Sitting of 6 April 1943

Preamble
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

INDIA (GOVERNORS' ALLOWANCES AND PRIVILEGES) (AMENDMENT) ORDER.
The VICE-CHAMBERLAIN OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Mr. BOULTON) reported His Majesty's Answer to the Address as followeth:
I have received your Address praying that the Government of India (Governors' Allowances and Privileges) (Amendment) Order, 1943, be made in the form of the Draft laid before Parliament.
I will comply with your request.

DEATH OF A MEMBER
Mr. SPEAKER made the following communication to the House:
I regret to have to inform the House of the death of William George Howard Gritten, Esquire, Member for the Borough of The Hartlepools, and I desire, on behalf of the House, to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the honourable Member.

PRIVATE BUSINESS
  LIVERPOOL HYDRAULIC POWER BILL [Lords]
  As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  TRADE AND COMMERCE

    Concentration of Industry
    Mr. Wootton-Daviesasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will consider taking steps to prevent the entrance into concentrated industries of new manufacturers until such time as concentrated firms have been enabled to re-
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    start their plants and reorganise their pre-war activities?
    The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Dalton): I would refer my hon. Friend to paragraph 3 of Command Paper 6258 of March, 1941, and also to the statement made in this House on 27th March, 1941, by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Production—who was then President of the Board of Trade—a copy of which I am sending him.
    Mr. Gallacher: Is the Minister aware that he is now being asked to put a curb on private enterprise?

    Manufacturers' Substitutes
    Mr. Wootton-Daviesasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will take steps to make it illegal for manufacturers to offer a substitute for a rationed article unless it has first been approved by his Ministry?
    Mr. Dalton: I do not know what substitutes my hon. Friend has in mind, but, if he will let me have particulars, I will be glad to consider whether any action is necessary.

    New Suits (Pockets)
    Sir Percy Hurdasked the President of the Board of Trade whether it is by his direction that officials of his Department are requiring the public, when ordering new suits, to state the uses to which coat, waistcoat and hip pockets in trousers are to be applied; and whether he will leave these matters to the discretion of the wearers?
    Mr. Dalton: My hon. Friend has been misinformed. The present restrictions on the number of pockets are part of the regulations applied since May, 1942, in order to save material and labour. Where new suits are made with the permitted number of pockets, no inquiries as to the use of these are necessary, and none are made. Applications for additional pockets for special reasons are, however, sometimes made to my Department, and, before granting permission, it is the duty of my officers to satisfy themselves that the application is justified.
    Sir P. Hurd: Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that this sort of thing brings his Department into public ridicule?
    Mr. Dalton: No, Sir. I have told my hon. Friend that he is misinformed in making the statement for which he takes responsibility. I have read a certain weekly newspaper, not always uniformly truthful, from which I think he derives his information. That information is inaccurate.
    Sir P. Hurd: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the full text of the Board of Trade's letter was published in that journal?
    Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir, but the point I have been endeavouring to make clear is that such inquiries are made only in exceptional cases. The suggestion conveyed in this newspaper was that they are always made. I will give an illustration of the sort of exception that is made. Supposing that my hon. Friend were to lose his hearing, and wished to carry a deaf-aid on his person, it would be perfectly proper—and this often happens—for an application to be made to the Board of Trade for a special licence for an additional pocket in the waistcoat, to carry the instrument in. That is a perfectly good example.

    Textile Machinery
    Mr. Rhys Daviesasked the President of the Board of Trade the total value of textile machinery rendered idle by war conditions and exported to foreign countries; the countries of destination; and whether he is considering the effects of this on post-war employment in the Lancashire cotton industry in particular?
    Mr. Dalton: There have been no exports of textile machinery rendered idle as a result of the concentration of the cotton industry.

    Alarm Clocks
    Mr. Daggarasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the difficulty experienced by mine-workers in the purchase of alarm clocks, upon which they rely in the mornings; and, in view of the importance of absenteeism regarding the production of coal, whether he will take action to provide a supply of these clocks in mining areas?
    Mr. Dalton: As I informed my hon. Friend the Member for Everton (Mr. Kirby) on 19th January last, before the war nearly all our alarm clocks were imported. I am glad to say that arrangements have now been made, with the aid
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    of my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister Resident in Washington for Supply, for limited supplies to be imported from North America. I am considering, in consultation with other Departments concerned and also with the Trades Union Congress, the best methods of distribution.
    Mr. R. J. Taylor: Will regard be had in the distribution of these clocks to industries where men start work at one or two o'clock in the morning?
    Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir, it is quite clear that in some industries the need is greater than in others. It is in order to get the best distribution of supplies that I am having these consultations.
    Sir Granville Gibson: Have any supplies reached this country? Some months ago the right hon. Gentleman said that arrangements had then been made for imports of such clocks.
    Mr. Dalton: A first instalment of some 10,000 United States clocks is now on the way.
    Mr. Murray: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in many of these districts where the old-fashioned idea of the caller-up is not in existence at present, that makes the demand for alarm clocks greater?
    Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir, I appreciate that.

    Six-Valve Wireless Sets (Price)
    Mr. Turtonasked the President of the Board of Trade the average price of six-valve wireless sets in Cairo and London, respectively?
    Mr. Dalton: I am informed that the average price, including Purchase Tax, of six-valve wireless sets in London is about £16. I have no information about the price of such sets in Cairo.
    Mr. Turton: Would my right hon. Friend make the necessary investigations to see what price the troops are having to pay in Cairo? I believe it is something like 100 per cent. in excess of the English price.
    Mr. Dalton: My hon. Friend will appreciate that I have no jurisdiction to fix prices in Cairo.

    Matches
    Sir Irving Alberyasked the President of the Board of Trade whether there is available an adequate supply of

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    matches; and what steps have been taken to ensure a fair distribution to householders?
    Mr. Dalton: Supplies of matches have been maintained at the present level for some time and are, I think, generally sufficient to meet requirements. Supplies to dealers are based on pre-war distribution, modified in accordance with movements of population.
    Sir I. Albery: What redress has a householder if the retailer he is registered with says that he cannot supply him?
    Mr. Dalton: He can go to another retailer.

    Socks, Shirts and Pullovers (Home Guard)
    Mr. Murrayasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will consider the question of making a supply of socks, shirts and pullovers available for the Home Guard; and, if this is not possible, will he consider an issue of extra coupons for the said articles?
    Mr. Dalton: Essential uniform, including battledress, greatcoat and boots, is already issued coupon-free by the War Office to Home Guards who are not compelled to purchase special shirts, socks or pullovers for military use. I regret, therefore, that in view of the increasing stringency of supplies, I cannot justify a coupon-free supply, or an issue of coupons for these articles.
    Mr. Murray: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his answer, might I ask whether he is aware that in many cases lads in the Home Guard are using up their socks very quickly, and that this creates a great disturbance in the home in regard to the supply of socks?
    Mr. Dalton: I should be extremely glad to do anything to ease the position, but here, as elsewhere, I am up against a shortage of supplies. The Home Guard do get from the War Office their uniforms, coupon free, which is a great assistance to the household wardrobe.
    Mr. Driberg: Will the right hon. gentleman bear in mind that the boots which he mentioned as being coupon free are the very things which wear the socks out more quickly?
    Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: Will the right hon. Gentleman see what can be done about getting an issue of free socks?

  BRITISH PRISONERS OF WAR
  General Sir George Jeffreysasked the Secretary of State for War whether he has received any official information on the German plan to transfer British war prisoners to Russian prison camps?
  The Secretary of State for War (Sir James Grigg): No, Sir. The rumour to which my hon. and gallant Friend is alluding was mentioned in a broadcast from a French station, which stated that, according to an Italian newspaper, the correspondent of a Swedish newspaper stationed in Berlin had reported that such a transfer was thought to be likely in what are described as "usually well-informed German circles."
  Sir G. Jeffreys: Is it hot a fact that this Paris broadcasting station is under the orders of the Germans, and is it not also a fact that the same statement was published in a German-controlled Paris newspaper?
  Sir J. Grigg: I am very grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend for the information, but my answer is the same. I have no information beyond that to which he refers.
  Sir A. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will ask the Protecting Power to inquire into conditions in Camp P.G.5 in Italy, where prisoners of war are only permitted to exercise in a small courtyard for a few minutes daily?
  Sir J. Grigg: This camp was last visited by a representative of the Protecting Power in January of this year. The reports received confirm that the facilities for exercise are not satisfactory although they have improved and are not as deficient as my hon. and gallant Friend suggests. Prisoners have unrestricted access to two small courtyards of 600 and 900 square yards from reveille to 2 p.m. and between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. During the autumn walking parties for about 12 officers were arranged twice or three times a week and the Italian Government have ordered a playing field to be prepared. Representations were made by

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  the Protecting Power direct to the Italian authorities in addition to the protest through diplomatic channels to which I referred on 6th October last.
  Sir A. Knox: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I have had a letter from a prisoner in that camp who says that he has only been allowed to go for one walk in the eight months during which he has been there and that other conditions in that camp are disgraceful; that it is a converted prison, that the prisoners are confined in cells; that the chief article of food is cabbage and that the sanitary arrangements are disgraceful?
  Sir J. Grigg: As I said in my answer, not having in my mind all the horrible details to which my hon. and gallant Friend has referred, the conditions are not satisfactory, and representations have been made through the Protecting Power.
  Mr. Bellenger: Is it not the duty of the War Office to look after our prisoners of war without waiting for questions like this to be brought to their attention?
  Sir J. Grigg: That has been done constantly, and I do not know what the hon. Member means by saying that it is not. The War Office are extremely anxious and careful to do everything they possibly can for the welfare of our prisoners.
  Viscountess Astor: Is it not true that His Holiness the Pope was supposed to look after our prisoners in Italy, and could we not ask our representative at the Vatican to look into the matter?
  Sir William Davison: Can my right hon. Friend say what is the result of the inquiries into statements made by repatriated men in Cairo that the feeding was disgraceful and contrary to the Geneva Convention?
  Sir A. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that a charge of lire 8.60 per day with retrospective effect from 1st July, 1942, is being imposed for the hire of furniture and cutlery on the 162 officers in Camp P.G.5; that this charge amounts to £560 per month at lire 72 to the £, being more than the original value of the articles; whether these charges are reciprocal to charges imposed on Italian prisoners of war in Britain; and whether he will make inquiries through the Protecting Power?
  Sir J. Grigg: I cannot at present add anything to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Prof. A. V. Hill) on 16th February. The question has been taken up with the Protecting Power.
  Sir. A. Knox: Is this charge similar to any charge imposed on Italian prisoners in this country?
  Sir J. Grigg: I would rather not answer that question without notice. I do not think so, but I would not like to be committed.
  Sir A. Knox: Would my right hon. Friend be able to give an answer next week if I put down another Question?
  Sir J. Grigg: I will give an answer before then; I will send my hon. and gallant Friend the answer.

  BRITISH ARMY

    Court-Martial Sentence
    The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Sir JOHN WARDLAW-MILNE:
    13. To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will reconsider the decision of the Military Court regarding W. C. Wood, paymaster of a certain detachment, Royal Army Pay Corps, who was dismissed the service as a result of a court-martial held on 2nd September, 1942, in view of the fact that this officer, although arrested on a charge relating to 22nd July, 1942, was tried on one relating to the 18th of that month; that the charge of 22nd July was dropped; that the accused, was ordered to be examined by a civilian medical practitioner although three medical boards had graded him permanently in category C; that the summary of evidence was taken when the defendant could not call witnesses; that the course that Lieutenant Wood began and subsequently discontinued was voluntary and no action was taken against absentees; and that the trial generally was conducted in an unsatisfactory manner?
    Mr. Speaker: I think hon. Members have been asked to try to keep Questions down to 10 lines, as far as possible. This one covers 12 lines.
    Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: This is one of the few Questions, Sir, which I think

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    could not be put in shorter terms, to give the right hon. Gentleman a chance of answering it.
    Sir J. Grigg: The proceedings of the court-martial have been carefully reviewed, and I am advised that the trial was conducted fairly according to law. I see no reason for reconsideration. The answer to the first five parts of my hon. Friend's Question is necessarily rather long, and I will, with his permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: It is difficult to ask a Supplementary Question without knowing the full reply, but do I understand from the reply, to the extent my right hon. Friend has given it, that it is not his intention to reconsider this matter, bearing in mind the fact that this man, who served in the last war and volunteered for this war, has been dismissed with ignominy from the Army for the terrible crime of refusing to undergo a fourth medical examination when he had three times been passed category C?
    Sir J. Grigg: It would be better if my hon. Friend would read the very much longer answer I am proposing to circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT. As regards his first Supplementary Question the matter has received extremely careful consideration, not only by the General Officer Commanding of the Command, but by the Judge-Advocate-General and by the Army Council, and I personally see no reason for further reconsideration.
    Mr. Gallacher: In view of the fact that some time ago the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), before he was Prime Minister, had a Question down that took up half a page on the Order Paper, am I to understand, Mr. Speaker, that since then a recommendation has been made that Questions should be confined to a certain length, as I have not heard of that before?
    Mr. Speaker: It is important, in order to save paper and for other reasons, to limit the length of Questions as much as possible.
    Following is the answer:
    Lieutenant W. C. Wood, Royal Army Pay Corps, was tried by General Court-Martial on 2nd September, 1942, and found guilty on a charge of disobeying a
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    lawful command in that he on 18th July, 1942, having been ordered by his commanding officer to be medically examined, refused to be so examined by the medical officer. He was sentenced to be dismissed from His Majesty's Service. The proceedings were confirmed by the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, and promulgated on 23rd September, 1942. Lieutenant Wood was charged on arrest with disobeying an order to attend a parade on 22nd July. It was afterwards decided to try him on a charge of disobeying a previous order on 18th July. There is nothing unusual in trying a person on a different charge from that preferred on arrest.
    The commanding officer commanded him to be medically examined, not in order to seek to override the finding of the medical boards, but to ascertain whether the accused was fit to go upon parade. The command was a lawful one and the accused was bound by the Army Act to obey it. If he felt himself wronged by his commanding officer he was entitled to submit an appeal, under Section 42 of the Army Act, but instead of doing so he took the law into his own hands. He did not dispute that he had committed an act of disobedience on 18th July, 1942. It is not stated why he could not call witnesses nor can he have been prejudiced at his trial by his failure to do so. The court tried the case on the evidence given orally before them, and not on the summary of evidence. The contention that no action was taken against other absentees from the course which Lieutenant Wood began but discontinued is not relevant to the charge on which the accused was tried, namely, that he disobeyed a lawful command on 18th July, 1942.

    Billeting Allowance
    Commander Galbraithasked the Secretary of State for War the date on which the billeting allowance for soldiers was fixed at 6d. per night?
    Sir J. Grigg: This rate has been in force since the beginning of the last war.
    Commander Galbraith: Is my right hon. Friend aware that since 1914 there has been a very great difference in the cost of the various items required in connection with billeting, and will he take steps to go into the matter and have it adjusted to an economic level?
    Sir J. Grigg: I gather that there have been adjustments in the food part of the billeting allowance, and I will consider whether the rent allowance also needs re-consideration.
    Mr. Cluse: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether billeted soldiers still receive beer money as in Victorian times?

    Sentences on Officers (Review)
    Mr. Granvilleasked the Secretary of State for War whether it is the rule to review, every three months, as in the case of other ranks, the sentences of officers who are imprisoned in a civil prison as the result of trial by military court-martial; and whether it is the practice to call up such individuals for military service upon their release after having served their sentence?
    Sir J. Grigg: A sentence of imprisonment imposed on an officer is usually reviewed in the War Office within a few weeks of its promulgation and thereafter every six months from the beginning of the sentence. I am informed that the answer to the last part of the Question is "Yes, Sir."
    Mr. Granville: In cases where the sentences were imposed for something akin to an indiscretion, will the right hon. Gentleman consider a further remission to enable these ex-officers to go and fight overseas?
    Sir J. Grigg: The particular case to which the hon. Member refers—which is a case with which I am very familiar—was a great deal worse than an indiscretion.
    Mr. Granville: Does the date of calling-up papers coincide with the date of release from prison?
    Sir J. Grigg: I cannot say.

    Rifle Range, Warrington
    Mr. Goldieasked the Secretary of State for War under what Defence of the Realm Regulation he has authorised the resumption of firing on the rifle range at Orford Barracks, Warrington, notwithstanding that such range has been condemned; and whether he is prepared to assume financial responsibility for injuries
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    to civilians resident in the neighbourhood and for damage to property caused by the resumption of such firing?
    Sir J. Grigg: The range is on War Department land, and no recourse to Defence Regulations is necessary for the Army to use it. It has always been considered safe by the competent military authorities, and no accident seems likely to occur either to civilian residents in the neighbourhood or to their property. I understand that children cannot now enter the danger area of the range while it is being used. But if injury or damage is done and if it is established that it is due to the negligence of military personnel on duty, a claim for compensation will be considered in the normal way. I much regret the inconvenience from noise caused to local inhabitants by firing on this range. Unfortunately the needs of training make it unavoidable. I hope, however, that it will be possible to restrict firing to certain fixed times and so limit the inconvenience as far as possible.
    Mr. Messer: Can we really have a war without inconvenience?

    Headquarters Staff, Cairo.
    Mr. Turtonasked the Secretary of State for War the percentage reduction in the staff of General Headquarters, Middle East Force, since the formation of Allied Group Headquarters?
    Sir J. Grigg: I regret that the percentage is not readily available.
    Mr. Turton: In view of the problem of man-power and the change in the military situation, is it not timely now to review the very considerable force of staff officers at Cairo?
    Sir J. Grigg: This is a question which is continually under review.
    Mr. Molson: If my right hon. Friend is not able to give the percentage, can he give, at any rate, the assurance that some reduction has taken place in the headquarters staff?
    Sir J. Grigg: The process of adjusting the staff and the Forces in the Middle East to the military tasks which they are called upon to perform is one which is going on constantly.
    Mr. Turton: Will the Secretary of State for War give an undertaking that the staff at Cairo is reviewed at an early date?
    Sir J. Grigg: As I said, the review is constantly going on, and in fact papers relating to the question are on my table now.

    Troops, North Africa (Reading Matter)
    Mr. Turtonasked the Secretary of State for War what steps he is taking to increase the supply of reading matter to troops fighting in Tunisia?
    Sir J. Grigg: I regret that no shipping space could be allocated for books and magazines until the military stores and equipment vitally needed for operations in North Africa had been despatched. On 1st February over 100,000 books and over 10,000 magazines and journals were despatched. Since then consignments have been sent regularly at the rate of about 10,000 books and 9,500 magazines and journals a month. I hope, therefore, that the First Army will shortly have a good supply of reading matter. The Eighth Army is supplied with reading matter from the Middle East; 21,000 books and over 70,000 magazines and journals have for some time been despatched to the Middle East every month. I fully appreciate the need of the soldier for as much reading matter as possible and the supplies now being sent will be increased if shipping space is available and if sufficient books and magazines are forthcoming. I take this opportunity of expressing the Army's thanks to all those who have sent books and magazines for the use of the troops. The demand is as great as ever, and I am sure we may count on the continued help of the public in meeting it.
    Mr. Turton: While appreciating the great work which has been done in this connection, may I ask the Minister whether he is aware that in February there was a very great shortage of reading matter among the troops of the Eighth Army and that this plays a vital part in maintaining morale between battles?
    Sir J. Grigg: I would not accept the view that it was the most vital part, although I agree it is a vital part. As I have said, conditions of shipping from
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    time to time make for a certain inequality in the despatch of materials to the Middle East.
    Mr. Quintin Hogg: Will the Minister bear in mind the question of quality of reading matter as well as quantity?
    Sir J. Grigg: That is in the hands of a body—I have forgotten its full designation—which pays particular attention to that sort of thing.
    Mr. Gallacher: Will the Minister make application to the headquarters of the Communist Party so that instead of sending a good supply of reading matter he will be able to send a supply of good reading matter?

    Route Marches (Bands)
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Mooreasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider arranging for formal route marches to take place periodically through the nearest towns to military camps accompanied by military bands?
    Sir J. Grigg: This is done whenever opportunities occur. But most route marching is done as part of the unit's operational training. The bandsmen are then employed on their operational duties, and no band accompanies the unit.
    Sir T. Moore: While I dislike harping on this subject, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that this arrangement of bands accompanying troops who are in the public eye is good for the troops themselves and most invigorating for civilians?
    Sir J. Grigg: I quite agree, but I should not put it down as the most important part of troops' training.
    Mr. Thorne: Will the Minister bear in mind the fact that a great number of men who are working on munitions at night have to sleep in the day-time?

    Coastal Areas (Restrictions)
    Sir Leonard Lyleasked the Secretary of State for War whether, as the uncertainty regarding the sudden imposition of a ban on access to protected areas within 10 miles of the coast will have a disastrous effect on the economic life of many places of residence and business, he will endeavour to arrange some system of notification which will at least enable

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    those both inside and outside the areas in question to ascertain how they are likely to stand within the next 24 hours?
    Sir J. Grigg: I much regret the effects these restrictions may have in the areas concerned, and I can assure my hon. Friend that the Army will endeavour to cause as little interference as possible with the normal life of the residents in those areas. The restrictions will be imposed for strictly military reasons, and although as much notice as possible will be given locally in each case, I regret that no guarantee can be given of the length of this notice.
    Sir L. Lyle: While I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer, and while nobody wishes to give information to the enemy, would he not agree that in order to save travel and disturbance to people generally there ought to be some method by which people can get to know whether a ban is on or not?

    Home Guard Munition Dumps, Manchester
    Mr. Thorneycroftasked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that quantities of ammunition, including hand grenades, have been stolen from Home Guard dumps in Manchester; and will he cause instructions to be issued to all Home Guard units to take greater care in the storage of arms and ammunition in the interest of public safety?
    Mr. Burkeasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Home Guard munition dumps in the Manchester area have recently been broken into by children and bombs and hand grenades stolen causing great anxiety to parents and police authorities; and will he give instructions for better storage or a more adequate guard?
    Sir J. Grigg: I have called for a report, and when I receive it will consider what further action is necessary. But clear instructions for the safeguarding of Home Guard ammunition stores have already been issued to Home Guard commanders.
    Sir Herbert Williams: Does that also apply to clothing and equipment?
    Sir J. Grigg: I should think so.

    Soldiers Overseas (Marriage)
    Mr. Bellengerasked the Secretary of State for War what representations have been made to him by welfare organisations regarding marriage of soldiers serving overseas and individuals resident in this country; and whether he can make any statement on this matter?
    Sir J. Grigg: I have seen some representations on this subject that were made to the Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East Forces by the local advisory committee of a welfare organisation. These representations have received careful consideration, but I regret that it is not possible to make any statement on the matter at the moment.
    Mr. Bellenger: Is the Minister taking any further action on those representations? Can he say whether he will be in a position to make a statement later?
    Sir J. Grigg: It is not for me to make a statement. Mine is only one Department of those concerned in this matter.
    Mr. Bellenger: Will the Minister answer the first part of my Supplementary Question? Is he taking action on those representations?
    Sir J. Grigg: I have taken all the action which is appropriate to me for the time being.

    Medical Examination (Female Medical Officers)
    Mr. Bellengerasked the Secretary of State for War whether soldiers can be compelled to submit to a medical examination by female medical officers?
    Sir J. Grigg: A soldier may be compelled to be medically examined whether the examination is carried out by a male or a female doctor.
    Mr. Bellenger: Is the Minister aware that this is not a matter of amusement for a large number of soldiers who object to it? Is it compulsory for a soldier to undergo a routine medical inspection by a female medical officer when a male medical officer is available? Further, does this rule apply to officers as well as to other ranks?
    Mrs. Tate: Is the hon. Member desirous of having these sensitive men nursed by male nurses? Is it not in the interests

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    of all that the best person available should do the job?
    Sir J. Grigg: The Question I was asked was as to the legality of this and not as to its expediency. I have answered the Question as to the legality and not as to the expediency.
    Mr. Bellenger: Mine was a perfectly legitimate Supplementary. I am asking the Minister whether it is legal when there is present a male medical officer who can conduct the examination?

    Major-General Sir Percy Laurie
    Mr. Evelyn Walkdenasked the Secretary of State for War whether, in considering the appointment of Major-General Sir P. R. Laurie as Provost Marshal of Great Britain, he was aware that Sir Percy was chairman of the Divisional Conservative and Unionist Association for the area where he resides; and whether he can give an assurance that he is no longer actively engaged in party politics?
    Sir J. Grigg: Sir Percy Laurie was appointed Provost Marshal in 1940. I understand that he ceased to be chairman of the Divisional Conservative and Unionist Association in 1939. There is, moreover, no record that he has since then been actively engaged in party politics.

  SCOTLAND

    Housing, Clydebank
    Mr. Kirkwoodasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware that the housing shortage in Clydebank is so great that men engaged on urgent war production are unable to house their families; and in view of the serious effect of this shortage on the health of the children, will he arrange for priority to be given to the housing needs of such families?
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Westwood): My right hon. Friend understands that the town council give special consideration to the claims of homeless war workers in the letting of any houses under their control and that they have come to an arrangement with the property owners under which a preference is given to such workers as respects the letting of privately owned houses. As the
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    hon. Member has already been informed, my right hon. Friend is prepared in suitable cases to authorise the requisitioning of privately owned houses for war workers and their families. In addition, special arrangements have been made under which Clydebank workers who have lost their homes and are unable to obtain suitable accommodation in Clydebank may be found accommodation in Glasgow.
    Mr. Kirkwood: Is my hon. Friend aware that people in Clydebank are refusing to go into the slums of Glasgow?
    Mr. Westwood: I am aware that in some cases they have declined to go to the houses that have been requisitioned for them, but not in all cases of refusal have the properties been in slum areas.
    Mrs. Hardie: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is no surplus accommodation in Glasgow for anyone? People are crying out for houses and, in many parts, are living in horrible conditions.
    Mr. Buchanan: Is my hon. Friend aware that the policy of transferring people to Glasgow is making the position terribly acute and that it is no solution for the people of Clydebank, as it only makes the position more intolerable? It is disgraceful.
    Mr. Kirkwoodasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has considered the typical cases of hardship to the families of Service men and war workers resulting from the housing shortage in Clydebank, which have been sent to him by the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs; and whether he will take steps to relieve these and similar cases?
    Mr. Westwood: Inquiries are being made into the cases referred to by the hon. Member, and my right hon. Friend will communicate with him as soon as these inquiries have been completed.
    Mr. Gallacher: Is it not the case that there are very many large houses around the area that could be taken over by the Secretary of State for Scotland and put to use to serve the needs of some of these families?
    Mr. Westwood: The Secretary of State has given full powers to the local authorities to requisition the houses which they consider to be desirable for the purpose of accommodating our people.

    Crofters (Dr. Fraser Darling's Visits)
    Major McCallumasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware that the services of the naturalist and crofter, Dr. Fraser Darling, are only to be available for visits and demonstrations to those crofters situated between Moidart, in Inverness-shire, and Kinlochbervie, in Sutherlandshire; and whether he will take steps for the crofters of Argyllshire also to benefit from Dr. Fraser Darling's visits and demonstrations?
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Allan Chapman): Dr. Fraser Darling's appoinment is on a part-time basis only, and in view of this I am afraid it will not be possible for him to cover the wide territory suggested in the hon. Member's Question. It is hoped that through the medium of articles in the local Press Dr. Darling will be able to give advice to crofters outside the 100-mile long area in which he will presently operate.

    Dairy Cattle (Diseases)
    Mrs. Hardieasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has considered the request from the Scottish Association of Certified and Tuberculin-Tested Milk Producers, calling attention to the inadequate scientific research being made into the causes and treatment of diseases in dairy cattle, and asking that a Scottish research organisation should be set up; and what action he proposes to take?
    Major Lloydasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has given consideration to the resolution recently sent to him by the Scottish Association of Certified and Tuberculin-tested Milk Producers concerning scientific research into the causes and probable cure of mastitis; and what action he is proposing to take in the matter?
    Mr. Chapman: My right hon. Friend has recently received the communication from the Association to which the hon. Members refer and is giving it careful consideration. In the meantime I should point out that research into cattle diseases, including mastitis, is being actively pursued with financial assistance from the Government under the general guidance of the Agricultural Research Council at various centres in Scotland and elsewhere. It is clearly desirable that investigations on these diseases, wherever they are carried out,
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    should be closely co-ordinated, and this is ensured by the existing arrangements. In Scotland the Council work in association with the Scottish Board of Research in Veterinary Science, which includes in its membership eight Professors of the Science Faculties of Scottish Universities and six leading members of the veterinary profession in Scotland.
    Mrs. Hardie: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that those who are trying to provide disease-free milk should be given encouragement and that they are of opinion that the research is not sufficiently comprehensive, and would it not be a good thing to turn some fresh minds to this particular question?
    Mr. Chapman: My right hon. Friend is fully seized of the importance of this subject, which is constantly under review, but the hon. Lady will appreciate the difficulties of getting hold of the right people at this stage of the war.
    Mr. Snadden: Is my hon. Friend aware that of the four main diseases affecting dairy cattle, mastitis is the most deadly, and that the laboratory facilities existing in Scotland at the present time are quite inadequate to deal effectively with this disease, and will he not consider, in the interests of public health in Scotland, setting up the organisation that was suggested in the resolution to which the hon. Lady has referred?
    Mr. Chapman: I am fully aware of the importance of dealing with mastitis, which is a deadly scourge, but I must point out that there are great difficulties in increasing research facitilies in war-time, although we are doing all that we can.

  FUEL AND POWER

    Point of Ayr Collieries (Control)
    Mr. Rowlandsasked the Minister of Fuel and Power why he has found it necessary to take over the control of the Point of Ayr Collieries, Ffynnongroew, Flintshire?
    Sir Stanley Reedasked the Minister of Fuel and Power what the reasons were for the issue of the Order to take over the Ffynnongroew Colliery, Flintshire, from the Point of Ayr Collieries, Limited;

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    whether any criticisms had been made of its management; whether he is aware that it had the highest output per man of all the collieries in North Wales and the best safety record, and had been free from stoppages since the great coal strike of 1924; and whether his attention has been directed to the comments of Mr. Justice Singleton in giving judgment in the appeal against the vesting order?
    Mr. Colegateasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether, in view of Mr. Justice Singleton's remarks on the imposition of control on the Point of Ayr Colliery, he will now remove this control?
    Colonel Sir A. Lambert Wardasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether his attention has been called to the comments made by the learned Judge in the case of Point of Ayr Collieries, Limited, versus Lloyd George and others; and whether he still intends to take over the control of the colliery?
    Mr. Wootton-Daviesasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether his attention has been called to the remarks of Mr. Justice Singleton in the case of the Point of Ayr Collieries, Limited, versus Lloyd George and others; and what action he intends to take?
    Sir L. Lyleasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he can make any statement as to the output and degree of efficiency of the Point of Ayr Colliery in Flintshire prior to taking over control of that undertaking; how its efficiency compared with other pits of the same character; what increase of efficiency there has been since it was taken over; and whether he can make a short statement as to the reason for this change of control?
    Mr. Simmondsasked the Minister of Fuel and Power what was the condition of affairs at the Point of Ayr Colliery which decided him to place this colliery under his own control?
    Mr. Ralph Ethertonasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is aware that the High Court Judge who tried the case of Point of Ayr Collieries, Limited, against Lloyd George and others, indicated in his judgment that in making a Control Order his Department appeared to have acted both lightly, unfairly and without good cause; what safeguards or rights of appeal are available in such an
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    event; and what action he proposes to take?
    The Minister of Fuel and Power (Major Lloyd George): The decision to take control of this undertaking, whose technical efficiency has never been in dispute, was only reached after the most careful consideration, lasting many months. There has been considerable friction, extending over several years, in the North Wales coalfield as a result of the refusal of the undertaking to agree to the request of the North Wales and Border Counties Mine Workers' Association to be allowed the same facilities on behalf of its members at this colliery as are allowed to the Association at all the other collieries in the district. My hon. Friends will appreciate that the co-operation of all engaged in the industry is vital to the war effort. Repeated attempts have been made to remove the causes of this friction by my Department. The North Wales Coal-owners' Association have also done everything in their power to assist; this resulted in the resignation of the Point of Ayr Collieries from the Coalowners' Association.
    During my visit to the district last autumn, I realised that the situation was becoming worse, and I was seriously perturbed as to the effect it would have on production in the whole district. Since then I have kept in constant touch with my Regional Controller in the North Western area. His reports showed quite clearly that the situation was becoming steadily worse. I further received in the middle of January last a confidential report from Sir John Forster, who had been appointed, at my request, by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service to make an independent investigation. Sir John came to the conclusion that if the causes of the friction were not removed there might be trouble throughout the North Wales coalfield. Accordingly it became my duty to consider whether this situation might not seriously affect the production of coal. I decided that having regard to all the history of this matter there was no means of bringing the friction to an end, other than by taking control of the undertaking under Defence Regulation 55 (4). While I am willing at any time to consider removing the control, I must first be satisfied that the danger to the war effort, which led me to impose it, has been

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    removed and will not recur. I am not so satisfied at present.
    My attention has been called to the comments of Mr. Justice Singleton. I was advised that as the Courts had no jurisdiction to consider the reasonableness of my Order, and as my responsibility in this matter was to Parliament, and in particular to this House, it would not be correct, either legally or constitutionally, for evidence to be submitted to the Court as to my reasons for making this Order. A submission to this effect was made to Mr. Justice Singleton by the Solicitor-General and no evidence was therefore called on my behalf. The learned Judge decided the case in my favour, on the ground that I was the responsible person and that I had the right to make this Order. Mr. Justice Singleton's comments on my conduct were, therefore, made in the absence of any evidence on my behalf and it is, I think, right that I should add that the learned Judge made it clear that these comments were outside his province in the case.
    Mr. Rowlands: Is it not a fact that the relationships between the employers and the employees have been most cordial at this colliery and that there has been no stoppage there since 1926, which is unique not only in the history of this region but in the history of pits throughout the whole country?
    Major Lloyd George: That has nothing to do with the point I made, which was that there are in this colliery a large number of men who belong to a union and who desire the same rights at this colliery as are available in every other colliery throughout the country. My only interest is to see that everybody is treated alike.
    Mr. Simmonds: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend really tell us specifically what was the reason for this action?
    Major Lloyd George: If my hon. Friend will read my answer to-morrow, he will find the reason there, and that is the only reason, and I have nothing to add to what I have said.
    Mr. Austin Hopkinson: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend tell us in what specific cases this colliery company has not provided facilities for the Miners' Federation?
    Major Lloyd George: I could not do that by means of question and answer, but I can assure my hon. Friend that I have given more attention to this matter than to any other single administrative item since I have been in the Department, I could give many instances where there have been both discourtesy and provocation.
    Mr. Colegate: Can my right hon. and gallant Friend give us the percentage of the men concerned whom he referred to as a large number?
    Major Lloyd George: It is an increasing number, and I will say that at this moment it is over 50 per cent. of those engaged in colliery work.
    Mr. Molson: Are we to understand from the Minister's reply, contrary to what has been stated, that the management of that pit had an opportunity of making representations to the Minister before he availed himself of this power?
    Major Lloyd George: They have had plenty of opportunity over a good many years, and I can assure my hon. Friend that of all the people concerned in this dispute no one knows the reason for this action better than does the colliery management.
    Sir John Mellor: Was not the Minister's action entirely contrary to the intention of the Regulation, even if it was within the legal limits?
    Major Lloyd George: No, Sir. The purpose of making this Regulation was to safeguard the safety of the Realm and to ensure that supplies were not endangered. I was satisfied, after the most careful consideration, that supplies would be endangered if some action was not taken.
    Mr. Rowlands: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I intend to raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

    Use of Petrol (Whitefields Patient)
    Mr. Wootton-Daviesasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he will investigate the circumstances under which, owing to the action of the Barrow-in-Furness local authority in refusing the use of their ambulance to a Whitefields

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    patient, petrol was wasted in a 200 miles journey, of which the full facts have been sent to him?
    Major Lloyd George: Yes, Sir.

    Youths (Underground Work, Mines)
    Mr. Dobbieasked the Minister of Fuel and Power (1) on what authority he has issued the instruction for youths who work at pit tops to be directed to underground work in the mines;
    (2) what rights of appeal a youth who works at a pit top has against a direction to proceed to underground working; and is the pit production committee consulted before such direction is issued;
    (3) whether he will take into consideration the position of lads who are employed at pit tops and are compelled to proceed to underground in the mines with a view to giving them the same option of choice, between service with His Majesty's Forces or the mines, as is given to lads in other forms of employment?
    Major Lloyd George: In giving directions, under powers conferred upon him by Defence Regulation 58A to ensure the most efficient use of the man-power available in the coalmining industry, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service acts in close consultation with me. I have asked him to use his powers in appropriate cases to direct to underground employment surface workers between the ages of 18 and 25 at the date of registration, in order that men who are physically fit and whose work on the surface could be done by older or less fit men might relieve the serious shortage of underground workers. Pit Production Committees are not asked as a general rule to give advice on the cases appropriate for the receipt of directions, but those directed have in every case an opportunity of appeal to local Appeal Boards established by the Ministry of Labour and National Service. In view of the shortage of man-power in the underground occupations and in the age groups to which I have referred, I am not prepared to suggest to my right hon. Friend that such men should be free to choose between work underground or service in His Majesty's Forces.
    Mr. Dobbie: In view of the fact that it has not been the general practice prior to the war, and in view of the terms of imprisonment to which young men have
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    been sentenced and the great resentment that has been caused in mining areas, and of the danger of making criminals rather than miners, will not the Minister again consider the question?
    Major Lloyd George: I do not think I could do that. It is of the greatest urgency to get men to work underground, and I cannot see in these days, when people are sent all over the world, that any real hardship is suffered by people being asked to go underground.
    Mr. E. Walkden: Where lads have been attending technical colleges and training as craftsmen and engineers, is it not reasonable that they should be afforded the opportunity, if they wish it, to join the Royal Air Force, as many of them desire to do?
    Major Lloyd George: We shall need more of those very technicians. We have not a surplus at the moment.

  POST-WAR AIRCRAFT MANUFACTURE
  Mr. Astorasked the Prime Minister whether any decision has been taken by the Government as to whether the manufacture of civil aircraft is or is not to be nationalised after the war; and whether he can give assurances that the House of Commons will be consulted before any final decision is taken and that no wartime measures will be used to prevent existing firms with long and successful experience in this work from resuming it after the war?
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): His Majesty's Government have taken no decision about the nationalisation after the war of the manufacture of aircraft, whether for civilian or military purposes. I cannot conceive that the Government would embark upon such a policy with all its implications without consulting not only the House but the country. As to the last part of the Question, there is no intention to use the war-time powers to prejudice unjustly any existing firm or their shareholders. Decisions as to the future policy of the State in time of peace must be taken on general grounds and by regular constitutional means and not as a result of the application of war-time measures in particular instances.
  Mr. Astor: Will the Government take immediate practical steps to ensure that shareholders will be able to get their property back through having the shares which the Government have taken over registered in their names, or some other practical measure of that sort?
  The Prime Minister: I have nothing to add to my answer.
  Mr. Granville: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that we shall have no civil aircraft at all after the war unless we prepare our designs now?
  Sir H. Williams: As the Emergency Powers Act will last until His Majesty by Proclamation declares the present emergency at an end and as, judging by the precedent of the last war, that may not happen until two years after the termination of hostilities, can we have some assurance that emergency powers will not be used for exceptional purposes after the termination of hostilities?
  The Prime Minister: Our policy is everything for the war and, after the war is won, fair, free review under normal political conditions.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SCOTLAND)
Mr. Gallacherasked the Prime Minister whether he will allocate more time for the discussion of Scottish Business or, alternately, will he arrange for the re-establishment of the Scottish Grand Committee for the discussion of purely Scottish Business?
Mr. Kirkwoodasked the Prime Minister whether he has any statement to make on the allocation of time for Scottish Business?
The Prime Minister: I am not aware of any ground for reconsidering at present the time allotted to the discussion of purely Scottish Business, which does not appear to have suffered restriction in comparison with other Business of the House as a result of war-time conditions. In the present abnormal circumstances the Government feel it impracticable to refer Bills to Standing Committees, for reasons which will be readily understood in all quarters of the House.
Mr. Gallacher: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the Scottish
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Grand Committee could meet in Scotland on Monday, do its business, travel on Monday night and submit the result to the House on Tuesday? Would not that be an advantage, in view of the way Business is all cluttered up at present?
The Prime Minister: Whether it would be an advantage or not I cannot now discuss, but it certainly does not arise out of the Question.
Mr. Kirkwood: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that all that we are after is justice for Scotland?
The Prime Minister: It is the most earnest desire of the Government that justice in the fullest measure should be given to that gallant nation.
Sir Alfred Beit: Would it be too much to ask that the two hon. Members should concentrate their attention exclusively on Scottish affairs?
Mr. John Dugdale: Could we have a day set apart for English affairs?

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Government-Acquired Private Undertakings (Post-War Disposal)
  Mr. Simmondsasked the Prime Minister whether he will give an assurance that it is the intention of the Government eventually to restore to private enterprise undertakings which have been purchased by the State in the name of increased war production?
  Mr. Astorasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider a procedure whereby, in cases where the shares of a firm are compulsorily acquired under war-time measures without the consent of the shareholders, they should be held in trust during the war and, after the war, offered to the former shareholders at a price fixed by a similar procedure to that whereby they were acquired?
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): I have been asked to reply. I am not clear precisely for what purpose my hon. Friend the Member for East Fulham (Mr. Astor) suggests the creation of a trust. Where shares are acquired to secure effective control of an undertaking they are transferred to the Treasury Solicitor and held by him on behalf of the Government. The disposal of the shares cannot be very well dis-

  493
  sociated from the larger question of disposal of property and assets of various kinds acquired or created by the Government during the war. On this point, as I informed my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth on 1st April (Sir A. Russell), the question is receiving preliminary study, but decisions as to the scope and method of such disposals will depend upon a variety of circumstances and considerations which cannot be fully assessed at the present time, including, of course, the possibility of changes in the nature and value of the assets while they have been in Government hands.
  Mr. Simmonds: Is it not a fact that the trade unions have received from the Government a formal assurance as to the restitution of their proper rights after hostilities, and does not my right hon. Friend think that both equity and constitutional government demand that a similar assurance should be given to private enterprise?
  Sir K. Wood: I think the Prime Minister has covered a good deal of that in his reply.
  Mr. Astor: Will my right hon. Friend give existing shareholders receipts for the shares when they are taken over, so that they will be able to put forward a claim for them subsequently?
  Sir K. Wood: I will consider that.

  Post-War Monetary Policy
  Mr De la Bèreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the numerous pronouncements on reserve banking emanating from the United States of America, he will give an assurance that it is not the intention of His Majesty's Government to participate in the establishment of a world reserve bank; and whether he is now in a position to give some further indication of their proposed actions to ensure the necessary flow of credit to restore industry and commerce at the conclusion of hostilities?
  Sir K. Wood: I think my hon. Friend might find it convenient to await the publication of the White Paper, which will indicate the way in which this subject is being examined and which will be available to Members to-morrow.
  Mr. De la Bère: Does not my right hon. Friend realise one central and vital fact that the only true solution of this prob-
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  lem is the establishment of social and economic justice?
  Mr. Craven-Ellisasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, before this country is committed to any proposals for post-war stabilisation of currency, which the coming conference in the United States of America of finance ministers, or their representatives, of the United Nations might recommend, he will give this House an assurance that they will have an opportunity to debate the recommendations?
  Sir K. Wood: If it is the general desire of the House to have a Debate on this and other aspects of post-war monetary policy after the publication of the forthcoming White Paper, I have no doubt that such a proposal would receive careful consideration.
  Mr. Craven-Ellis: If we accept the American plan for currency stabilisation in full, will it not ultimately result in Britain losing her monetary freedom, and do the Government give it support?
  Sir K. Wood: I would ask my hon. Friend to see the American plan before making any criticisms.
  Mr. Hammersley: Does the answer mean that the Debate is to take place in circumstances in which no commitments have been entered into?
  Sir K. Wood: I would ask my hon. Friend to await the publication of the White Paper to-morrow, when he will see that question answered.
  Mr. Kirkwood: Is there any truth in the rumour that the Chancellor will increase the Income Tax?
  Mr. Craven Ellisasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his representatives at the conference called by the Secretary of the United States Treasury, will be authorised to submit to the conference for discussion the post-war currency proposals formulated by his advisers?
  Sir K. Wood: I would ask my hon. Friend to await the publication of the White Paper.
  Mr. Craven-Ellisasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will publish the names of those who will represent the Treasury at the conference to

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  which the Secretary of State of the United States Treasury has invited them, together with representatives of the United Nations, to discuss currency stabilisation and other post-war monetary plans?
  Sir K. Wood: The present informal discussions with experts in the Departments of the United States Government are being conducted, in the ordinary course of business, by a responsible official of the Treasury, who is stationed in Washington. If arrangements are made for a more formal conference, His Majesty's Government will consider whether any additional representation is desirable.

  Earned Income From United States (Double Taxation)
  Mr. E. P. Smithasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that persons resident in this country who are in receipt of an earned income from the United States of America are liable to American as well as British Income Tax, amounting in all to 13s. in the £; and whether, in view of the need to encourage by every possible means this type of importation of dollars, he will consider giving such persons a proportional rebate on their British tax to bring them into line with the rest of the British taxpayers?
  Sir K. Wood: The provisions of our law relating to relief from double taxation do not extend to earned income that may be subject to both United States Income Tax and United Kingdom Income Tax, but the United States tax would generally be allowed as a deduction in computing the income chargeable to United Kingdom tax. I am not clear as to the type of case which my hon. Friend has in mind, and I should be glad if he would furnish me with particulars.
  Mr. Smith: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the practice of many professional men and women who sell their services or their work to the United States for dollar payments and so incur this double taxation?

  Tax Concessions
  Sir I. Alberyasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will issue an indexed list of all concessions of general interest made for Income Tax, Surtax and Excess Profits Tax purposes similar to his Department's recent publication on the
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  Income Tax and Finance Acts, so that information as to these concessions may be readily available to the general public?
  Sir K. Wood: As my hon. Friend is doubtless aware, certain matters he refers to have already been the subject of announcement in Parliament, and various taxation pamphlets have also been issued. The Board of Inland Revenue have now under consideration how the work and collection of the Excess Profits Tax can be facilitated by further publicity.

BEVERIDGE REPORT (SALES)
Mr. Clement Daviesasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how many copies have been sold of the full Report by Sir William Beveridge, the abridged edition of the same and the American edition of the same?
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Assheton): The sales, in round figures, of the full Report are 250,000, of the abridged edition 350,000 and of the American edition 42,000.
Sir S. Reed: Will my hon. Friend tell the House how many of those copies have been read?

COLONIES (ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL REFORMS)
Mr. Granvilleasked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he proposes to consult the Dominion Governments on the question of future economic and political reforms in the British Colonies?
The Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (Mr. Emrys-Evans): It is the established policy of the Government to consult Dominion Governments on major questions of policy which are of common concern to the whole Empire, including major issues of Colonial policy.
Mr. Granville: Was General Smuts consulted before the recent declaration on Colonial policy?
Mr. Emrys-Evans: I shall have to have notice of that Question.

AFFORESTATION
Major Kimballasked the right hon. and gallant Member for Rye, as representing the Forestry Commissioners, whether

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he will state for England and Wales and for Scotland, separately, the total area of woodland; the total area under the charge of the Forestry Commission; the planted area under the charge of the Forestry Commission and the areas still to be afforested; and the estimated area in Scotland which is unsuitable for afforestation?
Colonel Sir George Courthope (Forestry Commissioner): The total area of woodland, in England and Wales, according to the latest estimate is 2,040,000 acres and in Scotland 1,040,000 acres. The total area in England and Wales under the charge of the Forestry Commission is 629,000 acres and in Scotland 603,000. These figures include (a) planted area in England and Wales 325,000 acres and in Scotland 183,000, (b) area still to be afforested in England and Wales 139,000 acres and in Scotland 118,000, and (c) area unsuitable for afforestation 165,000 acres in England and Wales and 302,000 in Scotland of which 280,000 acres are too poor for afforestation.
Major Kimball: Are those figures a correction or an amplification of the figures which my right hon. and gallant Friend gave on 2nd February in reply to a Question by the hon. and gallant Member for Argyll (Major McCallum)?
Sir G. Courthope: They are a clarification and an amplification.
Mr. John Dugdale: How much of this is hard wood and how much soft wood?
Sir G. Courthope: I could not say without notice.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Arthur Greenwood: In view of the fact that the Committee stage of the Catering Wages Bill was not finished last Thursday, as it was generally assumed it would be, could the Prime Minister make a statement on the course of Business for to-day and the next Sitting Days?
The Prime Minister: As my right hon. Friend has reminded us, the Committee stage of the Catering Wages Bill was not completed last Thursday, and in consequence we must resume and conclude the Committee stage to-day. We shall also take the Motion to approve the China Clay (Charges) Order.
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The Business previously anounced for consideration to-day will be taken on the next Sitting Day, and the Business for the next Sitting Day will be taken on the third Sitting Day. The Debate on Colonial Administration in the West Indies will have to be postponed till a later date.
I may say that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, the Leader of the House, has returned quite safely to this country after a most successful mission in the United States. The journey was not without its rigorous aspects, and I thought that it would be advisable that he should have a day or two in the country after the very strenuous time he has been having. He will, however, be ready on the third Sitting Day, if the House will think it convenient, to give an account of his mission which will not be of a controversial character in any way. I trust that the House will welcome that procedure being adopted.
Mr. Gallacher: In view of the Catering Wages Bill being carried over till to-day, will the Prime Minister seriously consider an extra Sitting Day?
The Prime Minister: I am not advised that that will be necessary. The Government are always watching the movement of Business to get as much done as possible with the greatest convenience to Members.
Mr. Maxton: The Prime Minister said that the statement of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will not be controversial. Does that mean that the House will not have an opportunity of discussing it?
The Prime Minister: That was the idea I was endeavouring tactfully to insinuate.
Earl Winterton: Shall we have the Prayer in which many hon. Members are greatly interested on the second or third Sitting Day?
The Prime Minister: The next Sitting Day is the day appointed for the Prayer.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS
Report from the Joint Committee with Minutes of Evidence in respect of the War Damage Bill [Lords] (pending in the Lords), brought up and read; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed [No. 73].
MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS
That they have passed a Bill intituled "An Act to make better provision for regulating the capital of the Grand Union Canal Company, and the administration of their affairs; to confer further powers on the Company, and for other purposes."—[Grand Union Canal Company Bill [Lords].
MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS
  GRAND UNION CANAL COMPANY BILL [Lords]
  Read the First time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
"That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)".—[The Prime Minister.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  CATERING WAGES BILL
  Considered in Committee [Progress, 1st April].
  [Major MILNER in the Chair]
  Clause 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 15.—(Orders and regulations.)
Captain Peter Macdonald: I beg to move, in page 11, line 24, to leave out from "and" to the end of the Sub-section, and to insert:
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"shall not come into force until each House of Parliament has sat on forty days after the order or regulation has been laid before it, and if either House within the next forty days on which it has sat after the order or regulation has been laid before it resolves that the order or regulation he annulled it shall thenceforth be void but without prejudice to the making of a new order or regulation."
The reason I move this Amendment is that as the Clause stands it is possible for an Order to be laid on the Table for 40 days during part of which time Parliament is not sitting. I think it is only reasonable that Parliament should have sufficient time in which to consider any Order.
Sir Herbert Williams: I hope that the Minister will give very careful consideration to this Amendment, because we are drifting rapidly away from the principles of the Rules (Publication) Act, under which there is an elaborate procedure to ensure that before Rules are made they are open to examination and inspection and to give everybody concerned ample opportunities for making representations. Recently, and more particularly under the Emergency Powers Act, where I admit it is necessary for quick action to be taken, an Order has immediate operation before Parliament has had any opportunity to consider it. There cannot be the same urgency in this case, and therefore I think we ought to shift from the basis that the Order comes into operation as soon as the Minister makes it but can subsequently be annulled by a Prayer in Parliament to the basis that it does not come into operation until 40 days-after it has been laid. In that period there will be an opportunity to submit a Prayer and possibly annul the Order before any action is taken. In other words, the House of Commons—in fact, both Houses of Parliament—ought as far as possible to retain effective control over legislation, except where on grounds of urgency that control ought not to be retained. Therefore, I think there is a very powerful case for this Amendment on democratic grounds, because we are drifting much too rapidly in the direction of Fascism. Much of our legislation to-day is in principle essentially Fascist, and I am horrified to see that the least opposition to Fascism comes from hon. Members of the Labour Party, who do not appreciate the real significance of what is happening.
The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): I would ask my hon. and gallant Friend to withdraw his Amendment. I was very careful about this matter, because I knew that I should upset the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) if I introduced any innovation. This Clause is on the lines of a Clause in a Bill which was passed in 1909, when Fascism had not been heard of.
Sir H. Williams: The right hon. Gentleman appears to forget that syndicalism, of which many trade unions in this country were ardent supporters, is historically a part of Fascism.
Mr. Bevin: Syndicalism had not been adumbrated by Tom Mann when the Bill to which I referred was passed in 1909. It was in 1910; so I want to correct the hon. Member's historical knowledge. In drafting this Clause, I have stuck to the procedure concerning wages board Orders which has been on the Statute Book for many years. I have an additional reason why I think the Amendment should be withdrawn, and that is that I do not think the discussion of wages board Orders is appropriate to the House of Commons unless a wages board really outrages an industry in some way. It has already been agreed that I should have the power to refer back on representations, and all that kind of thing. The greatest care has been taken in this matter, and therefore I would ask the Committee to stick to the Clause, which is in strict conformity with all the minimum wage machinery introduced into Parliament over the last 40 years.
Major Petherick: I could not hear all that the Minister was saying, particularly the first part, but I am sure it was a very good speech. I did, however, hear the latter part, and it is on that that I propose to focus my remarks. The Minister based his case largely on precedent. Precedent is an extremely valuable study. We move from precedent to precedent but none the less I think we ought to consider each precedent and see what has been the result. Over the last few years, particularly since the war, we have seen Parliament gradually losing control to some extent. We have seen freedom being narrowed down from precedent to precedent. The fact that we have established a precedent in one case is not a good reason, if it has been proved to be a bad precedent, why we should
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continue it. I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Amendment and with my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) about this Amendment, because I feel that Parliament should retain some active control over legislation. The Minister's argument that Parliament is not a suitable place in which to discuss wages boards may be to some extent true, except in the circumstances which he mentioned, but if Parliament is not the place to discuss wages boards, why lay Orders on the Table at all? I think Parliament should keep its control. I think it is wrong to forestall the views of Parliament by saying an Order is to come into force immediately, unless it is an emergency Order such as was mentioned by the hon. Member for South Croydon. I hope the Minister will reconsider this point, not only in relation to this Bill but from the point of view of the whole structure of legislation and the question of Parliamentary control.
Amendment negatived.
Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 16.—(Application to the Crown.)
Mr. Craik Henderson: I beg to move, in page II, line 38, after "with," to insert "any business or."
I move this Amendment in order that we may have explained why, if this Measure is to apply to civilian workers employed "by or on behalf of the Crown" in connection with any industrial undertaking its beneficent provisions are not 10 apply to civilian workers employed by the Government in other respects. Is there any particular reason for this?
The Solicitor-General (Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe): The point raised by my hon. Friend has given us considerable anxiety, and we have directed special attention to it. As will be seen from the Clause, we wish to cover civilian workers but not to cover Services. My hon. Friend will appreciate that we do not want to cover the National Fire Service or the Civil Defence Reserve. If my hon. Friend has in mind certain special difficulties, such as the question of the State management districts or certain canteens, I can give him the undertaking—and I think it is a matter which can suitably be dealt with by undertaking—on behalf of my

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right hon. Friends the Home Secretary, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Labour, that they all agree that these matters should, in principle, be covered and that these conditions should apply to them. My hon. Friend has, I know, considered this Bill very carefully, and he will appreciate the difficulty of finding the exact words in which to express that intention, but as I have clearly stated the line we desire to draw we think our words are most apt to draw that line, I think my hon. Friend can rest assured that they cover his point.
Major Petherick: I am not sure whether it is appropriate on this Clause to ask whether local authorities are covered.
The Solicitor-General: Local authorities are covered to the extent that has been laid down, but I understand that this question may arise for discussion on another point, and I suggest that we should not go into it at this stage. My hon. and gallant Friend can rest assured that they are covered to the extent to which they are carrying on catering activities.
Captain P. Macdonald: Is it not a fact that unless this Amendment is made, establishments in Carlisle and other places under the State management scheme will be exempt from this Measure?
The Solicitor-General: I have expressly dealt with that point and given an undertaking to the effect that they would be dealt with by the machinery in the Bill. I explained that whether the words "industrial, undertaking" actually cover that kind of business is a matter for discussion, but the intention of the Government—and I think it is an appropriate matter to be dealt with by undertaking—is that they should be covered and will be covered.
Mr. Rhys Davies: Is it intended to bring in an Amendment at a later stage to cover this point, which is very important?
The Solicitor-General: I wanted to make it clear that we quite agreed on the difficulty of finding the exact words, but we think that these are the best words, coupled with the undertaking which I have given on behalf of the three Ministers concerned. If my hon. Friend
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or any other hon. Member can suggest any improvement, I shall be pleased to consider it, but, having given my consideration to the point, I think these are the best words we can find.
Mr. Craik Henderson: I appreciate what the learned Solicitor-General has said. Personally, I am doubtful whether these are the appropriate words, but in view of my hon. and learned Friend's conciliatory and helpful attitude and in the hope that between now and the next stage of the proceedings on the Bill some more appropriate words may be found, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 17.—(Interpretation.)
Sir Harold Webbe: I beg to move, in page 12, line 4, to leave out Sub-section (2).
I think this is an Amendment which ought to receive the attention of the Committee. This is the most important definition Clause in the whole Measure. Reference was made to it at an earlier stage in the consideration of the Bill, when Clause I was under discussion, and various questions were put to the Minister as to the meaning of certain words. We were then referred to Clause 17 for the definition of a "person employed". I submit that the explanation then given of the words in the Bill was not satisfactory, and I ask the Solicitor-General or someone else on behalf of the Government to give us a more precise idea than we have yet had of the meaning of these extraordinary words in the Sub-section:
"any worker who, for the purposes of any undertaking or part of an undertaking, performs any work in pursuance of an arrangement express or implied made by the worker by way of trade with the persons carrying on that undertaking."
What limit is intended by this Subsection (2)? I know that hon. Members do not like the quotation of absurd examples which are likely to occur, but surely the man who delivers newspapers to a hotel is performing work under an arrangement made "by way of trade" with that hotel. Is it intended that he should be regarded as an employee of the undertaking? This phrase is so completely indefinite that it seems to me that the Bill will be a gift for the lawyers for years to come. I do not

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know whether it is the intention of the Minister to present the legal profession with opportunities for discussing such points as this from year to year, but here is a vital definition Clause, which seems to me about as indefinite as any Clause could possibly be. Therefore I ask for some indication of the limitation to be placed on these words:
"in pursuance of an arrangement express or implied."
I can conceive of nothing which is ever done by, or for, or to, or with any kind of catering undertaking which is not done by arrangement express or implied. Anyone who has in any way the remotest connection with a catering undertaking must fall under this definition of employee. I hope we shall have some definiteness brought into this definition Clause.
The Chairman: I think I should point out to the Committee that we have, at any rate in part, discussed this matter already. I hope therefore that the Committee may agree to the discussion being a brief one.
Mr. Colegate: It is true that we may have discussed this matter previously, but the fact remains that we have not received satisfaction, in the sense that no form of words has been given to us which clears up this obscurity. My hon. Friend has just suggested the case of a deliverer of newspapers; I wish to put forward the case, which is rather more pertinent, of the window cleaner. Very often a large number of men occupy a very considerable portion of their time going round in a certain order the windows of a hotel, which is under a contract with a window-cleaning company. Do such men come under the interpretation? It is obvious that I am not a lawyer. There may be some peculiar interpretation, but we cannot get away from the fact that a man engaged in window cleaning in a hotel, under a regular contract of service for a window-cleaning company, might come under the definition.
I have made a number of inquiries in my constituency, and I find that the Bill has given rise to a great deal of uneasiness, for special reasons connected with the war. In certain areas in my constituency, a vast number of people have been brought into the catering industry because the Government have definitely asked people to do what they
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can to put up a number of workers who have been brought into the locality. My constituents are wondering how far they are affected by the Bill, and it is not unfair to ask the Government to make a definite statement and to say whether or not those people come under the Bill. I therefore ask the Solicitor-General to give us a definition which will meet us on this point.
The Solicitor-General: I am very chary of taking up much time of the Committee on this Amendment, not out of any disrespect for my hon. Friend who has raised it, but because I spent a good deal of time on the first day of the Committee stage in dealing with this point. Therefore, I propose to put my answer quite shortly, and I hope the Committee will not take it as any disrespect to itself. The first point I tried to make clear was that the words "arrangement by way of trade" are used to cover the case where there may be a contract which has not got that power to control the method of doing the work which is the essential of a contract of service. It will be within the recollection of the Committee that I developed that point at some length on the previous occasion.
The other points I want to deal with are the safeguards, on which my hon. Friend the Member for the Abbey Division (Sir H. Webbe) placed importance a few moments ago. Those are that the arrangement must only be one by way of trade. The Committee will appreciate that these words have a saving effect for those cases which concern my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Major Petherick), the border-line cases. It is left as an arrangement by way of trade, so that it is open to the court to find, in a proper case, that it is merely an arrangement and not an arrangement by way of trade.
The second point is that the arrangement must be with the proprietors of the undertaking; and the third point, which was worrying my hon. Friend the Member for the Abbey Division, is that the work must be that of the undertaking and for the purposes of the undertaking. I must ask him to take it from me, because this is as I understand the law of the position, that it would rule out the newspaper deliverer and the window cleaner. I did develop this matter at considerable length before, and I now put, with those points,

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the gist of the argument again. I hope that the Committee will now decide that this is a definition apt to cover and safeguard the particular classes of worker with whom we are concerned.
Sir Waldron Smithers: I am sorry to prolong the Debate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because the Chairman has asked us to be as short as possible. I will be as brief as possible. I will ask the Minister to be a little more specific in telling us the classes of employees in these undertakings who come within or without the scope of the Bill. I wish to put forward three instances from my own Division. The widespread nature of the catering business brings in all sorts of people, and I ask that these specific questions be replied to. At one hotel in my Division the proprietor is very keen on horses. He keeps horses, and also an ostler. He lets the horses out for riding and for work. At the present moment he is doing work under Government contract. Does the ostler come within the scope of the Bill? At another hotel the proprietor, a very pushing man of great initiative, runs two or three motor cars for hire purposes. There is a chauffeur who drives those cars and looks after them, and who is housed within the buildings of the establishment. Would the chauffeur come within the purview of the Bill? There is another case of a man in the country who keeps a very good hotel and has tried very hard to comply with the food Regulations and to help the food industry. He has done his best to grew as much stuff as he can. He produces not only vegetables and eggs, but he keeps chickens, ducks and geese for the use of the clients of his hotel. Some of those clients are officers serving in Government Departments who cannot get home, and who go to the hotel, not only for their rest, but for their food and drink. Would the man who looks after the production of foodstuffs—there is, as a matter of fact, more than one man—come within the purview of the Bill? All these people are strongly opposed to the Bill, both workers and managers, and they want to know where they stand.
Major Petherick: I do not think the matter is really quite clear, in spite of the speech of the Solicitor-General. My own view is that confusion has been caused
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owing to the fact that the definitions are spread between Clause 1 and the interpretation Clause which we are now discussing. I do not wish to go into discussion of the sort of point which we had in the earlier stages of the Bill, but I would ask the Solicitor-General whether, taking Clause I and the present interpretation Clause together, I should be right in saying that, in order for a worker to come under the Bill, three main conditions would have to be fulfilled. One is that the undertaking must be wholly or mainly concerned in supplying food and drink. The second is that the workers must be employed in such an undertaking, as one can see by Clause 2 (1). The third is that there must be an arrangement, express or implied, between the workers and their employer. Would it not therefore be better, in view of the confusion that exists, to re-arrange as it were part of Clause 1 and the interpretation Clause—put them together in the same Clause—and thus make it perfectly clear in the Bill what are the conditions which have to be fulfilled before a worker comes under the Bill? I commend that to my hon. and learned Friend and ask him to look into it to see whether it is possible so that the worker or the employer can look at one Clause of the Bill and see whether they are being covered or not.
Mr. Craik Henderson: I rise to express my anxiety about this interpretation Clause. I really would ask the Solicitor-General to consider it again, because in my opinion it goes much further than he has indicated. This "implied" arrangement has a very wide effect, and "by way of trade" is a phrase requiring a good deal of consideration in conjunction with this wide power over private arrangements. I ask him that this Clause should be very carefully considered to prevent future difficulties.
The Solicitor-General: In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Sir W. Smithers), I ask the sympathy of the Committee in giving a decision on what must be an incomplete statement of the facts. But I want on the other hand to be quite frank with the Committee, and on my understanding of what my hon. Friend said the three persons he mentioned did work for the purposes of the undertaking, in the employment of the undertaking, that is, under an arrangement with the proprietors by way of trade, and my

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view on the necessarily incomplete information, is that they are in the Bill.
Sir. W. Smithers: Did my hon. and learned Friend say they are or are not in the Bill?
The Solicitor-General: I said that they are within the purview of the Bill. In answer to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Major Petherick), I have considered, and I have gratefully received letters from hon. Members, one in particular, about this question, and have addressed my mind to it, and I feel it is better that the question of activities and undertakings should be dealt with first of all. I submit it is dealt with quite clearly—and then we should in the ordinary way deal in a definition Clause with what is an extended definition of "worker." I feel there are certain difficulties which have presented themselves to hon. Members, and that the position is made clearer by separating consideration of "undertaking" and activities from the consideration of "worker". I want to assure my hon. and gallant Friend that I have not ignored this point, but have directed my mind to it.
With regard to the point of my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Leeds (Mr. Craik Henderson), I am afraid that I do not share his difficulty about the word "implied". I think it is absolutely essential that you must cover both implied arrangements and express arrangements; otherwise you will be in the intolerable position of people saying, "There is no contract in writing, no formal arrangement." In that way you would have evasion of the provisions of the Bill. In our view, and I personally believe it is right, this is a protective Bill. Therefore, you have to draw the provisions largely and generously to give a full measure of protection. That is what we have done, and I personally would ask my hon. Friend to consider, because he knows the difficulties of limiting the Measure to express contracts, whether in this matter it is not necessary to cover implied arrangements as we have done.
Captain P. Macdonald: I feel rather alarmed at the Clause as it now stands. The more I hear, the more fearful I become. I agree it is very difficult to decide what should come within the provisions of this Bill. At the same time the right hon. Gentleman must know for whom he
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is legislating, and if he has in mind persons directly employed in an hotel, he ought to have some idea who they are. What I want to know is whether the Bill covers such ancillary trades as have been mentioned. For instance, do laundries come within the purview of this Bill, or chimney sweeps, or plumbers, people who are very often employed by an hotel? I would ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to consider this in his difficulty in trying to lay down a definite rule. If an employee in an ancillary industry is already covered by a trade board will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that that employee will not be brought within the purview of this Bill?
Mr. Bevin: I gave an undertaking the other day that they would not be covered by two boards, and I undertook between then and the Report stage to consider words to make the question of duplication quite clear. I think the hon. and gallant Member is covered on his laundry point.
Lieut.-Colonel Sir Cuthbert Headlam: What is meant by the words "by way of trade"? Is that the usual expression to mean "by way of service"? I take it that this interpretation means that all those who are employed directly or indirectly in the catering trade should be included in this definition. Therefore, I want to know whether the words "by way of trade" mean what I should call "by way of service." I only want an explanation.
The Solicitor-General: I ask, if the Committee will allow me, to deal with this point briefly, because I have emphasised it and dealt with it at considerable length earlier. The position is that if the word used were "service," that would connote a right to control the way in which the other party to the contract does his work. We want to cover possible positions where that control is absent, and therefore we have said, "by way of trade," including those words in order that a bona fide family arrangement, something that is merely a little help being given by a member of a family now and again, will not be included. That is the point of the words. I think they are the best words.
Sir W. Smithers: I am sorry to return to the attack, but the reply of the hon. and learned Gentleman was so unsatisfactory because really there are many people up

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and down the country in what are called the ancillary trades. They ought to know where they stand under the provisions of this Bill, because I think this Bill creates the impression in the minds of the public that it is a Bill, rightly or wrongly, to protect or to have proper arrangements between the proprietors of catering establishments, their scullery maids, washers-ups, waiters and all that kind of thing. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman really tell me seriously that the ostler, the chauffeur and the gardener come within the provisions of the Bill? It is really hard to believe. This is a Bill, as I understand it, to regulate wages and hours of work. But the ostler in charge of horses has to be there seven days a week, early in the morning and late at night, to feed and water them. Suppose the chauffeur comes into this Bill. If he is told that he can work only so many hours a day, and then there is a late job to be done, is he prevented from doing it? The gardener's job is seasonal. In the winter he has to work shorter hours, and in the spring and summer he has to be up early and then to go back at night to do the watering. Not even the Minister of Labour can overcome the laws of nature. I would ask that we should have a better definition of this Clause. Unless there is a better definition given, or an undertaking by the Government that we shall have a better definition and a clearly defined list, in a Schedule of people who are included, I shall have to divide the Committee on this matter.
Sir Irving Albery: What I am mainly concerned about is the person who has to try to ascertain whether he comes under the Bill. It appears to me from what the learned Solicitor-General said, and from the course of the Debate so far, that everybody who happens to be employed—interpreting that very widely—by a caterer will come under the provisions of the Bill. If that be so, it does not matter very much that there is no Schedule stating who is within the scope of the Bill and who is outside, because practically everybody is within it. In that case, it would have been better if that could have been definitely stated here. Then we should know where we are. I do not think a Bill ought to go through the House with a Clause in it which, however perfect it may seem to the learned gentlemen of the legal pro-
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fession, is going to leave people who come under it in a state of confusion, and which consequently will lead to a number of legal cases. If we are to be assured that the meaning of this Clause is that every conceivable person employed in the catering industry is to be brought within the purview of the Bill, people will know where they are. If, on the other hand, there are certain forms of employment which will not be included, this Clause needs revising. It would be far better to have some Schedule that will say which people are brought in and which people are left outside. If there are exceptions, information will have to be given, and I think it would be much better that it should be made clear in the Bill.
Brigadier-General Clifton Brown: May I express my agreement with those who have asked for a clearer definition? We do not know what we are voting for in the Bill. The Solicitor-General said that we should look at this from the protection point of view. That is what we want to do. We want to stop interference with the trade unions which some of these people might come under. This Clause has been arranged from the point of view of the towns. What about the country? What about the seaside places? What about the boatman, it may be on the Thames and it may be at the seaside, who works for the inn-keeper? Does he come under this provision, with the gardener and others? That would be an interference with businesses which have nothing at all to do with catering. This is a Bill to interfere, and not to protect. If the Minister would look into the question from the point of view of the country, and see the damage that is going to be done by interference, instead of protection, he would think twice about not defining the position in a way that people will understand. The Minister when he talked to us privately upstairs—very persuasively, I thought—told us that this Commission was going to deal with "A" "B" and "C" hotels. The "A" people—those who look after the big hotels and so on—will be in a quite different position from the "B" and "C" people. I am thinking of the "C" hotels. Will the Minister assure us that the people responsible on this Commission for the wages and welfare of the small men of the "C" hotels are going to treat them differently from the people of the "A"

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hotels, and are not going to interfere with the ancillary trades?
Sir H. Webbe: I took the responsibility of moving this Amendment, although my name did not appear on the Paper, because I felt that the Clause was a vital one and that it was essential that we should have a clear definition in the definition Clause. The whole of the discussion has proved, to me at any rate, ample justification for my having moved the Amendment, We have had instance after instance of doubt brought before the Committee. My hon. and learned Friend has intervened three or four times, and, with all respect, I would say that every time he has introduced a fresh doubt without resolving the one which he sought to dispel. He has made statements which leave some of us not knowing whether we are on our heads or our heels. He says that the cleaning of the windows of an hotel is not part of the undertaking. Surely the cleaning of the windows of an hotel is just as much part of the business as making the beds. If that kind of thing is to happen now, what will happen when the courts have to determine the meaning of this quite indefinite Clause? It is clear that we could go on all day producing doubts which no one on the front bench could resolve. I make bold to say that there are not two Members present who would agree on what this Clause means. I would urge the Minister and my hon. and learned Friend to accept the suggestion made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Major Petherick) and to reconsider this whole matter between now and the Report stage, with a view to bringing to the House some definition which is understandable not only by the lawyers—and the lawyers to-day all differ as to what the position is—but to the ordinary man-in-the-street, the long-suffering citizen who wants to understand the rules by which he is bound. If my hon. and learned Friend will look into this matter with a view to producing some definition which means something and which is not vague and indefinite, as at present, I will not press the Amendment.
Viscount Hinchingbrooke: I think the Committee is rather unhappy about the meaning of the Subsection. I would join with my hon. Friend the Member for the Abbey Division (Sir H. Webbe) in asking the Solicitor-General
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to be good enough to look into this question before the next stage. I do not think the Committee would wish to see an enormous Schedule of the various occupations attached to the Bill. It would take on the character rather of the Minister's own great Schedule of Reserved Occupations, with 100 or 150 pages. What I would like, with great deference, to suggest is that words might be inserted into this Sub-section making it clear that the greater part of a particular individual's time must be associated with the catering business, or alternatively that he must receive the greater part of his pay from the catering business, before the terms of the Act would apply to him. If some such undertaking could be given, it would help the Committee.
Sir W. Smithers: Would the Minister also consider to what extent part-time people employed in the industry come within the purview of the Bill? There are one or two other classes of work which have been mentioned to me. What about the dance bands? What about the artists who give shows at some of these hotels? The Minister wants to make the hotel business more popular. Suppose he starts casinos. Would the croupiers come under the Bill? As the hon. Member for the Abbey division (Sir H. Webbe) has said, we should let the people of this country know where they stand. I do not see how, after all the arguments which have been put forward, the Government can refuse to reconsider the matter.
The Solicitor-General: I have listened carefully to everything that my hon. Friends have said, and I realise that my noble Friend the Member for South Dorset (Viscount Hinchingbrooke), who has shown great sympathy with the purposes of the Bill, has some difficulty over this matter, and that a number of hon. Members are in the same position. I personally have no difficulty, and I think it is correct that I have answered quite frankly and clearly any point that has been put to me. But, as I said before, I want to do everything I can to make the definition as clear and free from doubt as any definition can be. If my hon. Friends desire it, I am prepared to consider it again. I am not giving any undertaking that it will be changed, but it will be considered fully and definitely, and with great sympathy with the views

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put forward. I do not think that it would be right to go any further than that, but I am prepared to give the matter full consideration, and if any of my hon. Friends who have spoken have any ideas to put forward, I shall be pleased if they will communicate with me, as they have done before.
Sir H. Webbe: As I moved this Amendment, I suppose it would be in Order for me to ask leave to withdraw it. But, frankly, I am not very happy about the undertaking that my hon. and learned Friend has given. He has said that he will look at it again, but he will not give any undertaking that he will put forward an Amendment on the Report stage to give us a definition which will mean anything to hon. Members, or even to his legal colleagues. Merely to say that he will look at it again without any indication that, on the Report stage, something will be proposed to meet the very evident criticisms and doubts expressed does not seem to me to go very far. As I understand it—and I am only a junior Member—it will not be possible for us on the Report stage to discuss this particular Clause again as such, and we must rely upon some Amendment being put down which will enable us to consider this matter again properly and see whether the feelings of anxiety, which, I think, I may claim are fairly widely shared at the present moment, are to some extent allayed. I hope that the Minister or my hon. and learned Friend will give us some rather more definite assurance that something will be done to meet the obvious and agreed troubles before we withdraw this Amendment and proceed to the next Amendment.
Earl Winterton: May I point out to my hon. Friend, who said that he is apparently a junior Member, that there is a very simple expedient of deciding whether he or the right hon. Gentleman is right? We have discussed this matter for a long time, and obviously we are no nearer an agreement between the Government and hon. Members than before. There is a simple and expeditious way of deciding whether or not the Government or the hon. Members are wrong, and that is to go to a Division.
Sir Adam Maitland: May I suggest to my hon. Friend the Member
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for the Abbey Division (Sir H. Webbe), to whose views I listened with great interest, that it would be a tactical mistake to divide on this issue after the most explicit undertaking from the learned Solicitor-General. If hon. Gentlemen who are interested in this Amendment insist on a Division and are defeated, they will have lost their contact. In all that has been said there has been no consideration whatever given to the common sense which, it is hoped, will be brought to bear by the Commission. It is assumed that these exceptional instances will be brought under the Bill without any definition. I must make that reservation, but still having some sympathy with them from the point of view of whether it is possible to get a fair revision, I would ask my hon. Friends to accept the undertaking.
Sir H. Webbe: I have not the slightest desire to divide the Committee on this matter. There is no clear point. I am not at issue with the Government as to whether there should be a definition at all, but I merely ask for some satisfaction. If I can interpret what has been said by my hon. and learned Friend in promising to look into this as meaning that he will make a sincere effort to produce more clarity between now and the Report stage, then I shall ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Sir W. Smithers: With great respect, I do not think that under Parliamentary procedure the undertaking of the learned Solicitor-General is worth anything at all. Will he undertake to put down something on the Report stage in order to give us an opportunity to reconsider and rediscuss this question?
Amendment negatived.
Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 18.—(Application to Scotland)
The Chairman: I propose to select the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. McKinlay) and other hon. Members, and perhaps it will be convenient to discuss that Amendment and the next Amendment in his name and that of his hon. Friends together.
Mr. Mathers: I beg to move, in page 12, to leave out lines 12 to 20.

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I had hoped that, in putting this Amendment to the Committee on behalf of hon. Friends and myself, I would be doing it in the presence of one of the Scottish Law Officers. It is not quite the same to put the point that I wish to make to an English Law Officer, who is a Scotsman. It does not work out in the way that I wished. The point is a very simple one. There is some fear in the minds of hon. Members and myself that these means provided to an employer of avoiding responsibility for a breach of the Act prove an outlet that is too easy for him. Really the Amendment to leave out lines 12 to 20 of the Clause is moved in the interests of the worker who may be affected. One can see the possibility of an employer taking the action of putting up a notice in his establishment laying down certain instructions for the benefit of the staff, but at the same time letting it be known to the staff by word of mouth that he would not expect them strictly to adhere to the Regulations set out in the printed formula that he hangs up in a convenient place in the establishment. It is to deal with a point of that kind that it is suggested this particular part of the Clause should be omitted, although I have to agree that for my own part I look upon the wording here as more direct, simple and clear to understand than the portions in Clause 11 for which these words have to be used as a substitute to apply to Scotland. Sub-sections (2) and (3) of Clause 11 have been worked upon in the past in respect of other Acts of Parliament, and I am not so well informed about the particular formula that is set out here to take their place and to apply to Scotland. Although it might appear that those Subsections give very great opportunity for prosecution and litigation, I understand they have not caused trouble to any considerable extent. Perhaps the Government front bench can give me similar information about the words that are set out here which we are seeking to have set aside in order particularly to get to know exactly what the position is on the lines I have indicated.
You indicated, Major Milner, that the two Amendments should be taken together. It seems to me that another point is dealt with in the second Amendment, and perhaps it would be well if I allowed, with your permission, the Amendment as I have moved it to be dealt with without
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proceeding at the moment to the other point.
The Solicitor-General: I am highly conscious of my imperfections in rising to answer a point which is really concerned with the law of Scotland. I can only assure my hon. Friend in mitigation that a good deal of the blood of Scottish lawyers runs in my veins, and I hope that I may be able to satisfy him in this imperfect way. The difference between the two provisions depends on the different systems of instituting prosecutions in the two countries. I take the English system first, because it comes first in order in the Bill. Clause 11 contemplates the English system, where anyone can institute proceedings by laying an information. In Scotland proceedings have to be instituted by the Lord Advocate, and by the Procurator Fiscal in country districts. Therefore, the provision which was apt to meet the English situation of letting the defendant, that is, the employer, on the first information come forward in turn and say, "I am not to blame, but 'A.B.' is to blame," would not do and would not work in Scotland.
We have to try and keep the equity of the matter balanced between the two countries, and therefore we had to try and find words. I think that my hon. Friend was inclined to agree that the words are not in themselves inapt in dealing with the situation, and I hope he will see that the employer has to prove to the satisfaction of the court, (1), that he used due diligence to secure compliance with the Act and any relative Regulation or Order made thereunder, and, (2), that the default was due to somebody else The only difficulty is that you cannot bring that other person to the court, but it would be open to the Fiscal to bring him before the court.
I was very interested in the example that my hon. Friend gave of the employer who might put up a notice on the wall and then say, "Do not bother about it." I have actually had experience on this point, and it may reassure my hon. Friend. It was a Factory Act case where the employer provided a guard and then said to the boy who was working the machine, "Do not worry about putting on that guard; it will merely hold up your work." The court before whom he appeared said that that was not providing a guard and was not in compliance with

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the Regulation, and dealt with the matter accordingly. I happen to have had that experience, and if it interests my hon. Friend I will show him the matter at any time he likes. So I think that his doubt, which I am very anxious should be assuaged, is really dealt with, and I hope that this will prove a workable method. It has not a statutory history—I want to be fair to my hon. Friend—but they are the best words that we can find to make the position similar in both countries and to put employers and workers in the same position on either side of the Tweed.
Mr. Rhys Davies: I would like to say one or two words on this very important point. The right hon. Gentleman and the learned Solicitor-General probably know that we have had conversations with the Minister of Labour on this very serious provision. Clause II, which this Clause amends for the purposes of Scotland, follows the Section in the Trade Boards Act, and although I was a little alarmed at Clause n, which this; Clause amends, I have been assured that the number of prosecutions that have cropped up has been almost infinitestimal. It occurred to me that the Government might some day consider this problem, especially when the prosecution lies against the employee, when the benefit of the offence committed by the employee inures to the employer. I am connected with the distributive trade, and there, although an employer need not tell an employee, a good deal is often done by winking. In this sort of trade business is not carried on exactly as if it were being carried on in a factory or a coalmine, where things are very much more specific.
The next point I wish to put is this—and I have raised it before in connection with coupon offences, where the prosecution lies with the Board of Trade. I think I am right in saying that in one case the employees were heavily fined, and so was the firm, but practically all the profits that inured went to the firm and not to the employees. I trust that the Ministry of Labour will be good enough to see to it that when they institute prosecutions they will not do what these words imply to the layman—almost invite the employer to excuse himself and put the blame on the employee. I
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have no legal training, but I think that if the Solicitor-General reads this Clause in conjunction with Clause II, he will see that a very smart lawyer, assisting an employer, would almost take it for granted that his job would be to get the employer out of his difficulty in a court of law and throw the responsibility on the employee.
Finally, I have always understood that where there was an offence such as watering milk or selling underweight the employer and not the employee was prosecuted. The employer then had his redress by dismissing the employee. I always thought that that was the case. However, if the Ministry of Labour will be good enough to see that no prosecution will lie against the employee where the benefit of the offence committed by the employee inures to the employer, I shall be grateful.
Amendment negatived.
Mr. Mathers: I beg to move, in page 12, line 21, at the end, to add:
"and
(c) 'licensing justices' shall mean 'licensing court,' 'intoxicating liquor' shall mean 'exerciseable liquor' and references to the Licensing (Scotland) Acts, 1903 to 1934, shall be substituted for references to the Licensing Acts, 1910 to 1934."
This Amendment is an attempt to safeguard the separate Scottish position. I notice that a curious misprint has crept into the Amendment on the Order Paper, and I must say it is the first time I have seen liquor described as "exerciseable" liquor. I am sure we all realise what is meant and can only conjure up in our imagination what "exerciseable liquor" would be. This Amendment has been put down to ascertain from the Government whether separate provision as defined under the Licensing (Scotland) Acts is properly safeguarded in this Measure. Failing that, we ask that words shall be used in order to safeguard the Scottish position properly.
The Solicitor-General: I have gone into the position as it obtains in Scotland with such care as I could, and I can see nothing in the Bill which will adversely affect the licensing position or the powers of the licensing justices in any way. The only possible imaginary set of circumstances which I have been able to conjure up is the idea that some wages board might insist on such intervals for workers that they would not be able to be there at the

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permitted hours, but clearly that is such a stupid idea as to the way a wages board would work that I do not think we need consider it very seriously. I have tried to fit in various sets of circumstances that could arise, and this matter has been considered carefully in the Department from a practical point of view and by Parliamentary counsel, and the views of the Scottish Office have been sought, I understand. I have not seen the Scottish Office myself, but I understand that they have been consulted in the matter. Yes, I have now been assured in the usual way that they have been seen. Everyone who has considered this matter takes the view that it would not have any adverse effect.
Mr. Mathers: With that assurance, which naturally removes all my scruples, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 19 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

NEW CLAUSE—(Exclusion of workers employed in ships.)
(1) This Act shall not apply in relation to workers employed in any ship.
(2) In this section the expression "ship" includes every description of vessel used in navigation.—[Mr. Bevin.]
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr. Bevin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This new Clause is designed to exclude workers employed in ships from this Bill.
Mr. Colegate: I suppose the Minister and the Solicitor-General have reassured themselves that there is no loophole here? We remember that during the time of prohibition in America there was a great loophole, and while I do not wish to include genuine ships, I do not want ships moored off the banks of the Thames to be excluded from the principle of this Bill. We want it to be properly enforced, and I would ask the Minister to make certain that there is no loophole.
Mr. Mathers: I, too, am rather concerned about this new Clause, because it appears to me to shut out from the Bill, for example, staffs of railway steamers. I am thinking, particularly, of the railway steamers that ply in the Firth of Clyde and which have a catering staff on board
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who belong to the hotel staffs of the railway companies. They should not be shut out from the benefits of this Bill, and I would like to be reassured on that point. I have not fully studied this new Clause, but on reading it simply now it appears that the staffs of steamers plying in the Clyde catering for passengers would not benefit, and they should be entitled to benefit.
Mr. Bevin: I went into this matter very carefully, We decided first of all to exclude overseas ships and ships going outside the three-mile limit. We were left with only some half-dozen ships on the Clyde——
Mr. Mathers: No. Far more!
Mr. Bevin: I am talking about those not outside the three-mile limit. When you get outside the three-mile limit you become involved with the Merchant Shipping Act, and I did not want a conflict between this Bill and that Act. The number of other ships involved was so small, and as regards ships that were running—except, probably, steamers running from Hampton Court to Oxford—it is doubtful whether they would be wholly or mainly engaged in catering. I preferred to exclude them rather than involve them in procedure under that head. In any case, most of the catering staff on steamers on the Clyde are, to our knowledge covered by collective agreements in the Railway Service. I thought it better to exclude vessels, because once you start on the definition of a ship outside the three-mile limit you become involved in all kinds of complications with foreign and British ships. I think it is better, for the purpose of working this Measure, not to burden it with such a narrow thing. I cannot believe that anybody would buy a ship and anchor it on the Thames for the purpose of saving a few coppers in wages. Somebody might buy a ship and anchor it on the Thames, but the type of people who would go on it to enjoy themselves would, I imagine, have to pay for their enjoyment. I think my right hon. and learned Friend will agree that there is possibly a loophole in regard to somebody anchoring a ship on the Thames, but those who did it before lost so much money on the venture that I would prefer to take the risk.
Mr. Kirkwood: Will this provision cut out ships that sail on the Clyde?
Mr. Bevin: Yes. I happen to know they are all covered by collective agreements either through the Seamen's Union or the Railwaymen's Union. There was such a small portion that kept exclusively within the three-mile limit that I felt it was not wise to burden the Bill by having them in. I am satisfied that at the present moment the people concerned are really covered.
Mr. Mathers: The Minister's answer is a very powerful one in that respect. The only point that arises is whether the Bill takes away from the possibility of those agreements continuing and gives an opportunity to the railway people to say, "We need not make collective agreements in view of the fact that you are not covered by the Bill." I raised this matter far too suddenly to be insistent about it, but before the Bill reaches another stage I will make certain that the position of the workers is thoroughly considered in the light of the new Clause.
Question put, and agreed to.
Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Power to establish register.)
(1) Where a wages board has been established in respect of any workers, the Minister, after consulting the Commission and the wages board, may make regulations requiring all or any of the employers of any such workers to register for the purposes of this Act in the prescribed time and in the prescribed manner, giving such particulars as may be prescribed.
(2) If an employer fails to comply with any such regulations he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds.—[Mr. Bevin.]
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr. Bevin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This new Clause gives effect to an undertaking I gave earlier that, instead of the Minister preparing a list in this case, he would prepare a register. The purpose of the new Clause is to safeguard against any possibility of abuse. I want to be quite frank and to tell the Committee that the new Clause does not take away the right of inspection; if some persons who ought to go on to the register do not go on it may be necessary to see that they do go on the register so as to make it effective. The Clause gives power to establish a register of establishments to which the Bill, as an Act,
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will apply, and it has no other purpose. It does not, as the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Major Petherick) implies, preclude any person from entering the catering trade. It is the best thing I can devise to protect people from the fears that were expressed earlier in the Debate. I think that those in the seaside resorts and other places rather welcome this provision, because since I announced that I would be prepared to make it, I have had a good deal of support. I believe that if the provision is worked with the aid of the Commission and in the light of the advice which I propose to obtain, and which I shall announce later, it can be made a really useful thing and something that will remove all the fears that were expressed earlier.
Mr. Levy: Am I to understand that this register will be permanent? I ask the question for this reason. At the present time there are many people living in small houses who are housing their friends, or alternatively, billeting people who have been directed to them, and, as I understand it, these people come within the ambit of the Bill. They have no wish to become catering establishments and they will not desire to continue to be catering establishments. Am I to understand that because they are now billeting people who have been directed to them they will be registered and will remain within the ambit of the Bill as catering establishments, or will the register be only temporary as far as they are concerned, so that when they cease to have people billeted on them, they will be able to leave the register? Or will they be permanently on the register and so be subjected to inspection as to whether any people are lodging with them?
Mr. Bevin: Obviously, the register will be bound to change as circumstances change. A person may have a small establishment to-day and a big one in two or three years' time. People may go out of business, and so on. The occupancy of the house may change. Therefore, the register will change. I would call attention to the wording of the new Clause:
"Where a wages board has been established in respect of any workers, the Minister, after consulting the Commission and the wages board, may make regulations requiring all or any of the employers of any such workers to register for the purposes of this Act."

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The form of the register may be different according to the character of the people with whom one is dealing. There may be one type of hotel where the Commission will say that a certain type of register is quite satisfactory. The regulations may be altered to provide for other safeguards where, so to speak, one gets nearer to the bone as between private houses and other establishments. The Clause will allow the Commission to advise me on the form the regulations should take in order that the register may be adapted to meet the requirements of different sections of these services. I think the Clause is a useful one and one that will give the Commission a chance of advising me in such a way as to make groundless the fears that were expressed about inspectors roaming all over the place to find out what is going on.
Mr. Levy: My right hon. Friend has been dealing with hotels; I was dealing with small private houses. What I was asking was whether, in the case of private houses, when the billeted people leave, the people in these houses will automatically come off the register and thus be outside the ambit of the inspectors who, in my submission, will take away from the privacy of the Englishman's home, which is supposed to be his castle.
Mr. Evelyn Walkden: Surely, the assumption of the hon. Member for Elland (Mr. Levy) is entirely absurd. If the provision were to cover houses where people are compulsorily billeted or staying with friends, then practically every household in a mining village, where a son says, "I am not a part of the household in the ordinary sense of the term, but I am actually boarding with my mother," would be covered. Is it not absurd to suggest, in discussing this new Clause, that every little household in every hamlet, village, town and city where such a practice obtains is covered or is intended to be covered by the Bill? Will my right hon. Friend make it clear to the Committee that neither in the wording of the Bill nor in the implication of this Clause is there included such a ridiculous suggestion as has been made by the hon. Member or the equally absurd one to which I have referred?
Mr. Levy: If I get an assurance from the Minister on the lines of that asked for by the hon. Member for Doncaster
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(Mr. E. Walkden), I shall be perfectly happy, but my interpretation of the Bill is that it is all-embracing and all-inclusive.
Mr. Bevin: That assurance has been given by my right hon. and learned Friend, and I have given it, and I am sorry my power of penetration is not stronger.
Major Petherick: On the question of interpretation, I think there is much that will have to be cleared up between now and the Report stage, but on the question of registration——
The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Charles Williams): We have not yet come to the hon. and gallant Member's Amendment to this new Clause, and if he discusses it, he may preclude himself from discussing it later.
Major Petherick: I shall be careful not to do that Mr. Williams, in case you are good enough to call my Amendment. I wish to discuss the Clause as its stands. I think the addition of this new Clause will be a considerable improvement to the Bill. In the first place, as regards the question of recognition. Some of us were very alarmed, when we first saw the Bill, with regard to Clause 12, which deals with the right of entry of inspectors, and we raised the question of how they would know whether a lodging house was or was not in fact a lodging house. Therefore, it seemed to me that it was important to have a register in order that inspectors should not claim the right to inspect private houses on the grounds that probably they were lodging houses. The register would obviate that possibility. Secondly, I hope that one of the intentions of the new Clause may be to let out some of the very small type of lodging houses where the people really cannot have the organisation to keep a lot of elaborate records which they will not understand. I hope that is one of the objects of the new Clause.
Mr. Colegate: May I ask a question? Presumably the regulations will provide that where an establishment has been registered and then the person concerned gives up the business, there will be no difficulty in making application to be struck off the register?
Mr. Bevin: I really want the Commission to go into this very carefully, but we

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cannot put it in the Bill. The Regulations will provide for entry on and for removal from the register.
Sir A. Maitland: We have an old tradition in the House which I think is a good one, and I should not like to see it departed from. When a Minister gives an undertaking it is usual for someone to express appreciation. As I remember the Debate, the suggestion in the first instance came from the Minister himself, and I thank him for having honoured his undertaking.
Major Petherick: It is extremely kind of my hon. Friend, but actually the suggestion of this registration came from one of my hon. Friends, some of us having discussed the feasibility of it among ourselves.
Question, "That the Clause be read a second time"; put, and agreed to.
Major Petherick: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed new Clause, in line 5, at the end, to insert:
"Provided that no such register shall preclude any person from entering the Catering Trade."
I think the Amendment is an important one. The Minister has said that it is not intended to prevent any person entering the catering trade or starting as a lodging-house or hotel keeper. We have heard rather too often that it is not intended to do this or that. The only thing that matters is what the Bill states. Intentions do not matter very much. It is for the courts to interpret the Act as it stands. I think it is possible that some busybody may try to use the register in order to plan the location of the hotel industry. When the right hon. Gentleman leaves his job, his place may be taken by a somewhat Fascistically inclined or possibly even a strong Socialistic Minister, and, if the Commission followed his views, they might use the register to plan the location, for instance, of inns and, if someone wished to start an inn in a certain part of the country, and got a licence, the Commission might say, "We will not allow you to come on the register," or they might use their influence to prevent a landlady starting a lodging house on the ground that there were enough lodging houses in the locality. I believe that is a possible danger. It is no use saying it is not intended. The right hon. Gentle-
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man cannot tie down his successors or the Commission 10 years from now. I am satisfied with his own intentions, but I am not satisfied with the amorphous intentions of an unknown successor, and I feel very strongly that the Committee ought to press the Minister to accept the Amendment, which will not do any harm to the structure of the Bill. It merely adds a mandatory provision that they may not do a certain thing.
Mr. Bevin: I was very careful about this Clause, and I put in the words "for the purposes of this Act," and there is really no need for additional words. I think such words as these might lead people to assume that we really have some ulterior motive in inserting the Clause. It is quite clear that the only thing you can register for is for the purposes of this Act. No Minister can make a Regulation restricting applicants for boarding houses, because in no Clause of the Bill is there any power to restrict anyone setting up as a boarding-house keeper—[Interruption.] Certainly not. It would be ultra vires.
Sir A. Maitland: Would not this Amendment, if adopted, rather suggest that this was the only matter that was precluded, and would not that have a restrictive effect? It might be desired to preclude some other matter, but the insertion of these words might prevent that.
The Solicitor-General: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that it would appear to suggest that that was the only limitation provided. This is a case where I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Major Petherick) that there is no question of relying on intentions or on the future good conduct of other occupants of this bench. We rely on the words to which my right hon. Friend has drawn attention, "to register for the purposes of this Act," and we say that those words absolutely exclude any question of registration in order to preclude any person from entering the industry. We take our stand on the actual words and say that they are sufficient to deal with the situation.
Mr. Levy: Am I to understand that it is obligatory on the part of the Commission, if so requested, to place upon the register any newcomer who may desire to enter

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the catering business without any qualifications whatever?
Mr. James Griffiths: What is wrong with that?
Mr. Levy: I am asking the question, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give me an answer.
Mr. Griffiths: I asked what was wrong with it because the hon. Member's tone seemed to suggest that there was something very wrong with it.
Mr. Levy: If I happen to be rather dull and something is not quite clear to me, it is part of our procedure to ask the right hon. Gentleman to explain it, so that I may be quite clear what I am asked to vote upon if a Division is taken. I understand that anyone who so desires is free to enter the trade. That means that he would have to be put upon the register and that it is obligatory upon the Commission to accept an application from a newcomer to be placed upon the register.
Mr. Bevin: The register has nothing to do with latecomers or newcomers. All it has to do with is to indicate where the inspector shall inspect and, when a person is put on the register, whether a newcomer or an old inhabitant, the inspector is directed for the purpose of the Act to the people who are on the register. That is all it means. It has nothing to do with who shall come into the business and who shall not.
Mr. E. Walkden: I want to understand the suggestion of the hon. Member who keeps arguing with the Minister on something which I believe is contrary to his own point of view. Does he wish us to accept the idea that anyone shall be refused the right to set up in business in any shape or form except in war-time? In war-time it is impossible to allow people to set up in business because of the Regulations, but does he wish to interpolate a provision that persons shall be refused the right because there are enough caterers in the area already?
Major Petherick: I was impressed with what the Solicitor-General said that we need not rely on intentions but that we can rely on what the Bill says, but I am not absolutely happy about it. There might be a slump in the lodging-house industry at some future date, and the Com-
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mission might want to set up a wages board, which would make it very difficult for landladies and landlords to carry on without putting a lot of people out of employment. It is conceivable that they might say to themselves, "We will have a register, and in order to carry out our purpose we will make it watertight and will allow only those people whom we think fit to add their names to the register and to enter the trade." My hon. and learned Friend shakes his head, but it is worth examining again, and on the understanding that it will not be lost sight of, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment to the proposed new Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause added to the Bill.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Application to local authorities.)
This Act shall apply to persons employed by the local authorities only in so far as such persons are engaged wholly or mainly in the preparation and serving of food or drink—(Sir J. Lamb.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Sir Joseph Lamb: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
The Minister has had a good deal of difficulty in convincing the Committee why certain Amendments should not be accepted, but I hope that I shall have little difficulty in convincing him that this new Clause is something that he could and should accept. Legislation should be quite clear, and people should understand to whom it applies. The proposed new Clause does this and makes clear to what persons in the employ of local authorities this Bill should apply. Local authorities are not against the Bill; they want to help it and to have it as good as possible. They are not clear to what people in their employ the Bill really applies. Clause 1, Sub-section (2), is so wide that it might include many who are not wholly or mainly employed in the preparation and serving of food. I take it that the kitchen staffs of hospitals and nurses' hostels are included. So, too, are the cooks and those engaged in preparing food in the kitchens attached to schools. The teachers, however, do a good deal of the serving, but I hope they will not be included. There are also porters and others employed by these institutions who might

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be included, and it should be made clear that they are not. In hospitals there is what is called a housekeeping sister, who has control of the kitchens and the serving of food. Therefore she might be included. She is also included in the Rushcliffe Report. That is an example of the ambiguity as to the persons who come within the Bill.
Sir A. Maitland: I had an Amendment down earlier covering the same point. It was put down at the request of the Association of Municipal Corporations, and as we rely so much on the municipal authorities for the administration of legislation, it will be agreed that we ought to have some regard to representations on matters which closely affect them. Clause 1 of this Bill says it shall apply to all persons employed "in any undertaking." If we take the example of a hospital, the main duty of a nurse is to attend the patients. She has nothing to do with the cooking of food, but on occasion she may serve it. Should she, therefore, be included in this Bill? This new Clause will not affect the purpose of the Bill, but it will make clear the persons to whom it applies.
Sir H. Williams: I got into a certain amount of trouble on Thursday when we were discussing an Amendment to Clause 6 which had some relation to this proposal. An hon. Member behind me was angry because he thought I had misrepresented the situation.
Sir J. Lamb: I was speaking for the County Councils' Association with the full knowledge that we were supported by all the other associations.
Sir H. Williams: That was my impression. The issue in this new Clause is perfectly clear. On the other hand, although I have been asked by the London County Council to support it, I am wondering whether it should be supported, because there is no reason why a local authority should be in a privileged position in legislation like this. Let us take the case of any large shop in the West End that has a restaurant for the convenience of its customers, as, for example, the Army and Navy Stores, which is the nearest to us. Across the river is the London County Council. Across the road is the luncheon club which is or used to be run by the Ministry of Health. Are we going to treat these three cases differ-
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ently? Under Clause 16 the Crown, which is not His Majesty but that mysterious entity represented by the people who sit on the Front Government Bench, is always claiming privilege. Under Clause 16 we have exempted the Crown except so far as canteens in Royal Ordnance factories are concerned. We are being asked by this new Clause to put local authorities in a position of privilege. I am not clear whether the people in the luncheon club at the Ministry of Health come under the Bill. The people at the Army and Navy Stores do come under it. What conceivable reason is there why somebody on the clerical staff of the Army and Navy Stores should come under the Bill and why somebody who happens to be the secretary of the luncheon club of the Ministry of Health should be exempt because he is a servant of the Crown and not an industrial worker, and why County Hall across the river should be exempted by this Clause? There is no coherence about the Bill.
We thus have three classes of persons. There are the employees of the Crown; there are employees of places like the Army and Navy Stores, which used to be called a co-operative society but they have now abandoned that title; there are co-operative societies which would come under this Bill. The hon. Member behind me who is very chatty has supported Clause 16, which suggests that certain people should be out of the Bill. In addition to those two classes there are people like the secretary of the luncheon club of the Ministry of Health. Now this proposed Clause wants to exclude the London County Council. I do not really mind who is in the Bill and who is out, for it is such a bad Bill that it does not matter. There ought, however, to be some principle. I can find no principle governing this matter in the Bill. It is merely submission to the pressure of Fascist doctrine, which has now its chief support from behind me. (Interruption). The hon. Member thinks Fascism is a term of abuse applied to Germans.
The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Member is going very wide on what is really a narrow point. Perhaps he had better refer less to hon. Members behind him.
Sir H. Williams: I apologise. The question at issue is whether there is any fundamental reason why employees of local authorities, who are large traders in these

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days, should be outside this Bill any more than the employees of private persons. That is the fundamental test, and although I have been asked by the London County Council, of which I am an alderman, to support the new Clause, I find that I cannot do it. There is not the slightest reason why municipalities should be put in a privileged position. If we pass Acts of Parliament which impose social duties in connection with employment, conditions and wages there is no reason why local authorities should be exempt from the overriding and all-powerful arm of the Minister of Labour.
Sir John Mellor: British Restaurants are managed by the local authorities, and I hope that the Solicitor-General will give an assurance that the staffs employed in them will not be in a privileged position as compared with staffs in any other catering establishment.
Sir H. Webbe: I hope that we shall not be alarmed by the implications of what my hon. Friend has just said. We have not yet had any indication from the Minister that it is his intention to accept this new Clause. Like others who are concerned with local authorities, I have been asked to support it. I admit that the logic of the arguments leads me to want to do so. This is just another example of the muddle into which we have got because of the rather hasty character of this legislation. There are any number of arguments which can be put forward on behalf of the local authorities, but those arguments apply equally to the big private enterprise establishments. Therefore, I am afraid that I cannot support this new Clause, and I hope very much that the Minister will reject it. There is no doubt that local authorities will experience great difficulties with this Bill. Questions will arise in connection with their clerical staff which will puzzle them and lead to a great deal of trouble in administration, but they, like private enterprise, have to suffer from the fact that the bull has got into the china shop and that some china is bound to be broken.
Mr. Levy: Either this Bill is a good Bill or a bad Bill. If it is supposed to be a good Bill, it should apply to all who should come within its ambit. If it is a bad Bill, let us not make it worse by showing discrimination. The Bill is supposed to be all-embracing so far as the
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catering trade is concerned, and therefore if local authorities or the Crown find it necessary to cater for employees, it seems nonsensical that their catering departments should be excluded. We find that hotels are divided into two classes, the residential and the catering. All hotels are not necessarily residential. A catering department exists for the convenience of those who may wish to partake of refreshments or food. I cannot support any Clause which is going to discriminate among various categories of catering employees just because they happen to be in various institutions under local autthorities vis-à-vis these other large establishments. My hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) mentioned the Army and Navy Stores. May I mention Harrods or some other big establishment? Either they are to be excluded or included. I say that if they come within the category this bad Catering Bill should be made worse by the inclusion of all.
Mr. Evelyn Walkden: I think the hon. Member who moved this Clause has been very badly briefed by the Municipal Corporations' Association or the County Councils' Association in regard to the arguments he has put forward. If they have no better case than the one he has submitted, he had better tell them to hold a few more meetings long after this Bill has become law.
Sir J. Lamb: I was moving a new Clause and not asking for advice as to what I should do in any other case.
Mr. Walkden: And I am offering an opinion on what was said. I think I am entitled to offer an opinion on arguments as to why we should accept the Clause, accepting the fact that the County Councils' Association are the promoters of the Clause and my hon. Friend is the Mover.
The Deputy-Chairman: It is no concern of the Committee who is promoting the Clause. What concerns us is who moves the Clause.
Mr. Walkden: I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland), who told us of the interest and appreciation we ought to display in the views of the Municipal Corporations' Association. I am accepting his advice, but I accept the correction from you, Mr. Williams, in regard to the point as to whom else we should appreciate.

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Whether county councils, municipal councils or parish councils are affected by the Bill, what does it matter? If town clerks cannot decide when this Bill becomes law which members of their staff are affected by the Bill then it is time we got new town clerks.
Mr. Levy: It is within the discretion of the Commission and not of the town clerks.
Mr. Walkden: They understand beforehand that this is part of the delaying action, and I am sorry that these associations are lending themselves to it. It is most unfortunate, and I hope we shall reject this Clause.
The Solicitor-General: I have given full consideration to this new Clause, and so has my right hon. Friend the Minister, because my hon. Friend was good enough to draw attention to it at an early stage in the proceedings, but the difficulty which we are in is that it alters fundamentally the principle on which the scope of the Bill is based. If the hon. Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb) will look once again at Sub-section (2) of Clause 1, he will see that the scope is based on the activities of the undertaking or part of the undertaking. They decide the scope issue. The new Clause suggests that in the case of a local authority's catering a different principle should apply, and that the test of the activities of the person should be the material consideration. I think I am putting in other words, relating it to the wording of the Bill, the argument which was put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams). I ask my hon. Friend to appreciate that there is a fundamental difficulty. We cannot alter the fundamental provisions of the Bill and place local authorities in a different position. That is the difficulty on the question of accepting the new Clause.
Having put that point with one hand, let me try to remove some of my hon. Friend's fears with the other. He put forward the case of a teacher engaged for a short time in serving meals. In that case his fear is unfounded. Applying the test which I have just suggested, the test of undertakings and activities, that teacher is employed in the scholastic part of the local authority's undertaking and would not be within the scope of the Bill because
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he or she assisted in serving school meals. When we come to the nursing question I ask my hon. Friend to remember the governing principle that local authorities are in exactly the same position, and also to remember that the Minister has said that he is going to have no duplication in the matter. I think that sets at rest the other point. The point of them all being in the same position meets the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sir J. Mellor). That is the position we have tried to keep. When we get to the question of the ancillary workers, I think the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon becomes even stronger, that it would be obviously unfair and illegal to exclude ancillary workers in local authority catering establishments while including such workers who are employed otherwise in the local authority. It is quite a serious problem. The normal number likely to be affected in the case of the London County Council is something like 8,000 to 10,000. I am quite certain, having given the best consideration to this position, that in the interests of general fairness and logical legislation we must place local authorities not in any worse position but in the same position as other catering establishments.
Sir W. Smithers: Before you came into the Chair, Mr. Williams, we had a discussion on Sub-section (2) of Clause 17, in which the question of ancillary workers was raised. There we were told that certain persons like ostlers, chauffeurs and gardeners who work for catering establishments would come within the ambit of the Bill. Now the Solicitor-General tells us that a teacher who is engaged chiefly in teaching but who helps with the feeding of the school children does not come within the ambit of the Bill. What does he mean? We are here to try to protect the public. Will the Solicitor-General give us some better definition of ancillary help? A lot of people ask me, "Do I or do I not"——
The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Member was perfectly in Order up to the point when he began asking for a definition of "ancillary," but that point has passed.
Sir W. Smithers: With great respect, I was speaking about local authorities. The Solicitor-General referred to the case of a teacher and said a teacher does not come within the ambit of the Bill. Will

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he therefore continue his definition and say who does and who does not come within the Bill, because people want to know?
Sir J. Lamb: I should like to thank the Solicitor-General for his reply, but I wish to clear up a point which has been raised by the other side. The authorities for whom I am speaking—and I believe I am speaking for a larger number than are represented by the County Councils' Association—do not in any way wish to oppose the Bill. They are prepared to come under the Bill, but they ask that it should be made clear as to who it is among those in their service to whom the Bill does apply. I see from the attitude that hon. Members have taken that because they have not been successful in obtaining clarity for others they are not prepared to give it to the County Councils' Association or any other association. In that case I think the best thing I can do is to ask leave to withdraw the new Clause.
Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

NEW CLAUSE—(Restriction on disclosure of information.)
(1) No information relating to any undertaking, premises or place, being information which has been obtained by, or on behalf of, any person for the purposes of his functions under this Act, shall, without the previous consent in writing of the person carrying on such undertaking or owning such premises or place, be published or disclosed otherwise than in connection with the execution or for the purposes of this Act or any order or regulation having effect by virtue of this Act.
(2) Nothing in the preceding Sub-section shall apply to any disclosure of any information made for the purposes of any legal proceedings pursuant to this Act (including any public inquiry under Section three, Section four or Section seven of this Act) or of any criminal proceedings which may be taken whether pursuant to this Act or otherwise, or for the purposes of any report of any such proceedings as aforesaid.
(3) If any person publishes or discloses any information in contravention of this Section, he shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds or to both such imprisonment and such fine or, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds or to both such imprisonment and such fine.—[Sir R. Clarry.]
Brought up, and read the First time.
Sir Reginald Clarry: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
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In simple language the Clause means that there shall be no transmission of trade secrets or anything of that sort from one establishment to another. I am not in a position to talk about the particular kinds of trade secrets in this industry, except that they may be recipes, or methods of cooking, purchasing or organisation of one sort or another. I see no reason why this provision should not be inserted, as it would improve the Bill—such as it is.
The Solicitor-General: I want the Committee to consider whether the proposed new Clause, having regard to its general effect, is necessary. The last thing we would desire is to create a new criminal offence, if that is unnecessary. As I see the position, any inspector or person in that class would be completely covered by Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act.
Sir H. Williams: These persons are not in the service of the Crown in the ordinary sense. I thought that the Official Secrets Act related to only those in the service of the Crown. I shall be very much obliged if the Minister will give us the reference.
The Solicitor-General: I welcome the interruption. I am very anxious to help the Committee on this point. The words which I have in mind are:
"having in his possession information which he has obtained, owing to his position as a person who holds or has held office under His Majesty."
I take the view—everyone I have consulted has also taken the view—that inspectors would undoubtedly be in that position. They come under Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act, and it would be an offence for them to give information to any person, other than a person to whom they were authorised to communicate the information or a person to whom, in the interests of the State, they ought to communicate it.
Sir H. Williams: The Commission will be created, in principle, by Parliament and appointed by the Minister. It is suggested that officials of the Commission then come under the Official Secrets Act. Let us take an analogy. The Governors of the British Broadcasting Corporation are a body created by Parliament. Do I understand that every official of the B.B.C. comes under the Official Secrets Act? If not, why not?
The Solicitor-General: My hon. Friend will be the first to appreciate that I cannot give off-hand an opinion on a matter like that without having the Charter of the Corporation in front of me. I am very anxious that the Committee should receive the best information on any question of law which I can give to them, but I must ask my hon. Friend not to press me on the question of the B.B.C. By all means let him press me with regard to this Commission. I take the view that inspectors and officers appointed under Clause 12 are in the position that I have said, that is, of those who have obtained their information through a position of holding office under His Majesty. To be quite frank, the position of the actual Commissioners themselves is more doubtful.
There would be an argument, and I cannot officially decide that argument, as to the position of the Commissioners or of the members of the wages boards. The answer to that is, whichever side of the line it may fall, to look at what the Commissioners or the wages boards are concerned with. They are concerned with general questions. The Commissioners have, first of all, to decide whether the industrial machinery of employers and employed is sufficient. Then they have to consider, if it is not sufficient, whether they will make a wages board recommendation. So far as I can see, there is no need for the Commissioners to obtain detailed private information. The wages board have to make recommendations to the Minister as to general rates of wages that will obtain. If one concedes that there is an argument that they are servants of the Crown, I do not see the practical fear which inspires my hon. Friend on this point. The new Clause appears mainly directed against the misuse of information by the officers who will be in a position of asking for information and of conducting prosecutions. I take the view that they are covered by the Official Secrets Act. With regard to the Commissioners and members of the wages boards, even if they are not covered, I do not think they can be in a position to misuse their powers.
Sir H. Williams: We have had a most illuminating speech from the Solicitor-General. When he was halfway across the river he realised that he was in difficulties. The whole of the brief which he
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had prepared for himself was based on Clause 12, under which it is clear that the officers appointed by the Minister to perform certain functions of civil servants come under the Official Secrets Act. When you turn to the First and Second Schedules, and when you also look at the earlier Clauses and the powers to obtain information, it is clear that both the Commission and the wages board can obtain private information about all sorts of firms, corporations and institutions, and that there is no prohibition. They are not persons in the service of the Crown, and they do not come under the Official Secrets Act. The Solicitor-General admitted that there is some doubt about the position of the Commission. Having regard to the speech of the Solicitor-General, I suggest that the Mover of the proposed new Clause should ask leave to withdraw it on the understanding that the rather difficult legal and constitutional position shall be looked into by the Law Officers of the Crown before we reach the Report stage. It is manifest that there is a real element of doubt about the position of members and officers of the Commission and members and officers of wages boards.
Major Petherick: There are two possible leakages of information with regard to the proposed new Clause. The first is the inspectors under the Crown. I am not at all satisfied with the Solicitor-General's explanation. It is true that inspectors, being Government employees, are obviously bound by the Official Secrets Act, but that only applies to the King's secrets. Suppose an inspector under the Bill parts with a recipe for an extremely good dish which he has happened to learn from the landlord of an hotel. What is the position in that case? As regards members of the Commission and of wages boards, all kinds of information might very well be discovered, relating, say, to the amount of capital involved, the amount already paid in wages or technical questions of cold storage, efficiency and development of trade. It is not so far-fetched as it may have seemed. It is clear when we are talking about wages boards that they are to be persons connected with the trade. They will be placed in a responsible position, and it seems possible that one, representing an employer, might obtain the secrets of another employer and inadvertently pass them on. There seems no good reason why the Clause should not be accepted. The fact that it increases the

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size of the Bill is not a very good reason for rejecting it.
Mr. Bevin: The hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken raised the question of inspectors covered by the Official Secrets Act, and the whole of the argument in the last few minutes has been concerned with what an inspector might discover in the course of his inspection. My difficulty is when we get to the Commission. I have given an undertaking that there shall be a report to the House. I do not want a conflict between the Official Secrets Act and my undertaking as to a report to the House of Commons of the grounds on which the Commission arrived at their conclusion. The proposal that the Commission should be brought within the Official Secrets Act will hamstring the House of Commons entirely in regard to that report. I am sure, while we have no desire to give any secrets away—in fact, I understand that this is the one trade in which there are no secrets, and that is why we all look so well—from my knowledge of wages boards for many years, that if there is one institution in the world whose discussions have been kept private it is this kind of board and Commission. I know of no place in which there is greater respect for matters conveyed to them than there is on joint bodies like the proposed Commission and wages boards. You never see the information leak out to the Press or anywhere else. If the Commission are to discharge the duty to the House of Commons of presentation of their annual report, I suggest, and this is what I am troubled about, that they should not be hamstrung any further.
Sir H. Williams: I was quite satisfied when the Solicitor-General spoke that the Government were in a mess, but I am convinced beyond all possibility of doubt after hearing the Minister. What has he told us? That, "You must do this, otherwise the Commission will be prevented from reporting to Parliament." Really, that is not good enough. After all, this Commission can have officers, can have secretaries, such officers as the Minister thinks fit. The Official Secrets Act applies to the employees of the Crown, but it does not bind Ministers. Ministers, in some cases without specific sanction from His Majesty, in some cases requiring his specific sanction in certain Cabinet matters, can always speak freely. The
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Minister is now trying to suggest that if my hon. Friend's new Clause is carried, the Commission will not be able to report to Parliament. He must be in an awful mess if he has to use that argument, which has no intellectual validity whatever.
His Majesty's advisers are in a mess at this moment, and I hope they will accept the suggestion I made earlier. I believe the hon. Member will withdraw his Clause provided they will give an undertaking that they will look into this subject between now and the Report stage, because it is obvious that the Government do not know where they are. It is no use fumbling with it and saying that no wages Commission has ever blown the gaff. That does not impress me in the least. We are now passing an Act of Parliament, not discussing the right hon. Gentleman's pre-war colleagues, who, I agree, are most honourable and proper. We are laying down that people employed by the Commission and the wages board who receive confidential information must not themselves disclose it. What the Commission should do in presenting an annual report to Parliament is a different matter. We must not be fobbed off by the suggestion that if we pass this Clause we shall never have a report to Parliament. That is nonsense, and the right hon. Gentleman would not have said it unless he was in difficulties. That the Minister is using an argument of no intellectual validity shows he is in a mess, and I hope he will say that he will look into this between now and the Report stage.
Mr. Gallacher: I wish to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman, in view of this fear of the caterer that another caterer may know his secrets, whether it does not strike him as remarkable as showing how little trust the robber capitalists have in one another? Would it not be better to intern the whole lot of them for the duration of the war?
Sir R. Clarry: It is clear that this Clause has disclosed a very substantial loophole in the Bill. We understand that inspectors come within the Official Secrets Act but that there are other classes who may get in possession of trade secrets, who might not or do not come under the Official Secrets Act. On the understanding that the matter will be carefully examined between now and the Report stage, I beg, to ask leave to withdraw the new Clause.
Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Safeguard for general public interest.)
The Commission is exercising their powers under this Act and every wages board in making any recommendations and framing and submitting any wages regulation proposals under this Act shall have due regard to the general public interest and to the importance of ensuring that the persons for whom accommodation or refreshment is provided by the catering industry (including visitors from overseas) are adequately served.—[Mr. Craik Henderson.]
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr. Craik Henderson: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
I suggest that this really is an important Clause. So far we have been dealing with various Clauses regulating wages and so on, but, as the Minister said, "We cannot live by the Beveridge Report alone." Equally, we cannot live, or the catering industry cannot prosper, merely by the appointment of Committees. The catering trade must be in a position to attract new business after the war, and it is going to be a very serious handicap both for the catering industry and, what is more important in my view, for the general public, if these various Commissions, wages boards and sub-committees are to have the power of putting forward recommendations which might have the effect of killing the industry itself which lays the golden egg, and also might have the effect of introducing provisions which might be very detrimental to the general public. To take just one example, suppose a recommendation were put forward that no hot meals were to be supplied after eight o'clock and the Minister were to adopt it. It might seem, both to employers and employees equally, that it was quite a useful provision, but the effect would be very bad on the general public and bad in its effect of driving tourists away from this country. One would like to have some assurance that in the framing of these regulations, and in the Minister giving effect to them, the interests of the general public will be kept well in view.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. McCorquodale): My hon. Friend, in moving this proposed new Clause, raised a point which
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I think has the general sympathy of all of us. No one would wish-that anything done under this Bill should in any way handicap the general public interest or the interest of the trade, and indeed I cannot imagine a wages board, which would be composed of experienced people in the trade, endeavouring to handicap the source of their own livelihood. The hon. Member mentioned what I thought was a rather odd case. He suggested that the wages board might recommend that no hot meal should be served after eight o'clock and that the Minister might adopt it. The Minister has no power to adopt any such suggestion, or to make such a regulation. He would have to come to Parliament and move a new Bill to be able to do so. I do not think the hon. Member need be worried by points of the kind he raised. The Clause as drafted simply requires that due regard is to be had to the matters mentioned; it would have no legal effect and, therefore, can have no effective place in the legislation. I think we must assume that the Minister, this impartial Commission, and the wages board, made up of experienced people in that section of the industry with which they deal, will all recognise the responsibilities entrusted to them by Parliament in this Bill, and act accordingly in the public interest. I hope the hon. Member will not press this Clause, as we do not want anything in the Bill which clearly would have no effect at all.
Sir Alfred Beit: I do not quite follow the Joint Parliamentary Secretary in his statement that the Minister of Labour could not make any Order to the effect of the example given by the Mover of this proposed new Clause. Surely if the wages board were to lay down certain restrictions on the hours of labour in this industry, the effect might be that meals could not be sold at certain times. I find myself in general principle somewhat in sympathy with the objects of this new Clause, because, although I have not visited Australia, I believe that without any such provision as we are now envisaging, it is difficult to get a meal after six p.m. With legislation of this kind something of that might arise, which I think would be a setback to Western civilisation. But I do not think it is desirable to incorporate these matters in this Clause. It seems to me that Clause 6, with its safeguards for the improvement and efficiency of the industry,

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is sufficient. No one who has any regard for the efficiency and improvement of the industry could possibly say that to take such a step as has been instanced would be furthering the efficiency or improvement of the industry. I do not think this new Clause is needed, though I sympathise with its object.
Sir Granville Gibson: I had intended raising the point which has just been asked. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary has said that the Minister has no power to stipulate the hours when meals can be served. But the Commission has power, I suppose, to recommend that hours should be limited, and the Minister would have the power to put them into effect.
Mr. McCorquodale: The Commission would have no power at all in the matter, and the wages boards have not the power to recommend hours. The wages boards have power to make proposals for fixing the remuneration to be paid generally or for any particular work, for fixing intervals for meals or rests, or requiring any workers to be allowed holidays, and it is on these matters that Orders may be made by my right hon. Friend. He therefore could not make an Order that no meals should be served after 8 p.m.
Sir G. Gibson: Apparently hours may be stipulated or recommendation made by the Commission as to hours.
Mr. McCorquodale: No, only the hours of rest, not hours of work. They can made recommendations
"for fixing the intervals for meals or rest to be allowed to all or any such worker…."
That is in the Bill, Clause 7 (1). That is the only power the wages board has at all to recommend hours.
Sir G. Gibson: Is there any danger that an experience I had in New Zealand might happen here, whereby breakfast was served from eight to nine, and at 9.15 you could not get a meal?
Mr. McCorquodale: Not under this Bill.
Mr. Levy: The Minister would surely agree that if you are going to regulate hours, and the Commission, as I understand it, under this Bill have the right to recommend regulations for intervals of rest, they can say that the interval for
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rest shall start, shall we say, at 8.30 p.m., which means that after eight o'clock the interval starts, and no meals can be served because it would interfere with the interval. After all, it seems quite obvious that in regulations that the Commission desire to make which they think are for the benefit of the workers, whether it is so or not, they may think it is desirable that restaurants shall close, shall we say, at 10 p.m. What is to prevent them from making a regulation to do that? They can argue that the interval for rest shall start at 2 p.m., which would automatically mean no lunches after two. What provision is there here to prevent anything of that kind taking place? It may sound a little absurd as I am saying it—[Interruption]—but a number of these absurdities unfortunately, owing to these regulations, are translated into facts, because so many of these Regulations to-day which are translated into actual facts become absurd in actual working, and there is a good deal of anxiety in the country.
Miss Ward: Could the hon. Member give an illustration of that absurdity?
Mr. Levy: With pleasure. To-day manufacturers who have in their possession quite a large amount of brilliantine are prohibited under a Regulation from supplying it and it is therefore absurd to think that manufacturers with brilliantine required by the community are committing a penal offence if they distribute it.
Captain Studholme: The hon. Lady asked for an example of the absurdity in practice. The last time I was in New Zealand, a country with which I have many family connections and for which I have a great affection, I arrived, after a very tiresome, rough crossing, at the hotel at about 7 o'clock in the evening. I asked for a meal, and I was told, "We are very sorry, but we are not allowed to serve a meal at this hour." I consider this a very good example. The whole thing is quite barbarous.
Sir W. Smithers: In considering the hours of rest, will any provision be made to see that they are fixed daily, or will they be spread out over three months or six months? [An HON. MEMBER: "Oh!"] The hon. Member says "Oh!" but it is very important because

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seaside and holiday places have rash seasons, and people at such places would be prepared to work longer hours at rush times if they could get a proper rest at other times.
Mr. McCorquodale: On this Clause we have had an interesting Debate, ranging from New Zealand to brilliantine; but we are endeavouring to consider what is actually in the Clause, and neither New Zealand nor brilliantine is included. My hon. Friend assumes that a wages board, composed of employers and employed persons in that section of the industry, are deliberately going to make recommendations on rest times and on wages which will hamstring their own trade. I cannot believe that that is likely. The object of setting up a wages board which is representative of the trade is to prevent that sort of thing. We must leave it to the good sense of the board to safeguard their own trading interests.
Sir William Davison: It seems to me that this matter is left very much in the air. The Minister cannot say that a thing is likely or is not likely to take place. We know what has happened in certain of the Dominions and other places. The board might possibly make up its mind that it was in the interests of the employees that they should have an interval for rest from, say, 7.30 to 8.30, but that might not be to the public convenience. I think the wording of the Clause might be improved, but there should be some direction to the board that in making an order regard should be had to the interests of the general public. I see no legal objection to that. We cannot accept the idea that people concerned in the trade will not do anything absurd. We are a legislative assembly, and we have to provide in advance, by Act of Parliament, and not by what a Minister considers likely, that such things shall not happen. I hope a direction will be given that any interval of rest which is fixed shall have regard to the convenience of the general public.
Mr. Colegate: I have great sympathy with this proposed- Clause, although I agree that the wording may not be quite suitable for its purpose. We should be quite clear about what we are doing, and how far we accept the sort of argument which is put forward against the Clause.
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My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary said that we could trust to a wages board not to do anything to hamstring the industry. That is not the point. We are concerned with the consumer. We all know that employers and employed may easily get together to soak the consumer. One of the functions of this House, now and for many years to come, will be to give adequate protection to the consumer against what we might call conspiracies between the employer and the employed. That applies particularly to the catering industry. [Interruption.] Would the hon. Member mind making his own speech when I am not talking? Particularly does this apply to the catering industry, on which all members of the public depend for their comfort and convenience when they go about the country. We may be told that something is not likely to happen, or that commonsense or the Minister is going to prevent it. Over and over again we have been told that we must leave things to somebody else's commonsense. But I really think that the Minister, from whom we had very little concession, should try before the Report stage to get some form of words which will meet this point, which I am sure appeals to a large section of the House.
Major Petherick: I do not think there is anything particularly objectionable even in the form of words used in the Clause. The whole emphasis of the Bill is on the protection of the persons engaged in the trade. There is not one word which makes it plain that the whole of the trade, employers and employed, depend on whether the people of the country are willing to consume the goods they supply. It seems to me that a caveat should be inserted to tell the wages board that they must, in any recommendations they make, consider the consumer. It is no good either of them making such recommendations as are going to drive the consumers away from the restaurants, the hotels, the cafes, the sweet shops and so on.
Mr. MacLaren: Where will they go?
Major Petherick: If I go to an hotel and try to get a meal, and cannot get one, I go home. If I do not get good food, I do not go to that place again. The case of New Zealand has been, quite properly, raised. It is an apposite instance to

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bring up. The Parliamentary Secretary and other members of the Government during the whole Committee stage have constantly suggested that everything will be all right because the Commission is going to consist of Tritons, and the wages board of Angel Gabriels. But nobody knows that that will be so. Can we guarantee that that will be so in 1953? Of course we cannot. We must go back to what the Bill in fact states. If the Bill in no way draws the attention of the Commission and the wages boards to the fact that their trade relies entirely for its success or failure upon the consumers, it may be that one or other of those bodies will make recommendations which will drive prospective consumers away from the industry. It does no harm to accept these six very modest lines in the new Clause. It may do a lot of good in drawing the attention of these people to the fact that they rely on the general public.
Mr. Levy: My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary endeavoured to make a couple of points with regard to New Zealand and brilliantine which were quite irrelevant to the point I asked him to explain. I do not think that——
The Deputy-Chairman: I was not in the Chair then, but now that the hon. Gentleman has called my attention to the fact, I think he had better leave it alone.
Mr. Levy: I had better not continue on that subject; but my hon. Friend instead of replying to the proper points which I made, if I may say so, with all deference and due humility, gave us a rigmarole which had nothing to do with them. I asked him to explain if it were not possible in the form of a regulation to limit the service of meals after 9 o'clock. Either it is possible for the Commissioners under regulations, or it is not. If it is possible, something should be put into the Bill to prevent that sort of thing happening, so as to meet the convenience of people who are travelling about the country, and for whom it is necessary that meals should be obtainable over good and reasonable hours.
Miss Ward: Will you allow me to say how sorry I am that the hon. Member for Elland (Mr. Levy) has not been able to get his brilliantine? Obviously, it is a very sore point. I do not want to pursue that subject. I have listened to the supporters of this Clause with very great in-
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terest. None of them realises that at this moment the railway companies, without this Bill, have ceased to serve meals. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend obviously has not travelled lately on the London and North Eastern Railway.
Sir G. Gibson: I travelled from Leeds to London last night on the London and North Eastern Railway, and I had dinner on the train.
The Deputy-Chairman: Both hon. Members are completely out of Order.
Miss Ward: At present under the law of the land, as I understand it, railway hotels and restaurants can all say at what time they will open and close their establishments. [HON. MEMBERS: "No,"] Members all say "No," but I have a fairly wide experience of restaurants. I have no desire to pursue this very complicated question, but I want to say, in general opposition to the proposed Clause, that, as far as I understand it, the wages board machinery in the past has worked very effectively, with very great success, and I very much regret that my hon. Friends here should have taken up so much time on this matter.
Captain P. Macdonald: This is a very important Clause. I think it would be a very bad thing if this Bill were to go on the Statute Book without some reference to the obligation which this industry is under to the general public. Reference has been made to different countries, and the conditions prevailing in them with regard to catering for the general public. I will deal with one example, not in our own Empire, but nearer home where trade union regulations were imposed and completely spoilt catering for the general public in recent years. I remember arriving by car somewhere in Czechoslovakia, a Socialist State, at 7.30 in the evening and being told that because of trade union regulations and so forth imposed upon hotel keepers no meals could be served after that hour. If one had to go on a train journey of a considerable length, the same reasons were given for not providing a meal. There is no reason why this Bill, if improperly interpreted or misinterpreted, or even interpreted in its proper form, could not impose upon the industry regulations that would make it impossible for it to cater for the general public. There is a very great danger of this happening unless the trade boards

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have some clause or regulation such as this to insist that the comfort of the general public must be considered, otherwise we are handing over to this body under this Bill powers from which the general public will dissent very much indeed if they find that it is going to hamper their convenience and comfort in this way. We have only to impose one regulation and say that in small hotels or small lodging houses there must be one job for one man. To impose such an obligation upon a small establishment might mean that immediately they might have to close down because they could not afford to run two shifts. Is the general public to be left in this position without any obligation being upon the Government to see that the convenience of the public is catered for?
I do not think that the illustration of the hon. Lady the Member for Wallsend (Miss Ward) has relevance at all. The railway companies to-day are hamstrung by war-time regulations. It is not their fault that they cannot serve meals. They are very anxious to serve them, but they are not allowed in many cases because the Minister of War Transport does not allow them a restaurant car. To say that it is their fault that meals are not served in all cases to-day is to quote a very bad example indeed. I urge the Minister, before rejecting this Clause, to reassure the general public that in passing this Bill giving so much power to the Minister, the Government are not doing this without safeguarding in some way the obligations that they have to the general public. If the words of the proposed Clause are not convenient, I am convinced that some suitable words could be found to ensure that the convenience of the general public is safeguarded.
Sir H. Webbe: I am sure that no one doubts the intentions either of the Minister or his officers or indeed of those he is to appoint to the wages board, but we have had a little too much of intentions. I submit to the Minister that without even loss of faith—and I realise that he wants the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill—he could afford to accept either this Clause or at least the principle. I will quote two sentences from this interesting product of the party truce. The Minister, in introducing this Bill, said:
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"Let me say, too, that I do not regard this catering service as purely commercial. A large part of it must inevitably be a social service as well."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th February, 1943; col. 1200, Vol. 386.]
That is what those who have spoken in support of the Amendment have been trying to say. I ask the Minister, by accepting the Clause or by agreeing to put something definite into the Bill, to restore the expression of opinion he gave on Second Reading on this matter and with which I am certain that the whole House was heartily in agreement.
Mr. Bevin: I regret that so much time has been taken up on this Clause, because it might be assumed that there was no joint machinery existing in this country at all. We have the longest history of any country in the world of joint relationship, and from the days of the trade boards until now, I defy any hon. Members to point to me one industry that was not improved in efficiency as a result of coming under joint machinery of this character. There is all this talk about ruining and wrecking the industry. Read your Debates of 1909. Everything has been falsified. When the two parties have come together under a board they have contributed to the efficiency of the industry and have never done a single thing that can be shown to be against the public interest at all. The public interest and the interest of those employed in the industry are synonymous terms, but that does not mean that women have to work until 12 o'clock at night and have to get breakfast ready in the morning. I deliberately refrained from putting the regulation of hours into this Bill. That is why I ask that this Clause should be defeated. The "Front Populaire" has been quoted. What was the trouble with the "Front Populaire" [An HON. MEMBER: "It was not popular."] I am not so sure about that. I am not going to digress, but I have my own view that if the "Front Populaire" had had more support from this House, France might never have fallen—[Interruption.] Hon. Members provoke me, so they must let me put my spoke in. I am not going to accept that gibe without a protest, especially against a country that we are going to bring back at a later date. This business of throwing mud at other countries is not a wise thing to do. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order."] The "Front Populaire"——
The Deputy-Chairman: I must ask the right hon. Gentleman to leave the "Front Populaire," otherwise I would have to allow other Members to answer him.
Mr. Bevin: I apologise, Mr. Williams. I was a little provoked. I only wanted to reply to the hon. Member. The trouble in New Zealand, in Australia and in France was an attempt to legislate hours in a Bill and not to leave it to joint machinery to settle. That is where the whole thing went wrong. When I had to approach this industry I determined to try and find a means which would give flexibility and which would allow the wages board with common sense and with the facts before them to adjust one set of rest periods for one section of the trade. It is obvious that if you are dealing with the public-house section of the trade you have to regulate your periods of rest largely by the hours of opening. In the luxury hotels you may have shift work, and you can regulate it in another way. And in boarding houses and in seaside resorts you may have to arrange the rest periods in yet another way. In that sense I have allowed the public interest to be brought within the scope of the various wages boards. The Committee will do well to trust these boards to lay down the conditions of rest and comfort for the staff, but I want to make it clear that I cannot be a party to the atrociously long hours—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"]—listen to what I am going to say—which the public in many cases, in my opinion, have unreasonably demanded. In many cases the public have demanded from the staff in hotels service at hours which the proprietor has regretted he has been unable to control. No one in this House has spent more years, in hotels than I have. I have been travelling now for 35 years as a trade union official and living in hotels. I have been ashamed sometimes at the demands of some of my own friends upon the proprietors and staffs—unreasonable demands. The period of rest is a very vital thing indeed which I want the wages board to decide.
Lastly, can these good people employed in this trade be excluded from the general development that is going on in regard to industrial health? Industrial health is not limited to the factories as far as I am concerned. I believe that with the free and independent chairman, and the
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wages board looking at the thing objectively, both sides having regard to their industry and their industrial needs will arrive at a common-sense arrangement. If something was proposed which was outrageous, can anyone deny that if it was advertised, and advertised it must be—I would remind the Committee that when the wages board puts up a proposal it has to advertise it—and if we were going to ruin any part of the industry, there would not be a yell of protest immediately and the Minister would have to refer it back to the board to consider? Therefore I regard all the protection introduced into this Bill as done deliberately with the intention of avoiding rigidity in the development of this industry. I ask the Committee to reject the proposal in the Clause which has no legal effect at all, to accept the Clause originally proposed and to have confidence in the machinery.
Mr. Craik Henderson: I regret very much the speech which the Minister has just delivered, which is quite irrelevant to the Clause which we were discussing. Our proposal is that the Commission, in exercising their power, should have due regard to the general public interest. There was no need to bring in any sentimental nonsense about people being called upon to work long hours. There was no such suggestion; we were merely asking that such regulations as were brought in should have due regard to the public interest. It is quite possible that employers and employees may see a question from the point of view of the interest of the particular trade, but there is also another interest to be considered—the public interest. Why the Minister should have thought it advisable to indulge in the remarks he made I cannot imagine.
Mr. Leslie: Because of the speeches of the hon. Gentleman's friends.
Question, "That the Clause be read a Second time," put, and negatived.

FIRST SCHEDULE.—(Constitution, Officers and Proceedings of the Commmission.)
The Deputy-Chairman: We now come to the First Schedule, and——
Sir R. Clarry: On a point of Order. Is it your intention, Mr. Williams, not to call the new Clause in my name which comes next on the Order Paper—"Saving as to Licensing Acts and Common Law"?
The Deputy-Chairman: It has not been selected. The first Amendment to the First Schedule which I propose to call is that standing in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Chorley (Sir D. Hacking). From what I can gather, it would seem to be in the interests of the Committee to have a fairly wide and general discussion on that Amendment. Does that meet with the consent of the Committee?
Hon. Members: Agreed.
Captain P. Macdonald: I beg to move, in page 13, line 4, after "of," to insert "eleven."
The object of this Amendment is to ensure that the industry is represented on the Commission. As laid down in the Bill the composition of the Commission is to consist of seven members, and so far as I can make out it is the intention of the Minister that these seven members should be independent members. Whatever may be the merits of having independent Commissions in some industries, a complicated industry like the catering industry, in which there are so many different sections, should be represented, if not by every individual section, at least by some of them. The Amendment recommends that instead of the Commission being composed of seven independent members the number should be 11—four representatives of the employers, four of the employees, with the remaining three independent. It may be argued that even four representatives of the employers or four representatives of the employees would not represent any material section of this industry. It was urged very strongly by the industry itself that the representation should be greater. Examples have been given of the Road Haulage Act and other Acts, where the composition of the Commission has a much greater representation of the industry than the representation for which we are asking. But those who are associated with the Amendment felt it would be unwise to have too unwieldy a Commission, and we have asked for what we consider to be a reasonable number in order that the Commission should be kept advised on the intricacies, implications and complexities of this trade. I think the Minister would be well advised to accept this Amendment. I do not intend to make a long story of it, because we have already thrashed it out with him,
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and we have heard his views. I urge him to reconsider his decision. I cannot think that the Minister is anxious that this particular industry, which has so many ramifications and different branches, should have no representation at all on the advisory committee.
Major Petherick: The object of the Amendment moved by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight (Captain P. Macdonald) is, as he says, to have a mixed Commission in place of an independent, or semi-independent, Commission as provided for by the words in the Bill. I did not put my name to this Amendment because, frankly, I am not happy with it as it stands, for various reasons. I think it is right, broadly speaking, to have an independent body or to get as close to that as you can. I should prefer it to be more independent than that which is now provided for by the present words in the Bill. One of the difficulties of a mixed Commission is that it would be too unwieldly if it was to represent all the different sections of this industry, and I think such a Commission would be extremely difficult to work. On the other hand, if it was not too big and you tried to get the different sections represented, it would be difficult to get each section fairly represented. In addition, I think there are two other difficulties. For wages boards you want the best men you can get, but unfortunately it so happens in nearly every trade that the best men in that industry are already engaged in carrying on their own job. They may be in trade unions, or they may be directors, managing directors or managers. The result is that it is very difficult on all these boards and Commissions to get good value. Secondly, there is the difficulty of representing all sections by exactly all the men you want.
So far as I can make out, the catering trade as a whole are rather heavily inclined to a mixed Commission, but mineral water manufacturers, when an association was set up to rationalise their trade a short time ago, were perturbed because it was not an independent body, and they clamoured that it should be independent. So I think we can claim that there is no settled policy as to whether a body of this nature should be independent. We have to take every case on its merits. I entirely agree that

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the trade ought to make its views heard and that it ought to be able to give its considered technical views to the Commission. I think we should have a new Clause brought in to provide for setting up an advisory committee of persons solely connected with the trade, representing both employers and employed. You would have to have a fairly large advisory committee, but there are precedents in other Acts of Parliament, not exact analogies, but fairly close to that suggestion.
Mr. Bevin: During the course of the discussions on this Bill I have realised that this is one of the questions, quite apart from support or opposition, which would require review. I am very anxious that the Commission shall remain independent, as stated in the Bill, and the reason I advance for that is that as compared with the Trade Boards Act this Bill provides that the Minister virtually delegates his powers to the Commission. Therefore, if the Commission is to be outside the scope and setting-up of the wages boards and other matters, it is important that it should hold the balance—as it will have to do—between one section and another. It must not be assumed that when you come to deal with the individual interests of these sections there will be the same unanimity as there is in opposition to me. At that stage you will get a division of interests and the clamour for special treatment.
Since I met hon. Members at the now famous, or infamous, meeting at St. James's Square I have been considering in what way I could effectively deal with this problem. If I tried to deal with it by adding to the Commission, it would satisfy nobody, because inevitably somebody would be left out. As can be seen by the formidable list of Amendments on this point, some Members want special representation for one section and others want it for other sections. Therefore, I should be prepared on the Report stage to move a Clause somewhat on the following lines. I do not want to be tied to the actual words. [Interruption.] It is not repentance at all. It shows that at least some hon. Members have an educational value. I do not say which ones. I shall, on the Report stage, move a Clause somewhat on these lines:
"The Minister may appoint such number of persons as he thinks fit to act as technical
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assessors to the Commission in connection with any investigation or inquiry that the Commission may undertake (being persons who, in the Minister's opinion, have special knowledge of any of the matters which fall within the jurisdiction of the Commission). A technical assessor shall not vote or otherwise be a party to any report or recommendation of the Commission."
The idea is to allow flexibility. If boarding houses are under consideration, there can be technical assessors from that branch, and so with public houses or luxury hotels.
Captain P. Macdonald: By assessors the right hon. Gentleman means advisers?
Mr. Bevin: I think that assessor is a much better term. I want to limit this to the technical side. If I used the word "adviser," I should be immediately called upon to get equal numbers from the various sides, and that is what I want to avoid. I have used the word "assessor" deliberately because I want to bring in people to advise the Commission by giving them technical assistance, from wherever they may come. There is, for instance, a body, a very important one in this respect, called the Seaside Resorts Association. They study very carefully the interests of the local authorities. They may not be boarding-house keepers, but in their corporate capacity they are interested in the wellbeing of their community. They have a point of view to put forward. The words I have suggested would allow other types of people to be called in on the health and welfare side. The purpose is to get a body of technical opinion from wherever I may draw it; it may be councillors, boarding-house keepers or hotel keepers, and so on. Further, I think my proposal would really give the trade a chance to sort itself out and enable the Commission to have before them a helpful body of technical assistance. There is one Amendment on the Order Paper which is extremely important from my point of view, although I am afraid some hon. Members do not credit me with being as serious as I am about the matter. The Amendment proposes that I should put on the Commission somebody who would deal specifically with the tourist traffic. The proposal I have made would allow me to have technical assessors to deal with that particular branch which, from the point of view of employment and exchange problems—I speak not only as Minister of Labour but as a Member of the War

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Cabinet—is a very vital matter and one which I do not take lightly. The proposal would allow me to bring in the right class of people to advise the Commission. Therefore, without elaborating the matter any further, I will between now and the Report stage find a wording for the new Clause so as to get the draft right, and I hope it will meet with unanimous agreement, and that the proposal I have made may make it unnecessary for the Amendments on the Order Paper to be moved.
Mr. Colegate: Does the Minister's proposal mean that the Commission will consist of seven entirely independent persons, or does he propose that, in spite of the technical assessors, there shall be two persons representing the employers and two persons representing the employees?
Mr. Bevin: I would stick to the original draft on that point.
Sir W. Smithers: Has my right hon. Friend any idea as to the number of technical assessors there would be? I could not make any suggestion as to the number, because I do not know how many branches of the trade there are, but I take it the Minister would not refuse membership of the board of assessors to any branch of the trade?
Mr. Bevin: I assure the hon. Gentleman that it would be perfectly elastic and would depend upon the subject. The proposal will enable the Commission to have advice from persons familiar with any section of the trade.
Sir H. Williams: I think the Minister has made a most important announcement that will excite very lively satisfaction among the various interests concerned. I hope the Committee will accept the right hon. Gentleman's proposal and not go on with the other Amendments to this Schedule on the Order Paper. That is the advice I would wish to tender to those of my hon. Friends with whom I have been associated. However, this is no reason why we should not discuss the Minister's suggestion in order that he may be helped with regard to the draft he is to make between now and the Report stage. I think the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Sir W. Smithers) has been well answered by the Minister. The assessors are not to be
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a permanent body always sitting. There will be the Commission. If the Commission are discussing lodging-house keepers, there will be present the assessors properly representing that interest; I do not mean only the owners of lodging houses, but somebody representing also those employed in the lodging houses. If the Commission are considering the circumstances of what are known as luxury hotels at seaside resorts, there will be somebody present representing their interests and the interests of their employes. The difference between assessors and advisers is this, that the assessors will always be present when the Commission are considering these matters, whereas an advisory committee is a body which sometimes meets and sometimes does not, and very often it falls into desuetude and becomes completely useless. One has only to consider some of the advisory committees attached to various Government Departments to know how useless some of them are. I would like to congratulate the Minister on having chosen the word "assessor." He is quite right.
However, I wonder whether he is right, in view of the very important change he has suggested, in desiring to continue the Commission in its existing form. The idea is to have a Commission of three independent people, with two representing the interests of the employers and two representing the interests of the workers. In view of this change, I think the Minister would be well advised to consider recasting the Commission and making it a purely independent body. Three members would be too few, but probably five independent members would be an adequate number, and they would always have with them the assessors when discussing a particular problem. I am trying to be helpful. I think there is an overwhelming case for making the Commission a completely independent body. There is an example, which is not a very good one, in the body which elects the London Passenger Transport Board—the Appointing Trustees—but they have no continuing responsibility. If the Minister is going to set up a Commission, let it be composed of people who have no interest in their function except the general public interest, and then associate with them the assessors who will come before the Commission openly with their respective axes

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to grind. The Minister has made a most important announcement and concession which will relieve a great many anxieties, but I ask him to consider recasting the Commission so that it will consist entirely of independent members.
Mr. Graham White: In common with many other hon. Members, I have felt some anxiety about the composition of the Commission, which is to have very important and varied tasks. I do not know whether even the Minister himself is sufficiently well informed to know exactly the nature of all the tasks that the Commission will have to carry out. I was a little anxious about this matter. It occurred to me that it might be a good idea to adapt the words of the Road Haulage Act and put them into an Amendment to the Schedule, to the effect that the Minister, in making the appointments, should consult with persons who appear to him to have knowledge of the catering trade and also persons on the employees' side. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman considered that idea and it did not seem to him to be a good one. I am bound to say that I think he has devised machinery which should enable the Commission to transact their multifarious business in a most effective way. The industry is an ill-defined and widespread one, and the proposal concerning assessors should meet the wishes and soothe the anxieties of a great many people.
Sir Stanley Reed: Some of my hon. Friends and I have on the Order Paper an Amendment to this Schedule which is specially directed towards including on the Commission on what is known as the employers' side somebody with a knowledge of the tourist traffic. In view of what my right hon. Friend has said and his very frank recognition of the importance of that side of the traffic, I do not propose to press that Amendment, and rest entirely satisfied with his assurance that it will be in his mind when appointing assessors under the Clause which he proposes to move. I am a little doubtful whether the suggestion of the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) would meet the situation; I am a little doubtful whether the ideal Commission would be one consisting of three totally independent members, or whether it is not a better Commission as is proposed in the Schedule, by means of which there is secured the continuous
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presence of the employing interests and the employed interests. There is a considerable difference between an assessor and an adviser. In my experience, advisory boards are usually complete humbugs. They are simply used to cover up under a plethora of advice the final decisions of the executive authority. There is a great deal to be said for preserving the composition of the Commission as laid down in the Schedule rather than attempting to reduce it to three totally independent members, remitting all questions of technical advice to the assessors.
As I understood the Minister, the purpose of having the assessors is to be able at any time to bring in to help the Commission people having special knowledge of one part or other of this very special and diverse industry. There may be 25 or 30 branches of it and the Commission would have specialist advice before them when a special point was under discussion. I attach considerable importance to the fact that, in regard to the decisions of the Commission, there will be at all times representatives of the employers and of the employed rather than merely the detached opinion of assessors, as would be the case if the Commission were reduced to three independent members.
I particularly welcome what was said by my right hon. Friend about his intention to give special importance to the tourist traffic. There are two main facts that ought to be realized. One is the very great value of the tourist traffic, and the other is the scandalous way in which it is neglected. To my mind, the position of the tourist in this country deserves lamentation and tears. I am not thinking of the man who goes to the four or five star hotel, I am looking at the man who goes to the three star hotel or the inn, or even the hostel—and I attach importance to the hostel. If you go up and down the country and try to secure decent accommodation at a three star hotel or an inn, you are absolutely at the mercy of chance. The English inn could be made the best in the world. It may be said there are organisations that are supposed to undertake this work, but their incompetence is so abysmal that no one has ever been able to ascertain its depths.

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This will be an important part of the work of the Commission, and I think it will be agreed that this is the ideal time for doing it. Perhaps before the war is over, millions of Americans will have travelled who have never travelled before. Hundreds of thousands of them are coming to this country. If we are to assist them, we shall have to do a great deal more for them than we have done up to now, as well as for the tourist, who should be a welcome visitor and the backbone of a great industry. The right hon. Gentleman may remember the American who said, "You have something to sell in this country which you are not selling, and that is your beauty." You will not sell your beauty unless you can provide a moderate standard of comfort with certainty at a reasonable price. In the circumstances I do not propose to move my Amendment. I am entirely satisfied with the promised new Clause.
Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: There is one question I should like to ask about the assessors. In some cases assessors are only civil servants appointed by a Ministry for special purposes. I should very much like to know the right hon. Gentleman's view on the question of civil servants being appointed as representatives of a trade.
Mr. Bevin: The hon. and gallant Gentleman may be assured that the assessors will not be civil servants.
Commander Bower: We who oppose the Bill have always attached the greatest importance to the composition of the Commission, and it is rather pleasant for us, after wandering for days through the arid desert, confronted by all sorts of mirages which fade away before our eyes, to find this oasis subject to a revision of opinion between now and Report, I think this is a valuable concession which will go a long way to allay a good many anxieties. It has always appeared to me one of the dangers of a Commission of this sort, dealing with such a highly varied industry, that the interests of one part of it might entirely knock out of action some other portion which had not been thought of. The proposal to have assessors who will be called in more or less ad hoc when any particular question arises will be a valuable safeguard against that sort of thing happening. I am inclined to agree with my hon. Friend the
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Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams), and I hope the Minister will give his remarks a little further consideration before Report. I think the concession is a valuable one, and, if we give it a little thought between now and Report, we may be able to make it even better than the proposal the Minister has put forward.
Sir Douglas Hacking: I see that my name appears at the head of the list of those moving the Amendment. I gave a pledge a few days ago that I would not move any further Amendments, but I hope the Committee will pardon me if I take part in this discussion. So many bouquets have been thrown at the Minister that I hate to be left out. He has made a very important concession, and I believe it will go a long way towards making this a more workable Measure. I shall be glad if he will allow me to express my gratitude for the consideration that he has given to the matter. I take it that he is anxious to keep the same constitution for the Commission as is laid down in the First Schedule. I think he is wise to do that. The Commission will be very largely independent, and there will be no one directly representing even employers or employees, which I think is a good thing, because, if you have direct representation of either, you will get very little satisfaction for the trade as a whole with a small number of representatives, and if you had a large number, the Commission would become unwieldy. I take it that the assessors would be purely ad hoc and would be put in for the consideration of the particular section of the trade under discussion at any one time. On that understanding I again express my thanks to the Minister.
Captain P. Macdonald: As the mover of the Amendment in the absence of my right hon. Friend, I should like to congratulate the Minister on meeting his opponents for the first time in any large measure. We attach very great importance indeed to this part of the Bill. We spent most of the afternoon in discussing this very matter with him in his sanctum in St. James's Square. He was adamant then, and, though he made a small gesture, he did not by any means meet our demands. To-day, out of the blue, he has announced a compromise which we think is a great improvement even on what we suggested, as long as you have assessors who

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understand the industry and who are brought in ad hoc to advise on its problems. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be well advised in the matter of seaside resorts. I think that could be better dealt with by assessors than by having representatives of sections of the industry, who could not be representative of the industry as a whole. I congratulate and thank the right hon. Gentleman for meeting us on a vital point, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Major Petherick: This shows the value of a Committee stage. We could not tell whether the right hon. Gentleman was going to make concessions or not, but I think this a very valuable one. It differs from the suggestion that I put forward, but I think it is probably the best way of dealing with the matter. I should like to join my appeal for a reconsideration of the number of independent members of the Commission. I do not believe even now that there should be more than three, but five at the outside.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule agreed to.
Second Schedule agreed to.
Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, to be considered upon the next Sitting Day, and to be printed [Bill 23].
The remaining Orders were read and postponed.

EMERGENCY POWERS (DEFENCE)
Resolved,
"That the China Clay (Charges) Order, 1943, dated 15th March, 1943, made by the Treasury under Section 2 of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, 1939, a copy of which was presented to this House on 23rd March, he approved."—[Captain Waterhouse.]

EMERGENCY POWERS (DEFENCE)
  ADJOURNMENT
  Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Major Sir James Edmondson.]
BRITISH ARMY
  Cadet Force and Boy Scouts Association (Co-operation)
  Cadet Force and Boy Scouts Association (Co-operation)
  Petrol (Misuse)
  Petrol (Misuse)
  Invalided Officers
  Invalided Officers
  Church Bells (Invasion Warning)
  Church Bells (Invasion Warning)
  Overseas Service (India and Burma)
  Overseas Service (India and Burma)
  UNITED STATES FORCES, TRAINING (CLAIMS FOR DAMAGE)
  UNITED STATES FORCES, TRAINING (CLAIMS FOR DAMAGE)
  POLISH FORCES (USE OF ARMY VEHICLES)
  POLISH FORCES (USE OF ARMY VEHICLES)
  REGIONAL PLANNING OFFICERS
  REGIONAL PLANNING OFFICERS
FOOD SUPPLIES
  Confectionery (Chewing Gum)
  Confectionery (Chewing Gum)
  Cereals, Scotland (Whisky Manufacture)
  Cereals, Scotland (Whisky Manufacture)
  Potato Stocks, Scotland
  Potato Stocks, Scotland
  British Restaurants
  British Restaurants
  BEVERIDGE REPORT (IMPLEMENTATION)
  BEVERIDGE REPORT (IMPLEMENTATION)
  LORD REITH
  LORD REITH
  POPULATION (REPRODUCTION RATE)
  POPULATION (REPRODUCTION RATE)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Compensation for Loss of Office (Taxation)
  Compensation for Loss of Office (Taxation)
  War Damage (Treasury Regulations)
  War Damage (Treasury Regulations)
ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Tunisian Operations
  Tunisian Operations
  Air Crews (Training)
  Air Crews (Training)
  Training Stations (Coastal Areas)
  Training Stations (Coastal Areas)
  British Overseas Airways Corporation and Transport Command
  British Overseas Airways Corporation and Transport Command
  Photographs (House of Commons Tea Room)
  Photographs (House of Commons Tea Room)
  CIVIL AVIATION (AERODROMES)
  CIVIL AVIATION (AERODROMES)
AFFORESTATION
  Hard and Soft Wood Trees
  Hard and Soft Wood Trees
  Programme (Estimated Cost)
  Programme (Estimated Cost)
  RAILWAY EMPLOYEES (PAY)
  RAILWAY EMPLOYEES (PAY)
SCOTLAND
  Tay and Forth Road Bridges
  Tay and Forth Road Bridges
  Sugar-Beet Prices
  Sugar-Beet Prices
  Rag Flock Acts
  Rag Flock Acts
  Nurses (Legislation)
  Nurses (Legislation)
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Razor Blades
  Razor Blades
  Perambulators (Repairs)
  Perambulators (Repairs)
  Household Linen
  Household Linen
  Towels and Overalls (Hairdressers)
  Towels and Overalls (Hairdressers)
FUEL AND POWER
  Essential Work (Coalmining Industry) Order
  Essential Work (Coalmining Industry) Order
  Collieries (Control)
  Collieries (Control)
  SIERRA LEONE (LABOUR ADVISORY BOARD)
  SIERRA LEONE (LABOUR ADVISORY BOARD)
MINISTRY OF SUPPLY
  Dump, Dunstable (Clearance)
  Dump, Dunstable (Clearance)
  Agricultural Tools
  Agricultural Tools
  FOREIGN SECRETARY (VISIT TO OTTAWA)
  FOREIGN SECRETARY (VISIT TO OTTAWA)
  NATIONAL STUD
  NATIONAL STUD
  PRISONERS OF WAR (FAR EAST)
  PRISONERS OF WAR (FAR EAST)
NATIONAL WAR EFFORT
  Work Directions, Building Trade
  Work Directions, Building Trade
  Married Women with Children (Employment)
  Married Women with Children (Employment)
  District Man-Power Board, Leicester
  District Man-Power Board, Leicester
  Industrial Hostels
  Industrial Hostels
  Railway Workshops, Stratford
  Railway Workshops, Stratford
  MILITARY SERVICE (OSTEOPATHS)
  MILITARY SERVICE (OSTEOPATHS)
Preamble
The House met, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
GRAND UNION CANAL BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

RAILWAY FREIGHT REBATES BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE MINISTER OF WAR TRANSPORT (LORD LEATHERS): My Lords, this Bill is designed to adapt to war-time conditions a somewhat complicated piece of machinery connected with railway charges. Under the Local Government Act of 1929 and the corresponding enactment extending to Scotland, freight transport hereditaments were relieved from local rates to the extent of 75 per cent. It was the intention of Parliament that the amount of this rate relief should be passed on to certain railway users by way of rebates from carriage charges on selected traffics. The traffics selected were those of the agricultural, coal and iron and steel industries, then in a depressed state. The object was to assist these industries and, by increasing the volume of their traffics carried by rail, indirectly to benefit the railway companies. The Act,
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therefore, required the railway companies to pay the rate relief into a Railway Freight Rebates Fund, and to allow, from the carriage charges on the selected traffics, rebates at rates fixed annually by the Railway Rates Tribunal.
The annual net revenue of the Fund was to be distributed as to one-fifth to agricultural selected traffics, as to seven-tenths to coal, coke and patent fuel selected traffics, and as to one-tenth to other selected traffics, mainly to iron and steel works. In 1936 substantial reductions were made in the assessments of railway undertakings on the basis of which rate relief had been paid into the Fund during the previous five years, and the railway companies became entitled to reclaim from the Fund some £9,000,000. The result of this would have been that no rebates could be paid for a period of years until this debt had been paid off. To avoid this and to enable the debt to be met, Parliament passed the Railway Freight Rebates Act, 1936. This Act authorized the issue of redeemable stock secured on the Fund, and a sinking fund for repayment by annual instalments. The reduction in railway assessments brought about a very substantial reduction in the revenue available for rebates. The Act accordingly made a drastic reduction in the lists of selected traffics so that one-fifth of the net revenue went to two of the agricultural traffics—milk and live stock—while the balance of four-fifths went to exported coal (including coke and patent fuel) selected traffics. The reduction in the lists of selected traffics does not continue in force after the end of

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1943 unless continued by orders made by me, and ceases in any event at the end of 1952.
During the war the total carriage charges on milk and live stock traffic have not varied substantially, and the present rebates of one-seventh of the carriage charges compare with one-sixth in 1939. Moreover, the agricultural rebates are still operating broadly in the manner contemplated by Parliament. The fall in coal exports has, however, created an extraordinary position in regard to coal rebates. Before the war the coal rebates were at the rate of 1½d. per ton plus 26½ per cent. of the remainder of the carriage charges. As from 1st December, 1940, the Tribunal increased the rebates to 1½d. per ton plus 75 per cent. of the remainder of the carriage charges. In spite of this increase there was a substantial balance in the Fund at the 30th September, 1941, due partly to under-distribution in coal rebates. At 30th September, 1942, the balance in the Fund had increased by considerably more than had been estimated to £925,000, mainly because of under-distribution in coal rebates. The amount available for coal rebates in the present year was considerably greater than the estimated amount of the carriage charges. It was therefore becoming increasingly difficult to fix coal rebates which would comply with the Statutes. Even rebates of 100 per cent., which would mean, of course, that the traffics would be carried free, would not distribute the whole of the available revenue. The Government therefore decided that legislation was essential.
The Bill suspends the coal rebates until such date as I may appoint, not being later than the end of railway control. The agreement with the railway companies provides that control will be continued for a minimum period of one year after the cessation of hostilities, and that, before control comes to an end, time will be given for the operation of any statutory machinery governing the level of charges. It is impossible, at this stage, to say when the circumstances which justify the suspension of the coal rebates will come to an end. This may be at the cessation of hostilities or may be some little time after, or may even be before, that date. The Bill as drafted would enable me to select the most appropriate time after consultation with the Minister of Fuel and Power.
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Your Lordships will, no doubt, wish to place some limit on the period, and the end of railway control seems to be the most appropriate limit. Complete suspension of coal rebates is provided for in preference to continuance of the rebates at some stabilized figure during the war. The purpose of the rebates—the stimulation of coal export—and of the carriage by railway of such coal, has ceased to exist under war-time conditions. In addition, the machinery for claiming the rebates is somewhat complicated, involving the filling in of forms and the use of a good deal of clerical labour. War-time conditions have not only rendered this expenditure of man-power undesirable but have also added to the complications. Moreover, the Minister of Fuel and Power is now paying certain subsidies on abnormal transport charges which have had to be incurred by reason of war-time conditions, mainly to reduce the cost to home consumers of coal brought coastwise at relatively high rates.
The Bill provides, therefore, that the money which would have been available for coal rebates shall be paid to the Minister of Fuel and Power to be used by him in such manner as the Treasury may direct. It is intended that part of the money shall be transferred to the Coal Charges Account, substantially to make good the loss incurred by the industry by the suspension of the rebates and so prevent any increases in prices on that account. The remainder will be used in reduction of the cost of the subsidies to which I have just referred. It is not practicable to specify these purposes in the Bill. The precise machinery for making good the loss to the industry will be a matter for negotiation and arrangement, while the subsidies are matters of administrative and not statutory machinery. The intention is, however, as I have stated, and I am able to give a definite undertaking to that effect on behalf of the Government.
Your Lordships will wish to have an indication of the amounts of money involved. Excluding the balance at September 30, 1942, the net revenue of the Fund for the current year, as estimated by the Tribunal, will be about £1,650,000, of which the agricultural appropriate proportion is £330,000, and the coal appropriate proportion is £1,320,000. The balance of £925,000 which was in the

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Fund at September 30, 1942, adjusted by any amounts paid into or out of the Fund in respect of rate relief for periods before that date, is to be kept in the Fund, and to the extent of not more than the original balance is to be distributed through coal rebates when they are resumed. The balance of £925,000 did not fully reflect the position at September 30, 1942. There were outstanding at that date unquantified amounts due to the companies from the Fund and from the companies to the Fund in respect of over-payments or under-payments of rate relief. In the case of a relatively small sum due to the companies, there is a technical difficulty in the way of payment, and this difficulty is removed by the Bill. The balance and the outstanding amounts will be dealt with together. If the resultant amount is £925,000 or less, it will all go in coal rebates after the war. Under the strict operation of the present statutory provisions, however, part of the adjusted balance would be available for agricultural rebates. To meet this point it is provided that, if the amount is more than £925,000, that sum only will go to coal rebates and the excess will fall into the general balance of the Fund, available for both coal and agricultural rebates.
Disregarding the adjusted balance, the money available for distribution during the period of suspension will go precisely as to one-fifth to the agricultural account for rebates and as to four-fifths to the coal account for transfer to the Minister of Fuel and Power. The accounts will be kept quite separate, and provision is made for reflecting balances in the agricultural and coal accounts at the end of the period in subsequent rebates on the respective traffics. There can thus be no question of one interest benefiting at the expense of the other in respect of the transactions during the period of suspension. I have indicated the principles of this short, but, I am afraid, somewhat technical Bill. The rest of the Bill is machinery. I have demonstrated the urgent need for legislation, and I submit that the Bill provides a practical solution which is fair to all the interests concerned. The position of agricultural rebates is substantially unchanged. The proposals in regard to coal rebates go as near to fulfilling the original intention of the railway freight rebates scheme as is possible in present circumstances. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2.—(Lord Leathers.)
On Question, Bill read 2, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

INDIA.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA AND BURMA (THE EARL OF MUNSTER), who had given Notice of six Motions continuing in force Proclamations issued under Section 93 of the Government of India Act, 1935, said: My Lords, I beg to move the first of the six Motions standing in my name. I am obliged to the noble Lord opposite, Lord Faringdon, for kindly removing a Motion which stood in his name on the Paper to-day in order that I might present these Resolutions to the House for approval. The debate which will follow will naturally give noble Lords every opportunity to discuss the general situation which now prevails in India. The purpose of each one of these Motions is to extend, for a further period of twelve months, the Proclamations which have been issued under Section 93 of the Government of India Act. Your Lordships may remember that in that section provision is made for a Proclamation to be issued by the Governor of any one of the eleven Provinces of India if he is satisfied that a situation has arisen in which the normal functions of government cannot be carried on. In the six Provinces referred to in these Resolutions such Proclamations have been in force since the collapse of normal constitutional government in 1939, when the Congress Ministries abdicated their responsibilities and resigned their offices at the dictation of the Congress "High Command." Although there seems to be no immediate likelihood of the Congress Party re-accepting office, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is just as anxious as any of your Lordships to see responsible government restored in these Provinces at the earliest possible moment, and for this purpose the situation is kept constantly under review by the Viceroy and by the Governor of each of the Provinces, who are always on the look out for any opportunity that may present itself.
Your Lordships will have read in the newspapers last week that the Prime Minister of Bengal had tendered his resignation to the Governor, which

7
resignation has been accepted The remaining members of Mr. Fazl-ul-Huq's Ministry have also resigned. With the approval of the Viceroy, the Governor of Bengal has issued a Proclamation which is now in operation under Section 93 of the Government of India Act, but it is to be hoped that quite shortly a new Government will be formed, and in that case the Proclamation issued by the Governor will be revoked
Some months have passed since a discussion on India was initiated in this House, and, as a very new arrival at the India Office, my task to-day will be to endeavour to render an account of recent happenings in India, and to touch also upon topics of general interest to the war effort. During the period now under review, the political situation in India has been overshadowed by outbreaks of violence which have been committed under the auspices of the Congress Party and of its leader, Mr. Gandhi. I have no desire whatever to examine in detail the White Paper which was recently published. Those of your Lordships who are concerned with the problem of India will have made yourselves acquainted with the facts enumerated in that document. It must be crystal clear to all your Lordships, however, that the primary object of that campaign was to force the hands of the Government of India and of His Majesty's Government at home to surrender the control of government in India to the Congress Party and, in the words of Mr. Gandhi, to "quit India." With that purpose in mind, and to achieve that object, attacks were launched upon all centres of strategic importance. An orgy of destruction followed. Communications, railways and Government property were wrecked, and an effort was made completely to paralyze all transport, trade and industry. These outbursts gradually spread their evil tentacles to concentrate on those parts of India which were most likely to be exposed to immediate enemy attack. Considerable damage was done, as we know, but happily the state of anarchy into which it was hoped to plunge the country was arrested by the firm and determined action on the part of the Government of India.
Law and order were re-established, although spasmodic outbreaks of violence still from time to time occur. I must
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recall to the memory of the House that the decision of the Government of India to place the leaders of Congress under restraint was reached with the unanimous decision of the Executive Council, which on that day consisted, besides the Viceroy, of eleven Indian members and one European. At the beginning of this year Mr. Gandhi undertook a twenty-one days' fast "to capacity." The object of this self-inflicted starvation was to secure from the Government of India his unconditional release. It would be difficult to speculate on what might have occurred if Mr. Gandhi had secured his release, but it is quite certain that the Government of India would have suffered a heavy reverse and Mr. Gandhi would have claimed justification, if not a victory, for his campaign of civil disobedience. But the Government of India stood firm. There was however, one regrettable result of the fast—namely, the resignation of three very able members of the Viceroy's Executive Council. The reasons for their resignation will be familiar to everyone, but the Viceroy hopes very soon now to be in a position to announce the names of the Indians who will succeed to the vacant seats.
I have dealt with some of the political issues prevailing in India to-day and, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to turn for a moment to deal with another side of the Indian picture—namely, the India of the warrior races. Perhaps I may give the House a brief account of the present state of the Armed Forces in India. The size of the Indian Army confines to expand steadily and recruitment, which is entirely on a voluntary basis, shows no sign of any slackening. It is a remarkable fact that during the period of the internal disorders last year the figures for recruiting reached their highest peak of 70,000 a month, and for the last three months the average voluntary enlistment has still been 60,000. During the disturbances to which I have just referred the Indian Army was employed in assisting the civil power in the maintenance of law and order. Here was indeed a difficult and uncongenial burden, but the task was carried out with the complete loyalty and devotion to duty for which Indian soldiers have so long been renowned. The Governors of Provinces have all borne testimony and paid tribute to the good conduct and friendliness of all troops in their handling of the civil population. To-day the Indian Army stands

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at over one and a half million strong, and, besides having the largest volunteer Army in the world, it also has the largest force of any one of the Dominions serving overseas in all theatres of war. This Army also includes considerable forces of the Princes, ho have placed the whole of their services at the disposal of the King-Emperor. Your Lordships will have seen the accounts recently published of the 4th Indian Division, which has fought from Abyssinia to the Mareth Line, and also of the 5th Indian Division, and they have both won undying fame and glory.
There is another Army about which very little is heard but which is carrying out its vital but monotonous duties of watch and ward on the North-West Frontier of India. It is seldom in the limelight or participating in active operations or giving battle to the Japanese or any other of our enemies, but nevertheless when I recall the constant source of anxiety of these frontier areas to India in the last war, I know how vital are the duties it is fulfilling in order to maintain the peace and tranquillity of the frontiers. We should not forget either the Nepalese battalions which were so readily offered at the beginning of the war by our firm friend the Maharaja of Nepal. Concurrent with the building up of the Army vast engineering projects have been undertaken by the civil population in conjunction with the Services. Quite apart from the military highways that have been built, railways have been improved, enlarged and modernized, and new factories have been constructed. A vast number of aerodromes have been made to meet the requirements of the expanded Air Force. To those of your Lordships who are interested in figures I might mention that the runways that have been laid down would easily make a broad concrete road stretching across the breadth of India from Bombay to Calcutta, a distance of 1,100 miles.
The Indian Air Force is the youngest of the Fighting Services. The first flight came into being in 1933 and the first squadron was not completed until 1939. The tenth birthday of the Force coincided with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Royal Air Force, but to-day this Force has been greatly expanded, and in addition to its regular squadrons it also includes the Indian Air Force Volunteer Reserve in which both
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Europeans and Indians serve as pilots. This Force has taken its full share in the war. Units have operated in Burma, and besides patrolling coastal waters have also provided air co-operation and support to the Army of the North-West Frontier. I come lastly to the Royal Indian Navy, whose size has increased tenfold since the outbreak of hostilities. Ships of the Royal Indian Navy have served and steamed in all seas, including the Atlantic, and the action of the "Jumna" off Java and of the "Bengal" against Japanese armed raiders in the Indian Ocean are both outstanding examples of the accomplishments and heroism of Indian sailors. But all this effort has placed upon India, both administratively and physically, a strain greater than has ever been previously attempted, and probably as great as the resources of that country are capable of carrying.
I turn now to give your Lordships some indication of the financial problem involved, as I am informed that there is a good deal of misapprehension and misconception abroad. Though India has to finance the whole of this effort in the first instance, not all of it is chargeable to Indian revenues and a considerable part is ultimately recoverable from the Imperial Exchequer. We have followed the principle always hitherto followed that India is financially responsible for her own defence, which means in fact that the revenues of India are not applied to the maintenance of Imperial interests beyond the borders of India. For instance, India pays for all Forces, British as well as Indian, as long as they are in India. She pays for the numerous aerodromes that have had to be constructed there and all the military works necessary on so great a scale, because this time the attack threatens from the east and not from the west, where, as the House well knows, the military preparations of India have hitherto been principally made. She has also agreed to pay a share proportionate to her interest in the various factories for the output of war materials which are in course of coming into production. On the other hand, she does not pay for Indian Forces operating outside that country or for materials which may be supplied to Imperial Forces in external theatres of war, nor indeed for those we have to obtain in India for our own use in this country to meet our own wartime necessities.

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The effect of all this is that, from the beginning of the war up to the present time, India has recovered a sum of £400,000,000 from the British Exchequer, and has spent some £350,000,000 on her own defence. In the financial year which has just been concluded the Indian taxpayer's share of defence expenditure was no less than £180,000,000 as compared with some £34,000,000 before the war—by Indian standards, at any rate, a very heavy burden. The recoveries which have been made in respect of expenditure by the Government of India and chargeable to us, together with payments for supplies of all kinds through the channels of private trade, have led, as many of your Lordships know, to the accumulation in this country, in India's favour, of large sterling balances which have been partly used for the repatriation of her pre-war sterling debt. I am told that by making rupees freely available to finance what we need from India, and by receiving repayment in sterling, the Government of India have ensured that exchange difficulties do not interfere with the production in India of the largest quantities of those services and supplies which we need for the prosecution of the war over and above the liability of Indian defence for which India herself is responsible.
I hope the House will forgive me for turning to that side of the question, but before I conclude I must come back again to the constitutional side. During the period which I have under review there can be no dispute in any noble Lord's mind that the political situation has not progressed along the path which we could have wished or anticipated. Therefore we find that the chapter in the tale of India's advance to complete self-government has yet to be written. All political opinion in this country is agreed, I think, that the issue at stake to-day is not whether India should be granted complete control of her own destinies but only when and how that should be attained. There are many noble Lords in this House to-day who have, at some time or other, been associated with the constitutional issues in India. During the past twelve years—for I think I am right in saying it was in the autumn of 1930 that the first Indian Round-Table Conference met—we have gone forward with speed and determination to find, in concert with Indian political thought, a basis
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for the solution of this bewildering problem. We have not, it is true, on all occasions been able to carry the Indian political leaders with us. Indeed, the nearer we have approached, or thought we were approaching, a final solution, as in the passing of the Act of 1935, the sharper became the divisions and the deeper appeared the divergencies within the ranks of Indian political Parties.
There is, as I have pointed out, no unwillingness whatever on the part of His Majesty's Government to transfer full responsibility to India once these internal disagreements have been removed and resolved. No man desires to return to the status quo ante bellum, but no man desires, either, to trust India, in Mr. Gandhi's words, "to God or, in modern parlance, to anarchy." We have exerted all our power and influence to obtain a settlement of this question. Proposals, culminating in the Cripps Mission, have been made, but to our regret, and I believe to the regret of all moderate political opinion in India, they have all been rejected.
No doubt many noble Lords will recall the late Mr. Gokhale, a wise, strong, and liberal-minded man and one of the founders of the National Congress, who advocated the reform of government in India by steady, progressive, constitutional methods, and who hoped to attain and achieve results by political evolution. The whole of the knowledge that he possessed was derived from a close personal study of the art of government as it was understood and practised in this country. He demonstrated very clearly his own wish for the National Congress to be organized on purely democratic principles, and under his lead the Party represented a real national movement, including amongst its members all classes and all sections of India's national life. But under Mr. Gandhi's lead the Congress Party no longer represents the whole of India's aspirations. The Moslems, who twenty years ago were disposed to cooperate with Congress, became alarmed at the prospect of being permanently in a minority in a Central Government founded on Parliamentary majorities, broke away and set up their own League. That League, which ultimately developed a policy to preserve the political solidarity of their own followers, sacrificed that unity which our association with India had conferred. On the other hand, the

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Congress Party has moved far away from Mr. Gokhale's principles, and has become a body which is imbued with totalitarian tendencies.
As I have pointed out, all our efforts to find a basis of settlement designed on the British model have failed, and there is no chance, as I see it to-day, to expect any sudden change of heart. For a large number of years we have made ourselves responsible for educating Indians to the form of democratic government under which we live and thrive. Every Act of Parliament that has been passed has been designed to promote and foster this form of rule in India. We have all of us consistently assumed that our own Constitution is quite adaptable to this sub-continent, and we have always been fully prepared to assist in the export of our system for remaking indeed a constitutional government for the whole of India. I venture to think that, if, before the passing of the Act of 1935, any of His Majesty's Ministers had suggested that constitutional government based on the system under which we live was impracticable for India, there would have been an outcry that we were challenging the ability of Indians to shape their own government upon the model which we had taught them and which had been practiced so successfully in its home of origin. It would have been further said that we were insulting their political leaders and damaging their prestige throughout the whole world. So, my Lords, any repudiation on our part would have been met by statements to prove our underlying insincerity towards India.
But times change and in a changing world amendment is always necessary. Whilst the broad principles of the offer which was taken to India by the Minister of Aircraft Production are still open, I wonder whether the deadlock would be removed and progress made towards a settlement if Indian leaders of all Parties would discuss, with calm and quiet deliberation, the chances of finding a Constitution of their own manufacture—a Constitution not necessarily built upon the institution which we have found best fitted to our own widely different conditions, but one which would nevertheless, afford India a position as a full self-governing State within the British Empire and which, by their own exertions, would be made weather-proof and habitable for all. Surely it is not too late now to ask the
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great political Parties in India to solve this problem in their own way. It is quite certain that no exertions on their part can be too great. Wisdom and sympathy are predominantly required but, above all, a spirit of compromise and understanding, must be the sum and substance of any settlement.
We should, of course, be prepared to render any assistance and any help to such a body. I am not without hope that when India is confronted, as indeed she must be, with her own position in a post-war world, with all the opportunities that will be open to her and with all the dangers that will persist, the prospect of agreement amongst Indian political leaders may be more hopeful than it is at present. Before I conclude let me finally add this. It is now for Indians to adapt their beliefs to their own unique problems and needs. Let them turn to their task, gifted with vision and foresight, so that they may eventually find an escape from their present perplexities. But until that day arrives when we can announce to the world that agreement has been reached among Indians themselves, the British people cannot surrender to the forces of anarchy and they must continue to be responsible for the welfare and for the peace of this vast land and of its millions of inhabitants. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House approves the continuance in force of the Proclamation issued under Section 93 of the Government of India Act, 1935, by the Governor of Madras on 30th October, 1939, and of his Proclamation varying the same issued on 15th February, 1943, copies of which were presented to this House on 28th November, 1939, and 16th March, 1943, respectively.—(The Earl of Munster.)
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, the noble Earl has already informed you that a Motion was placed upon the Paper in my name and, at his request, was removed. That Motion was placed upon the Paper because we on these Benches felt that discussion of Indian problems had become due in your Lordships' House. As the noble Earl has told you he would do, and as indeed he has done, I shall do too. I shall not confine myself to the particular Motions which he is moving to-day. Like him I shall discuss, and I hope helpfully, the whole of the Indian situation. But I would first of all like to ask the noble Lord who will wind up the debate whether

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he proposes to give us some detail of how this very considerable expenditure in India is in fact being financed. Some of us were, before the war, very unhappy about the high proportion of the total Indian revenue that was spent upon defence. This amount has now increased by an enormous sum and it would at any rate be interesting, and I hope encouraging, to know how that money was being raised. Perhaps the noble Lord can give us some details as to how much of it is being raised by taxation, on what classes that taxation is failing or is likely to fall, and what proportion of it is being raised by borrowing.
I would, incidentally, before I say anything further, like to congratulate your Lordships' House on the attendance. A very unfortunate impression must, I fear, have been made in India by the very small attendance last week in another place. I have seen it mentioned in the Press that a mere eighteen members thought that the future and the prospects of our Indian Empire were of sufficient interest to justify their attendance. Your Lordships at least are showing a very much more considerable sense of our responsibility towards our Empire than was shown in another place. I, like the noble Earl, do not intend to spend very much time on the Government's White Paper. Frankly I regard it as a somewhat regrettable document. At best it can be described as a piece of special pleading. As such I should not necessarily disapprove of it. As the noble Earl himself has said, the situation in India, during the last year and during the last few months, has certainly shown no improvement; it may in fact be said to have shown deterioration. In those circumstances the Government must necessarily defend their policy, but I think some of us would have wished that the document which they produced for that purpose had been somewhat less controversial and had been somewhat more judicial in tone. However, I do not think that very much good would be served by discussing the White Paper in detail, because fundamentally what one feels about the White Paper really depends on whether one considers that the egg of revolution produced the hen of the imprisonment of the Congress Leaders or whether it was the hen of imprisonment which laid the egg of revolution. That I believe is a problem insoluble to scientists, and it clearly is one which is hound to affect our views of the
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White Paper and our views as to whether in fact the White Paper does make a good case or not.
I would, however, like to draw what I consider to be some rather encouraging indications from the documents in that White Paper. From it there would seem to me to emerge the conclusion that the Congress policy has in fact been pretty consistent. They have always demanded independence and a National Government and they have always desired unity against Fascism. To remove foreign domination; to check ill will against Britain, lest that ill will should as a reaction produce a pro-Japanese feeling; to produce communal unity; to bring all the subject peoples of India whole-heartedly into the war on the side of the Allies; to assist other Asiatic people during the war to cast off oppression and after the war to maintain their independence; and finally, as a war aim, the federation of the world and consequently universal disarmament—these are, I believe, some of the objects of Congress which emerge from reading the documents published in the White Paper. These are the aims of all of us. His Majesty's Government as much as my noble friends on this side of the House desire that the Indians should rule themselves; they desire all these other points which the Congress declare to be their desires.
It is important that we should keep in sight as much as possible where we are at one with those with whom we are disputing in India. I do not think that the White Paper produces any evidence of support for Fascism. Again and again Fascism is denounced. Of course I am not going to deny that the actions of members of Congress, actions which are outlined in the White Paper, would indeed have had a most disastrous effect on our resistance to Japanese Fascism in India. That is undeniable. But I am trying to look on the brighter side because I wish to see, as I believe all your Lordships wish to see, a settlement in India satisfactory to the Indians and satisfactory to ourselves and one which promises to remove from the sphere of world politics a danger spot. For that reason I am looking upon the bright side and trying to extract from the White Paper, which is published by His Majesty's Government as a justification for their policy of repression in India, evidence that there is in India, even

17
amongst those most strongly opposed to the British Government, some foundation at least of common outlook and common interests.
These views are fairly clearly set out in the first three Appendices to the White Paper. The fourth Appendix is interesting because, though it does outline a plan of campaign for non-violent opposition to the British Government, it none the less strongly deprecates—in fact is strongly opposed to—any measures likely to endanger life. The other Appendices consist mainly, if I remember rightly, of statements which are clearly of less importance when bringing charges against Congress than are the official Congress announcements. I find that many of them do express a point of view which can only be described as deplorable, but they are not as it were documents of first importance. They do not, I believe, upset my argument that there is a basis for agreement with the Congress leaders. The Narayan letter, which also appears I think in the last Appendix, makes one very important point because it does stress the differences between Mr. Nehru and Congress. Those differences are on the point of violence. Similarly the last document, which more or less suggests the capture of the Viceroy's person, is not a document, I suggest, of first importance, for it has not the weight of an official pronouncement by the Congress Party. Finally, there is the so-called Twelve-Point Programme of the All-India Congress Committee. The authenticity of this document is, I understand, denied by Congress. There is no evidence given in the White Paper of its source or on what the Government base their belief of its authenticity. That its authenticity is denied is not perhaps conclusive, but it is at least evidence that Congress do not wish the policy outlined in it to be attributed to Congress.
In another place and outside your Lordships' House there have been attempts recently to paint Congress as being totalitarian, and attempts to paint Mr. Gandhi as a kind of dictator. I deplore this tendency. There is, I maintain, no more justification for it than to describe Mr. Churchill as a dictator. Clearly the Prime Minister in the Cabinet has the first responsiblity for Cabinet policy. Mr. Gandhi has the first responsibility and perhaps the strongest influence in Con-
18
gress councils, but already certain members of the Congress Committee have left the Committee owing to disagreement with Mr. Gandhi, just as a Cabinet Minister would leave our Cabinet were he unable to accord his views with those of the Prime Minister or to persuade the Prime Minister so to modify his views that they could reach agreement. The overwhelming influence of Mr. Gandhi is due to his position and his own personality. I submit that he is not a dictator and that it is not right to describe Congress as a totalitarian body. In another place none of the speeches seemed to me to be very helpful. The Deputy Prime Minister said he had seldom known a discussion upon India which was upon a higher level. I can only conclude that the right honourable gentleman was glad to be let off with so little criticism. Frankly, I have seldom heard or read a debate so utterly and completely dead and dull. I trust and indeed expect that your Lordships will provide a more lively discussion and, I hope, one more helpful to His Majesty's Government.
It is not my intention, however, as I have said, to criticize His Majesty's Government for what has happened in the past. It depends very largely, as I said, on the egg and hen problem in Indian politics. Though I may believe the egg came first I cannot prove it and I will not labour the point. The noble Earl said he wished Indian leaders could come together and work out some Constitution for themselves. Of course he wishes it and we all wish it, but how can they come together? Most of the leaders of political opinion are in prison and in prison separately. It gives an appearance of unreality and, I am afraid, of insincerity to the noble Earl's speech, that this should continue to be the case. More particularly is it the case in view of the treatment of Mr. Rajagopalachari by the Viceroy. If this treatment had been meted out a week ago I believe the debate in the other place would have taken a much more critical turn, because several speakers referred to the pending visit of Indian leaders to the Viceroy, and the general inference was that that visit would lead to discussion and that those leaders might be permitted to see Mr. Gandhi. I am at a loss to understand why access to Mr. Gandhi has been refused to those leaders whose co-operation with the British Government and whose good faith

19
have been shown again and again. Mr. Rajagopalachari sacrificed his own career with Congress on account of his disagreement with Congress policy. Surely there could be no danger in granting access of these men to Mr. Gandhi. Perhaps it would achieve no useful result, but at least no harm would be done, and it would be apparent to the world that the British Government were willing to do anything, even at the cost of loss of face, to reach a settlement. Should any good come out of it we should rejoice—the noble Earl in his statement said that he would rejoice. Should nothing come out of it no harm, I submit, would be done.
I beg His Majesty's Government to reconsider this policy of holding incomunicado the Congress leaders. They ask that Congress should call off the disobedience movement before any negotiations are entered into. That would be understandable, but Congress replies that, in fact, the disobedience movement has never been called. Why quibble on points of this sort? It is, I suggest, unworthy of His Majesty's Government. If a settlement can be reached, if negotiations, in fact, can be opened with any prospect of success, I urge that His Majesty's Government should give every kind of facility to any person or persons who are able to bring about conditions in which those negotiations can, in fact, be opened. The noble Earl said that he desired to bring together the Indian leaders of all Parties to discuss a future Indian Constitution. I would like to suggest that His Majesty's Government should approach the leaders of all Parties and invite them to come to London—it would be better, I believe, that they should come over here than that the meeting should take place there—and set up a Conference to see whether something cannot be hammered out. I would suggest, too, that the co-operation of the Allied Governments should be obtained, if possible. This, I think, has already been suggested in your Lordships' House; I know that it has been suggested by other speakers belonging to both the other Parties.
I think if we could bring in the representatives of our Allies that would have two very useful effects. First it would tend to disarm that criticism of British policy in America, which is so lively and so often based on misinformation. It has
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been suggested by certain Government speakers that we should ignore American opinion and ignore American criticism. I deplore that kind of statement. I believe that your Lordships, probably, like myself, pay the closest attention to the criticism of your friends. If you examine their criticism and find out that it is ill-founded you will draw the attention of your friends to the fact that such is the case, or, at any rate, you will not alter your conduct. But criticism coming from friendly quarters causes one to question one's own attitude and one's own actions. Regarded in this way it can only be beneficial. I, personally, welcome the criticism of our friends and believe that it should always receive the closest consideration. The first advantage of having an American and representatives of other Allied nations sitting upon such a Conference upon India with Indians, as I have suggested, would be that America, and I trust also China and Russia, would come to understand the problem, and would come probably to appreciate our point of view. And I believe the statements of these representatives afterwards could only have a beneficial effect on the opinions and views of the peoples in their own countries.
Another beneficial result, I submit, would be that doubt of British sincerity, which undoubtedly exists, rightly or wrongly, in India, would be allayed to some extent by the guarantee that any decisions reached had the consent and support of the other Great Powers. Now we believe completely in our own sincerity. The Government's sincerity is not in question in your Lordships' House, but, unfortunately, it is in question in India. I am afraid that it would be possible for the Indians to produce a kind of White Paper taking the past statements of British statesmen, taking, even, the statements of present members of the British Government, to show what has been the attitude of those statesmen in the past and tending to prove that their statements in the present are unreliable We know that this is not the case, but Indians do not know it, and I believe that their feeling of doubt as to our sincerity would be enormously allayed could we obtain the co-operation of our Allies in discussion and settlement of the Indian problem.
I should be the last to underrate the difficulties of this problem. The Moslems are demanding their Pakistan. The latest

21
version of Pakistan which has emerged includes, so far as I understand, a kind of corridor joining the Moslems of the East with the Moslems of the West. This idea was described very aptly, I thought, in another place, as "the very miasma of unreality." That indeed it is. I think that we in this country, in fact probably all Europeans, should remember that Indians use different terms, use different phrases, express perhaps a different mentality, but, in practice, we all have to live in a workaday world and the Indian, whatever his phrases and however he may express his ideas, is as realist in practice as anybody else. I do not believe that the Communal problem is insoluble. I am not going to discuss in detail what would in fact be the function of an Indian Constituent Assembly, but I do suggest that the Communal problem may disappear, and in my view will disappear, in India when, Communal electorates having been, I trust, swept away, every one has to vote on the same register, and voters vote according to their interests, interests which cannot be tied to their community but must inevitably arise in India, as elsewhere, from their economic condition. For this reason, I take, in the long view, an optimistic view of the Communal question; but that is not to say that I am ignoring it, or trying to diminish its difficulty and importance.
The noble Earl, like the Secretary of State in another place, pointed out that our own forms of Parliamentary government cannot, in the nature of things, be translated strictly to Indian circumstances and conditions. I agree, and I think that that was recognized even in what I regard as the defective Constitution of 1935, when a Federation was set up at the Centre. Our Constitution is not a Federation. A Federal Constitution is specially designed to meet those difficulties of race which might make our own type of Constitution unworkable in India. In the Provinces, I suggest that the Communal question might be met by a readjustment of frontiers, and something of the sort has, I think, been considered by Congress as a means of arriving at a compromise with the Moslem League.
In another place, it was mentioned that possibly one of the reasons for the rejection by Congress of the settlement proposed by Sir Stafford Cripps arose from their expectation of British defeat by the Axis Powers. That seems to me to be possible;
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but, if that is the case, surely now, when although, as it is important to remember, the Japanese are still at the gate of India, our prospects elsewhere have so immeasurably improved, and when it would seems to us impossible for anyone outside the Axis Powers to expect the defeat of the Allies, there should be a better prospect of a settlement than there was at that time. Moreover, in reopening negotiations now we should no longer be open to the suspicion, which undoubtedly existed at that time, that what we were doing was being done under the pressure of external events.
The recent refusal of access by the Indian leaders to Mr. Gandhi has undoubtedly given rise to great disappointment and considerable suspicion. A feeling has inevitably grown up that it is not the wish of His Majesty's Government to settle the disagreement with Congress in the course of the war. There is a suspicion that His Majesty's Government are of opinion that they have now stabilized the Indian position and can maintain it in its present condition of stability until the end of the war. I hope that this is not the view of His Majesty's Government, but the present unhelpfulness of Government spokesmen does tend to give this impression, an impression which cannot fail, I submit, to have a bad effect upon Anglo-Indian relations.
His Majesty's Government may be able to maintain this stable position in India, but I doubt it, and I doubt it in particular because I think that such a policy cannot fail to produce bitterness which will make a settlement more difficult in the future. There is the possibility also that Mr. Gandhi himself may die in prison. We had what I can only describe as a very fortunate let-off when Mr. Gandhi survived his last fast. I am not going to discuss the propriety of that fast, or the propriety of such methods of trying to force the Government's hands; but there can be no doubt that, had Mr. Gandhi died at that time, the position would have been immeasurably embittered. The British Government would inevitably have been blamed, and a settlement would have become very much more difficult. It seems to me very likely that in a few months' time Mr. Gandhi may fast again. Should he die, in the eyes of Indians his death will lie at our door. I do hope that, before that

23
eventuality, His Majesty's Government will have been able to reopen negotiations, and I believe that those negotiations might well have better prospects now than in the past of being brought to a successful issue.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, you will have appreciated the comprehensive and able statement which has been made to-day on behalf of His Majesty's Government, and will have particularly welcomed the fact that it has been made by the noble Earl, Lord Munster, who, after a period of active war service, has now returned to resume what was already a promising Ministerial career. We who are accustomed to sit on these Benches naturally follow with close and keen interest the development of the Indian situation, for the cause of Indian nationalism has always been of special concern to British Liberalism. We recall how the first great constitutional step forward during the present century was made on the initiative of Lord Morley—the Morley-Minto Reforms. That step was carried further by the initiative of the Secretary of State at the end of the last war, Mr. Edwin Montagu; and, when the discussions took place which resulted in the passing of the Government of India Act of 1935, it was Lord Reading and Lord Lothian who played a large and perhaps a decisive part in the course of the preceding negotiations.
When that Bill was passed, and when democratic Assemblies were elected under its provisions in the Provinces of India on a broad franchise, with Indian Governments responsible to them, we regarded that fact with the greatest satisfaction. We looked upon it as a triumph of constitutional democracy, by far the greatest achievement in that sphere that had ever come about in any oriental country. A year or so later I went to India in order to study the working of that Constitution, and, after visiting most of the Provinces and many of the States, and talking to some hundreds of people of all grades, classes and communities, I formed the very clear opinion that the Provincial Constitutions were working with remarkable success. Tributes to that
success were paid by all who were in a position of authority, from the Viceroy downwards, and the fact was a matter of universal gratification throughout the whole of the British Commonwealth. Within the last
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few weeks a book has been published, the second part of the report of Professor Coupland of Oxford, who had been sent to India by Nuffield College to make a survey of the constitutional situation. This second part, with the title Indian Politics, 1936 to 1942, gives a careful review of the successes and the non-successes of the Provincial Assemblies and Governments, and on the whole reaches the conclusion that their achievements were admirable.
They maintain firmly law and order. Your Lordships will remember that at the time of the Round-Table Conferences that was a subject of great anxiety—anxiety whether freely-elected Assemblies and Governments could be relied upon to maintain with firmness and success law and order in the great territories that were put under their rule. Those doubts, those anxieties were relieved by the course of conduct of those Ministries in the two-year period—a period all too short—during which they remained in office. In social legislation they had a remarkable record. Agrarian, industrial and educational reforms were carried of great scope and with great rapidity, and they were able, as it was anticipated they would be able, to carry far more drastic measures in that sphere than would have been possible to any alien Government, no matter how well disposed. The Budgets of the Provinces as a whole showed on social amelioration a doubled expenditure, and we Liberals felt that our faith in constitutional democracy had been justified. While through the history of the last fifty years we of course condemned the occasional outbreaks of disturbance and outrage, on the whole the aims and polities of the Indian national movement commanded our sympathy and our support. And what is true of the Liberal Party is true also, I think I may say, of the Labour Party, who shared and continued the Liberal democratic tradition.
To our deep regret, of recent years there has come a divergence. The Congress Party, by far the best organized, the most active and most effective of the Indian Parties, has to a great extent thrown over the democratic philosophy which it has purported to defend and to promote. In spite of what has just been said by the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, it does show signs of turning towards totalitarianism. Not that it regards Mr. Gandhi as a dictator—I do not think he

25
is—and the Working Committee of Congress plays a very large part, although undoubtedly under his strong personal influence. But they are a single Party claiming to speak for a whole nation, and they have insisted that the elected Ministries in the Provinces shall be subject to the instructions of their Working Committee and those within the Congress whom they term the "Higher Command."
Next to Mr. Gandhi the most distinguished figure and the most eminent figure in the Congress ranks is undoubtedly Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who has been designated by Mr. Gandhi himself as his successor, and whose ability and self-sacrificing devotion to the cause in which he believes, his lofty character and his great intellectual powers have made him a striking figure in the politics of India. In November, 1937, Pandit Nehru, referring to the electorate under the Provincial Constitutions, wrote as follows:
"That electorate plumped for the Congress candidates"—
that was in the Elections that had recently taken place—
"not because of their individual merits but because they represented the Congress and its programme. The vote was for the Congress. It is to the Congress as a whole that the electorate gave allegiance and it is the Congress that is responsible to the electorate."
These are the significant words:
"The Ministers and the Congress Parties in the Legislatures are responsible to the Congress, and only through it to the electorate."
And when the war came in September, 1939, and the Congress Party took a hostile attitude to the action of the Government of India at that time, the Working Committee sent instructions to the Congress Ministries in the Provinces where they had majorities in the Assemblies to resign, and they did resign.
They resigned, not because they had lost the support of their Assemblies and were subjected to votes of censure, not because there was any movement of dissatisfaction among the people, not because it was their own desire to resign because they felt themselves unable to fulfil the tasks they had undertaken, for it was well-known that they resigned with the greatest possible reluctance, and were sorry indeed to put an end to the beneficent activities in which they were engaged. They resigned because, while de jure they were responsible to their electors, de facto they were responsible to the Working
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Committee of the Congress, the High Command, to a Party Committee. That is not democracy, that is totalitarianism. It is essentially the same political creed as animates Nazism, Fascism, and Communism. The Congressmen used to appeal to the principles of Macaulay and Mill, of Gladstone and Bright, but those great men would have profoundly disapproved this course of action, and undoubtedly would have sternly condemned it. Best organized and most active as they are, they are a Party and nothing more.
And India is unhappy in that the line of Party division is the worst that any country can have: it is a division according to religious communities. The Congress undoubtedly would desire to include the Moslems within its own ranks, and there was a short period during its campaigns when it did secure a very large measure of Moslem co-operation. That is not so now. At the Provincial Elections where, as your Lordships know, the seats are allocated to a great extent according to communities, there were 424 seats, taking the Provinces as a whole, which were allotted to the Moslems. The Congress was only able to contest 58 of those seats with Moslem Congress candidates, and of those 58 they won only 26, and most of them were in the North-West Frontier Province, where the conditions are altogether exceptional.
If you take the population of India as a whole—now approaching 400,000,000—the non-Congress sections, Moslems, Indian Christians, Sikhs, and the Scheduled Castes of Hindus number 183,000,000. The remainder, the Hindu community—and Congress is essentially a Hindu organization—number 206,000,000. So that the elements that support Congress, even if regarded as being entirely pro-Congress, which of course they are not, just as the other sections are not unanimously anti-Congress—still if you take in bulk the Hindus on the one side and the other communities on the other side, together with the Scheduled Castes (who are definitely in opposition to Congress), you have a proportion of 206 to 183. Therefore Congress can claim, at best, barely more than one-half of the population of India. Yet in the totalitarian spirit they claim to speak for the whole. Mr. Gandhi, when he called upon the British to quit India, said it would be for Congress to "take delivery."

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The Moslems, of course, in no degree accept that position, and in no circumstances will assent to the solution which Congress proposes. They have claimed, in fact, what I regard as a most deplorable proposition—the division of India into at least two separate sovereign States, the policy of Pakistan. In August, 1942, the Moslem League Working Committee appealed not only to Indian opinion and British opinion, but to the whole of the United Nations, when they passed this resolution to which I would invite the very special attention of your Lordships. This is the resolution of the Working Committee of the Moslem League, which undoubtedly represents the political mind of the great bulk of the Moslem population:
"Having regard to the oft-repeated declarations of the United Nations to secure and guarantee the freedom and independence of the smaller nations of the world, the Working Committee invite the immediate attention of the United Nations to the demands of 100,000,000 Moslems of India to establish sovereign States in the zones which are their homelands and where they are in a majority."
That is a very formidable development of the Indian situation.
Those of us who believe in the principles of democracy cannot adhere, in all cases, to the simple principle of majority rule. That will apply in countries which are substantially homogeneous, like Great Britain, France, or the United States as it has now in effect become; but it cannot apply to countries where there are fundamental divisions, whether of race or religion, and divisions on matters which the people care more about than for anything else. It does not apply to countries like Ireland or Palestine or India. This divergence between Liberal opinion in this country and Congress has been accentuated by the fact that the Congress Party has not yet frankly recognized that. Mr. Gandhi has indeed said "there can be no Swaraj without a settlement with the Moslems," and has used similar expressions on many occasions; but as yet Congress has made no suggestion of any sort or kind which would achieve such a settlement. Democracy means government by consent of the governed, and it is quite clear that democracy based on the principle of majority rule in India would, so far as the one-fourth of the Indian population who are Moslems are concerned, not mean the consent of the governed.
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There is a further divergence. This war which is now being waged in
almost every part of the world is unquestionably a major crisis in the history of the world. That being so, all minor issues ought to take second place. The Parties in this country recognize that and have put aside, at all events for the time being, their controversies in order to unite in common action for the defence of world liberty. This country has, almost with unanimity, come forward in defence of these principles. But if this country, which, after all, had not been directly or immediately attacked by Germany, or if Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or the United States had abstained from action, as Congress India has abstained, or as Eire has abstained, then indeed the principles of freedom everywhere would have gone under. We are fighting not only for our own liberties but for the liberties of India and of every other country, and those who now stand aloof are doing less than their duty to mankind. I mentioned just now the name of John Stuart Mill, who once wrote this:
"History is an unremitting conflict between good and evil powers in which whoever does not help the right side is helping the wrong."
That is a principle which far surpasses any considerations of mere domestic politics.
It is a pity that the leaders of Congress do not realize that glory is not to be won for the cause of India by abandoning the cause of mankind. They have not merely abstained from action. At first their policy was, if not to support, at all events to put no hindrance in the way of the war effort of this country and its Allies. But that was changed. Deliberately Congress proclaimed a formula which was shouted in the streets and became the slogan of the crowds in many parts of India. This was the formula:
"It is wrong to help the British war effort with men or money. The only worthy effort is to resist all war with non-violent resistance."
With that slogan thousands courted arrest and imprisonment, and some 20,000 were, in fact, convicted in the courts and most sent to short terms of imprisonment. Then, finally, in the name of non-violence, they let loose a movement which was characterized in many places by the utmost violence. Of that the White Paper gives conclusive proof, and gives clear proof also of the complicity of Congress leaders

29
in the disorders. There were disorders in which one thousand people lost their lives and material damage was done to the extent of more than £1,000,000.
Lastly in this movement came Mr. Gandhi's fast, which was an utterly illegitimate method of political controversy, levying blackmail on the best of human emotions—pity and sympathy. If it had been right for Mr. Gandhi to carry on his campaign by such a method as that, then it would be equally right for anyone else who feels deeply in any great cause to do so. If that were to become a method of political agitation, and if it were in any degree successful, it would mean that the management of the world's affairs would be more irrational, confused, and unsuccessful than it is to-day. The only thing creditable to Mr. Gandhi about that fast was the ending of it.
Meanwhile the Cripps Mission had been sent to India. Many of us in this House for two or three years were very active in criticism of the Government with regard to their Indian policy, or lack of policy. We were continually complaining that the Government had taken no initiative and the uniform answer was given from the Government Bench that it was not for the Government to take any initiative, that it was useless to do so, that it was only when the Indian Parties themselves had agreed that any progress could possibly be made. Then suddenly the Government, very wisely, changed their view, accepted all that we had been saying, withdrew all that they had been saying and sent Sir Stafford Cripps to India with very comprehensive and definite proposals. They chose the best spokesman who could be chosen and by general assent he discharged his task admirably. That the proposals were very comprehensive was all the more remarkable since it was done under the Premiership and with the authority of Mr. Churchill, who, in the controversies before 1935, had taken an opposite view. There was a breakdown in the Indian negotiations, but it was on points which would never have given ground for the collapse of those negotiations if there had been any real desire on the part of Congress to arrive at any settlement.
Where there is a will there is a way, and a way would easily have been found if Congress had wished to come to a settlement. But that was a moment
30
when Burma had just been occupied by the Japanese; the Andaman Islands also; there were air-raids on Colombo; the Eighth Army was standing on the defensive and its guns could be heard in Alexandria. The Germans were advancing on Stalingrad and into the Caucasus. It was a year ago to-day, April 6, when the Congress Committee sent to Sir Stafford Cripps a rejection of British proposals. That was the day on which for the first time enemy bombs were falling on the mainland of India, in the coastal towns of the Province of Madras. One can well understand that in the councils of the Congress Party at that moment there were many who would say: "Why should we have a settlement at this moment, and share in responsibility for the conduct of events and accept the invitation to take an active part in the war?" "Britain," they would have said, "is clearly unable to defend India any more than she has been able to defend Malaya and Burma, and if India is to be conquered why antagonize the conquerors? At the best there is likely to be a long war; why should we share responsibility for imposing the hardships, and sacrifices, and restrictions that are inevitable upon the people? Let there be no settlement; let the British go now and leave the consequences to chance." That was the view that was taken.
Mr. Gandhi has made a clear pronouncement as to that. It has been reported in two versions. The White Paper gives one version and Professor Coupland's book gives another, the same in substance but verbally slightly different. I will quote that because it is not exactly the same as the White Paper which your Lordships have. In Professor Coupland's book Mr. Gandhi is quoted as saying on May 24, 1942:
"Leave India in God's hands, in modern parlance, to anarchy, and that anarchy may lead to internecine warfare for a time, or to unrestricted dacoities. From these a true India will rise in place of the false one we see."
That is not democracy. Democracy stands for good government, orderly government, strong government, and so far as British Liberals are concerned we would not consent, in the supposed name of liberty, to Britain marching out of India in order that chaos may rush in, with confusion, riots, civil war, and economic collapse. For that to be the end of 200 years of beneficent, constructive and pacific

31
British activity in India would be an ignominous ending indeed. It would hold this country up to the scorn of our contemporaries and to the just censure of posterity in this country, in India and all over the world.
So the hands of the friends of Indian nationalism in this country are tied by the doings of Congress itself and we must feel, since the Cripps Mission, that it is not the British Government which ought to be the object of our criticism. We may regret minor points, we may regret some action that has been taken in minor matters, we may regret the tone of pronouncements and publications that have come from Downing Street and New Delhi, not always very happily phrased. It is not only important what you say, but also how you say it. This White Paper itself may be very good journalism but it is not so good as a State document. We may urge that there should be a change in the constitutional position of the Viceroy, as I urged in the last debate, for reasons which I then gave and which I will not repeat, a change which would put the Viceroy in the same position as a Governor-General of the Dominions, would make him a true Vice-Roi, and would enable him to appoint some Indian statesman as a Prime Minister and to constitute an Indian Government. But such points could not bring a solution so long as Congress takes the attitude that it does and so long as the Moslem League adheres to its present position. We must await a change in the atmosphere in India, and perhaps there may be brought about by military victories a change in the atmosphere not only in India but everywhere.
Meanwhile, to come to an end, the only new suggestion that one can make—it is not wholly new for others have made it—is that since the active politicians have brought matters to a complete deadlock and that deadlock seems likely to endure, would it not be possible, in order to help some change of atmosphere to take place, to relegate the matter from the active politicians to the realm of the political scientist, to let some studious exploration be made into the possibilities of various forms of Constitution applicable to the conditions of India? The principle of the majority rule having brought us to a dead end, what other possible principles might be ap-
32
plied? Professor Coupland himself is now engaged on the third part of his report which will deal with the constitutional possibilities. Nothing could be better than if Indians themselves, and perhaps on the initiative of the political science departments of the great Indian universities, were to take the initiative here, perhaps with the co-operation, if they so desired, of constitutional authorities of the United States and of this country.
Meantime, this House has no alternative but to support His Majesty's Government here and the Government of India, in the measure which is now before us to-day and any other measures necessitated by the intransigence of the Congress Party. We rejoice in the staunchness of the police, the Civil Service and the troops in India under conditions of great danger and difficulty. We rejoice at the enlistment of 1,500,000 volunteer soldiers in the Indian Army and the other Services. We rejoice, too, in the vast material resources that have been made available for the conduct of the war from India, and we hope for and look forward to the day when, in a Council of Asia, such as was adumbrated in the Prime Minister's great broadcast of a few weeks ago, with a wiser leadership than has been vouchsafed to-day, India may be able to take a full and helpful part in world affairs.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, in the position I hold as father of the Indian Army I would like to convey my most grateful thanks, and those I know of all my brother officers, to the noble Earl for what he has told us of conditions in the Indian Army. About that I had no doubt, because I am convinced that the great traditions of the Indian Army for 150 years will be always maintained throughout the war and for all time to come. I hope I need not apologize for addressing your Lordships to-clay. I do so because it happens that I was born in India, where I followed a father who for some thirty-five years had been in the Indian Civil Service, and left, I believe, as one of the best-loved men India had seen. He followed his father, who was for some time in the Honourable East India Company's service. I myself was fortunate enough to serve almost continuously for forty-six years in India, where I have been followed by both my son and my grandson now serving in my

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old Indian regiment. I venture to mention these details of family affairs in the hope that your Lordships will believe that after all those years of close connexion with India. I have many good friends there, a great proportion of whom are those Indians with whom I have served all my life.
I had the extraordinary good fortune as a young man to join what I regard as the very finest of Indian Services, a service composed of the yeomen of India. The men in that service are not rich men, they are all poor men, but all with a small stake in the country, owning their horses, their saddlery and their equipment. They were men whom I got to know so well that, when on several occasions I had to leave India on active service, I had no hesitation whatever in leaving my wife and children entirely to their care, knowing they would willingly give their lives for them if necessary. There was a time when I was one of some half dozen British officers with 625 Indian ranks. In those days we lived in the very closest touch with our Indian ranks. I feel, I may say, thankful that it was before the days of the advent of the motor car, because motor cars seem to have brought hustle and bustle into the lives of all of us, so that no one has the time to know his fellow men or to take an interest in their lives in the way we could when we had horses as a link between us. I had the good fortune in those days to traverse India from Chitral to Cape Comorin, and from Lashio, on the Chinese frontier, to Baluchistan. It was impossible not to get to know the people really well, for I marched with my regiment from Central India to the Afghan border, a long trek lasting four months, daily riding with my Indian comrades. We stopped at the villages through which we passed, getting into touch with the village authorities and playing football and cricket with the villagers.
One got to know people better in those days, when one had to water one's horses at the village trough, than in modern days when one fills up at the petrol pump. In later years, when I left my regiment and was a more senior officer, I had the good fortune to visit every year what are known as the Canal Colonies in the Punjab, for which my noble friend Lord Hailey was to a great extent responsible. There great numbers of old soldiers were
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given Crown lands, generally on what were called horse-breeding terms. I would spend my days riding round renewing acquaintances with old friends and discussing with village elders their various interests, which mostly concerned the state of their crops or the iniquities of Canal officials in refusing, unless they were bribed, to give them the water to which they were entitled. After I had retired to the little one-roomed mud hut in the village which was reserved as a guest house, there would presently come in a furtive figure who would sit beside me, and after looking round to make sure that no one was listening would say, "Sahib, can you get Government to send an English judge in place of the Hindu?" I would go on to the next village and there the request would be whether I could not get an English officer sent in place of a tyrannical Mahomedan.
I think your Lordships will realize that, looking back on that period, one feels that one really did get to know men in that way. Sometimes a sidelight would come when, overhearing a few words of conversation, one was made to realize how much was hidden and how much one did not know. It makes one dread to think of the ignorance of some week-end globe trotter who carne out to India, with of course no knowledge of the language, and who had to place himself more or less at the disposal of an Indian politician in order to get information, some person perhaps out of touch with the tillers of the soil, who form 90 per cent, of the population of India. Those are the real people of India.
Will your Lordships excuse me if I digress for a short time into Indian history? I feel that it is quite impossible otherwise to see how it is that the state and government of India have changed, I feel your Lordships may agree for the better, and that as a result of our rule there has been very great benefit to the people of India. The first date I would mention is a long time ago when Gautama Buddha came on the scene, about 400 B.C., and the next date is 250 B.C. when the Emperor Asoka reigned in Northern India and had his capital at Taxilla, whence he marched to Orissa, where we are told he slew 100,000 and drove back 50,000 prisoners as slaves. We are told that in those days famine was so terrible that children were sold to slavery and the very Brahmans were re-

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duced to eating dogs. Yet we hear that time talked of as India's halycon days before a white man had set foot on her shores. Then there is a big gap until Mahmud of Ghazni invaded in 999 A.D., coming from Afghanistan and penetrating as far as Somnath, where he destroyed the temple with its great idol said to have been full of precious stones and carried off the gates.
In 1200 the first of the Moguls—Ghengis Khan—invaded from Afghanistan and established an empire. We may say, perhaps, that the Mogul Empire reached its zenith under Akbar in 1556 when the Moguls ruled a country right away from Kabul down to the banks of the Narbada, which flows into the Indian Ocean some hundreds of miles north of Bombay. South of that river the Moguls of course had big territories at Hyderabad, Bijapur and one or two other places. But south of the river generally the Mahrattas held sway. I will not say that they ruled but they swept over the whole country, devastating, destroying and burning everything they possibly could. In 1530 we come to the advent of another people who have very much influenced our British Army, the Sikhs. In 1530 a Hindu Fakir arose who used a cry which had been raised before in Israel: "Ye take too much upon yourselves, ye sons of Levi." And he established the Sikh theocracy. They resented the Brahmins' tyranny and their worship of hundreds of gods. The Sikh Guru Nanak rose and said: "I will have one god and one god only," and him the Sikhs still worship. From that date the Sikhs had most terrible struggles with the Moslems. The Mahomedan rulers fought and fought them but they, like oppressed people generally, persevered and finally they rose to their zenith under Ranjit Singh in 1840. Most unfortunately on Ranjit Singh's death the Sikhs, who were a very turbulent people, could not be restrained any longer. Since those days, however, they have become one of the most trusted, loyal and hard-fighting of the races whom we now employ in the Indian Army.
It is interesting to recall that the Honourable East India Company established a factory at Madras in 1639, to be followed twenty years later by a factory in Bombay. Perhaps it might also be of interest to mention that the island of Bombay, which had come to our Crown
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in the time of Charles II as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, was thought of such little value that it was sold to the Honourable East India Company for the enormous sum of £10. There is still one more invasion which took place, that of 1761, when Nadir Shah came down from Persia and got through the Punjab into Delhi, which he destroyed to an enormous extent, murdering thousands of people, and finally carrying off with him to Persia the famous Peacock Throne of Shah Jehan which has never since been seen. That was the final invasion of India. Since then the population of India—and we have had some say in the matter—has not only doubled and trebled, but has doubled and doubled and trebled and trebled itself, and now we have eleven Provinces and no fewer than 560 Indian States—some of them big, some of them very small, some of them merely small landowners' possessions, but of sufficient interest, I think, to warrant people using very large maps when they come to study the Indian question.
I would like to emphasize that our advance in India was never made with any design of conquest whatever. Time after time we were called upon to go to the assistance of people, and often most unwillingly we had to respond to the call for there was no alternative. That was at a time when India was simply a den of robbers. Pindaris and dacoits roved all over the country destroying cities, robbing and murdering all in their way, and no one attempted to stop them, or could stop them. No man in those times could count with certainty on reaping the harvest which he had sown. And yet again that has been referred to by historians as India's golden age! Golden, certainly, within the Emperor's palace, within the palace of Akbar at Agra and of Shah Jehan at Delhi, but at the gates there were the most abject, hopeless squalor, poverty, disease and starvation. Nobody held out a hand to alleviate these conditions. There was absolute and complete indifference to the well-being of the poor and no attempt to feed the starving. We took no man's land except by treaty with Princes, and we exacted no tribute.
It may interest your Lordships to know roughly what the Mogul tribute was in those days. It was this, "A man shall keep for himself of his produce sufficient to feed himself and his family and to pro-

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vide seed for the next crop. The balance belongs to the State." That was the tribute paid before our arrival in India. Now all over India the cultivator ploughs the land wherever he wishes with the absolute certainty that he will be able to reap the crops which he has sown. Railways, provided mainly through British engineering and with the help of British capital, have spread all over the country. They carry food to any districts threatened with famine, and where famines were constant they are now practically unknown. We have dug 20,000 miles of canals irrigating 30,000,000 acres—four times that of any irrigation possible in the whole of Europe—and incidentally we have built 250,000 schools. Surely that record in itself should be sufficient to justify us, and not only to justify us but to make us feel an enormous pride at the way in which we have administered India. But I feel that the greatest outcome of our humanitarian policy has been the way in which we have looked after those millions of unfortunate people known as Untouchables—inarticulate, illiterate outcast of many classes and creeds. Those people in days gone by were looked after by nobody, but they are looked after by us now in a way never before attempted. Another matter in respect of which we can take credit is the abolition of that appalling performance known as Suttee. That was brought about, I think, when Lord William Bentinck was Governor-General in 1832.
In another place a short time ago, there was a good deal of discussion about the Legislative Assembly but no mention was made of the fact, and I do not know that it is generally understood, that there are three estates—the Council of State, corresponding to your Lordships' House, the Legislative Assembly, corresponding to the House of Commons, and the Chamber of Princes. And we must remember that for over a hundred years we have made definite treaties with the Indian Princes that we will be responsible for their honour and their country and will safeguard them in every possible way we can. These treaties we cannot possibly ignore. I have just mentioned the enormous number of States in India. The largest is Hyderabad, ruled by the Nizam, with a population of 15,000,000 and a revenue of £6,500,000. The Indian States altogether cover 700,000 square miles, with a population of 82,000,000. I think that very often it is not realized what a
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very large proportion of the people of India are governed by their own Princes, whom we have promised to uphold so long as they behave themselves.
I had the privilege for over five years of being a member of the Council of State. During those years, I am glad to say that I formed the closest relations with members of the Council of State and of the Legislative Assembly. When one got to know them well, one could not help realizing what a deep gulf divided many of them the one from the other. It was evident that large numbers would never be prepared to accept Congress domination. Take the 95,000,000 of Mahomedans. The Mahomedans regard us Christians as Ala Qitab, Followers of of the Book, and as such they are prepared to tolerate us and to regard us in a very different way from the way in which they regard the worshippers of idols, for whom they have no use whatever. Then there are 50,000,000 of the Depressed Classes, those unfortunate people who are also quite unwilling to accept Congress domination unless we can give them absolute and definite guarantees for their safety.
I was not in your Lordships' House when the noble Lord, Lord Wedgwood, who I regret to see is not here to-day, mentioned the fact that out of the 400,000,000 people of India we ought to raise a very much larger Army than we have done. I gather that he is under the impression that we might enlist almost the whole manhood of India in our Armed Forces. I hardly think the noble Lord could have been aware that among those 400,000,000 there are large numbers to whom the bearing of arms and the idea of fighting are loathsome and impossible. There are, for example, the Jains, for whom the killing even of a fly is an absolute sin. There are a great many Brahmins who loathe the idea of being asked to take up arms. It is utterly impossible, at any rate in my opinion, to contemplate arming the whole manhood of India, even if we had the arms available for them. To try to do so would be to sink to the level of the Nazis, which I am sure is the last thing that we would wish to contemplate.
I dare say that your Lordships have often heard, as I have heard, the accusation brought against us in India that our rule there is governed by the three words

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Divide et impera. I wish that the people who make that accusation would come into the open and give definite examples of where we have shown such an attitude. I can say with absolute honesty and sincerity that on going about the districts, as I have done, with one civil officer after another, I have never found anything approaching that attitude. On the contrary, the civil officers have gone out of their way to urge people to pull together, and have done everything that they possibly could to form a united India. And, of course, there is no doubt whatever of our determination to honour our word and to grant real self-government to India when India is in a position to undertake it, as we hope that she may be at the end of this war, and when we may hope that the many minorities there may feel satisfied that their safety is assured under Congress rule.
We have no need to apologize, however, for our guardianship of that great country; rather must we have feelings of real pride and honour in the fact that for the last hundred years we have safeguarded the interests of the people of India with justice, with real and true sympathy, with care and with honesty. During all that time, in fact, we have been the sole cement which has held together those very divergent people. It would surely be cowardice for us to think of abandoning that position, unless we can feel confident that the poor and humble minorities will 'be safeguarded, as we hope may be the case when Indians can come together and have a Government in which all can participate.
The noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, mentioned Pakistan. Your Lordships probably realize what is meant by that word. The Mahomedans, under the leadership of Mr. Jinnah, a very able and astute politician, have definitely decided that they are not prepared to enter a Government formed of all classes, and they demand that the Mahomedans shall have rule over the five Provinces—the North-West Frontier Province, Baluchistan, Sind, the Punjab and Bengal—which they call Pakistan. In those five Provinces the Mahomedans are in a majority, but in each of those Provinces there are enormous numbers of Hindus, while scattered over the rest of India there are very large numbers of Mahomedans. As an example of what I can see might be the result of
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the Pakistan policy I will take the Punjab, a Province which I know well, and which was ably governed for many years by my noble friend Lord Hailey. In the Punjab there is a preponderance of Mahomedans, but there are also 6,000,000 Sikhs, the people to whom I referred a short time ago, and with whom we were engaged in our great wars in 1842. The Sikhs are a very hard-fighting, virile, determined, obstreperous people, who are not for one moment going to accept Mahomedan domination, and they have said so.
We can imagine what the state of that country will be if we withdraw—absolute anarchy and chaos, and the most appalling and bloody fighting ever known, with tremendous casualties on every side, because the country is inhabited by very hard-fighting people. I think that there can be no doubt that that is what would happen in the Punjab. One has only to think of what happens now in the Communal riots. Thank God, we do not know in this country what a Communal riot is. In India a Communal riot starts in some ridiculous way—a Hindu will throw a pig into a Mahomedan mosque, or Mahomedans will go past a Hindu temple playing brazen music—and before you know where you are a riot has started, like fire in dry grass. Murders take place, and then the cry is always raised: "Where are the British troops?" That cry is raised even by those who in other circumstances are demanding the withdrawal of British troops from India.
Let me conclude by saying something with which I hope most of your Lordships will agree. I am convinced that the Christian faith and Christian morals are the one and only cement which binds our civilization together; if they go, the world will become a den of thieves. If we go to the origin of this terrible war in which we are now engaged, I believe we may feel that it arises largely from the fact that Nazi Germany dethroned Christ, and in His place set up the man Hitler as their god. I am certain that our repugnance towards Nazi ideology and Nazi methods is entirely shared by people of other faiths who form part of our great Empire. Just as I believe that Christian faith and morals dominate the world, so in this smaller sphere of India and also, shall I say, in the sphere of Palestine, I cannot but feel that it is we of the white race, we Britishers, who have been able to hold

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together the Mahomedans and the Hindus in India, and the Mahomedans and the Jews in Palestine. I should feel sorry for a man who was responsible for breaking that link, unless he is definitely assured that peace will reign and that the rights of minorities will be properly recognized if and when the British withdraw.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: My Lords, I hope you will allow me to say a very few words, inasmuch as I was one of those who were most opposed to the Government of India Bill in the year 1935. I do not in any way repent of the attitude that some of us then took up, and, if this was the time to do so, I should be prepared to justify it; but I want now to look not to the past but to the present and to the future. As regards the present, I do not think that anything need be added to what has fallen from the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel.
With regard to the future, the position I take it, is this. The principle, if not the phrasing, of the offer made by Sir Stafford Cripps, is still before India. That is, if the Indian Parties will agree, we will sanction their agreement, subject only to safeguards for the protection of the minorities, the necessity for defence, and keeping faith with the Princes If those safeguards are real—and I think we must assume that they will be—then I think we may look forward to doing for India, something on the same lines as what the British North America Act of 1867 has done for Canada, and our efforts, whether positive or negative, will not be in vain.
LORD HAILEY: My Lords, I have not the privilege of regarding events in India with the same eyes as the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel. He has looked at them from the background of a life-long attachment to Liberal principles. I myself have followed a profession where no doubt one might have preferences, and one was said to have prejudices, but one was not allowed to profess political principles. It has perhaps saved me from that particular form of disappointment to which Lord Samuel has given expression. It has saved me from the disappointment of finding that India has departed so far from Liberal principles and so far from the best precepts of democracy.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: Not India, the Congress Party.
LORD HAILEY: The Congress Party, I beg pardon. Nevertheless, with him I feel, and I think we must all feel, that there has been much that is disappointing, much that is disquieting in the history of India in the last seven years—deeply disappointing and deeply disquieting to those who in 1935 felt that they had embarked on a liberal measure—something far more liberal than had hitherto been envisaged, and something which would set India on the path to a stable form of self-government. It has been mortifying to many of us who have made our own efforts in the cause of self-government for India to find that we have misplaced our confidence in the capacity of Indians to think constructively of their own problems, which are not in truth mainly political but are largely of a social and economic nature. It is mortifying to find that the political institutions which were instituted then have not been devoted to the consideration so much of matters that are vital to the life of the people but have been made the battleground of sectarian differences. All this is of ill omen for the future.
But if on the other hand we look at the more recent events of Indian history as a phase, a chapter in the development of our relations with India, there is this much to be said. Recent events have clarified the position to a very great extent. Like many others I am not particularly enamoured of the form of the White Paper. It does not bear the impress that at one time it was sought to place on the State documents of India—that careful separation of fact from induction, that attempt at full documentation and the like. On the other hand, though I am not enamoured of its form I cannot find the same comfort in it as the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, does. If he will pardon my saying so, it appears to me that in seeking for this balm of comfort he was content to accept it in very homoeopathic doses. He could look with considerable equanimity on the fact that the Congress counted on our possible defeat in India.
LORD FARINGDON: The noble Lord must allow me. I really did not say that.
LORD HAILEY: I think the noble Lord, if I heard him correctly, said that it was natural that they should expect that.
LORD FARINGDON: In the circumstances that existed at that time.
LORD HAILEY: If I have misused the word "equanimity" at all events the noble Lord did not express, as I think we should all wish to express, our strongest feelings on the attitude taken by the Congress at a particular moment of crisis in our history. But we can take very little comfort as a matter of fact in discovering that the Congress was opposed to the principles of Fascism. It is not those things by which we wish to judge the attitude of Indian leaders, but by more substantial facts than their profession or non-profession of political principles of that kind. We must judge their action by their attitude towards the war, by the attitude they took when they found that the nations of the world were fighting for the cause of liberty; and whether they professed detestation of Fascism or not must be a matter of comparatively small concern to us.
It seems to me that anyone who looks dispassionately at the White Paper can have no doubt whatever as to certain facts which make clear the attitude of the Congress at the time of the Cripps Mission. There can be no doubt in our minds now that its disinclination to accept the offer made to it then was partly due to the doubt as to whether we could weather through the storm which was breaking on us in the East. And, secondly, it was due to the fact that it realized that the first duty of any Party which joined the National Government would be to take part in the active prosecution of the war. It was divided itself on that issue. Certainly even those who were not professed pacifists had no heart whatever in taking part in the war against Japan; and later—and this is equally clear—the Congress Party was obviously prepared for any form of violence or disorder, and that at a most critical period, if it felt that as a result of such disorder it could establish its own predominance in India. For, mark this, it knew that it could not gain the support of the Moslems. It knew that there were other elements opposed to it also. And therefore the only result of the steps which it contemplated would not be so much the attainment of Indian nationalism but the achievement purely of Congress supremacy. In other words, as Mr. Gandhi said, Congress would take delivery. Subsequent events have shown that it over-calculated its influence, and it is at all events some substantial gain
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to us to know that it can no longer assume, as it once assumed, the position of sole representative of Indian opinion.
We have to ask ourselves now whether, as a matter of fact, anything is to be gained by further negotiating with Congress. Much has been said in another place—something has been said here this afternoon—as to the necessity of keeping negotiations open, of making it possible for members of Congress to see Mr. Gandhi—in other words, to open again the whole field of negotiation with Congress itself. It is a disquieting question we have to ask ourselves. It must be one that the Government have had to face. However much we may desire to see a National Government founded, however anxious we may be to promote any measure of self-government in India, we have to ask ourselves: What are the dangers that we face if we bring the more prominent members of Congress into a National Government now in view of their record in the last twelve months? I say nothing as to their moral qualities, but it is clear that they are subject to the overriding authority of a body which has little real sense of responsibility for the peace and security of India.
If we brought them into the Government now, we should undoubtedly confuse the minds, if not worse, of that large body of men who are now joining the Army and are prepared to sacrifice their lives in our service. We should betray that large body of civil servants and well-wishers among the public who supported us during the recent disorders. Let me, like others, pay my tribute to these men. I know the troubles, the anxieties, in particular of the Indian civil official, living among his own people, subject to domestic influences and family influences, and to the attacks of his neighbours. I know what strength of mind and resolution it demands on his part to stand up for the cause of law and order. We have to ask ourselves finally whether, in the effort to get rid of what is undoubtedly a political complication, in the effort to solve what is said to be a stalemate, it is necessary to adopt a policy of placating your opponents which may disgust your friends. We have tried our friends greatly in India. We must not press them too far. So we have to ask ourselves that question whether, as a matter of fact, during the war, we can afford to invite Congress to join a National Government. I have little

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doubt myself on which side the balance of advantage lies.
Does this mean necessarily that we are completely at a standstill? The noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, suggested—and indeed there is some justification for what he suggested—that there has been in some quarters a certain sense of satisfaction at the position at which we have now arrived—we can safely await events; we have drawn the teeth of Congress; we know that the Moslems are as determined as ever not to yield to it; Mr. Gandhi has tried his last weapon. Inconsistent man! How well I remember, years ago, when his own followers indulged in a general campaign of fasting in gaol, he told them that this was not a reasonable method of procedure; it was futile and one which no sensible man should think of applying in modern politics. He was never consistent, and on this occasion he has attempted his last weapon and has failed in its use. It is felt, therefore, by many that we might well stand where we are, and, tactically, it might be, we are well placed. But such a position is dangerous. We are committed beyond any recall to give self-government to India, and it is only by moving forward that we can convince India and the rest of the world of the honesty of the intention that prompted that declaration. We can never convince them if we really stand still.
We have not only our own position in India to consider—we have our own reputation in the world. Many years ago Burke, in speaking on the subject of India, reminded the House of Commons that "the world cannot be indifferent to our fame: we are on a conspicuous stage and the world marks our demeanour." Much was said in another place during the Indian debate—something has been said here to-day—as regards the attitude of America on the Indian question. Since I have had myself some recent experience in dealing with that question in the United States, perhaps your Lordships will pardon me if I digress shortly on that subject. It is necessary for us to ask ourselves how far American opinion on a question like this must be decisive of our own policy or, in other words, if it may be put in the most comprehensive form, how far American opinion must in such a matter be of direct concern to us.
Differences between ourselves and America on any subject are undesirable.
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We could well wish that we could see eye to eye with them on any question of mutual interest to us. But what has been comprehensively described as "identity of ideological outlook" is not really necessary to the decision of common action or the pursuit of a common line of policy in vital issues. If that was so, we should in the past have had difficulties with some of those Powers with which we have been associated on many vital questions. We should have equal difficulty with some of our partners to-day. On the other hand, it would be unfortunate if any differences of outlook between ourselves and America impaired our co-operation in the war. It would be equally unfortunate if such differences stood in the way of our cooperation in the great adventure of world readjustment that we must undertake, in common with America, when the war is over. I do not maintain that this is the sole criterion that we should apply in judging of the concern we must have for American opinion, but I do say that, in present circumstances, that test must count primarily with us.
What then is American opinion on this subject? As we know, there has been a great deal said (here lately on the subject of Imperialism and the like. It has been one of the most outstanding topics of the day. I would wish to disregard at once anything that may seem to us to have been based only on ignorance, old prejudice, even on a desire to court the support of elements that we know are hostile to us. All that I would wish to disregard, and to consider only what I may describe as the best American opinion, or at all events that part of American opinion which must be most influential in the determination of public policy. There is no doubt that the interest taken in India was largely in the first instance in India as a war question. It was felt that the political deadlock there was undoubtedly prejudicial to our pursuit of the war effort. Again Indian aspirations appealed also to American idealism, a very real and a very genuine force in the United States. I think also that some of the attraction that the India question possessed for United States public opinion was its apparent simplicity; indeed it almost seemed that we ourselves had, by the dispatch of the Cripps Mission, simplified the issues for the United States.
The matter was very frequently put, and from very serious and influential

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quarters, somewhat in this form: "You have agreed that after the war India shall frame her own Constitution, even though that means her separation from the British Empire—in other words, you have guaranteed her independence. Why, if you have done so, do not you now state that you will retire from India at once immediately after the war? Why don't you say to India that she must resolve her difficulties and her political troubles in her own way? Why do you make the stipulation that before you retire from India and give her her independence, her major Parties must agree on some form of Constitution that will give her a stable Government? The gulf between them is deep, indeed it has by your own showing been one of your great difficulties in the past. Is this policy that you now pursue, this announcement that you cannot retire from India until she has agreed on her own form of Constitution, not made with the sense that the gulf between these Parties is so deep that your stay there must be almost indefinitely prolonged, and is it not possible that the motive which lies behind this is your economic interest in India?" Now these questions may be embarrassing to us. But they are not entirely unreasonable and they are not, I may say, put by people who are either unduly idealistic or unduly prejudiced against us.
It is easy enough to meet the economic issue. Indeed American opinion, as soon as it is informed of the facts, as soon as it knows that we have practically given economic independence to India, with the result that she can raise her own tariffs against us and has done so, with the effect that our exports to her have been reduced in the course of years by at least a half; as soon as it knows that we have practically given India her financial independence in the sense that she is now independent of her foreign loans and is the sole mistress of those great and productive assets which have been due to the loans raised from foreign countries in the past—as soon as the more thinking people in the United States realize that, they are willing to admit that it cannot be the economic interest which underlies the policy we have announced.
Of course our own answer is clear. As the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, has indicated, we can have only one attitude on that subject. Our connexion with India has not been unprofitable to us in
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the past, but we ourselves have given much to her, and perhaps the greatest thing of all is the vision that we have given to her of a nation which, in her own right and by the union of her peoples and by the full development of her resources, can fill a great place in the world. That vision we have given to her and we have a right to say to America that it would ill become our own past record, that we should stand ill with the rest of the world if we were to retire now from India, leaving her to open dissension and to open conflict, and leaving her in a situation which we know must almost indefinitely defer the attainment of the vision which we have put before her. That may be some form of prestige, it may be some form of imperialistic instinct, but it is neither prestige nor imperialism of a type that history is likely to condemn, and certainty it is not one which the idealism of the United States ought to decry at the present moment. But if this is our argument, then I think we owe it to ourselves and to India and to our own position in the world, that we should not avoid taking any measure in our power which would help to confirm confidence in the genuineness of our policy.
After all, it is not a question of carefully calculated tactical dispositions. It is a question of conveying the right psychological impression. What are the steps that have been indicated to us for conveying confidence in the earnestness and the genuineness of our intentions? I feel some delicacy in referring here to a suggestion made in another place, that the Prime Minister himself should make a more definite declaration of our position in regard to India. We understand, and we appreciate in Great Britain, what the Prime Minister has said on the subject. It has been misunderstood and it has been misinterpreted in the United States and it would be simple if he would consent to disabuse people's minds of the false impressions that have been created by what he has said before. But that perhaps is a matter merely of immediate tactics. It is not, of course, in itself any substantial step that can alter the fundamental facts of the situation with which we are dealing. It has been suggested again, it has been suggested more than once in your Lordships' House, that we should complete the Indianization of the Indian Executive Government, and it is unfortunate that

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the withdrawal of three Indian members of the Executive Council has perhaps served to delay consideration of that step which many of us feel has much to commend it. After all, it is one that must be taken sooner or later; it is one which perhaps were better taken when we still have a strong structure of Government in the country rather than at a subsequent date.
Then there is the further proposal to which the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, has referred. It has been strongly supported by an eminent Indian now in this country and closely connected with the counsels of His Majesty's Government. It is that the Indian Government itself should institute an expert committee to consider the constitutional alternatives to the Parliamentary form of Government on which we are now engaged. It has been suggested that these experts should be taken from a number of other countries, including America. That of course does not amount to the intervention for which the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, and some others have asked. In my own experience of dealing with Indians from whom I have sought counsel, I have found very few in favour of the suggestion that the United States or any other country should be asked to intervene in this issue. Certainly that attitude is strongly marked on the part of Moslem representatives. They say frankly that there has been so much Congress propaganda abroad, particularly in the United States, that any intervention on their part would be taken as an anti-Moslem movement. That may or may not be true, but the suggestion that has been made and supported by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, is one purely for a fact-finding Committee dealing with constitutional issues and one which would perhaps give some evidence to the world that the matter is still being pursued, that alternatives are being sought, and that the gateway has not by any means been closed.
Whether or not the Parliamentary form of institutions may prove to be best adapted to India is a very debatable question. When the matter was argued in 1935 there were many who told us that in no circumstances could Parliamentary institutions operate successfully in that country. There are those of us who held that, whatever might be our subsequent experience on that point, yet we felt it was essential that India should pass through the stage of Parliamentary insti-
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tutions if only as an educational process. It is at all events, I think, our duty to explore the alternatives now, especially if an open and a public exploration in the manner suggested would convey some evidence to people that we were still pursuing the subject of constitutional advance and that the issue was by no means even temporarily closed. We owe it to ourselves that we should keep this matter alive. It is a matter, as I have said, of psychological impression. We are often told that we ourselves are wanting in any form of inspiration about the constitutional position of India, and that we have ourselves no constructive vision. But we have such a vision, and indeed we may well feel that we have made a very definite contribution to the world in our conception of the Commonwealth of Nations, a partnership in liberty, high social ideals and a generous outlook on the affairs of others. But so long as the question of India is unsettled that vision is blurred, and we shall seem to the world to have failed in our loyalty to our own conceptions and to have faltered in the faith that we have professed.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, whenever the great question of India comes before your Lordships' House it is always considered with a becoming appreciation both of our individual and of our collective responsibilities. It would be unfortunate if it were not so because we are concerned with a matter which affects the lives of 400,000,000 of our Indian fellow subjects. The discussion which has taken place to-day has shown a unanimous desire for an early and agreed peace between ourselves and the Indian people. Our long and, as I believe, not unfruitful association and our constantly growing affection for them make their welfare our main consideration and aim. I ought to preface what I wish to say by something like a personal avowal. Apart from my duty to try to present the policy of the Government it must be remembered that I have a long personal tradition in this matter. Throughout the whole of my political life I have commended the cause of Indian self-government. It was to serve India that brought me to your Lordships' House. Therefore I hope your Lordships will forgive me if my powers of self-suppression on this occasion are insufficient to prevent my own opinions from appearing in what I have to say.

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The noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, in what I regarded as a balanced and very sincere and helpful speech was concerned about two questions. He wanted to know why the Viceroy did not allow Mr. Rajagopalachari to see Mr. Gandhi. The position of the Indian Government was that there had been no repudiation of the "do or die" policy, and also that Mr. Gandhi's friends could have seen him during the period he was fasting and that in actual fact Mr. Rajagopalachari did see him. The noble Lord's second point was as to the Viceroy's refusal to receive the deputation in order to discuss the whole matter. The position of the Viceroy was that he had originally agreed to receive the deputation on the explicit understanding that he should receive in advance a copy of its address to which he would reply in writing. It was only later that the deputation indicated their wish for further discussion, to which the Viceroy replied that he must adhere to the condition on which he had agreed to receive the deputation, but asked them to amplify their statement in any way they wished. It was important in his view that there should be no room for misunderstanding as to what took place in conversation or discussion. It seemed also clear to him that they wished to discuss the subject at large and he considered that might be at that stage undesirable.
The point we have to consider is what it is that the Government have really offered to India. In her famous Proclamation in 1858 Queen Victoria said that her Indian subjects should enjoy the prosperity and the social advancement which can only be secured by peace and good government. To-day, eighty-five years later, it is the solemn and settled policy of both His Majesty's Government and the British people to add the words: "self-government" to that declaration. That policy has the support of every political Party. The Party with which I am normally associated has given to that policy its undivided support. In another place, Mr. Arthur Greenwood, on October 8 of last year, said: "So far as the Government's policy with regard to India is concerned, I have said twice in this House that that meets with the approval of the British Labour movement." It is, however, right that I should state that Mr. Greenwood regretted that a break-
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down of negotiations had been allowed to continue without any effort being made to secure constructive action.
It is perhaps worth while very shortly to give a record of actual events. On August 1, 1941, the Viceroy issued a declaration which stated that as soon as possible after the war India should be taken into free and equal partnership in the British Commonwealth of Nations under a Constitution of the Indians' own devising. He invited the Indian Party leaders to co-operate in the war effort by joining the Viceroy's Executive Council. That offer was rejected, as it seems to us, almost without consideration. Then, last year, the Minister of Aircraft Production went to India to explain and to interpret the Government's policy to the Indian leaders, and to offer a chance to review the whole situation. That, too, was rejected. I will not delay your Lordships by reciting the terms of that offer because they are already known to you. But it is important to ask why this offer was rejected. It is fair to state, I think, that it is believed that a portion of Congress was in favour of acceptance, but there is no escaping from the feeling that the offer was rejected, not because it was unfair or ungenerous or insincere but because of the prevailing conditions of the hour. Let us remember that Rangoon had fallen; Burma was overrun; Indian coastal towns and ports had been bombed: and, therefore, rightly or wrongly, Congress chose to interpret the Cripps Mission as a signal of distress. Mr. Gandhi called the offer a post-dated cheque on a failing bank. He had apparently so misjudged Britain and the Dominions as to believe that, in the face of danger, they would surrender India to Japan. The Working Committee of Congress on July 14 approved a campaign of mass civil disobedience and Mr. Gandhi called for open rebellion. On August 8 the All-India Congress Committee advocated a mass struggle on non-violent lines and on the widest possible scale. We were to leave India to God, and if that was too much we were to leave her to anarchy.
We have had political crises in our own country, and we have shown some temper on those occasions. The Party to which I have belonged has had its losses and its gains in those contests. It has had its moments of exhilaration and its hours of gloom. But it rightly takes pride

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in the fact that not one drop of blood stains its record. On such occasions we smother our opponents with invective and with a consoling vituperation. Then we try again and we keep on trying until we find a way to a solution. The day after that declaration of the Committee was made, that is to say on August 9, the Congress leaders were arrested. Now again we may ask why was; that resolution passed? At the time Rommel was within fifty miles of Alexandria, and that fact undoubtedly had its influence. Personally, I shall never believe that the passive awaiting and reception of an invader represented the spirit of India then. We know that it does not now for there are 1,500,000 volunteer Indian soldiers. This carefully-timed campaign failed, not only because its leaders were arrested but because other Indian leaders condemned it. Mr. Jinnah declared that an attempt to coerce the British Government to surrender to a Congress Raj would be wrong. Dr. Ambedkar, the leader of the Depressed Classes, said it would be "madness to weaken law and order when the barbarians are at our gate."
What is the present position? It is just this; that the method suggested by the Government has not been accepted. The only possible advantage that has come to India through her decision is that she can still continue to blame this country for her misfortunes. In one of his finer moments Mr. Gandhi said: "We do not seek our independence out of Britain's ruin." To that we reply: "We do not use our present difficult situation as an excuse for refusing or unduly postponing Indian self-government which it is our solemn undertaking to see established at the earliest possible date with the good will of a united India." The Indian people themselves know how difficult and how immense the problem is, and they also know that the difficulties reside in India and not here. They know that because they constantly refuse to face them themselves. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, in what, if he will allow me to say so, was a most excellent, helpful and well-balanced speech, showed the stupendous character of the problem which has to be faced. There are 186,000,000 people who do not accept Congress as representing what they desire, and it is not possible to impose a Constitution on 186,000,000 people who would
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resent your trying to do so. The Indian people say "You must produce and impose a settlement of our difficulties," but no proposal which has yet been made to them appears to us to have been given generous consideration. We are not without a certain experience in the difficult art of nation-building, and we know that a settlement imposed upon a resentful people would be a dangerous expedient, and one which we must avoid as long as possible.
That completes, I think, the argument on what I may call the factual side of the debate to-day, but there is something to be said on the moral issue involved; and, if I delay your Lordships longer, it is only with the hope that what I may say may be read in India itself. I desire, speaking for myself for a moment, to say that it is neither surprising nor regrettable that the Indian leaders are impatient in this matter. That is really a hopeful sign; it shows the eagerness with which they look forward to the India of their dreams. But let them remember that no great battle has ever been won without dust and heat. The immediate need would appear to be that they should continually reconsider the problem without reference to past experiences, "forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those which are before," that they should without prejudice or passion or recrimination or weakening suspicion agree to examine the question afresh. No nation can give freedom to another. Freedom is something that a nation wins for itselt, not by violence but by reason, and also by patient and creative statesmanship. If it is permissible to quote Goethe in these days, I would say with him, "He only gains his freedom and existence who daily conquers them anew." Freedom is not a fixed stone in the wall of a temple, which once placed there is permanent; it is something that each generation must win for itself by itself, by its own vigilance and its own self-dedication.
After all, the gulf which separates the Indian leaders from each other, and which separates Congress from the Viceroy, is not, in my opinion, unbridgeable; and I ask the Indian people whether it may not be possible that a third party such as our-selves, ardently desiring the good of all, can helpfully contribute its own experience. What is required is that differences should be subordinated, and that we

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should build on the basis of agreement. I think that it was the late Samuel Barnet who said: ''Blessed are the bridge-builders." If we could get bridge-builders to start their work on this great issue, it might be a blessing not only to India but to ourselves and to the world at large. The old and untrue statement "Divide and rule" should now give place to a new affirmation, "Unite and cooperate." An ancient and very wise Eastern philosopher once said: "The glory of man is not that he has never fallen, but that he has never failed to rise again." If it were my business to criticize the Indian people to-day, I would say that the Indian leaders and Parties appear to have accepted defeat, whereas they should be trying again and again until a way to agreement is found. They have been inspired by the British Parliament and by British institutions. They ardently desire to reproduce those institutions in their own country. I take that as the very greatest compliment that has ever been paid to a governing power.
But democracy in Britain does not depend solely upon the visible machinery by which it is operated; behind the machine is the slowly developed power of putting first things first. Effective participation in responsible public service depends on the willingness and the capacity of both individuals and Parties to subordinate personal and sectional preferences to the wider obligations of the common life. We have achieved some success on those lines in these islands. We have learnt when to put occasion to the test, when to stand together for the common good, when to co-operate and when to compromise. It has not always been easy, and it is not easy always, to sustain that attitude. In our country there are three major political Parties, each with its own principles and prejudices; and, if your Lordships will permit me to say so, for two of those Parties, though we are working for common ends, I have a personal affection which is under the very strictest control. But, as I say, we work together for common ends. I have done and am doing so without sacrificing either my principles or their friendship; nevertheless, it always remains one of the greatest mysteries in the world to me why such otherwise likeable people should have such deplorable and even reprehensible political opinions.
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I shall get into trouble for this when I sit down. But I would like to ask the Indian people where we should have been in the great crisis of three years ago if we had refused to work with other Parties. We should have been, as the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, indicated, not in-a state of liberty but in a servile condition. And we wish Indians to do for the future peace of India what we did for the preservation of our freedom and our ideals. The choice for India is as a free and equal partner in the British Commonwealth of Nations with the opportunity to contribute of her own rich store of thought and wisdom to the wide community of mankind; or, on the other hand, because of the delay of a few short months, to prolong and perhaps intensify a dangerous condition of discord. As I see it, the peace and the welfare of India are worth a little patience. Let the Indian people remember that we, too, have had to tread the pathway on which they are about to travel; we too, have had to bear the hard discipline of delay and frustration because we know that "long is the way and hard that, out of hell, leads up to light." In conclusion, let me say these times are full of peril, but they are also times of opportunity, both for India and for our-selves. We can either loyally fulfil our obligations or basely betray them, but only if our insight and our actions are equal to the hour will they lead us on to fortune.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I beg to move that the Motion which stands in my name on the Paper relating to Bombay be approved.
Moved, That this House approves the continuance in force of the Proclamation issued under Section 93 of the Government of India Act, 1935, by the Governor of Bombay on 4th November, 1939, and of his Proclamation varying the same issued on 15th February, 1943, copies of which were presented to this House on 28th November, 1939, and 16th March, 1943, respectively.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I beg to move that the Motion which stands in my name relating to the United Provinces be approved.
Moved, That this House approves the continuance in force of the Proclamation issued under Section 93 of the Government of India Act, 1935, by the Governor of the United Provinces on 3rd November, 1939, and of his Proclamations varying the same issued on 1st December, 1939, and 12th February, 1943, copies of which were presented to this House on 28th November, 1939, 16th January, 1940, and 10th March, 1943, respectively.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I beg to move that the Motion which stands in my name relating to the Central Provinces be approved.
Moved, That this House approves the continuance in force of the Proclamation issued under Section 93 of the Government of India Act, 1935, by the Governor of the Central Provinces and Berar on 10th November, 1939, and of his Proclamation varying the same issued on 2nd December, 1939, copies of which were presented to this House on 28th November, 1939, and 16th January, 1940, respectively.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I beg to move that the Motion which stands in my name relating to Bihar be approved.
Moved, That this House approves the continuance in force of the Proclamation issued under Section 93 of the Government of India Act, 1935, by the Governor of Bihar on 3rd November, 1939, and of his Proclamations varying the same issued on 3rd December, 1939, and 13th February, 1943, copies of which were presented to this House on 28th November, 1939, 16th January, 1940, and 10th March,
1943, respectively—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I beg to move that the Motion which stands in my name relating to the North-West Frontier Province be approved.
Moved, That this House approves the continuance in force of the Proclamation issued under Section 93 of the Government of India Act, 1935, by the Governor of the North-West Frontier Province on the 10th November, 1939, and of his Proclamation varying the same issued on 2nd December, 1939, copies of which were presented to this House on 28th November, 1939, and 16th January, 1940, respectively.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932.
Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department extending Section 1 of the Act to the
Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and ordered to lie on the Table.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS.
Second Report by the Joint Committee, being a Report upon the War Damage Bill [H.L.], made and to be printed. The Minutes of Evidence (with the proceedings of the Joint Committee) laid upon the Table and to be delivered out.

WAR DAMAGE BILL. [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills with Amendments and re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned.