recommend themselves to all unbiased observers of the progress of this national housing policy that the Government have under-

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taken, and the feature which I shall not dwell on, but which will no doubt be considered at some length by a subsequent speaker, and which appears to me to be the most helpful aspect of the Bill, is the manner in which it is proposed to deal with rural housing. There will undoubtedly under the operation of this Bill, if it be passed into law, be a considerable stimulus to rural authorities for the provision of cottages at really low rents, such as agricultural labourers earning anything between 30s. and 50s. a week will be able to afford. This is a very substantial step forward, which I am sure will be greeted with the utmost thankfulness by all those interested in the housing problem, and I cannot help feeling that one advantage which the discussion on the Second Reading in this House will enjoy is that it is possible for all those who contribute to the debate to deliver their contributions in a somewhat more impartial manner than is perhaps customary in another place. There are a number of your Lordships who have been following the housing legislation and housing problem in general for a considerable period of years, and they now have this opportunity of expressing their views on this Bill.
It is my particular business, I think, rather to criticise than to commend, because the praise that certain features of this Bill quite justly deserve has already been bestowed in part and will be bestowed in even more lavish measure, I anticipate, in the not very distant future. There are two features to which many people, I think, regardless of Party valuation, do take very strong objection. The first of these is the reduction of the housing subsidy in respect of slum clearance that will be brought about by the new method of allocating the Government subsidy to the local authorities. The new method, as the noble Viscount has pointed out, is to provide a certain sum, £5 10s., for every new house built, instead of providing a smaller sum, £2 5s., for every person that the local authority has to rehouse. Now, assuming that the average family consists of four persons, the local authority will be losing, by a very simple arithmetical calculation, about £3 10s. per family rehoused. That, I think, is going to affect the Government's housing programme very considerably.
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As the noble Viscount has just said about one-third of the Government's housing programme in relation to slum clearance is as yet incomplete. I think he mentioned the figure of 120,000 houses which could not be demolished before the end of this year, and which would therefore entail the building of houses to accommodate the families displaced at the lower subsidy which the Government are now offering. Therefore it does make the situation, I think, from the point of view of slum clearance really very serious. The proportion of the Exchequer grant to the payment out of the rates made by local authorities would be reduced from about four to one to about two to one. The noble Viscount mentioned, I think, that in his view the fall in interest rates, which therefore make it easier and cheaper for local authorities to obtain the loans they require for building purposes than it was in the past, was a justification for this reduction in the Government grant; but I should like to remind the noble Viscount that building costs have increased by about 20 per cent. since 1935, and certainly so much as greatly to exceed any saving that local authorities may make on account of the cheaper rate at which they can obtain money.
May I be allowed to anticipate what one fears may be the injurious effects of this lower subsidy to local authorities on account of slum clearance? In the first place it may hold up the slum clearance programme and compel many families who are at present living in these deplorable conditions to continue there for a longer period of time. It may also have the effect of raising rates, because clearly the money has to be found somehow; and if the programme that local authorities have been carrying out is persisted in because of the determination of the authority in question to get rid of this evil, then it means an increase in the rates. In view of the fact that these slum areas are usually located in the poorest industrial towns, that increase in rates will mean a very heavy additional burden upon people who are at the moment bearing considerably more in the way of taxation than they can be reasonably supposed to be able to stand. It also means a strong temptation to local authorities to build smaller and cheaper houses. The effect of that would be to re-create overcrowded conditions which, though they

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might not represent according to the letter of the law overcrowding, would in fact mean that too many people were living in too small a space.
As the noble Viscount, I am certain, would himself admit, the standard adopted by the Government for measuring overcrowding is very low, and therefore there is an enormous number of families at the moment who are living in conditions that are deplorable, but which cannot be remedied for the time being. One does not want families to be removed from slums and to find themselves living in conditions that are very little better, and in some ways even worse. Those are some of the consequences that may result from the diminution of the Government grant in respect of slum clearance. I should like to ask the noble Viscount whether in his reply he would point out how far the Government envisage consequences of this kind, and how far they think that those consequences can be avoided.
The second criticism that I have to make on the present measure was again, I think, anticipated by the noble Viscount. There are many people who object to any extension of the tied cottage system. We believe that it offers an opportunity for undue pressure to be brought by landlords on their tenants. Of course, such an opportunity would not be abused by a good and reasonable and helpful landlord. But there are good and bad landlords, just as there are good and bad politicians, and good and bad business men. We therefore view with very considerable anxiety any extension of the tied cottage system. I am aware that the justification for this proposal of the Government is that it was recommended by the Rural Housing Advisory Committee of which the right reverend Prelate (the Bishop of Winchester) was Chairman, and that their Report gave reasons which they considered to be adequate and convincing. I should like to congratulate the right reverend Prelate on the success of his labours. Your Lordships are all aware of the endeavours that he has made over a number of years to improve housing conditions through national legislation, and we are all, I am sure, equally glad that his efforts should in this case have met with so considerable a degree of success. May I ask him when he deals with the
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subject of rural housing, and in particular with the question fo the extension of the tied cottage system, whether he could answer what do appear to be very grave objections to this course.
I am aware that the argument runs that in a few rather exceptional cases, where shepherds or stockmen are living on isolated farms and cannot therefore be in a village, it may be exceedingly difficult for rural authorities to provide them with proper accommodation, and of course there is the question of higher building cost, owing to the distance over which building materials have to be carried. But if that is so, why should the landlord be in a more favourable position than the local authority? It would appear that if the landlord or farmer is impoverished it would be just as difficult for him to put up the cottage as it would be for the local authority to do so; whereas if he is a man of considerable means there seems to be no excuse whatever for the provision of a Government subsidy. Personally I must confess that for cases of this kind, where it may be more difficult for the rural authority to act, I should like to see an increased subsidy from the Exchequer in order to overcome that difficulty, rather than that the responsibility should be placed on the landlord—a responsibility which he may find it difficult to discharge, and which in any event would put the tenant in a position that might be exceedingly injurious to him in years to come.
This Bill, which is, I am sure the noble Viscount will agree, the most important measure in respect of housing that has been introduced by His Majesty's Government since the Act of 1935, is one which in certain respects one hopes will go some distance towards alleviating the distress of those who are living in overcrowded or slum conditions. There are, however, these two very serious objections to the Bill in its present form, and I should be very relieved, as I am sure all those who feel the weight of these objections would be relieved, to have some further reply on the part of the Government and, if I may venture to ask for it, a rather fuller account of the reasons for the recommendation of the Advisory Committee on the part of the right reverend Prelate (the Lord Bishop of Winchester).
THE LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER: My Lords, I propose to confine my remarks to the provisions in the Bill relating to rural housing. I welcome the Bill as a whole, and I am very grateful to the noble Viscount for the full way in which he explained it when he moved the Second Reading. I welcome the provisions for the better housing of the agricultural labourer because I feel convinced that one of the reasons which have led to the deplorable migration from the country to the town has been the lack of sufficient houses. I need hardly remind this House how serious that migration has been. At the beginning of the last century there were rather more people living in the country than in the town. At the present time only 13 per cent. of the population of this land are living in country districts, and the number of those who are actually engaged in farming is a very small percentage compared to other countries. In France, I believe, 40 per cent. of the population are engaged in farming, while in England the figure is something like 7 per cent. at the present time.
I know, of course, that housing is not the only cause, and that agricultural depression is the root evil, but I am perfectly certain that the shortage of houses, and the unsatisfactory nature of so many of the houses, is one of the main reasons why the younger men will not to-day remain in the country. Some of the houses I have been into myself are, quite literally, worse than anything I have ever found in the poorest slums in London. These are exceptional cases, and of course the open country is all around them, which makes a real difference; but what has struck me so much when I have been into those houses is that I have been begged by the tenants not to make any complaint because they were so afraid that if the house were condemned by the local authority, and they were turned out, there would be no other place to which they could go in the neighbourhood. There has been abundant evidence—we heard it from witness after witness before the Committee to which reference has been made—that if every house which now exists in the country were occupied there still would be a very serious shortage.
Only last week I had a letter written to me by a lady who is interested in, and has remarkable acquaintance with, the shepherds of the Hampshire Downs. She
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was not writing to me in connection with this debate, but in that letter she said:
"I know a number of shepherds round about, and it is very difficult for a man with a family to obtain a job in many cases owing to the two-bedroom type of house, as boys over ten must have a separate room. This is a quite definitely wrong state of things. I have personal knowledge of good jobs being refused, as the girls and boys cannot be packed into the two-bedroom cottage."
I myself have known cases of young men who waited year after year wishing to marry and, being unable to find a cottage in the country, have migrated to the towns. It is a significant fact that the last census shows that out of every five men under the age of twenty-five who were employed in the country, by the time they had reached the age of forty, two had moved into the towns. That does show that one of the difficulties in the country at the present time is insufficient housing accommodation. Of course the root of the difficulty is that in present circumstances it is quite impossible for the agricultural labourer to pay an economic rent. As the noble Viscount has already pointed out, to build a three-bedroomed house in the country would cost something like £360. When you make some allowance for annual repairs, the economic rent for a house of that nature—exclusive of rates, of course—would be 6s. 7d. But the agricultural labourer can, at the most, pay only 3s. a week. You have therefore a gap between what he can pay and what is the economic rent. I welcome this Bill because it does bridge that gap. As The Times pointed out, the subsidy which is being granted for this purpose is enormous, but without this subsidy it would be quite impossible to build the houses which are so urgently required for those engaged in the farming districts of the countryside.
Now, if I may, I shall refer for a moment to the very important point raised by the noble Earl opposite. In another place, also, criticisms were passed in connection with this matter—namely, that private individuals should in certain circumstances have the subsidy. I can only say that, for myself, when we commenced to discuss the subject, I was against this proposal. My mind was not by any means definitely clear, but on the whole I was against it. As we had evidence, however, and as the matter was argued out, and as I made inquiries in a

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number of country places which I know best, I became convinced that there are certain isolated cases where you would not have a house provided if it were left to the local authority to do it. That may be right or it may be wrong, but that was the conclusion which the majority of the Committee reached. We have expressed this in a paragraph in the Report which, if I may, I will read. It is a brief statement, but it states clearly what we felt:
"In a comparatively small number of cases, it may be necessary to build new houses on isolated farms for the accommodation of stockmen, etc. In 'view of their situation, such cottages will, we anticipate, only be suitable for the accommodation of the employees of the particular farm on which they are built. The local authority will not always be able conveniently to undertake the erection of houses in such a situation, and to meet this relatively small need, we suggest that a subsidy equal to the Exchequer subsidy which would be payable to the local authority should be made available to private enterprise …"
I would remind the House that this provision is very carefully guarded. The subsidy is payable subject to conditions imposed by the Minister, the houses are to be reserved to members of the agricultural population, the rent is to be a rent which can be paid by an agricultural labourer, and the house is to be suitable in respect of its size and construction. Every case is to be considered on its own merits, and the intention of the Bill is that there should not be a general whole—sale granting of the subsidy. Of course it is most dangerous for me or any one else to attempt to prophesy what legislation will lead to after the recent totally unexpected results.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: May I ask the right reverend Prelate whether his Committee considered that the difficulty for the local authority would be obviated if a higher subsidy in respect of these isolated cottages were obtainable from the State? I wonder whether that solution was considered by his Committee. I hope he will forgive me for interrupting.
THE LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER: I can assure the noble Earl that we did consider the whole question very carefully, and I am quite sure that members on the Committee would not have left unnoticed the point which he has just raised. If I might venture to prophesy, I think we shall probably find that this particular clause is used only
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in a comparatively small number of cases and used where houses would not otherwise be built. There is just one other observation I should like to make. I was very glad that the noble Viscount referred to the nature of the cottages which are going to be built. I know that the Minister is concerned about the picturesque cottages which are sometimes perhaps rather hastily demolished, but, great as is the loss to the beauties of a village through the destruction of picturesque cottages, I think sometimes that there is an even greater loss in the Hideous new buildings which are sometimes erected either in the middle of a very attractive old village or on its immediate outskirts. I can think of several cases where the whole beauty and attractiveness of a village has been hopelessly impaired by the examples of bleak ugliness which have been put up as new houses.
I think the Minister will see as far as he can—I am not sure what his powers are in this matter—that the designing of these buildings is not left solely to builders and surveyors, but that an architect is called in, and that the architect shall advise not only about the cottage buildings and their conveniences but also about the material which is to be used and about the position in which the houses are to be put. I recognise most fully that the first and most 'Important consideration is the building of good and healthy houses which can be let at a low rent, but there is nothing irreconcilable with that in seeing that the houses which are built are in harmony with beauty and the picturesqueness which we have inherited in so many of our ancient villages.
LORD PHILLIMORE: My Lords, in the absence of several noble Lords who usually address you on this kind of subject I would like to offer a few remarks, particularly on the rural housing provisions of this Bill. I should like to begin by adding the thanks of those of us who live in the country to the thanks that have already been expressed to the right reverend Prelate's Committee and, I may add, to the Government for bringing in this Bill. I say this although I always regret the State stepping in to do what it seems to me it is more natural and proper that private persons should do for themselves. Admittedly, though

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less so where the Rural Housing Acts have been actively applied, conditions of housing in the countryside—and I might almost say particularly so in the case of the houses occupied by agricultural workers—leave much to be desired. That is not of course a general and complete statement, but that there are very many cases such as the right reverend Prelate mentioned I must endorse, and particularly is this so in view of what is quite clearly a rapidly rising housing standard, in itself a very commendable thing. We are no longer content with the same conditions of room space, lighting and so on as we accepted some years ago, and it is very desirable that the standard should be lifted.
Although I do not think it could have been brought within the four corners of this Bill, I shall be glad if the fact that local authorities have to build rural cottages in greater numbers were to lead to an extension of main water supplies and healthy water supplies to the rural population. I am not sure that that it not one of the most important points to which we ought to look forward. I feel also that, possibly with the help of the local authorities, electrical supplies may be obtained at a more reasonable rate and a great deal more quickly than we are getting them at present. At the same time, this Bill seems to me a wholehearted attempt to bring to the countryside some of the many advantages obtainable under recent legislation in the towns. It will to some extent relieve the loss of capital from the countryside which has been going on for years, and which has been, in fact, statistically shown within the last month to run into several hundreds of millions of pounds. Only to a small extent, but to a small extent, it will relieve of some of their burdens the persons now responsible for making the countryside live, and this is bare justice, for it is the State in the main, through the Death Duties, which has taken the capital out of the countryside, and it is the rest of the population who, to some extent at any rate, have failed to recognise the long torture of the agricultural depression.
What I have said about want of capital applies just as much to the small farmer and even more to the larger landowner, provided of course he is owner as
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well as occupier. Many a good farmer there has been who has been faced with the loss of a worker whom he would like to employ simply because the worker and his wife have agreed that the cottage that the farmer could afford to give them was unsuitable and inadequate for their quite proper standards. In such a case what is the poor farmer to do? He has not got the capital to build a cottage, the existing cottage is possibly irreparable, at any rate within his means, and he has to face the loss of a good worker. As the right reverend Prelate has said, as much perhaps as most things that has meant the drift of the rural workers into the towns. So that, the Bill is very welcome to landowners and I am sure it will be very welcome indeed to the farm workers.
There are one or two points on which at a later stage I shall have a few Amendments of a small nature to bring forward, but before I sit down I would like to deal with the favourite argument that comes from the opposite Benches as to the tied cottage. I am going to admit straight away that where all the cottages are in one farmer's hands then certain opportunities of tyranny do occur, and if I had been listened to before the Agricultural Unemployment Insurance Act was brought in, as I ought to have been, some of the spare money accruing under that Act would have been used by associations of farm workers to build their own cottages and to keep a pool of cottages to which a worker could go rather than be tyrannised over by his farmer. But having admitted that it is possible, and that such tyranny occasionally occurs, once you have obtained a pool of cottages available for agricultural workers, which you should do under this Bill, that opportunity of tyranny would be gone. I am sure the noble Earl opposite will realise the force of that argument.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I should agree, naturally, if there was a sufficient supply of cottages, but I have no doubt the noble Lord will agree that at the present moment there is not.
LORD PHILLIMORE: That is true in certain cases, but under this Bill that particular difficulty of the tied cottage should be removed, not only in respect of the cottages built under Clause 3 by the

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private landowner but in respect of all farm cottages. The noble Earl went a step further, and there I could not follow him at all. He asked why should the private landowner who contributes to the solution of the housing problem by building the most difficult and the most expensive cottage, the isolated cottage, who contributes just as much and in fact more to the solution of the housing problem, receive the subsidy in the same way as the local authority receives it. Surely the answer is obvious. He receives the subsidy because he is doing the same service to the community as the local authority, although as a matter of fact by the terms of the Bill he does not receive such a large subsidy.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: May I point out that my argument was a little more developed than that? My point was that a private landlord may be a man of very considerable means. You have to take that into' account. The reason, presumably, for the State helping rural authorities is that they are very poor. In fact, that is the raison d'être of the subsidy. There is no means test in this Bill and a rich landlord may get as much as a tenant farmer with practically nothing who may be losing on his farm.
LORD PHILLIMORE: If that was the noble Earl's point I cannot follow him. After all, even though a landlord may be rich he is entitled to fair play. I may point out that the more house property a private landowner owns the more he will be undercut by the local authority, subsidised to this tremendous extent, for what should be a good modern cottage at a wholly uneconomic rent. The landlord will in any case suffer in respect of some of his property very considerably owing to that one cause. Why he should not be treated in a democratic country on all fours with other members of the community I fail to understand. I do not want to detain your Lordships longer. The Bill has received on the whole a very warm welcome, and I am particularly pleased to think that it will help the agricultural community.
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, I have only very few remarks to make because I think the reception of the Bill has been on the whole very favourable. The noble Earl opposite made some remarks about the reduction of the slum clearance subsidy and the effect it would have on building by local authorities. I have sheets of statistics on this point, but I think I had better not inflict them on your Lordships. The upshot of my information is that, the Government having consulted various representative organisations, every one of them except the Association of Municipal Corporations agreed that the subsidy of £8 5s. made up of contributions from the Government and local authorities was sufficient for the purpose. The Association of Municipal Corporations asked for another fifteen shillings. That is not a very much larger sum. The whole position is governed, as I think I said, by the fact that we believe that every local authority in the country will be able to construct houses for every purpose and let them at rents of between 6s. and 7s. a week, or flats at rents of between 7s. and 8s., exclusive of rates. As we have always worked on the basis of 10s. inclusive of rates as the most suitable rent, I think that point is covered.
The question of tied houses has been dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Phillimore, and I do not think I need add anything. The right reverend Prelate mentioned the question of amenities, and asked what was being done to ensure that cottages come up to a certain standard of architectural merit. A deputation is discussing that question with my right honourable friend this afternoon and I would point out that we have machinery in the Town Planning Act which ought to be used very extensively in this connection. I think I need say nothing more except to express appreciation of the right reverend Prelate's most valuable support.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at twenty-three minutes before seven o'clock.

BARONY OF VAUX OF HARROWDEN.
Several Witnesses ordered to attend the Committee for Privileges on Wednesday, the 6th day of April next, and one of them to produce a document.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:
Bournemouth Gas and Water.
And also the Certificate that the Standing Orders have not been complied with in respect of the Petition for additional provision in the following Bill:

BARONY OF VAUX OF HARROWDEN.
  Salford Corporation [H.L.]
  The same were ordered to lie on the Table.
WAKEFIELD CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn. The Orders made on February the 17th and 24th last discharged, and Bill committed.
WEST THURROCK ESTATE BILL. [H.L.]
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn. The Orders made on the 1st instant discharged, and Bill committed.