Sitting of 21 July 1943

Preamble
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

SECONDARY SCHOOLS, LEEDS (CLOSING)
Mr. Denman: With the concurrence of other Members for the City, I have been asked to present a humble petition from 5,155 citizens of Leeds. In a sentence, their grievance is that two secondary schools were closed and the premises requisitioned and, in consequence, Leeds youth is denied necessary facilities for secondary education. They desire that the hands of the local education authority should be strengthened in restoring these facilities. And the petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Member bring the petition to the Table?
Mr. Thorne: The War Office pinched three of our schools.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

  Mr. ISRAEL MOSES SIEFF
  Sir Waldron Smithersasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what position was held recently by Mr. Israel Moses Sieff in his Department in America; does he still hold that position; and, if not, why has he relinquished it?
  The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden): Mr. Sieff has not held any position under the Foreign Office in the U.S.A.
  Sir W. Smithers: Is it not a fact that the United States Government, by direct request or through our Ambassador, asked that he should be relieved of his work and returned to this country? What are the reasons?
  Mr. Eden: I did not know about that. What I did know was that Mr. Sieff was appointed in March last year to a Com-
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  mittee advisory to the office of Prices Administration in the United States, and his principal function was to provide information on British experiments in the field of price control and rationing. I know that he has relinquished the appointment, but I understand that his work on the Committee was appreciated by his colleagues, who regret the loss of his services.
  Commander Locker-Lampson: Would this Question have been asked about Mr. Sieff if his name was Smith or Smithers?

  FRENCH NORTH AFRICA

    Cost of Living
    Mr. Astorasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what has been the general trend in the cost of living since the allied occupation of French North Africa?
    Mr. Eden: No weighted index of the cost of living in French North Africa exists. I am informed, however, that prices of a considerable quantity of supplies imported by the Allies since last November have been maintained at pre-November levels, and rents have been stabilised since April 5th. On the other hand the prices of certain locally produced commodities have increased. In Tunisia the cost of living, which advanced very greatly under German occupation, has fallen since the liberation.

    Political Prisoners (Release)
    Mr. John Dugdaleasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many political prisoners are still detained in North Africa?
    Mr. Eden: The Joint Commission for Political Prisoners and Refugees reported on 23rd June that all persons interned in concentration camps or incorporated into work companies had by then been released. The Committee added that there remained about 200 foreign refugees in prison whose offences consisted chiefly of infractions of discipline in internment camps or political demonstrations involving violence. The Commissioner of Justice had given them an assurance that an amnesty would be granted to these prisoners as soon as their cases had been examined from the point of view of military security.
    Mr. Dugdale: What is the position now of so-called enemy aliens? Are they taken into our Forces, or do they simply remain without any sort of supervision?
    Mr. Eden: I should be obliged if the hon. Member would nut that Question down. I am not sure that I know.

  MONOPOLIES AND CARTELS
  Mr. Barstowasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has approached the Government of the United States of America with a view to discouraging the publication of names of British firms who may be involved in the recent inquiry by the Senate into trusts?
  Mr. Eden: No, Sir.

  FOREIGN OFFICE (RESEARCH DEPARTMENT)
  Dr. Russell Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the annual cost and the number employed by the Foreign Office Research Department; and how many engaged therein are regular personnel of the Foreign Office?
  Mr. Eden: The sum provided in the Foreign Office Estimate for the current year for the Research Department is £78,500, and the number employed is shown as 185. The Department has recently been moved from Oxford to London, and it is anticipated that the amount chargeable to the Foreign Office Vote may be rather less than the sum provided. Six of the staff are regular personnel of the Foreign Office.
  Dr. Thomas: Does the right hon. Gentleman attach much value to this Department, in view of the fact that it is chiefly concerned with speculative postwar foreign policy and that very few people read the result of their cogitations?
  Mr. Eden: I do not accept any of the hon. Member's assumptions. In the first place, I certainly attach importance to the department, or I would not have agreed to the expenditure out of our funds of £78,000. The work done is not only for us but for other Government Departments. It is not speculative and is largely factual.
  Mr. Ivor Thomas: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered that the survey of
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  the foreign Press undertaken by the department is made unnecessary by the excellent daily digest of the foreign Press?
  Mr. Eden: It all helps.

  STERLING-LIRA EXCHANGE, EASTERN AFRICA (AXIS PROPAGANDA)
  Mr. Loftusasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that Axis propaganda is using the sterling-lira exchange rate provisionally fixed for North-Eastern Africa for the purpose of stiffening the resistance of the Italian people against surrender to the demands of the Allies; and whether he is taking any steps to counteract such propaganda?
  Mr. Eden: Yes, Sir. To counter this propaganda our broadcasts to Italy have included reports from the former Italian colonies, showing that the inhabitants are suffering no undue hardship.
  Mr. Ivor Thomas: Am I right in thinking that the rate of exchange is 450 lire to the pound—five times the peace-time rate? Surely that contains the seeds of international bitterness in the future?
  Mr. Eden: I should hope not, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer is dealing with this question on the next Sitting Day. My idea is that the Italians will soon be content to give any number of lire for one pound.

  OFFICIAL REPORT, HOUSE OF COMMONS (CONSULATES-GENERAL)
  Commander King-Hallasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) how many British Consulates-General are being supplied with copies of Hansard;
  (2) whether he will instruct British Consuls-General to display a copy of Hansard among the official literature available for consultation by visitors to their offices?
  Mr. Eden: It is not the practice to supply copies of Hansard to His Majesty's Consulates-General abroad, and in present circumstances I do not think it practicable to distribute copies for consultation by visitors to Consulates-General. In this connection I would refer my hon.

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  and gallant Friend to the reply given to him by the Deputy Prime Minister on 2nd June.
  Commander King-Hall: Will the right hon. Gentleman consult with the Colonial Office, whose distribution of Hansard is to be commended, and at least send it to the principal Consulates-General?
  Mr. Eden: It is not that I wish to deprive anyone of this most attractive reading, but the demands on our bags are so very heavy. If I can find some arrangement which does not interfere with these inevitable priorities, I will.
  Mr. Gallacher: Will the right hon. Gentleman not consider supplying them with copies of Hansard and of the "Daily Worker"?

  ITALIAN TERRITORY (ADMINISTRATION)
  Mr. Ivor Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will give an assurance that, after the unconditional surrender of Italian arms in any part of Italian territory, no collaborationist or Quisling régime will be set up with the help of former Fascists?
  Mr. Eden: One of the avowed war aims of His Majesty's Government is the elimination of the Fascist regime and my hon. Friend can be assured that this aim is and will continue to be actively pursued with all the resources at our disposal.
  Mr. Lawson: Statements have appeared in the Press to the effect that mayors and people who have been appointed by the Fascist régime will be kept in office under our administration. Is there any truth in such statements?
  Mr. Eden: I have not seen the statements, but I should say certainly not. Our general practice would be to tell them to depart from the offices they had previously held. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put a Question down.

  FRENCH COMMITTEE OF NATIONAL LIBERATION
  Mr. Boothbyasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to give de facto recognition to the French Committee of Liberation?
  Mr. Eden: His Majesty's Government are in discussion with other Allied Governments on the subject of recognition, but I am not yet in a position to make a statement on the subject, In the meanwhile our relations with the French Committee of National Liberation remain as I described them on Wednesday last, that is to say, in practice His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom are now treating with this Committee on all matters of common concern relating to French territories which acknowledge its authority, and affecting French Forces maintained in British territory.
  Mr. Boothby: Does my right hon. Friend not think that, when this Committee is given official status, it may help to bring to an end the unfortunate personal disputes which have been a feature of recent months, and, from that point of view, is it not desirable to give that status as soon as possible?
  Mr. Eden: We are in consultation with the other Allied Governments on the subject. I know my hon. Friend will think it better that any statement that is made on the subject should be one agreed between us all.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE

    Air Training Corps
    Wing-Commander Hulbertasked the Secretary of State for Air what arrangement has recently been entered into for closer co-operation between the Air Training Corps and the Boy Scouts' Association?
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Air (Captain Harold Balfour): Air Scout troops may now be attached to units of of the A.T.C. for instruction in air subjects by A.T.C. instructors and qualified cadets and they may be allowed the use of A.T.C. accommodation and equipment for this purpose free of charge.
    Wing-Commander Hulbertasked the Secretary of State for Air the latest figures of the strength of the Air Training Corps?
    Captain Balfour: The cadet strength of the Air Training Corps on 30th April, 1943, was approximately 182,500 enrolled in some 1,700 units.
    Mr. Treeasked the Secretary of State for Air whether swimming is included in the training of cadets of the Air Training Corps?
    Captain Balfour: It would be impracticable in present circumstances to include swimming in the A.T.C. syllabus for all cadets. Cadets are, however, encouraged to take all opportunities to learn to swim whilst under training and marks are given for this subject in the proficiency examinations.
    Mr. Treeasked the Secretary of State for Air how many university air squadrons there are in the Air Training Corps; and whether he is satisfied that they are fulfilling their purpose?
    Captain Balfour: There are at present 23 university air squadrons in the Air Training Corps, four of which will be discontinued at the end of the current term, following on a recent decision affecting the call-up of men of the 1925 age class. The answer to the second part of the Question is "Yes."
    Mr. Simmonds: Do all these university air squadrons give actual flying training now?
    Captain Balfour: No, Sir. The purpose of university air squadrons is not to give flying training, although while undergoing a course with the squadrons the cadets get a certain amount of air experience.

    Aircraft Losses, Sicily
    Wing-Commander Hulbertasked the Secretary of State for Air the number of Allied and Axis aircraft, respectively, destroyed over Sicily since 9th July?
    Captain Balfour: An analysis of communiqués issued in North Africa shows that 216 enemy aircraft have been reported destroyed in combat over Sicily for the loss of 87 Allied aircraft, between dawn on 10th July and nightfall on 19th July.

    War Factories, Enemy-Occupied Countries (Bombing)
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Secretary of State for Air whether it is intended to make the steelworks and aircraft factories of France, Belgium and Luxemburg targets in order to cripple supplies to Germany?
    Captain Balfour: All works and factories in enemy-occupied territory whose
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    output assists the Axis war effort are liable to attack. I cannot be more specific about possible future targets.

    Technical Instruction
    Sir Robert Youngasked the Secretary of State for Air how many men are employed in the Royal Air Force as education officers giving specialised technical instruction; how many are employed as technical officers; what is the difference in status and duties; and how many in each class have a university degree?
    Captain Balfour: There are 482 education officers in the Royal Air Force giving instruction in technical subjects, and employed mainly in the teaching of pure and applied science. Fifty-one education officers after undergoing such special training as considered necessary, have been transferred to the technical branch. While the ordinary education officer remains a civilian member of the teaching profession, wearing uniform, the status and duties of these 51 officers are the same as those of other Royal Air Force officers in the technical branch and their work is mainly of an engineering character. They have certain disciplinary and administrative responsibilities under the Air Force Act and a liability for general service. The number of graduates in the two categories referred to are 478 and 49 respectively.
    Sir R. Young: Is it a fact that these education officers teach the technical officers, and after that has been done the technical officers have a large increase of salary over the education officers?
    Captain Balfour: No, Sir, that is not quite so. Technical branch officers may from time to time give instruction, but they are predominantly employed in organising and supervising duties. The officers of the education branch are engaged in technical instruction whole-time, and the duties of the two branches are really different.
    Sir R. Young: Are education officers allowed to transfer to the technical side if they have the ability?
    Captain Balfour: No, Sir, the education officers are required for educational purposes, and technical officers are required for Royal Air Force technical purposes.
    Mr. Ivor Thomas: Is it a fact that education officers are not regarded as normal R.A.F. officers and that there is discontent at their status?
    Captain Balfour: That is a very old question, which has been raised many times. There are more sides to it than can be debated by Question and answer.
    Mr. De la Bère: Is it not desirable that their status should be improved?

    Anti-Aircraft Defences
    Colonel Sir A. Lambert Wardasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he will enter into consultation with the Secretary of State for War and the Secretary of State for the Home Department with a view to improving and strengthening the anti-aircraft defences of a town of which he has been informed?
    Captain Balfour: The disposition of our available resources against enemy air attack is constantly under joint review by all the Departments concerned, and I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that the maximum scale of defence consistent with offensive and defensive requirements is being provided.

    Low Flying, Downside
    Mr. Stokesasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is aware that, as recently as Thursday, 15th July, aeroplanes were flying across the playing fields at Downside at a height estimated to be 100 feet; and how many aeroplanes have so far been reported by his observers to have flown over the fields below the regulation level since the recent tragedy occurred?
    Captain Balfour: A case of low flying at Downside on 15th July has been reported, but the aircraft has not yet been identified. Since 1st June last some 12 aircraft have been reported as having flown at heights lower than regulation over, or near, Downside. In 10 cases identification has been made and disciplinary action is being taken where appropriate and where the aircraft belong to the R.A.F.
    Mr. Stokes: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that in addition to the 12 reported instances where identification was possible, there have been numerous other occasions when it has not been possible to identify the aeroplanes, and that
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    the authorities are very disturbed at the continuation of this practice?
    Captain Balfour: We have stationed observers at Downside, which is in a very unfortunate geographical position, in that it is on top of a hill in a county over which there is much flying. We are as anxious as the hon. Gentleman to identify these aircraft, and if he can assist us in any way in increasing the efficiency of our efforts, nobody will be more delighted than I shall be.
    Mr. de Rothschild: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that this practice of flying low also exists in East Anglia, and will he take steps in that part of the world also?
    Captain Balfour: No, Sir. Orthodox low flying must be permitted to continue for training purposes. Although routes for such flying are laid down, pilots are liable, particularly in bad weather, to wander from approved routes until they can gain experience. We have to continue low flying, and East Anglia is a peculiarly suitable spot. Provided that it does not take place against orders and in dangerous areas, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will support us in continuing it.
    Mr. Lipson: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that an aeroplane flew low over a school at Cheltenham, and will he make inquiries?
    Captain Balfour: If my hon. Friend will give me the time and number, I will have inquiries made. It is very hard for pilots flying in bad weather on high-speed aircraft not to go to places which they themselves would be the last to wish to fly over.

  POST OFFICE

    Aircraft Facilities
    Mr. Wakefieldasked the Postmaster-General whether, in view of recent progress in the aeronautical design of aircraft, in particular with assistance takeoff and reversible airscrews, which enable aircraft to take off and land within a confined space, he is preparing plans for the use by aircraft of the roof tops of the post offices in the centres of the chief cities in Great Britain?
    The Postmaster-General (Captain Crookshank): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to a similar Question put by him on 26th May. I

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    understand that the United States Post Office have been experimenting with aircraft of this type, and I have taken steps to obtain information on the subject. In the light of information received, His Majesty's Government will consider the matter further.
    Mr. Wakefield: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman consider accompanying me in a modem aircraft so that I can demonstrate to him and his officials the feasibility of this scheme?
    Captain Crookshank: I would not like to risk my officials on such a journey.
    Mr. Simmonds: Must we always rely on other countries? Cannot we take the lead ourselves occasionally?

    Airgraph Mails
    Mr. Keelingasked the Postmaster-General on how many occasions airgraph mails have been lost; and what interval has elapsed on each occasion between the destruction of the airgraphs and the completion of duplicates?
    Captain Crookshank: Airgraph mails from the United Kingdom have been lost in transit on two occasions, and airgraph mails to the United Kingdom on three occasions. The precise date of loss is not in all cases available but the interval which has elapsed between the date upon which the loss became known and the date upon which duplicate mails have been despatched has been six and seven days rgspectively in the case of mails from the United Kingdom and has varied from five to 23 days according to the country of origin in the case of mails to the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Keeling: Has my right hon. and gallant Friend considered whether this interval can in the interests of the troops be reduced?
    Captain Crookshank: No, Sir, I do not think so, because the long interval arises in cases where the letters have been posted a long way from this country.
    Mr. Woodburn: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman consider the idea that used to exist in the old sailing days whereby a duplicate was sent where it was desired by the sender at an interval of a week or 10 days?
    Captain Crookshank: The whole object of the airgraph service is that duplicates
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    can be sent when necessary. In view of the shortage of aircraft for mails in general, it would not be a good plan to adopt my hon. Friend's suggestion.

    Parcel Rates
    Mr. Brookeasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that at existing rates of postage it is cheaper to send a parcel under two pounds weight to Eire than to an address anywhere in Great Britain or Northern Ireland; and whether he will alter this?
    Captain Crookshank: Yes, Sir; this has been the case since 1940, when it was decided to retain the existing rates for parcels to Eire although war-time increases were being made in the rates for inland parcels. It is advantageous that the parcel post rates from the United Kingdom to Eire should be (as they now are) the same as those in the reverse direction and within Eire, and I do not as at present advised propose to alter the existing rates.
    Mr. Leach: Is there a reward for neutrality?

  REQUISITIONED PREMISES (HEATING)
  Sir Harold Webbeasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works for what Department the premises, the address of which has been given to him, have been requisitioned; and by whose authority electric radiators in large numbers are being installed to supplement the ordinary hot water system provided for the use of the previous tenants?
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works (Mr. Hicks): The premises will be occupied by the Ministry of Aircraft Production. The building is only partially heated by central heating, and previous tenants used, in addition, electric fires for which power points were provided. My Ministry has put in electric radiators only to the extent necessary to enable the temperature of the rooms to be raised to approximately 60 degrees F. which is the commonly recognised standard.
  Sir H. Webbe: Is my hon. Friend aware that one room previously heated by five radiators now has an additional nine large electric radiators, and is he aware that a company of which I am a director occupied these premises and found the radiator system perfectly satisfactory in

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  peace-time? Is this part of the Government's economy plan?
  Mr. Hicks: I was not aware of all the details which my hon. Friend has now given me, but I can assure him that a number of the rooms are new rooms. They have been partitioned off, and things are not in the same shape as they were when they were previously used. In order to give them a temperature of about 60 degrees F. by the existing central heating, they would require a new boiler and new and larger pipes, and this would probably be more expensive than heating by the present arrangements.
  Mr. Thorne: Is the hon. Gentleman dispensing with gas geysers in favour of electricity? If so, I am going to protest.

  ROYAL NAVY

    Women's Royal Naval Service
    Miss Wardasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the fact that the Women's Royal Naval Service are not members of the Armed Forces of the Crown, he will give an assurance that any privileges or protection which may be accorded in the post-war years to the Armed Forces will also be extended to the Women's Royal Naval Service?
    The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. A. V. Alexander): While it is difficult for me to give an unqualified assurance in regard to future legislation, I am prepared to say that, so far as lies within the power of the Admiralty, all steps will be taken to ensure that the Women's Royal Naval Service is treated no less favourably than the other women's Services.
    Miss Ward: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that it would perhaps be wiser to include the Women's Royal Naval Service in the Armed Forces of the Crown?
    Mr. Alexander: That is another matter, but they were regarded as being part of the Armed Forces for the purpose of the National Service Act.
    Sir Granville Gibson: In view of the fact that they are not part of the Armed Forces of the Crown, will members of this Service be entitled to decorations after the war as in the case of the Armed Forces?
    Mr. Alexander: I think they would be entitled to decorations, but I should like to have notice of questions on matters of detail.
    Viscountess Davidsonasked the First Lord of the Admiralty how many members of the Women's Royal Naval Service are employed in the Admiralty?
    Mr. Alexander: The numbers of W.R.N.S. personnel employed in the Admiralty, including W.R.N.S. Headquarters, are: 70 officers and 275 ratings. In addition, 5 officers and 207 ratings are attached to the Admiralty for various services.
    Sir Herbert Williams.: Could the right hon. Gentleman say why people in uniform are employed upon what are, in fact, civilian duties?
    Mr. Alexander: If I broke down the figures in great detail, the hon. Member would find that we do not employ serving personnel in great numbers for clerical and civilian duties.

    Men Under Detention (Treatment)
    Mr. Fraserasked the First Lord of the Admiralty (r) to what extent naval men under detention are marched in the street manacled with chains, either for the purpose of being transferred from one barracks to another, or otherwise;
    (2) for what offences naval men under detention are ever required to hang extended by the arms in mid-air for a period or run round the parade ground with a rifle held over their heads as a punishment;
    (3) whether he will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a detailed account of the kind of punishment meted out to naval men under detention for minor offences?
    Mr. Alexander: I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a list of all the punishments which may be awarded by the Commanding Officers of Royal Naval detention quarters for offences committed by ratings while undergoing detention. Neither hanging by the arms in mid-air nor running with a rifle over the head is ever inflicted as a punishment for such offences, though the latter practice is sometimes included as a part of daily rifle exercise. Men are never marched in the street manacled with chains; they may

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    be handcuffed to prevent escape while being transferred from one establishment to another, but they are then always taken through the streets in covered vehicles.
    Mr. Fraser: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I and other hon. Members have letters from Service men indicating that this manacling does go on in the streets, and we do have cases where men are handcuffed to senior officers and the handcuffs are only covered by means of hanging a coat or some other garment over the handcuffs? Does the right hon. Gentleman think that is a satisfactory method, and would he be prepared to look into the matter to see whether these other forms of punishment I have indicated are carried out?
    Mr. Alexander: As regards the last part of the Supplementary Question, I can assure my hon. Friend that when I received his Question I got into direct touch with the naval detention quarters, and the answer I have given is on the advice of those in charge. With regard to the first point, I am also assured that there is no manacling in the streets, unless the men go through in covered vehicles, though there may be occasions when it may be open to the public to see them when they are being transferred from the vehicle at a station or are entering a train.
    Dr. Russell Thomas: Is there not a good deal of false sentiment in regard to these detention matters? Are not these men guilty of grave crimes which in civil life would be punished severely?
    Mr. Alexander: I would not like it to be thought from my hon. Friend's question, and I am sure that he does not wish to indicate it, that there is grave crime in the Royal Navy, but there will always be some difficult characters, and they have to be dealt with.
    Mr. Stephen: Ought not the hon. Member who put that Supplementary Question to be manacled?
    Following is the list of punishments:
    Punishments which may be awarded by the Commanding Officer for offences against detention quarters discipline:

    (a) Close confinement for a period not exceeding three days.

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    (b) No. 1 punishment diet for a period not exceeding three days.

    (c) No. 2 punishment diet for a period not exceeding twenty-one days, with intervals as laid down in the rules.

    (d) Reduction to a lower stage, or postponement of promotion to a higher stage, until the man has earned a stated number of marks.

    (e) Deprivation of bedding for a period not exceeding three days.

    (f) Deprivation of a stated number of remission marks.

    (g) Forfeiture of stage privileges.

    The Monthly Visitor can inflict punishments (a), (b), (c), (d) and (f) for longer periods.

    Fleet Air Arm
    Commander Sir Archibald Southbyasked the First Lord of the Admiralty (r) whether he is satisfied that the syllabus of training of the Air Training Corps is suitable for young men desirous of joining the Fleet Air Arm;
    (2) the percentage of those who join for air-crew duty with the Fleet Air Arm who are ex-Air Training Corps cadets; and the percentage of these ex-cadets who are proficient?
    Mr. Alexander: Ex-Air Training Corps cadets have on recent figures amounted to 48 per cent. of the total of those joining the Fleet Air Arm for air-crew duties. While no proficiency tests of ex-cadets are given which would enable quantitative estimates to be made, general experience shows that Air Training Corps training confers a noticeable advantage upon those who have undergone it, both from the professional and the disciplinary standpoints.
    Sir A. Southby: Will my right hon. Friend consider the desirability of making arrangements for sea cadets to receive training and instruction at fighter stations belonging to the Fleet Air Arm, wherever that is possible and convenient?
    Mr. Alexander: I will have that point looked into, but a good deal of co-operation exists between the two Corps.

    Flying Accident, Downside (Parents, Compensation)
    Mr. Stokesasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any decision has yet been reached with regard to the method of settlement in the matter of compensation to the parents of boys who either lost their lives or who were seriously or permanently injured in the

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    recent tragedy on the playing fields at Downside?
    Mr. Alexander: Yes, Sir. This matter has been further considered most carefully and with the utmost sympathy. I am afraid, however, that it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that since the scale of compensation to be paid in respect of war injuries is laid down under the Personal Injuries (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1939, the grant of an ex gratia payment would be contrary to the provisions of the Act and the intentions of Parliament. The view which I have expressed is shared by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions who administers the Act.
    Mr. Stokes: Does my right hon. Friend really think that the Act was meant to deal with exceptional cases of this kind, and does he think it provides adequate compensation for a small boy aged 15 who has lost both his legs as a result of this accident? Can he not reconsider the matter, because the present position is giving anything but satisfaction to people who have suffered terrible loss?
    Mr. Alexander: I understand my hon. Friend's interest in this matter, but I would point out that the principle, accepted without a division in both Houses of Parliament in the Act of 1939, would appply to very large numbers of contingencies, and I really could not undertake to make any promise at all on that point.
    Sir H. Williams: Do I understand that if the Crown injures somebody the Crown pays far less than would a private individual who had injured the same person? Are people to be deprived of their Common Law rights?
    Mr. Alexander: At the time Parliament, apparently quite deliberately, made an exception in the Act of 1939 on this point—quite clearly.
    Mr. Stokes: Does my right hon. Friend really believe that Parliament had accidents of this kind in mind when it passed that Act? Is he aware that his own Department has declared that the material damage done is not war damage? If the material damage done is not war damage, why is personal damage war damage?
    Mr. Alexander: The question of the material damage is being satisfactorily
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    cleared up, and I have nothing to add to my previous answer.
    Mr. Stokes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his own Department has declared that material damage done does not come under war damage, and if material damage does not come under war damage how does the personal damage? He cannot have it both ways.
    Mr. Alexander: The Act which I have quoted specifically excludes from payments of this kind all air accidents over this Island during the war.
    Sir A. Southby: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that these children lost their lives and suffered injury not because of the ordinary chances of the war, to which we must all be subject, but because something was done which was contrary to orders? There was a breach of his duty by an officer of the Crown, and is not this therefore a particular case?
    Mr. Alexander: I am fully aware of the circumstances which my hon. and gallant Friend has mentioned, but I must point out that this is one of a very large series of cases which arise for different reasons, either accidents or negligence. It is specifically covered by the Act, and I am bound by the law.

    Sea Cadet Corps
    Major Petheriekasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the operation of Statutory Rule and Order, No, 260, of 1943, it will be possible for Sea Scouts to obtain any sea training this year in the area affected by the Order?
    Mr. Alexander: Yes, Sir. Admiralty instructions under this Order provide that permits may be granted to vessels used exclusively for the purpose of pre-entry training by units of the Sea Cadet Corps or by recognised troops of the Sea Scouts.
    Major Petherick: May I ask my right hon. Friend when these instructions were sent out, in view of the fact that there is some doubt whether they are individual instructions? Was it after my Question was put down?
    Mr. Alexander: No, Sir, before the hon. Member's Question was put down.

  WEST AFRICA

    Commodity Prices
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will give present prices of West African palm products, ground nuts, cocoa and other primary commodities in comparison with pre-war _prices; and whether, in view of the rise in the cost of living and the award of cost of living bonuses to wage-earners, the primary producer is likely to be assured of price increases?
    The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Colonel Oliver Stanley): With the hon. Member's permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a table showing comparative prices. With the exception of cocoa, all these prices show substantial increases. They also have the great advantage for the producer of being fixed and not liable to the fluctuations of the market. In the case of cocoa, supplies of which still tend to exceed what can be shipped, the price has been fixed at the present level which nevertheless, according to the advice of the Governors concerned, is adequate to enable the producers to maintain a reasonable standard of life and to take adequate care of their trees. As in the case of oilseeds, the grower of cocoa is also now assured of a market at this price for the whole of his produce.
    Mr. Sorensen: While thanking the right hon. and gallant Gentleman for his answer, may I ask whether he is aware that private producers are expressing certain grievances, and whether he can say if representations have been made to him either indirectly or by local Governors on this subject?
    Colonel Stanley: I could not do so without notice.
    Following is the table:
    Naked ex-scale prices of West African produce (i.e., price paid at buying stations to the producers for their unbagged produce):

    1938–39

    1943

    £

    £

    Cocoa (Gold Coast)

    14

    18

    8

    13

    1

    4

    Palm Kernels (Nigeria)

    5

    6

    6

    *8

    2

    6

    †Palm Oil (Nigeria)

    5

    4

    0

    9

    8

    9

    Groundnuts (Nigeria)

    3

    15

    9

    9

    0

    0

    * Higher prices are paid in the Gold Coast and Sierra Leone, to induce maximum production, as these areas are not normally large producers of palm kernels.

    † The price taken is that for soft oil at Port Harcourt.

    Development and Welfare
    Mr. Turtonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what post-war plans he has received for development and welfare from the Governors of the West African Colonies; and whether such plans when received will be published?
    Colonel Stanley: A comprehensive plan for post-war development has been received from the Government of the Gambia. Plans for development and welfare in the other three territories are in course of preparation in West Africa and in some cases have already been submitted to me for my consideration. it would be premature at this stage to consider the publication of the general body of these plans, although it may be found desirable from time to time to give publicity to individual schemes.
    Mr. Sorensen: When the various plans arrive from the four main Colonies, will the House have an opportunity of discussing the matter?
    Colonel Stanley: Certainly, Sir. At some time or other I should like to put hon. Members in the same position as they were in in discussing the West Indies on the Stockdale Report, but I cannot give a promise as to how or when.

  NIGERIA (EDUCATION)
  Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what information he has respecting the education tax levied by the native council of Ouitsha-Mgbo to combat illiteracy in its area; and whether he will give sympathetic consideration to the requests of Nigerian people that local education authorities, with power to levy education taxes, shall be set up?
  Colonel Stanley: The Acting Governor is being asked for a report on the particular matter referred to by the hon. Member. With regard to the wider question, the preparatory work already carried out on a comprehensive programme for educational development in Nigeria has shown the necessity for associating the local native authorities as closely as possible with education work in their areas. I am entirely in sympathy with any efforts which may be made by the people of the territory to raise money for the purpose of expanding education.
  Mr. Sorensen: Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say when that report is likely to reach him?
  Colonel Stanley: No, Sir, I cannot.

  WEST INDIES (APPRENTICESHIP)
  Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is satisfied with the apprenticeship laws and provisions in the West Indies; and whether he will consider the introduction of proper apprenticeship Regulations for the training of young workers in skilled jobs?
  Colonel Stanley: I consider that the legislation on this subject is, generally speaking, adequate; the difficulty is to ensure the effective observance of it. Recommendations to meet that difficulty are mentioned in paragraph 301 of Sir Frank Stockdale's recent Report on Development and Welfare in the West Indies, and are now under consideration by the West Indian Governments.

  PALESTINE (CITRUS INDUSTRY)
  Mr. Astorasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware of the distress prevailing among the citrus producers in Palestine; and whether he will consider the installation of a dehydration plant to enable these products to be exported?
  Colonel Stanley: Yes, Sir. I am aware of the difficulty that has been experienced by the citrus producers in Palestine in disposing of their produce. The measures taken in 1942 by the Palestine Government to assist growers were set out in an answer given to the hon. Member for Shipley on 1st July, 1942, a copy of which I am sending to my right hon. Friend. Similar assistance is being provided for this year's crop. A dehydration mission, consisting of two officers of the Ministry of Food and a member of the United States Department of Agriculture, is at present visiting Africa and is expected to visit Palestine in the near future. The mission will report to the Minister of Food and the report will assist me in advising the Palestine Government whether any action should be taken in the matter of installing a dehydration plant in Palestine. The production of concentrated citrus juices has already been started in Palestine, and
  886
  quantities are purchased by the Ministry of Food.
  Mr. Astor: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that citrus dehydration plant is already in successful production in the United States and that its immediate introduction into Palestine would relieve the distress of the Jewish colonists, who have put so much capital and skill into these plantations, and would provide very useful fruits and vitamins for the troops and for Europe after the war?
  Colonel Stanley: It is exactly on that point that I am getting a report.

  COLONIAL EMPIRE

    Economic Policy
    Squadron-Leader Donnerasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will give an assurance that the personnel of the Advisory Committee on Economics to be established in place of an Advisory Colonial Development Board will not be limited to civil servants; and that an offer of representation upon it will be made to the Dominions?
    Colonel Stanley: I can certainly give my hon. and gallant Friend the assurance asked for in the first part of the Question. I hope to obtain for the Committee the persons best qualified to give me the most useful advice on Colonial economic problems. With regard to the second part of the Question, it is my intention to invite members in a personal and not a representative capacity.
    Mr. Riley: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman bear in mind qualified Colonials resident in this country?
    Colonel Stanley: I will consider all the most suitable people I can find.
    Mr. Sorensen: If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman can find no qualified Colonials in this country, will he try to secure the services of qualified Africans or West Indians to come over here?

    Trade Union Legislation
    Mr. Creech Jonesasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether consideration is being given in British Guiana, Dominica, Malta and Trans-Jordan to the enactment of trade union legislation with a view to these territories complying with the requirements of the Colonial Development and Welfare Act?
    Colonel Stanley: As stated in my reply to my hon. Friend's Question on 5th May, the preparation of the necessary amending legislation has been put in hand in British Guiana, Dominica and Malta. I am taking up the question of trade union legislation in Trans-Jordan with the High Commissioner.

    International Regional Commissions
    Mr. Ivor Thomasasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps he proposes to take to bring his suggestion for International Regional Commissions on Colonial Affairs to the notice of interested Powers?
    Colonel Stanley: The suggestion to which the hon. Member refers was intended to indicate the broad lines on which His Majesty's Government thought it possible, while retaining sole responsibility for administration, to secure after the war the maximum practical co-operation and consultation with other interested States. As my statement has been given widespread publicity, I do not think that any further action is necessary at the present time.
    Mr. Thomas: Surely such an important suggestion ought to have been formally communicated to other Powers in order to take their formal cognisance of it?
    Colonel Stanley: I do not think so. There has been a great amount of public discussion on this matter already, both at home and abroad.
    Captain Peter Macdonald: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman give an assurance that before any action is decided upon this House will have an opportunity of hearing a statement?
    Colonel Stanley: Oh, no doubt.

  ADEN (GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES' WAR ALLOWANCES)
  Mr. John Dugdaleasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether there has been any percentage rise in the wages of Government employees in Aden during the past two years; and, if so, how much?
  Colonel Stanley: Yes, Sir. On the recommendation of a wages committee appointed by the Governor of Aden, a scale of war allowances was adopted in
  888
  June, 1940, for certain lower-salaried Government employees, both in the Aden Colony and the Aden Protectorate. These war allowances are subject to review from time to time, and since the original recommendations were adopted they have been increased on two occasions to meet rises in the cost-of-living index. The present scale of allowances is set out in a table of figures which I have arranged to be included in a statement which will be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Mr. Evelyn Walkden: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman specifically mentioned lower-paid workers; has he made any adjustment in the salaries of the salaried officers of the Crown, or has he their salaries under review?
  Colonel Stanley: I think the hon. Gentleman will see how far this goes when he examines the table. If there is any more information that he would like, I would be glad to give it to him.
  Following is the statement:
  Present scale of War Allowances paid to subordinate officials in the Aden Colony and the Aden Protectorate Services:

  Salaries not exceeding Rs.30 per mensem—Allowance Rs.7½ per mensem.

  Salaries exceeding Rs.30 per mensem but not exceeding Rs.50 per mensem—Allowance Rs.10 per mensem.

  Salaries exceeding Rs.50 per mensem but not exceeding Rs.100 per mensem—Allowance Rs.12½ per mensem.

  Salaries exceeding Rs.100 per mensem but not exceeding Rs.150 per mensem—Allowance Rs.15 per mensem.

  Salaries exceeding Rs.150 per mensem but not exceeding Rs.200 per mensem—Allowance RS.20 per mensem.

  Salaries exceeding Rs.200 per mensem but not exceeding Rs.300 per mensem—Allowance Rs.30 per mensem.

  Salaries exceeding Rs.300 per mensem but not exceeding Rs.400 per mensem—Allowance Rs.40 per mensem.

  Salaries exceeding Rs.400 per mensem but not exceeding Rs.500 per mensem—Allowance Rs.50 per mensem.

  With the provision that salaries over Rs.500 per mensem should be increased by adjusted War Allowances up to Rs.550 per mensem only.

  MAURITIUS (CONSTITUTION)
  Mr. Creech Jonesasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can make a statement on the recent consideration of the constitution of Mauritius?
  Colonel Stanley: No, Sir, but I have asked Sir Cosmo Parkinson, who is visit-

  889
  ing Mauritius for personal discussions with the Governor on my behalf, to take the opportunity to discuss with him this among other matters. In the meantime, the Executive Council has been enlarged by the appointment of Mr. Osman, an Indian resident of the Colony, who, as a member of the Council of Government has already shown his interest in public affairs.
  Mr. Creech Jones: May I ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to bear in mind that the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies gave a firm promise as far back as 1938 that there would be constitutional reform? Will he see that this matter is pushed on?
  Colonel Stanley: Of course, there has been a war since that time.

  JAMAICA (LABOUR RECRUITING,UNITED STATES)
  Mr. Creech Jonesasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why the Jamaican Government has agreed, in the arrangement of and April, 1943, with the United States Government regarding the recruitment of Jamaicans for work in the United States of America, that the provisions of the Recruiting of Workers Law, 1940, shall not apply as such provision abrogates the application of a law passed to give effect to the International Labour Office Convention which His Majesty's Government has ratified?
  Colonel Stanley: A copy of the agreement made by the Jamaican Government with the Government of the United States has not yet been received here. When it is received, I will consider this Question, and communicate with the hon. Member.

  VICTORIA CROSS (PENSIONS)
  Lady Apsleyasked the Prime Minister whether, as a result of further consideration, he will increase the present annual grant of £10 to a holder of the Victoria Cross?
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): As my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister informed my hon. Friend on 29th June, the normal pensions payable to recipients of the Victoria Cross may be increased in cases of need to £75. This
  890
  figure was fixed in 1921. Further inquiries have been made, but they do not show any evidence of general complaint as to the adequacy of this special provision. I do not think any change in this well-established practice is called for.
  Lady Apsley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there has been no material change in this rate since 1857 for the ordinary recipients of the Victoria Cross? Does he not agree, in view of present-day values, that £10 is nothing more than an insult to a fighting man and that in order to be equal to its original value that sum ought to be £50 or even £100?
  The Primo Minister: I do not think this is a matter to be settled entirely on a money basis, and I do not propose to advise the House to make any change.
  Sir A. Lambert Ward: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the vast majority of the recipients of this great honour would prefer to receive it free of any pecuniary benefit?
  Major Leighton: Does the Prime Minister realise that the award of the D.C.M. carries with it 6d. a day and that the award which goes with the Victoria Cross would work out at just under 7d. per day in value?
  The Prime Minister: If we are to compute these matters by money values, I should be strongly in favour of much larger sums; but I think that would alter the character of these awards.

  STATUTORY RULES AND ORDERS
  Sir H. Williamsasked the Prime Minister whether he will issue instructions to prevent the future publication of any documents similar to the loose-gummed corrigendum slip headed S.R. and 0. 1943, No. 766, purporting to correct the Braces (Manufacture and Supply) Direction, 1943, and which bears neither date, validating signature, nor the imprint of His Majesty's Stationery Office?
  The Prime Minister: The use of a corrigendum slip in connection with a Statutory Rule and Order should be confined to the correction of any accidental discrepancy between the Order made and the printed copies issued by the Stationery Office. Great care is already taken to prevent such mistakes, but it is not possible, especially under war conditions,

  891
  to preclude altogether the possibility of accidental error in connection with the reproduction of these documents.
  Sir H. Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in this case the corrigendum slip was issued separately, the original document was issued without it, and accordingly citizens may not know what the law is? Further, is it satisfactory that a document purporting to be part of the law should be issued without signature and without the imprint of His Majesty's Stationery Office?
  The Prime Minister: Sir, I have admitted error.
  Commander Locker-Lampson: Does not this duplication of documents mean that we ought to ration one commodity which, if we do not ration it, may mean that we may lose the war? May we ration red tape?

  SICILY (ADMINISTRATION)
  Mr. Ivor Thomasasked the Prime Minister the principles which will be followed in the administration of occupied Sicily and, in particular, what measures will be taken to lay the foundations of a democratic régime in place of the Fascist system?
  The Prime Minister: All these matters have been the subject of inter-Allied consideration extending over several months. The administration of Sicily, as explained in General Alexander's Proclamation, which has been published in the Press, is an Allied military administration, in which no political activities by the inhabitants can be countenanced. The Proclamation makes it clear, however, that one of the guiding principles of the administration is the elimination of the doctrines and practices of Fascism, and it is the earnest hope of His Majesty's Government that, when thus delivered from the Fascist régime, the people of Sicily will, of their own accord, turn towards liberal and democratic ideas. The word "liberal" in this case is spelt with a small "1."
  Mr. Thomas: In order to help achieve those objects, would the right hon. Gentleman facilitate the return of anti-Fascist exiles, particularly Sicilians, who have beer: kept out under Mussolini's régime?
  The Prime Minister: All these matters are in the hands of the inter-Allied military administration.
  Mr. Riley: Will experienced and qualified civil administrators be associated with the military authorities in the administration?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. Very lengthy preparations have been made both here and in the United States to provide a body of acceptable gentlemen who can assist in these matters, and one hopes that as time goes on the people of the liberated regions will be very sensible of the mitigation of their lot.

  GENERAL DE GAULLE
  Mr. Boothbyasked the Prime Minister whether he has considered the document, a copy of which has been sent to him, purporting to have been officially prepared to acquaint British officials and the British Press with the views of the Prime Minister on the subject of General de Gaulle; and what steps he is taking to put a stop to the dissemination of misstatements liable to prejudice the relations of this country with the United Nations?
  The Prime Minister: Contrary to the statement in my hon. Friend's Question, no document has been received from him, but only a cutting from a newspaper which refers to a document. I take full responsibility for this document, the text of which was drafted personally by me. It is a confidential document. I am not prepared to discuss it otherwise than in Secret Session, and then only if there were a general desire from the House to have a Secret Session.
  Mr. Boothby: May I ask whether a document purporting to be this document has not in fact been published in a Washington paper? Does my right hon. Friend not think that the continued Press attacks on General de Gaulle are, or may be, harmful to the Allied cause in occupied France? And will he use his great influence with the United States to try to get them to join us in an effort to increase and not decrease the prestige and the unity of the French Committee of National Liberation?
  The Prime Minister: I said that I was not prepared to discuss this matter other-

  893
  wise than in Secret Session. I adhere to that.
  Mr. A. Bevan: Why should the American Press be permitted to discuss these grave matters in public while the House of Commons is always to be confined to Private Sessions so that the political responsibility cannot be placed where it lies?
  The Prime Minister: In regard to confidential documents, there sometimes occur breaches of confidence. Leakages take place and so forth. When these take place in a foreign country—1 will say in another country—certainly I do not feel that any alteration in our course of action is necessary.

  MINISTRY OF PRODUCTION

    Statistical Returns
    Mr. Higgsasked the Minister of Production whether he is aware that an average engineering concern is called upon to supply statistical data to Government Departments in excess of pre-war requirements under approximately 4,000 to 5,000 headings per month; and will he make arrangements to avoid calling for unnecessary returns and to eliminate duplication?
    The Minister of Production (Mr. Lyttelton): The hon. Member will recognise that to ensure proper control and planning of war industry a considerable amount of statistical and factual material must be called for. It is, of course, the aim of Government Departments to restrict these returns as much as possible. I have just received from the hon. Member the forms of which he complains, and I will communicate with him as soon as I have been able to examine them.
    Mr. Higgs: Will my right hon. Friend be able to apply that to other Departments, including the Ministry of Labour?

    Unemployment
    Mr. Tinkerasked the Minister of Production whether he is aware that there is a feeling of unrest among the workers at the factories when the production is slowed down and they are not informed as to the reason of it; and will he consider taking steps to have the cause made known to that particular part of the works where it happens as this would give greater satisfaction?
    Major Lyonsasked the Minister of Production what steps he is taking to avert the unemployment which is arising as a sequel to the change of policy in production which he announced some months ago?
    Mr. Craik Hendersonasked the Minister of Production whether his attention has been drawn to the growth of unemployment as a result of the Ministry of Aircraft Production failing to utilise the productive capacity rendered idle by the reduction in the volume of contracts placed by other supply Departments; and what steps he is taking to remedy this?
    Mr. Gledhillasked the Minister of Production whether he has any statement as to the growth of unemployment consequent upon the reduction in the contracts placed by the Ministry of Supply?
    Mr. Lyttelton: Unemployment is not, in fact, increasing but decreasing. Substantial changes in production programmes were already taking place at the beginning of this year. Notwithstanding this, from January to March, 1943, the number of unemployed fell by 19,000 as compared with a fall of 2,000 for the last quarter of 1942. Later figures are not yet available, but I have no reason to suppose that they will show a different trend. Over the six months ending 30th June, cuts in various parts of the programme led to the release of 75,000 workers from their previous occupations, but by the end of June there were only 1,500 workers who had been unemployed for a month or more as a result of these reductions. I am fully aware that although these figures are satisfactory as a whole, individual difficulties have occurred, and the readjustments resulting from changes of programme are likely to cause similar difficulties in the future. Where workers have to change from one job to another, or where changes of type are necessary, temporary interruptions or even small pockets of unemployment may occasionally arise, and particularly in those areas where alternative employment to absorb the immobile workers so released is difficult to obtain.
    In general, however, I am satisfied that the changes are being carefully planned, and indeed the global figures testify to this fact. In particular, efficient arrangements have been made to ensure the reuse where possible of capacity no longer

    895
    required for its previous production, though there are, of course, some types of plant which cannot be used for the types of product now needed. It is most important that everyone engaged in industry should realise that we plan to increase our total production both in 1943 and 1944, and that even if there are temporary interruptions a strong demand for industrial labour will continue throughout the industrial system.
    I fully agree with the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) as to the importance of making known to the workers the considerations which make necessary changes in the programmes of individual works, and the first responsibility in doing so rests upon the management themselves. It is the general practice, when important changes of programme occur, to notify managements of the reasons for these changes, and to request them to inform the workers, and the support of suitable Regional officials is available for this purpose. I will certainly consider whether any further steps could usefully be taken in this direction, but the psychological effect of cancellation of certain orders is constantly in my mind, and I reiterate that these cancellations must be considered against the background of an increasing total production.
    Mr. Tinker: If I send on to the right hon. Gentleman an instance to give him a lead in this matter, will he go into it?
    Mr. Lyttelton: Certainly.
    Mr. Austin Hopkinson: Has the Minister got the power, in cases where there is no work for certain men in a works, to override decisions of the Labour Ministry that these men who are totally unemployed have got to be kept on? Has he the power to override them?
    Mr. Tinker: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not override them.
    Mr. Simmonds: In these cases where contracts are reduced, will the Minister see that before labour is withdrawn the Production Ministry and the Supply Departments discuss with the manufacturer the possibility of his being allowed to take on other work, and not merely withdraw labour before these discussions have taken place?
    Mr. Lyttelton: That is the function of the Regional Board. I can assure my hon. Friend we will do that in every case where it is practicable.

  FOOD SUPPLIES

    Ice-Cream Substitutes (Ingredients)
    Mr. Evelyn Walkdenasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food to what extent blancmange powder, cornflour, milk and liquid sweetening materials are being made available to certain manufacturers for the production of ice-cream substitute; and whether he is aware that some of these foodstuffs are almost unobtainable in the grocery retail stores?
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Mr. Mabane): I am not in a position to state in general terms whether substitutes for ice-cream contain any or all of the ingredients used by firms in the manufacture of ice-cream the manufacture of which is prohibited by the Ice Cream (Prohibition of Manufacture and Sale) Order, 1942, (S.R. & 0. 1942, No. 1962), but it is not improbable that they do. With regard to the availability of blancmange powder, custard powder and cornflour in grocer shops, the Ministry release sufficient raw materials to permit the production of at least 70 per cent. of the quantities produced before the war. An increase in the volume of blancmange and custard powders production to about 80 per cent. will shortly be made.
    Mr. Walkden: Does the hon. Gentleman not think it an extraordinary state of affairs that housewives cannot possibly obtain many of these ingredients and that ice-cream barrows can be seen almost every week-end hawking blancmange, chilled blancmange or frozen blancmange while the reputable firms have gone out of business because they have honoured the terms of the Order? Is not any action going to be taken?
    Mr. Mabane: Yes, we are watching the matter very carefully, and I think that as regards ice-cream substitutes action will be taken very shortly.
    Mr. McKinlay: Is the hon. Member not aware that a licence is necessary to sell these things in any form, and that those firms have no licence to do so?
    Mr. Mabane: I think the hon. Member has put his finger on the spot.
    Commander Agnew: Is it legal to sell as ice-cream any substitute?
    Mr. Mabane: It is an offence to sell as ice-cream anything which is not ice-cream.
    Commander Agnew: It is being done pretty frequently. Will my hon. Friend look into the matter?
    Mr. Mabane: We are looking into it.

    British Restaurants (Opening Ceremonies, Cost)
    Mr. Keelingasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food how much public money has been paid to persons who have performed the opening ceremony at British Restaurants?
    Mr. Mabane: Normally no fees are paid to persons who, at the invitation of local authorities, open British Restaurants. Occasionally fees have been paid to persons who are on my Department's panel of speakers. The total sum expended in this way has amounted to £145 2s. 5d.
    Mr. Keeling: Is my hon. Friend aware that somebody in his Department gave information to the Press after this Question appeared on the Order Paper? Does he think it right that the information should appear in the Press before it is given to the House?
    Mr. Mabane: Yes, I have the cutting. I understand that the hon. Member himself gave information to the Press first.
    Mr. Keeling: Oh no.
    Mr. Mabane: But I have the cutting here, and it reads "Wing-Commander Keeling said," and so on. I have made inquiries, and I find that contact was made with the Department by the Press and that certain things were said, without consideration or knowledge of the Question.
    Mr. Keeling: May I say that when the Press rang me up, I declined to give any information whatever.

    Stockfeed Potatoes
    Mr. Manderasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he will make arrangements for stock-feeding potatoes to be bagged up
    898
    for sale in small quantities to enable small livestock keepers to purchase them either through their clubs or direct?
    Mr. Mabane: Arrangements such as my hon. Friend suggests have already been made. All orders for stockfeed potatoes placed with growers since 1st July have specified that delivery shall be given in sacks containing 1 cwt. each unless the buyer has requested delivery in bulk.

    Flour and Bread
    Commander Locker-Lampsonasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, whether the practice continues whereby vital elements in wheat were extracted from it when making flour; and whether he will consider taking over nationally the making of bread and the preparing of flour?
    Mr. Mabane: None of the wheat germ which it is possible to retain is permitted to be extracted in the milling of national flour. As regards the second part of the Question, the making of both bread and flour is already regulated by Statutory Rules and Orders, and my Noble Friend sees no reason to adopt my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion.
    Mr. Hutchinson: Has my hon. Friend any reason to be dissatisfied with the service which the milling trade has given which would justify nationalisation?
    Mr. Mabane: No, Sir.
    Commander Locker-Lampson: They have extracted the vital elements of wheat for 30 years.

    Chocolate Stocks (Deterioration)
    Mr. Oliverasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he is aware that several hundredweights of chocolate acquired under the special scheme for evacuees by the Heanor Urban District Council have been permitted so to deteriorate as to be unfit for human consumption, despite the attention of his Department having been drawn to this matter; and whether, having regard to the delay of the Ministry in authorising the disposal of commodities in store under the special scheme, in future local authorities will be authorised to dispose of goods found to be deteriorating?
    Mr. Mabane: This chocolate was stored with other goods in a building which

    899
    proved unsuitable for the storage of chocolate with the result that deterioration was more rapid than is normally the case. Following an inspection of the building by my Department, changes were made in the storage arrangements, but, unfortunately, there was delay in disposing of the 2½ cwts, of chocolate involved. Steps have been taken to prevent any similar delay in future.
    Mr. Oliver: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the quantity was 11 cwts., not 2 cwts., and is he aware that the attention of the regional department was drawn to the deterioration and that no authority could be obtained to sell the chocolate before it became unfit for anything but pig food?
    Mr. Mabane: I am advised that it was only 2½ cwts., but that is a matter of fact which can be ascertained. Certainly there was a mistake here, and we are doing our best to see that such mistakes do not occur again. I am sure that hon. Members realise the extent to which emergency stocks are distributed, and we cannot guarantee that we are 100 per cent. right in every case.
    Mr. Oliver: Will the hon. Member answer that part of the Question about power being given to local authorities to dispose of such stocks?
    Mr. Mabane: There is difficulty about giving such authority to dispose of goods which are either rationed or on points. There must be proper control. I do not think that this mistake really justifies such a step.
    Mr. E. Walkden: Would it not be highly dangerous to give local authorities such power?
    Mr. Mabane: Yes, I think so.

  QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS
  Mr. George Griffiths: I would like to ask for your guidance, Sir. I put a Question to the Chancellor yesterday at 12 o'clock, and he said that the answer would be a written one. I am very much dissatisfied with that answer. Can you tell me how I can raise the matter on the Adjournment?
  Mr. Speaker: I can only tell the hon. Member that anything can be raised on the Adjournment.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Arthur Greenwood: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he has any statement to make on the course of Business on the next Sitting Day?
Mr. Eden: Yes, Sir, I have a brief statement to make. The Canadian. Government have asked, as a matter of urgency, for a Bill amending the British North America Acts to be submitted to Parliament here. The object of the Bill is to postpone until the cessation of hostilities a redistribution of seats in the Canadian Parliament, which would otherwise now be necessary under the British North America Acts. Under the provisions of the Statute of Westminster, legislation amending the British North America Acts is reserved to Parliament here.
The Bill is expected to be received from another place during the course of to-day's Sitting, and copies are now available in the Vote Office for the convenience of hon. Members. In view of the urgency, I trust that the House will be agreeable to passing the Bill through all its stages as first Order on the next Sitting Day, before we proceed with the Business already announced for consideration.
Mr. Maxton: Has this matter been before the Canadian Parliament, or is it merely a request from the Canadian Government?
Mr. Eden: It comes to us on a petition, as I understand, on a decision of the Canadian Parliament.
Sir Percy Harris: Is it not a fact that all parties in the Canadian Parliament agreed to the postponement, and that, therefore, it is a unanimous decision of that Parliament?
Mr. Eden: Yes, Sir; I think that is exactly the position. As I said, under the Statute of Westminster the matter comes here, and I trust that, as the Canadian Parliament and people have asked us to do so, we shall deal with it expeditiously.
Mr. Maxton: Will the right hon. Gentleman find out what happened in the Canadian Parliament, as I may ask him about it in the Debate on the Bill?
Mr. Eden: The hon. Member may ask any question he likes then. But I have been asked now to state the Business, not to debate the Business.
Mr. Maxton: I mentioned that only as a matter of courtesy, so that the right hon. Gentleman might not be caught in a position of not knowing the facts, as he was to-day.
Mr. Eden: I am deeply grateful to my hon. Friend for his solicitude.
Mr. Leach: Has a date been fixed for a discussion on the White Paper on education, and, if so, what is the date?
Mr. Speaker: We are dealing with the Business for the next Sitting Day. The hon. Member should ask that question when the Business for the next series of Sittings is announced.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS
That they have passed a Bill, intituled "An Act to provide for the readjustment of the representation of the provinces in the House of Commons of Canada consequent on the decennial census taken in the year one thousand nine hundred and forty-one."—[British North America Bill [Lords].
BRITISH NORTH AMERICA BILL [Lords]
Read the First time; to be read a Second time upon the next Sitting Day.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
" That this day, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 54, Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before the hour appointed for the interruption of Business, and that the Proceedings on the Town and Country Planning (Interim Development) (Scotland) Bill be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[Mr. Eden.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SUPPLY
  [18TH ALLOTTED DAY]
  [Major MILNER in the Chair]

  SUPPLY

  SCOTTISH EDUCATION AND YOUTH WELFARE
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a further sum, not exceeding £30, be granted to His Majesty, towards defraying the charges for the following services connected with Public Education and Youth Welfare in Scotland for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1944, namely:

  £

  Class IV., Public Education Scotland

  10

  Class V., Department of Health for Scotland

  10

  Class I., Scottish Home Department

  10

  30"

  The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston): The form in which these Votes have been placed upon the Order Paper to-day is designed to afford hon. Members the widest possible latitude in discussing the problems of education and youth welfare, and I am sure that hon. Members will agree with me that it is desirable that the widest possible latitude should be afforded for us in discussing these subjects. The Estimates for education in Scotland during the year 1943 which I now present to the Committee, provide for a sum of £9,021,790, an increase of £187,520 over the Estimates for the year 1942. How do we spend this increase? We spend it upon three major subjects. First, upon school meals and milk; secondly, upon development of the youth services; and, thirdly, upon the supplement to teachers on war service.
  928
  The school dinners service has increased at the following rather remarkable rate: In July, 1941, we were providing 35,000 school dinners; in May, 1942, 78,000 dinners; and in June, 1943, we provided about 140,000 dinners. In addition to that, there is a system of school lunches. Mostly these lunches are provided in remote areas where cooking facilities for meals are difficult or really impossible. These school lunches, however, have doubled in number. The old system of soup meals is static in number. In Dunbarton County, which is our best county for the service, 36 per cent. of the children on the roll are now receiving school dinners, in Clackmannan County 31 per cent., in Stirling County 28 per cent., and in Ayr County 28 per cent.; for Scotland as a whole 16 per cent. of the children receive dinners, and over 19 per cent. receive dinners, lunches or soup meals. This 16 per cent. compares with the figure a year ago of 8 per cent., so that during the year we have doubled our school dinner service.
  England, however, is ahead of us. Where we have 16 per cent. receiving dinners in Scotland, in England 23 per cent. of the children are receiving dinners, so that we still have a leeway to make up, and we are pressing the local authorities in every possible direction to do it. The increased expenditure on the food services is estimated at £119,000, and to accelerate the development of this service I issued a circular intimating that through the Ministry of Works the Government would provide the entire capital equipment of all new feeding centres.
  Our milk service in the schools has also grown remarkably. I look back some 13 years ago to the experiment which I inaugurated in Lanarkshire for the provision of milk in schools. Now we have over 500,000 children receiving a milk ration of a third of a pint a day at a cost of a halfpenny each. That means a reduction of two-thirds in the price of milk. Including the supplies of free milk, 67 per cent. of our total school population in Scotland are covered. The free milk is supplied to 25,330 children, or 5 per cent. of the total. Some children, of course, are so physically constituted that a milk ration in the middle of the day is repellent to them, and we do not seek to enforce these supplies in such cases.

  929
  Owing to the war, it has not been found possible to insist upon the usual routine examination of school children, but what examinations have been made show no deterioration in nutrition; on the contrary, there is, I am glad to say, evidence of actual betterment. For example, of one-third of the school children of Lanark, 26,000 of them, only 42 were shown as suffering from bad nutrition; and that is certified to be an improvement even on the figures of the previous year. Renfrew County disclosed only 20 children out of 12,653 examined as suffering from bad nutrition. Ayr County showed 14 out of over 14,000 children and the Glasgow School Health Service report shows that for 1942 boys at the age of 13 are 2½lbs. heavier and girls are over 2 lbs. heavier than boys and girls of these ages in the five years ending with the outbreak of war. In Plantaganet times lice, itch, and skin diseases were common afflictions of the aristocracy, and there was a great Queen who took a bath only under doctor's orders. Even more remarkable was the case of Louis XIV of France, who, so we are informed, bathed only once a year and apart from rare occasions did not wash his face. The great Cardinal Wolsey was wont to carry about with him an orange scooped out and filled with a vinegar-soaked sponge to counteract the odour of his contemporaries. We still, unfortunately, have some of those Plantaganet habits and afflictions ripe and flourishing among no inconsiderable section of our population. There is, for example, scabies. In Glasgow there were 5,039 new infestations detected in the schools in 1941, and in 1942 these figures had risen to 13,358. The figures in Renfrew County more than doubled, and the problem of how to deal with these skin afflictions is increasing to one of great magnitude.
  I will pay Glasgow this compliment. The local authority there is making strenuous efforts to stamp out these body infestations and to foster habits of personal cleanliness and hygiene, and at some 17 selected schools they have appointed senior women teachers to supervise operations. There are, in addition, welfare attendants. The consent of the parents to the treatment, and the interest and co-operation of the child are first secured, and the results achieved are remarkable. I have seen reports from
  930
  one school which show that in December, 1940, the verminous children in that school were 14 per cent. In May, 1941, they were 3.5 per cent. "Nitty" children, as they are described, were in December, 1940, 56 per cent., and in May, 1941, that figure was down to 12 per cent. I think it is with justice that the senior woman assistant and the head master claim that the experiment has been an unqualified success, and the Glasgow education authority propose to develop these arrangements as fast as they can. Girls, of course, are the worse victims of vermin infestation of the head. The Lanarkshire medical officer reports that the percentage as between boys and girls on entrance to schools show that 0.9 per cent. of boys have verminous infestation of the head, and 12.4 per cent, of girls. He adds that the reason, in his view, is the custom of wearing the hair long, and he says that if girls' hair were worn not more than two inches in length, the problem of verminous heads would practically be solved and this could be achieved without any loss of feminine distinctiveness. But that is a subject which I do not wish to pursue.
  I now turn to the second reason for the increase in our Estimates. A year ago in this House I drew attention to the alarming increase in what are described as "findings of guilt" by law courts in respect of children under 14 years of age. These cases involved what is politely termed juvenile delinquency. Half of them are, in fact, cases of theft and housebreaking, and it is appalling to envisage a state of affairs in which every year almost 8,000 children in Scotland under 14 years of age and 7,000 between 14 and 16, start life with a conviction in a law court for some offence. We need not apportion blame. We have all been young once—
  Mr. Gallacher: When I was a boy I could have had a lot of convictions.
  Mr. Johnston: I was just about to say that I sympathise with the parents in many of these cases, and I would add that the old aphorism appeals to me:
  "There, but for the grace of God, goes—"
  But one trouble which worries us at the Scottish Office is that these figures of, I do not say convictions, but "findings of guilt," to use the official phrase, increased

  931
  in Scotland last year by 800, while in England they were reduced by 8,000, and we find great difficulty in discovering the reason. It is indeed difficult to know what remedies to suggest during the war. There is sometimes put up to us the idea that we ought to develop the probation officer system, but the probation officer system is not a prevention of the initial offence. It is true that it is, partly, an alternative to imprisonment; and when parental control is absent or unavailing, and the right type of probation officer is available and is chosen, it may indeed turn a lad from his anti-social habits and prevent the creation of a criminal. But there is quite a scarcity of the right type of officer and there are in Scotland today, only about 60 of them altogether, half of them full-time and half part-time.
  The youth service, however, as distinct from the probation officer service altogether, is a positive remedy and is being steadily developed. During the year, of the 113,000 youths aged 16 to 18 who were registered and were invited to attend for interviews, about 60 per cent. of the boys and 45 per cent. of the girls joined one or other of the large number of welfare organisations now catering for the further education—moral, physical and social—of our adolescent youth. There is a vast variety of recreational and educational facilities provided by these clubs—first aid. home nursing, hygiene, folk dancing, gardening, camping, swimming, domestic cooking, handicraft, the drama, music, public speaking and debate, and physical exercises. There is one very successful club for girls in Edinburgh, with about 350 members, where, in addition to the usual educational and recreational facilities, the members run a snack bar in the canteen, taking turn about at the servicing. There is a splendid organisation in Aberdeen, with over 1,600 members, where sectional activities range over ball-room dancing, Christie Minstrels, athletics, discussion groups and "make-and-mend." This club is also a training centre for youth leaders for the North and North East of Scotland. There is one amazing effort at Whitecleuch in the wild uplands of Lanarkshire, where a lady teacher has succeeded in roping into the system of local continuation classes many other subjects, such as violin music, country dancing, first aid and a class for
  932
  the manufacture of shepherds' crooks. Practically every human being in the parish up to 83 years of age is a member of that class, and some of the club members travel as much as six miles to these classes across the moors. Let none frown upon the innovator who can attract the interest and enthusiasm of our adolescent youth to any form of physical or mental culture. Perhaps I may be pardoned for a personal recollection. When I was a member of the school board in my own home town many years ago I found that the most successful class I could run as a means of attracting young fellows to other continuation classes was a successful boxing class. There was free entry to everyone who would take another class in our continuation schools curriculum. I do not say that that class was the subject of great enthusiasm among every section of our community, but it certainly roped in large numbers of young men to our evening schools system, and when in conjunction with that we organised a large-scale dancing class—with self-government, on the same principle, and giving free admission on the production of an attendance ticket for some other evening class—I found that was the reason why our evening classes became the most successful, numerically, in all Scotland.
  Finally, I am glad to say that there has been formed a Scottish Youth Training Association, which is running a summer school at St. Andrews for the purpose of widening the personnel capable of leading and organising youth clubs. Next year I hope that the effect of these clubs will be observable in a marked diminution in these depressing statistics of delinquency. The fact that 83,200 have joined a girls' club, the Church of Scotland Youth Organisation, the Boys' Brigade, the Co-operative Youth Organisation, youth hostels, the Boy Scouts, the Salvation Army, or a similar appropriate approved organisation, is at least an indication of the effort to provide some better outlet for the ebullience and effervescence of youth.
  The Scottish Youth Advisory Committee has been reconstituted under the chairmanship of Lord Keith. It is entirely non-sectarian, or, rather, it is all-sectarian, and its recommendations will, I hope, be operated through education authorities and the large voluntary organisations. We seek to extend the

  933
  ideals of service and citizenship and to provide opportunities and avenues for the citizen of to-morrow in reaching out to healthy habits of body and mind. No service is of greater or more paramount importance. The youth service has difficulties arising from the present shortage of premises, the black out and the present hours of labour. But these in many areas are being overcome; all over, the effort is showing results in personal hygiene, in physical culture, in discipline, in manners, in national service and in the better use of leisure.
  During the year the Advisory Council on Education in Scotland was reconstituted. Its chairman is the Principal of Aberdeen University, Sir William Hamilton Fyfe. Among its members are three hon. Members of this House, and there are representatives of all the other educational interests in Scotland. I invited the Council, if they would, to devote their attention in the first instance to making recommendations which can be put into force without further legislation. What powers have we that we can yet exercise but do not now exercise for one reason or another? Here are the first remits to which I asked the Advisory Council to give their attention: First, to consider how the educational system of Scotland can most effectively contribute to training in the duties, rights and practice of citizenship, and to make recommendations, the arrangements for promoting provision in Scotland for children from the time of entry into the nursery school until fie completion of primary education, and the arrangements for promoting them from primary to secondary education, and to make recommendations; third, to review the educational provision in Scotland for young people who have completed their primary education and have not attained the age of 18 years or discontinued full time attendance at school, whichever is the later, the examinations for which they may be presented, and the certificates which may be awarded, and to make recommendations; fourth, to consider whether the existing arrangements for the recruitment and supply of teachers in Scotland are adequate, and to make recommendations; fifth, to consider whether grants from the Education (Scotland) Fund should be made to voluntary organisations making provision in Scotland for the education of adults of 18 years of age and over and, if so,
  934
  under what conditions, and to make recommendations.
  I have already had reports from the Council dealing with the recruitment and supply of teachers. These reports have been sent to the National Council for the Training of Teachers. The question of teachers' salaries was referred at once to the National Joint Council, composed of representatives of education authorities and teachers' organisations who meet to discuss these matters.
  Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: My right hon. Friend said that the Council had sent in a report on the recruitment and training of teachers. I gather that that is an interim report?
  Mr. Johnston: Yes, it is an interim report and has been referred to the National joint Council for their observations as to amounts and so on as to whether salaries should be minimum or standard.
  Mr. McNeil: My right hon. Friend says recruitment and training of teachers. Did the report deal with university training of teachers or only with the training colleges?
  Mr. Johnston: It is only an interim report, and it has not gone that length. I will not prejudice the conclusions of these committees, but I judge it right and proper to draw attention to the tact that apart from teachers on war service there is an under supply from the training colleges of about 1,760 teachers now. There has been a steady shrinkage of supply in relation to the demand since 1936–7, though there was a surplus prior to that year. But there will obviously require to be a searching analysis of the cause or causes of the shortage of supply. It is no use considering arrangements for raising the school leaving age, reduction in the size of classes and extension of the day continuation class arrangements unless we can somehow or other supply the teachers. I say nothing about the provision of school buildings.
  Mr. Stephen: Is consideration being given to the present arrangement whereby women are being taken from the training colleges, before they are allowed to complete their course, by the Ministry of Labour for other services?
  Mr. Johnston: I will try to get an answer on that point before the day is over. I cannot answer it offhand. The Advisory Council has decided that one of the major and more immediate remedies for the shortage of teachers is the raising of the monetary inducements to train and enter the profession, and whatever may be the final view taken as to the proposal for raising salaries, I have referred that suggestion to the National Joint Council.
  Mr. Lindsay: Has the right hon. Gentleman left the reports on the five remits? Is this the only one to which he is making reference? Can he give any indication what progress is being made with the others?
  Mr. Johnston: I cannot answer that without notice. My Advisory Council is giving them very serious and continuous attention. We have already had the interim reports that I have referred to, but the others I have not got.
  I turn now to the interest that has been aroused by the production of the White Paper on educational reconstruction for England, which gives particulars of the Government proposals. Some of them relate to matters in which Government policy will naturally be the same for Scotland as for England and Wales. Others relate to England and Wales only, because they deal with matters on which there has already been legislation in Scotland. For example, reduction in the number of education authorities, provision of clothing for necessitous children, settlement of the denominational schools problem, all education beyond the primary stage to be secondary—these and cognate matters are already met in our Scottish legislation. But we shall require to march in step with England's proposals relating to the raising of the school leaving age to 16, and compulsory part-time education up to the age of 18. An Education Bill for Scotland must therefore differ in some ways from the English Education Bill. I have indicated that the Advisory Council in Scotland was reconstituted in November, 1942, and that I have asked it to consider as a matter of urgency various aspects of Scottish education. In framing my proposals I hope to have the benefit of recommendations from the Advisory Council, but it may be assumed that the Bill will include provision for raising the school leaving age and for compulsory part-time education
  936
  up to the age of 18. We already have the necessary legislative power to raise the school age to 15, and there are points relating to exemption which will require to be dealt with in our Scottish Bill.
  During the year we have consistently pressed for the release where possible of schools wholly or partially occupied by the Services or by Civil Defence services. The numbers wholly occupied have fallen. At 13th March, 1943, we had 98 per cent. of our school child population receiving whole-time education and 2 per cent. receiving half-time. This compared with 93 per cent. and 6 per cent. respectively a year ago.
  During the year I have continually pressed the vital importance nutritionally, educationally and economically of the domestic science course, especially the domestic science course, in so far as it is concerned with the tasty and attractive cooking of our own Scottish primary products. We have had a most successful competition, some 20,000 girls taking part in the assembling and cooking of food in which oats and/or potatoes were the prime ingredients. I am sure it played some part in the fourfold increase of output from our oatmeal mills and that it will be of great dietetic and health benefit to this and the next generation. But there are still, out of the 40,000 girls who leave our secondary schools each year, some 9,000—over 20 per cent. of the whole—who leave without any cookery instruction whatever. I have never suggested vocational education in our day schools, but I am suggesting a little less memory training in medieval chronology and a great deal more tuition in and interest in applied science in the 20th century. Why, for example, are there so few day schools providing an opportunity of instruction in the working of the internal combustion engine? This, for good or ill, is a mechanical age. Thousands of boys would be extremely interested in knowing what goes wrong when a petrol-driven vehicle conks out on the public highway. Neither in Glasgow, nor Renfrew County, nor Dunbarton County do we have a day school with a motor car engine used in its curriculum. In Ayr County there are three and in Lanark County there is one. There are, of course, other applied sciences which ought to be given a place in our schools but are not.

  937
  I hope to live to see the day when good citizenship is taught, not as a special subject but as a text, or to use an old phrase common in our Presbyterian Church literature, as an "uncovenanted head" in every classroom. If the purpose and spirit of our educational machine are right, if the object is to fit future generations to live cleanly and worthily in mutual aid and social service, then all else will come right; but if that spirit is absent, however elaborate or extensive this system of memory training, we shall have failed. As a recent publication of the Educational Institute of Scotland so admirably put it, we have taught our pupils to think for themselves; we shall have to teach them to think of other people.
  Major Lloyd: The Committee will have listened with great interest to the right hon. Gentleman's picture of the progress that has been made in the manifold directions which now come under educational and allied services, and I think they will agree with me that, by and large, what he was able to tell us was a very satisfactory state of affairs and in many respects a considerable improvement on the report that we had presented to us last year. I am specially pleased, as I know the Committee will be, to realise that the difficulties in connection with part-time education due to the exigencies of war and the blitz period are rapidly being overcome. They were a serious handicap to education, and I rejoice that they are almost completely overcome. The Committee will rejoice that children show no signs whatever of suffering from malnutrition. They will regret and deplore the alarming tendency of juvenile delinquency to increase, which is also partly due to the war situation, when so many fathers are away and mothers are at work, but none the less alarming and none the less to be deplored. I know that the energies and enthusiasm of all concerned with this problem will be concentrated upon it in order that we may do something to lower the very deplorable figures which the Secretary of State has told us about. He called attention to the Advisory Council on Education, which on his initiative was set up this year. He made reference to the remits of a more urgent character which he had called for from this Council. I have the privilege to be on it, and I can assure Members who are
  938
  interested that it is working in the closest harmony and working very hard, and I hope and sincerely believe that it will fulfil a very valuable function and present reports in plenty of time for the legislation which will be required certainly next year, so that they may play a really vital and valuable part in the solution of our educational problems and the many reforms and improvements which we shall expect when the Bill is introduced.
  No one should belittle the great achievements which have been brought about in education during the past year, more especially because of the great difficulties and handicaps which all concerned with education, and especially the teachers, have had to cope with. It is right that we should give due praise, and I am privileged to be allowed to pay a tribute to the way in which all concerned have worked, especially the teachers, during the past two difficult years. They have laboured, as all have laboured, under great handicaps. There has been the difficulty of large classes, which inevitably have got rather worse than better during the war. There has been the difficulty in some areas of overcrowded schools due to a shortage of schools because of blitzed and requisitioned schools. That is a great handicap to the teaching profession, and in every respect they have met it with courage and cheerfulness and in some cases under the most difficult and trying conditions.
  I would like to say a word on the subject of the requisitioning of schools. My right hon. Friend knows that I have been very interested in and concerned about this problem. I do not deny that in the early days of the war it was necessary to requisition certain schools for the Armed Forces and for Civil Defence, but I should have thought that by this time and, indeed, a good deal before this time, it would have been possible for the military and air authorities to have cleared out of the schools and to have released them for the purpose for which they were built. It is not due to lack of pressure by Members of Parliament, nor is it due to lack of enthusiasm for the subject and strong attempts by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State; it is in some cases due to a stubbornness on the part of the military authorities and in other cases to the fact that they just will not be bothered to try and find alternative accommodation. Possession, they say, is nine points

  939
  of the law, and "What we have we hold." Every conceivable excuse is brought up in order to avoid turning out. I feel convinced that in many cases alternative accommodation could have been found, and in many other cases it could have been constructed by the building of huts which would have released schools to the education authorities.
  I deplore the fact that in one or two areas there are still a few schools that have been either not repaired at all or inadequately repaired after damage by enemy action. I would urge my right hon. Friend to do all he can to expedite the supply of labour and material to put some of these schools in at least a habitable condition. There is one school in Renfrewshire which has never been repaired, yet the scholars are in it. I am told that there are holes in the roof and no lath and plaster on the walls. Every effort has been made to get it repaired, but every conceivable difficulty is put in the way, not by my right hon. Friend or the education authorities, but by those who unfortunately have complete control of the supply of labour and materials. An additional handicap to the teachers in the last year has been the substantial increase in the supply of school meals, which I welcome and which I know the whole Committee welcomes. We have still a long way to go. My right hon. Friend mentioned that 16 per cent. are now having school meals and that it was not yet as good a record as in England, but we are doing well on the whole. There is not any doubt that that has been a certain inconvenience and handicap to the teachers, who have co-operated on the whole very well, although I am told that in some instances they have not cooperated quite as well as they might have done, because I daresay they find it a certain handicap and inconvenience. I hope that they will co-operate in this new service, to which the Committee attaches the greatest importance, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will continue to spur on those local authorities who are a bit on the slow side in the provision of school meals.
  The whole question of the supply of teachers is a matter on which I would like to concentrate for a short time. The problem is very serious and is likely to be much more serious at the end of this
  940
  war than it was in 1918. Not only have we a heavy accumulation of arrears, but the supply coming forward before the war was getting steadily less, and we shall have a heavy deficit in prospect before the war is over. I estimate from a high authority that that deficit is not likely to be fewer than about 5,000 teachers, due of course to the increasing under-supply and to the fact that there are many teachers on war service. The problem, I understand, is much more serious in what are known as Chapter V category of teachers, that is, the higher category from the point of view of qualifications. That is serious, because it means that those pupils who are bright and need all the encouragement they can get will suffer from a serious lack of teachers. There will be heavy increased demands after the war due to developments in educational policy which my right hon. Friend has hinted at. The raising of the school-leaving age will demand a considerable extra number. Compulsory day continuation classes will demand a great many more. A reduction in the size of classes, which we all hope for and which is so essential, will further increase the demand. Then there are to be, we hope, special types of secondary schools and other types of schools for backward and handicapped children. All these will mean an increased demand for teachers. We all hope that there will be more nursery schools, and that again means more teachers.
  On the assets side there are one or two important factors. Some 2,500 married women and retired teachers have come back. They are working very hard and have been of enormous help to education authorities in every part of Scotland. We are indeed lucky to have been able to use them again during the war. A tribute should be paid to the way in which they have come forward so readily and given such valuable work, in many cases at substantial domestic inconvenience, and in other cases when they are no longer young. It is hoped that many of them will remain, at any rate, during the critical post-war years. It would materially assist the question of the supply of teachers. Another item on the assets side which it is important to remember is that there will undoubtedly be a large fall in the school population. That will relieve the strain after the war. I am told on high authority that it is esti-

  941
  mated that by 1945 there will be a fall in the school population in Scotland of no fewer than 168,000 with the present leaving age as compared with 1919. There will be 60,000 fewer than in 1937. These are substantial figures, and they will certainly relieve the position. Possibly most Members of the Committee will not have realised what a large fall in the school population is in prospect.
  On the other hand, do not let us forget the important fact that many additional pupils will have to be catered for in connection with our post-war plans. I suppose that not fewer than 50,000 more children will be included if the school-leaving age is raised, and I am told that no fewer than 186,000 will have to be included as additional pupils if and when compulsory education classes up to 18 are instituted. There can, I think, be no doubt that some 5,000 additional teachers will be required if the school-leaving age is raised to 15 and day continuation classes are instituted at the same time.
  Mr. McNeil: Will my hon. and gallant Friend explain how he arrives at the figure of 5,000 additional teachers? I am very interested, because my own calculation is much higher, and the Committee would be in his debt if he would give the information on which his figure is based.
  Major Lloyd: It is difficult to estimate accurately, and we may all have our own ideas. My figure is based upon the advice of an expert who is a colleague of mine on the Scottish Advisory Education Council, who is in a position to examine and analyse the figures of those entering training colleges, for many years before the war. My hon. Friend may say that to some extent that is his guess, but he will agree that it is at least an authoritative opinion, although it can only be an opinion.
  I suggest that the best way of looking at the question of the demand and supply of teachers is to keep our feet on the ground with regard to the possibility of raising the school-leaving age immediately after the war and of accompanying that forward move by instituting compulsory day continuation classes at the same time. I do not believe it is practicable to do the two together immediately after the war, however much good will and enthusiasm there might be for the move. We must consider the question
  942
  of the supply of teachers, without which we cannot go forward into the future with any great confidence, for the supply of teachers is vital to the whole of our educational reforms. I think it should be practicable to raise the school-leaving age in, say, the third post-war year and develop compulsory day continuation classes, introduced in the fourth post-war year and brought into full operation by the fifth or sixth year. If it is spread over that period, although it sounds a little depressing as it may take longer than many of us hope, some 3,500 additional teachers would be required to cope with all the new ideas.
  It is interesting to note that there is a great preponderance of women teachers, especially in the primary and Class IV categories. Even not counting the war years, I am told that the percentage of men to women teachers was only 24, which is very low. It means we have a substantial dominance of women teachers, especially in the primary schools. Whether that is altogether right or not I leave the Committee to judge. I have always been of the opinion that a boy is better taught by a man, although I realise that younger children may be taught better by a woman. A great many boys who should be taught by a man are, however, now taught by women. I hope we shall be able to make the teaching profession more attractive in the future, and to do that we must certainly increase the emoluments. That was one of the first recommendations of the Advisory Council which the Secretary of State announced to-day, and I hope it will be received in the proper quarters with enthusiasm and with the greatest possible sympathy. Unless we can remedy the shortage of teachers, all our plans will fall to the ground, and in order to overcome the shortage we shall have to make the teaching profession more attractive, to increase emoluments, to give greater amenities, in short, raise the whole status of the profession, so that it will attract the serving men and women coming home from the war and be a profession which they will look forward to joining and in which they will be happy and contented.
  I am told that the percentage of men teachers to women is not so bad in the higher categories of the Chapter V class of teachers. There, the percentage of men to women is as high as 61.4 per

  943
  cent., which is not so unsatisfactory, though even there I would have preferred more men. While I am on the subject of attracting more teachers into the profession, I am convinced that one of the essential things to do will be to offer greater facilities for promotion, and that can be done and will be done when more schools are built and when we are able to reduce the size of classes. That is vital, because it breaks the heart of a teacher to have too big a class, and it is thoroughly bad for the children, who cannot benefit from the individual attention which is so essential. If classes are reduced in size, there will presumably be more scope for promotion and a happier life for the teachers. Not only do we need more teachers, but we need to attract the best types of men and women into the profession. We must improve quality. In saying that, I by no means cast any slur upon the quality of the teaching profession to-day in Scotland, but everything is capable of improvement, and if we can attract the best type of men and women into this vocation—for it is a calling which requires very special qualifications and is by no means everybody's job—we shall have done a great work for the future of education in Scotland.
  I want to say a word about the Act of 1918. That Act gives great powers to education authorities in Scotland to develop a very large number of reforms. In that respect no future legislation is required, and therefore I take it that we are in Order in discussing it. Under that Act provision is made for a very large number of reforms, amendments and improvements, but for a variety of reasons of which my right hon. Friend is so well aware, many of its important provisions have not been implemented or are only beginning to be implemented. I am not prepared at this time to go into the reason for it, but it is important to keep in mind that we have had on the Statute Book since 1918 a Measure providing for substantial developments in education which in many cases have not been introduced. For many years education authorities in Scotland have had these statutory powers, and there is great scope for development during the next two or three years; much can be done before the war ends apart from the prob-
  944
  lem of the shortage of teachers, without the necessity of any further legislation. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will look into these points, as the Advisory Council are looking into them, with a view to seeing what can be done without further legislation to improve existing conditions along progressive lines.
  I want to see a revision of the curriculum. Many of our pupils are becoming little examinees. The curriculum needs to be revised to include more properly-taught religious instruction, given by people who earnestly and sincerely believe what they are teaching and are not just doing it because they have been told by the headmaster to do that job. I want to see religious instruction extended and never given by anybody but a convinced and earnest believer in the Christian faith.
  Mr. Maxton: How will you achieve that?
  Major Lloyd: It is a difficult problem, I agree, but I think we ought to try to tackle it. I would almost rather have no religious instruction at all than religious instruction given by someone in parrot fashion who has no personal convictions on the subject. I want to see more teaching of hygiene, more domestic subjects taught, more of the applied sciences—in the later periods—more mothercraft classes, and, above all, and in this I agree so whole-heartedly with my right hon. Friend, the inculcation of citizenship. This last-named subject is not a matter entirely for the local authorities and the schools, and not entirely a matter for the teachers. It certainly is not merely the teaching of civics, as my right hon. Friend rightly pointed out. Parents can co-operate to a large extent in this inculcation of what, for want of a better word, we call "citizenship". Here I am convinced that parents' associations could be most useful. I know of places where, through the enthusiasm of some of the teachers, most live and enthusiastic parents' associations have been formed, and they co-operate splendidly with the teachers, with the result that esprit de corps has greatly improved.
  I want to see greater pressure brought to bear by the education authorities in Edinburgh and by my right hon. Friend upon certain reactionary and backward education authorities. Some are doing splendidly, but others are doing badly.

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  What are we going to do about the backsliders? It seems to me there is nothing to be done except to exert pressure, and I would urge upon my right hon. Friend to exert that pressure to the maximum of his ability. I should like to see an extension of the bursary system in fee paying schools, and I should like to see State bursaries, for I do not see why bursaries should be exclusively provided by the local authorities. There is always a temptation for wealthy local authorities to offer bursaries while the poorer or more parsimonious local authorities do not do so. Many bursaries should be organised and paid for by the State.
  Mr. Gallacher: How about private enterprise?
  Mr. Lindsay: The hon. and gallant Member is saying a lot of things, but is he suggesting that the State should take over education and relieve the rates?
  Major Lloyd: I said nothing of the kind. In England it is a common practice, and it is going to be included, I understand, in the White Paper on education, that State bursaries shall be part of the educational system. All I am saying is that a principle in which I thoroughly believe should be to a certain limited extent introduced in Scotland, instead of leaving these things exclusively to the local authorities, although I would not take away from the local authorities the right to have their own bursaries as well. I hope that will satisfy my hon. Friend.
  I appreciate from a remark which I overheard that I have gone on rather a long time, and so I will bring my speech to a close, but this subject is so vitally important and I have been so intimately associated with it during the last few months that I felt that I had to say what I have said. I earnestly hope that the progress which has been made in the last year will go on; that every effort will be made to extend school meals; that the Secretary of State and the Education Department of Scotland will do their utmost to spur the reactionary and backward authorities to a greater sense of their responsibilities; and that a very considerable number of reforms may be found possible, without legislation, as a result of the recommendations of the Advisory Council also on the initiative of the Secretary of State himself.
  Mr. Mothers: Once again we have the opportunity, for a few hours at least, to turn the spotlight on Scottish education, and to use the opportunities thereby provided of stimulating ideas in Scotland with regard to education matters. While I am sure that all of us try to work to the Scottish idea of brief speeches, I am glad that to-day we are able to say what we have to say without any feeling of tremendous duress, because we are working under the conditions of unlimited time, the Rule with regard to the rising of the House having been suspended. I do not want to follow closely what the hon. and gallant Member for East Renfrew (Major Lloyd) has been saying, but the point at which he seemed to become most vehement, if I may use that description of his manner at the time, was that in relation to the occupancy of the schools by Service Departments. I have had occasion to feel something of the indignation he was showing because of the disabilities that were placed upon scholars by such occupation of schools. I am glad to think that the acute cases which I brought to the notice of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland have been attended to, thanks to his intervention, and those schools are now free to carry on their proper functions, and I am told the pupils are now very happily circumstanced as compared with the position in which they were when part of the schools was taken up by the Service Departments.
  The Chairman: Forgive my interruption, but I do not want the Committee to be under any misapprehension. The Rule has not been suspended for Supply, but suspended only in regard to the proceedings on the Town and Country Planning (Interim Development) (Scotland) Bill.
  Mr. Mathers: I realise the position. It is a fact that we are dealing with more than the Business of Supply to-day, and we do not need to crowd the other Business into the period that is normally allotted.
  Mr. Maxton: Am I to understand that there has been an agreement, through the usual channels, to finish Supply rather earlier in order that the Bill might proceed and that that is not now in contemplation?
  Mr. Mathers: All I can say about that is that the hope was expressed at one time that we might manage both the Estimates and the Bill within the normal time. That was, I understand, much objected to, and the safety valve of an extended period was provided to enable the Business which it was intended to take to-day to be carried through.
  The Secretary of State gave us a very comprehensive speech on the different aspects of this subject in Scotland, and I am sure the Committee followed him with very great attention. There were some black spots in the recital. We all regretted the statement with regard to juvenile offenders and the indications of a still-continuing, though somewhat improving, position regarding verminous children and children with diseases that might easily have been prevented by the use of the simple remedy of soap and water. These two problems are largely, if not entirely, matters that cause us to debit the parents with the responsibility for the failure in respect of the young people. Parental responsibility should be stressed, and every effort should be made to bring home to parents their responsibility in these matters.
  There were brighter aspects of the statement. I was pleased to hear that school feeding continues to increase and that the statistics show an upward tendency, though perhaps it is not wise to stress that too much, because we still want to see greater activity in that direction. The brightest thing referred to by the Secretary of State was the many cultural activities within the boundaries of the educational system and the statement of what is done in country districts, especially one district that he greatly commended for its activity. It caused me to think again how much better our country people are at developing the real interests in life than are people who are catered for by all the amusement facilities of the towns. In the main, the country people, and especially those in the more remote districts, are able to provide their own amusements and interests, and they are very much better for it. It enables them to get very much more out of life than they would get merely by watching other people live, sometimes merely the representation of the life of other people, as furnished through the medium of the celluloid film, a life that has nothing what-
  948
  ever to do with the ordinary lives of the people.
  I want to refer to one or two items in the summary Report that has been issued to us within the last day or two. I would draw attention to the statement of exemptions granted by local authorities under the Education (Scotland) Act, 1901, as given on page 4, and would ask for greater details to be provided as to the reasons for the very considerable increase in permanent exemptions, and temporary exemptions as well, in 1942, as compared with the preceding years. It is true that we have some indication in the Report of the reason for the temporary exemptions—the increased assistance with seasonal work, such as harvesting and the like—but there is room for further indication of the causes of those exemptions, which, from the educational point of view, are, of course, to be deplored. I was glad that the Secretary of State made reference to his efforts in connection with food education and to the cooking competitions that he has fostered during the past year. There was some sneering about that at the time when he launched his effort to have those competitions started, but the experience gained will have confounded those who sneered. Very great interest has been shown in the competitions, and I am sure that the instruction provided in the making of simple meals out of Scottish products will stand those who took part in them in very good stead in their lives subsequently.
  A comment I want to make about statistics relates to page 9 of the Report, where there is a very succinct statement of the percentages of children in the different counties who have been provided with dinners, lunches and soup meals. It would be well, even in a summary Report, to set out the details for each county separately, showing its position in relation to other counties and to the previous year's figures. We ought to encourage the authorities concerned so that when they found themselves in an apparently backward condition they would search for the remedy, and probably they would make a better showing in the following year. This would be the result of their backward position being clearly brought home to them. I commend that suggestion to the attention of the Under-Secretary of State.

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  In addition to the Report issued by the Scottish Education Department, there has come into our hands during this week what I look upon as a very important document, issued by the Educational Institute of Scotland. It deals with proposals for reconstruction, and there I find very strongly brought forward my point with regard to parental responsibility for verminous children. Indeed, the spirit of this part of the Report gets away from its normal atmosphere altogether. The Report is very strong indeed about the necessity for the punishment of parents who allow their children to get into that condition, and it stresses the necessity for punishing parents who do not carry out the recommendations made to them by school doctors for providing their children with the necessary remedies, such as attending to their teeth and their eyes. Those points are stressed by people who see closely and at firsthand the detrimental effect on children involved in conditions which can be and ought to be remedied by the parents. The Report draws attention to the importance of the provision of school meals and the benefits that come about thereby.
  Mr. Maxton: Do I understand the hon. Member to approve the policy of the Educational Institute of Scotland, of punitive measures against parents?
  Mr. Mathers: I did not quite put it that way on my own account. I am drawing attention to the fact that those who are most closely in touch with this problem, seeing it at first hand, are most incensed about it, and that they place the responsibility where I believe it lies very largely, that is, upon the parents.
  Mr. Maxton: That is why I intervened. It seemed different from the hon. Member's usual philosophy and attitude in these matters. Do I take it that he approves of the punitive method of trying to remedy this evil?
  Mr. Mathers: Other efforts failing, and the case being clearly proved that there is absolute neglect and disregard of what is necessary to be done by parents for their children, I think, as a final resort, there must be some sanction taken against parents for the welfare of the children. I put it as strongly as that. As I said, this section of the Report from the Educational Institute of Scotland is quite foreign to the atmosphere of the rest of the Report.
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  [Interruption.] I know that the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) knows far more about teaching than I do and has come closely in touch with children and that he is in a better position than I am to judge the validity or otherwise of the clear indication that is expressed by those who have framed the Report to which I have made reference.
  Mr. Maxton: I want the hon. Member to give the Committee the benefit of his views on this matter, but my feeling about it is that no greater psychological hurt can be done to children in their tender years than to make criminals of their parents.
  Mr. Mathers: I realise to the full the seriousness of that position. The thought came to me that if the influence of a parent is to be discounted in the eyes of the child, what is to be the position? However, if parents completely disqualify themselves from any consideration, they finally have to take the consequences for so doing.
  Mr. MacLaren: Even though they are living in slums?
  Mr. Mathers: Slums are only the physical environment, and they are to a very considerable extent due to mental outlook.
  Mr. Maxton: Oh.
  Mr. Mathers: Some people can make homes of places which to others would be slums. I should like to quote another extract which will be well worth putting on record in the proceedings of this Committee. It is from this important Report, as I consider it, and is made with regard to education generally:
  "Scottish education has been too intellectual, seeking primarily to teach pupils to think justly. It must be more emotional, teaching them to feel rightly. They must learn to have respect for whatever things are pure, lovely and of good report, reverence for the things of the spirit and a passion for truth and justice."
  I believe that salvation from many of the evils that we find around us would be found if that ideal were carried into effect. My recollections of my own school days—and they were short, I regret to say—include the memory of a schoolmaster who had that passion for justice for right and truth, and although I do not think it can be laid to his credit that he succeeded in making many scholars,

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  I know he did succeed in making young men and women who had a very high regard for truth, justice and fair dealing. That attitude of mind on the part of those who framed this Report is also shown in that section of it headed: "The Religious and Moral Basis of Scottish Education". I quote again:
  "In the past …. Scottish education has often been too limited in outlook, having as its real, if not its avowed, aim the attainment of social status for the individual. We have taught our pupils. … to think for themselves—"
  That is what the Secretary of State was quoting too:
  "We shall have to teach them to think of other people, to animate them with zeal, in the words of a recent Scottish Education Department circular for the service of their neighbours, their community and their country.'"
  And those who framed this Report go on to say what I believe is absolutely true:
  " The work, we believe, can best be done, and the spiritual welfare of our pupils best secured, if the Christian religion and moral training be made the basis of our education."
  I have taken longer than I intended, and I want to get to one or two general observations, so I will cease making these quotations.
  The education we are trying to foster and establish in Scotland seems to me to require two essentials—equality of opportunity in education, and better quality of education itself. As regards equality of opportunity, a primary need is for smaller classes. Classes of 50 and thereabouts turn teachers into drill sergeants and cause them merely to be keeping discipline instead of instilling real education. Properly educated children cannot be produced by mass-production methods. Children need the opportunity to express themselves in speech and activity. This is quite impossible in large classes, where activity by the very nature of things must be restricted. It would be Donnybrook and a bear garden if there was not some restriction of activity where there are large classes.
  There should also be a steady avenue—I hesitate to use the word "ladder," because it seems so narrow and restricted—a steady avenue of opportunity from school to the highest posts in the land. I think in this respect that the Government can give a lead by providing that the progress of the young entrant to the Civil Service shall not be so hampered
  952
  when that progress is compared with the university graduate who enters in the higher ranks of the Civil Service that have to be striven for so hard by the entrant who comes in earlier in the lower ranges of the Civil Service. I know of this to some extent from experience on the railways. At one time it was the accepted thing that young people entered the railway service at the lowest end, and by their own merits and activity they could rise to the highest positions. Very largely that straightforward method has been stultified by bringing in people on a privileged plane into the higher ranks of the service, giving them the opportunity of running around among all those who have the solid groundwork of knowledge of the service, and, as it were, picking their brains and qualifying themselves out of the service of others for the higher positions.
  Mr. Lindsay: My hon. Friend has raised an important point. Is he suggesting that University entrants to the Civil Service or any other profession should not be at a higher grade, that there is no point particularly in increased education between the ages of 16 and 18, and that all should start at 14 and move up?
  Mr. Mathers: I did not quite say that. What I am saying is that there should be, for the young persons who go to work at 15, the opportunity to take with them the grounding they get in those lower ranks of the particular service which they have chosen. It will serve them well when they reach the higher administrative and managerial positions in the industry or whatever sphere they have chosen. I am not for a moment discounting the value of university education. I am merely saying that there should be a greater measure of opportunity for those who come in at the lower scale, and that they should not be automatically crowded out by those who come in with no actual grounding in the industry or profession and simply enter it at the upper end and block promotion for those below them. [An HON. MEMBER: Sir Josiah Stamp."] I was not on the L.M.S.
  In relation to what I mentioned as to better quality of education, I think I am quoting a not very old statement when I say that there has been improvement in the teaching methods in the nursery and infant classes but that the teaching in the ordinary primary schools in Scotland has

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  not improved much in method in the last 80 years. Another statement which is not original is that the relationship of pupil and teacher has improved in the sports field but not in the classroom during recent years in Scotland. I think that is regrettable and indicates that the outlook of teachers themselves needs improvement in many instances. We come to perhaps a fundamental thing when we make a statement of that kind. I think the textbooks from which they are teaching require to be looked at. I know that the Secretary of State himself has made reference to this problem on more than one occasion, and I would urge him to take in hand at the earliest possible moment a complete review of the textbooks, history books and the like, that are in use in Scottish schools, and try to bring them nearer to modern requirements.
  It seems to me—and I have made this reference in the Committee on a previous occasion—that some teachers without the really progressive outlook we would like to see are rather keen on having in use in the schools in which they are teaching the same history books from which they were taught when they were at school. It saves them a good deal of trouble in trying to get hold of new ideas with regard to teaching. I hope that suggestion applies only to a very few. But those who have progressive ideas, coming from the training colleges, into a school like that would have their progressive ideas and initiative and enterprise completely stultified. After a time it would smother their efforts for improvement.
  I believe that in Scottish schools to-day much of the teaching is unreal—that is confirmed by various authorities—in having no proper relation to current life. We seek to use our schools for helping forward ideas of a new outlook on life, for better ideas of our position as citizens. Citizenship is a word which has been used by both speakers who have preceded me, and it is true that we need a great improvement in the teaching of citizenship, the relationship of one to another. While tradition may be very valuable as a guide, am certain that we must not spend our lives trying to get back to the traditional ideas but that we must seek to move forward to the new order we hear so much about. There are those with ideas of educating Germany out of her wrong ideas after we have conquered
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  her in this war. I think there are many wrong ideas in our own country to which we could apply a good deal of a similar remedy. We must not as Scots people concentrate unduly upon what Scotland and the Scots have done in the past. We must put more energy into a determination to make our young people give her a future even greater than her past. I believe that the capacity for that achievement is there if we provide wisely and adequately for its expression and development. I hope that to-day the speeches that will be made here by others much more competent than myself to take a lead in educational matters will give an impetus to that forward move in Scottish education which is absolutely necessary if we are not to lose our place as an educated country.
  Mr. G. A. Morrison: I should like to join the two previous speakers in congratulating the right hon. Gentleman on the statement he has made. The first thought that occurred to me was that his speech was a very good illustration of the greatly increased variety of things which now come under the conception of education. The next thought that struck me was how very much more important it has become to ensure that a supply of well-trained people to carry on the actual work shall be available.
  Before I come to the question of the supply of teachers, I should like to thank the right hon. Gentleman for something he has recently done. Speaking from this place last year, I made reference to the failure of certain education authorities in Scotland to honour the decisions of the National Joint Council. That is a body on which authorities and teachers are equally represented. The two points I made last year had reference to war bonus and the supplementing of the pay of teachers on war service. It ought not to have been necessary for my right hon. Friend to remind any public body of its obligation, its moral obligation, to honour a nationally negotiated agreement unanimously reached by a Joint Council. My right hon. Friend issued last year a timely and very helpful circular on the subject. This year he has gone one better. Having tried persuasion without complete success, he has now rewarded virtue by a modification in the grants Regulations, offering a larger grant to authorities which honour

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  in full the recommendation of the National Joint Council regarding war bonus. For that practical recognition and help I can assure him of the gratitude not merely of teachers but of all genuinely interested in education.
  I propose to return to a matter which I raised last year—the question of the supply of teachers. I speak with some knowledge on this subject, having served for 21 years on the National Committee for the Training of Teachers, and for the last three of those years on the Central Executive of that body. I would like to read two expressions of opinion as to the importance of the problem. The first is from one of the educational manifestos which we have all been reading:
  " In any consideration of reform in education, whether of its structure or in the content of the curriculum, we realise that at the heart of it all there is the teacher, and that any reform or reconstruction will be of little avail unless the whole scheme of the supply and training of teachers is planned to meet the needs of the children."
  Here is another:
  "I have dwelt at length on the problem of the recognition of the intellectual and spiritual individuality of the teacher. All other reforms are conditional upon reform in the quality and character of those who engage in the teaching profession. Just because education is the most personal, the most intimate of all human affairs, there, more than anywhere else, the sole ultimate reliance and final source of power are in the training, character and intelligence of the individual."
  These are the words of America's greatest educator of our century, John Dewey. The warning which I gave last year was repeated by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sloan) and by others. I know that my right hon. Friend is fully aware of the seriousness of the problem. As he has told us, one of the first tasks which he gave to the resuscitated National Advisory Council was "to find out whether the existing arrangements for the recruitment and supply of teachers are adequate, and to make recommendations."
  As I see it, he has two problems, one immediate and the other a matter of long-term policy. The immediate problem is how, without raising the school-leaving age, without day continuation schools, without reducing the size of classes, he can make up the wastage due to war and the shortage caused by the recent sharp
  956
  decline in the number of teachers. That decline had been going on for several years before the war, and it has been much accentuated since the outbreak of war. The arrears due to under-supply plus the arrears due to casualties—and not all teachers who come back from the war will wish to go on teaching—amount perhaps to 2,500. That means that, in addition to finding the normal supply of teachers from year to year, we have very soon to make an additional recruitment of more than a year's supply. Even supposing that the bulk of the serving teachers return to teaching, here is an immediate problem calling for drastic measures to meet it. Retired teachers and married women are now serving in the schools in considerable numbers—I think the number is about 2,700. You cannot expect these to go on much longer.
  What other sources of supply are available? Men and women in the Forces who before joining had some training but had not commenced the actual work of teaching, may be reckoned on. Secondly, there are others who have not yet had training but feel attracted to the work. Appeals ought to be made to such people now. Special arrangements ought to be made for short courses of training and of academic preparation. I can assure my right hon. Friend that the profession, given certain conditions, will not make difficulties about what is called dilution. But in fairness to the new teachers themselves and to the existing teachers, al time limit should be prescribed within which a satisfactory academic standard is to be reached. Men and women drawn from industry and commerce should be encouraged to train in larger numbers for technical teaching. Other methods may have to be tried. But the urgency is great, and the problem must be taken in hand at once. The difficulty, as someone has pointed out, is that it is in the supply of Chapter V teachers that the problem is worst. These are the teachers of the highest classes. Last year the decline was something like 80 per cent. That scarcity has been made much more serious by the practical extinction of the Arts faculties in universities. I confess that I do not see a solution, short of an appeal to the Minister of National Service for the return of some of those in the Services and the suspension of the call-up in the case of intending teachers.

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  Then there is the long-term problem, of how to make the profession more attractive. That has already been referred to to-day. One is glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman that his Advisory Council recommends increased remuneration for all categories of teachers. That is not everything, but it is something. I remember that many years ago the late Professor Burnet, of St. Andrews, one of the very ablest of our educators, issued a pamphlet, in which he showed that only a very few of the first-class honours graduates of universities turned to school-teaching. I have no reason to believe that the situation is any better to-day.
  An improvement in status and the public estimation of the profession would also be very helpful. Teachers in Scotland have for long been striving for a graduate profession. It must be over 20 years since I moved a resolution to that effect in the annual general meeting of the Educational Institute. Two of the universities of Scotland have departments of education, and in each case the professor is also head of the training centre in the same city. The two remaining universities ought to be encouraged and assisted to do the same thing. Finance is the difficulty. There should be fully equipped and staffed departments of education in all four universities, with facilities for experiment and research, with refresher courses, and post-graduate scholarships for foreign travel and study. This would undoubtedly be a great help towards enhancing the status and public estimation of the teaching profession.
  But there is something more. I was greatly struck by the recent pronouncement of a distinguished university psychologist. He works in Scotland, and he was speaking of Scottish education. He holds that self-respecting young men and women are not allured by the system whereby teachers are paid out of local rates and appointed and controlled by local lay committees, some of whose members know nothing about education. There is a parallel in the reluctance of the medical profession to consider the institution of a health service controlled by local committees. Members of this House who have read the literature recently circulated—no small task in these days—will have read the proposals of the Educational Institute of Scotland for a more centralised administration. It sounds very revolu-
  958
  tionary, but we have already seen revolutions take place. One, in particular, took place when the number of education authorities in Scotland was suddenly reduced some years ago from 960 to 35. That was achieved with incredible smoothness, as Julius Caesar says. Objection will no doubt be raised that if local autonomy is abolished local interest will disappear. But surely interest in education is not dependent upon the holding of control, and any scheme of centralisation would have to provide for local as well as national advisory committees. I must not discuss that at length now: it is part of a long-term policy; but it is a question which must be tackled.
  In recent months I have read practically all the educational manifestoes I have been able to lay my hands on. They, naturally, vary very greatly, but there is pretty general agreement on three or four main points, the need for raising the school age to 15 without any exemptions, and as soon as may be to 16, secondly, a reduction in the size of classes, and, thirdly, for provision for part-time education up to the age of 18. I hope that we shall hear before long how and when these things are to be done.
  Mrs. Hardie: I want to put one or two points to the Secretary of State regarding the development of education and the position of education in Scotland just now. I think that he and the Tinder-Secretary would be among the first to agree that the position is far from satisfactory. We realise the limitations and the difficulties under which the education authorities have been working because of war conditions. While the position has improved regarding the occupation of schools by military bodies and others, it is still far from being satisfactory.
  Ninety-eight per cent. of the children in Scotland are receiving full time and only 2 per cent. part-time education. Some of that education is being carried on in overcrowded buildings and so on. At the beginning of the war there was perhaps some excuse for running around and taking over all sorts of buildings, but there has since been time to review the position, and in some districts there is great dissatisfaction. Up-to-date schools have been requisitioned by the military when other buildings have been available, and in one case of which I know a school for

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  defective children was taken over and the children were pushed out and scattered all over. That school was taken over by the military and it has not been handed back to the authorities. It may be that the children who attended there are being educated but they are not being educated under the conditions that ought to apply. I would ask the Secretary of State for Scotland to press very strongly on the Cabinet the fact that we can never make up for or repair the damage done to children by giving education in very unsatisfactory conditions.
  We are told that there is an acute shortage of teachers, particularly in mathematics, science and technical subjects. These are subjects in which young people will have to be trained if, after the war, we are to take our position in the world. I am not belittling the more cultural subjects, far from it, but the position is very unsatisfactory in secondary schools. I recently met a special mathematics master who has been a drill-sergeant in the Army for three years. A good many elementary school teachers have been drafted into these schools who are not specially qualified to give the necessary training. You keep key men in their own jobs in industry and even in distributive trades, which are not so important as the provision of education for the future, and yet you cannot demand that key men should be released from the Army and put back in their special jobs in the teaching profession. I am interested in orthodox education and would ask, why cannot you hold classes for soldiers and try to educate them a little more? It is said that they are shifted about so much and that it is very difficult to do anything, but surely that is an extreme waste of man-power. The Department of Education should really go into the question of how many really qualified men are being kept in the Army who are not being used to the best advantage of the country. The point has been made of making use of superannuated and married women teachers. Many superannuated teachers may be very capable, but it must be remembered that people get out of date and that there are now new methods in education and there is a danger that many of these teachers may not be of the best type. I would be the last person to belittle married women teachers,
  960
  but many of these have been out of education for 10 or 15 years, and unless they have been able to keep themselves up to date they must have a lot of leeway to make up.
  The whole position as regards education in Scotland is very unsatisfactory indeed, and even under war conditions something should be done to keep up the standard of efficiency in future. It is said that we have not enough teachers. Nowadays a young woman of 19 is not allowed to go into training as a teacher but is directed into the making of munitions or something like that. The Minister of Labour is not only dealing with young men but is taking a very strong hand with regard to young women, and the Secretary of State for Scotland and education authorities should take up the matter with the Minister of Labour. It was suggested to me on one occasion that a teacher ought to go into industry and learn some of the hardships of ordinary life and that that would be a good training. But the teacher must have a certain academic training, and if the Government prevent these people from getting that training they are not going to have the teachers. It is no use saying that there must be technical education and special classes if you cannot find the teachers to enable you to carry on.
  We are told that there were 14,269 children who were exempted from the school-leaving age in 1942, 7,000 of whom were permanently exempted. Why should there be any permanent exemptions from education of children under 14? If it is the home circumstances which are bad some other provisions should be made for the home; children should not be sacrificed in this way by being taken from school. While it is important that agricultural and other work should be done, I am not prepared to agree that the education of school children should suffer, and provision ought to be made for them to return to school later. We are told that there are only something like 35 nursery schools and that we have space in some ordinary schools for another 27 nursery schools. There should be greater development of nursery schools. I am not one who thinks that every child should go into a nursery school from the age of z to 5. If a woman lives in a decent house, with a garden, and she is fairly intelligent and is prepared to look after

  961
  her young children, that is the ideal way of doing it. I do not picture a nation of little robots, with children being trained from the cradle to the grave without having some chance of developing their own individuality. But there ought to be some provision made for children living with their parents in tenements where they cannot receive the fresh air and exercise which they need, and especially is this so in the case of young married women with children living in rooms, where the whole position is unsatisfactory. I would press upon the Secretary of State to do what he can to encourage education authorities to do something in this connection. I find even from my own contact with councillors, that they are not very progressive on this question. They talk about lazy mothers and generally in a reactionary way. There is no question of that. A woman living in a tenement, if she has her housework to do, can only take her children out for an hour or so daily and that is not sufficient There is no provision for the children to be outside. It is in regard to these cases that the nursery school is most needed. A good many women have been urged to go into industry and leave their children, and the conditions in which they have to leave them are very unsatisfactory indeed.
  It is satisfactory to know that the physique of children, particularly in Glasgow, has improved. There is no more damning criticism of this nation than to say that during the war, with all the restrictions on food and so on, the physique of children has improved. It shows a scandalous state of things to have existed when it is said that we allowed our children to deteriorate to such an extent that they were not even fed as well as they are in war-time, with all restrictions on food, which many of us feel it hard to put up with. A good deal more might have been done in that connection. The local authorities are not really standing up to their job when throughout Scotland there is only about 19.1 per cent. of the school children provided with a midday meal. Milk is all right, but it is not enough in itself for older children. The biggest advantage that the Secretary of State could introduce would be to ensure that children should be provided with a good midday meal. I have looked in the Report to see what we are doing in Glasgow, and I find
  962
  that Glasgow does not stand too high. In the country districts children have to travel further afield, but in the cities the figures are very black; they are only 15 per cent. in Lanark, and in Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh and Fife and other places the percentage is very low. The Secretary of State should press upon local authorities to provide a midday meal.
  The milk position seems to be pretty satisfactory, and I agree that there are a certain number of children who cannot take milk. I am not belittling the provision of milk, but I wish the Secretary of State would really go ahead with the provision of a really properly balanced meal, which would no doubt do a great deal to prevent many of the troubles with which children are afflicted. The Report refers to the improvement of children in regard to size, which in my opinion has something to do with heredity. The Report says that, on the average, the children are a little heavier and larger than they used to be, especially in Glasgow schools. On the question of cleanliness, I do not think people are dirtier than they were five years ago, with children being taught swimming and with baths being provided and better housing conditions in some cases, and the installation of baths. I have my own theories about skin troubles. Diet has a lot to do with skin troubles such as scabies. People feed wrongly on sausages and tea, whereas they should have properly balanced meals.
  I am told that in the City of Glasgow there are a lot of queer skin diseases of which nobody has heard before. One explanation given is that there are many foreigners there and all kinds of germs are being imported, but there you are. No one is more keen than I am about cleanliness, and at least elementary cleanliness is possible. You can have an elementary standard of cleanliness even under difficulties, but it is not quite fair to blame all the people. These skin diseases are very infectious, and, with regard to the washing facilities provided for school children, there is no more dangerous method of infection than the hand towel. I am pretty sure that children are not provided with separate towels and I would say that, in view of the scarcity of towels, those provided are not enough for them to be kept reasonably clean. I am sure that the sanitary arrangements

  963
  in schools are not looked after as they ought to be. I would like to see greater use made of school clinics for the purpose of instructing parents in hygiene and nutrition, and the need of sleep for children. One of the difficulties in cities is that children do not get enough rest. While daylight saving may suit me very well, I do not think that it is a good thing for children, particularly in the towns. It is no use saying that parents can put their children to bed earlier, as, with the din that goes on all round, there is no chance of the children sleeping at all. In Scotland, particularly, I am sure the children do not get enough sleep. I suggest that school clinics should not be used only for dealing with these diseases but that at them some instruction might be given to mothers. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) has pointed out that we cannot do a worse service than by putting mothers into prison because they do not keep their children's heads clean. It is unthinkable. If there are parents so bad as that, then it is only logical to take their children away from them. I am not advocating that, but it would at least be logical.
  I am not so much worried about juvenile delinquency as some people seem to be. I do not think children are worse than they were before the war. I am an old woman, and I think children are better behaved now than ever they were. We were all hooligans, more or less, when we were young. I was speaking to an hon. Member the other day, questioning him about juvenile delinquency, and I found out that when he was young he had been concerned in all sorts of fights and had fits of smashing things. Further, there is a war mentality. Children see the results of bombs being dropped, buildings being blown up and everything destroyed. I am told that some of the smashing of shelters—which I am not justifying—is due to the fact that those responsible are playing at commando raids. So I think we are getting needlessly concerned about this delinquency. I remember once being at an industrial school and seeing what seemed to me to be a rather nice boy. I made inquiries, and I was told that he would not have been there unless he had committed two crimes, which, in this case, were stealing and malicious mischief. I
  964
  pressed my inquiries further, and I was told that these two crimes consisted of stealing an apple off a tree and kicking a football in a prohibited place with the result that something was broken. That is how we make criminals. Perhaps if we inquire into other cases of juvenile delinquency we shall find that they have been due to a lack of proper playing fields and a proper outlet for the children. I notice that enrolment for continuation classes is poor. These classes were always my pet scheme, because I always felt that while we provided facilities for the smart boy or girl, the ordinary boy or girl was more or less neglected. With the black-out and long hours being worked by young people, however, it is surprising that so many have enrolled; they must be enthusiasts.
  In conclusion, may I indicate one or two things that might be done after the war? A White Paper dealing with the reconstruction of education in England has just been issued, and while I do not want to criticise it—it is not my pigeon—I cannot help feeling that it shows a little window dressing. When examined, the goods do not seem so attractive as they at first appear. I hope that in our recommendations for the future we shall strike a more original and thorough note. As I have said, I want more nursery schools, which can also be used as a means of educating mothers. The average mother I meet seems to be doing her best for her children. I deprecate the lecturing of mothers. Never was there a time when mothers were so interested in doing the best they can for their children. There is a different outlook now by fathers and mothers from what there used to be. I suspect that there were a good many unwanted children in the past. Parents looked upon them solely as a means of helping out their own income; they did not make the sacrifices which many parents are making now. I do not agree that fatherhood and motherhood have deteriorated. In olden days people were very cruel to their children. Women need a little encouragement. If they are healthy and strong, they are willing to work and look after their children. A good many lazy mothers are women of low health who are struggling against physical disability all the time. They need a little help, encouragement and advice rather than bullying lectures. I remember a new housing estate in my own division at which there was a baby show.

  965
  I did not want to choose the best babies for fear that other mothers would be down on me, but I never saw finer children in my life. I am sure that if women were given decent conditions and houses, they would rise to the occasion and realise their responsibilities to the full.
  I think something should be done to raise the standard of our elementary schools. For a start we want better buildings. We get them all right for defective children or for secondary education. We want more facilities for games, especially for those between the ages of seven and II, and we want smaller classes. Whether we get the smaller classes depends of course upon the supply of teachers. I have not the pleasant memory of teachers as one of my hon. Friends who spoke a short while ago. I can remember some very unjust things being done to scholars. One of my schoolmasters was a very religious man, who used to say a long prayer every morning and ask a boy to write down the names of those children who used to open their eyes while he was saying it. Afterwards they were punished. If that is the way to teach religion, I do not know of anything better to create atheism.
  Why is there such a difference between the standard of payment for teachers in elementary schools and those in secondary schools? The elementary school teachers are doing just as difficult a job, often under worse conditions. Both grades of teachers should have the same wages and conditions. I am sure we all agree about raising the school leaving age, but I do not want the central school education to be coloured and called secondary education. Secondary education ought to be real secondary education. I am very keen on academic subjects being taught to everybody. I do not believe that any knowledge is useless. The giving of stereotyped education to young people who want to be taught only certain subjects is, I think, wrong. The tragedy is that many of us never had the opportunity of getting all the knowledge we wanted. I am very anxious that the knowledge of specialised subjects should be developed in the continuation classes after the age of 16. Up to that age I think a good general education is required, and while I do not find fault with the teaching of cookery and domestic science as part of education, I am much averse to too much specialised instruction.
  966
  I know some people who have never had a cookery lesson in their lives who can cook some of our chefs blind. I object to too much cramming. Specialised education can be given between the ages of 16 and 18. During that period the boy or girl can have a choice of subjects. I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend say how, in his own area, he mixed pleasurable subjects with cultural subjects, such as dancing and physical exercises. He did not seem to think that that was education. Teaching children to dance—I do not say to box—is just as much. education as taking part in physical exercises. That is the sort of education that will develop character. Young people today will not stand being lectured. Citizenship should be discussed in schools. Do not let it be taught by a teacher of economics who will bore the children stiff. I hope that my right hon. Friend will go ahead and that he will be here when the war is over. It seems hard that when he has such a fine opportunity everything will be made so difficult. I know he has some enlightened views on education, and I hope that he will be able to develop them fully.
  Lieutenant - Commander Hutchison: Education is a subject very near to the heart of every Scotsman, and my fellow countrymen to-day have been even more loquacious than usual about it. For that reason I will be very brief and will confine myself to a few comments on the Minister's interesting speech. Unfortunately, I was not able to be present during the first few minutes, and I am not quite clear when the new Bill concerning the reconstruction of Scottish education is to be introduced or whether there is to be a White Paper preceding it as in the case of England. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will mention it in his reply. He dealt in some detail with the subject of juvenile delinquency. I am fairly tolerant towards the activities of the younger children. As the Secretary of State said, boys will be boys and will pilfer apples and so on, and though one does not approve of it, it is probably inevitable. On the other hand, it is desirable on moral grounds and in the interests of the State and of the children concerned that they should be rebuked suitably when these crimes are discovered, and every encouragement should be given them not to indulge in practices of that nature.

  967
  But what is disturbing a good many people interested in the welfare of young persons is that those in the adolescent age group of 16 to 18 are responsible for a good deal of malicious mischief. I speak with feeling, because they have done it recently in my garden, and probably other Members have suffered in a like way. I feel that when young people come to the age of 16 they should have better sense than that and that we should endeavour to divert their energies into more suitable channels. This youth registration scheme, followed up by interviews, would probably be helpful in that respect. I wish we could cover the gap that exists between those who are registered and those who are interviewed and subsequently join some youth organisation. I am rather impressed by the procedure that is carried out by some of the education authorities in England where registration is done under the auspices of the authorities in juvenile employment bureaux, and I think that scheme might well be adopted in Scotland. As far as I am aware, Edinburgh is the only education authority which possesses a juvenile employment bureau, and I throw out the suggestion that other local authorities might adopt the same idea, which I think is a good one. I was on the Education Committee of Edinburgh for a good many years, and know that the scheme has always worked well there. It is desirable on general grounds that the registration and the interviews should be the province of the education authorities rather than the Ministry of Labour.
  To turn to another subject, a point was put to me by someone in Edinburgh who is very much interested in education. Have the Government and the Scottish Education Department in particular any idea in view for the utilisation of country houses at present requisitioned by the Government? Some of these might be used for some educational purposes, for instance, a residential hostel for young persons or something of that kind after the war. I believe the scheme has been adopted in other places, and the use of country houses where young persons could take courses, perhaps week-end courses and the like, under suitable guidance, would be useful in our more advanced system of education. Unfortunately, owing to the economic conditions which are likely to be prevalent after the war, very few people will be able to renew
  968
  occupancy of these houses for their own private purposes, and it seems desirable that good use should be made of them in the public interest if their original proprietors cannot live there. I throw out the suggestion that education authorities should earmark certain of them for hostel purposes.
  My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Renfrew (Major Lloyd) mentioned the question of married teachers. There is a great scarcity of teachers at the moment, and it is likely to become much worse. I feel very strongly that the rules and regulations concerning the employment of married teachers should be relaxed after the war and that their retention might well be encouraged. I feel that the general question in regard to the entry into employment of women in the various professions after the war will come up in many forms and that professional women generally will be very anxious to continue in the work they are doing at present, and that education is one of these professions which might well remain open to married women. I hope the Secretary of State and the Education Department will consider that as a long-term policy.
  Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: I apologise for intervening in this Debate, because I feel that it is very difficult to speak if one has not been wholly educated in Scotland, and I feel somewhat diffident in making many points, except possibly of a comparative and relative nature. I think it is bad luck for the Secretary of State to appear at that Box in the middle of a war and try to put across anything in connection with education. I should like to see him tried out in more favourable circumstances. I think this Annual Report is rather complacent. I should like to ask a few questions about the reason for things that have been said to-day. It is said that there was a shortage of teachers before the war. What was the reason for the decreasing number of entrants? Why is there this absence of cookery in the schools, about which the Secretary of State never ceases to talk? It has been fairly common in all the new schools, and a good many of the older ones, in England to have domestic science. At any rate, it is not a new thing.
  Why is juvenile delinquency increasing? Subject to anything the hon. Lady

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  the Member for Springburn (Mrs. Hardie) says, I think it is grossly exaggerated, or, rather, the discussion of it takes far too little account of new ascertainment. Probably much of it was not ascertained before. But, apart from that, why is it actually increasing in Scotland, incidentally in my constituency? We are completely puzzled by it. Expert people who are analysing it from every angle cannot see correlations which are very helpful. It looks as if there are certain pockets here and there, but he would be a bold man who said there was any definite cause apart from the general war feeling and the break-up of the homes, which is common to England, Wales and everywhere else. We have pre-service units highly developed, we have Sea Scouts and a very good A.T.C., Army cadets and a youth centre, a Salvation Army centre, and everything the right hon. Gentleman spoke of, so it is not particularly the absence of youth organisation.
  Why, too, is it that in Scotland, where the Secretary of State is himself Minister of Health and President of the Board of Education, he cannot get something more done about nursery schools? In my constituency we have at last got one, but it has taken a couple of years. The education authority knows nothing about it because the 100 per cent. grant was paid by the Department of Health in Edinburgh. The local authority did not pay anything towards it. There is now a waiting list, as there is a waiting list in other constituencies. The right hon. Gentleman told us solemnly one day that this was a matter that we could leave to the Churches, that Scotland was different, and everyone would help it out. That was two years ago. There is a great deal of complacency about these matters, and I think Scotland is living on its past. I quote from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, I think the year the war broke out:
  " I am afraid, however, that England has made rapid strides and, unless we can do something more than we are doing, we are likely to lag behind."
  Those were his words. I should like to know what he thinks about that now. Why should the number of schools partly occupied have risen last year? In the first three years of the war it might be expected, but why has it risen last year? Why should 16,000 children still be receiving half-time education? We are
  970
  told that irregularity of attendance is reaching disquieting proportions. Why again is the percentage of meals lower than in England, and why are Kilmarnock and why and one other town the only places where pre-apprenticeship building courses have taken place? Why after three years have only ten authorities got proper schemes for youth advisory councils? There is no excuse for that at all. I know when this thing started, and I had a little to do with it. One of the junior Lords of the Treasury was Under-Secretary of State. I will quote the remark made at Aberdeen by one who has been for long a member of the local education authority. It is all very well for the Secretary of State to quote the club in Aberdeen where the 1,600 are. I fully agree that it is a grand show, incidentally run by voluntary people until recently. The whole origin was a voluntary spirit. Of Aberdeen, where the youth centres are run by the authorities—and very good they are—this is what the convenor says in a little pamphlet which he has written:
  " The department has been timid and halting and at the best has only temporised with a situation requiring radically new treatment. Some really tangible and concrete proposals should be forthcoming."
  I have asked a number of questions, and I should like to know the answers. I could ask others. I do not actually blame the Secretary of State, because I think he has an impossible job. At one moment he has to come here and with great skill has to satisfy masses of people and different authorities on hydro-electric development. The next moment he has to come down and put forward a complicated Bill on some quite different subject. To-day he has had to know the ins and outs of Scottish education. It is impossible for any one man to contain them in his mind.
  Scottish education needs a breath of fresh air right through the whole system. It needs a revival, a pioneering spirit, experiment and an acute examination of its deficiencies. That is why I am glad that Dr. George MacLeod has been given £100,000 just to do some experiments with. I wish there were a few more such trusts that could help. I agree largely with the Report of the Educational Institute of Scotland. For the benefit of English Members, I would say that that is a comprehensive body representing all teachers and not just the National Union

  971
  of Teachers. Somewhat late in the day the Secretary of State has initiated through his Advisory Council a number of inquiries. I say somewhat late because, although he came in in 1941, these inquiries were set on foot only last November. I am pleased that he has reconstituted the council and varied the terms of reference. I congratulate him on the fact that the council has got going, but surely their work ought to be continuous. Surely the whole field needs fertilising with the best experiments. Who can say that that has been done? I am not blaming the existing Government, but I say that we must get to the bottom of the criticisms which are so often made against Scottish education. There is a Minister of Education for New Zealand, and we must have one for Scotland. We have just under 1000,000 children, and it must be one person's responsibility to be concerned with their health, education, training and employment.
  To-day we hear that the Minister of Labour is telling boys of 16 and 17 that they have to go down to the mines. What has been done about the Forster Report? Practically nothing. That Report has been out for some time. There is no entrance-plan into the mining industry or into the cotton industry. There is little planned entrance into any industry unless it is of a highly skilled nature.
  Nobody is happy about the 35 education authorities. There is 100 per cent. grant for school meals, and if you want an A.T.C. or engineer cadets there is a 200 per cent. grant. The Scottish Educational Institute goes right through with it and the logic of the thing is an educational commission for Scotland. I do not want to be taken as supporting in every detail of a national commission for Scotland and local advisory committees in various areas and districts, but I say that it is all humbug, whether it is Scotland or England, to talk about equality of opportunity when the chances of secondary education in one county are quite different from those in another. It is fundamentally a question of finance, and it is no good urging local authorities to do better. They are up against it. They have low rates. I do not think education should depend on the rating of buildings. It is a national responsibility and we have Vo work out some method of combining local interest
  972
  in the school—and there are a good many ways of doing that—with national financial responsibility.
  Why are not teachers going into the profession? Why should they go? I have letters from headmasters and rectors of academies, and they tell me why. The reason, first, is because the profession is badly paid, and, second, because they cannot call their souls their own. A headmaster in Scotland, as far as I know the schools, cannot appoint his own assistant masters, although he may help. He is not running his own ship. As long as you have teachers dependent for their jobs on political considerations and on county and city councillors, you will not get people coming back from Tunisia to go into education. Why should they? The hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. G. A. Morrison), who knows more about it than most of us, is perfectly right. Teachers are willing to be judged by informed people, but there is no reason why they should be judged by some of the education committees as they are constituted to-day. People talk of democracy as if it were a denial of democracy to say that the teacher should not be appointed by somebody who knows nothing about their subject. We have to work out a new technique for making democracy work, and there are many ways of doing it. There is the technique of a good governing body and a good management committee. I could take my right hon. Friend to places in my constituency where youth organisations have started during the war. Seven or eight people have created a new interest. In the Sea Cadets, for instance, there are 150 boys with six officers, and a year ago there were none. All that has been created by the people themselves. The men who serve on the management committee are ordinary folk who have taken especial interest in a specific unit.
  People who are sitting on huge education authorities dealing with sanitation and a whole series of other questions are not necessarily the right people to be in control of schools. I would not hand over secondary schools, as far as I had any responsibility, to the present education authorities as they are constituted. We would be handing over something far too precious. A school is a spiritual community, and thank heaven there are still a few schools left which have a life of their own. I want to see private schools

  973
  inspected, but I want to see something of the spirit which still remains where a headmaster can call his soul his own and choose his staff and build up something which is distinctive and characteristic not only of himself but of the area in which he is living. I would like to see every headmaster given a small financial float so that he can use it for experiments. Why is it that the vice-chairman of my right hon. Friend's Advisory Council says that it is a pretty poor thing that there have been no residential boarding schools in Scotland? Why does he have to say this now? Because there was no machinery before to say whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. We have the 35 education authorities but very little new experiments going on. I made careful inquiries in the last six months to find out how much experimenting is going on. The system has become rigid. It is examination ridden.
  I suggest, therefore, not only from the point of view of Government but from the point of view of creating diversity of opportunity, that we ought to get back to a simpler curriculum, back to the three R's if you like. Old people I know in Scotland who left school at 14 seem to me to be better educated than a good many people who are leaving to-day. They seem to have a greater grasp of literature. Why is it? Apparently because they read a few books and knew them thoroughly, especially between the years 14 and r5. Why do not boys go, to the continuation classes in English and arithmetic? They go in for plumbing, engineering, painting, sign-writing, typing and shorthand because these are things related to the life they know. For the same reason a boy will cycle four miles to do an arithmetic test in order to get into the A.T.C., because he knows that there is a specific object in front of him. They do not go to continuation classes which are dull places, taught by tired teachers, and the pupils themselves are often tired.
  I do not agree with the remarks in this document about registration. I do not believe for a moment that registration in Scotland increased the number in youth organisations by 20 per cent. There is no sort of proof of it. I will tell the Committee what happened in Kilmarnock. As soon as they knew it was voluntary the second G.T.C. dropped out. That happened in many other cases. The registration was useful in focusing attention
  974
  especially on long hours. The time has long gone when it ought to be stopped. It is taking up an enormous amount of time of harassed and over-worked officials and of people on committees.
  The problem is serious. There are 360,000 young people between 14 and 18 in Scotland, and 200,000 of them are untouched, in spite of what the Secretary of State said, by any organisation. They are turned out at the age when many of the people in this House began their education. Fifty per cent. work on machines and they have machine-made leisure. They do not want preaching. They want concrete opportunities to do things. I know that this is true because I have proved it. We started forestry camps in England and Scotland for boys who are in work and at school, and there are 20,000 applications in an office not far from here for only 5,000 vacancies. If you give them the concrete things which appeal to their imagination and sense of service, citizenship will be a byproduct. You cannot teach it. I plead with my right hon. Friend and the Under-Secretary, who knows a lot about this, to take this problem of the adolescent a little more seriously, and face the problem of the entrance into industry. Have we really come to the time when we can apply pre-service to the air and the sea and cannot apply it to cotton or mining or agriculture? There is no ladder by which a boy can get into agriculture. We have young farmers' clubs in my constituency, but there is nothing else. Pre-service to the Merchant Navy is only just being worked out. We ought, because we are living in a machine age, to have pre-service training for every industry. That will begin to bring a purpose into education.
  That is why I suggest that the Secretary of State ought to consider something else besides cooking and citizenship—I know he has taken a lot of trouble over those—consider whether it is possible to go on with this old philosophy in Scottish education. We teach boys that the object of life is to get on, and it has worked, up to a point, for many hundreds of years, but they go out into a world where everybody cannot get on. That is why I interrupted my hon. Friend who sits for one of the Lothians, who seemed to think it was wrong to have a first-class Civil Service, because I had thought that was one of the improvements in the Scottish

  975
  Civil Service in the last 10 years, and that it was quite wrong to have a differential age at which you move into industry, though at the same time he was not prepared to put forward a scheme of training. My right hon. Friend cannot have day continuation schools to-morrow. You cannot raise the school-leaving age until three years after the war with no proper buildings and teachers. I am not talking about a never-never world, I am not referring to a time when we shall have the school-leaving at r6 and continuation schools and I suggest that my right hon. Friend will have to go very much further and see that there is much greater provision made for organisers and leaders and buildings and the rest. We must bring this matter home to the Scottish people if we are during the next five years to raise a generation which is capable of living and enjoying the postwar world.
  Mr. Maxton: I have been interested in the Debate which we are having to-day. It has raised a whole lot of subjects which have been controversial, and porridge is one of the things I should like to be controversial about. I think porridge is just one of the greatest swindles that was ever worked on an innocent and unsuspecting people. I do not think that porridge has any great food value. It supplies what the animal nutrition people call "bulk," but as food it is just no use at all. [Interruption.] Milk is good if it is taken apart from porridge. But it is a characteristic of the Scottish people to tend to deify the things they must just put up with. It was the only foodstuff in old Scotland which we had in any quantity, and it had this great advantage, that you could put it in a great big pot and, by the addition of a little extra, water, spread it out as the family increased. But porridge was rather a byproduct of the Debate, and I am inclined to agree with the hon. Member for Spring-burn (Mrs. Hardie) that there is an attempt to adulate domestic science as a subject for school education. There is a right hon. Gentleman who sits on that Front Bench who was for a period a member of the War Cabinet and Leader of the House. I do not want to misrepresent him in any way, but I understand that he holds the view that it is absolutely wrong to cook food, and that he himself has lived his life for a good number of years
  976
  and played a distinguished part in the political life of this country without having eaten any cooked food. He takes a handful of cabbage.
  The Temporary Chairman (Sir Douglas Thomson): I think the hon. Member might confine himself more directly to the terms of the Vote.
  Mr. Maxton: I do not think you were in the Chair, Sir Douglas, when the Secretary of State made his opening speech, in which he made a plea, which is also found in the Annual Report, for the extension of cookery instruction as a school subject, and if the best opinion on dietetics on the Front Bench believes that it is best to have uncooked food, it seems rather a waste of Scottish educational time to be teaching our girls cookery. I want to take up also a controversial point that was made by the hon. and gallant Member for East Renfrew (Major Lloyd), who has the honour of representing me in this House. As one would expect, he made a strong plea for more time to be spent on religious instruction in schools, and said we should ensure that every teacher should be a most enthusiastic Christian. In an interruption I asked him how he would ensure that. I hope he is not suggesting that we should start religious tests for our teachers in Scottish schools. I think we are too easy-going and haphazard about insistence on religions instruction in schools. I would be the last to say that children should not be taught to think about the origins of the universe in which they live. I would be the last to suggest that they should not ponder over the eternal verities. I would be the last to suggest that they should not try to peer into the future and try to find out what is the meaning of it all. I would be the last to deny that there is a great value in children knowing the Christian ethics and in making a bigger effort to lead their lives in accordance with these ethics than their parents and grandparents did. But I think we are very, very casual about the teaching of religion in schools.
  I can remember when I went to my first job as a certificated teacher. I had come fresh from the university and from a course in moral philosophy under a very distinguished professor. I think the Secretary of State had the advantage of that same professor's teaching. I went

  977
  to an appointment in an elementary school on the South side of Glasgow, and I was handed the curriculum of religious instruction. Part of that religious instruction was the Shorter Catechism. One of the earliest questions in the Shorter Catechism is "What is God?" No, it is not the first question. It was a long time ago, but I think the first question is "What is the chief end of man?" and the answer is this:
  "God is a Spirit,"—
  if I make a slip hon. Members must forgive me—
  "infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, in His wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth."
  I, according to the best conceptions of Scottish Presbyterianism, which wants understanding as well as faith, was expected to see that children of the tender age of II got a grip of these big, fundamental, philosophic ideas. And I could remember that I had listened to 20 lectures by Professor Henry Jones explaining what was the meaning of the infinite. I had read Plato's Republic. I had read Arthur Balfour's "Foundations of Belief." Well, as the right hon. Gentleman will remember, it was one of the standard works in the school of philosophy in Glasgow University. I had read Green's "Prolegomena to Ethics." And still I was completely vague about the meaning of half the terms of that one question and answer in the Shorter Catechism, yet I was supposed to give an understanding and an intelligent grip of it to children of it years of age. I say that is a psychological atrocity, and I think the educationists of Scotland and the Christians of Scotland should consider whether they cannot convey their religious ideas and their ethical ideas and their methods of forming character by means which are more psychologically appropriate to the age of the youngsters than are presently adopted.
  Mr. McKie: Only a fortnight ago a parish minister was deploring the fact that the Shorter Catechism was not now taught in the Sunday schools, apart altogether from the religious curriculum in the ordinary schools, and deploring it from the angle that he had now nothing to which to anchor the religious teaching of young children. I do not make this as a hostile interruption,
  978
  but as a point of interest in view of what the hon. Member has been saying.
  Mr. Maxton: May I ask if the minister concerned is the hon. Member's own spiritual adviser?
  Mr. McKie: Yes, certainly.
  Mr. Maxton: Well, I can understand him deploring it. I am not challenging the statement that that was the view of the parish minister in an important parish in Scotland; indeed, I am prepared to believe that it is the accepted view of the majority of the church-going people in Scotland, and I ought perhaps to have made it plain that in raising this issue I am speaking only for myself as an individual and not even for my two most intimate colleagues in the Committee, who in this matter have complete liberty of conscience. But I have had this on my mind as one who has been a teacher, and who tried to be a conscientious teacher, tried to do the best for the youngsters who were put in front of him; and it is not right that we in this Committee, the Secretary of State for Scotland or the education authorities more intimately directing the operations of teachers, should ask them to do things with children's minds that are psychologically wrong. I will tell the Committee something else that ought to appear in the religious curriculum, and that is that children should be taught to understand that the total number of Christians in this world is a minority of the total population of the world. They should learn that in this narrow and shrinking world they will have to live with Mohammedans, Hindus, Confucians and all sorts of people with different religions, all believing in their own particular explanation of the universe just as keenly as, and perhaps more keenly than, the Christians.
  I will leave that subject, and will now turn to another. I was very angry when I real one paragraph in the Report of the Educational Institute of Scotland, I have a tremendous appreciation of the work done by the Institute in regard to Scottish education, and I had an association with the Institute upon which I look back with very great pleasure and satisfaction, but I must say that the suggestion that educationists confronted with the problem of parental neglect should rush to the policeman to deal with it arouses

  979
  my strongest antipathies, as an educationist. Of all the crimes of which the human being is capable, cruelty to and ill-treatment of children is that which I find most revolting. I sat upon an education committee in Glasgow for about five years before coming to this House, and I was on the sub-committee responsible for recommending cases for prosecution. It covered a difficult area in the city of Glasgw, but only once in the whole of that period did I find a case in which the parent was not, in my view, more sinned against than sinning.
  I have visited many homes in my constituency where women were making a gallant fight against verminous conditions, a fight which took energy and forethought and which meant failure, effort, failure and effort again. I recently heard about one of our transports that took a very distinguished party from this country across the Atlantic. Unfortunately, it had become bug infested, and before the distinguished party went on board there had been time to cleanse adequately only that part which was to be occupied by the most distinguished traveller of the lot. I understand that the other members of the party carried on an unending but losing battle. They were, however, able to get ashore and find proper facilities for cleansing themselves, but in a Bridgeton slum, or in Edinburgh or in Dundee, where the very walls of the houses are the breeding ground for vermin, the difficulty of cleansing the houses and the children is almost insuperable. Investigation and inquiry into the reasons for the neglectful parent produces in nearly every case a "Not guilty" verdict on behalf of the parent. When one gets down to the case of the woman who has lost heart, or has lost physique or has lost hope, even there the remedies are educational and not penal or criminal.
  I am strongly in favour of the development of far more adult education than is presently available. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Lindsay) is very enthusiastic about the education of the adolescent. When I read about this war being a war for freedom and so on I have a feeling that somebody will have to write a new book on freedom to take the place of Mill. When I listen to the arrangements for maternity, childbirth, nursery schools, elementary schools, post-
  980
  elementary schools, compulsory continuation schools and registration for this, that and the other, right through our whole human life, I begin to wonder whether we might be able to slip in a wee bit of freedom, where somebody will not be running us. I take my share of responsibility, and I make this confession, that I do not see how to avoid a whole lot of it, in a capitalist world.
  My conception of a Socialist system of society does not mean that we shall be run from the time we are born to the time we die. Socialism means nothing to me if it does not mean that a human being becomes master of his own destiny without being run by a State machine or any other machine.
  Mr. MacLaren: That is sound anarchism.
  Mr. Maxton: Even if it has an objectionable name, I still state it as my faith. When I listen to some of these Debates I often think that before we come into them, in this English atmosphere within the four walls of Westminster, surrounded by the products of the English public schools and English universities and conscious of our own cultural, intellectual and social inferiority, we might read some of the real works on Scots education which give the spirit of Scots education, as distinct from the machinery of it. It would be a good think if some of us went back and re-read Hugh Miller's "My Schools and Schoolmasters," or Robert Louis Stevenson's "Virginibus Puerisque" and in particular "An Apology for Idlers." Hon. Members might read one or two of the better-known poems of Burns. They would remember that Scottish education has ideals and some sort of an idea of an independent-minded man of character and courage, prepared to face the world and not recognise anyone as his master or superior—or to put it in the common language, "Jack is as good as his master, and a damned sight better." In our reports and in our various schemes would like to see a development of that spirit, which I believe to be the true spirit of our Scots education, and I should like it to find its expression in the elementary schools, the secondary schools and our university teaching. We should be confident and bold about our own conception of Scots education, and we should not attempt to make it a cheap

  981
  imitation of the educational systems that happen to lie in England.
  I am saying that we should like to see a great development of the adult educational facilities. Some hon. Members may know that my party, the Independent Labour Party, have for over 30 years run a summer school for one fortnight a year. We have organised a ourselves, and we invite lecturers of all sorts and kinds. We bring there our active keen young members from all parts of the country—South Wales, Northumberland, Durham, Edinburgh, Swansea and Cardiff—150 or so. They come together to share a communal life and enter into controversies. They hear ideas from people whose life and political conceptions are different from their own, and they react on one another's minds. They make new contacts and acquire new understanding of other people and how other people live. That phase of educational life should be greatly developed. The co-operative societies are now doing it to a considerable extent, and I believe that some of the trade unions have also done it; but there is a lack in Scotland of accommodation for doing that sort of thing.
  I should like the Under-Secretary of State to take notice of this point. In England it is possible to get schools—residential schools, colleges and so on—in the holiday period. A number of those authorities are ready to rent their schools to voluntary bodies, but in Scotland there are practically no residential schools and colleges, so there are no such places available. The right hon. Gentleman should consider whether he cannot do something in connection with the development of education to provide such accommodation for adult holiday schools of all sorts and conditions of people, to be run by the people themselves, the educational curriculum, staffing and all the rest of it to be run by the people themselves during the fortnight or week or month during which they are in control, the Scottish Office or the education authorities taking no responsibility except for the provision of suitable buildings, suitable grounds, etc.
  I wish to put a relatively minor point before I conclude. During the course of the year I, as the Under-Secretary knows, became very interested in the scheme for the selection of young fellows from Scottish schools organised by the Ministry of
  982
  Labour to provide engineering cadetships and to arrange for the education of the cadets when the cadetship was granted to them. My attention was directed to it by a parent in my constituency whose son had been rejected for one of these cadetships, and, the father thought, rejected unfairly. Most fathers think that about their offsprings, and I did not take that too seriously until I examined the young fellow's credentials. I am satisfied in my own mind as an old teacher who has conducted examinations of one kind or another that this boy who was rejected was just as highly qualified physically and mentally for the cadetship as anyone who was there. Those responsible for making the selection have the tremendous task of rejecting five out of every six applicants. When one looked at the list I, personally, could not see that there was any very noticeable prejudice in favour of one particular class of school as against another or any prejudice against one particular district as against any other particular district, because the successful candidates were distributed fairly reasonably over Scotland.
  I understand that the Scottish Education Department was interested in the selection. I am interested in this, because I think that more and more we shall require in the future to have ways of picking out people for important public services of one kind and another. That has got to be done by something other than merely a competitive examination on paper. The selection board on this matter was, I understand, composed of a representative of the Ministry of Labour, representatives of the Services and one representative of the Scottish Education Department. I think that these educational representatives in Scotland and in England should be asked to give a report as to how their selection examination was conducted, and what was the procedure and in what ways they think the procedure can be improved upon for future occasions. I personally would like to hear from the Secretary of State or the Under-Secretary of State something about what knowledge and experience they have gained by conducting these examinations.
  There is one other little thing I want to refer to, also an individual case. I was asked by a publisher in the City of Glasgow who is producing some first-class work in the way of school books, same really

  983
  excellent work of superior quality in which there are intelligence and artistry and psychological knowledge, whether he could get some more paper for publishing school books. I approached the Under-Secretary of State and received an answer from the Department to the effect that they could not give favours to one school book publisher as against another. I accept that as being probably the only way in which a Department could work, except that I think they could express an opinion in favour of one type of book rather than another. They could say, "This is the type of book we want." But I got the impression further that the Education Department has not concerned itself as to whether adequate supplies of paper are available in Scotland to keep a decent supply of school books running. I think they ought to face up to the Board of Trade in this matter, just as I think they ought to face up to the Services in the matter of the return of schools.
  As the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for East Renfrew said, there is no excuse now four years after the outbreak of war for places like Jordanhill Training College, for instance, being occupied by the Forces of the Crown and the ordinary educational work stopped. I think that the right hon. Gentleman is now entitled to say, "We have recognised your war exigencies. We have recognised the need for improvising, but the needs of education are paramount to the future of this nation, and they must no longer be put in a backward place among the priorities of the public needs." I also ought to add that there is one other thing in which I think that the Scottish Office has been too facile in relation to the Services, and that is in the matter of the supply of teachers. I think it is stupid, and a waste of public money, to have a girl or young fellow do half their training in a training college and then be hauled away into the Services, or to scrub floors in a barrack room or to make munitions in some place. Supposing that the needs of the nation were so urgent that these people have ultimately to be taken, they should certainly be allowed to finish their training, and that should be put up very carefully to the Minister of Labour. The Minister of Labour is a very good friend of mine, but I would never regard him for one moment as one of the education-
  984
  ists of this country. I think that the Scottish Office should make a stand on this and get the Board of Education in England to associate themselves with the demand.
  Mr. Francis Watt: When I listened to the very refreshing speech of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) I felt more than ever inclined to think that the old days were not necessarily bad days when our teachers were equipped for giving religious instruction to the pupils, by studying the lectures of Professor Henry Jones and the "Republic" of Plato and having also found time to read a book by Arthur Balfour. I think the gain to Parliament was a great loss to the teaching profession when he came here. The future of education seems to fall into two compartments, one which I might call the welfare of the children, the second, education in the sense of teaching them. So far as welfare is concerned, I do not intend to say anything to the Committee, because it must be clear to all of us that you cannot educate a child, you cannot expect it to absorb learning, unless the child comes to school adequately fed and clothed. Therefore on that matter all I wish to say is that the right hon. Gentleman is entirely on the right lines in his programme of developing the feeding and clothing of necessitous children.
  But I would venture to say a few things on the subject of education. First of all, I wish to say that it is no good our being complacent on the subject of Scottish education. Judged by results, it is extremely bad and does not justify the expenditure which is being made upon it. When you find, the school age having been extended to 15, that of all the messenger boys that come to the house there is not a single one who can spell potato, whereas my housekeeper who left school when she was barely 14 could always do that, what is the progress of all those years if such a simple standard cannot be attained? The answer is, I think, that we are attempting to do too much. We have too great a width of subjects. We are trying to pump far too much into the children and are not specialising in the essential things that matter. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Lindsay) deplored the lack of concentration on the three R's. They are just as essential to-day as they were 30, 40 or 50 years ago. I am repeatedly meeting business men who tell me that

  985
  candidates for posts as typists cannot spell and compose proper letters. You are not going to get on in business, however much you know about botany and have dabbled in elementary science and chemistry, unless you can put your thoughts on paper and add up figures.
  I think the main trouble is that education has got into the hands of the wrong people. It has become, not what it ought to be, a means to an end, but it is being viewed almost as though it was in itself the complete consummation. Take our system. You have the teachers in the schools and the directors of education. All of them are concerned with education purely and simply; they have never gone into the wide world or had anything to do with business. Their aim is to get someone who can pass an examination in a wide variety of subjects. They seem to forget that what the business community wants is not someone who has had a smattering of a great many things, but someone who can do particularly well those things that matter.
  When, as we are told, Scottish education is reorganised as part of our postwar effort, some degree of common sense ought to be applied in that reorganisation. We shall face keen competition. We are hoping for a very much better world. We are hoping to be able to be prosperous to pay good wages and to float the Beveridge scheme, from which a lot of people are hoping to live on what somebody else makes. It that scheme is to be launched, we shall have to bring trade to the country. If we have a lot of amateur scientists and botanists who cannot read and write properly, we have no chance against foreigners who devote themselves to their job and do it properly. Our first test in post-war reconstruction of education is: Are the people who are being educated capable of performing the ordinary duties which they will be called upon to do in their trade or vocation, or are they not? Again, once you have got that, you must have a system of technical education for those who desire to specialise. I note with interest a speech in which it was pointed out that technical education in this country had not been developed as it ought to be. That is a matter which will call for greater concentration in the future.
  I never profess to be an educationist myself. I simply speak as an ordinary citizen. I speak, however, having
  986
  seen the products of modern education and having not been impressed. I judge by results. I do not need to go to school and see how many pupils pass this particular leaving certificate or the next leaving certificate. The test to my mind is, when they are confronted with some post in life where they are asked to do a job of work, can they do it? Have they the necessary intelligence and efficiency? If you have a lot of theorists and unpractical people controlling education, as we have to-day and have had for far too long, you will not get the pupils developing as they should.
  Mr. Cove: Did the hon. Member go to school at all?
  Mr. Watt: I venture to say that I went to school with far more success than my hon. Friend did; otherwise, he would share the views that I am expressing. I am going to suggest one or two remedies. They may not commend themselves to my progressive friends on the other side, but I venture to say that they are entirely practical. The teaching profession has developed into a sort of Civil Service, in which the incompetent person is paid as much as the competent. There is no incentive to get on. Bonuses are paid on account of university degrees. Anyone with experience of teaching will tell you that the possession of a university degree is not the slightest criterion of ability to put the knowledge over. Anyone who has gone to a university will tell you that anyone can get a degree. The test is whether the knowledge can be imparted to the pupil. In the old days, before the 1918 Act, teachers unquestionably were far too poorly paid, but I think that when we altered that we were too much inclined to get a flat rate and to develop a system which did not reward initiative enough or give the brilliant teacher full scope. That is one of the chief reasons why you have a shortage of teachers. There is no attraction for anyone with more than the average amount of brains to get into a profession when someone else who is no use at all will get the same financial reward as he gets. Unless you revolutionise that and give bigger salaries for teachers who get results and smaller salaries for those who do not, you will not get the results you desire.
  Mr. Cove: The academic results the hon. Member displays?
  Mr. Watt: I have already touched upon the fact that we are attempting in a limited space of time to teach far too many subjects. It may be that one or two brilliant pupils can absorb that wide variety of subjects. One meets special pupils who one realises have benefited. But you have to consider that the strength of a chain lies in its weakest link. You have to cater not for the small number of brilliant pupils, but for the big number of average pupils and the smaller number of backward pupils. The pupil has to pass out with a working knowledge of those subjects which are essential. Do not look at it from the point of view that a small number of brilliant students can swallow this wide variety of subjects and come out with high marks. I have always advocated that, within reasonable limits, there should be a chance to progress. I have always felt that we might develop the bursary system in schools. Many young men or women could go further with financial backing. In any event, we should avoid trying to produce a sort of dead level of pupils, churned through the machine with a wide variety of subjects which they only half understand, and then thrown out in a half-baked condition into the labour market. I have made calculations from time to time to see whether our increased school age has any practical bearing on the question of education. I find that, because of the immensely increased number of holidays in schools to-day, you need to keep a pupil at school to the age of 15 in order that he may attain the same standard that was reached 20 or 30 years ago at the age of 14.
  Mr. McKinlay: They do not get more holidays now than the schools did 20 or 30 years ago.
  Mr. Watt: I must disagree. Before 1914 the holidays were fewer. I remember going on Saturday mornings, and no pupil goes on Saturday mornings now. There is no reason why they should not do so. The holidays are not for the benefit of the pupils, but for the benefit of the overworked teachers. In the old days, when the teachers could not go to Harrogate to recuperate, they nevertheless did a better job of work than they do today. The teachers of this country need a little prodding, with financial encouragement if they do well. Do not leave everybody on the same level, as happens under the trade union system,
  988
  so that the duds get the same treatment as the efficient ones.
  Mr. Stephen: What was the school to which the hon. Member went 30 years ago, where he went on a Saturday? The only pupils I have heard of going to elementary schools on a Saturday are some of the backward pupils.
  Mr. Watt: I am sorry to hear that the pupils at the Glasgow schools were so backward. That, I suppose, is why my hon. Friend sits for a Glasgow seat. He would not have been so backward if he had gone on Saturdays. Our education may be good according to certain standards, but it is not nearly so good as it ought to be. The ratepayers are not getting value for their money, nor are the teachers or the parents getting value for the time that is being spent.
  The question of juvenile delinquency has been raised. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock professed to be puzzled at the growth of juvenile delinquency. I speak from nearly 20 years' experience in the courts, where I have acted in both juvenile and in other cases. No one need be puzzled. You have two classes of criminals, those who are born criminals and those who are created criminals by environment. There are people who may be regarded as hopeless criminals, with whom you can do nothing, but there are others for whom there is always hope. If you keep them away from criminal associates you will keep them from developing into criminals themselves. This increase in juvenile delinquency is not solely due to the war. The amount of juvenile crime was rising rapidly before the war began. A Bill was brought into this House to organise the treatment of juvenile offenders on a different basis. The Bill did not pass. I think it was a very good thing that it did not, because I think the Bill proceeded on a wrong basis. Let us first take the case of the juvenile who is criminally inclined. With youngsters of that kind, there is only one answer: a punishment which will discourage them from crime again.
  I have spoken to several sheriffs in Glasgow about this matter, and they tell me that they regard our juvenile courts as a farce. Children are brought before those courts with a great amount of formality. The courts can do little with them. I remember waiting to, take part

  989
  in some proceedings before a sheriff, and watching juvenile proceedings for an hour. The sheriff said to me afterwards, "What that boy needed was a real good thrashing, but I could not give it." The boy was put on probation. He would say to his companions, "I got away with it that time; and you will get away with it, too." The boys get the impression that nothing can be done with them. Some of the boys are unruly because their parents take no interest in them, but if the courts dealt with them properly they would not be so often before the courts. On the other hand, if they got a more salutary punishment in school that would also cure them. Instead of being kept in school and made to write out something so many times, they should get a severe corporal punishment. That was the treatment that was thought from generation to generation to be appropriate, but in this wise period some progressive people think that what our ancestors did was wrong, and that you must not lay a rod upon the child; explain to him the evil of his ways and educate him, and he will be all right. We have been trying that for years, and the answer is that juvenile crime is on the increase. Speaking, I venture to say, with no lack of humanity, but with knowledge of juvenile offenders, acquired both in prosecuting and in defending, I say that people who think that way are making a great mistake. The time to start with a criminal offender is when he is young. Do not wait until he has got hardened. If you have a boy who is merely mischievous, as all boys are inclined to be, differentiate between him and the other sort. Your treatment of the boy when he is young may have a great effect afterwards, but do not let him think that he can do that sort of thing with impunity. Firmness is essential. I think that the parents must be brought to a greater sense of responsibility: there has been a falling off in parental responsibility. But if the parents will not punish, the State must.
  Whatever the State does, let that punishment be adequate, let it be proper. That matter is one of crucial importance. The child of to-day will be the citizen 10, 15 or 20 years hence, and the treatment of the juvenile in the matter of delinquency is just as important as the education of the juvenile in school. I am all against the sending of a juvenile to what are known as approved schools. They used to be called reformatory schools, but as
  990
  we got more civilised we did not like the word "reformatory" and called them approved schools. The first term had some meaning; the second has none, but that is just by the way. In nine cases out of 10—and I have come across a few cases—you may send a child who has no criminal tendencies to one of these schools and you may be very nearly certain that when he comes out he will have these tendencies because he associates with that small core of criminals.
  The problem has puzzled all authorities in Scotland, and there is a great divergence of opinion about it, but when we are considering our system after the war it is a matter we cannot leave out of consideration. It is difficult to segregate one class of children from another, but it is easy to seek out these children who are mischievous from those who are criminal, and develop them on right lines. If you train them under the present system you will be storing up trouble for the future. It is said that education is a very important subject, and with that I entirely agree. This nation is going to face far and away the most difficult time it has probably ever had to face. When the present generation ceases to bear the burden, it will fall upon the next. It is our duty and our obligation to see that that succeeding generation gets every chance that we can give it. I for my part do not wish a single remark I make to be taken as meaning in the slightest degree that I wish education to be stinted—far from it—but I feel that we are not proceeding on proper and businesslike lines, and I urge the right hon. Gentleman to use every effort to see that Scottish education in the future is more practical than it has been in the past.
  Mr. McNeil: I never speak in this House or Committee without a fair amount of nervousness. In the last Scottish Debate I found myself following the hon. Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. F. Watt), and I find in addition to my nervousness something almost akin to anger. I cannot understand how any Member with the training and opportunities of a profession such as the hon. Member has had can commit himself to such propositions as he has to-day. I made a note of some of the phrases he used in relation to education. He said that neither the State nor the parents were getting value for their money, and he told us that the labour market was not being suited by the type of people. He talked with rather

  991
  a lack of logic, and said that because his housekeeper could spell "potato" and no messenger boy could spell "potato" we were mis-spending ourselves in teaching geography and history. The only person who is not considered in the hon. Member's examination is the pupil. He finished as he began by talking of what gain we could get. He assured the Scottish Secretary that in dealing with juvenile delinquency the problem is simple. I am sure that the Scottish Secretary will be delighted to hear that. Indeed psychologists and educationalists who have concerned themselves with this problem intensively for 100 years will be delighted that this wisdom has newly arrived and that this intricate problem is so simply solved. And apparently it is going to be solved on the one hand by waving the cat o' nine tails and on the other hand by locking up for ever and a day these people who he thinks ought to be described as hopeless criminals. What is a boy or girl with criminal inclinations? Surely that means, in the light of modern research, one of two things: either the child is feeble-minded or is suffering from social maladjustment which it may be very difficult to treat. But surely phrases like "hopeless criminals" and "value for your money in education" disappeared in the middle of the last century. I believe that the Scottish Secretary and the right hon. associate are not completely dependent upon advice of that kind.
  I do not want it to be thought for a moment that I am not as concerned as the hon. Member at some of the figures that have been placed before us to-day by my right hon. Friend the Scottish Secretary. The juvenile delinquency figures are startling, but I humbly suggest that you cannot expect to assess the situation finally by saying that in the current year the figures for guilty findings has been up by 800 in Scotland and dawn by 8,000 in England. I would not attempt to argue that these figures do not display a tendency, but there are many other factors. Unless we can analyse these figures, we do not know whether we are talking about the same thing in Scotland as in England; neither can we unless we are satisfied that housing is approximately equal and that the area of parental control is approximately equal in the two countries. There is rather more to be said on the subject than that, and I rather feel that where we
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  shall have to tackle the job positively is in our schools, and I hope to come back to that.
  Similarly, I would not like to be as pessimistic about the figures offered to us on scabies by the Scottish Secretary. With him, I welcome most eagerly the exertions which Glasgow is making in the hygiene education both of the child and of the parent in the seven selected schools, and, like him, I do not pretend to say that all parents are angels and that there can be nothing wrong there. There in undoubtedly a proportion of parents who seem unable to adopt ordinary methods of hygiene approximating to the possibilities of their particular homes towards their children. That can only be done, first of all, by having knowledge and, secondly, by being possessed of the will to exert themselves towards their children in that education. If Glasgow or any other municipality can illustrate and practise that lesson, they will be doing a very great service. We should expect in time of war that such conditions as scabies will continue to increase because we have in most of the schools gross overcrowding and a continued deterioration of housing. Overcrowding both in house and school will be one of the biggest single factors contributing to this condition.
  Thirdly, the Scottish Secretary, on the brighter side, gave us a reassuring picture of the improving health and nutrition of our school children, and I warmly congratulate him and those people who produce these figures and hope that this tendency can be continued and developed. When my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) was speaking on Friday and again to-day he reminded me of a figure of speech which he used. When talking about the trend of population, he said he objected to people being treated as if they were Ayrshire pedigree cattle, and he illustrated the same aspect of mind again to-day. We might say that when the Scottish Secretary had examined these conditions affecting physical status he almost dismissed the education problem as if these children were some fat cattle that we were feeding for market. We cannot be satisfied because they were well fed and because in some areas slight attempts had been made to accelerate the high degree of cleanliness. I am not suggesting that that is the viewpoint of

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  the Secretary of State, but many of us were a little disappointed that he to-day spent comparatively such a short time in telling us how he means to attack his post-war problem which, with the hon. Lady the Member for Springburn (Mrs. Hardie), I hope he will still be there to tackle.
  These problems, as hon. Members have indicated, broadly fall into three groups. We have, first of all, the question of accommodation, and I was very glad that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Renfrew (Major Lloyd) and my lion. Friend the Member for Bridgeton emphasised this point; that the Scottish Secretary is having intolerable difficulties put in his way particularly by the Services in their use of premises. In my own division there are three schools which are out of commission owing to Service use. The Scottish Secretary has received a petition from over 600 parents relating to one school which has been out of use since the beginning of the war. There is another school—and I must make it plain that my right hon. Friend has been interesting himself—where an annexe has been taken over by one of the Service Ministries, and the Service Ministry is apparently prepared to stand aside and let the right hon. Gentleman construct hutments for children while the school annexe is to remain within the Services. This is really the wrong way to tackle it. If he can get the labour and material to build the hutments, the labour is there within the Service, and the materials can be more easily got. They should build the hutments for themselves and set free the school. No one attempts to minimise the difficulties my right hon. Friend will have to face in his post-war building programme, but I think they are secondary to the problem he will have in finding sufficient teaching personnel for the improvements which have been outlined in the White Paper. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Renfrew suggested 5,000 as the number which would be needed to raise the school age to 15.
  Major Lloyd: An additional 5,000.
  Mr. McNeil: Yes, an additional 5,000 which with the present shortage would give us something like ro,000 as the total needed if the war ends next year. My own estimate is greater. I am told that the Board of Education calculated their
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  needs, as outlined in the White Paper, as 60,000 additional teachers, which would give Scotland proportionately 8,250 which, with this accumulating deficit, would give us 13,250. Where are they coming from? On the 1938 basis which is disclosed in the current summary of Scottish education we cannot get more than 2,000 a year. Another way of saying that is that unless my right hon. Friend has something within his control which does not seem to be within his control at present, it will be at least seven years after the cessation of hostilities or perhaps 10 years before we can raise the school-leaving age to 15 and reduce classes to the size recommended in the White Paper. My hon. Friend the Member for Spring-burn said that there was some window-dressing in the White Paper. That is a gross under-statement. Unless there are some undisclosed facts, the White Paper is a piece of ballyhoo. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend did not find time for the opportunity to address himself to this problem, for I cannot believe that he would expect the Committee to be assured without further examination and Debate of the problem. Even if he can find the personnel we know that our difficulties are only just beginning. Here let me say that we are very confident that in the present Secretary of State we have a man of optimistic vision to attack the educational problems that will exist, apart from the physical problems.
  I wonder whether my right hon. Friend, in looking at his delinquency nightmares, has considered the White Paper on youth registration which was issued in May of this year and to which he himself is a signatory. I suppose it is known to most Members that almost since the Reformation we in Scotland have prided ourselves on the fact that we have been in the van of education in Europe and certainly well in front of our English friends.
  Mr. McLaren: Before the Reformation.
  The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Clarks Williams): I am sorry to interrupt, but I think I heard the word, "Reformation," which is not mentioned in these Estimates.
  Mr. McNeil: My right hon. Friend the Minister went back to 1750 and, I think, introduced the Plantagenets, so it is a little difficult for us not to follow his example.
  The Deputy-Chairman: I have no objection whatever to an illustration, but I cannot allow such an illustration to be debated.
  Mr. McNeil: I would not like to argue on such a matter with my hon. Friend the Member for Burslem (Mr. MacLaren). I was merely trying to make the point that we have done a little bragging about our educational system. Our local authorities interviewed lately 83,000 youths and adolescents. The interviewers concluded that of the unattached youths the five main leisure occupations of these boys and girls were, in this order: The cinema, dance halls, billiard saloons, the company of the opposite sex, and hanging about waiting for some opportunity of contact with the other four. That is the most devastating criticism ever delivered about our educational system I have ever seen in any White Paper. If it is true, it is a miracle that our delinquency figures are not so high but so low. I should not like it to be thought that I am at all pessimistic about our Scottish youth, because these five occupations are not the end of the story. The boys and girls we are worrying about are those who have been carrying this war on their shoulders. They are working overtime, they have gone out to the fields afterwards, they have swept the enemy out of the skies, and they have just landed in Sicily. They are the boys and girls who jumped into pre-Service organisations.
  My right hon. Friend the Minister, when giving us his list of organisations to-day, omitted the pre-Service organisations, and I wondered whether he did so because he is a little chary. We all share his chariness. I should not like to have to admit that these pre-Service organisations have something to offer adolescents which other voluntary organisations have not. But if this is true, let us face it; if it is true, let us find out what it is they have to offer that the other voluntary organisations have not, because it is most important. I wonder whether these young people whose only occupations were the cinema, the dance hall, billiard saloons, the opposite sex, and hanging about were drawn from those who were unattracted by voluntary organisations, who thought they were nobody's business and then found out suddenly on interview that they were important in the community? I wonder whether they jumped in because
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  they found that they had a concrete task to do, a task that was made plain to them and which had to be done. It is no use merely giving boys and girls something to occupy idle hands—it must be an essential task.
  Someone said that citizenship was a byproduct. It is. It is something you cannot teach; it is an attitude of mind to society and can only be by-produced in one place—the school. There is a very informing booklet from the Educational Institute of Scotland, to which reference was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers). It is hopeful that we are getting a flow of documents of a similar colour, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister and his Under-Secretaries will be a great deal more influenced by such documents than by the reactionary and most happily rare kind of speech which preceded mine.
  Mr. Hunter): I think that when the public come to read the Debate which is taking place to-day the first thought that will pass through their minds is, How many people spoke about education? We have heard about teachers, feeding and the physical welfare of children, but few Members have spoken about their intellectual development. What is the purpose of education? It is to develop intellect and the latent talents of the rising generation. Its purpose is not to stuff them with knowledge of any kind; its purpose is to train them to think and pass judgment for themselves. I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has an Advisory Committee, which was spoken of by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Renfrew (Major Lloyd), who, however, left me very much in a mist. I do not know what the Advisory Committee are thinking about; all I heard him make a plea for was for more teachers.
  Major Lloyd: My hon. Friend can hardly expect me, as a member of that Committee, to reveal what we are thinking.
  Mr. Hunter: My hon. and gallant Friend said that classes were too large. What we want to know is what the Committee intend to do to interest the people of Scotland in education. I have always been a great opponent of the 1929 Act, which took education out of the possession of large burghs. The City of Perth was one

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  of the principal educational centres in Scotland. It developed and brought out some of the most distinguished professional, medical and business men ever seen in the country. What has happened? The citizens have practically no vote; they have no interest in education. The town council, of which I was Lord Provost at one time, selects certain members to represent them on the county council. I am not exaggerating when I say that eight-tenths of them have no interest in education. Do we ever hear of any elections, controversy or meetings which deal with education? People are elected to deal with electricity, gas, water, drainage and so on; they never speak about anything else. I think the time has come when there ought to be a return to some more suitable form of education. Is there any school that has a writing master nowadays?
  I received a letter not very long ago from a university student so badly written that I could not make it out. It is possibly the case right through elementary, secondary and university education. That should not be. The truth of the matter is that we should be content in the elementary schools to teach them to write, read and spell and teach them geography, which is very important to-day.
  Mr. McKie: No one wrote a worse hand than Sir Walter Scott.
  Mr. Hunter: He perhaps had an intellect, but had not been taught writing. Today that is not the point. No one teaches writing in the schools to-day. We should begin with the three R's and lay a good foundation for education, and then they are in a good position to follow up with secondary education. I also have a complaint about administration. Those who are administering education to-day are not selected by the public. They are selected generally by the county councils, and many county councillors in-many parts of the country do not know much about education. When I represented Perth on the education authority I discovered that their main preoccupation was to keep down the rates, and that some who adopted that attitude were those who were financially able to send their children to higher schools but knew nothing about elementary schools. It is simplicity that we want.
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  If I had to make a suggestion, I should say that the Advisory Committee have to find out a better system of administration. Each large burgh should have its own education authority. [An HON. MEMBER: "What size"?] Anything up to 50,000. Everything above 20,000 is a large burgh. Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee are cities of counties, and their councils have the right to appoint their own education committee. As a rule they delegate their whole powers to the education committee, but I do not think anyone is elected to the council especially for education. It is one of the most important things in the country. I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Lindsay) say he pitied the Secretary of State because he had so many subjects to deal with. I am glad of that, because it indicates to me at all events that he is well educated. He is certainly well informed, and a person who is well informed is well educated.
  Mr. Lindsay: I agree that the right hon. Gentleman is well educated, but my point was that when you have 1,000,000 children it seems to me that that is a responsibility for a separate Minister.
  Mr. Hunter: I do not quite agree with that. I still think that Scotland is well served under the present system. Our three Ministers are giving entire satisfaction. I am in close association with the right hon. Gentleman who is going to reply. He knows pretty well what my views are on education, and to a certain extent we are in agreement. He knows that if there is reaction in education, we shall not make progress. A good deal has been said about teachers. What is the good of increasing the number if you do not get sufficient schools to start with? We need more and better schools. There is no use in appointing teachers to crowd your schools, because you will still have unnecessarily big classes. During my lifetime the classics have been prominent throughout the whole of education, but we are sadly lacking in technical education and in technical schools. The best we have been able to do—and it is something to the credit of Scotland—is to have evening continuation schools where they teach trades, and they serve a useful purpose. But if we are going to have part-time day schools, as is suggested—and it is a very good idea—we have to get more schools and make them technical

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  schools. Leave English and commercial subjects to be continued in your classical schools, but let us have technical education. Why should not boys between 14 and 16 learn how to develop their craftsmanship? It is no good keeping them at school until 15 and 16 and then giving it, because by that time they are beginning to think about marriage, without the means to keep themselves. That is the practical side of education as I see it.
  I was glad to hear the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) refer to the subject of religion. I think there is far too much talk about religious education. What we want to teach in our schools is simply the truths of the Bible. We do not need to go in for any sectional teaching at all. I had the good fortune in my youth to be under a headmistress who could teach us all the stories of the Bible so effectively with the aid of pictures that I remember more about the Bible to-day from her than I have learned in any church that I have been to since. The foundation of our Christian religion is the Bible.
  The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Member is going into the foundations of religion. That is not the subject of the Debate.
  Mr. Stephen: Religious instruction is one of the subjects in the curriculum in our Scottish schools.
  The Deputy-Chairman: It will be quite in Order to say that religious instruction is good, or bad, or helpful, or otherwise, but I. do not think it is in Order to go into religious foundations, which I understand the hon. Member was coming to—the foundations of religion as separate from the value of religion in education.
  Mr. Maxton: The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for East Renfrew (Major Lloyd) expressed very strong views about religious instruction and its extension. In your absence from the Chair, Mr. Williams, I entered into conflict with the view that he expressed, giving examples from my own experience of the difficulty of teaching religion in schools. I take it that the hon. Member is replying to that. Surely that is not out of Order.
  The Deputy-Chairman: I am sure the hon. Member would not be out of Order
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  on those lines, but the hon. Member who is in possession of the Committee was getting to a point when he was arguing as to what is the foundation of the Christian religions, and he said it was the Bible. If you take that a step further, you get to the whole foundations of Christianity, which cannot possibly have anything to do with a Scottish Debate. Even if the hon. Member wishes to say that Christianity is valuable education and it is wanting in Scotland, I have no objection, but I object to his arguing about the foundations of Christianity.
  Mr. Stephen: With all due respect to your Ruling, Mr. Williams, in the Scottish schools religious instruction is a definite subject in the curriculum. If you are to have religious instruction, you must see what the basis of religion is, so that the religious instruction will be on a sound basis.
  The Deputy-Chairman: There is no reason why we should not discuss the curriculum, and I am not objecting to that. I am objecting to turning this discussion on the Estimates for education into a discussion of the foundations of the Christian religion.
  Mr. Mathers: In your previous remarks, Mr. Williams, you declared that the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Hunter) was getting to the point of transgression. Are you now going to make sure that we do not get out of Order? Is not your proper function to tell us when we have got out of Order? I put the point to you that in putting the hon. Gentleman right before he had quite gone wrong all this argument has taken place when it might have been avoided.
  The Deputy-Chairman: I have often been called to Order for being out of Order and have also often welcomed the fact that the Chair has advised me that I was about to get out of Order. I was endeavouring, out of kindness to the hon. Member, to point out that it seemed to me that he was not actually out of Order but just about to get out of Order and was approaching the line when he should cease to develop the argument.
  Mr. McKie: I take it that subsequent speakers will be in Order if they do not go further than reply to some of the points in the curriculum which, as the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) pointed

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  out, had been in the past few years regularly taught in the Scottish primary schools.
  The Deputy-Chairman: I presume the curriculum comes under the Estimates, and hon. Members will be in Order to bring up points in it.
  Mr. Stephen: The hon. Member for Bridgeton pointed out that the question, "What is God?" is in the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, and he said that the answer to that question was taught in the Scottish schools. I cannot think of anything that goes more to the basis of religion than the answer to that question. That is in the curriculum.
  The Deputy-Chairman: We are now getting into an interesting theological argument, and as the duty of the Committee is to deal with the financial side of education, we had better not go deeper into this point.
  Mr. Hunter: I am sorry that I started such a hare. I had no intention of venturing into a theological argument, for that would have been a most stupid thing to do. What I was trying to say was that as religious education was in the curriculum of Scotland, the simple way to apply religious education to children was to base it on the stories and the truths of the Bible and not to go any further or deeper than that. I am confident that if the Scottish children were taught the truths and stories of the Bible, they would have a solid foundation for their future welfare. I am certain that those remarks will be appreciated by a large section of the people.
  On the question of juvenile unemployment, the employment exchanges have juvenile labour committees. I have served on such a committee. The most valuable service that they have been able to do is for selected members to meet boys and girls about to leave elementary and secondary schools and, with their parents, discuss the most likely occupations into which they should enter. It is an important part of education to put boys and girls on the right line, because it is no use putting them into occupations if their hearts are not in their work. The first job is to find out their bent and what they would like to be, and then to make sure that their desires are met. Nobody
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  has a higher respect for the teachers than I have, and I think I can be regarded as their friend in my part of the country, because I have done everything I can to help them. We should bring up the children to learn the simple things to start with, and as their minds develop we should let them tackle the bigger subjects. That is the essential beginning of education. After that the next thing we need to do is to get the Scottish people again to take an interest in education. We talk a great deal of bureaucracy and democracy. There is no democracy in Scottish education to-day because people have no say in the matter. The Educational Institute of Scotland say a rather astonishing thing in their Report:
  "We suggest that the 35 Education Authorities should be abolished and their place taken by one Education authority for Scotland—a Commission of, say, 20 people, men and women of proved capacity and wide vision. To the Commission the Educational Institute of Scotland might elect, say, four members, the City Councils might elect, say, two, the County Councils, say, four, the Churches, say, four, and the remainder would be chosen because of their special interest in the education and welfare of youth "
  In other words, the people of Scotland are not to be consulted in any shape or form about what is to be the future of the education of their children. When the existing system was changed it was not an improvement on previous education. The hon. Member for Bridgeton will know something about country education and he will agree with me that in the old days the country schools were producing some of the most brilliant scholars in the country. The teachers took a pride in the children. I have known school teachers whose greatest pride and reward were to follow the careers of some of the boys and girls who passed through their hands and became persons of note in the world. If you begin to cut it down and end the people's interest in education, you end education with it, because boys and girls will grow up to think that education is a great machine through which they pass like so many sausages, and then their interest in education will vanish. I think that greater simplicity is needed. I know the deep interest which the Secretary of State and the Joint Under-Secretary of State take in education, but I think we have to get back to the beginning if our people are to take as great an interest in education as they did and education

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  ought to be under a separate ad hoc body. If we do that we shall see Scotland coming back to the place which it occupied when it was one of the great examples to the world of what true education means, which is the training and developing of youth so that young people grow up to think for themselves and do not need to take the advice of other people in forming their own judgments.
  Mr. McLean Watson: The speech of the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Hunter) awakes interesting recollections in Scottish Members who were in this House a number of years ago when our Scottish education system was changed. I venture to say that if that Local Government Bill had been taken upstairs in Committee instead of on the Floor of the House, it would never have been passed. The majority of the Scottish Members did not like the new education system introduced into Scotland and have never taken kindly to it. There is a great deal to be said for the point of view expressed by the hon. Member for Perth. It must have surprised the Secretary of State for Scotland that this discussion has gone on so long. An important Bill has still to come up for its Second Reading, and here we are still discussing education, but no wonder when we review education as extensively as we have done to-day. The Scottish Secretary cannot complain that he has been left in any doubt about the views of Scottish Members on quite a number of subjects. I want to deal with one which has been mentioned several times—it has figured in almost every speech from the first to the last—and it is one to which I hope the Secretary of State will pay serious attention. I refer to the possibility of the recovery of school buildings from the Service Departments. We have been uncomplaining, though for a number of years local education authorities have not had the use of their buildings. Where stop-gap arrangements have been made we find the pupils distributed over a number of unsuitable places, places never meant to be used for education purposes, and headmasters who have to supervise things under such a system must have a terrible experience. From an educational point of view it must be agony to them to try to educate their pupils under these conditions.
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  There has been some change in the military situation, and surely there must be some easement of the requirements of the military authorities in respect of school buildings. Local authorities have been very patient, but I hope a serious effort will be made to recover the buildings so that the local education committees can resume education in the schools built for that purpose. What has been said by a number of Members on both sides ought to have consideration from the Scottish Office in the immediate future. The Secretary of State devoted a reasonable time to dealing with an important part of education—the feeding of children in school, the provision of milk and the provision of meals. He gave us figures to show the advances that had been made. I dare say a great deal of that is the outcome of war conditions and the food and milk restrictions; school feeding has proved a very convenient method of getting extra for the children. I hope the improvement which the Secretary of State noted will be continued and that we shall have more meals provided in schools. While we welcome the improvement we want still more done in that direction. I should like the Under-Secretary to say a word on whether education authorities are finding any particular difficulty in getting the necessary equipment for meals in schools. I understand there has been difficulty about it in one or two places. Can the Under-Secretary say whether there is anything in that contention? Possibly the difficulties have been due to a shortage of materials or to supplies not coming for-word, with the result that there is not the equipment that is necessary if we are to increase the number of meals provided in schools.
  I very much agree with what the hon. Member for Perth said about education. A great deal more might be done to improve the quality of the education in our schools. At the same time, I think we have done remarkably well seeing that we are in the fourth year of the war. We have done quite well to be able to report these improvements in the feeding of the children and in regard to teaching itself. This progress is to be welcomed, but a great deal more might be done. There is another complaint, of which something has been heard to-day, about the taking of teachers into the Armed Forces, especially boys and girls who were just preparing for an educational career. I hope

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  that the Secretary of State will take up the matter with the Minister of Labour even to the extent of releasing from the Forces young men and young women who ought to be continuing their education in preparation for becoming teachers. In the future we shall be in a serious position for teachers unless we can get more young boys and girls into the teaching profession.
  A great deal has been said about the unattractiveness of teaching now. It may be that during this war the profession has become unattractive because other occupations have become more lucrative. Teaching requires a long preparation and expenditure by the parent, and the short way has been to go into industry that can pay big wages. It is unfortunate that we should be passing through a period that will have such a serious effect on teaching after the war, and I hope that the Scottish Office is giving consideration to the matter and will do everything possible to get young men and women trained for this profession. It is all very well for the Secretary of State to say that so many thousands of married women have come back into the profession, but, as has already been stated by the hon. Member for Springburn (Mrs. Hardie) and others, many of those women have been out of the occupation for years and do not know the more recent methods of teaching. They themselves require to go through a process of training before they can be qualified to take their places in the schools. However, they have come in and are being used, and the opinion has been expressed that they should be used after the war. I hope the Scottish Office will draw the attention of as many young people as possible to this profession. There is no need to talk of raising the school-leaving age to 15 or 16, either next year or three years after the war, if we are not to have the schools or the teachers for the pupils. I hope that this matter will receive attention as well.
  Reference has been made to the document issued by the Educational Institute of Scotland. I would rather follow the hon. Member for Perth in going back to the system that we have tried in the past and have found very good indeed rather than having the system outlined in that Paper. I hope that we are not going to have that Commission, and co-opted persons, instead of publicly elected
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  individuals who ought to form those bodies. There was a case for getting away from the old parish school board and putting education on a county basis; but to argue from that and to say that there is a case for making education a national question, because teachers are paid different salaries in different areas, is not acceptable. The variation in salaries is due to the action of local representatives. I agree very largely with the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) about Commissions. We have had enough of them during the war to last us a good long time. Instead of running things by Commissions after the war, I hope we shall have a great deal more freedom, even in connection with our public administration, and shall hold on to the foundation being the elected individuals, whether of town council, county council or, as I hope, education authority.
  To a certain extent I agree with the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Lindsay). I do not agree that we should have a Minister for Education, but this is such an important matter that it should have an ad hoc authority to deal with it. We should get what we have had in the past, men and women keenly interested in education and who did nothing else; instead of which we have had education mixed up with everything else since 1929, in connection with local authorities. It has been a mess that I hope we shall get out of in a very short time. When I hear the English system of education explained, I thank heaven that we did not have the English system in Scotland. Our system may be bad enough, but at any rate it is not the English system of education, and I hope it never will be. I promised to restrict my remarks, and I close by expressing the hope that the Scottish Office will pay very serious attention to the matters that have been discussed here. There is very strong feeling in Scotland that we should make progress in this direction. We have had a feeling for a number of years that we have been slipping behind in education, and we want to feel once again that, in education, Scotland leads.
  Mr. McKie: I venture to intervene for a few moments only, because I know that the Under-Secretary of State is anxious to reply, and I will limit my remarks strictly to five minutes. I should not have risen at all but for the very

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  interesting and—I do not say this to curry favour with him—brilliant speech of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton). The whole of the opening part of his speech was devoted to the question of religious education in the primary schools of Scotland. When the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Hunter) attempted to reply to him, he raised a point on which you, Mr. Williams, felt you had to step in and call him to Order. That led to several points of Order between you and various Members of the Committee. I have no desire to fish in deep or troubled waters, and therefore I will confine my remarks simply to the one point which the hon. Member raised.
  It seemed to me that he was somewhat in error in suggesting that the Shorter Catechism was now regularly taught in the primary schools of Scotland. If that is so, he would be equally correct in suggesting that the Longer Catechism, upon which the Shorter Catechism was founded, is one of the instruments of religious instruction as well, which teachers in Scottish elementary or primary schools use to-day. Indeed it would have been very apposite if he had done so in 1943, when we are celebrating the third centenary of those Westminster divines upon whose teaching and instruction both those Catechisms are based. That Assembly was frustrated by Cromwell. Had it had its way, it would have extended the same system of Church government, and therefore of religious instruction, to the people of England which we in Scotland have enjoyed ever since 1690. I think the hon. Member was at fault when he suggested that—
  Mr. Maxton: The point I was making was that the answer in the Shorter Catechism to the question "What is God?" which I quoted, gives in tabloid form the whole philosophic conception of the Deity. I was pointing out that that conception is far beyond the mind of the child and that it was psychologically wrong to attempt to teach it in the elementary schools.
  Mr. McKie: I quite agree. I quite follow the hon. Member. I was endeavouring to show him his error in suggesting that the Shorter Catechism is now the instrument which the teachers in the primary schools in Scotland use to convey
  1008
  religious instruction to the children committed to their charge. I should love to spend a long time delving into philosophical matters, but as you have already said, Mr. Williams, that would be out of Order, and I have not time to do it. May I give this example? Only a week or two ago—I have already said it by way of interruption, so I may as well say it in my speech—I heard a minister preaching about the religious instruction of youth in Sunday schools in Scotland and complaining, if that is the right word, that now the Shorter Catechism was no longer the appropriate instrument or vehicle of religious instruction and that in common with most of his other parish brethren in the ministry of the Church of Scotland he had had perforce to drop it, and he complained that he had now nothing on which to anchor the religious instruction of the young people. That is a very serious thing. I hope the hon. Member for Bridgeton will take that seriously to heart. He did say that he, for one, wished to see a system of Christian ethics forming a foundation of religious instruction to the young people of Scotland. Indeed, I suppose he would extend his zealous care to the young people of England and Wales as well. But Christianity is very much more than a system of ethics. Again, to go into that would be going beyond the scope of the Debate. I hope the Under-Secretary, when he comes to reply, will be able to clear up that point, though it is a very big point to be cleared up in 40 minutes.
  I was very sorry to hear the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Lindsay) suggesting that the young people of Scotland in this generation are not so good from the educational point of view as were their parents or grandparents. The hon. Member shakes his head. That was my impression, and I think it was the impression of other Members in other parts of the Committee. The hon. Member shakes his head. I am glad to hear it. [Laughter.] I should say that I am glad to see it as an indication that his remarks did not bear the construction I put upon them.
  I think there has been a tendency in the Committee to-day in some quarters rather to disparage Scottish education at the present time. One might have thought from some of the speeches that nothing at all was being done. But the Secretary

  1009
  of State in his illuminating speech gave us clearly to understand that he was just as much alive to the necessity of keeping Scotland up to its educational standards as those responsible for the administration of educational affairs in England and Wales. We all know that Scotland would never have played the part it did in what, for the benefit of my hon. Friend, I will call Imperialism—in developing the British Commonwealth of Nations—but for the splendid system of education which we largely owe to the Presbyterian system of Church government and the educational system set up by John Knox. I very much hope that the Under-Secretary will be in a position to say something on this vexed question, or vexed so far as the hon. Gentlemen the Member for Bridgeton is concerned, on the instruments used in conveying religious instruction to the youth of Scotland in the primary, and for that matter the secondary, schools of Scotland, too.
  Mr. MacLaren: I wish to participate in this Debate for a few minutes for this reason: I went to Glasgow as a boy and got my elementary education in Scotland. For years one felt proud of the traditional development of education in Scotland, and, if I may say so without offence, there was still to be found that patronising pity that English people have suffered from a bad system of education. But in recent months or in recent years the feeling has been growing in my mind, living in England and representing an English seat, that some deterioration has set in in the Scottish system of education. One feels that there is a sort of attempt to make the Scottish system of education run into the pat tern of the English conception as we know it. To my mind, this would be a distinct loss to the civilisation of mankind, and for the one or two minutes I shall speak I want, as it were, to hammer at the door of the Scottish Education Department. I do it in all sincerity. Otherwise I should not have intervened at this moment.
  Five, or it may be seven, years from now the boy and girl of to-day will have passed to that age when they will be the recipients of the vote, of the power to make Governments. Is it not an appalling thought that you can go into the streets of our country to-day and know that 90 per cent. of the young people are utterly
  1010
  devoid of anything in the nature of knowledge of the rights and duties of citizenship? Never was there a time in our history when the voters of this country were called upon to make decisions equal to those which will have to be made in the near future. All the aspirations behind those now in the Battle of Europe will fall, as it were, into dust; they will be nothing more than a mere mirage unless the young people of our time now receive the education that will prepare them to equip themselves for when that time comes to make these great decisions. I appeal to the Scottish Office to try and do something to redeem the tradition, the old tradition, of the Scottish educational system, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) rightly said earlier to-day, was a system that aimed at strengthening the character of the individual, creating individual thinking, empowering the individual to make decisions for himself and not merely be led in the mass and in the herd according to centralised domination and dictation.
  I appeal to the Scottish Office that, in the circumstances of the moment, and in view of what is coming in the near future, they will realise what they have to do. I am speaking again as a Member representing an English constituency, but having more than an ordinary reverence and respect for those past traditions of Scottish education. I appeal to them not merely to let this pass as an ordinary Debate on Scottish education but as a step towards that great duty which will give this country independent, intelligent, democratic thinking to save our country from falling into the moulds which we see now falling to pieces in Europe. I would commend to the Scottish Office, if they have not already got them, two books, "The Future of Education" and "Education for a World Adrift." In these books there is sufficient to give an indication of what I am trying to say now. The time is too serious to be flippant about education. It is the source and the centre of all that is hoped for in this country of ours. I speak as one who has come from Scotland, believing that if the Scottish people will retrieve themselves, if the Scottish Education Office will get back to a greater conception of the meaning of education, it will mean so much in leading this world in future.

  1011
  Last, but not least, I wish that the Secretary of State would have some authority and power over the picture-houses that belch out this insidious filth to the youth of Scotland. We have no power over them in England so far; but it matters not how much we do in the schools if, passing into these places, they imbibe this poison, which degenerates them. I hope that the Secretary of State will see that the outside influence of these great powers can do much to make or to mar intelligent purposes. I thank the Committee for allowing me, as a foreigner—or, should I say, as an exile?—to intervene. I have an inordinate respect, a slavish respect, for our Scottish scholars and our Scottish thinkers. The world owes much to them. I still believe that degeneracy in the Scottish intellect would be nothing short of a step back in the progress of mankind.
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Westwood): I can assure the Committee that we shall not let this pass as an ordinary Debate. It has been one of the finest Debates we have had on Scottish education, certainly during the whole time I have been in this House. I think that there has been only one other occasion when a whole day has been devoted to debating Scottish education. I can assure the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. McKie) that I have not the slightest intention of entering into a Debate on the Shorter or the Longer Catechism. The catechism that we have had on Scottish education to-day has been so good that it will take up all the time at my disposal to answer.
  Mr. McKie: I only asked if it was still used.
  Mr. Westwood: That is getting on dangerous ground. If we start on that, it will only lead other hon. Members to intervene. I have a limited time at my disposal; and I think the hon. Member will agree that I have been scrupulously fair in giving myself so little time, in order that nobody who wanted to speak should be cut out. I will do my best to reply to the various points that have been raised. Every suggestion that has been made will be carefully scanned in Hansard, with a view to our benefiting from the collective wisdom of this Committee in dealing with what I believe is really one of the great social services that we have to administer in
  1012
  Scotland. In the time at my disposal it would be practically impossible to deal with all the questions that have been put, but I shall see, as I have on previous occasions when we have been discussing Scottish Estimates, that any Member who does not get a reply on any point now will get one later. For instance, if I were to deal with all the points which the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Lindsay) has raised, I should have no time to deal with points raised by other hon. Members. He, like other hon. Members, will get replies to all of those points.
  Among the main points which have been discussed are the supply of teachers, school feeding and juvenile delinquency. My hon. Friend the Member for Spring-burn (Mrs. Hardie) referred to exemptions and the development of nursery schools. I am sure the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) will forgive me for saying—because I mean it, just as I am sure he always means what he says—that there is no other subject on which he can keep the attention of this House, and deliver such a fine speech, as he can on education. To-day has been no exception: he gave us a scintillating speech. He raised the problem of adult education. It was apparent that there was a difference of view in the Committee as to the best method of dealing with juvenile delinquency and on some of the other problems that crop up in our schools. Some Members were in favour of punitive methods. Then the problem of the occupation of our schools, which were built for the education of our children but are now used for various purposes, was discussed, and there was the suggestion that there should be more central control of education and of teachers. I want to deal with that point briefly.
  I have a vivid recollection of the teaching profession in Scotland being most enthusiastic about the changeover from the ad hoc authority to the county council. I believe that they were hopelessly wrong then, and I would not mind taking a vote of the Educational Institutes of Scotland now on whether they would prefer the present or the old system. I am sure that that attitude would be reversed. As they made a hopeless blunder then, I am inclined to think that their suggestions for the control of education to-day are even more hopelessly out-of-date and even more indefensible. It is

  1013
  Syndicalism run mad. If the teaching profession want to get control of their profession, why should not the miners get control of their profession and the engineers get control of theirs? Why we should have this lack of faith in the elected authorities, I do not know. I thought that we were fighting for democracy. For the life of me, I cannot understand why the teachers want to get still further away from—I use the term in the best sense-their masters. I have yet to learn that the teaching profession and the education of our children benefited by the changes which took place in 1929.
  The hon. and gallant Member for East Renfrew (Major Lloyd) suggested that we should take action against the reactionary authorities, but these authorities were not named, so that we are in a bit of a fog as to which authorities were meant and what were their reactions. We leave education authorities in Scotland with a certain amount of freedom. They do not all develop education on exactly the same lines. One authority may spend its income on the development of clinics and another in giving better bursaries, and some may have to spend income in paying travelling expenses. They are all different methods which have to be adopted by the education authorities to deal with problems in their own areas. I still believe, because I have faith in local administration and because of the progress that has been made in local administrative machinery, in the elected representatives of the people dealing with these particular problems, but if there are any particular points in so far as the hon. and gallant Member for East Renfrew is concerned we shall be only too willing to look into them.
  Major Lloyd: I suggested that there were backward local education authorities which needed spurring on. Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that there are no backward authorities in Scotland?
  Mr. Westwood: No, I prefer to put it that there are some local authorities which are more progressive than others. If the hon. and gallant Member for East Renfrew would draw the attention of these authorities to these matters they may consider them with a view to improving conditions. The question of the supply of teachers has been raised. This is a great problem. There is a shortage of
  1014
  teachers and it is likely to be still greater before the end of the war. It is not merely the supply of teachers but the training of teachers which has to be considered most carefully, and we cannot, as pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Watson), make the progress we want to make unless we have an adequate supply of teachers. You cannot extend the nursery schools as suggested, raise the school age and get that different form of teaching which must be given to the pupils between 14 and 16, if you are to extend the age to 16, unless you have an adequate supply not only of teachers but also of properly trained teachers, because of the new problems we have to face.
  In dealing with the problem of juvenile delinquency, the experience we are gaining in connection with the youth movement and likewise in the running of certain classes for the Forces is important. Last week I met one body of 200 airmen who were being given special training. It was agreed before I met them that under the heading of "Citizenship" they should discuss the problems of education, because we were going to debate education in the House of Commons this week. The class had their debate on education and selected their representatives to meet me and tell me what they thought about education and its problems and the suggestions they were prepared to make. They had been taken into consultation by the teacher. The curriculum had even been changed on purpose to get still better results as far as these airmen were concerned. They were not being trained in a course for the Air Force but in a course to make them still more fit to be benefited by the course that would be given them afterwards. They were gaining experience, and it was an experience to teachers and to administrators. We are indebted to the City of Edinburgh and its Director of Education and to other cities and directors of education for helping us in this great work, which may be of tremendous advantage, not merely to the airmen who are getting the immediate results, but to those who are getting the experience.
  Our teachers are being trained. We are to run our day classes in future. I do not like to use the word "continuation" classes. I want this to be a general education provided so far as the 16s to 18s are concerned. Once we have got the day

  1015
  classes running for those engaged in industry, we shall try to get another name for them. It may be called further education; it is not quite adult education, as it is dealing with adolescents. We are gaining experience as far as the youth movement is concerned by the variety of subjects that are being taught, and the fact that in many instances these youth clubs and organisations, which are not directed but advised by the central authority, are being carried on brings in all kinds of experiences, including taking into consultation those who are being taught and asking for their advice, and sometimes there is something to be said for the advice given by the students themselves.
  The vital thing, if we are to make education a success, is to get a school curriculum that will induce children to remain at school instead of putting fear into the minds of the children. The great majority in the schools to-day are looking forward to leaving school at 14 instead of fearing for that day coming along because they have to leave school. No one can say that I do not believe in religious teaching and that I did not come from a religious home, but the vital thing is that, if we should change the curriculum so that there would be a religious test as far as teachers were concerned, there would be little chance of getting an adequate supply of teachers. We must make education attractive. There will have to be changes in the curriculum. The experience of the Secretary of State in running classes in Kirkintilloch is that, if you give pupils the education they like, it can be used as an attraction for the time being and prepare them for the things they do not like, and they will get interested in real problems of education that we want to get across as far as the pupil is concerned. With regard to certain types of students at the advanced division schools or what now are to be called our secondary schools, if they had an engine with which to play, a watch to repair or a machine to take to pieces it would give them an attraction. A boy likes to meddle with and to handle these things. By doing these things, you can make the other side of education attractive. I can assure the Committee that we shall do everything possible to help with the supply of teachers to meet the problems we shall have to face.
  1016
  We are doing everything we possibly can to develop school feeding in Scotland. There has been a vast improvement in the last year, but it has not been so great as we would have desired. There have been some difficulties about the supply of equipment, but we have had the wholehearted co-operation of the other Departments with which we have to work in these matters. We have had no difficulties with the Ministry of Food about the supply of food; we have no difficulties whatever with the Ministries of Supply and Works. But if material is not there, then a Ministry cannot supply it. If special difficulties occur and my attention is drawn to them, I shall be only too glad to do what I can to help. We are determined to give school meals to at least 50 per cent. of our children in Scotland. We are doing everything we can to encourage the local authorities, who receive per cent. grant for equipment and accommodation.
  The problem of juvenile delinquency is not so simple as some hon. Members have suggested. It is one of the most difficult problems we have to deal with, but I can assure the Committee that we are doing all we can. My right hon. Friend and I do not believe in punitive action as a solution to this problem. Indeed, some boys are so made that if punitive action is taken, it means that they become criminals instead of merely delinquents.
  Mr. Lindsay: Does my right lion. Friend believe in extending the system of probation officers? The Secretary of State gave a figure of about 60, half of them being part-timers.
  Mr. Westwood: That is not taking punitive action, but even so it does not follow that this is the only solution. We have tried it out, but have not had the success we hoped. I have been keenly interested in the extension of the probation system. As a matter of fact, I have carried through experiments myself as a magistrate. I have never yet sent a child or a parent into close confinement in cases where a child has been brought before me for playing football in the streets or for any other such minor delinquency. Always I have adjourned the case and given parents an opportunity of making good the damage that has been done. Advantage has been taken of that, and when the case has been brought before me again I have given a warning to the child not to create any further trouble.

  1017
  The problem of exemptions has been raised. In many instances exemptions have been granted when the child has passed 14 years of age. We have varying dates on which children can leave school. Some authorities have only two leaving dates in the year, and others have five, which really means six in the way in which they are arranged. Because of war conditions it is possible that exemptions are being more freely given by local authorities. Because of the labour position, especially as regards agriculture, some of our local authorities have been granting temporary exemptions to enable children to help with the grain and potato harvests.
  Mrs. Hardie: I know the reasons for the exemptions, but ought we not to stop the permanent exemptions? Why should one child leave school at 14 and another have to continue?
  Mr. Westwood: The question is left to the local authorities. I cannot give the reasons which have weighed with them. All I can do is to give a general explanation as to why these exemptions are being granted.
  I have time to deal with only one other point, namely, the development of nursery schools. We have not the accommodation for development on the lines we would like, neither have we sufficient woman-power.
  Mr. Lindsay: Not sufficient woman-power?
  Mr. Westwood: No. We are developing as far as we can war-time nurseries, which actually come under the Department of Health. The ordinary nursery school, generally speaking, is for educational purposes; the war-time nursery school is really for health purposes, and that is the reason it comes under the health authorities. All health authorities in Scotland have the right to provide wartime nurseries; in the case of nursery schools only the education authorities, numbering 35, have the right. There are the large burghs which are added to that number who deal with health problems, so that the war nurseries come under the control of the large burghs as well as the counties.
  I have tried to be scrupulously fair in giving the maximum time to all Members in my reply. I want to make it quite
  1018
  clear that any point I have not dealt with will be answered by correspondence, as in the past. We are desperately anxious that Scotland shall not be behind in the race for education. We must put education in the forefront; we want our children to be well educated, because we believe that without an educated democracy we shall be liable to make all kinds of mistakes in the future. Consequently, because of the responsibilities which will fall upon the generation that is now at school, we are determined as far as lies within our power to see that they get the very best education that we can provide for them.
  Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: Will the right hon. Gentleman comment for a moment on the question of a White Paper being issued?
  Mr. Westwood: If I yielded to that invitation, other Members would equally be entitled to raise points. I am prepared to send a reply in writing to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, and I will do the same as far as any other Member is concerned.
  Mr. Buchanan: The question is a general issue of widespread importance in which we are all interested. Is it intended to issue a White Paper?
  Mr. Westwood: No decision has yet been arrived at, in view of the fact that we have an Advisory Committee which is considering the various remits which have been made to it and is coming to conclusions on them, and as and when they come in we will consider whether it is advisable to issue a White Paper on similar lines to England.
  Mr. McNeil: Surely the Secretary of State told me that he has already had three reports?
  Mr. Lindsay: I asked a specific question and was told that there is only one report, on teachers, which is interim, and that the others will not be ready till later in the year. Therefore, what are we to have a White Paper about?
  Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again" [Major Sir James Edmondson], put, and agreed to.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon the next Sitting Day.

  TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (INTERIM DEVELOPMENT) (SCOTLAND) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  There have been three planning Acts applicable to Scotland. The first was passed in 1909. It provided that local authorities might plan if they were authorised to do so by the Local Government Board. The land that they might be asked to plan was land on the fringes of towns but there was no compulsion on local authorities to prepare schemes, and their powers of dealing with built-up areas and rural areas were very limited. The 1919 Act provided that the, council of every burgh with a population of over 20,000 and any other local authority which was required to do so by the Local Government Board must submit a planning scheme before 1st January, 1926. That period was later extended to the year 1929 but little effective planning was done under these Acts. Then we had the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act, 1932. It repealed previous legislation—all the Acts that I have referred to—and, subject to certain conditions, it enabled schemes to be made for built-up land and rural areas. Curiously enough, however, the Act was permissive and there was no obligation on local authorities to prepare schemes. As the result of this rather confused and difficult situation only seven out of 57 planning committees have schemes or resolutions covering all their areas. In other words, only a ninth of Scotland in area is to-day subject to planning resolutions. The legislation which has hitherto appeared on the Statute Book has, therefore, been largely abortive.
  The Bill now before us is the Scottish equivalent of the English Act which has just been passed. It incorporates all the Amendments made in the English Bill since it was introduced and it contains one additional Clause—Clause 13—which corresponds to Section 6 of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning Act. It provides that any functions relating to the use and development of land which is exercisable by any other Minister of the Crown may be transferred by Order in Council to the Secretary of State, who is the planning Minister. I have been
  1020
  asked if there are many of these functions at present exercised by other Ministers of the Crown. I believe there are not many. Attention, however, has been drawn, particularly in the Scottish Press, to the Restriction of Ribbon Development Act, where the powers are at present exercised by the Ministry of Transport. There is, however, nothing but the greatest cooperation between the Health Department and the Ministry of Transport on the problems arising from building lines and road development. This is the first of a series of planning Bills which, it is hoped, will provide the basis for the future planning of Scotland. By Clause 1 all land which is not at present the subject of a planning scheme or resolution will, three months after the passing of the Measure, be deemed to have been the subject of a planning resolution. Therefore, for the first time, planning becomes universal.
  The phrase "central planning authority" is much used in planning circles. In Scotland we have little difficulty on that point. The Scottish Office is there. We have under one umbrella agriculture, health, education and home affairs and I am fortunate in having advice and assistance from the Council of Ex-Secretaries of State for Scotland. We already have, or have had, a committee of inquiry into hydro-electricity. Their Report has been presented, and a Bill drafted on the basis of that Report is well on its way to becoming an Act of Parliament. We have committees on hill sheep, hospitals, herring, land settlement, coalfields and on certain limited aspects of our rating system. The need for planning and prevision so far as the best use of land is concerned is, I think, common ground, and we must see, whatever our views about ultimate land ownership may be, that our road system is so fashioned as to provide adequate, speedy and safe means of communication from place to place. It is just too bad that one local authority may plan its roads to the limit of its boundaries and not meet there a similar road system in the neighbouring area. We must see that houses are provided conveniently near places of work. Public open spaces should be created, and the best agricultural land—and this is vital, in my judgment—should not be used for building purposes if less valuable land is available and equally suitable for this purpose.
  Mr. MacLaren: Did the right hon. Gentleman say "less valuable land"?
  Mr. Johnston: Less valuable for agriculture. It is desirable that industries should be persuaded, where possible, to go to the right locations. We in Scotland have suffered tremendously in past years because of the undue proportion of industries which were located in the English Home Counties. It is desirable also that congested and obsolescent town areas should be redeveloped on sound planning lines. There are to-day blitzed areas which it is highly desirable that we should develop on some kind of sensible plan. It is also desirable that green belts should be provided where possible between towns, so that towns should not sprawl all over the countryside. Wherever possible we should see that amenities are preserved, that beauty spots are protected and that buildings are designed with an eye to the best architectural effect. If all this is to be achieved the closest collaboration will be necessary between the central departments and local planning authorities. The problems that we are faced with are many and intricate and we will do no service to future planning if we do not recognise the difficulties. These problems have been dealt with at considerable length in the reports of the Barlow Commission, the Uthwatt Committee and the Scott Committee. The report of the Scott Committee did not apply to Scotland, but I set up a committee of inquiry under the chairmanship of Lord Normand to consider whether such of the Scott recommendations as were applicable to Scottish conditions and Scottish law were being adequately arranged for and investigated.
  The recommendations of these three reports raise legal, financial and administrative problems of the gravest complexity. Some of the recommendations have already been accepted. For example, this Bill gives effect to the recommendation of the Uthwatt Committee that planning control should be extended over the whole country, and the Government have already announced that they accept in principle the Uthwatt Committee's recommendation that local authorities should be given wide powers for dealing with reconstruction areas, which is the technical term including bomb-damaged areas, and other areas requiring comprehensive development, and that compensation payable in
  1022
  respect of the public acquisition or control of land should, so far as ascertainable, not exceed sums based on the standard of values as at March, 1939. Those standards are not always readily ascertainable, but, so far as they are ascertainable, they should be the guiding principle in the purchase of land, certainly by public authorities.
  The Scottish advisory committees on health and housing have been reconstituted and there has been set up the Scottish Council of Industry composed of representatives of the three local authority associations—the Convention of Burghs, the Association of Counties of Cities and the County Councils Association—chambers of commerce, the Scottish Development Council and the Scottish Trades Union Congress, and a representative of the Scottish banks is in attendance. The majority of Scottish planning authorities are carrying out fact-finding inquiries on a uniform basis under the general guidance of the Department of Health's district planning officers. We are working in the closest co-operation with the English Ministry of Town and Country Planning. The result of our joint researches will become available to local authorities in Scotland in due course in the form of planning manuals.
  There are two or three ways of facing this problem. In Scotland we are trying the method of voluntary co-operation between the local authorities. I was told that it would be impossible to secure it. I have tried it, and up to now I think it is not only possible to secure it but that the local authorities concerned welcome the effort. The need for collaboration between planning authorities is obvious. I asked the local authorities in the great West of Scotland area, county councils and city councils together, to join in the formation of a regional planning committee on a voluntary basis and not to wait for compulsion with all the attendant difficulties. This committee, which originally dealt primarily with roads, has now been reconstituted on a broad basis to deal with all the major planning problems in the Clyde Valley area.
  I particularly asked that it should consider not only roads but whether there might not be co-operation upon water supplies—I think that is very obvious—and co-operation in hospital arrangements, surely equally obvious; and there are other subjects and amenities which will come

  1023
  into view the more these local authorities get together and the more this Committee works. The State will pay part of the expenses of the planning experts that this Joint Committee appoints. So successful was this first experiment that I have ventured to ask the authorities in the East and centre of Scotland now to form a joint planning committee among themselves. This they have done, and the areas covered by these two regional planning committees, all planning without compulsion, all planning together without, if you like, legislative sanction, but on the basis of mutual co-operation and good will—which I venture to say will last longer than any compulsory system might last—comprise an area covering 75 per cent. of Scotland's industries. The population of the areas concerned represents considerably more than three-fifths of the total population of Scotland, and 33 out of the 57 Scottish planning authorities are represented on these two Committees.
  There are possibly two other areas where it might be advisable to get voluntary co-operation among these authorities, the Highland area for one and the North-East area for another, but I do not wish to rush this situation at the moment. I am content if I can get this great industrial belt in Scotland voluntarily planned by the local authorities themselves. If I can get them to co-operate in the best use of the land so far as water supplies, roads, hospitals, green belts and, in some instances, houses are concerned, I think we shall have done a good year's work. We propose that each committee should employ a planning consultant of experience and standing to prepare an outline plan of their areas into which the plans of the individual local authorities will dovetail. We have promised to make a substantial contribution towards the cost of preparing these outline plans.
  The Bill before us is a short one, containing 15 Clauses and two Schedules, and has four main objectives. The first is to extend planning control to cover all Scotland. The second is to strengthen the powers of planning authorities while their schemes are being prepared, so that no individual or groups of individuals can rush them off their feet, can purchase selected plots of land, pick the "eyes" out of them and leave us ultimately with a considerable bill for compensation. Thirdly, by this Bill we give the Secretary
  1024
  of State, as Planning Minister, power to intervene in planning questions. Fourthly, we facilitate the combination of local authorities for planning purposes. The technical aspects of this Bill are pretty similar to those of the Measure which has just passed through this House and the other place dealing with England and Wales, and I do not propose, therefore, to ask the attention of this House to an analysis of them in detail. If there are any points which hon. Members wish to raise on any of the Clauses, my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate will gladly give information, and on the Committee stage, if there are still any points upon which hon. Members wish information, we will gladly make it forthcoming. The Bill is a small one. It is the first of the Measures which will be necessary if we are ever to plan Scotland upon a comprehensive basis, but I again give my view, for what it is worth, that the best kind of planning, with the most far-reaching permanent results, will be the planning that local authorities will themselves engage in in co-operation with neighbouring local authorities and without compulsion.
  Mr. Hunter: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me whether Perth and the County of Perth are embraced in the East division?
  Mr. Johnston: I am afraid that offhand I cannot answer that question, but I will get the information for my hon. Friend. I think part of Perth is in the Eastern division, but I will find out.
  Mr. Mathers: With the objectives described by the right hon. Gentleman and the general purpose of this Bill I am sure the House is in agreement. The right hon. Gentleman has given a very clear exposition of what is the purpose of the Bill. Reading over the Bill, it might be thought by some that almost dictatorial powers are being placed in his hand, but he has disarmed us or anyone who might have such an idea by what he has told us about the way in which he intends to proceed in carrying out the powers given to him under this Bill. He will not be a dictator; he obviously does not aspire to that position. He is going to work through committees, and he has stressed his belief in the desirability of carrying into effect what is set out here by voluntary co-operation

  1025
  between the authorities concerned in the planning that is necessary. I am sure all of us agree that it is necessary to have these powers of planning against the days of reconstruction after the war; I am sure we are confident that in the hands of the Secretary of State these powers of planning will be wisely used; and I am sure that it would be the desire of this House to put you, Mr. Speaker, very quickly in a position to say with regard to the Second Reading of this Bill, "The Ayes have it."
  Major McCallum: I want to intervene only for a few minutes, first to thank my right hon. Friend for the very detailed explanation he gave of the necessity for bringing in this Bill at all. I was particularly interested in the four objectives which he said this Bill was to achieve. If I understood him rightly the first objective was universal planning for Scotland and the second that it should be within his power to prevent private individuals or organisations being able to acquire land which might be necessary for him or for the Government in the more general planning of Scotland.
  Mr. MacLaren: We had better get that point clear. I do not think the Bill will prevent private individuals from getting land. Public authorities will be able to get land without having to pay inflated prices to the holders, but, at the moment, private individuals can get land and the Bill does not interfere with them.
  Mr. Johnston: The hon. Member is quite right.
  Major McCallum: I am sorry. I must have misunderstood the Minister. Two committees have already been set up as planning authorities, one for the West and one for the East and centre of Scotland. I understand that in two more areas, the Minister hopes to be able to arrange for planning authorities, one for the Highlands and the other for the North-East of Scotland. I would suggest that the Highlands alone is rather a big area for one planning authority and that the right hon. Gentleman might divide it into two, and have one authority for the Western Highlands and Islands, and one for the Central and Northern Highlands. The problems of the Islands and the Western Highlands are, in many cases, entirely different from those of the rest of the Highlands and difficulty might arise
  1026
  by combining those areas under one planning authority.
  I particularly want to ask for some elucidation of a mystery which I think the Bill will create when it becomes law. I gathered that the Secretary of State is to be in control of universal planning for the whole of Scotland but I see that the Title of the Bill includes the phrase "interim development." The other day the Hydro-Electric Bill passed through this House. It has not yet become law but we hope that it shortly will. We presumed that that Bill was not for interim planning but for long-term planning. We are glad to know that under the Hydro-Electric Bill the Secretary of State for Scotland has the ultimate control. In the matter of road development, particularly in the rural areas of the Highlands and the development of roads and piers, planning will come under the eventual control of my right hon. Friend. What perplexes me in this matter is that, only a few days ago when we discussed the Forestry Commission's Report in this House some of us gathered that the Commission was to plan entirely on its own authority. Although it may collaborate with the Scottish Office and with the Secretary of State for Scotland, it is not obliged to do so. Therefore, I cannot see how this Bill can give control of the universal planning of Scotland to the Secretary of State. If it does, forestry must, obviously, be under the control of the planning authority, and the Forestry Commission must be brought under the control of the Secretary of State for Scotland.
  I would mention particularly the industry which was spoken about so often during the Debate on the Forestry Commission, the hill sheep industry. We can imagine a time when the Forestry Commission will step in and say that they want certain areas which they propose to buy, for the planting out of trees. They will say that they do not have to ask the Secretary of State. The acquisition by a foreign organisation of such land will wreck a great deal of the strength of the Bill and I would ask the Lord Advocate to give us some idea of the position in that respect. I hope the Bill will also give the Secretary of State powers in another matter which is causing great anxiety, particularly in the Highlands. We find cropping up in the Highlands, to-day,

  1027
  foreign financial organisations acquiring large tracts of land in the Highlands for purely speculative purposes. I could mention two or three vast areas which have been acquired. The tenants—not agricultural labourers who cannot be turned out, but pensioners and cottagers—have been given notice to get out of their cottages. Many of them have written to me asking what can be done about it. I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to stop what I might call—I cannot call it a financial ramp, because I suppose these organisations are legally entitled to come and buy this land—
  Mr. Woodburn: Call it a new form of Highland clearance.
  Major McCallum: That is quite true. The organisations acquiring this land have no intention of living on it or of becoming responsible and respectable landowners. They turn out inconvenient occupiers and put the land into the market again, selling it perhaps at double the price which they paid for it. Then they come back and start again. They emanate from London and have no sympathy with the people of the country which they acquire. I hope it will be possible for my right hon. Friend to have powers to prevent this very insidious development.
  Mr. McKinlay: I wanted to ask the right hon. Gentleman before he sat down whether local authorities were to have any protection in the interval. We could not see it in the Bill. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was, perhaps, holding out hope to local authorities that they would have that protection. The right hon. Gentleman said the Bill would prevent interests from acquiring land, putting something on it and leaving the developing authority to hold the baby afterwards. I cannot for the life of me understand how the Government can boggle at giving local authorities the right to acquire land now for their future needs. The Secretary of State has said that there has been a re-development committee set up in the West of Scotland on a voluntary basis. I want to suggest that if you do not alter your attitude towards the question of reserving or giving power to such bodies to preserve buildable land and land that must be part and
  1028
  parcel of the development, it is poor consolation to tell the local authority that in accordance with the Uthwatt Report, the principle of which the Government accept, the price to be paid for that will be no more than the price ruling in 1939. That is something which may be very difficult to determine, but it is poor consolation to a local authority if a speculative builder, for instance, acquires land in anticipation—and they have ways and means of anticipating what local authorities and development authorities are going to do—to build some of the abortions for sale that they built after the last war.
  The Lord Advocate will correct me if I am wrong in saying that if any person who has acquired land can show that he is going to use it for house building purposes, the compulsory powers of the local authority to acquire it have disappeared. As I understand the compulsory powers of the local authority at the moment, I speak with feeling on this, because speculative builders have simply paralysed the whole of the West of Scotland with some of the most appalling abortions for sale, and the decent working-class people were compelled to buy, and have been saddled with a financial responsibility for the next 25 years with a property rapidly deteriorating and their outgoings almost doubled as the years have gone on. The Secretary of State says that you do not require to secure that land against development at all, and it is said that people will not walk away with any profit; they will only get the 1939 value. That may be. I say that proper control of development must rest with the local authority, because the question of housing is so closely linked up with the question of public health, which in turn is controlled by the local authority, that we cannot afford to take any risks. I have every sympathy with the hon. and gallant Member for Argyll (Major McCallum) in his hope; it is only a hope, as there is nothing in this Bill which will give a development authority any power to prevent what is taking place in the Highlands.
  It may be conceded that Rosneath Peninsula is to be a development area, and the peninsula has been bought by a firm of English agents. Two resales have already taken place at a substantial profit. The existing feuars are to have all the trouble, and the agricultural holders are already invited, not because there was

  1029
  anything in the conditions of sale by the trustees of the Argyll estate to the original purchaser that the agricultural holders should have an option, but as a gesture of friendliness they would give them the first option. The only thing preventing a wholesale purchase or compulsion being placed upon the agricultural holders in Rosneath at the moment is the war emergency conditions. It is no protection to a farmer to put the best into his land during a period of intensive production to have this thing hanging over his head when the war is over. Apparently the Government's attitude is that there is nothing they can do that can prevent the sale of land from one landholder to a purchaser. I have made my protest. I had hoped that when the Secretary of State made his statement a rather long-drawn-out correspondence between the local authority of which I am a member and the Scottish Office would disappear, that we would get that protection and that power.
  The Secretary of State has drawn our attention to the fact that there is an additional Clause in this Bill in addition to what was contained in the English Bill. It would not be a Scottish Bill unless we asked for something more. Clause 13 explains that if it appears expedient that any
  " functions relating to the use and development on land in Scotland exercisable by any Minister of the Crown under any enactment should be exercised by the Secretary of State, His Majesty may by Order in Council transfer those functions to the Secretary of State."
  Does this apply to a rather unwelcome guest in Scotland, the Ministry of Works? Are the powers exercised by the Ministry of Works in Scotland to be transferred to the Scottish Office? The Clause enables
  "any functions relating to the use and development of land in Scotland exercisable by any Minister of the Crown "
  to be transferred to the Secretary of State. You cannot redevelop anything in Scotland if a Department of State over which the Secretary of State has no control has control over the materials essential to that development. I hope—I would not ask just now—that we shall get a reply on this; the position will have to be clarified during the Committee stage. The Minister of Works is a Minister of the Crown, and, quite frankly, he has functions which can stand in the way of the use and development of land in Scotland as a con-
  1030
  I want an answer to that, just as I am sure that the hon. and gallant Member for Argyll wants an answer on the functions of the Forestry Commission as to how this thing will operate.
  In one development in Glasgow for which I was responsible, it was decided in the plan, in agreement with the proprietor and in conjunction with the Department of Health, that all the hill tops would be retained and all the plantations fronting the river would be retained, and that it would be a permanent amenity, part and parcel of the development. The Scottish Office ought to have power to determine in any development area which portion is to be planted for future use. If of course the Forestry Commission are the persons to determine that, I am satisfied that you are defeating the purpose of Clause 13, and this concession from the Government as something more than they have in England is just illusive; you have been "had." Perhaps the Lord Advocate when he replies will give me a little enlightenment on Clause 9, which enables the Secretary of State to constitute a joint committee
  "without the request of any of the constituent authorities,"
  and give it control over interim development. What is the constitution of these committees? Does it authorise the Secretary of State to supersede the local authority? Is this a question of appointing a committee who will have power to spend local authorities' money but will be responsible to nobody but the Secretary of State? I may be under a delusion, but there is nothing in the Clause at all which gives anyone any guidance as to what sort of constitution this committee is to have. It is to be composed of members of contiguous authorities in an area. It is important that we should have information.
  One more question I should like answered is, What sort of fellow is the town planning consultant? Where have all these town planning experts been in the period since the last war and this one? The architects will say that the architect is the only possible planner, the civil engineers will say that it is really a civil engineer's job, and I have no doubt that the Surveyors' Institute will say that this is a matter for a surveyor. What sort of person has the Minister in mind when he offers to make a substantial contribution

  1031
  —in fact, to pay the whole cost—of a town-planning consultant, an expert? When the Secretary of State gets the power to appoint the committees, does he propose that the persons forming the committees are to be drawn from the elected authorities to work in the areas for the development of which their authorities are responsible, and what powers will the town-planning consultants have? Is the consultant engaged in a purely advisory capacity, or has he power to veto any plans prepared by a development authority? A little enlightenment now may save trouble on the Committee stage and make for an easier passage for the Bill.
  Mr. McLean Watson: In addition to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. McKinlay), my main difficulty is to understand why this Measure is being introduced now, apart from the fact that a similar Bill has been introduced in England. I think that the Secretary of State is giving his proposed joint committees a severe task in asking them to plan for the Scotland of the future. Before these committees can do any effective planning, they need to understand what sort of a Scotland they are going to plan for, what sort of industries we are going to have, and where they are to be. How many industries are to be left in Scotland after the war? Will the new factories be retained? Will the joint committees have to take these matters into consideration? How are you going to plan the mining areas? We are told that Lanarkshire is a dying coal area. Are they going to plan Lanarkshire as a developing area for coalmining, or are they going to plan it along the line that as a coalmining area it is not going to be important? On the other hand, Fife is a developing coalfield. Is this East and South-East committee going to take into consideration the new mining development in Fife? I understand that as soon as possible after the war one or two big collieries will be starting in that county. Are the planning authorities to plan new mining towns in Fife, or is there to be an extension of the towns that are already there and conveyances for people to travel to and from work? We should have some idea of what industries are to be left in Scotland, and whether new industries will take the place of the Govern-
  1032
  ment factories that are now producing war materials in Scotland. Is there any hope of these factories continuing after the war?
  We should have had some idea of what Government policy is with regard to industry before this. Bill was introduced. Then the local authorities could have surveyed their areas, and planned accordingly. I have no objection to plans being drawn up for the control of land, either for building or for industrial concerns—in fact, I am all in favour of it. The mistake in the past has been that cities and towns and villages have been built, and industries have been allowed to spread out, without any real planning. But, while I want the best possible planning after the war, I think it would have been much better if we had had some indication of the sort of Scotland that is to be planned by these committees. If we had some assurance that we are going to have industries to keep our people occupied, the local authorities could go ahead in drawing up their plans for the extension of present towns or for the creation of new towns to take the place of towns and villages—especially villages—that ought to have disappeared long ago. Many of these villages were built anything up to nearly 200 years ago. Their builders builded better than they knew. They built far too substantially. If they had put up contraptions like some of the present-day council houses, we should have had no problem in connection with them. We can get rid of these old buildings now. I hope that the planning authority will give us something good to go on with. In the first place, I would like to know whether the industries which have been given to us during this war will be continued after the war is over.
  Mr. MacLaren: We have had a Debate dealing with Scottish education, and the point has been made that in recent years Scottish education was entirely different from English education. Here we have a Bill dealing with Scottish town planning, which is really a reprint of the English Bill. Scotland again loses her identity, and follows in the track of English reactionary ideas. Whichever way England may make up its mind to deal with the problem, Scotland should, at least, have had a different idea. The Secretary of State for Scotland knows that in the past the Scots had very different

  1033
  ideas of how to tackle this problem and how to put the land to its best use. But, for good or for ill, the Secretary of State, driven by the tidal wind and the bureaucratic powers of London, has been swept out of his Scottish independence into this new world of planning. In England they have a Town and Country Planning Bill. It is not planning at all. It is a Bill to stop any planning. Why has the Minister of Town and Country Planning introduced the Bill? It is in order to stop flagrant and brutal disfigurement of the countryside at the hands of a crowd of gangsters and speculators who might take advantage of the situation arising when there is a tendency for the war to end. I can understand it. I would impress on hon. Members who have already spoken that that is really all there is in this Bill. We ought to stop bad development. But this is a sort of paralysing game; it is called a planning interim development Bill, but it is to stop development in any form subject to the discrimination of the Minister in England and the Secretary of State in Scotland.
  The situation that faces us now in both these Bills is that the great problem, if it is a problem, is that before you can plan anything, you must have the thing you are going to plan. The Government, both in England and Scotland, are without the control of the basic thing they are going to plan, and they are afraid to raise the issues with the present owners of the land, so they are edging round the problem and preventing others from making messes of the countryside. Sooner or later there will be a complete revulsion in the country against this kind of building. It is no use saying to the people of Scotland and England, "It is all right, we have taken powers in England and in Scotland to check the so-called improvements, and we are doing this so that we can have an area of land which we can plan." That is the idea. I would commend any hon. Members of the House to go to the National Gallery. There they will see a vast city planned on the floor. I would ask the question, who are to be the planners in the replanning of London? I suppose you will say there will be replanning in Edinburgh, and the same sort of thing in Glasgow. You will probably have Cathcart blown to blazes on the map and a great blob running up to the Salt Market. You will see all this laid before the planners. That is what I saw the
  1034
  other day on the floor at the National Gallery. Half a dozen people are competing in the replanning of London.
  There is nothing easier than to take a map of Glasgow, London or Edinburgh and put it in an architect's office before a man with a strange look in his eye who can put his tee and set squares on it and say, "Have something here and something else there." That is what the Government can do. They are telling the country that they are going to re-plan, and it is all on paper. I was about to leave the National Gallery, having looked at this "Alice in Wonderland," when I met the fellow responsible for it coming through the door, and I said, "Is this your idea?" He replied, "Yes; what do you think of it?" I said, "It is very fine on paper; how do you propose it shall be done? "This was the reply," This is our side of the job; your job is to get into the House of Commons and give us the control of the land." That is the crux of the trouble here. We have thousands of planners running through this city, and Scotland will have a sort of locust attack sooner or later made by people wishing to plan Scotland.
  We are going to have a Minister to obtain voluntary co-operation between local authorities. I am very glad to hear that. I am afraid that in England we shall have to use the whip on some of those who will not co-operate at all. But a number of local authorities in Scotland will sit down and say, "We are going to co-operate and have a replanned Scotland running from South to North." These gentlemen will come from the A.R.I.B.A., the most respectable people on earth. The civil engineers will come in through the back door, and they will re-plan Scotland on paper. They will say, "What next?" and the Minister will say, "I will not allow anybody to steal the plans." He gets his committee and his maps and appoints his planners to make transformations on the plan of Scotland, and then, what happens? The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State who is sitting there knows it; he cannot translate one of these plans into practice.
  Mr. Johnston: We have just translated the first one.
  Mr. MacLaren: Where?
  Mr. Johnston: In the Hydro-electric Bill. That is Plan No. 1.
  Mr. MacLaren: At a cost of £33,000,000.
  Mr. Johnston: The hon. Member has not even got that right.
  Mr. MacLaren: I ask the Secretary of State for Scotland to say what it would cost to widen the streets of Glasgow. He has not an acre of land under control in Glasgow. As Lord Astor rightly pointed out in a most telling letter in "The Times" the other day, what is going on is the promise of a new heaven on this miserable earth when the war is over by plans, committees and Ministries. In London we have the building across the street; that is the contractor's department. Then we have the Ministry of Town and Country Planning; that is the drawing office. And then we have the gentleman who knocks about this House more like Hamlet's father than a human being, called the Minister without Portfolio. It will depend upon how much animation he puts into these Ministries. We have the same sort of thing in Scotland. I have no objection to giving the Secretary of State for Scotland full power to stop any attempt to continue what has gone on in Scotland for the past 200 or 300 years since Scottish lords lost all sense of romance and turned their accursed halls into money-making and created the slums in Scottish towns. I look to the new Minister to stop anything along that line. But that is all the distance that this Bill takes you.
  With regard to the 1939 valuation, I have seen many contradictions produced in this country, and here is one. Nobody can hope to receive land above the 1939 valuation when it is wanted by the State or the local authority. There is no valuation in existence. I defy the Treasury or anybody else to produce one.
  Mr. Quibell: There is not one.
  Mr. MacLaren: I know that my hon. Friend among others has asked Questions about the sale of land in Scotland and its enhanced value. There are times when, looking at the situation, one really wonders whether the Government, in order to avoid tackling the core of this problem, will create for itself utter destruction. As Lord Astor said in "The Times," when the public become alive to the fact that they have been given promises and Acts have been passed in the House of Commons ostensibly to give them assurance that this land of ours will be made a worthy home for the heroes who will
  1036
  return from the war and that it is all a mere smoke-screen, then the term of office of the Ministers who passed such Bills will be quickly terminated.
  I appeal to the Minister to turn his attention to this valuation and to see that he has a valuation for that year, because he has not got it now. It is a sorry day for Scotland when Scottish politicians drop the old Scottish rule for solving this problem. We in Scotland did not say, "Let us pass a Bill empowering architects to make fancy plans." We said, No, the way to deal with it is to call upon every owner of land in Scotland to state his selling value and then bring the pressure of taxation to bear on that land, thereby throwing the land cheaply on to the market." We have ugliness in Scotland not because of architects or civil engineers. We have it because of the basic thing that drove people from the countryside and made them infest the cities. Whatever tune is composed in London, the Scots, in a docile manner, now follow it. I am saying this because I want to put it on record and to let the Scottish people know how far their representation in this House has declined from the old Scottish, Radical, virile days of straight attack.
  The Lord Advocate (Mr. J. S. C. Reid): This Bill gives a number of powers to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and its success will depend to a very large extent on the action taken, and the attitude adopted, by the local authorities. It is not the intention of the Secretary of State that he should act as a planner. He is only there in the background to support and, if necessary, control—and we hope control will not be necessary—the local authorities, who are to be the planning authorities, as they always have been. Recent developments have made it more and more obvious that certain aspects of planning, at least, ought to be on a wider basis than that of a single county in many parts of the country. Accordingly, the Secretary of State has endeavoured to get local authorities to come together and work out their plans on what one might call a regional basis. That attempt has met with complete success and I hope it will continue. It is intended that local authorities should have the fullest opportunity of coming together and consulting or, if they prefer it, of acting through an operative joint com-

  1037
  mittee, The hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. McKinlay) objected to joint committees being imposed upon unwilling local authorities.
  Mr. McKinlay: I asked what was to be the conception of these committees. Will they be appointed from membership of the continguous local authorities, or from outside them and be responsible to nobody?
  The Lord Advocate: I was about to assure the hon. Member that the Secretary of State has no intention whatever of imposing upon local authorities something they do not want. Normally, a joint committee would be a committee set up by two or three authorities who joined together, and they would agree about the constitution, powers and membership of the joint committee. There is no intention whatever of forcing upon any group of authorities who do not want it the superstructure of a joint committee consisting of outsiders or members of the authorities. If there is apprehension on this question, if anybody fears that the Secretary of State is taking unduly large powers to force things upon local authorities we shall consider, before the Committee stage, whether it would be desirable to restrict this provision so as to make it quite clear that there is no intent of forcing any scheme upon unwilling authorities in that way. I think that meets the hon. Member's point.
  The hon. Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Watson) said, "Why have the Bill now? How do we know now what Scotland will be like in the future? "The reason we have the Bill now is because if we do not, it is open to anybody to undertake development which may be very difficult to undo when the time comes to settle a new and final scheme. Accordingly, the purpose of this Bill is to prevent developments of that kind which may prejudice the ultimate proper development of an area. What will happen, as I visualise it, will be this: Any person who wants to develop a particular part of a town or its outskirts, or wherever it may be, applies for permission. The local authority have then to apply their minds to the question of whether there is any reasonable likelihood that what they are being asked to permit will, in the future, conflict with the ultimate scheme. They may no: know what the ultimate scheme is, but they will have two or three possibilities in their minds. If they have not
  1038
  got that now, it is hoped that they soon will, because the Secretary of State is encouraging local authorities to make the necessary preliminary surveys in order to get information on which the ultimate scheme will be based. The local authority will say, "Are we right to let this go on or is it likely to get in the way of one or other of the alternative schemes we have in mind for the future?" If it does not appear to conflict with any scheme which is in the minds of the authority, permission will be given. If, on the other hand, it appears to prejudice the completion of one of the schemes which the local authority has in mind, permission will not be given, and and no one will be allowed to spoil that bit of land until the ultimate scheme is passed in its final form. If the ultimate scheme continues the prohibition, no one will ever be entitled to do so. If the scheme is on different lines from what was contemplated in the first instance, the land may be released from further prohibition, and the person who wanted to carry on with the development will be free to do it.
  Mr. MacLaren: I rather gather from what the right hon. and learned Gentleman says that the local authorities could release the land. They cannot. It is to be subject to the approval of the Secretary of State.
  The Lord Advocate: I said at the beginning of my remarks, and I meant it to qualify all that I am saying, that the Secretary of State hopes he will not have to exercise the power, that the local authorities will exercise their planning powers in an enlightened way and that he will not have to over-rule in any way the decision they reach. It is true that he has the power to do it, but he very much hopes it will not be necessary to use it. This is not a Bill in which a number of the points raised by the hon. Member for Dunfermline can be settled, but it is keeping the door open for the settlement of those points at the earliest date at which it can be done.
  The hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Hunter) raised a question about how much of Perthshire was included in the present group. I am informed that only a part is included but that, if the local authorities concerned desire that the scheme should be spread further and include the whole country, or a further part of it, that should

  1039
  be susceptible of arrangement. I would say the same to the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Argyll (Major McCallum) on that point. It may well be that there are two groups of authorities in the Highlands. Again, primarily, at least, it is for the authorities in the areas to decide among themselves what they think the best grouping and to agree. My right hon. Friend certainly hopes that the arrangements which they seek to make among themselves will be such that they can be confirmed without difficulty. I think the point has already been cleared up that this is not a Bill which prevents people from acquiring land. It is a Bill which prevents people from misusing land, and I think that is as far as we can go at the moment. I think that answers the question of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Argyll about speculative buying. The deterrent which the Bill puts upon it is that, if that buying is for the purpose of developing the land, the person who buys has no certainty that he will be allowed to develop in the way he wants and, if he is an undesirable speculator who wants to develop in the wrong way, he will not be allowed to do so.
  My hon. and gallant Friend also raised a point about the Forestry Commission, and I think the answer is this. The Report recently issued and debated is not a statement of Government policy and has not been adopted as Government policy either in principle or in detail. Accordingly, it still remains to be settled how the planning of forestry areas is to be carried out. I cannot say any more than that at the moment.
  Major McCallum: If I am not mistaken, the Minister without Portfolio in his winding-up speech in the Debate on the Forestry Report, I will not say approved the policy of the Forestry Commission in Scotland overriding the Scottish Office but seemed to acquiesce in it. That is important and we in Scotland are rather frightened at what that may lead to.
  Mr. Mathers: May I add that, in reply to a Question, the Minister without Portfolio has indicated to me that legislation will not be required to carry out extra planting by the Forestry Commission? I looked upon this Bill as giving the Secretary of State his rightful place in
  1040
  dealing with any development of that kind, in any part of Scotland, in respect of undeveloped land.
  The Lord Advocate: That is quite true. It is right that I should point out the difficulty which arises from that line of approach. Under Section 52 of the principal Act, development does not include the use of land for agriculture or planting trees. Accordingly, that is not the line of approach that we can adopt in dealing with conversion from agriculture to forestry. It does not come within the scope of the principal Act. Therefore, some other method of control will have to be adopted if that is decided. I am not in a position to say more than that nothing has been decided as Government policy, on the question of who is to control the dedication of land for planting.
  Mr. McKinlay: Can we put down an Amendment on the next stage to clarify the position?
  The Lord Advocate: If the Amendment does clarify the position and is in Order, I have no doubt that it can be looked at with great interest, but it would mean the extension—if I understand the hon. Member's purpose rightly—of the scope of the principal Act, and I am not at all sure whether we could face that in this Bill. I would ask the House to leave the matter of the Forestry Commission to be settled, as it must be ultimately, by a declaration of Government policy followed by any legislation that may be necessary. The hon. Member for Dumbartonshire made one or two further points. As I have said, this is not a Bill that deals with the acquisition of land. Therefore, I do not think that his first point about local authorities acquiring land is really germane to this discussion. [Interruption.] Surely that is the whole essence of this matter—that you do plan without acquiring land, by telling the man who owns land what he may or may not do with it. That is the essence of the whole scheme.
  The hon. Member also raised the question of the transfer of the powers of the Ministry of Works. That can be competently done under Clause 13 of the Bill. Of course, it remains for the Government to decide, once the Bill becomes law, to what extent any of these transfers shall take place, but it is lawful and competent

  1041
  under Clause 13 to make a transfer wholly or partially of the functions of the Ministry of Works which come within the scope of that Clause. I think I have dealt with at least the important points raised in the discussion.
  Mr. MacLaren: What about the question of the 1939 values of land?
  The Lord Advocate: That hardly comes into the scope of this Bill, which has nothing to do with the acquisition of land or the amounts you pay for it.
  Mr. MacLaren: I thought I had made that clear myself.
  The Lord Advocate: Then I am not clear what it is the hon. Member wants me to add. If I understood what I was asked to do, I would try to comply with the request.
  Mr. MacLaren: The Secretary of State repeated a statement made by his English colleague that those who take land hoping to make a profit out of it and are holding their hand are to be instructed that they will get nothing more for their land than its 1939 value, and that is a material statement as regards this Bill. The question is whether the local authorities or the planning authorities are to face a state of affairs in which values have gone up enormously and where that fact is stopping them from planning, and the Secretary of State for Scotland said, which is I believe an accepted principle "Let the price paid for that land when wanted by a public authority be the 1939 valuation."
  Mr. Speaker: An hon. Member is not allowed to speak twice on the Second Reading.
  Mr. MacLaren: I was asked to make clear what it was I had asked, and I am sorry that I have had to take so long in doing it.
  The Lord Advocate: I thought that was made clear when the Government stated that their intention is that when land is to be acquired for public purposes in future no more is to be paid than its 1939 value. The hon. Member has his views about the possibility of ascertaining that value. Those views are not held by His Majesty's Government, and that is all I can say about it. Accordingly, I would ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
  Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House. —[Mr. Boulton.]
  Committee upon the next Sitting Day.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  It being after the hour appointed for the Adjournment of the House, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

  SCHOOLS (PLAYING FIELDS)
  SCHOOLS (PLAYING FIELDS)
BRITISH ARMY
  Accident, Bletchley
  Accident, Bletchley
  Petrol and Oil Tins
  Petrol and Oil Tins
  Medical Reference Books
  Medical Reference Books
  Horses (Recreational Use)
  Horses (Recreational Use)
COAL INDUSTRY
  Mining Subsidence Bill
  Mining Subsidence Bill
  Partially Incapacitated Miners (Employment)
  Partially Incapacitated Miners (Employment)
MINISTRY OF INFORMATION
  French North Africa (Press Correspondents)
  French North Africa (Press Correspondents)
  Film, "World of Plenty"
  Film, "World of Plenty"
  Reconstruction (Members of Parliament, Broadcasts)
  Reconstruction (Members of Parliament, Broadcasts)
  General Election (Broadcasting)
  General Election (Broadcasting)
  British Broadcasting Corporation (Directorate)
  British Broadcasting Corporation (Directorate)
  Scottish Forces Broadcast (Reception)
  Scottish Forces Broadcast (Reception)
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Clothing Ration
  Clothing Ration
  Imperial Chemical Industries
  Imperial Chemical Industries
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Service Retired Pay
  Service Retired Pay
  British Pensioners, Shanghai (Exchequer Advances)
  British Pensioners, Shanghai (Exchequer Advances)
  Bank of England Note Issue (Profits)
  Bank of England Note Issue (Profits)
  SIERRA LEONE (CONTROLLED GINGER, SALES)
  SIERRA LEONE (CONTROLLED GINGER, SALES)
  SEYCHELLES (COURT SENTENCES)
  SEYCHELLES (COURT SENTENCES)
  BRITISH GUIANA (PETITION)
  BRITISH GUIANA (PETITION)
COLONIAL EMPIRE
  African Labour (Compulsory Ordinances)
  African Labour (Compulsory Ordinances)
  East Africa (Development Commission)
  East Africa (Development Commission)
  Development and Welfare Schemes (Expenditure)
  Development and Welfare Schemes (Expenditure)
  AIRCRAFT FACTORY WORKERS (TRANSFERENCE)
  AIRCRAFT FACTORY WORKERS (TRANSFERENCE)
MINISTRY OF SUPPLY
  Straw (Paper-Making)
  Straw (Paper-Making)
  Publishers (Paper Stocks)
  Publishers (Paper Stocks)
  Iron Ore Samples, Co. Down (Analysis)
  Iron Ore Samples, Co. Down (Analysis)
  Control of Growing Trees Order
  Control of Growing Trees Order
  ARMED FORCES (PENSIONS AND GRANTS)
  ARMED FORCES (PENSIONS AND GRANTS)
  BUILDINGS, ABINGDON STREET (DEMOLITION)
  BUILDINGS, ABINGDON STREET (DEMOLITION)
  FIRE GUARD DUTIES (ALIENS)
  FIRE GUARD DUTIES (ALIENS)
AGRICULTURE
  Workers (Union Membership)
  Workers (Union Membership)
  Grass Seed, Northern Ireland
  Grass Seed, Northern Ireland
  STATUTORY RULES AND ORDERS
  STATUTORY RULES AND ORDERS
  WIFE'S HOUSEKEEPING ALLOWANCE (COURT DECISION)
  WIFE'S HOUSEKEEPING ALLOWANCE (COURT DECISION)
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES EMPLOYEES (WAR SERVICE PAY)
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES EMPLOYEES (WAR SERVICE PAY)
  LAND TRANSFER COMMITTEE (REPORT)
  LAND TRANSFER COMMITTEE (REPORT)
  SEA CADET CORPS
  SEA CADET CORPS
FOOD SUPPLIES
  Whimberries
  Whimberries
  Rations (Agricultural Workers)
  Rations (Agricultural Workers)
  Milk
  Milk
  Plums (Road Transport)
  Plums (Road Transport)
  Jam Ration
  Jam Ration
  Potatoes, Northern Ireland
  Potatoes, Northern Ireland
  Algerian Wine
  Algerian Wine
  Algerian Olive Oil (Shipping Space)
  Algerian Olive Oil (Shipping Space)
  Chocolate (Prisoners of War, Parcels)
  Chocolate (Prisoners of War, Parcels)
  Grocery and Dairy Trades, Rochester (Staffs)
  Grocery and Dairy Trades, Rochester (Staffs)
  Early Potatoes, South Wales
  Early Potatoes, South Wales
  Unthrifty Cows (Meat)
  Unthrifty Cows (Meat)
  SICILIAN OPERATIONS (INFORMATION)
  SICILIAN OPERATIONS (INFORMATION)
ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Volunteer Reserve Air Crews (1939–43 Star)
  Volunteer Reserve Air Crews (1939–43 Star)
  Air Crews (Insurance Premiums)
  Air Crews (Insurance Premiums)
  W.V.S. ANNIVERSARY GREETINGS (PAPER)
  W.V.S. ANNIVERSARY GREETINGS (PAPER)
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (REDUNDANT OFFICERS)
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (REDUNDANT OFFICERS)
  MILITARY SERVICE (MEDICAL EXAMINATION)
  MILITARY SERVICE (MEDICAL EXAMINATION)
  SEVERN ESTUARY (BRIDGING)
  SEVERN ESTUARY (BRIDGING)
  OMNIBUS SERVICES, LONDON (WORK STOPPAGES)
  OMNIBUS SERVICES, LONDON (WORK STOPPAGES)
  ROAD HAULAGE RATES (MILK)
  ROAD HAULAGE RATES (MILK)
  MAIL TRAIN, LONDON TO PENZANCE (FIRE)
  MAIL TRAIN, LONDON TO PENZANCE (FIRE)
Preamble
The House met, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name.
Moved, That Standing Orders Nos. XXI and XXXIX be considered in order to their being dispensed with for the purpose of giving precedence to the British North America Bill [H.L.] over the other Notices and Orders of the Day, and taking the Bill through its remaining stages.—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

BRITISH NORTH AMERICA BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, in the unavoidable absence of my noble friend the Leader of the House it falls to me to move the Second Reading of this Bill. I shall not keep your Lordships long in explaining it; my noble friend explained the reason for it, I think, in moving the First Reading yesterday. Section 8 of the British North America Act of 1867 required a census of the population of Canada to be taken in the year 1871 and every tenth year thereafter. In accordance with this provision, a census of the population was taken in the year 1941. Section 51 of the same Act provides that, on the completion of the census for any year, the representation of the Canadian Provinces in the House of Commons of Canada shall be readjusted in accordance with the provisions of that section. The Canadian Government and Parliament consider, however, that it is unnecessary, and indeed undesirable, for any change to be made in the representation of the Provinces in the House of Commons until after the cessation of hostilities. An Address has been presented to
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the King by both Houses of the Canadian Parliament asking that the necessary legislative provision may be made, so as to postpone such redistribution in Canada until the termination of hostilities.
The need for legislation by the United Kingdom Parliament arises from the fact that no power of amendment in Canada is conferred by the Act of 1867. From time to time the question of the method of securing for Canada the power to amend its own Constitution has been discussed in Canada, but there has been no agreed conclusion on the subject, and at the time of the passage of the Statute of Westminster in 1931 an express clause, Section 7 (1), was included in the Statute, at the request of the Canadian Government, to take wholly out of the general powers conferred on the Parliament of Canada by the Statute the power to amend or repeal the British North America Act. The procedure, therefore, for amending the British North America Act remains as it was before the Statute of Westminster, and this procedure has for many years been the passage of legislation by the United Kingdom Parliament on the basis of an Address presented to the King by both Houses of the Dominion Parliament, such as has been presented in the present case.
The recitals and clauses of the Bill follow substantially the terms of the Address passed in the Canadian Parliament, and the recitals correspond closely with those adopted on the last occasion when similar legislation was passed here—namely, the British North America Act, 1940. As your Lordships will see, this is a simple Bill of one operative clause, and I do not think that I need say any more on this very urgent and important matter, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Templemore.)
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, my noble friend has repeated a point made by the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, yesterday, when introducing the Bill, as to the need for urgency. My noble friend has just referred to the fact that this relates to the British North America Acts, 1867 to 1940, and he referred to the Statute of Westminster and to the reservations therein as to the powers under the British North America Acts. It is for that reason that, with the indulgence of your

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Lordships, I rise to ask for guidance, not in the hope of getting any statement today, because I understand that the succeeding stages of this Bill are to be taken forthwith, but so that my noble friend may take note of this point, which I think that it is proper to raise at this stage of the Bill. There appears to be some doubt—and it is on this point that I seek guidance—as to the powers of the Provincial Legislatures in Canada to deal, under the Constitution as it now exists, and as it has existed since the passage of the revised legislation to which my noble friend has already referred, with the question of immigration into Canada from the United Kingdom. I raise this question because it is a matter on which there is wide interest in the country.
When I was in Canada last autumn, I was given to understand by a prominent member of the Provincial Legislature of Ontario, the Leader of the Opposition, that there is doubt about the position under the revised legislation of matters affecting immigration. The question is whether the revised legislation withdrew from the Provincial Legislatures the power which they have had of dealing with this matter independently of the Dominion Legislature. I hope that I have made my point clear. Although I imagine that it cannot be done during the passage of this Bill, I think it would be helpful if at some stage this position could be cleared up, and I ask my noble friend to take notice of the question and to give us some guidance.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SIMON): My Lords, perhaps I may be permitted briefly to answer my noble friend. He raises a question regarding the distribution of legislative power between the Provinces of Canada and the Dominion of Canada in connexion with the subject of immigration. It is not infrequently the case that questions do arise as to how the boundary is drawn between the powers of the Provincial Legislatures of Canada and the powers of the Dominion. The exclusive powers of the Provincial Legislatures are strictly defined in Section 92 of the British North America Act, while the powers of the Dominion are set out in a list in Section 91. There are also to be considered Sections 93 and 95. To a certain extent there is an overlapping power. Even if there were any difficulty
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on the subject of legislation regarding immigration, of which I am not at the moment aware, it has, with great respect to my noble friend, nothing whatever to do with the proposal in this Bill. The proposal in this Bill is, as has been very clearly explained, a proposal put forward at the wish of the Dominion of Canada itself, that there should be a postponement in the redistribution of seats which normally follows as a result of a periodical census.
The Province of Quebec, as we know, has in some respects rather special features; it is always represented in the Dominion House of Commons by a fixed number of members. In order to provide against the effect of population changes, however, the British North America Act provides that, after each decennial census, while the Province of Quebec will retain the same number of members, namely 65, the number of members for the other Provinces shall be so adjusted as to correspond to the distribution of population. It is that which is the subject of this Bill and of the request to postpone redistribution, made by the Dominion Parliament, in which we willingly concur. But with great respect to my noble friend, though the distribution of legislative powers between Province and Dominion is a topic which often arises and is frequently dealt with in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in appeals which are heard there, the subject of the distribution of powers to legislate as to immigration is not in any way touched or dealt with in the present Bill.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, with the indulgence of the House I should like to thank the noble and learned Viscount for his reply. He did admit that there was overlapping in the existing state of legislation. I referred to the case of the Province of Ontario not the Province of Quebec, and it was on that point that I raised the matter in the hope that, as it is not necessarily excluded as a subject of comment on the Second Reading, he might give some direction and guidance on the matter. At the present moment there seems doubt as to whether or not the Legislature of the Province of Ontario can itself deal with matters of immigration independently of the Dominion Legislature. For that reason I raise the matter on this, the first occasion, that reference to the Act has come before this House.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: That is a matter for Canada and not for this House.
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.
Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended) Bill read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932:
URBAN DISTRICT OF DRIFFIELD ORDER.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA AND BURMA (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name on the Paper.
Moved, That the Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, and laid before the House yesterday, be approved.—(The Earl of Munster.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

POST-WAR EMPLOYMENT.
LORD SOUTHWOOD LORD SOUTHWOOD rose to call attention to the need for accelerating plans to avoid mass unemployment after the war through international co-operation for the development of trade and national reconstruction; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the subject of the Motion I desire to bring before you is one which has a vital bearing, not only on the well-being of our own country but on the future of the whole civilized world. I have a double purpose in bringing it forward. I want, if I can, to stimulate among the general public a wider interest in this question of the world's future economic policy, and I want also to direct attention to the importance of the preparations for post-war reconstruction. I think your Lordships will agree that it is abundantly clear that the people of this country are very much concerned as to what is going to happen after this war. They are anxious about many things. This is made clear by the concern that is shown about the future of the Beveridge Report. That Report seems to me to have become to the ordinary man and woman what I might term a symbol of good intentions.
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But there can be no Beveridge plan, there can be no social security of any sort unless the world's resources are fully employed in the production and distribution of material wealth after this war. If the masses of the people are to have a better and a more secure life, very much more is needed than just a plan for unifying and expanding social insurance. Among the greatest problems that we have to face are those of securing the full employment of labour and the avoidance of those periodic slumps in trade which have been the cause of so much distress and poverty during the last two decades.
So now I come at once to the case I desire to put before your Lordships. It rests almost entirely upon one fundamental point—a point of vital interest. We must at all costs avoid, after this war, the recurring waves of mass unemployment which swept across the world in the pre-war years. I have spoken in your Lordships' House before of the human tragedy of mass unemployment and its degrading effect on the spirit, on the mind and on the physique. But at the moment I am concerned solely with the economic consequences of mass unemployment. Your Lordships, I am sure, will remember that between the years 1930 and 1934 the greatest industrial depression of all time affected the world. It is literally true to say that millions of workers were thrown upon the streets to idle away their time and to waste their skill. What was the loss of wealth caused by this wave of unemployment? It has been reliably estimated—and I believe the estimates are accepted by most economists—that this great depression caused the loss in national income to three countries alone, our own, the United States and Germany, of no less than £22,000,000,000. It is a staggering sum. Just how vast it is can be appreciated when I point out that it was a little less than the entire cost to the whole of the belligerents of the last war.
What is the real significance of this enormous decline? It is more than the fact that there was less money available to spend, important as that is in itself. No, the essential point is that £22,000,000,000 worth of goods and services which could have been enjoyed in those five years were just not there. This mass unemployment cut down the quantity of clothes, food, furniture, houses, household utensils and all kinds of other.

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essential articles available for the nation's needs—and also for the needs of others. It deprived the people of schools and clinics, of roads, parks and of holidays and all kinds of services. We could have had £22,000,000,000 worth of all these things. The plant was there, the raw material was available, transport existed in abundance and labour and skill were at our disposal. But those who could have given to us and to themselves this vast quantity of goods and services were forced into idleness and, being in idleness, they were in poverty, some in poverty of a most acute kind.
What we must remember is that mass unemployment impoverishes the whole of the community. It is a burden on us all because it cuts down the flow of essential things for every man, woman and child. Like war, it impedes the progress of human welfare to a disastrous extent. Mass unemployment, in short, is just bad business. I speak with some experience in the direction of big concerns. I know that those concerns could never prosper if we failed to employ the full skill of all those engaged in our service. In many ways, in principle, the nation is very little different from a business concern. If it is to prosper it must make full and continuous use of those who are available for employment. If its balance sheet is to be good it cannot afford to discard the productive skill of any of its citizens. Before the war this nation was prodigal in the waste of its labour and the talents of its people. In some towns in the so-called "distressed areas" the number of employable citizens permanently out of work was never less than 60 per cent. In places like Jarrow the total stood, month after month, at the staggering figure of over 73 per cent. of the insured population. That is, out of every ten more than seven were unproductive, idle, and a burden on the rest of the community.
I am sure your Lordships will agree that we must not—I almost said we dare not—return to that position. You must remember, too, that this war has provided additonal reasons for keeping our people in full employment. When it is over the war has to be paid for; the contributions of those who, by so freely lending of their savings, have postponed their enjoyment of goods and services, have
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to be refunded. If this bill is to be met—and it can only be met by the possession of things which people want to possess—it will be essential that every available citizen should be continuously employed in productive work for home and oversea consumption. In fact, full employment is at the root of practically everything. It is necessary, as I have said, to provide the means to pay for the war, and to provide the wealth to sustain the new standards of social security which we all agree must be established. For these reasons it is imperative that every step we can take to ensure that mass unemployment shall not recur should be taken, and taken now. The issues are far too vast and far too complicated to be left until hostilities end.
What can be done about it? It is at once evident that Britain, acting alone, can achieve only very limited results. The same is true of any other country. This is a problem that knows no frontiers. Its solution is not within the capacity of any one nation. It is true, of course, that certain internal measures can be devised. There is, for instance, the preparation of a long-term national housing programme, which I am glad to see the Government have taken in hand. Steps can also be taken as to the use we intend to make in peace-time of the factories and machines erected for the purpose of supplying munitions. But the root of the problem of mass unemployment is not merely national; it is also, and primarily, international, and it must be dealt with on an international plane. Agreed and concerted measures must be taken, designed to open up the widest possible channels of trade and commerce between the nations. This is particularly true of our own country. We are not a self-sufficient nation, nor ever could be, We are not even a self-sufficient Empire, nor ever could be. For good or ill, we British have become a great manufacturing nation.
Why, in the year before the war, we grew only enough food for two and a half days each week, enough for little more than eighteen weeks in a whole year! That was an appallingly low output of agricultural produce, and I am very glad to know that the war has brought about a considerable improvement in the cultivation of our land. I hope and trust we shall never again slip back. But even if every acre were in full production we

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should still have to import large quantities of essential foodstuffs and fertilizers. Our climate alone makes that inevitable. Then we require to bring in vast quantities of raw materials of all kinds. These are not to be found here, and cannot be produced here. If our machines and factories are to be fed we must ship from overseas huge quantities of these raw materials. In the calling in which I am engaged, for instance, we are almost entirely dependent on overseas supplies for our raw materials. Our newspaper industry is, I believe, as my noble friend Lord Beaverbrook will confirm, next to the United States the principal importer of wood pulp. In the year 1938 we imported over 1,500,000 tons of pulp, and besides these large imports of pulp there came from Scandinavia and other countries huge quantities of finished newsprint, mainly from Canada and Newfoundland. Other great industries are equally dependent on overseas sources for their raw materials. Without them the basis of a large part of our industries would be entirely destroyed. To pay for these imports we must ship adequate supplies of manufactured goods, to produce which, I think we may say without hesitation, we have the best workers in the world.
Clearly, then, the whole question of the employment of people within our shores is bound up with the economic life of countries overseas. That has been the case ever since the industrial revolution. It will be much more so after the war. Remember we have had to draw very heavily on our oversea capital holdings in order to pay for the materials to carry on this fight. Unfortunately our capital stake in the outside world has been sadly depleted. Since the war it has been reduced, I believe, by over one half. In the future we shall have to pay as we go. It is impossible for us any longer to rely upon the same source of income to pay for the goods which we shipped overseas in the last century. We must rely on our ability to produce, and the opportunity to exchange goods and services. The problem then before us is how to secure the best arrangement for the supply of the goods we need, and the widest facilities for disposing of the goods we must export to pay for them. We must not forget, too, that many of the countries formerly our customers for a wide range of articles now manufacture these articles for themselves.
What did we do before the war? In the decades before the war we tried to carry on with methods of wasteful competition. We and other nations openly fought one another for positions of economic advantage. There was ruthless price cutting, uneconomic subsidizing, there was gambling in basic commodities—all the features of open war; and then what? We had trade depressions every few years, millions of tons of food were wasted or destroyed, markets collapsed and unemployment in all these competing industrial countries rose to unheard-of heights. With it all, despite an enormous capacity to produce wealth, there was gross underconsumption and unsatisfied need, and in the end there was this war. The method of each nation fighting its neighbour is completely discredited. The world cannot afford again to follow that ruinous road. The Atlantic Charter points the right way. Much more than the future of world trade depends on how those great instruments—the Atlantic Charter and the Mutual Aid Agreement—are implemented into solid and workable plans of international co-operation. This is why I welcome the declarations we have had from leading spokesmen in the United States of their readiness to begin with us and the other Allied Nations the exploration of new methods of international economic co-operation.
I refer in particular to Mr. Sumner Welles. Speaking in Toronto only last February, the United States Under-secretary of State made a declaration of the most important character. He announced that his Government intended to initiate discussion between the United Nations on the "most practical and effective methods" of organizing international action to prevent a repetition of economic maladies. May I remind your Lordships of some of the things which this far-seeing state man said on that occasion? "There is to disagreement anywhere as to what the United Nations want," he said; they desire "full employment for their people at good wages and under good working conditions and the other physical and institutional arrangements which add up to freedom from want." He then expressed his belief that the conflicts and controversies which have so long in the past embittered relations in the international economic field would largely disappear if, as he said, "the United Nations were to set up machinery

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for the purpose of assembling and studying all international aspects of problems under the general heading of freedom from want.'' He then went on to support his appeal with a warning that delay was dangerous. "My Government believes that the initiation of such studies is already overdue," he declared. And further: "If we do not make a start now there is a danger that we should be brought together to make the peace with as many plans as there are Governments." In such an event he foresaw what many of us here have foreseen: the peace would be "no more than a brief and uneasy interlude before another and even more horrible war devastates the world."
Mr. Henry Wallace, Vice-President of the United States, has also had some notable things to say on this theme. A year or so ago in his stirring speech on the "Century of the common man," he declared:
"Those who write the peace must think of the whole world. There can be no privilege to peoples. We ourselves in the United States are no more a master race than the Nazis. And we cannot perpetuate economic warfare without planting the seeds of military warfare. We must use our powers at the peace table to build an economic peace that is just, charitable and enduring."
These are inspiring proposals. Their sanity, their realism and practical idealism encourage the hope that this time we shall not bungle the peace. Pray God it may be so.
Here at home some of our leaders—how I wish there had been more—have been equally stimulating in their pronouncements on the future. But, as your Lordships well know, speeches alone do not dispose of problems. Some of these problems admittedly impinge extensively on long-standing interests and are in consequence matters of undoubted controversy. That is why we must face them now. We need discussion and inquiry followed by decision and action. We need adequate permanent machinery for the application of such plans as may be devised, As your Lordships know, a splendid start has been made at Hot Springs by the United Nations Conference on Food and Agriculture. This Conference, in the words of that great man, President Roosevelt, was "a living demonstration of the methods by which the
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conversations of nations of like mind can, and will, give practical application to the principles of the Atlantic Charter." In only seventeen days of discussion the delegates of over forty nations reached unanimous agreement upon principles which, if they are faithfully carried out, will take us a long way towards banishing under-nourishment from the world. Nor did they confine themselves to the discussion of principles. They took steps to set up a permanent organization which will co-ordinate the international effort to improve the production and distribution of food.
So far as the British Government are concerned, their acceptance of the resolutions passed at Hot Springs and the obligation of giving effect to them, have been expressed, I am glad to say, in the warmest terms by our Foreign Secretary, Mr. Anthony Eden, and in your Lordships' House by the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, the Minister of Food. But food is only one of the long list of subjects which call for inquiry and action. The Hot Springs Conference itself expressed the view that its objects could only be achieved if the nations were equally ready to co-operate in other fields. Those other fields will have to be explored. To the best of my knowledge a full list of subjects to be dealt with has not yet been announced, but it is easy to name some of the issues which should be settled in advance of peace if the world reconstruction is to proceed smoothly and effectively.
There is, for example, first, the problem of money, or as the experts prefer to call it, currency. Your Lordships have already discussed this matter and I am sure we are all deeply indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Keynes, for his admirably lucid exposition of the British plan for international currency control—a plan which he himself devised. An American plan has also been published, and I have no doubt that others of the United Nations will have ideas of their own. I believe that quite recently a plan has been published in Canada which is a kind of compromise between the British plan and the American plan. Obviously there will have to be an international conference at which all ideas on this subject can be pooled and decisions taken.
Then there is the problem of world communications, which was debated in

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this House only last week and on several occasions recently. I am sure we are all deeply indebted to the noble Marquess, Lord Londonderry, and the noble Viscount, Lord Rothermere, for having brought this matter forward. What the nations have to decide is whether civil aviation is to become a medium for increasing international understanding or whether it is to be used as a weapon in fierce commercial warfare. If we take the latter course, then I feel that inevitably yet another war will follow. In other words, in simple language, is the aeroplane to be a blessing or a curse to mankind? That is what we have to decide, and the issue cannot be faced too frankly or too soon.
There must also be full consideration of the problem of finding means of avoiding those catastrophic changes in price levels of food and raw materials which have been so potent a cause of human misery. Any business man knows that there was no more fruitful cause of unemployment before the war than the sudden upward and downward swinging of the price levels of the basic commodities. A year ago we signed the Wheat Agreement. It took nearly 4,000 years to learn from Joseph this invaluable lesson. Wheat has been pooled and made available when and where needed at a reasonable price. Now what has been done for wheat can also surely be done for other commodities. I next put on my list the question of monopolies: I mean, of course, international monopolies known as "rings" or "cartels." I take the view that there is only one standard by which these organizations should be judged. Are they operating to the disadvantage of the community, or are they operating to the common good? I think it will be agreed that monopolies must be made the servants of the people, not their masters. They must be made to contribute, not to exploit. Mr. Henry Wallace, in the speech from which I quoted earlier, proposed that monopolies should be subjected to international control for the benefit, as he put it, of the "common man." Is any form of control, I wonder, being considered?
And I do hope, too, that consideration is being given to proposals which have been put forward both here and abroad for what has been described as a World Development Council working under the
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combined direction of the Governments of the world. I consider that a most vital and important proposal. The functions of that body, as I see it, would be to create full production and to organize full distribution. We have heard a lot in the past about over-production. But what does over-production mean? It does not mean that the world as a whole has more of this or that commodity than it requires. It means that great sections of the human race are unable, because their standard of living is so low, to purchase that commodity at the price prevailing; or do not desire to purchase it because they have not been educated in its uses. And so a surplus is created, and we have had such scandals as the burning of wheat and coffee to reduce the surplus. The simple fact that food is meant to be eaten has been overlooked. We have had such folly as the artificial restriction of output with its inevitable consequences of unemployment. Is it not time that we stopped thinking in terms of over-production and aimed instead at full production? We can do so if we take steps to organize full distribution. May I for one moment give your Lordships a simple illustration of what I mean? I shall not detain you more than two seconds upon this. When this war ceases, and the first period of reconstruction has passed, it is more than probable that the production of iron and steel may be far in excess of the normal requirements of the world. But there will still be vast territories, underdeveloped and backward countries, which could make use of the surplus iron and steel. A World Development Council would make plans for supplying the excess of iron and steel to backward countries, for use in their development. Just the same applies to foodstuffs, clothing and a vast range of the commodities which the highly developed countries produce.
I do not think it is always realized that considerably more than half the world's population is living at an abnormally low standard. The World Development Council would aid them on a lease-lend basis, or even as a gift if you like, to adopt schemes of irrigation, sanitation, transport and so on; to develop their own exportable resources and thus to improve their own standards of life. In effect this method of using surpluses would be a thoroughly sound investment, for, as the development of backward

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countries proceeded, they would be able to buy from us goods which were formerly far beyond their means. These countries are an enormous untapped source of purchasing power. And, all the while, by maintaining full production, the more advanced countries would be keeping their citizens in full employment. The planning and financing of the World Development Council activities would, I know, be a tremendous task. But I cannot believe that its performance is beyond the world's powers.
I would also like to see soon a United Nations Conference of experts on questions of wages and conditions in industry. The whole question of the standards of living in the respective countries is very closely linked with the problems of unemployment. It is futile to plan for expanding output if we leave wage standards and working conditions to be settled on the old "beggar my neighbour" basis. The whole structure of international co-operation can be brought down by any one nation which insists on keeping its workers on a standard of life below that regarded as essential by more enlightened nations. I am a profound believer in the merits of trade unions, and I should like to ask the Government if they have any proposals for using their experience in a concerted attempt to establish in the industrial world uniform minimum standards—standards which will prevent countries on the "slave labour level" undercutting their neighbours. I know that in many ways this problem should be easier to solve than most of the others, for already we have an international organization established and with a great record in the building up of international working standards. I refer, of course, to the International Labour Office, familiarly known as the I.L.O. This institution set up after the last war has been one of the greatest boons in history. It is good to know that it is not only so active but is regarded by our Government as an essential organ of international collaboration. In this House only a few weeks ago the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, pointed out how wonderful was the work that this organization has done. I hope to hear that bold plans are being proceeded with not merely for the restoration of its former power, but for extending its influence and
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work in spheres which it has not yet touched.
In several speeches our Ministers have declared their belief in co-operation between the peoples. I believe the time has come for a fresh and more emphatic statement of that belief—a statement which would show that we desire international collaboration in the very widest sense, and are anxious to expedite all these conferences and consultations so that hard-and-fast agreements may be reached. If that desire is expressed with sufficient force on behalf of Great Britain, the result, I am sure, will be to invigorate and expedite the whole process. There is one other thing we must not forget. The favourable turn which the war has taken makes expedition all the more necessary. I am not one of those who expect an easy victory—not by any means—but we must never overlook the possibility that peace may come upon us suddenly and find us with our plans still uncompleted. If we delay or hesitate we shall be piling up for ourselves a mountain of trouble which may well topple over and bring us into ruin more devastating than anything we have seen in this war.
The war has given us an unprecedented opportunity to rebuild our civilization on a more durable and dignified basis. It has also aroused in the people everywhere a profound dissatisfaction with the old conditions which so acutely limited the boundaries of their lives. The men in the Fighting Services, the munition workers, and the women also are anxious about the future. When they have saved us from the Nazi horror will they have, once more, to face the terror of insecurity and unemployment? They are tremendously concerned to know what is going to happen to them when peace comes. Will they have a job? Will they have a home? Will their children be given opportunity? In other words, will they have a chance to share in the good things of life? These are the questions they are asking. And not only in the Services. There is to-day a lively questing spirit among common men and women everywhere. I think you will find that they are not going to tolerate the restoration of the old system which wasted their talents in peace and could use them fully only when war came. I want to say that for my part I welcome these signs of a rising consciousness of the dignity of citizenship among all classes

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of the community. The well-being of the whole of the people should be our first—our very first—consideration. It is unthinkable that private claims or vested interests should be put before the paramount claims of humanity to a full and happy life.
Statesmen must match this mood with bold, far-seeing action. They must apply themselves now to the task of devising the means by which the abundant fruits of man's labour can be used to contribute to the happiness and security of man's life. The people, I believe, want plans—definite, concrete plans—and not only promises. There, my Lords, I must leave my theme. I do so very conscious that I have left unsaid much which should be said on this supremely vital subject, but there are other speakers who will no doubt repair my omissions. I shall be disappointed—terribly disappointed—if the reply which is to be made on behalf of the Government fails to take the matter further. What is needed is tangible evidence that those in authority are proceeding with all practical expedition to prepare the shape of the post-war world, a world in which mankind can dwell in peace, in happiness, and in security. I beg to move.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Southwood, has taken this opportunity of bringing forward this supremely important subject for discussion by your Lordships. His personal record of public service would have ensured that his observations would be listened to with attention in any case, but I am sure your Lordships will agree that the speech he has made was so full of knowledge and the fruits of experience that it has made an admirable portico to the subsequent discussion. In one sense this debate may also be regarded as a sequel to the one initiated by my noble friend Viscount Samuel on Thursday and concluded yesterday. At first sight the two subjects of encouragement by the Government of scientific research and the prevention of mass unemployment do not seem to be very closely related, but, as a matter of fact, in the course of the luminous and weighty speeches that were delivered during the two sittings, a great many allusions were made and suggestions were offered on matters directly concerned with
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the Motion which the noble Lord, Lord Southwood, has put before the House.
The main subject of that Motion is the prevention of mass unemployment, and the spectre of mass unemployment has haunted the minds of many who recollect what happened in 1919 and in the following years. In some respects perhaps the present prospect can be regarded as different from that experience. In the first place, the mere fact that it is being considered and discussed counts for a great deal. In the year 1917, for instance, I do not think a Motion of this kind would have been brought before your Lordships' House or that there would have been any attempt to discuss it. Also there are one or two other material differences. I think it is likely that the process of demobilization, which was so much hurried at the conclusion of the last war, will be a slower process on this occasion. No one, of course, can foresee what will be the last phases of the present struggle, but it seems likely that the return of men of all arms from overseas will be more gradual and more easy to regulate than it was when the war concluded in France.
There are also fairly hopeful prospects with regard to employment in this country. The noble Lord mentioned the vast building programme which is being considered, and there is no doubt that everything which is covered by the term "town and country planning" must necessarily involve the employment of much labour, both skilled and unskilled. On the other hand, I greatly question whether agriculture, from advances in which so much is hoped, offers much prospect for the employment of fresh labour. A number of farmers' sons and young agricultural labourers will be returning from overseas, and there have been a number of new recruits to agricultural work in the persons of the Land Army of women and girls some of whom, perhaps a good many, will be anxious to retain their places as farm workers. In many cases their remaining in that work will, I am sure, be welcomed by the farmers who employ them, because of the remarkable capacity that some of them have shown in certain branches of agriculture, particularly in the care and management of live stock. However, that is a minor matter.
I entirely agree, if I may say so, with the noble Lord, that for the prevention of

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unemployment on a really large scale we are bound to look to the revival of our foreign trade. It cannot be supposed that to bring that about would be in any sense an easy task. As the noble Lord reminded us, in a great number of cases the factories and workshops have been converted from their usual production to the manufacture of weapons and munitions of war. Time will be needed, and capital also will be needed, to enable them to revert to their former condition. But what is still more formidable is the disappearance of so many of the foreign markets on which manufacturers and exporters often solely depended for disposing of particular lines of manufactured goods. In the occupied countries, in particular, the means of purchasing manufactured goods are bound, for a number of years, to be greatly limited. But even supposing the goods to be there and the markets to be available, there are formidable difficulties to be met in respect of the willingness of foreign countries to attempt some greater freedom of trade and to accept our manufactured goods.
It is undoubtedly true that the idea of a nation being self-supporting had, so to speak, gone to the heads of a great many countries for a number of years past. We are bound to remember that of the reasons by which a nation can justify itself for attempting to be self-supporting, nine out of ten arc based on the possibility, or even the probability, that the country will find itself at war. If permanent peace, or even peace for as far ahead as one can venture to look, were secured, then by far the greater number of reasons for making a nation self-supporting would disappear altogether. And there is no doubt, I think, that the willingness of nations to agree to accept in large quantities the products of other countries must depend very largely on the extent to which they are able to look forward to a peaceful future. But, of course, there are many other reasons besides that one which have influenced all nations, our own included, in preferring a restrictive policy. My noble friends on these Benches, including in particular the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel—whose absence I greatly regret because he was one of the principal actors in the scene—in 1932 expressed their dread of the adoption of what was known as the policy of Ottawa. That policy was the legacy of
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Mr. Joseph Chamberlain in the momentous decision at which he arrived in 1903 to declare himself in favour of Protection and Colonial Preference. I have no wish to dig up those past discussions; I mention the subject only to say that the state of mind of all countries must change to a considerable extent in the direction of fair exchange if the hopes expressed in the Atlantic Charter are to be fulfilled.
By what kind of machinery that change of mind can be brought about was dealt with in the later passages of the noble Lord's speech. It will obviously be a very difficult matter for the different Governments in some cases to go against the expressed feelings and desires of their own people in order to put before this central body, whatever it may be, which discusses these matters from a European standpoint, the advantages of a neighbourly rather than a purely selfish policy in matters of trade. Perhaps some of your Lordships may have seen a pamphlet brought out under the auspices of an extremely competent authority, Sir Edgar Jones, dealing with this matter and with the possible plan of creating a central body not directly representative of the various Governments but able to speak with authority, although not actually exercising the powers of the Governments themselves. There again it is no easy matter—no easier than it was found to be in the case of the League of Nations—to bring the different Governments to accept the agreed policy of the majority of nations on some particular subject; but it is obvious that the attempt will have to be made, and I join with the noble Lord in hoping and believing that a plan of that kind can be made a success. I also agree with the noble Lord that unless the questions of exchange and currency can be satisfactorily dealt with—and it is most encouraging to know that they are being seriously considered by the most competent minds—no trade agreements will be of any service or value. I conclude, therefore, by once more saying that I hope and believe that by taking matters in time, as I believe that they are being taken, these very difficult problems can be brought to a happy solution.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK: My Lords, I join with previous speakers in expressing gratitude to the noble Lord for introducing this subject to the House. I think that it is almost impossible to give too much thought and consideration to this

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question of employment after the war, for I know that it is very much in the minds of a large number of people to-day. Especially those who are away from home, and who have been away from home for some time, are often haunted by the fear of what may happen to them at the end of the war. They remember the vast armies of the unemployed in the past; they know that frequently the work in which they were engaged has been stopped or transferred; they often know that others have been carrying on, perhaps since the beginning of the war, the particular work in which they were engaged. In some cases their own business has had to be closed. I know that there are very large numbers of men who are wondering what will happen to them when peace comes, and I think that nothing could reassure them more than to know that the Government have a definite policy for dealing with employment after the war.
I am not going to follow the noble Lord in the very full and valuable statement which he made about international methods. I agree with all that he said. International methods before the war, so far as industry and commerce are concerned, were often farcical and tragic, for there could surely be nothing more tragic than that some countries should be quite deliberately destroying food while in other countries there was the most serious malnutrition. I recognize as fully as the two noble Lords who have just spoken that we cannot have permanent employment at home unless there is international co-operation in matters of trade and unless there is international peace and good will. I propose to devote the very few observations which I have to make to the last words of the Motion—namely, those dealing with national reconstruction. There is, of course, a great deal which we have to do here to secure full employment after the war. In the first place there must be full, careful and comprehensive planning. Industry will for a very long time have to be controlled and organized, and it will be essential that those industries which produce the most necessary goods and which employ the largest numbers of men shall receive the greatest support. Industries which are engaged in luxury trades will have to come very low down on the priority list for a long time to come. Unless there is. continued planning after the war we shall have chaos again, and a very large amount of unemployment.
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There are two industries in particular in which useful commodities are produced and at the same time a great deal of employment is given—the building trade, and agriculture. That is one of the reasons why we are so anxious that the Government should have their housing policy ready to put into effect the moment the war comes to an end. We shall have before us at that time the largest housing problem which the nation has ever had to confront. People will be clamouring for homes of their own when they come back from the war, and the building trade almost more than any other affords the opportunity of employing a very large number of men. I would say very much the same of agriculture. No doubt it is true that agriculture will not employ so many men as some other industries, or will not give such opportunities of increased employment as will some other industries. But we do not wish agriculture to decline into its past deplorable condition, and we are anxious for the sake of the welfare of the nation as well as the production of food to see more people attracted to the land to work on it. But we shall not attract people to agriculture unless more houses are provided for them in which they are to live.
Then there is a second condition in any plans we make in the future for internal reconstruction in this country—and I am referring now to a more controversial matter. There must be greater flexibility of labour. Labour is surrounded with all sorts of restrictions which belong to an older period, which were quite necessary at the time but many of which have now become obsolete. Very many men have been trained in one particular trade and are quite unable to take up any other work. Of course we are all suspicious of the man who says he can turn his hand to anything. That usually means that he can turn his hand with good effect to nothing. But there are a large number of men who can work at one trade and one trade only. I wish that all of us had some secondary trade upon which we could fall back if our present profession failed, and I am often perplexed as to what I should fall back upon if such a necessity arose. But I am sure we ought to give men an opportunity of learning more than one trade, and that after the war, when men come back and find that very little labour is required in the trade in

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which previously they were engaged, opportunity should be given for training them in some other trade which they might take up.
Also labour ought to be moved much more freely from place to place than it is at present. I wish so much that we had in this House some trade unionists, who could speak with real authority on this matter. We have representatives of every profession in this House, most of whom can speak with great authority of some matter or other, but as far as I know there is not one representative of the trade unions in this House, and I doubt if even among noble Lords opposite there is one who is a direct representative of the trade unions. This matter of the flexibility of labour is obviously one which would have to be primarily dealt with by the trade unions themselves. In a remarkable report which has been produced by Nuffield College, and which was drawn up by a large number of experienced men among whom there were trade unionists, the statement is made:
"Flexibility will be of paramount importance. As long as in each trade the fear of unemployment or, alternatively, a big degradation to a lower class of work exerts a dominating influence on policy and attitude, there is bound to be much opposition to industrial changes which, even if they lower costs, do so at the expense of large groups of skilled workmen. This opposition will become much less formidable the moment the workers concerned have been induced to believe that the policy of full employment has been adopted and will be adhered to in face of impending crisis or depression. It may disappear altogether if the workers can be induced to believe not merely that they will not be left to fester in unemployment, but that their welfare and continued usefulness to the community are to be regarded as primary objectives of industrial policy."
I hope that the Government will be able to make some definite statement that they are determined to avoid mass unemployment at the end of the war, that they are taking such steps as are necessary for international co-operation in matters of industry and are planning for the flexibility of labour at home. I know that the members of the Government are overwhelmed with every kind of problem in connexion with their first immediate duty of winning the war and establishing peace. But if there is a large amount of unemployment at the end of the war some of the noblest fruits of victory will be utterly destroyed. And it is for the sake
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of the men who deserve so much of the country that we urge that no effort should be spared to avoid the horror of mass unemployment.
LORD BEAVERBROOK: My Lords, it is time I rose to congratulate my noble friend Lord Southwood on a most admirable speech—a speech that I admired very much. I admire, too, those post-war planners of ours who make speeches about the future; but at the same time I would like to bring to the discussion the sense of reality. There are the two major prophets of our post-war projects, Lord Nathan and Lord Southwood. Lord Nathan a week ago spoke on the home front; Lord Southwood this week takes the whole world for his sphere. Lord Nathan spoke on plans for agriculture, land settlement, social security, housing, education, location of industry. All that distance he covered in half an hour. But this week Lord Southwood comes in with a wide world plan, and he talks of conferences, and of food, of unemployment, of communications, aeroplanes, price levels, wages, conditions of labour, production, distribution and currency. He joins Lord Strabolgi in denouncing international monopolies—well, if they are bad he denounces them; and then he recommends a World Development Council. All in twenty-seven minutes—three minutes short of the time taken up by Lord Nathan. The Bible tells us that God made the world in six days, but Lord Southwood is going to re-make the world in twenty-seven minutes. I think it is a bit fast, and a bit ridiculous when I hear his account of what he conceives to be Hot Springs.
I doubt if very many of your Lordships have read about Hot Springs. Hot Springs was a very curious and strange proceeding. In the first place, Hot Springs determined that the promotion of co-operative societies would lower costs of distribution and marketing. Without any consideration at all, without any debate, without any argument, it determined that co-operative societies would lower the cost of distribution and marketing. Is that the opinion of your Lordships? Is that the opinion of Lord Southwood? Next we are told that tariffs cause hunger and must be reduced. Who said that? Without any argument they put in a document at the Government expense that tariffs cause hunger and must be reduced. I deny that

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tariffs cause hunger, and on that denial I shall have the support of the great majority of your Lordships in this House. Tariffs do not cause hunger. Tariffs have not caused hunger. What is the meaning of this doctrine? And we are told that we must barter commodities in future. Britain does not believe that co-operative societies lower costs; it does believe in the individual trader, the small man. Britain does not believe that tariffs cause hunger; Britain believes that tariffs saved this country some few years ago from unemployment more terrible than anything we had confronted in our history. And Britain will not take to barter.
I object to the preamble of the document. The preamble recites "Freedom from want," and then the project outlines a plan for freedom from want in 1945 or 1949, or some other date, but no freedom from want now—not at all. My noble friend Lord Addison spoke in most enthusiastic terms about this document. He said it was a most ambitious document, a most worthy document. But this enthusiasm of my noble friend misleads the world, it deceives the world, it persuades the world to believe that out of this document we are to have freedom from want. I do not object to the Conference at Hot Springs. I am glad it was held. I hope more conferences will be held. My objection is to the overstatement of what flows from Hot Springs, when you hear my noble friend and other speakers. The enthusiasm for this Conference does nothing whatever to alleviate hunger now. At the Conference Russia asked for more food. The Russian delegation went to the Conference and asked for more food now, and the Conference said, "No we cannot talk about food now, we cannot talk about that, but come inside and we will prepare a menu for 1945 or 1949, and we can rejoice together over that menu."
Russia wants food at this moment. The Governments of Britain and the United States should labour together to provide more food for Russia now, forthwith. Why, it is said that one million people have died in Leningrad through want of food. We are holding food conferences to talk about 1945 and 1949, and one million people have died of starvation in Leningrad! There is hunger now in Moscow. The Russians are very hungry. This all comes at a time when Russia has lost one-
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third to one-half of her production of grain and three-quarters or more of her production of sugar. I plead with your Lordships—send more help to Russia now. Do not let us talk so much about the post-war world and all the things we are going to do. Let us perform some deeds now. Send more food forthwith. The greatest battle in history is going on in Russia at this moment. On six hundred miles of front a battle rages the like of which has not been conceived before. The Russian claims and the German claims of the destruction of tanks and aeroplanes are bigger far than anything that has gone before. The scale of this battle is comparable with any battle that has ever taken place, and I am criticized by my noble friend's paper for wanting to send more food to Russia now.
Sometimes in this House it is said that newspapers adhere too slavishly to the views and opinions of their proprietors. i have heard that accusation made against me. I congratulate my noble friend, for he adheres to the viewpoint of his newspaper. In 1929 he was a Conservative supporting tariffs, as I was, but he acquired an interest in the Daily Herald and forthwith began to appear in Socialist circles—he who had been a member of a Conservative Association. That report was published in a newspaper called the Weekly Dispatch over the signature of a responsible individual.
LORD SOUTHWOOD: He apologized for it.
LORD BEAVERBROOK: He did not. He said that the noble Lord belonged to the Conservative Association of Hornsey and contributed money to the association. That was stated in that newspaper. There was the accusation. He becomes a Socialist, and in no time at all we see him—Saul among the prophets—sitting on the Front Bench. He will hold the red flag flying here! Just the same, his newspaper will criticize me for wanting to provide foodstuffs for Russia now and here. His newspaper said that I called your Lordships' House a chatterbox. I did not. It was a mix-up. I did not call your Lordships' House a chatterbox. That is the name of one of my noble friend's important publications—Chatterbox. When he advertises for contributions for it he says they want no fairy tales.

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I am not complaining, let it be understood, of the noble Lord's speech. I thought it was very fine. I am complaining of the high hopes held out in these speeches that cannot, and will not, be justified by events. I am complaining of the proceedings at Hot Springs being represented as something in the direction of relieving want. We have had all this before—all this and a great deal more, all this and far more, in 1918. In 1918 we had 196 Committees dealing with postwar affairs. I recommend your Lordships to get a document, Cmd. 8196—it is thirty to forty pages long—giving the name, members, and secretary of Committee after Committee dealing with post-war affairs. It gives the names of all the bureaucrats who were engaged in operating these Committees. Pamphlets, books, booklets, literature, and memoranda of proceedings were all published. And what came of the whole thing? These Committees were never acted upon. They were so many gold bricks, and it is my desire to expose the shine on the gold bricks. I am not against Committees—not at all—but I am against Committees being made use of to raise high hopes in the hearts of people who are afterwards completely disappointed. I am entirely against Committees set up by Ministers for the purpose of escaping from responsibility, as has been done over and over again, times without number.
These Committees should be examined in detail to see if (1) the Committee are in the nature of gold bricks setting up high hopes in the hearts of people; and (2) if they are Committees set up for the purpose of allowing Ministers to escape responsibility. If in either case this House condemns the Committees, I submit that this House will be doing well. The tragedies that followed the end of the last war flowed directly from these 196 Committees—"homes for heroes" and all the rest of it. The promises that were made by these Committees were responsible for the disappointments sustained by the people.
LORD ADDISON: They were made by the Prime Minister.
LORD BEAVERBROOK: That may be. I am not attributing them to anyone. The 196 Committees set up under the Prime Minister, and their findings,
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gave him the hope that he could provide homes for heroes, I suppose. I do not think he spoke without the encouragement of his Ministers and the belief that these Committees meant something when in fact they meant nothing. We must avoid the tragedy of the last war. This time we must provide for employment in the factories as in the fields, but we are not going to do it by talking about Committees or World Development Councils. We must place the responsibility for unemployment in the factories and in the fields directly upon the shoulders of the Government of the day, upon the Prime Minister who is then in office and the colleagues he selects for the Government. The most reverend Prelate referred to unemployment. After the last war, for twenty years we had more than a million unemployed year by year, and we were purchasing food from abroad to feed these unemployed. That was the folly of our economy after the last war, and I hope and believe it will not be the folly of the economy of our country when this war comes to an end.
Now is the time to make a plan. But the plans must be the responsibility of the Government, not of a series of Committees set up here and held there with members who owe no responsibility to the public. The duty must rest on the Prime Minister and his colleagues. Next time we are not going to have any Rhondda Valley, we are not going to have any Jarrow, we are not going to have any Durham or Cumberland; but if we are to avoid these things, and I am sure we will, we must place the responsibility here at home. We must lay the duty upon the Government and we must not let them ride off on any speeches or any accounts of international action for world-wide conferences.
VISCOUNT DAVIDSON: My Lords, I am not going to detain the House more than a very few minutes, partly because my voice is somewhat feeble. Perhaps I may say in my opening remarks that I will not; follow the noble Lord, Lord Beaverbrook, into the far-off country into which he wandered in this debate. I must say also that I profoundly disagree with his concluding sentences. It is perfectly true that the Government must be made responsible for the policy of this country, but, unfortunately, full employment does not depend on this country alone. Unless we export we die,

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and unless we can sit round a table with other countries and come to international agreements as to the distribution of trade and. as to the development of the undeveloped, parts of the world, taking a long permanent view, there is no hope of maintaining full employment in this country. Therefore it is not a question of being fantastically idealistic, or impracticable, when such a suggestion is made by business men here and by many people abroad as well. The frightful results following the last war were mainly due to the fact that then, as now, trade channels had been altered in order to supply the necessary machinery for conducting the war. The normal channels had been interfered with, and after the last war came the demand, the insistent demand, for the removal of control. One pin was knocked out after another, chaos followed, and there was no machinery to take the place of the Government controls.
Many of us feel that the time has come now when the Government should do what they have done at Hot Springs—namely, call international conferences, whether with the United States jointly or by ourselves, in order that there should sit round a table the people who are engaged in and know the mechanism of trade, in order to come to some arrangement by which a machine can be devised for after the war that will enable the world's markets to be divided and us to have our share. I say for myself that I think the time has come now, because I am conscious that if the situation is allowed to drift vested interests may grow up which will influence or control, much to their detriment, not only our own country but other countries, and which, unless we sit down now and place all the cards and facts on the table, may redound to our disadvantage and the disadvantage of the world when peace comes. I believe the time has now come when these conferences should be called to discuss plans for the future.
There is one aspect of it about which I would like to say a word. I believe the post-war period will be divided into two periods, and that we are going to have a chance in this country of avoiding what we did not avoid after the last war. We will have time given to us when we can explore rapidly and work out to perfection international agreements with re-
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gard to the development of the world on a basis of expanding production, and also be able to get our own markets organized abroad. For some years after the war full production can be almost guaranteed, I should have thought, in this country and other countries by the rebuilding, re-equipping and reconstructing of destroyed Europe and the partially destroyed East. We therefore should have a breathing space in which we can perfect the machinery without which we cannot look into the future and feel that our people will have not only a stable but a rising standard of life, happiness and amenities. For these reasons I am very glad that my noble friend Lord Southwood has brought this Motion forward. It has called the attention of the Government to the especial need for not allowing the situation so to drift that when peace comes—and it may come like a thief in the night—we shall be found without any machinery to meet the situation which has arisen.
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, I think that the speech to which we have just listened from the noble Viscount, Lord Davidson, must, at all events to those who are like-minded with myself, have brought a great assurance. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Beaverbrook, took note of it. I am sure he did. I rise for a few minutes only in order to express to my noble friend Lord Southwood my appreciation of his action in bringing this vastly important subject before the House, and to reinforce the noble Lord who has just spoken. Notwithstanding the speech of Lord Beaverbrook, I am completely unrepentant. In common with the whole House, I listened with the utmost pleasure and enjoyment to the speech of Lord Beaverbrook, the greater part of which had no association whatever with the Motion before us. So far as I can see the provision of plans to prevent postwar unemployment have nothing whatever to do with the political allegiance of my noble friend Lord Southwood in the year 1929. There were a number of other points made by the noble Lord which had no connexion with the subject under discussion, but when the noble Lord had said all that, I derived very great comfort from his final observations. I came to the conclusion—the scriptural phrase does not fit with complete accuracy—that there is still hope for the noble Lord.

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There is still hope for him because he said we must at all costs avoid the tragedies of the last war, that plans must be the duty of the Government to prepare, that we must have no more Rhondda Valleys and no more Jarrows. We are all agreed on that. The only question I suggest that we should ask ourselves is: How are we to avoid a recurrence of those tragedies? I think the noble Viscount, Lord Davidson, pointed in the right direction, but I suggest that it is not right to describe the bringing forward of this matter for discussion as raising high hopes which cannot be realized. It is because we are afraid people will have high hopes that cannot be realized that we are exhorting the Government—I am sure quite unnecessarily—to pay close and practical attention to these matters. The Conference at Hot Springs, notwithstanding the criticisms of the noble Lord, produced one of the most practical documents I have read for a long time. It did indicate what ought to be done to prevent these things occurring. It was not simply an airy plan. I hope the noble Lord will re-read the speech I made on the subject. I hope he will agree that I faced the difficulties and did not seek to shirk them, but pointed to fundamentals which I think ought to receive a much greater share of recognition from the noble Lord than he has given them up to the present. I am not without hope in view of his concluding observations.
We shall never escape recurring mass unemployment until we can increase the purchasing power of the world. That is the bedrock. I say it does not raise high hopes to talk about it. It is the business of Parliament to direct attention to this matter of fundamental importance and the matter can only be approached through international action. That is why I think recognition at Hot Springs of the fact that the prime cause of unemployment is the gross poverty of primary producers all over the world, and that international action ought to be taken as far as practicable to lift up their standard of living, coupled with the fact that forty nations agreed upon the matter, is a very hopeful sign. It is true that it does not carry things very much further, but there is agreement upon something which the nations ought to desire to attain. In bringing the subject once more before
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your Lordships my noble friend Lord Southwood, notwithstanding his political tergiversations, has performed a real public service. I am not in the least interested in what he was in 1929; that has nothing to do with it. My colleagues will return to the charge on every appropriate occasion, because we know that the removal of the causes of unemployment is the only hope for the future.
We want His Majesty's Government to do all they can to encourage other Governments to do what they can to remove those causes. I am not suggesting that His Majesty's Government are not doing that. They deserve immense credit for Hot Springs. The Memorandum circulated to your Lordships' House before our delegates went to Hot Springs was, in my opinion, a document of first-class importance, and the world is under an obligation to the British Government for initiating and guiding that Conference at Hot Springs. It is only a beginning, but it is an essential beginning, and I hope the noble Lord sitting on this Bench with his vast influence, which I fully recognize, will not do anything to depreciate the continuance of efforts to explore the causes of unemployment and to remove them as far as we can.
LORD WARDINGTON: My Lords, I was unfortunately unable to be present to hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Southwood, but I am very grateful to him for having brought up this subject for discussion. I believe, with other noble Lords, that there is no more haunting fear throughout the country generally than the fear of unemployment. The few remarks I want to make will be directed to the importance of using our export trade in getting rid of that fear. My noble friend Viscount Davidson has already referred to it, and I want to emphasize how essential our export trade is and how our life and our livelihood depend upon it. It is a commonplace to say that to your Lordships, who are aware that a large portion of our food and a large portion of our raw materials come from abroad and have to be paid for. They have to be paid for not only by our old exports but by all the new exports which we can manage to produce, because our former invisible exports have largely disappeared and the other alternative means of paying for food and raw materials by gold is under eclipse. All the things which plan-

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ners dream of—social security, freedom from want, freedom from unemployment—depend on our being able to maintain and increase our export trade.
So much do I feel this that if I were condemned to preach a sermon in the presence of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury—heaven defend us both from that fate, although I think I am entitled to say there would be some poetic justice if I did threaten him with a sermon, because he has given those associated with me in business many homilies on our misdeeds and shortcomings—I think I should choose for my text something to this effect: "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole of the Beveridge Report and lose the wherewithal to put food into his mouth and work with which to employ his hands?" We have had many exhortations from different Ministers of the Crown, particularly perhaps from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on our export trade and the desirability of industry throughout the country making plans in advance, so that as soon as the war is over and transport becomes available they may get into the full stride of their export trade. But he has crippled them at the start with his 100 per cent. Excess Profits Tax.
I do not want to say anything against the Excess Profits Tax in principle. It is repugnant to everyone that anyone should make undue profit out of the war, and I do not suggest that profits made in that way should be dissipated by distribution to shareholders as dividends. But it is rather absurd to insist on exporters having their plans ready so that immediately the war ceases they will be able to send their goods out all over the world, if they are handicapped by having 100 per cent. of these excess profits taken away from them and put into cold storage, so that they cannot renew their machinery and do all other things that are necessary in order really to get their export trade into full swing. When they try to carry out the exhortations of Ministers, when they make their plans, and send out their commercial travellers to discover what is wanted in foreign countries, to try to meet the demands of those countries, and to ascertain what prices are legitimate and how they compare with those of their competitors, they are then up against the cry: "We must not have
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any scrambling for markets; that is immoral. We must not have any cut-throat competition; these are things which must be done away with."
Really what is the poor manufacturer and the merchant supposed to do? If they turn to the Atlantic Charter for general principles, they find that co-operation internationally is essential in these matters, and spheres of influence are indicated as between nation and nation. If international co-operation and the division of spheres of influence is right and proper as between Governments, why is it held up to be absolutely the reverse of right amongst industrial concerns? If there is any agreement internationally between one firm and another, the word "cartel" is hurled at them, and they are subjected to abuse on the ground that they are trying to set up very anti-social monopolies. I entirely sympathize with them in that they are placed in the position of really not knowing which way they are supposed to turn. It is quite true that cartels are capable of great abuse. It is also perfectly true that they can be exceedingly useful, and not in the least anti-social; quite the reverse. They have very often proved capable of eliminating improper competition, of increasing the number of men they employ, and, above all, of reducing prices to the general community.
There has been, in recent years, a mass of literature issued upon this question of post-war planning. So much has this been so that one is really almost tired of the term. I have no doubt that your Lordships have suffered as I have suffered. I have no more room left on my bookshelves for the books which I receive and which I am told that I ought to read. My table is littered with pamphlets of every kind, some good, some bad and some indifferent, and my ears are getting dull through listening to the innumerable speeches and other exhortations that are delivered on this subject. I have done my best to read and to absorb as much as possible, but I find that I am left in a state of great confusion in regard to various general principles. If the Government can provide industry as a whole with a thread which will lead it out of the labyrinth and maze of all these different theories and principles they will be doing a most useful service to the country as a whole.
LORD SEMPILL: My Lords, I rise for a very few minutes to support most warmly the Motion which has been put forward by my noble friend Lord Southwood. He dealt in a very vivid manner with those issues that have promoted social unrest on an international scale, the natural product of which has been—as he pointed out so clearly—war. The noble Lord very rightly points out that the cause of this difficulty is an out-dated economic system that turns international trade, which should be a bond of union as between nations, into a fierce battle in which each attempts to get the other into a state of unpayable debt. We must, surely, never again allow a situation to arise in which men in need of the necessities of life are denied the money with which to buy such necessities, on the ground (for that is what they are told), that their labour is not required to produce more. Such a dreadful condition of affairs must not be allowed to develop again. The noble Lord, Lord Southwood, referred to the term "over-production." As he pointed out, the term was quite wrongly used. The term "under-consumption" more accurately applied to the picture of those pre-war years. Surely the economic system was designed to operate in a condition of a world shortage of consumption goods. The age of power production in which we live has changed all that completely. Therefore, what we require, as the noble Lord, Lord Southwood, said, and I fully agree with him, to meet the issue, is an economic system that will encourage and not restrict the demand for the necessities of life.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, there are few problems confronting the nation more worthy of the attention of your Lordships' House than that which the noble Lord, Lord Southwood, has brought before us to-day. He has rightfully, and usefully, called attention to the urgency of the matters with which he dealt. I think he will not resent my saying that what he gave us was more in the nature of a picture of the problem that we have to face, its magnitude and its complexity, rather than a specific cure for the evils which exist. The tone and quality of the speeches which have been delivered have shown the importance which your Lordships attach to this question. The need for accelerating plans to avoid mass unemployment after the war, whether by our own action as a single nation or, as
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the Motion states, "through international co-operation for the development of trade," is one which most people will admit and few will dispute.
There has been an implied censure—perhaps not specifically expressed—of His Majesty's Government for not giving sufficient attention to this great matter. It is an astonishing thing to me that in this country there is always praise for what Britain was and what she did, and nearly always dissatisfaction with and even reproach for what she is and what she is actually doing. My noble friend Lord Addison, with characteristic fairness, did admit that the Government had taken certain action which was commendable, especially in regard to the Conference at Hot Springs, but I should like to draw the attention of your Lordships to the record of His Majesty's Government in regard to this matter. Since the beginning of this year, this subject of national reconstruction, in one form or another, has been before your Lordships' House in no fewer than forty separate debates, and in another place there have been at least thirty debates, some of which have covered several days.
I do not know whether your Lordships can endure it if I give particulars of what has happened during the current month. On July 6 there was a debate on town and country planning, in relation to the Interim Development Bill, and on the same date there was also a debate, on the Motion of my noble friend Lord Addison, on the United Nations Conference at Hot Springs. On July 7, the question of agricultural equipment was brought before your Lordships by the noble Lord, Lord Cranworth, and the Hydro-Electric Development (Scotland) Bill was considered in Committee. On July 13, the noble Marquess, Lord Londonderry, brought before your Lordships the question of civil air transport, "with special reference to the need for the organization of research and other educational facilities in universities, technical colleges and schools." On July 14, there was a debate on the proposed construction of a great ship canal between the Clyde and the Firth of Forth, a matter which was brought before your Lordships by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot. On the same day, my noble friend Lord Nathan drew attention to the importance of the time factor in the preparation of schemes of post-war reconstruction. On July 15,

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we had the Report stage of the Hydro-Electric Development (Scotland) Bill, and there was also a Motion for the further expansion of scientific research, brought before your Lordships by my noble friend Lord Samuel, the debate on which was continued yesterday.
I venture to say, therefore, that the Government have really not been treading the primrose path of dalliance, nor have the Departments nor those on these Benches who have to answer for the Government been enjoying an undisturbed rest-cure. But, looking ahead rather than backwards, after this date there are on the Paper six Motions on post-war matters for which days have been assigned, and there are five Motions of a similar character for which no day has yet been named. I do not complain of this; after all, it is what Parliament is for; but it does show that the subject has not been neglected by your Lordships' House, nor has it been neglected by the Government, who have to reply to the criticisms made. We might generously remember that at the present time there is a very great strain on the Departments and Ministers, and the preparations necessary to meet the criticisms made in some seventy debates in Parliament constitute a slight additional burden upon them.
However much we may appreciate the need for avoiding mass unemployment, it is useful to say that mere generalizations do not help us. It is not possible to solve the problem by aspirations, by good will, or by general expressions of anxiety. The fact is that in life, as I have understood it, the reformer cannot go where the student has not been, and Governments cannot act unless it is clear what they should do. When it is clear, they should do it promptly. The noble Lord who introduced this Motion is able to assume, from the advantageous position which he occupies, that the right thing to do is to go straight ahead, minding nobody. The Government, however, are not quite in that happy position. The wailing of the anti-planner may be heard throughout the land every day. We are told that to plan ahead will further encroach upon our dwindling personal liberties, that there will be more forms to fill up and more typists to employ, and that it may even be necessary to set up another Committee. My noble friend Lord Beaverbrook was good enough to say—to the surprise, I think, of your
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Lordships' House—that he was not opposed to a Committee. I believe that is so, provided that it is a Committee of one, and that he is the member of it.
LORD BEAVERBROOK: That would be a good Committee!
LORD SNELL: Some of us have worked on Committees almost all our lives, and I do not know anyone who has been more Committee-driven than myself. We know that there are virtues in Committees as well as disadvantages. It is a great thing to get a body of men and women sitting together and hammering out the questions which confront us, so that when a decision is arrived at it is not the sudden, jumping conclusion of a single person, perhaps rather jaundiced after a not very good breakfast, but the decision of a body of men and women who have given voluntary attention to the subject and have given spiritually of their best.
The Government have the duty in these matters of carrying the nation with them in their proposals, and they cannot assume that hostility towards systematic planning does not exist. But what the Government can do, and what at all costs they will do, regardless of all criticism, is to determine what is right and possible, as far as they are able to determine it, and then carry out their decisions. This involves two major decisions—(1) what is possible and expedient; and, (2), a policy and a plan to make their decisions effective. There is no short cut in this matter. The way towards cure of all these problems is not clear. You cannot, I suggest, tear civilization asunder, you cannot burn up the savings of centuries, you cannot sacrifice precious human lives and then expect to cure the resultant evils by some magic formula. There is no one cause, there is probably no one remedy, and there is no ready-made cure. As was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Wardington, we all receive confident and allegedly infallible cures; they reach us by the dozen. They vary from decimal coinage to reformed spelling, and they are urged with all the assurance and innocence of enthusiastic inexperience. I do not know whether your Lordships remember that Carlyle, who influenced me a great deal, savagely attacked Dr. Morrison's "pills to cure earthquakes." That was before the time of my right honourable

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friend the Minister for Town and Country Planning and my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, so he did not write it in relation to them. But I cannot help remembering, as far as I have understood life and politics, how very often the merely wise have to repair the damage of the good.
When we come to the terms of the Motion which my noble friend Lord Southwood has brought before the House, one notices that it covers so wide a field that it is difficult to select the point on which one should try to meet it. But in regard to the great question of international co-operation, that has been abundantly recognized by the United Nations, first through the Atlantic Charter on August 19, 1941. The terms of that Charter are well-known, and I need not do more I think than refer merely to one or two points. It provided for
"the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field, with the object of securing for all improved labour standards, economic advancement, and social security."
And in Article 6 it set out its aims for
"a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want."
In regard to unemployment Lord Southwood's statements are incontestable. Only those of us who have known acutely the agony of unemployment know that it is not merely the physical privations that have to be faced, but it is the humiliation, the spiritual degradation of feeling that you are not wanted in the world, and that somehow or another you ought not to be there. Therefore I at least have no temptation to undervalue the urgency of the matter which the noble Lord has raised. But His Majesty's Ministers have made similar statements to that of Lord Southwood, and I do not want to delay your Lordships by quoting them, as they are well known in recent political declarations.
The question arises: What is the remedy? What definite thing can we do? It is all very well for my noble friend Lord Beaverbrook to assume that things can be done now without reference to the future. What wrong is there in thinking out what we ought to do in 1944, if we do our duty as far as we see it to-day? Does the noble Lord or anybody else think that we shall withhold from Russia at this or
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any time any help that we can give to her? So far as I could understand Lord Beaverbrook, what he would give them would be tariffs. I am not ingenuous enough to think I can satisfy her on those lines. And it is no business of mine to take up the cudgels on behalf of my noble friend Lord Southwood; but what does it matter what any man thought in 1929? It is his best judgment of to-day that is required. I think it was Emerson who said, "Say what you think to-day as loudly as you can say it, and then say what you think to-morrow as you may think to-morrow." I should be very sorry to be logically consistent throughout my life. I often wonder how I came to say such foolish things as I remember myself saying during the course of any one day. And if my noble friend Lord Beaverbrook was right in saying that he did not call the House a "chatterbox," it is nevertheless true that in much of what he said to-day he was "shadow boxing," which he claims is what he actually did say.
LORD BEAVERBROOK: I might add, in answer to the noble Lord's question, "Would I send tariffs?" No, I would send food. And furthermore, I would make plain to the noble Lord, before he criticizes me any further, that I am not blaming Lord Southwood for being a Tory in 1929; I am pointing out that his opinions followed his newspaper instead of the newspaper following his opinions.
LORD SNELL: Supposing that the newspaper were worth following, that is not a bad thing to do. What the noble Lord, Lord Beaverbrook, has done to-day has been to give us what I might irreverently call a new "Beaveridge" Report. I must not quarrel with the noble Lord further.
LORD BEAVERBROOK: That joke smells.
LORD SNELL: All I might say to the noble Lord is that there will be no war to-day. Some criticism has been made in regard to Hot Springs. I cannot help feeling that it is a great good thing if men from 44 nations can meet together and come to a common outlook and common purpose. That is a thing of the first promise for the world, and may lead indeed to the World Development Council which has been pleaded for. It seems to me to be clear that if the resolutions which they passed can be implemented and

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followed up they will approximate in time to that World Council that is desired. Let us for our part encourage it, and believe that from the effort so auspiciously started a great deal will come, other things will happen, opportunities will occur, and then the whole thing will blossom like Aaron's rod to the good of mankind.
I would like to say one word in passing with regard to a comment made by the most reverend Prelate who apologized for not being able to remain. He referred to the need for trade unionists in your Lordships' House. It is no business of mine, but I would like to say that I should watch their entrance into your Lordships' House with a calm and resolute courage. In regard to self-sufficiency, which Lord Southwood mentioned, the Government are at one with him in that respect. So also are statesmen of other countries. There is a world opinion growing up. We are transcending national barriers. That is how humanity has developed. There was first the love of the family, restricted to that. Then the idea widened to a conception of the parish or the tribe and eventually to the nation. Now we are transcending even that barrier, and begining to think of the whole world being bound together for a common good. Mr. Cordell Hull said that it is for all the nations to give and to receive help. We must have trade relationships with other nations, not merely because from exports we must partly live, but because we cannot grow within our own shores all the things that we desire. It was Nathaniel Hawthorne who said that the English people could hot grow fruit and other things with a sun that was crying its eyes out every day. We have to recognize that, and I am sure the way of development is not by building walls round ourselves, but rather by reaching out to further possibilities.
I need not trouble your Lordships with any further comments upon the criticisms that have been made. His Majesty's Government are fully alive to all the problems that are before us, and are doing the very best they can to shape a policy without undue waste of time. I fear I may not have done full justice to the speech and plea of the noble Lord. It is difficult for me to speak impersonally on matters upon which I have the deepest personal feeling, but I am sure that the more we are called upon, in this House
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and elsewhere, to think on these things the better we shall be able to act on lines which will lead to the realization of our hopes. The goal we are aiming at is to obtain greater measures of social security and general well-being. We have to plan as far as possible for the demoralizing misery of unemployment, and we have to plan for the benefit of all, not of sections, of our population. I end on a note of personal belief. It is that in spite of the manifold difficulties which surround us, I nevertheless feel that if we approach these problems with honesty, intelligence, vigilance, and courage all good things may yet be ours.
LORD SOUTHWOOD: My Lords, I have had the honour and privilege of being a member of this House for a little over six years, and I can say that most certainly in all that period I have never listened to a more sincere or eloquent reply than that we have had from the noble Lord. It touched me, as it must have touched every other member, most deeply, and it would be wrong on my part to criticize anything which the noble Lord said because he and I think so much alike. Therefore I am not going to attempt anything in the way of a second speech. I only want to say one or two things. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Beaver-brook, whose friendship I am proud to have, will not mind my mentioning one or two points.
The noble Lord suggested that I attacked monopolies. I did nothing of the kind, and to make the matter quite plain I shall, with the leave of the House, quote the words which I used. They are very short:
"I next put on my list the question of monopolies: I mean, of course, international monopolies known as "rings" or "cartels." I take the view that there is only one standard by which these organizations should be judged. Are they operating to the disadvantage of the community, or are they operating to the common good? I think it will be agreed that monopolies must be made the servants of the people, not their masters."
Your Lordships will see that there was no attack on monopolies at all. I believe that monopolies can serve a useful purpose, but equally they can serve a bad purpose. That is a matter for conference and agreement. The noble Lord mentioned that I had said we should not send food to Russia. I have not the slightest recollection of ever having said so. I can definitely say I never said so

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in any of my newspapers. The noble Lord must have read that in some other paper than that which comes under my proprietary interest.
LORD BEAVERBROOK: Mickey Mouse!
LORD SOUTHWOOD: I know the noble Lord will not mind my saying this. He also complained that in one of my newspapers in a report of a speech of his we said that he had spoken of a "chatterbox," when in fact what he did say was "shadow boxing." I think it was a justifiable mistake. The report containing that term was sent out by a Press Agency and directly his Lordship called our attention to the mistake I apologized to him on the following day. Therefore I hope I made all the amends which could be expected of me.
I have no more to say except this, that I rather thought Lord Snell at the beginning of his speech took my Motion as being a vote of censure. I want to say definitely and clearly that it was nothing of the kind. No one realizes more than I do the tremendous magnitude of the task of the Government at the present time. All I am anxious for is that in dealing with the terrible task we have immediately before us we should not forget the future and should not, to use a hackneyed phrase, win the war and then, by our unreadiness, lose the peace. I am now satisfied from all the noble Lord has said that he and his colleagues in His Majesty's Government realize the urgency of the task of winning the peace as well as winning the war. I hope my Motion will have served some useful purpose. It only remains to me now to thank the noble Lord most sincerely for his remarkable reply and ask your Lordships' leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

VEGETABLE DEHYDRATION.
LORD BARNBY LORD BARNBY asked His Majesty's Government what is their present policy with regard to dehydration of fresh vegetables, particularly in regard to the location of new plant and the production of additional supplies of dried vegetables in vegetable growing localities. The noble Lord said: My Lords, some eight months
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ago, I think it was, the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, held the intrigued interest of the House when he gave an indication of what was being done with regard to the dehydration of fresh vegetables. He at that time added to the interest of what he said by producing something which indicated how concentrated this dehydration process can be. He then suggested an addition to the long list of brilliant improvisations which his Ministry has achieved in helping to meet the present emergency—namely, affording facilities for the dehydration of fresh vegetables. Naturally that was followed by a lively interest being aroused in agricultural districts as to what contributions they were to make to this new process. In one district in particular, Lincolnshire, with which I happen to be closely associated, there was an available capacity which, it was thought, had not been used to the extent that it might be. In some other areas it was believed there was not the same capacity.
Since that time, there have been suggestions that additional facilities should be provided for dehydration and interest has been further aroused as to how the necessary supplies of fresh vegetables would be arranged and under what management that might be done. This is an aspect of what may be called the closer merging of agriculture and industry, and recalls what was done in the matter of sugar beet. Sugar beet manufacture involved both the improvement of husbandry and the efficiency of the treatment of the product. There is some anxiety lest action should not be taken now. May I give one illustration? The consumption of potatoes in this country on a very large scale involves the creation of what might be called a floating reserve, amounting, I understand, to some 300,000 tons. If you take an ordinary price of £10 per ton that amounts to a very large sum which might easily be lost in the absence of available machinery to conserve the surplus. With £1,000,000 there could be erected an appreciable amount of machinery. In this matter approaches have been made to Lord Woolton. I would like to pay tribute to the noble Lord's readiness to receive representations on the subject, and to his determination to insist upon investigations in regard to it. The matter is at the present moment one of such great interest that a further statement would be both very timely and

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welcome to the agricultural community. I beg to ask my question.
THE MINISTER OF FOOD (LORD WOOLTON): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving me the opportunity of making the statement which I am afraid will be rather full, but it is of some importance that I should make it. My Ministry is at present undertaking or encouraging the dehydration of vegetables in this country in three forms. First, the production of dehydrated cabbage, carrot and potato strips; secondly, the production of potato mash powder; and thirdly, the drying of potatoes to produce potato flour (for human consumption) or potato slices (chiefly for animal feed). After considerable research carried out in collaboration with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and commercial interests, a standard plant which will deal with either cabbage, carrot or potato has been evolved. These plants—which remain Government property—are being installed in various factories and will be operated under the supervision of my Department and solely on its account. The firm operating the plant on behalf of ray Department will have an opportunity of acquiring the plant, should it desire to do so, when the present emergency is over.
So far as possible, these plants are being and will be installed in the vegetable growing areas or as adjacent thereto as possible. There are, however, a number of other factors that must determine their location and which have frequently made it necessary for my Department to site the plants elsewhere than in the immediate producing districts. First, with regard to the suitability of the factory, the following specifications are essential: About 13,000 square feet of floor space; 10,000 gallons of water per hour; 12,000 lbs. of steam per hour; if required adequate electric power; and facilities for disposal of the effluent, which is of an obnoxious nature, particularly when the plant is working on cabbage. These essential requirements necessarily limit the choice of premises, but there is a further complication in that this additional manufacturing capacity can only be located at present in areas where my right honourable friend the Minister of Labour can guarantee to provide the necessary labour
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force of about 250 men and women. Finally, in order to ensure a high quality for the product, only reputable firms equipped with the necessary scientific experience are being entrusted with dehydration. Members of your Lordships' House will bear in mind that there is nothing new in the drying of vegetables, but the poor quality previously attainable severely restricted their use and their utility. The demand for the present product for the Fighting Forces arises because of its high quality and it is essential, in my opinion, to see that that high quality is maintained.
I have described in some detail the restrictions—the necessary restrictions I submit—which exist in the selection of places at which this new process is to be operated on behalf of the Ministry of Food. My present objective is to erect thirty plants; twenty-two have already been ordered, three are in operation, another eleven are under construction, and sites have been selected for at least a further eight units. For the reasons already given, only about five of these are actually in vegetable-growing areas although in all cases the transport of vegetables can conveniently be arranged. It is not, of course, easy at this juncture of the war to build and instal a number of new plants in premises which have to be adapted for the purpose. When the programme was adopted, I asked my noble friend Lord McGowan whether the Imperial Chemical Industries would undertake the erection of the plants on our behalf, and I am grateful to him for having agreed to do this and for the assistance which that vast organization has given my Department. The plants in course of erection will be brought into operation over the next few months. There is, however, little prospect of the output from these plants being available to the general public during the war. The whole of it will be required for meeting the demands of the Armed Forces.
All the vegetables produced on the standard vegetable plant to which I have referred still require to be cooked, but there has been developed by a prominent firm in this country a product which I think of exceptional interest. It is a potato powder which, by the simple addition of hot water, is converted into mashed potato. I have myself tested this product and can testify both to the simplicity with

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which it can be reconstituted and the excellence of its quality. The existing plant required for this product is being extended and a further plant is in course of erection. The whole output from these plants during the war will be acquired by the Ministry of Food, but here again there is little prospect of any of the output being available for civilian consumption during the war, because the whole of it will go to the Forces.
During the war period, the area planted with potatoes has been enormously increased. Even if we had a bad yield one year, we still might be able to provide unrestricted supplies of potatoes for human consumption. When the yield per acre is good, as it has been during the last three or four years, there is inevitably, and I think fortunately, a surplus of potatoes over and above the quantity required to meet the demands for consumption in their natural form. There are fifteen drying factories situated in potato-growing districts continuously available to handle these surplus potatoes and four others are under construction. In addition to this, use has been made of twelve sugar beet factories from March to June inclusive each year. Some of the factories are producing continuously for animal food and others are producing potato flour. Some sugar beet factories are equipped for either purpose and the decision as to which product shall be made is governed not only by the quality of the potatoes, but also by the rate at which they have to be dealt with. It takes about twice as long to produce a potato flour of reasonable quality as it does to produce potato slices.
I have given the House, in response to my noble friend's question, a brief sum-
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mary of the present position of vegetable dehydration in this country. To complete my statement I must say that my Department is maintaining the closest possible liaison with the United States in regard to the development of dehydration generally. As evidence of the importance which the Government attach to this subject, I may mention that Dr. C. S. Hanes, the Director of Food Investigation in the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, has been seconded to my Department and has, for a considerable time, been a member of the British Food Mission in Washington, charged specially with the duty of maintaining contact with the U.S. Administration on this subject and with manufacturers engaged in that country on dehydration. My Department is also endeavouring to stimulate production throughout the British Empire. A Dehydration Mission, which is now making a survey throughout Africa, is being received there with much interest and appreciation, and I was very grateful to General Smuts for the courtesy he showed them in personally receiving them before they left the Union.
LORD BINGLEY: My Lords, may I ask when we shall be allowed to know where these factories are to be sited?
LORD WOOLTON: There is no reason why you should not be told.
LORD BINGLEY: I do not want a list now.

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL.
Reported, without amendment.
House adjourned.