Sitting of 23 March 1943

Preamble
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  LIVERPOOL HYDRAULIC POWER BILL [Lords]
  Read a Second time, and committed.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  BRITISH ARMY

    Beer (Prices, Middle East)
    Mr. Bartle Bullasked the Secretary of State for War the mean average charge for an American tin containing about half-a pint of beer to the troops in the Middle East; how this price compares with the price at which it is landed; and who pays for the cost of unloading it?
    The Secretary of State for War (Sir James Grigg): I have no information about the price of beer in the Middle East other than in N.A.A.F.I. canteens. American beer was at one time sold by them at 1s. 8d. a pint. The beer was bought through local agents who no doubt included the cost of unloading in their price. It is not known what was the price of the beer when it was landed. American beer has not been sold by N.A.A.F.I. for some time. All the beer now sold by them is brewed locally and is sold on the average for 8d. a pint.
    Mr. Bull: Does my right hon. Friend realise that the Egyptians are making between 200 and 300 per cent. profit on this beer sold to the troops, and cannot he persuade the Egyptian Government to ask Egyptians to be content with a more reasonable profit like 100 per cent.?
    Sir J. Grigg: The Egyptian Government is a sovereign Government.

    Verses, "Less Nonsense"
    Mr. Prittasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Lieut.-
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    Colonel Parkinson ordered to be distributed, on 24th February, 1943, to units under his command over 200 copies of a piece of verse entitled "Less Nonsense," which is offensive to the Soviet Union and calculated to injure our friendship towards that country; that these copies were to be distributed on the scale of three copies for every unit down to batteries and companies, one copy for the officers' mess, one for the sergeants' mess and one where it could be seen by the men; and whether he will take immediate steps to put a stop to this political activity and arrange that lectures on the Soviet Union be given to the units involved to counteract the effects of this propaganda?
    Sir J. Grigg: I am making inquiries into this matter. On the facts as stated, I do not think the action of the Divisional Commander was at all suitable. The troops in the area in question are already getting lectures on Soviet Russia from both military and non-military sources besides a good deal of other material on the subject, and I doubt if any special steps are necessary.
    Petty-Officer Alan Herbert: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to raise an objection to the terms of this Question. I did not want to interfere with the putting of it. The hon. and learned Member for North Hammersmith (Mr. Pritt), having put this Question down, gave an interview to the Press in which he stated that I was the author of the verses named in this Question. I have no opportunity of knowing whether that is so, because he did not think fit to show me a copy of the verses and ask me to check them and say whether they were mine or not. I must, however, take his word for it, and, therefore, I must take exception to the description of the verses in the Question, to which he has committed himself as a statement of fact, which I say is false, foolish and offensive.
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. and learned Member who put the Question down was quite entitled to put it down in any terms he liked. He is responsible for it. It is not for me to deal with that matter.
    Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: Is it not true that this poem contains nothing offensive to Soviet Russia, and is it not British patriotism from a British point of view?
    Sir J. Grigg: I have been careful to express no opinion on the merits of the verses.
    Commander Locker-Lampson: Can they be circulated as a White Paper?
    Petty-Officer Herbert: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these verses whatever their merits, were not directed against Russia at all, but against certain British citizens who are never happy unless they are running down their own country and the efforts of their own countrymen in the war?

    Churchill Tanks
    Sir Stanley Reedasked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that on the opening day of the German attack on the Eighth Army the enemy lost 33 tanks, whilst the British did not lose a single armoured unit; that in action with the First Army Churchill tanks have proved a match for the German Mark VI or Tiger; and whether he has any statement to make on the subject?
    Sir J. Grigg: No detailed reports have yet been received about the performance of Churchill tanks in Tunisia, but such general accounts as have arrived speak favourably of them. Some Tigers were certainly destroyed in the recent actions in which Churchill tanks were engaged but it is not known whether the Churchills were responsible for this or our other weapons. General Montgomery has reported that during the recent attacks by Rommel against the Eighth Army positions, a total of 52 German tanks were damaged and afterwards blown up by our sappers. Many others must have been hit and damaged and some were seen being towed away. In this engagement no armoured battle took place.

    Prisoners
    Mr. Granvilleasked the Secretary of State for War why military prisoners, sentenced by military courts-martial, serve their sentences in His Majesty's civil prisons instead of under military detention; whether such prisoners receive remission from their sentences for good conduct; and whether they are liable for call up upon release?
    Sir J. Grigg: In general imprisonment in a military prison is confined to soldiers convicted of purely military offences and
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    serving sentences of less than two years. In the case of an officer a sentence of cashiering always accompanies a sentence of penal servitude or imprisonment. This makes him a civilian, and he usually serves his sentence in a civil prison. The answer to the last two parts of the Question is "Yes, Sir."
    Mr. Granville: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there are any officer prisoners incarcerated in the Tower at the present time, or are they all in civilian prisons?
    Sir J. Grigg: Perhaps the hon. Member will put that Question on the Paper.
    Mr. Granville: Do officer prisoners have their sentences reviewed every three months the same as other ranks, and will the right hon. Gentleman give consideration to the very hard case that I put before him recently, in which there was a very severe sentence?
    Sir J. Grigg: I will answer the last part of the question first, and in that comprehend the other part. The matter has been reviewed, and reviewed with extreme care, by the Army Council. I regret that beyond the ordinary remission it is not possible to review the sentence or to reduce the sentence.

    Casualties (Unofficial Telegrams)
    Mr. Astorasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the Order regarding communications to relatives from the Middle East has twice been altered at different dates; and whether he will ask the new Commander-in-Chief, Middle East, to consider the question in the light of the representations which have been made?
    Sir J. Grigg: I am well aware that three General Orders have been issued by the Commander-in-Chief, Middle East, on this subject. The second and third repeat word for word the original prohibition on cables and telegrams and give the same reason for it, although other points are added which were not in the original Order. In answer to the second part of my hon. Friend's Question I therefore have nothing to add to the answer I gave him on 10th March.
    Mr. Astor: Is it not reasonable that, in view of the widespread interest of the families of troops in this question and the

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    support this has received in the House, my right hon. Friend should at least ask the new Commander-in-Chief to look into the question again and see whether he can reconsider it?
    Sir J. Grigg: No, Sir. Quite frankly, I think the Commander-in-Chief has other and much more important things to do.
    Mr. Astor: Is it not treating the House with contempt if my right hon. Friend refuses to ask a perfectly reasonable question of the Commander-in-Chief on a point on which there is great interest in this country.
    Sir J. Grigg: There is no evidence, apart from the hon. Member's persistence, of the great interest to which he refers, and, as I have said, I think the Commander-in-Chief in the Middle East and the authorities in North Africa generally have much more urgent tasks to do at the moment.
    Mr. Quintin Hogg: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the use by troops in the Middle East, during the time when it was permitted to them to communicate with relatives in this country, of their right to do so had the object and the effect of alleviating anxiety in this country and not increasing it?
    Sir J. Grigg: The object was not in fact fulfilled, if that was the object.
    Mr. Astor: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment at an early opportunity.

    Home Guard (Civil Defence Training)
    Colonel Burtonasked the Secretary of State for War the number or percentage of members of the Home Guard who have received training in matters appertaining to Civil Defence; and whether it is proposed to institute any measure of compulsion in this connection?
    Sir J. Grigg: Instructions have already been issued for training in Civil Defence duties to be given in those places where it is necessary to do so, but I regret that the figures asked for by my hon. and gallant Friend are not available. This training is carried out as a military duty and a member of the Home Guard can, therefore, be ordered to undertake it.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware that
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    the amount of work called for from the Home Guard is already having a serious effect on production throughout the country, and will he see to it that if the Home Guard are ordered to do Civil Defence duties, their duties with the Home Guard will be proportionately reduced?
    Sir J. Grigg: That is another question than the one on the Paper, and I have already answered that on one or two occasions.

    Manœuvres (Damage to Agricultural Property)
    Wing-Commander Jamesasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the enormous damage to fencing, hedges, ditches, roadways and gates occasioned by Army manœuvres upon agricultural land; and whether, since neither labour nor material is now available to landowners and farmers, he will arrange for Service personnel to carry out proper permanent repairs either shortly, or following temporary repairs, immediately after the war?
    Sir J. Grigg: It is essential for war-time manœuvres to be realistic, and a certain amount of damage is unfortunately unavoidable. Bearing this in mind, I trust my hon. and gallant Friend will agree that the damage caused by these manœuvres is not unduly heavy. Land repair units are provided in connection with large-scale exercises to carry out the repair work essential for the working of the land. They clear ditches, repair roads and supply and fix fencing and gates. Gates are difficult to get, but a large number is being obtained, and a fair proportion of them is, I understand, already available. Where hedges have been destroyed chestnut paling or wire fencing on timber posts is fixed across the gaps. It is unfortunately impossible for the Army to undertake the replanting of hedges and other skilled and long-term repairs of this kind. The compensation paid to the farmer should enable him to carry out such work when circumstances permit.
    Wing-Commander James: Can I have an assurance that my right hon. Friend has not closed his mind to reconsideration of the matter as supplies become available?
    Sir J. Grigg: I certainly have not. I left out the last sentence of my answer.

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    May I finish it, though it does not add very much to what I have said? I should have added that I sincerely regret that manœuvres inevitably cause damage. The Army is, however, doing its best to reduce the inconvenience and make good the loss suffered by farmers, and I understand that these efforts are widely appreciated by the farmers themselves. That answers my hon. and gallant Friend's somewhat premature Supplementary Question. I shall be glad to arrange for him to visit the areas in question with the President of the Claims Commission if he would like to see what is going on and how claims are dealt with.
    Sir Herbert Williams: Surely my right hon. Friend is aware that a great deal of the damage has nothing to do with manœuvres? It is because people who drive Army vehicles are not taught how to reverse properly.
    Sir J. Grigg: On the contrary, the experience of everyone who has been in the area in which these manœuvres were going on has been that the road discipline of the Army is exceedingly good. I have had letters from Members of the House to that effect.
    Sir H. Williams: Would my right hon. Friend like to see some of the damage done in the Noble Lord's constituency, which I shall be pleased to show him?
    Mr. Shinwell: Can I pour any oil on the troubled waters?

    Lecture to Troops, Scotland
    Mr. Prittasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Miss May Findlay, lecturing to troops in Scotland on 16th February, made a strongly anti-Soviet speech, stating inter alia that Russian citizens are slaves of the State, that children are and have for the last four years been taken from their mothers at birth and, save by chance, are never seen by their parents again; that there is no public religious observance at all and that persons who grumble are shot; and whether he will put a stop to this sort of thing and provide the troops with lecturers that tell the truth about the Soviet Union?
    Sir J. Grigg: I am investigating the hon. and learned Member's complaint about this lecture.

    Neurosis (Discharged Soldiers)
    Mr. Bellengerasked the Secretary of State for War how many cases there are of soldiers being discharged from the Army unfit on account of neurosis?
    Sir J. Grigg: I regret that it is not in the public interest to give the figures, but I can inform my hon. Friend that the proportion of men invalided from the Army suffering from neurosis was in 1942 about 17 per cent. of the number invalided out of the Army in that year on account of all diseases.
    Sir Henry Morris-Jones: Is it not possible for the Army Medical Service completely to drop this term "neurosis," which is a vague and nebulous term used in order to deprive a large number of men of pensions?
    Sir J. Grigg: I do not want to be misunderstood. In the matter of medical terminology the best motto is to observe the rule that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
    Mr. John Dugdale: Are these men treated by Army psychologists before their discharge?

    Family Lodging Allowance (Officers)
    Mr. Bellengerasked the Secretary of State for War what percentage of married officers are receiving family lodging allowance on the old inclusive rate for those over 30 years of age?
    Sir J. Grigg: Based on information available in the Officers' Pay Office at Manchester, approximately 54 per cent. of all married officers in the Army are drawing family lodging allowance under the old code.

    Officers' Clothing and Equipment
    Mr. Evelyn Walkdenasked the Secretary of State for War when it is proposed to dress cadets of the Army and the Auxiliary Territorial Service on taking up commissions in Priority A cloth as laid down in Priority A scheme issued by the Army Council and the Board of Trade in September, 1941, so that newly commissioned officers shall get the best cloth obtainable made to a strict schedule and at a maximum price as laid down in the Board of Trade Order, Goods and Services (Price Control) No. 2556?
    Sir J. Grigg: Instructions about the scheme referred to by my hon. Friend were issued on 8th February. The scheme should ensure that tailor-made uniforms of a standard range of qualities are available for officers (including A.T.S. officers) at moderate prices. I understand that stocks of the cloths covered by the scheme are in the hands of military tailors who have been informed of the specifications of the garments and of the maximum prices laid down by the Board of Trade. Officers are, however, not compelled to buy these cloths. They buy them only if they wish to.
    Mr. Walkden: Why is it that the War Office has not shown the slightest desire to conform to its own Regulations? Is it because of the influence of the vested interests in the tailoring trade?
    Sir J. Grigg: I find the hon. Member's question completely incomprehensible. He had better put down a Question saying in what respect they do not observe the Regulations.
    Mr. Walkden: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware the tailoring trade follow by getting scores of licences to sell uniforms contrary to Army Regulations?
    Sir J. Grigg: If the hon. Member will put a Question down, I will investigate it.
    Mr. Walkdenasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is now in a position to issue details of the new scheme for extending the facilities for officers to obtain supplies of clothing and equipment through the quartermaster's stores?
    Sir J. Grigg: I regret that all the details have not yet been settled, but I hope an announcement will be made before long.

    Pack Drill
    Mr. Ivor Thomasasked the Secretary of State for War when pack drill was abolished in detention barracks?
    Sir J. Grigg: In October, 1935.
    Mr. Thomas: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what form of punishment has taken the place of pack drill?
    Sir J. Grigg: Not without notice.

    Receiver of Stolen Goods (Sentence)
    Mr. Thorneasked the Secretary of State for War whether he can give any information in connection with the case
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    made against William Edwin Higham, master shoe repairer, of Palmerston Avenue, Litherland, Liverpool, charged at the Manchester Assizes with stealing the property of the War Department; what were the things stolen; and what he intends doing to prevent a repetition?
    Sir J. Grigg: I understand that the man referred to was a receiver of stolen goods and has been sentenced to four years' penal servitude. A case of razors and blades was the only War Department property traced to him. The circumstances of the theft are being looked into.

    Chiropodists, Middle East
    Mr. J. Dugdaleasked the Secretary of State for War how many chiropodists are now attached to units in the Middle East?
    Sir J. Grigg: The reorganisation of field medical units, which involves the appointment of chiropodists to field ambulances is now being carried out in this country. The Commander-in-Chief, Middle East, has postponed the consideration of this reorganisation in his Command in view of the active operations in progress. There are, however, a number of chiropodists in the R.A.M.C. in the Middle East who are practising chiropody.
    Mr. Dugdale: Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that during active operations involving a great deal of marching the services of these men might be very necessary?
    Sir J. Grigg: I have pointed out that there are a certain number available in the Middle East. All I have said was that during active operations a general reorganisation could not take place.

    Sentence on Home Guard, Glasgow
    Mr. McGovernasked the Secretary of State for War whether he has considered the case, details of which have been sent to him, of Private Philip Samuels, 3rd City of Glasgow Home Guards, who has been sentenced to 56 days' detention for refusing to carry out an order relating to dress; and, as Private Samuels adopted this mistaken attitude in the belief that he would thereby be able to bring to the notice of his commanding officer a number of grievances at his trial and expressed regret, and although Grade 4 he enrolled voluntarily in the Home Guard, will he consider remitting the remainder of his sentence?
    Sir J. Grigg: Power to remit all or part of sentences awarded by courts-martial is delegated to General Officers Commanding-in-Chief of Commands, and I do not think it advisable to interfere with this power. I have, however, asked for a report of this case.
    Mr. McGovern: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that the sentence imposed on this man, who has a business to look after, is a fair sentence?
    Sir J. Grigg: I am asking for a report, and I think I had better postpone answering the hon. Member's question until I get it.

  SCOTLAND

    Housing (Agricultural Workers)
    Mr. Henderson Stewartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will describe the procedure to be followed by local authorities in erecting houses for farm-workers under the latest scheme?
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston): The houses will be built by the local authorities in accordance with the usual procedure under the Housing (Scotland) Acts. The sites of the houses will, however, be selected in consultation with the Agricultural Executive Committees. Model plans have been prepared by the Department of Health for Scotland in consultation with the Design Sub-Committee of the Scottish Housing Advisory Committee and these plans have been issued to the local authorities for their guidance. The local authorities will obtain tenders for houses in the usual way.
    Mr. Stewart: Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that there will be no avoidable delay, through red tape or any other cause, in carrying out this scheme?
    Mr. Johnston: Yes, I can give that assurance.

    Agricultural Workers' Wages
    Mr. Sloanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether it is his intention to review agricultural workers' wages in Scotland with a view to establish a £4 per week minimum?
    Mr. Johnston: The responsibility for fixing minimum rates of wages for agricultural workers in Scotland rests entirely with the District Committees and the Central Board which were set up with powers and duties detailed in the Agricultural Wages Acts, 1937 and 1940. These bodies are representative of both sides of the industry with independent members added, and so far as I am aware there are no proposals before any District Committee or the Board for a revision of existing minimum wage rates.
    Mr. Sloan: Is my right hon. Friend not aware of the strong resentment felt by agricultural workers at the rate of wages they are paid in comparison with the wages of other workers, and will he undertake to stir up this Board?
    Mr. Johnston: In response to the latter part of the question, I have no power whatever to intervene since the Act of 1940. It is a matter for negotiation between trade unions and employers. I agree, however, that there is resentment in some quarters at the disparity in wage rates.
    Mr. Sloan: Is my right hon. Friend not aware that if agricultural workers were paid proper rates, there would probably be no need to ask for school children to help in agricultural work?
    Mr. Johnston: I do not think that has any connection.

    Veterinary Colleges (Government Grants)
    Commander Galbraithasked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of veterinary students attending the Edinburgh and Glasgow Veterinary Colleges, respectively; and the total Government grants, both capital and annual, made to each of the above colleges since 1925?
    Mr. Johnston: The numbers of students attending the Royal (Dick) Veterinary College, Edinburgh, and the Glasgow Veterinary College during the academic year 1942–43 are 235 and 209 respectively. Government grants to the former College for the financial years 1925 to 1942 inclusive for capital and maintenance purposes amounted to £136,702. No grants from State funds were made during these years to the Glasgow Veterinary College.
    Commander Galbraith: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the great financial difficulties under which the Glasgow College is carrying on and that it is only able to do so because the professors and assistants are taking lower remuneration than they might expect? Will he consider the question of the Glasgow College in view of the grant given to Edinburgh?
    Mr. Johnston: My hon. and gallant Friend is aware that there is a long history behind this going back for 17 years, and that proposals were made to Glasgow Veterinary College that if they would reorganise and co-operate with Glasgow University, grants would be available. They did not see their way to accept the suggestion, and there the matter rests.
    Mr. Maxton: Was not the grant withdrawn from Glasgow Veterinary College 17 years ago in the hope that it would put it out of existence and that all the teaching would be conducted in Edinburgh? As the college still survives after 17 years, does not the right hon. Gentleman think it is time the grant was renewed?
    Mr. Johnston: I cannot say what purpose was in the minds of those who 17 years ago proposed that there should be only one veterinary college for Scotland. I agree that it involves a hardship to students who have to board in Edinburgh.
    Commander Galbraith: Will my right hon. Friend consider the matter again after this period of time and see what can be done?
    Mr. Johnston: It is difficult to deal with the matter by way of question and answer, but the Loveday Committee has been given an urgent recommendation to review the possibility again.

  FUEL AND POWER

    Petrol Allowance (Employees, Birmingham Region)
    Sir John Mellorasked the Minister of Fuel and Power why petrol allowances for motor-cars of salaried employees in the Birmingham region are limited to 50 return journeys during a three-months period, whereas no similar restriction applies to motor-cars of weekly-paid employees?
    The Minister of Fuel and Power (Major Lloyd George): It was considered that, as salaried classes came and went at more regular times, they could take greater advantage of public means of transport than wage-earners employed on a shift basis. I am, however, anxious to avoid any discrimination, and am quite prepared to have each case, where hardship is suggested, examined on its merits.
    Mr. Austin Hopkinson: Is it not a fact that in other districts as well we have the ridiculous system prevailing by which any manual worker has a right to as much petrol as he likes to get home, whereas the manager, who is bearing a load 20 times as big as the worker and has to be there Sundays and week-ends as well, has to go on his hands and knees to beg sufficient petrol?
    Sir J. Mellor: What evidence has my right hon. and gallant Friend obtained in order to make this discrimination?
    Major Lloyd George: It was considered at the time that for obvious reasons if you are going back to home at more regular times, you can make use of public transport more readily. That was the assumption, which is not an unreasonable one, but I am prepared, as I said, to consider all cases where there is hardship.
    Mr. Hopkinson: Will the Minister give an assurance of an equal right for those who are in responsible positions?

    Coal Strippers, Scotland (Calling up, Medical Examination)
    Mr. Gallacherasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether his attention has been drawn to the resolution passed by the Regional Coal Control Board for Scotland condemning the action responsible for a number of Bowhill strippers being called up for medical examination; and, in view of this repudiation, will he state on whose recommendation this action was taken?
    Major Lloyd George: The resolution to which the hon. Member refers was passed on 12th March at a meeting of the Scottish Regional Coal Board, a body whose proceedings are understood to be confidential. As regards the second part of the Question, it is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service to summon persons for medical examination under the National Service Acts.
    Mr. Gallacher: Is the Minister aware that the controller and the coal company have repudiated any responsibility for a recommendation of this kind, and are we to understand that the representative of the Ministry of Labour has taken this action without consulting anyone associated with the Ministry of Fuel or the industry?
    Major Lloyd George: My answer is perfectly clear. My attention has been drawn to the resolution to which my hon. Friend first referred, and I should be interested to know how his attention was drawn to it. With regard to the latter part of his supplementary, I have nothing to add to my answer.
    Mr. Gallacher: Will the Minister say who was responsible for this action?
    Sir H. Williams: Were not these men called up in order that a Second Front might be opened at once?
    Major Lloyd George: In reply to the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher), it is, as I have said, the responsibility of the Minister of Labour to summon persons for medical examination.

    Colliery Canteens
    Mr. Cocksasked the Minister of Fuel and Power at how many collieries out of the 1,028 employing more than 50 workers canteens have been established, and at how many of these are hot meals supplied?
    Major Lloyd George: Canteens have been established at 850 of these collieries, and 243 of the canteens supply full meals.
    Mr. Cocks: Do the figures show a considerable increase in the last three months, and, if so, does my right hon. and gallant Friend hope to get a similar increase in the next three months?
    Major Lloyd George: There has been a substantial increase. In fact, it has been a steady progress since it started, and I hope that it will continue.
    Mr. R. J. Taylor: In view of the need for these canteens, will the Minister see that materials and equipment are provided to complete canteens that are held up?
    Major Lloyd George: I will do everything I can, but my hon. Friend will appreciate that there are other demands. We are doing what we can with both labour and material.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE

    Trade Organisations
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will appoint a committee of the same kind that was appointed in February, 1918, for the purpose of considering the probable extension of trade organisations, combinations, trusts and cartels, to consider and report on what action should be taken to safeguard the public interest?
    The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Dalton): I do not propose to appoint such a committee at the present time, but I fully appreciate the importance of the questions to which my hon. Friend refers, and I will keep his suggestion in mind.
    Mr. Smith: Does my right hon. Friend agree that monopoly control is the greatest menace to the future of the people, and, if he does, would he consult the Prime Minister in order to draw his attention to the fact that it is no use making statements in speeches unless concrete steps of the kind suggested in the Question are taken?
    Mr. Dalton: I think that the steps that are being taken to control prices and profits are more effective than setting up another committee. I do not regard the procedure in the last war as one to be copied. A committee was then set up, but it was late in the day-and was ineffective, and it was followed by very inadequate legislation. We are doing very much better.

    Air-Raid Wardens (Uniforms)
    Mr. Brookeasked the President of the Board of Trade how many clothing coupons air-raid wardens have to surrender in respect of their uniform; and why are they compelled to give up additional coupons from time to time whether they need any replacements of uniform or not?
    Mr. Dalton: Full time members of the wardens' service, whose uniform consists of battledress, overcoat and boots, obtain both the initial outfit and all subsequent replacements against an annual surrender of 18 coupons through their local authority. The uniform itself is worth 43 coupons. This surrender represents the annual saving which results from having coupon-free clothes to wear at work. A similar system applies to all wearers of essential civilian uniforms.
    Mr. Brooke: Does the Minister realise that this arrangement is leaving wardens, particularly women wardens, with very few coupons for their other needs, and it gives them no incentive to make their uniforms last as long as possible?
    Mr. Dalton: I do not think that that is really so. Full-time wardens who wear their uniforms while on duty have a great advantage over civilians who have not that facility, and it is in view of that that this arrangement, which I think is quite generous, was made.

    Utility Furniture
    Mr. Bowlesasked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he proposes to remedy the shortage of utility furniture in Nuneaton and district, particulars of which have been supplied to him by the honourable Member for Nuneaton?
    Mr. Dalton: If my hon. Friend will send me particulars of any cases where holders of buying permits in Nuneaton and district have been unable to obtain utility furniture, I shall be pleased to look into them.
    Mr. Bowles: In view of what I think is the general belief that people will expect to see utility furniture in shop windows, will my right hon. Friend tell the House and the country what steps people should take who have been blitzed or who have got married to obtain this furniture?
    Mr. Dalton: Steps will be taken in the latter case before marriage has been regularised. It is only necessary for people falling within any of the classes of those who are entitled to utility furniture to obtain buying permits, which they do through the Assistance Board. These people order from a shop the articles of furniture they prefer on the list with which they are supplied. We do not want to immobilise large supplies of furniture for window displays, but to get it as quickly as possible in the possession of those people who are entitled to it. A number of exhibitions have been held in different parts of the country.
    Mr. Buchanan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a general feeling of damping down supplies and not to make utility furniture known to the general public, and will he take steps, apart from displays of furniture in shop
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    windows, to see that those who need a supply know the machinery for getting it?
    Mr. Dalton: I am anxious that it should be made widely known. It is not at all my wish to damp it down. Production is going well, and I am anxious that it should be taken up. In Glasgow there has been an exhibition, which was opened by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.
    Mr. Buchanan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it had only a very limited appeal, and will he take steps to see that there are other channels through which supplies are made available?
    Mr. Dalton: I should be glad to do anything on those lines if my hon. Friend would make some suggestions.

    Wireless Sets (Valves and Components)
    Brigadier-General Clifton Brownasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the shortage of valves and spare parts for wireless sets; and, in view of the numerous instructions issued by Government Departments as to food, clothing coupons, National Service Regulations, etc., by wireless, will he make the spare parts more easily available?
    Mr. Dalton: As the House knows, the production of valves and other components for civilian wireless sets is limited by the heavy demands of the Fighting Services for wireless equipment of all kinds. Nevertheless, the production of valves in this country for civilian sets is very considerable, and, in addition, substantial quantities of American type valves have been imported from the United States. But there are still shortages of a few types of valves. As regards components, the principal difficulty has been with electrolytic condensers. As I informed my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Mr. J. Dugdale) on 19th January last, steps have already been taken to increase the production of these.

    Maximum Price Orders
    Mr. Toucheasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the great difficulty experienced by small drapers, especially in cases where the husband has been called up, of understanding and complying with the complexity and multiplicity of Orders issued

    1463
    by his Department regarding the prices of goods; and whether he will take steps to reduce the number of such Orders and to increase the simplicity of their language?
    Mr. Dalton: I am anxious that, subject to fair treatment of all concerned, maximum price Orders should be as few, uniform and simple as possible. I have recently decided on uniformity in future in the method of expressing margins in relation to Purchase Tax, and I have asked the trade for suggestions for further simplification. My Department keep in close touch on all these matters with the trade associations concerned, and traders in difficulty can obtain advice from their organisations, and also from the Local Price Regulation Committee in their area.

    Utility Goods
    Mr. Sloanasked the President of the Board of Trade what percentage of utility goods have been sold at maximum price?
    Mr. Dalton: I regret that this information is not available.
    Mr. Sloan: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the clothing trade in particular at least 80 per cent. of the clothing manufactured is sold at maximum prices, irrespective of the quality?
    Mr. Dalton: There is nothing illegal in selling at the ceiling price, or maximum price, but what is illegal is to sell above it. My hon. Friend will, I am sure, appreciate that I could not possibly check up on all the information he asks for in a manner which would allow me to answer his question adequately, as I have not the means at my disposal.

    Concentration of Industry
    Major Procterasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, before any trade or industry is controlled and concentrated, he will publish, for the information of the public, an explanation of what is proposed and why it is necessary, especially as they have never been properly informed of the reasons for closing many small but important industries?
    Mr. Dalton: As my hon. and gallant Friend is aware, an explanation of the reasons for the policy of concentration of production was published in Command Paper No. 6258 of 1941. Before any particular industry is concentrated, the
    1464
    reasons are explained to representatives of the industry, and details discussed with them.
    Major Procter: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered setting out for the information of the public the reasons for the concentration of industry, because in spite of what has been said many people do not know, and many of the individuals concerned do not understand why?
    Mr. Dalton: The general reasons for the concentration of industry were explained in a Command Paper issued by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Production when he initiated this policy as President of the Board of Trade. The reasons are very simple; they are to release labour, to save materials and to enable factory buildings to be used for other purposes. In the particular instance of any trade we discuss the reasons not with the public generally but with the trade itself.
    Mr. De la Bère: Are not the methods in force very arbitrary, and would it not be possible to give a little more enlightenment on this subject? The position is not very satisfactory.

    Post-War Economic Policy
    Mr. Wakefieldasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can say in what manner he proposes after the war to continue manufacture in factories owned by the State in Swindon and district, in view of the special consideration to be given by the Government to factories now established in the former distressed areas?
    Sir J. Mellorasked the Minister without Portfolio whether plans now being made for the period following the war include the disposal to private enterprise of factories acquired by the Government for war purposes?
    Mr. Dalton: I have been asked to reply to the Question addressed to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister without Portfolio, and with my hon. Friends' permission, I will answer both together. I have at present nothing to add to what I said on this subject in the Debate on Economic Policy on 3rd February last. I then stated that I was most anxious that we should explore well in advance, before final decisions are taken, what are the best possibilities for these factories after the war, particularly for

    1465
    those which are situated in pre-war distressed areas, where it has been found that employment was not sufficiently diversified.
    Sir J. Mellor: In order that private firms may prepare to co-operate with the Government in the transition period, will my right hon. Friend give them some guidance as to what the Government have in mind?
    Mr. Dalton: I think that in the first instance it is desirable that we should have preliminary discussions such as are now taking place between the various Departments in London, and reports as to possibilities submitted from the different areas. No decisions have yet been taken. We must get the materials first.
    Sir J. Mellor: Are industrial organisations heing consulted in this matter?
    Mr. Dalton: As I have already said, inquiries have been sent to a number of industrial organisations in the trades with which the Board of Trade is concerned, asking them to express their views to me upon all these post-war problems.
    Mr. Wakefield: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Swindon and district is not a distressed area, but that if plans are not made quickly unemployment and distress may occur there after this war?
    Mr. Dalton: The Government are committed, as has been announced, to full employment so far as it can be achieved in all areas. Swindon was very fortunate before the war in not being a distressed area. Other areas were not so fortunate. We will endeavour to see that misfortune befalls no area.
    Mr. Lawson: Will the right hon. Gentleman hold fast to the view that those areas which were distressed areas 10 years ago get better consideration than they got before the war?

    Safety Razor Blades
    Sir Irving Alberyasked the President of the Board of Trade the percentage of safety razor blades released by wholesalers to the quantity purchased by the public, based on the period June, 1939, to June, 1940?
    Mr. Dalton: I regret that the particulars for which my hon. Friend asks are not available. The total production of blades
    1466
    in this country in 1937 was 562,000,000. Production last quarter, in spite of labour and raw material difficulties, was at the rate of 564,000,000 a year and was higher in the two previous quarters. I am giving close attention to this question.
    Sir I. Albery: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman give figures as to the releases?
    Mr. Dalton: No, Sir, but I am going into this matter very carefully, as I am not satisfied at present.

    Surgical Lint (Misuse)
    Mr. Molsonasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that owing to the lack of washing flannels and gloves, some chemists are recommending the use of surgical lint for this purpose; and whether he will take steps to stop this practice?
    Mr. Dalton: To use surgical lint in place of washing flannels is very wrong, and I am much obliged to my hon. Friend for reporting to me the name and address of the chemist who recommended to him the use of lint for this purpose. I have arranged for one of my officers to visit and admonish this chemist. I am considering, in consultation with my right hon. Friends the Ministers of Health and Supply, what further steps may be expedient to check such misuse of this essential material.
    Sir H. Williams: May I ask whether the use of surgical lint has been prohibited by any Order?
    Mr. Dalton: No, Sir. Surgical lint is very necessary, but not for the purpose of washing one's face.
    Sir H. Williams: Has its use been prohibited for that purpose?
    Mr. Dalton: That was not the Question on the Paper.
    Sir H. Williams: But can a man be admonished if he has not committed an offence?
    Mr. Dalton: This man will be admonished for trying to persuade customers to misuse surgical lint.

    Towels (Hairdressers)
    Mr. Cocksasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is now in a position to make a statement on the provision of extra towel coupons for hairdressers?
    Mr. Dalton: I cannot at present add anything to the replies which I gave on 2nd March to my hon. Friends the Members for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) and the Clayton division of Manchester (Mr. Thorneycroft).
    Mr. Cocks: May I ask that the right hon. Gentleman should bear in mind the difficulties that hairdressers are experiencing at the present time?
    Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir. I stated in reply to a Supplementary Question on the date mentioned that I am most anxious to do whatever I can to assist hairdressers, but supplies are difficult to obtain.

    Toilet Preparations Order
    Mr. Cocksasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the complete banning of petroleum products under the Toilet Preparations Order is causing hardship to hairdressers; and whether he will consider releasing some of these products on a quota basis?
    Mr. Dalton: The Order to which my hon. Friend refers does not affect the sale by hairdressers of hair preparations already made up on 31st December last. Further manufacture of hair preparations from petroleum products was probihited as from this date owing to the need to economise in shipping space and in materials essential to the war effort. But I am prepared to look into any case of special hardship, where a hairdresser already holds a considerable stock of petroleum products.

    Perambulators
    Mr. A. Edwardsasked the President of the Board of Trade how many perambulators have been manufactured during the past month; and how many will be available for sale per week in the future?
    Mr. Dalton: The number of perambulators and folders produced in February is estimated at 26,330. I hope that this rate of production will be at least maintained.
    Mr. Edwards: Is the Minister aware that since he promised to look into this matter of perambulator supplies the allocation for Middlesbrough has been reduced and the allocation for Scotland has been considerably increased?
    Mr. Dalton: I undertook to try to see that justice was done. If my hon. Friend thinks that it has not been done, perhaps he will approach me on the matter.
    Mr. Buchanan: Will the Minister take steps to see that these statements about Scotland are also looked into?

  EQUAL COMPENSATION (SELECT COMMITTEE'S REPORT)
  Mrs. Tateasked the Prime Minister whether any decision has yet been reached with regard to compensation of war injured civilians after consideration by the Government of the Report of the Select Committee on Equal Compensation?
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to her on 16th March last.
  Mr. Tate: In view of the fact that this matter has been consistently discussed for two years, may I ask whether, if I put down a Question next week to the right hon. Gentleman, he will be in a position to give me a definite answer?
  The Prime Minister: I am not prepared to enter into any precise engagement at this moment.
  Mr. McGovern: Would this recommendation of the Select Committee come within the scope of the right hon. Gentleman's Four Year Plan and be carried out within that period?
  The Prime Minister: It would come within the scope of the preliminary operations.

  ENEMY POWERS (PEACE PROPOSALS)
  Mr. Rhys Daviesasked the Prime Minister whether he will give an undertaking that no answer will be given to any proposals made by the Axis Powers to His Majesty's Government for the termination of hostilities before the House of Commons has had an opportunity of expressing its opinions thereon?
  The Prime Minister: An assurance of this kind would be contrary to constitutional usage, by which such issues are reserved to the Crown, acting on the advice of Ministers, who are themselves responsible to Parliament for their conduct.

  PAMPHLET, "SQUARE MEALS, AND SQUARE DEALS"
  Commander Bowerasked the Prime Minister whether the contents of the recently published pamphlet, entitled "Square Meals and Square Deals," by the Minister of Labour, represent the policy of His Majesty's Government?
  The Prime Minister: This is a Labour Party publication of a highly polemical character, with which His Majesty's Government are in no way concerned. It is open to any person or organisation to publish an extract from Hansard with what comments they please.
  Commander Bower: Should it not first of all be an accurate extract from Hansard and not an inaccurate paraphrase? Is it not, further, something of an innovation for a Minister of the Crown, in the course of piloting a non-controversial Measure in this House, to make a violent attack outside the House on Members who fulfil their proper constitutional functions of opposing a Measure which they think is contrary to the public interest?
  The Prime Minister: As to the accuracy of any quotation made from our Debates, that is a matter to which attention can always be drawn in the course of political controversy. As to the insinuation which the hon. and gallant Member has made against the Minister of Labour that he was connected with this publication, I can give the hon. and gallant Member the most complete denial.
  Mr. Buchanan: Would not the best way 1:0 settle this Question be that which the right hon. Gentleman adopted the other day, namely, to circulate this pamphlet in the OFFICIAL REPORT?
  Commander Bower: Has the Prime Minister seen the pamphlet, a copy of which I have here, and is he aware that it bears these words.
  "Square Meals and Square Deals, by the right hon. Ernest Bevin, M.P."?
  The Prime Minister: That is a most misleading and, in my opinion, most improper description, because it suggests that the Minister of Labour has written the offensive comments at the beginning and the end, whereas, of course, it refers literally to the quotations from the Minister's speech in Parliament.
  Sir Douglas Hacking: May I ask the Prime Minister very seriously whether,
  1470
  in view of the great bitterness already engendered in connection with this particular Measure, he will consider whether it is in the national interest that it should proceed?
  The Prime Minister: We shall certainly not be deterred from Measures which are necessary because they arouse heat or bitterness.
  Mr. Maxton: Are we of the Opposition to understand that there has been a little friction in the ranks of the Government?
  The Prime Minister: Friction is healthy, and is widely and almost universally dispersed.

  FORESTRY COMMISSION (REPORT)
  Major McCallumasked the Prime Minister whether the Report recently drawn up for the Government by the Forestry Commission will be published; and, if so, can he say when?
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): I have been asked to reply. As I informed my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) on 18th March, this matter will form one of the topics for consideration in the Government's post-war plans, and the question of publication will be considered in due course.
  Earl Winterton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that great attention has been called to this matter in many reports, including the Scott Report? Will he give favourable consideration, and, if necessary, discuss the matter with the Prime Minister, to a suggestion that there should be a discussion of this Report as soon as possible, in view of the fact that we have not had a Debate on forestry for many years?
  Sir K. Wood: I will communicate with my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Lawson: Is it a fact that this Report is now ready?
  Sir K. Wood: I say that the question whether it can be published will be considered.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Wage-earners (Income Tax Returns)
    Mr. G. Straussasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, with a view

    1471
    to the avoidance of absenteeism through attendance during work hours at the local tax office, he will ask the inspectors of taxes to send officers at regular intervals to factories employing over a certain number of employees to interview employees who need advice in connection with their Income Tax returns?
    Sir K. Wood: Arrangements of the sort suggested by my hon. Friend are already in force in a large number of cases, and it is the policy of the Board of Inland Revenue to extend them so far as circumstances permit.

    Depreciated Properties (Deferred Repairs)
    Sir I. Alberyasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the position of concerns of which the main revenue, trading and otherwise, is derived from properties of various kinds which, owing to the war, are suffering heavy depreciation through lack of adequate repairs; and whether he will consider allowing certain reserves for deferred maintenance to be made and treated as an expense of the business for taxation purposes?
    Sir K. Wood: An allowance in respect of deferred repairs is given for the purpose of Excess Profits Tax, and for the purposes of the Income Tax the deferred expenditure on repairs will rank for allowance as and when it is incurred.

    Furnished-house Letting (Income Tax Returns)
    Sir J. Mellorasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the pressure exerted by the Ministry of Fuel and Power on applicants for home-to-work petrol allowances temporarily to change residence so as to reduce mileage, he will take steps to amend the law which disallows the expense of living elsewhere as a deduction from the profits of letting a furnished house assessable to Income Tax under Schedule D?
    Sir K. Wood: No, Sir. I cannot agree that the circumstances to which my hon. Friend refers would justify a departure from the general Income Tax rule.
    Sir J. Mellor: How can the right hon. Gentleman expect people to change their residences if it involves higher taxation?
    Sir K. Wood: There are many other considerations which I have to bear in mind in this matter.

    Post-war Economic Policy
    Mr. De la Bèreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will give an assurance that the Government's financial and economic post-war policy will be formulated so as to maintain a stable price level in the home market by regulating the issue of credit; and whether the Government will introduce the necessary legislation to empower them to maintain an increased purchasing power whenever prices show a tendency to fall?
    Sir K. Wood: I would refer my hon. Friend to the statement which I made in the Debate on post-war economic policy on 2nd February, and in particular to what I then said about the price level and about the contribution which the Government could make towards securing active employment.
    Mr. De la Bère: Did my right hon. Friend really do himself justice in that Debate?

    War Damage Payments (Death Duties)
    Sir I. Alberyasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether agreed sums payable as war damage under the War Damage Act, either on account of property or chattels insurance, can be set off against the payment of Death Duties due on a deceased estate?
    Sir K. Wood: I assume that my hon. Friend refers to payments for war damage which are to be made, together with accrued interest, after the war. Such future payments cannot be regarded as available now for the discharge of Death Duties. The duty chargeable in respect of the war damage payment itself will not, however, be collected until the payment is received.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS OFFICIAL REPORT (SALES)
  Commander King-Hallasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he will arrange to have displayed in the Library a graph showing the daily sales of Hansard?
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Assheton): In present circumstances I am most reluctant to add to statistical

  1473
  work of this kind, and I do not think that the production of daily figures, whether in graph form or otherwise, would be justifiable.
  Commander King-Hall: Would the Minister be prepared to indicate the figures, perhaps upon a weekly basis, to any Member who is interested in this subject?
  Mr. Assheton: I do not want to add to work of this kind in the Department if it can be avoided.
  Commander King-Hall: Is the Minister really saying that any work is involved? The Stationery Office must know the figures.
  Mr. Assheton: If the hon. and gallant Member wants to have the figure for any particular week, I will do my best to supply it.

  MINISTRY OF INFORMATION SPEAKERS
  Mr. De la Bèreasked the Minister of Information whether, in connection with the panel of Ministry of Information speakers, he will take steps so as to ensure that the speeches they deliver in the various constituencies throughout the country were read and approved by his Department in so far as is possible, in view of some of the confusing and undesirable statements which have been made during the past few months?
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Information (Mr. Thurtle): To require every speaker to submit a script of his speech in advance for approval would be impracticable without a large addition to the Ministry's staff; but every opportunity is taken to discuss with speakers individually the general subject-matter on which they will be speaking.
  Mr. De la Bère: As only a very limited number of the speeches are really good, would it not be desirable to limit the enormous number of those speeches so that more supervision could be exercised? The matter really is getting out of control.
  Mr. Thurtle: The number of speeches is a different matter. We always offer our speakers good advice as to what they should and should not say. I think my
  1474
  hon. Friend will agree that we should allow a little scope for the inspiration of the moment.
  Mr. McGovern: Could not the Ministry of Information supply the speeches of Members of this House?
  Mr. Thurtle: I do not think that is a practicable suggestion.

  AIR MAIL (MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA)
  Sir H. Morris-Jonesasked the Postmaster-General whether he will take measures to expedite the air-mail to and from the Forces serving in the Middle East and North Africa?
  The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Grimston): I would refer my hon. Friend to the full explanation of the position which was made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Financial Secretary to the War Office, during the Report stage of the Army Estimates on 17th March last. Airgraph and air letter services to the troops in North Africa were introduced on 5th March. In conjunction with the other Departments concerned, the Post Office will continue its endeavours to speed up all the services to and from our Forces in the Middle East and North Africa.
  Mr. Higgs: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that land mails and small parcels have taken more than three months to arrive in the Middle East, and would he do his best to accelerate that service?
  Mr. Grimston: We are doing all we can, but my hon. Friend will realise that, owing to the diversion of shipping and re-route-ing and so on, the position is very difficult.
  Mr. Simmonds: Would the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the establishment of the Royal Air Force Transport Command provides an opportunity of getting some speeding-up of these mails, and will he have that discussed with the officer commanding that Command?

  PRODUCTION FACTORIES (BROADCAST MUSIC)
  Mr. Thorneasked the Minister of Production whether he has any estimate

  1475
  of the number of factories which receive broadcasting music on Fridays and Saturdays?
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Production (Mr. Garro Jones): I regret that no estimate in the form asked for by my hon. Friend is available.
  Mr. Thorne: Will the decision given in the House of Lords the other week make any difference to the entertainment?
  Mr. Garro Jones: I prefer not to make a statement about that subject at the present time, as the matter which interests my hon. Friend is at present under discussion.
  Mr. Rhys Davies: Is anybody in the hon. Gentleman's Department studying whether music in factories has the slightest effect at all on production?
  Mr. Garro Jones: That does not arise out of this Question.

  CANTEEN WORKERS (SHORTAGE)
  Mr. Craven-Ellisasked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the fact that evidence of shortage of staff seriously affecting the service of meals at essential works' canteens has been placed before his Department and before the Ministry of Food, he can announce any further action taken to alleviate a condition which is aggravated by prolonged delay in applying the Essential Work Order to canteens covered by a National Joint Industrial Council agreement?
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Tomlinson): I would refer my hon. Friend to the replies given to the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Burke) on 11th March and to the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Evelyn Walkden) on 18th March.
  Mr. Craven-Ellis: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the reply to which he referred does not deal with the reasons for the Essential Work Order being held up, and can he explain why the Essential Work Order for the catering industry is held up?
  Mr. Tomlinson: The reply states that it is under consideration, and it is still there.
  Mr. Craven-Ellis: How long is it going to be under consideration?

  WORKERS (DEPUTATIONS TO MINISTER)
  Mr. Kirkwoodasked the Minister of Labour the grounds for his refusal to receive deputations, even when accompanied by Members of this House, unless also accompanied by trade union officials?
  Mr. Tomlinson: I assume that my hon. Friends refers to cases where workers seek to make direct representations with regard to matters which are properly dealt with through the recognised negotiating machinery of the industry. This must necessarily have the effect of weakening the authority of the unions, and it is my right hon. Friend's practice not to receive such direct representations if made independently of the unions. My right hon. Friend would ask members to support him in keeping these matters within the proper agreed channels.
  Mr. Kirkwood: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this has been the use and wont in this House to my personal knowledge for 20 years, and that this bar was never put up until the present Minister became Minister of Labour, and that it means abrogating the power of the House of Commons to the trade union movement? I want to know what the hon. Gentleman has to say in reply to that.
  Mr. Tomlinson: I would suggest that it is not abrogating the power of the House of Commons, and that where constituents of Members come seeking to see the Minister they have not been refused, but that when they have come making direct representations with regard to trade practices the recognised channel is the trade union.
  Mr. A. Bevan: Is it not unreasonable to expect the hon. Gentleman to answer a Supplementary Question of such great gravity, and ought not the Government to reconsider this whole question? Is it not a very serious matter indeed when Ministers can refuse to receive Members of this House?
  Sir I. Albery: Arising out of this Question and the replies given, has the Minister not in fact stated that a Member of this House wishing, for certain purposes, to take a deputation is to be refused unless he is accompanied by a trade union official? Is not that a complete innovation and against all the traditional usages of this House?
  Mr. Tomlinson: I question entirely the statement that has just been made.
  Hon. Members: Answer.
  Mr. Tomlinson: I think the statement that has been made is inconsistent with the reply that has been given.
  Sir I. Albery: I desire to ask the Prime Minister whether he will look into this matter and have a suitable reply made in this House.
  The Prime Minister: I have not previously been involved in this field of discussion, but I will certainly look into it. I cannot think that the supplementary suggestion that was made by the hon. Gentleman was in any way warranted by the answer.
  Sir I. Albery: If the Prime Minister will look at the Question on the Paper and take that in conjunction with the reply given by the Minister, he will find that the matter does arise.
  Mr. Kirkwood: Arising out of that reply by the Prime Minister, is the Prime Minister aware that if he reads the Question he will see that the Minister of Labour has laid it down definitely not only to Members but to Cabinet Ministers that they are not to receive a deputation, supposing it is headed by a Member of Parliament, unless that deputation and the Member of Parliament have also a trade union official with them?
  The Prime Minister: We have had a very great success in this war in getting along without great stoppages in industry, and we have done it very largely by our reliance on the great trade unions. I am sure that Members of Parliament would wish to have their co-operation as fully as possible.

  PENSIONS APPEAL TRIBUNALS
  Mr. Arthur Greenwood(by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Pensions whether he can give the House any information in regard to the setting-up of pensions appeal tribunals?
  The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): The Government have promised to set up tribunals as soon as practicable. As the House knows, I have appointed a Sub-Committee of my Central Advisory Committee to explore
  1478
  this problem. The House will not expect me to anticipate the Sub-Committee's report, which they will make in due course to the main Committee, but, briefly, the position at the moment is as follows.
  Thanks to the British Medical Association we now have a list of doctors who are willing to serve either on tribunals or on tribunal work in the Ministry. The Lord Chancellor is responsible for tribunal appointments, but it is clearly desirable that my Sub-Committee should undertake a general review of this list, not with the object of expressing any views on the suitability of a particular individual, but to satisfy itself generally that sufficient doctors of suitable experience can be regarded as available without serious effect on other essential war services.
  In this connection I am very glad to have the valuable help of Lord Horder. He and my own senior medical officers will carefully review the list and give their general opinion on the point of view to which I have referred. I shall then call a further meeting of the Sub-Committee to consider results in the light of the considered opinion of Lord Horder and his colleagues. If the Sub-Committee report in favour of the early establishment of tribunals as a practical matter, and the main Committee support their view, the Government will review the whole problem in the light of its recommendations.
  I am as anxious as hon. Members that there should be tribunals and the House may be assured that, when the Government decide that they can be set up, no time will be lost in giving practical effect to this decision.
  Mr. Bellenger: The House will be aware that we are to discuss the subject of the Ministry of Pensions to-day. Might I ask, Mr. Speaker, whether it will be in order to refer, not in detail but generally, to the subject which the Minister has just introduced to the House?
  Mr. Speaker: Most certainly it will. I allowed that Private Notice Question to be put because I thought it would help hon. Members in the Debate.
  Mr. McGovern: Is it usual, and necessary, to have a Private Notice Question when a Debate is about to be initiated which will give the Minister an opportunity of making a statement on the subject?
  Mr. Speaker: I accepted the Private Notice Question because I thought it would help hon. Members in the Debate.
  Earl Winterton: The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the pending report of this Sub-committee. In view of the long period which has elapsed since it was first announced that the Committee was appointed, will he give us a date upon which the Committee will report, and also say how long after that it will take for the Government to come to a final decision?
  Sir W. Womersley: When we consulted the British Medical Association they asked for a certain time to circulate their associations throughout the country, and my Sub-committee agreed to give them that time. That is the reason for the delay. It is not the fault of my Subcommittee or of myself. I hope to make an announcement very shortly but I think my Noble Friend will agree that a list such as this must be carefully scrutinised.
  Mr. Rhys Davies: Are we to take it that when the tribunals are set up all cases which have arisen since the commencement of this war will be dealt with by the tribunals?
  Sir W. Womersley: Yes, Sir.
  Mr. A. Bevan: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that as things are at the moment it is Members of Parliament who are the appeal tribunals? There is a large accumulation of cases, which will constitute a bottle-neck unless the right hon. Gentleman gets the tribunals working speedily.
  Sir W. Womersley: I quite agree that Members of Parliament are dealing with such cases at present. I do not think that Members of Parliament want that privilege taken away from them, even if the tribunals are set up. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I understand that Members of Parliament want to help their constituents. I hope that they will approach me in just the same way when the tribunals are set up.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Henderson Stewart: On the next Sitting Day we are to take the Nurses Bill and the Housing (Agricultural Population) (Scotland) Bill. I want to ask whether
1480
reasonable time will be given for discussion of the Housing (Agricultural Population) (Scotland) Bill?
The Prime Minister: I hope that there will be time for discussion of both Bills.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS
That they have passed a Bill, intituled "An Act to amend the Evidence and Powers of Attorney Act, 1940, to provide for the proof of notarial acts of certain foreign diplomatic and consular representatives, and for purposes connected therewith."—[Evidence and Powers of Attorney Bill [Lords].
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL
  Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

  WAR PENSIONS
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir Ian Fraser: The Prime Minister, in his eloquent broadcast speech, has lifted the veil a little and shown us the uplands which we are hoping to explore when we pass through the Valley of the Shadow. It seems to me right that while we are still in the Valley of the Shadow we should see how some of our citizens are faring. I hope to convince the House that there are some among us, to whom many may think we owe a special debt, whose circumstances are not in line with the tradition which this House has from time to time approved. I know that it would be out of Order in this Debate to urge how appeal tribunals should foe set up, but I think it would be in Order to comment upon the present administration, in order to emphasise what I believe is the view of the whole of this House, that every effort must be made by the Minister to implement the tentative concession—if I may call it that—which he has announced to-day. Unless you can define by some fair means, independent of the administration itself, who is entitled to a pension, you cannot ensure that there is justice, nor can you ensure that people think there is justice.

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  Under the present administration these cases are tried in camera by the Minister, and the evidence upon which judgments are made, which vitally affect the whole life of disabled men, is heard without their having any knowledge of that evidence. That does not happen in any other sort of trial in any court of law in our country, even in regard to cases which do not affect anything like so poignantly the whole livelihood of any of our citizens. I will not elaborate the case, because I cannot help thinking that this last-minute notice for a Private Notice Question shows that the coming of this Debate has had some effect on His Majesty's Government. I hope that that is so. I look forward to the Minister's further statement, in which he will tell us of the progress he has made. A few months ago he was telling us that we must wait for the end of the war. Pressure from this House brought him to the point of saying that he agreed with appeal tribunals. A little more pressure and the Government agreed. A little more pressure and somebody was asked to find the doctors who could not be found in war. A little more pressure and the Minister comes down to the House and says that he has found some. Let us rejoice that he is making such progress, but let our watchword be "Watch Walter." Next time he comes, let us see that he brings something in the bag. It is not enough for him to come down and say, "You have all my sympathy, but…."
  Let us turn from that to some of the vital matters affecting ex-Service men, both those who have been disabled in this war and our comrades of the last war. If I ain the House with some figures, and also with one or two references to the principles upon which our pensions are based, I hope the House will forgive me. I cannot help thinking that we should have the whole of this subject in our minds in order that we may, as I hope, put unanimous pressure on the Minister with a full knowledge of the facts. The pensions which are given to our men, whether of this war or of the last, vary according to the disability and vary according to rank. But for simplicity's sake I will take the case of the man who is, in pensions parlance, said to be "100 per cent. disabled" or in the more modern phrase "disabled in the highest degree," and I will take the case of the private soldier. A
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  private soldier disabled in the highest degree in the last war receives a pension of £2 a week. He has received that pension since the year 1919. A private soldier similarly disabled in this war receives a pension of 37s. 6d. A private soldier in the last war received up to £1 attendant allowance if he was most severely disabled, for example, if he was bed-ridden or paralysed; but if he had suffered only the loss of two limbs or of two eyes, he did not receive that full attendant allowance. He probably received only half of it, namely, 10s., and in many cases less. The men of this war receive slightly lower rates in the same proportion as that of the £2 and the 37s. 6d. which I have mentioned.
  There are children's and wives' allowances which are paid if the men were married before the invaliding disability occurred. These amount to 10s. for the wife in the case of the man disabled in the last war and 9s. 2d. in the case of the man disabled in this war; 7s. 6d. for the first child in the last war and 7s. 1d. in this war; 6s. for the second child in the last war and 5s. 5d. in this war. Why the child of a veteran of the Great War, born to-day, should be deemed to require 7s. 6d. a week and the child of the soldier of this war, born to-day, should be deemed to require 7s. 1d., it is beyond my comprehension to understand. Why the man who lost two limbs in the last war requires £2, and the man who has lost two limbs in this war requires 37s. 6d., is also beyond my comprehension. What does this differentiation of half-a-crown mean? I submit to the House that there can be no valid reason for this small differentiation and that there are the gravest possible disadvantages in it, because it causes the young men who are now coming into our country wounded, to feel that, for some reason which they cannot understand, they are being treated differently from the old soldiers—and it is not that the old soldiers' rate is as great as all that.
  I know that the Minister will put up a reply based upon elaborate cost-of-living figures, and I will deal with that later in my argument. The first thing I want the House to support me in is the request, perhaps even the demand, that this half-crown differentiation between the men of this war and the men of the last war should, forthwith, be eradicated. The Minister of Pensions must protect the Treasury to some extent. We cannot

  1493
  have claims of all kinds running away out of control, but the exercise of such a small and, it seems to me, unjust and inexplicable differentiation is just the kind of thing which makes the disabled man feel that the Ministry—which ought to be his friend—is not treating him properly and has no regard for his feelings.
  Now I wish to take the House with me, if I may, into the principles upon which we have tried to base our pensions policy, because it is very important that we should try to see what these are. I have made an exhaustive search of the records, and out of many references I have picked out four from official statements which I think will guide us as to what is the principle which we have all had in mind in setting out to make Royal Warrants and in determining, in our own minds, what we pay these pensions for. The Ministry of Pensions was set up in 1917, and in the first Annual Report which the then Minister made to Parliament occurred these words referring to the basis upon which pensions were granted:
  "It is simple compensation for the injury received and for the estimated loss of general working capacity."
  The point I wish to bring to the notice of the House is that there are two elements—simple compensation for injury and something based upon an estimate of the man's loss of working capacity. May I leave that there for the present, because it will appear later why I am stressing this? The point about the two elements is what I want to bring to the mind of the House. Subsequently a Departmental Committee was set up, and they went into this matter—and, by the way, the Minister and his assistant were both on that Departmental Committee—and this is how they put it:
  "A man's physical capacity as compared with that of the ordinary healthy man of the same age."
  That is, a man's physical capacity as compared with the normal. There is no reference to wages there. Indeed reference to earning capacity is specifically left out, and the comparison is, as I have said, between the disabled and the normal. Recently, as a result of the Debate initiated by the hon. Lady the Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate), a Committee was set up on the question of equal compensation, and the Ministry of Pensions itself, giving evidence, said this:
  "A comparison with a normal healthy person of the same age and sex."
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  That is, a comparison between the present position of the person concerned and that of the normal person.
  Finally, I call the mind of the House back to a very important Government pronouncement which was made in 1932 by the Minister of Labour at that time—Sir Henry Betterton, as he than was—on a Bill called the Transitional Payments Bill. I had advocated in the Debates on that Bill that statutory recognition should be given to the fact that a wound or disability pension was composed of two elements. The House will remember that in those days we were discussing unemployment and the transitional payments which were made after the ordinary unemployment payment had run out. When the six months, or whatever the period was, had passed, it fell to the lot of the public authorities to make these transitional payments, and the question arose how to administer the means test, to decide how much transitional payment to make where disabled men were concerned. I put forward the plea, in which I was supported in all parts of the House, that the disability pension was not given solely for maintenance but that it included some further element, and this is what the then Minister of Labour said during the discussion on the Money Resolution in connection with that Bill:
  "A portion of the pension should be deemed to be in respect of something other than maintenance."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th November, 1932; col. 355, Vol. 270.]
  What does this really mean? I think, putting it into ordinary language which the man in the street can understand, and which we can understand, it means this—that in assessing the compensation to be paid to a man who is disabled in the severest degree in the country's service, we do not seek to find a figure which is down on the bed-rock of maintenance, we do not seek to find a figure which is for mere subsistence, but we seek a figure which gives him something other than maintenance and more than maintenance. May I call the attention of the House to the fact that this statement of the then Minister of Labour was not merely a statement having no action to support it? The Bill which he then brought in became an Act of Parliament, and the Section which I moved, and to which I am now making reference, actually took out of the means test 50 per cent. of the disability pension with

  1495
  a maximum of £1 so that action followed that kindly thought, and statutory recognition was given to the fact that a proportion of the disability pension was deemed to be for something other than maintenance. In fact, as far as the disabled soldier—disabled in the highest degree—was concerned who got his £2 a week pension when he went to the transitional payments authority for his money they, in order to put him on a proper basis, left out of account £1 out of the £2. For the purpose of my argument it does not matter whether the proper ratio between that part of the pension which is for maintenance and that part which is for something more is 50 per cent. or any other per cent. I believe I have proved to the House that Ministers of Pensions of all parties for 25 years and Governments, and the Civil Service behind them, have constantly recognised that the disability pension contains an element or should contain an element other than maintenance.
  If that be true, may I take the mind of the House to a new factor that has intervened in this matter? I suppose that nobody would disagree with maintenance in the sense in which I have used it and in which Sir Henry Betterton used it. It means the same thing as minimum subsistence, freedom from want, keeping the wolf from the door, and keeping body and soul together and all that; that is what it means. We have had the Beveridge Report recently before us. We have approved in principle in this House, and, in my view, the Government have approved in principle—I cannot believe they will deny it—that the main lines of that Report are to be a guide to us in determining our future social policy. I put that so modestly that I do not think it can be disputed. What does Beveridge say in the very eloquent concluding passages of his Report? He says:
  "Nothing below this"
  that means the figures in this Report—
  "can be justified on scientific grounds as adequate for human needs."
  That is what Beveridge says in defending his minimum subsistence figures. He was not setting out to provide people with comfortable amenity or compensation for losses; he was setting out merely to provide what many scientists, including Rowntree, doctors and others who have
  1496
  made surveys regard as necessary for minimum subsistence. What is this basis of Sir William Beveridge? I make a comparison, and I hope that the Minister of Pensions will agree that it is a fair comparison. A person disabled in the highest degre in industry will receive 24s. a week. The Minister of Pensions will give to a man disabled in the highest degree in war 37s. 6d. a week. Whether 37s. 6d. is adequate in all the circumstances I am not prepared to say, but at least we will concede that in this case the single soldier is having more than Beveridge's minimum subsistence. If he be married, Beveridge will give him £2 a week. The Minister of Pensions will give him 37s. 6d. a week, plus 9s., or 46s. 6d. a week.
  May I ask the House to bear with me while I draw their attention to this point about Beveridge's Report? All his figures are based upon the assumption that the cost of living after the war, when his scheme comes to fruition, will be 25 per cent. above the pre-war level, and so he says that £2 a week is the minimum which can be justified on scientific grounds for human subsistence. But at the present time the cost of living is 30 per cent. above pre-war, so that at the moment the comparable Beveridge figure would be 41s. 7d., and if the disabled soldier lives in the London area, where the rents are 6s. higher, it will be found that he will be living below the Beveridge level. I think I can prove to the House that some of our disabled soldiers are receiving more than minimum subsistence, that a substantial number of them will be receiving a figure around the margin of minimum subsistence and some of them below it.
  But that is only half the story. I have the personal investigations of 1,500 cases of men disabled in the highest degree, and it may interest the House to hear the result of that survey. Of those 1,500 men, 556 were married before they were disabled—about one-third; 212 are now widowers or were not married; 731 did not marry until after they were wounded. So that about half of the sample I have given, which is a very representative sample, did not marry until after they were wounded. Will the House see the significance of this? Similarly half the new cases, with their wives and two, three, four or five children—never mind how many children—will be living on 37s. 6d. a week. Even Beveridge would give them

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  £2, plus the levy of is. 7d. to which I have made reference, plus the rent levy, if and when Beveridge's recommendations in that respect are looked into, plus an average of 8s. for each child. I come back to those eloquent words of Beveridge's:
  "Nothing less than this can be justified on scientific grounds as adequate for human subsistence."
  That, I think, shows that half our disabled men are now, as far as the Government are concerned, living upon less than subsistence level, not even relieved of the want which the Beveridge Committee sets out, by its minimum figures, to relieve and, as far as the young boys who are coming in are concerned, it is to that which they have to look forward.
  May I call the attention of the House to two cases which came under my notice only this last week? I will not mention the names of these men. I will give their names to the Minister and to my hon. Friends in the House or to the newspaper Press if they want to check them, but the psychology of the young man who is severely and terribly wounded is a tender plant, and it is not good for him that he should become the centre of self-pity, and that he should have added to his physical disabilities a feeling, supported as I hope it will be, by the overwhelming mass of tin's House, that he is not being properly treated by a great Government of a great country. So I ask that these men be not interviewed because their stories are dramatic. That is not my purpose. My purpose is to convince this House so that something may be done and that we have something to tell these men to their advantage at the time when we go to interview them. Do not let us exploit them. But let me give the cases. A young man returned from the Middle East to my hospital last week. I had a cable from him in South Africa, and I consulted with his father here in this country. The purport of this cable was, "Can you arrange for me to be married by special licence before I am discharged from the Army, because thereby I shall, so to speak, be married on the strength, and my wife will receive an extra 9s. 2d. a week and the children, if there are any, will receive 7s. 1d. and 5s. 5d.?" I had to tell that young man that the test was not whether he was married before discharge, but whether he was married before his invaliding disability, and that occurred at Alamein.
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  In this other case, a young man came in to my hospital five weeks ago and is there now under my care. He has lost both eyes and both hands. That is an exceptional case. He was engaged to be married before he went out to the Middle East. He is to be married on the 24th of this month. The girl intends to stand by him; it is her wish, and I am sure they will be happy. But if she wishes to be provided for at all, it can only be if she is fed out of her husband's attendant allowance, because there is no provision for her, and there will be no provision for any children there might be of the marriage. The man will receive 37s. 6d. a week and 18s. attendant allowance. I cannot help thinking that something must be done in these special cases.
  There are cases among my own men, and among all these disabled men who have lost limbs, where they are in good jobs and are earning good money. The training and encouragement we have given them have enabled them to take good jobs at good money. They have a basic pension as a safeguard against evil times, and so the reduction from the normal to the sub-normal is made up to them. But disability does not only affect you in your working time. It affects you in the morning, when you are trying to shave, when you are looking for your clothes, when you are struggling to put on your trousers on one leg. It affects you all the time, and it is partly for that that this compensation should be paid. Even if some overcome these difficulties and get jobs, there are others in this country now, and there will be others from this steady stream coming back to us from the war zone, who cannot earn and will not be provided for above the Beveridge level of subsistence.
  May I say what I think this House should ask the Government to do? First, we should ask that the 2s. 6d. be put right, because it is hardly worth arguing about. I hope every Member of the House who speaks to-day will say the same thing to the Minister. It appears that things said 100 times have more validity than when they are said once, whatever their merits. So let us say it 100 times and ask the newspapers to say it 1,000 times until this matter of the 2s. 6d. is put right. It is too small for a great people to be bothered about. Far more important and costly is the question

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  of children's and wives' allowances—a business which must be rectified. I will put one argument to the House which I hope will command general respect and assent. There may be differences among us as to how swiftly or fully the Beveridge proposals regarding family allowances can be brought into effect. I think the House has given approval in general to the family allowances provisions. I think the Government have done so, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself came forward and mentioned a figure. He said he agreed with the principle of family allowances but put forward the figure of 5s. instead of 8s. Well, I will not argue as to whether it should be 5s. or 8s.; I will only call to mind the fact that the Government have approved.
  Here is a proposal. To those who want family allowances now, I say "Will you help me to get a start in getting them for disabled soldiers?" To those who think a little more time should be taken I say, "Will you help me by agreeing that this first step should be taken and taken now?" I ask that the matter of the 2s. 6d. should be put right and that children's and wives' allowances should be paid henceforth, or as soon as the Minister can bring the necessary Warrant here.
  Mr. Stephen: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is putting up a very strong case. I would like to ask him whether he would advise us to vote against the Consolidated Fund Bill if the Government refuse to accept the moderate proposals he is putting forward?
  Sir I. Fraser: It is hardly for me to advise Members to vote against the Consolidated Fund Bill. For my part, I put down a Motion which was supported by Members in all parts of the House. I would have wished for a full Debate on that Motion, which I would have been willing to have pressed to a Division. I worded the Motion reasonably and called for an inquiry into these matters. I would have wished that the Government would have accepted it. If they had not, I would have been prepared to take this matter to a Division. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who is now in America, was good enough to show sympathy when I asked him for a
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  day to debate the Motion. I expected a day when we might debate this matter with the gloves off. But we have been given to-day instead. It was not for me to say that I would not take it, although I would speak two or three times or more on this matter if necessary. With my little knowledge of Parliamentary procedure and the significance of the Consolidated Fund Bill, I am not sure that it would be quite in proportion to challenge a vote on this issue here and now. But let us show the Government that we are asking the Minister to come down here with something in his bag. Let us, in a month or two, if this matter is not satisfactorily settled, get another day and, if necessary, challenge the matter.
  I have urged these family allowances, and it is only right that I should deal with two controversial points about them. The first suggestion is that the State will be endowing the marriage of the unfit and, perhaps, the production of impaired children. Let me say something that every doctor and every layman will know. A puppy born of a father who has had his tail cut off is not born with a shortened tail. That is the fortunate law of nature. Nor are children of men suffering from trauma, men whose limbs and bodies have been hurt, born in any way impaired. Thousands of my friends' children are now valiantly serving in our Armed Forces, having been encouraged by their impaired fathers to come forward and do their best. There is no physiological reason why men disabled in the highest degree should not produce fit children; in fact, they have done so. Indeed, it may be argued that the sufferings of their fathers have made these children grow up in an atmosphere which makes good citizens.
  It is alleged by the ignorant that there are probably abuses in this payment of pension to wives, whenever they are married to disabled men. It is alleged that in another country there have been scandals about pensions being paid to successors of men who served in wars 100 years ago. Well, scandals in other countries should not deter us from doing justice here, because our pensions system has always been upright and honest. The so-called death-bed marriage is brought up by the ignorant to try to convince the House that it is going along a dangerous road. What is the death-bed marriage? It is when a young girl marries an old

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  pensioner of 70, hoping that he will die soon so that she will get a pension. It may have occurred elsewhere—I do not allege it—but it cannot occur here. Let me tell the House why. A pension is not payable at all to the deceased soldier's widow unless he dies of the wound or cause which led to his first invalidity. If, in fact, an old boy marries and perhaps enjoys marriage and dies a year or two later, is it not most likely that he will have died of old age? Almost certainly he will not have died of an invaliding disability of 50 years ago. But if there is a possibility of an occasional scandal or occasional case 50 years hence, I do not think it will be beyond the wit of the House to devise a safeguard. In fact, each one of the Dominions has devised a safeguard, for we are the only country in the Commonwealth where this principle is not adopted.
  There is another matter to which I want to refer. Sir William Beveridge in his Report says of those men who are disabled in industry—I am paraphrasing his statements—that those who work in industry, and particularly in the hazardous industries, have taken on a special risk for the community, and they ought not to be asked, when permanent disability ensues from an accident, to live on the minimum rate, but ought to have a higher rate, so that men may continue to be induced to enter those hazardous industries. He has in mind mining, for example. Is not war service a hazardous occupation worthy of similar consideration? Sir William Beveridge gives a maximum of £3 a week to those cases. This is a further argument, it seems to me, for seeing this matter in a different way from that in which we have seen it so far.
  I ask the House to bear with me for a minute or two while I try to dispose of the cost-of-living argument which the Minister has repeated so frequently in the House. Here are the facts. In 1919 the cost-of-living figure stood at 215 points. At that time the flat-rate pension was fixed at £2. To show the House what happened, in the middle of the slump, at the very worst period the cost of living fell to 136. With the opening of the war it had risen to 155, and it now stands at 199. Because the cost-of-living figure has not risen the odd 16 points to 215 again, the Minister will say that no cause is shown why the new men should
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  have the extra half-a-crown and much less that the old men should have a rise. That will be the Minister's argument, unless he has found a new one. I would like to make one or two points about that. When the rate of £2 was fixed, it was fixed in the environment of the time. Men are conditioned by their environment. What is satisfactory in one environment may not be satisfactory in another. At that time we were, in fact, giving disabled men considerably more than was being paid for subsistence by the Poor Law or public assistance or by the unemployment authorities. The ex-Service man, instead of saying, "This is pretty bad," said, "They give us a bit more than they give the other chaps; they recognise our special position. It is not bad." Therefore, something like a settlement was reached, but the essential part of the settlement was the environment in which it was made. That has changed. In the 25 years we have been down into the great slump and gradually we have crept back to the present conditions.
  Let hon. Members picture the disabled soldier. He sits in his home or lies in bed, if he is bed-ridden. He cannot take an active part in the war, but he urges his children to take theirs. He has all the spirit without the easement which comes from action. He is much to be admired. If we had said to him, "Wages are to be stabilised for the duration of the war, full employment will give overtime and double time, but the rates will be stabilised, and so will your rate," he would have said, "What could be fairer than that?" But that is not what we have done. In the years from 1931 to 1939 wages bills rose by 10 per cent., and in the years from the war to the present they have risen a further 33½ per cent. To-day I read of the award which the engineers have gained and the claim which the railwaymen are making. The soldiers themselves have had their original pay of pre-war days raised by a very considerable amount, as well as continuing to share in the bountiful extras which go to every soldier. In the case of men who have passed through a long period of unemployment in our industries, now that their term has come I do not grudge them their claims for better wages and better conditions. They had a lot of leeway to make up. I do not grudge the soldiers their extra pay. But I say that a new environment has been created around

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  which and in which our disabled men are denied the particular portion of the consumption goods of this country due to them. In the new atmosphere and environment there is a new standard of living. If we are to have our men feel and ourselves to know that they are having better than mere subsistence, we must take a present-day interpretation of what mere subsistence is. Therefore, I say, Away with the Minister's argument about the cost-of-living and its points. Incidentally, they are wholly irrelevant to the old soldier's life. I do not plead that Parliament should give money in order that soldiers may buy beer. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] Because I do not want to get into that controversy with any hon. Member, but I will tell the right hon. Gentleman—and I am glad he can tell us that he was himself a member of the British Legion—that a glass of beer and 10 cigarettes a day do not come amiss if you have lost your limbs and are bed-ridden. If that is taken into account in the cost of living, the right hon. Gentleman will find that the soldier is very much below the level at which he can have a decent freedom from want, let alone any comfort or amenity above it.
  I think I have exhausted the points in my mind, save for two or three small ones to which I will turn before coming to my concluding remarks. What I said about the men on the flat rate applies to the N.C.O.'s and officers, but there is a special point about officers. We would all agree that officers should be reduced, if the men are to be reduced, by a similar proportion. I claim that neither should have been reduced, but if there is to be a cut, it must be an all-round one. The Ministry have made a double reduction in the case of officers, and in the case of officers' children born before the officers were wounded, the allowances are subject to a means test. In the case of the N.C.O.'s and the men they are not. I think that is an anomaly which might well be looked into. What I have said applies to nurses, There are nurses who were wounded in the last war and in the present war. They must have consideration pari passu. There is the question of the women's forces in regard to which I thought I heard an unsatisfactory answer given at Question Time to-day. They come into this argument, for they, too, must have equal compensation and a
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  share in any rises which the Minister brings a little later on.
  Lastly, there is a curious class in regard to whom I want to make a plea and give an illustration. The case of a soldier who served his country for 25 years before the war and who joined up again for this war, is worse, or at any rate not any better, than it would be if he had never served in the Armed Forces before. There is a petty officer friend of mine, and this is his extraordinary story. He served for 25 years in the Navy. For that he earned a long-service pension of 24s. 6d. a week, but he commuted 5s. 3d. of it, leaving him 19s. 3d. He was carrying on before the war with 19s. 3d. a week. He then rejoined the Navy and was blinded on a destroyer at the battle of Narvik. He now receives less than the pension which a petty officer of this war would receive. Why? He gets no credit for his long Service pension, but there is a deduction of 5s. 3d. in respect of the part he commuted. Instead of getting a proper disability pension plus the 19s., which every reasonable man would think was arithmetic and justice, he actually gets less. Perhaps other hon. Members may have similar cases. It is a monstrous injustice for the sake of a few shillings.
  I come now to my last remarks. This plea is not only a plea for a few men. It is a plea for a growing number, for the country lies on the edge of great events, events which will take their terrible toll in fives and limbs. The young men are beginning to come back now, a small trickle which will become a flood. Now, surely, is the time when we should review what we are doing and see whether it is in line with what we thought we were doing and with what our hearts tell us we should do. I ask for a Select Committee now to investigate all these matters, to investigate how the problem of the ex-Service men will fit into the Beveridge Report, to investigate these grievances, and so to have ready for the time when we have in our country thousands of these cases a justification of the present system, if it can be justified, or alternatively, amendment if it cannot. There is not only that point of the men coming back. There is the whole morale of our armies. It is necessary they should know that in case of need their country will took after them. A few days ago there died Laurence Binyon, who wrote:

  1505
  "At the going down of the sun, and in the morning.
  We will remember them."
  Not always have we remembered our old soldiers. It is necessary now that we should have our young soldiers feel that we have them and their future in mind. The trade union men are well represented in the War Cabinet. They have their machinery, not ineffective, as anyone who reads the "Ministry of Labour Gazette" will see, as anybody who listens to the wireless night after night will know. The people who own property have their representatives, not ineffective; it has been possible to measure the damage to property and to assess a means of compensation for it. Is it not now possible to measure to some extent the damage to human beings arising out of the war, to measure it and set down a decent standard of compensation? The only organisation that the old soldier has is the British Legion, and it has had 25 years of peace in which to settle down a little into its own habitual and charming ways. It needs waking up, it needs to bring into its ranks the young men coming out of the Armies now. It needs spokesmen in the House and the country to call upon Members of Parliament, to tell them of the existence in their constituencies of scores of cases already who claim they ought to have a fair trial and who claim they are not being given consideration. It rests with tins House to be the guardian of the interests of the serving men and the ex-Service men and to see that proper arrangements are made for them. I ask hon. Members in this Debate—and I hope hon. Members of all parties will speak—to make it clear to the Government that we want these concessions now, and if they cannot be made, we want a Select Committee to tell us why not or make proper recommendations.
  Mr. Bellenger: The hon. and gallant Member for Lonsdale (Sir Ian Fraser) has argued his case cogently, and at times even dramatically, but all Members know, especially those who have had experience of the Fighting Forces, drama among fighting men is never absent, and the individual cases to which he has referred have pointed out to the Minister and to the House, I hope in no uncertain manner, the many inequalities and anomalies that exist in the present pensions Warrant. I believe, in pursuance of the hon.
  1506
  and gallant Gentleman's wish, that many Members will give expression to their views, so that the Minister and the Government are left in no uncertain mind as to the determination of the House to improve the present position. Do we look at this whole subject of war pensions with the right perspective? If I may illustrate my point I should like to instance the case of a wireless set and of a field gun. I have never heard, in any demand that we make for an ever-increasing supply of wireless sets and guns, that there is any squabble raised as to the price, in spite of the costing machinery that the Government have set up. We must have the guns, and we must have the wireless sets, and we have to pay the full price for them—in the case of a wireless set in a tank £145 and for a 25-pounder gun well over £2,000. The only perspective that we can use in viewing this question of the loss or damage to human material in the war is the same angle from which we view the cost of guns and the wireless sets and other material that we use and lose so frequently in the war.
  The question of disability pensions is bound to increase in gravity the more we call up for service the older age groups. I should imagine that every hon. Member has had cases brought to his attention of men between 35 and 40 who were able to carry on in civil life, even though they were not 100 per cent. fit, but when they are called up for the Army or the other Services and have to undergo the rigours and the strenuous training they break down, and too frequently the Ministry of Pensions dismisses their claims to a pension because, so the Ministry alleges, their disability is not due to or has not been aggravated by their war service. It is small wonder, therefore, that there is deep disquiet growing up in the country and in the House—the Minister must be aware of it, or, if he attempts to prove that it does not exist, he will have a very hard case—as to the methods that we are adopting for many of these ex-Service men. I had a letter the other day—the Minister had one too—from a body calling itself Ex-Metropolitan Mayors. They say they represent 17 out of the 28 Metropolitan Boroughs. These mayors, who come into contact with citizens as I suppose no other individuals except those engaged in welfare work do, expressed their alarm at what they are hearing from men

  1507
  returning from the war, many of them ex-Service men of the old war, and members of the British Legion. This is not a party matter. It is a subject which should be, and I believe is, free from any party bias or prejudice, and those who speak to-day from all sides of the House, I believe, will echo the demand made by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, which I wish to endorse. Never let us forget that, if a house is damaged, full compensation is paid to the owner under the system laid down under the War Damage Insurance Act. Shipowners receive their ships back. We cannot give back to the ex-Service men their health, but the least we can do is to see that they do not materially suffer, in so far as the nation can avoid it, because they have sacrificed their health in the interest of their country.
  A private notice Question was put to the Minister to-day on the subject of pensions appeal tribunals, and I should like to put one or two questions which the Minister studiously avoided. I do not think he carried the situation much further forward by his answer. How often has his sub-committee of the Central Advisory Committee met since it was set up? I should be very much surprised if it has met more than twice. The Minister is using the Central Advisory Committee, and this sub-committee, as an alibi—as camouflage. If certain improvements are made in the pensions Warrant, which happens from time to time in a smaller or larger way, some of them are sometimes suggested by the Central Advisory Committee, but it is not called together except on the initiative of the Minister, and he need not accept its advice if he does not want to. He is using the Committee as a cloak to give the impression to the House, and probably to others outside, that he has a body advising him on the subject of pensions. I do not believe that such is the case, and I wish that those hon. Members who are members of it should express their views on the subject to-day. I have heard them in private. What is the ostensible reason for not setting up pensions appeal tribunals? The Minister has told us he cannot find the staff. Has he approached the British Medical Association for the doctors whom he must have, and, if he has, as I have reason to believe he has done, what was the answer to his approaches? I should not
  1508
  be at all surprised if the B.M.A. told him they could find the doctors. You need lawyers to act as chairmen if you are going to adopt the same system as we used after the last war. I think the lawyers could be found probably more easily than the doctors. You need ex-Service officers or men. They can be found in plenty. Therefore I see no valid reason why pensions appeal tribunals should not be set up forthwith.
  There is another reason, that ex-members of the Forces have so far no statutory right to a pension, and therefore it would be necessary to introduce legislation to ensure their complete and absolute right, which does not now exist except by virtue of the Warrant. Hon. Members are familiar with some of the features of the last war pensions appeal tribunals. One claim in four—something like 50,000 or more—was allowed. Today the Minister himself is the appeal tribunal. Perhaps he will tell us if he grants as many as 25 per cent. of the claims made by ex-Service men whose original claims have been refused by the Ministry. Whether he does or not, it is not justice that we should leave it entirely in the hands of the Minister, who makes the laws and interprets them in his own fashion. We want these pensions appeal tribunals, and very quickly.
  I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider a case which has been brought to my notice. He has told us that Members have a right to come to him and plead the cases of ex-Service men who have been refused pensions, and the British Legion do the same. I have had a case brought to my attention where he attempted to discourage a trade union from acting on behalf of an ex-Service man. If a man prefers to put his claim, whether his original claim or a subsequent appeal, in the hands of a solicitor, or the British Legion, or a Member of this House, or his own trade union, which very often stands very close to him in such matters, I think he should be permitted to have his trade union representing him right through the negotiations until the end, when we have the Minister's acceptance or rejection of the claim.
  The differences between the last war and the present war rates of pension have been referred to, I think unanswerably, by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Lonsdale. I only

  1509
  wish to add to what he said that, when the 40s. a week pension was granted after the last war, it was on a cost-of-living basis, to which it has been subject ever since. But not once has any Government attempted to reduce the pension, although the cost of living has fluctuated. Therefore the Minister's argument that the cost of living to-day is not so great as when the pensions were first fixed at 40s. goes by the board. Why, therefore, should we have to argue for the difference between 37s. 6d. and 40s. for those completely disabled? The points put by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lonsdale are well known to all those who study this subject and who are closely associated with it, as he is in the British Legion and as many of us are in our capacity as Members of Parliament. They are what one might almost now call hardy annuals so often have we argued this case out in the House of Commons and so often has the Minister waved our points aside with the bluff, hearty geniality which he affects on so many occasions and which has seen him through so many difficult situations. I suggest to the Minister that the time is coming when we shall not argue these points as we have argued them in the past, but when it may be necessary, if the Minister does not meet us, to test the opinion of the House of Commons in a manner which the House well understands. I do not want it to reach that point, but if it does come to it I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that he will find that all the arguments he has advanced in the past will not be of much avail. I therefore urge him to consider while there is time.
  I want to put a particular point in the case of widows. If a wife receives one of those tragic telegrams which are so often received when husbands are fighting overseas, and will possibly be more frequent the more we go into action, she draws her Service pay and allowances for 13 weeks. While her husband is alive she may get not only her Service pay and allowances but a War Service Grant from the Ministry of Pensions. She continues to draw that grant with her pay and allowances for 13 weeks after the notification of her husband's death. At the end of that time she comes on to a Ministry of Pensions pension, in which there is no allowance for any War Service Grant. We have the rather strange anomaly that
  1510
  while the husband is alive the wife, if she has three children, draws £2 10s. 6d. a week, and possibly £5 10s. 6d. if she is on the maximum War Service Grant. After 13 weeks she drops to the Ministry of Pensions allowance of £2 7s. That is too sudden a cut, and some arrangement ought to be made—either by the Ministry of Pensions or one of the Service Departments, but I would prefer the Ministry to continue in some way the War Service Grant in whole or part so as to bring the widow gradually to the time when she has got over her tragedy and is more able to bear her material loss than she is immediately after her husband's death. In the last war we had a special grants committee, and provision was made in some degree for hard cases. I urge my right hon. Friend to consider sympathetically such a committee for those who are widowed in this war. The allowance for the second child while the father is alive is 8s. 6d. a week, but when he dies it is 7s. His third child gets 7s. 6d. while he is alive, and 5s. 6d. when he is dead. Can the Minister really justify that difference? Whatever we may say about widows, children under 16 want just as much when their father is dead as they do when he is alive. If one may quote Beveridge, we have this admission, for the subsistence of children after the first child is put at, I think, 8s. 6d. a week.
  Another anomaly was referred to by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South-East Leeds (Major Milner), who is now Deputy-Speaker. He referred to that small number of cases, but nevertheless hard cases, as the Minister admits, of widows who get neither a Ministry of Pensions pension nor a widows' and orphans' pension under the Ministry of Health. What has the Minister of Pensions done about this? He spoke in strong language about the question when it was raised in the Debate on 20th October last. He said:
  "If a man was not insured before he joined the Army and had not been in long enough to qualify, his widow would receive no pension either from my Department or from the Ministry of Health. I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend that this is a matter which we ought to square up….They ought to be admitted into National Health Insurance full benefit right away."
  Just before this my right hon. Friend had said:
  "For the life of me I cannot understand this, and I want to put it right",

  1511
  He added:
  "I have taken up the matter with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health. He is very sympathetic."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th Oct., 1942; cols. 1930–1, Vol. 383.]
  I want to ask the Minister of Pensions whether he has found the Minister of Health's sympathy a little bit more than its face value? Has anything been done for this small class of widows?
  I do not want to expatiate on the tragic position of single men who are disabled 100 per cent. in this war. Nothing could be more tragic than to deny a man the happiness of marriage, the bliss of being father to little children and the domestic comfort which only married men know that they can get at the family hearth. It is true that the Minister of Pensions does not say that single men should not marry, but he says: "If you marry, you do so at your peril; your wife will get nothing from me nor will your children." I hope that the House will agree with my hon, and gallant Friend that that situation must be altered. Otherwise, we are penalising these young men who have given everything, many of them voluntarily, in the service of their country. How can we maintain that position any longer?
  I would like to make reference to the question of dependants. This is a much debated subject about widowed mothers who have done their best to bring up their boys, often sacrificing much of their early married lives in order to give their sons the best education to fit them for their positions in the world later on. In many cases the sons do their duty by their mothers later in life by giving them something from their pay, sometimes quite a lot. When the son is killed there is no automatic pension for the mother. She is subject to a needs test. I would like the Minister to tell us something more about this needs test. How is it based? How is the mother's eligibility assessed? I hope that my right hon. Friend will go into it in a little more detail than he has hitherto done so that we can know why so many of these mothers are refused the pensions to which we think they are entitled.
  I wish to make a final point on rehabilitation. We have recently had an interesting Report from a Committee presided over by the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Tomlinson) known as the
  1512
  Tomlinson Report. It is full of important suggestions for dealing not only with war disabled men, but with civilian cases. I have reason to believe that many of these men who have been discharged from the Forces are simply thrown on to the employment exchanges. Many of them are not able to go back to their old occupations, and they need careful handling. I am not sure that we do not need some special facilities to place them in work under some Government Department or Departments, because we cannot expect private industry to take them on, many of them being only suitable for light work, especially when competitive times come after the war. I had a case brought to my notice of a man who was refused a pension by the Ministry of Pensions. I took the case up with the Ministry, and I do not want to deal with that side now. I do not know whether it is within my right hon. Friend's province to deal with the rehabilitation and the placing of these men in suitable employment; I think it is. The man to whom I have referred was thrown on to the employment exchange and had a sad experience. I receive many letters like the one I received from this man. This letter seems so reasonable and does not make the ordinary grouse which so many of them do that I would like to read an extract:
  "During the first year of the war my family and I were quite happy. I was in a reserved occupation and earning an average of £6, but feeling I was not quite doing by bit, on 17th January, 1941, I volunteered for service in the R.A.F."
  He goes on to say how he served in one of the biggest Bomber Commands. He was eventually discharged with dermatitis, and the Ministry of Pensions, on grounds which I will not argue now, said that he was not eligible for a pension. He went to the employment exchange, and said, "Here I am, all ready to go back to work. I am not fit to follow my own trade, but give me some light work. I have not got a pension as the Ministry of Pensions say that my condition was not caused by, or materially aggravated by my war service." He was for three weeks without employment, and eventually his wife had to apply for public assistance. We are not sending these men, as my right hon. Friend truly said, to sell matches in the street. We art, however, throwing them on to public assistance. Is that the right way to deal

  1513
  with them? If my right hon. Friend is not able to grant these men pensions it is his duty to see somehow or other that they are not denied employment, as this man was, apparently because he was nobody's child. He ought to be the child of the Ministry of Pensions.
  These are a few of the problems which were touched on by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lonsdale. I think the House will agree that he and I and other speakers who will follow have made out such a substantial case that it will be necessary to set up a Select Committee to investigate these questions unless the Minister will meet us in all the points we put before him. We have now conscripted our young manhood and womanhood. In the last war many volunteered, and they went in with their eyes open. In this war, the nation has conscripted human bodies, and my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister brought in a Bill some time ago conscripting manpower and property. So far I have seen the conscription only of man-power, with all the ill-effects which follow; I have not seen the complete conscription of property, and I say to the House that unless the Minister alters the present unbalanced position between human beings and property, not only he but the Government and the whole House will meet heavy trouble, because I am certain that the more we have young men coming out of the Forces disabled materially and less able to earn their own living than before they went in, the less will they be inclined to put up with present conditions, as so many of their fathers did in the last war. I hope that my right hon. Friend will admit that we have argued the case so far quite reasonably, and I urge him to give an answer to that case which has been put so eloquently by the hon. and gallant Member for Lonsdale and which will be put just as forcibly by other hon. Members.
  Lady Apsley: Two considerations only have moved me to the point of craving the indulgence of the House for the first time, which I will know it will give me with its well-known good will and tolerance. The first reason is this, and it is the least important: the old proverb that the longer you look at a fence which you know you have got to jump sooner or later the larger that fence becomes. The second reason is that prac-
  1514
  tical experience has led me to know something of the subject under discussion, and I should, with all due deference, like to bring some considerations to the notice of the Minister. After the speeches we have heard from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) and the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger), I will confine my remarks to the broad picture of disablement rather than to the extreme types of disablement to which they referred.
  There are, in my opinion, three main essentials to be taken into account in all cases in connection with disablement, and I will mention them in the order which I think they should occupy. The first is, opportunity for the sufferer to reorientate his mind—his whole mental attitude. Except for those who have suffered a sudden disability themselves, or have been close to those who have, I think that few can realise the extreme mental shock, which takes both time and attention to overcome. That problem is individual; it must be fought out alone, often against great odds and with varying fortune. Two attitudes are possible on the part of the sufferer. The first is to say, "I think I have been through a bad time; I think I am going to be an invalid, crippled for life, and must have a support and occupy a sheltered life for ever." The other attitude is to say, "Give me a chance, and I will come back." I think that second attitude is the right one, and it is most finely expressed by Shakespeare:
  "Yield not thy neck to Fortune's Yoke
  But let thy dauntless mind
  Still ride in triumph over all mischance."
  In other words, I think that we must help the sufferer to get back into ordinary life as quickly and completely as possible and to get rid of the invalid complex as decisively as possible. We can help the sufferer to remember that Nature has her own compensations. For instance, if one leg is lost, the other generally becomes much stronger, and no disabled person has a bad memory, for I can assure you that it is far too much trouble to have to go to fetch the things one has forgotten.
  Then there is another very strong point for those who feel that a life is really wasted that cannot do something for its fellows, and it is this, that some of the greatest public servants of this age or any other, from Nelson and Pitt down to President Roosevelt, have not been 100

  1515
  per cent. physically fit. Therefore, I think that the first essential is that we must help these disabled people to get back into ordinary and everyday life, and to make them feel that despite "Fortune's Yoke" their lives can still be made worth living. For this reason I should like to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister upon the truly magnificent work which has been done, to my knowledge, in the Ministry of Pension's hospitals and in conjunction with the Ministry of Labour rehabilitation and training schemes.
  In the second place, I should like to say that there is much that we ourselves can do in assisting that work by our attitude towards the disabled. It is such a tremendous encouragement to feel that others do care and are helping us in the struggle upwards. In this connection I should like to refer to the invaluable work being done by the British Legion, which has been mentioned already. I think their work is so valuable because it brings expert, practical and personal assistance and encouragement direct into the disabled person's home. It is rather a regrettable feature of most pensions cases that the generous beats of my right hon. Friend's kindly heart, to which we in this House are accustomed, sound in the mind of a disabled sufferer in the dim distance, in the cities and in the countryside, rather like the tick-tock of the death-watch beetle. I would go so far as to say that few disabled persons should present their own cases, because, as all who have dealt with pension cases know, they become bogged in a multitude of confused and involved representations. It is also my conviction that when rules and regulations have to be drawn up we find that we cannot put human beings into exact watertight compartments. Inevitably there must be odd sizes left over, often in large numbers, and for them the British Legion and kindred war charities are invaluable. I think it is our duty in this House to encourage those war charities and the various Service benevolent funds to the best of our ability.
  This brings me to the third essential in dealing with the disabled, which is money. Money alone is insufficient. No money can compensate an active man or woman for the loss of health or limbs, but money can be and should be used to oil the wheels of life for them and in this way
  1516
  make the sufferer feel that he or she can compete fairly in this workaday world without being a drag on the family means. Those are my three essentials: opportunity to reorientate the mind; encouragement from the public; and money to relieve personal anxieties. If we provide these three essentials, I am convinced that all but a very small proportion of the disabled can be reabsorbed into life and enabled to feel that they can help their families, and this attitude is the right one for the nation as a whole; but the lead must come from this House.
  In the Auxiliary Territorial Service, in which I have had the honour to serve, it was the custom that if one ventured to dogmatise or to criticise higher authority, one had to put up recommendations. The recommendations I desire to put up to my right hon. Friend are these: (1) The establishment as soon as possible of those independent appeals tribunals of which we have just heard; (2) The raising of the basic disability pension rate, which is, I am sure we all agree, too low at the present time; (3) Better publicity in order to show the public and the Services the opportunities open to the disabled and what can be done and what is being done for them. I visualise films showing how a child learns to pick up a needle from the floor with its little artificial arm, shorts showing the Papworth Settlement, Preston Hall, St. Dunstan's and some of the training colleges for the disabled. I believe that a film showing how Wing-Commander Bader mastered his limbs would prove an epic equal to the "First of the Few" and give great encouragement to the rest of us to bear our lesser Calvaries.
  In conclusion, may I make an appeal on behalf of the women and children? After all, they are the greatest sufferers from the loss, disablement or illness of husband, son or parent. I have the honour to be National Chairman of the Women's Section of the British Legion, which consists of over 1,200 branches throughout the country, made up of the dependants of the men and women in His Majesty's Forces serving by sea, land and air. I am speaking for them, as well as for the people of one of the most heavily war-scarred constituencies in the country, which has sent me to this House from a by-election in which pensions were a very live issue, when I say that we shall

  1517
  bear our personal and irreparable tragedies with courage and with pride if this House gives a lead to the future and the building of a better world, and in so doing keeps faith with the fallen and gives hope to the war sufferers. I thank the House for its great kindness and patience in listening to me and trust that I have not been over-long on a subject on which I feel so deeply.
  Mr. R. C. Morrison: I count myself fortunate in being able to speak on behalf of every Member of this House in congratulating the noble Lady upon the very excellent speech she has just delivered on first addressing this House. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to be in the House to hear the noble Lady will long remember her speech for its sincerity and for the constructive ability she has shown. We shall look forward, I am sure, on many future occasions to hearing the noble Lady make further useful contributions to our Debates. It is remarkable that two of the speakers so far have been suffering from very considerable incapacity and have overcome it to the extent that they were able to become Members of Parliament purely by their own ability. I think they will be the keynote to this Debate.
  I was in this House just after the last war, and, with other hon. Members, I remember the difficult time that followed that war. We look forward almost with dread lest we should go through the same experience as we had in the few years that followed the last war, when Members of Parliament were inundated with correspondence and interviews from the most difficult kinds of case. There was a strong feeling of injustice pervading the ex-Service men and particularly the disabled ex-Service men then, and we do not want to see those conditions repeated. At the present time the general feeling is that disability pensions are too low. I find there is a feeling of injustice among the people on the ground that a man who is taken to serve his country in his early years of manhood, when the whole world and his future are in front of him, should not be condemned, not only to the suffering caused by his wounds, but to spend the rest of his life upon a bare level of subsistence. It is bad enough to be disabled for life, but it is worse to be condemned to a life of abject poverty as a result of that disablement.
  1518
  A disabled man, but for his disablement, might have done very well for himself. The badly disabled man who has any self-respect cannot marry and have children because he is not prepared to live for the rest of his life upon public assistance. The single man receives his disability on the basis of a single man's allowance and is obviously unable to marry unless he is prepared to live with his wife and children on public assistance all his life. The young married man cannot look forward to having a family, because of the fact that no allowance is made for a family. It therefore occurs to me, since this House and the Government have practically committed themselves to the payment of family allowances, that possibly it will not be necessary to wait for the preparation of a scheme applicable to the whole community. Why should not the Minister of Pensions start straight away to pay family allowances in respect of the two classes I have mentioned? Afterwards, his plan could be fitted into the bigger plan for family allowances for the whole community.
  There should be much more elasticity on the part of the Ministry of Pensions in defining the words "due to or aggravated by war service." Up to now, the definition has been a narrow and medical one. Let me give the House an example. Near where I live are two women who have both been made widows during the last few weeks. Both their husbands were killed in the Middle East. One was killed in warfare, and the woman receives a widow's pension. The other husband was killed by a motor car while he was in Cairo on leave. I understand that the Ministry of Pensions argue in the second case that the man's death was not due to or aggravated by his war service. The argument is that the man might have been killed if he had not been in the Army. It is fairly certain that the man would not have been in Cairo if he had not been in the Army. One can argue and discuss these questions, but I am sure that nobody will succeed in convincing the widow of the second man or the people in the neighbourhood that she has had fair play. I plead for some wider and less strict and narrow interpretation of those words.
  On my next point I do not blame the Ministry of Pensions, when a difficult case comes up. Take the instance of a man who has developed arthritis. Some corre-

  1519
  spondence takes place with Members of Parliament, or the British Legion, and finally the Ministry is appealed to to make some kind of concession. The Minister writes and says something to this effect, "There seems to be a doubt about this ease, and therefore we will refer it to a panel of independent doctors." In this House the Minister has frequently pointed out that he does not appoint those doctors. The British Medical Association appoints the doctors, who are entirely independent. The Minister does not control their actions. That is perfectly correct, but the information comes that that committee of independent doctors have examined the man's case and have turned it down without seeing the man at all. I am not qualified to argue that it is impossible for doctors to decide upon a case without seeing the patient, but I am certain that you can never convince the man, or any of his neighbours, or any ordinary person, that the man has been fairly treated when his case has been turned down by doctors who have never even seen him. The Minister may say in reply that he cannot compel the doctors to see the man. I do not know how far the Minister is able to make representations on a point like this, but I would remind him that there is a very strong psychological aspect of the matter. It might be difficult to convince even a minority of Members of this House that the man has had a fair deal, let alone the general public.
  Mr. Stephen: Or a majority of Members.
  Mr. Morrison: I could not convince even a minority that the man has had a fair deal, let alone a majority. In many cases that one takes up as a Member of Parliament one finds that, after doing one's best and making all representations possible, the man is turned down. The man will say: "All right, I am satisfied that I have had a fair deal. The matter has been gone into, and I have lost." That attitude is not possible when the man's case has been turned down by doctors who have not taken the trouble to see him. I suggest that the Ministry of Pensions should make some arrangement with the medical profession to alter this condition of affairs. I do not think that the medical profession will be so unreasonable as not to see that the psychological effects of that kind of decision are bad upon the people as a whole.
  1520
  I hope there will be no delay in regard to getting the tribunals working. I doubt very much whether the Ministry of Pensions has any idea of the feeling of the people in the country on this matter. There is a strong desire among the great mass of the people to see that our lads, who are putting up such a great fight and are saving us, are getting a fair deal. I suggest that the Ministry of Pensions should make representations to the war savings people. We have had some tremendous war savings efforts. If the Government should respond to the appeal that has been made by all parties in this Debate for more generous methods of treatment of disabled men, would they follow up that response by organising a "Remembrance Week," in which the public would be invited to subscribe to War Loans free of interest in order to show their gratitude for what the men have done? [Interruption.] Not charity. I am not suggesting that, but that there might be some further appeal made, not to people to lend their money at 2½or 3 per cent., but to invest money at no interest at all as a gesture. We have efforts for the Army, for the Air Force and for the Navy. Now let us have one for the men who are coming out and will be coming out in greater numbers. I think that if the Government were to do that through its War Savings Movement, the response of the public would be remarkable and would help to convince the Government—I am afraid they need some convincing up to now—of the tremendous feeling there is in the country.
  I referred on the last occasion I spoke in this House, and I am sure other hon. Members notice it, to the fact that there is an entire change among the people whom we represent. Whether it is as the result of the blitz they have gone through or not I do not know, but there is a spirit of determination among the people of this country. They know better what they want, and they are determined that these men are not coming back to be treated as they were last time. I hope this Debate will bring to the notice of the Government that we expect a much better move forward in the way of better pensions and conditions for the men who are coming out of the Services.
  Major Lyons: I hope the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken

  1521
  will allow me to say that without endeavouring to take up every point he has made, I am sure that there is general agreement with what he said, and that he has voiced the views of most Members of this House on this very important topic. There is no doubt that the Ministry of Pensions to-day meets, and in my judgment meets rightly, with a good deal of criticism, both inside this House and outside. In its narrow, parsimonious decisions it is meeting with a good deal of contempt from all who have to consider the Department's work. It is not a bit of good for the Minister to try to get away from the position by saying, "I am bound by the terms of the Royal Warrant," because if that Royal Warrant does not do essential justice to the persons who matter most, the Minister should come to this House and say, "I will tear up the Warrant; give me a new one." I believe that the people of this country are determined that those who have suffered most in the great conflict in which we are now engaged should receive treatment which at any rate complies with a sense of justice and fairness, and that if there is any doubt in any case it should be resolved in favour of the applicant and not of the Crown, and that the men and their dependants should not be left to be maintained by public charity.
  The Minister knows the specific case from my constituency in Leicester which I have taken up with him for a good many months and to which I am coming in a few moments. It is very much on the point which the hon. Gentleman has just made about the non-examination of the injured man when the Minister ends up, when driven to it, by saying, "I will put this case before an independent medical expert." I am not for a moment casting aspersions on those eminent gentlemen who act in this capacity to the Ministry of Pensions, but I am going to say that very largely the whole of that is window dressing and a farce. There is very often no examination at all. In regard to this case, on 6th August last year by way of supplementary to a Question I put to the Minister, I asked:
  "…whether it is not about time the Minister initiated some alteration whereby the onus of proof is removed from the unfortunate soldier to the State which should prove that his condition was not the result of Service? The State has the facilities and the man has not."
  The Minister replied:
  1522
  "I am prepared to accept that suggestion now. It is up to my Department to make the proof and I am prepared to show my hon. and gallant Friend the papers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th August, 1942; col. 1173, Vol. 382.]
  The hon. Gentleman made a point just now that there is a narrow medical definition put on the words "…attributable to or in the course of…" It is sometimes not even a narrow medical definition. It is a definition which to any Member of Parliament is really untenable and puts the Minister in a position which I venture to assert is indefensible.
  The case I wish to mention arising out of that matter, which is one of the reasons I am occupying the time of the House at this moment, is of a constituent of mine, a man aged nearly 40, who joined the Army shortly after the outbreak of war. He was graded, after medical examination, in category A1. He served for over two years and was then discharged as medically unfit for any kind of further service. He was denied a pension. I want to say to the Minister that in my view in this war the State, after having had the benefit of the service of a man whom they have classified as being in medical category A1 by their own examination should, after a certain time, be stopped forever from saying, "He is not A1 now; it is not our fault." They should be bound to recognise responsibility for him and not be allowed to say that his medical deficiencies are not due to military service. That, I would lay down, is really fundamental. As I say, this man was denied a pension. He is too ill to work. His wife and children are dependent upon local charity, a position which I think is scandalous. It is not disputed that he is now unfit. The matter was brought to my notice, and I brought it to the notice of the Minister, the right hon. Gentleman whom we all like so well.
  The Minister was good enough to show me the papers on which the pension is refused. Again, on the point which the hon. Gentleman who preceded me has made, one does not have to be a qualified surgeon to be a judge of facts on paper. Any Member of this House can judge the facts on paper as well as the most famous doctor in the world. In this case if the whole faculty of medicine told me that these papers show anything really to support the Minister I would not accept it. They really show nothing. The only evidence this medical board had was that this

  1523
  man said he had received "a knock-out blow." They left it at that. They did not ask him what kind of a blow or where he received it. They failed to pursue what was a substantial matter to inquire about. They said he was unfit for any form of Army service and discharged him. The Minister improperly—Ministerially improperly, not in any personal sense—said, "That is sufficient. The man shows no ground on which he is entitled to a pension." Let me remind the House that that is in complete conflict with what the Minister said on 6th August, 1942. I say to the Minister that these papers show nothing. I consider the Board was rather at fault in not saying, "What was the blow?" If it bad been said, "It was a boxing blow," it could then have been ascertained whether that could only have been done on duty or how otherwise, and other considerations would then have arisen. Let us have the facts on paper. But the man says that it was not a boxing blow, that he had not boxed for years. He informed me and I put it to my right hon. Friend that he was stationed with anti-aircraft defences in a part of the country which was bombed, and the knock-out blow was due to a bomb, and that is what he intended to indicate to the Board. When the Minister, not necessarily the present Minister, but any Minister, is driven into a corner he says, "I will submit it to an independent medical expert."
  The Minister submitted this case to an independent medical expert and I asked him whether I could attend the examination. I was told not. I asked whether this man's doctor could attend the examination, and the Minister said, "It is admitted the man is not fit for work. The man's doctor cannot attend the medical examination." In due course the Minister writes to me that the independent medical examination has been made and that as a result his decision must stand and cannot be reversed. When I make further inquiry I am told that there never was an examination. The Minister says, "You cannot ask a doctor to examine a man because that would be fettering his judgment." In a matter of this nature that is sheer nonsense, because I defy anybody, on the facts I have given, to say that there is any real examination in looking at papers which show nothing. The hon. Gentleman who preceded me asked,
  1524
  "Is the man satisfied?" Of course he is not. I go further than that and say that when these facts are faced by any thinking person a sense of public decency is outraged. This man may or may not be entitled to a pension, but on these papers there is nothing a justify the statement made. There has been no further examination by an independent medical expert. I submit to the House this is window-dressing, and in no sense an acceptable practice.
  I am sure that those who deal with this matter will not be offended if they are asked to examine those people so that it can be said that the man has been fairly and reasonably dealt with because otherwise the position becomes really intolerable. Not only has this man, or any other similarly placed, no facilities at his disposal, but the State has them all. We can afford, and the people of the country desire it, to be fair and reasonably generous in these cases, and not adopt a procedure which is really ludicrous. In all such cases there should be an examination; otherwise you are merely playing with words and rendering the whole thing farcical. In this case it has been sheer window dressing.
  I hope the Government realise that these men of whom we are speaking today want something more than mere window dressing. They are entitled to as big an element of justice as ordinary conditions and elasticity permit. They are entitled to, and should get, that. If the Minister says, "I am bound by the terms of the Royal Warrant," I say, "Tear up the warrant, and the House will give you a new one which will give reasonable treatment to those who, above all other people, deserve it." What is happening? I have quoted one case. I do not think for a moment it can be the only case in my constituency. There are many others, and every Member of Parliament has them coming to him. What can he do? I hope he will not attempt to defend the Ministry. It is not the Minister we are complaining about. Any Minister whose hands are going to be tied in this way would become the dispenser of this type of injustice. We must insist upon proper treatment.
  There has been a good deal urged for a long time about the establishment of independent tribunals. The Government have always played with that. The posi-

  1525
  tion has been hedged time and time again. At last we have got some kind of statement that they will be established. They ought to have been established long ago. I only hope that now the decision has been taken there will be no time lost in putting them into effect, because I believe that if there is an independent medical tribunal, where a man can have reasonable representation, the burden of proof not unfairly carried, we shall go a long way to putting an end to these grievances of which we are now complaining. It is perfectly idle to say the position is satisfactory when the man is not represented, his doctor is not there, and the final issue is determined with no final medical examination. There is every reason that all ex-Service men should be treated fairly; that where there is doubt they should be pensioned, and that the system adopted is such that manifestly justice is done, and that where there is ambiguity it should be examined, and public confidence satisfied. This is our substantive plea.
  I have informed the House as fully as I can of one case which has aroused discontent where it is known. I can well understand this. I challenge anyone to do justice fairly reasonably and equitably on such scant information as was considered here. Let this scandal come to an end. I believe the House is united in the determination that it shall come to an end, and I believe that if we try long enough we can make any Minister end it. If the people knew the facts they would feel more strongly about this matter than about the so-called planning on which we give day after day for debate. Here is a real, urgent, pressing, public scandal. We are not wanting something nebulous next week: it is a reasonable scheme of justice that we demand. I urge the Minister to see that his Department really recognise the force and truth of the case we are making, and that they put an end to the sham which is confronting so many people and which is allowing injustices which we all know about, and which we must seek to remedy.
  Mr. Stephen: I think there is general agreement that the hon. and gallant Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) made an impressive speech. I listened to him with the greatest interest and with complete agreement. I ventured to interrupt him to ask whether he
  1526
  would consider carrying the matter to a Division if the answer of the Minister was unsatisfactory. He replied that it was unusual to take a Division on the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill. I remember when a Division was threatened, in the days of a Labour Government, in connection with the proposed Treaty with Soviet Russia, and I would have liked hon. Members, in view of the importance of this subject, to be prepared on this occasion to go to a Division. It does not appear that I shall be successful in persuading them to go to that extreme, but I am convinced that the overwhelming majority of Members, are dissatisfied with the Ministry of Pensions and its administration. I would make bold to say that the overwhelming majority of Members of all parties are in practical agreement with the hon. and gallant Member for Lonsdale. In their undemocratic denial of all the principles we are said to be fighting for, the Government are going in the face of the House and of the country.
  I remember when I came into this House being greatly shocked by a case in which a pension had been refused. I did not know so much about the subject as I do now. The pension was refused because the man had married after his disability. I asked in the House, what did the Ministry of Pensions expect? Did they think that a man who had been disabled in the service of the country should be denied the opportunity of matrimony, and compelled, because he had been wounded, to cut love out of his life? Evidently that has been the view of the Ministry of Pensions all these years. The scales in this respect also are very heavily weighted against working-class people. The person with a private income is able after being disabled to contemplate marriage, but the working-class person knows that if he marries, with his disability, he and his wife and family are compelled for the rest of their lives to absolute poverty and misery. That is a class distinction, and I hope that we shall have an end of such an absolutely unfair practice. The hon. and gallant Member for Lonsdale pointed out that none of the Dominions followed the practice of this country. I hope that we shall put an end to it. Perhaps I go too far in saying that, because, after my past experience, I have not much hope. But I assert that this House and the Govern-

  1527
  ment are acting unjustly to those men, who have given their services to the country and who are denied the opportunity of marriage.
  There is another point about which I feel very strongly. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions is sitting on that bench. He, like many others, was very enthusiastic at one time about a slogan which we had in connection with this matter: "Fit for service, fit for pension." He used to thump the Box in support of it in days gone by. The idea was that if a man were taken into the Army and afterwards invalided out with a disability, he was entitled to a pension. So far we have failed to secure the adoption of that principle. The Minister of Pensions smiles at what I am saying. I am not complaining about his smiling, but I think that is the only fair way of dealing with this matter. It is in accordance with one of the principles of the Atlantic Charter—freedom from want—that if a man goes into the Army and is afterwards invalided out with a permanent disability, he should be given an allowance, in order that he may be free from want and able to live in a certain measure of comfort. The hon. and gallant Member for East Leicester (Major Lyons) suggested that there ought to be an interval, and that if after a certain time of service a man was disabled the Ministry should be estopped from refusing a pension. I do not see why there should be any period allowed.
  The Government employ medical boards, which are thoroughly qualified to judge a man's physical condition. The Government should be compelled to stand by the opinions of those medical boards. If a board says that a man is A1, and a month later that man comes out of the Army a physical wreck, the man is entitled to a pension. I once said in one of these Debates that I felt I had been somewhat unjust to Ministers of Pensions, and that the people I should have condemned were the medical advisers of the Ministry. I am not so sure of that now. We put upon the medical advisers of the Ministry what is practically an impossible task. We ask them to say whether the disability is due to or aggravated by service. Medicine is not an exact science; it is only an art. The doctor can say that there are many presumptions which would suggest that the disability is due to a certain
  1528
  cause, but he cannot be absolutely, sure. The man is going out with a disability, which impairs his earning capacity and makes life for him afterwards fairly miserable. The right way is not to ask the medical advisers of the Ministry to perform an impossible task, but to adopt the principle that if a man is passed into the Service by a medical board and comes out with a disability, which impairs his earning capacity, he shall receive a pension, to enable him to live in as fair a measure of comfort as other members of society enjoy. That is the principle which the overwhelming majority of Members of this House and of the people in the country favour. But in spite of the fact that Members of all parties and the British Legion have pressed it upon the Government year after year ever since the last war, we have been unable to get the Government to adopt the principle.
  One of the problems, it is said, is that of increased expenditure. It is suggested that it would lead to abuses. I have heard it said that we have only to look at what has happened in the United States of America in the past. I would rather have a certain amount of abuse and the knowledge that the overwhelming majority of our people were getting justice than that so many people should be the victims of their war service and be denied justice by their country. I speak as one who adopts the pacifist viewpoint; but, as a pacifist, I say that if the country calls upon millions of men and women to undertake the service of the country, the maintenance of those people afterwards should be the first charge upon the country. I say that very deliberately, and again I join in the appeals that are being made to the Minister. I have noticed that Ministers have gone into this job with the idea of introducing reforms and of creating a more generous administration, but somehow or other in the Department they seem to be deflected and to get a disability after they become Minister of Pensions. They are so afraid that this poor country of ours should lose a pound or two here or there in the case of some cunning person who is able to cheat them that they are prepared to sacrifice many thousands of people who are not able to obtain justice. I know this when I have taken cases to the Minister. I get him to look at them and consult his medical advisers, and I have mainly had losers. In spite of all my eloquence and argu-

  1529
  ments, I do not meet with very much success, but it is worth his while to give consideration again to the question of the adoption of the principle, "Fit for service, fit for pension." He is being pressed to set up the tribunals and has made a statement on that matter to-day. I remember how often with the institution of the machinery of the tribunals there were still many thousands of cases that caused discontent in every county when the decision of the tribunal had gone against them. I maintain that the one way to get contentment in the country and to satisfy the people is the acceptance of the principle that, if a man or woman is passed into the Army or any of the other Services as being a fit person and later comes out with a disability, he or she should be granted a pension according to the measure of the disability. Only in that way can we be sure of doing justice to the people of our country who have given their all in the service of the land.
  Mr. Sutcliffe: We are much indebted to the hon. and gallant Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) for initiating this Debate, and speaker after speaker from all sides of the House has revealed the serious concern in all parts of the country. The Debate has so far taken place in a quiet element of great sincerity. Appeal after appeal has been made to the Minister, and one hopes that they will bear some fruit. We make no complaint of the Minister himself. In fact, during his term as Minister of Pensions he has built up a great reputation for fair dealing and for the care which he devotes to all the cases that are brought before him, but the time has come when something must be done to improve the position of men who have served their country in the Forces.
  I want especially to deal with those borderline cases, already referred to by one or two speakers, which are being brought, and have been brought for many months, before every Member of this House, in which a man having been passed A1—and when a man to-day is passed A1 it proves that he is really fit, so stringent is the medical examination for the Services, far more so than it was during the last war—has been invalided out, in far too many cases without a pension. These cases are very hard. In fact, they can only be described in a
  1530
  number of instances as being really cruel, and the Royal Warrant should, in my view, be amended. The only way really to deal with this question is by some alteration of Section 5 of the Royal Warrant, which deals with the question of a disability being attributable to war service. The Royal Warrant is loaded every time against the applicant, and I suggest that some words should be included in the Section which will give the Minister a discretion in these borderline cases, or somebody appointed by him—possibly a statutory Advisory Committee would be a suitable body—to admit all just claims, by enabling him, where the incidence of a man's illness is not definitely attributable to war service, but is probably due to war service, to grant a pension if, in view of all the facts of the case, including the medical history, he feels justified in doing so. I think that such an alteration would meet the case. I am anxious to find a way of dealing with these difficult cases, and I do not think anything less than that will meet them.
  I have in mind one particular case which came to my notice, quite one of the worst that most Members must have met, of an exceptionally fit young man who joined the Navy before the war, and, during the war, was with his ship during the evacuation from Dunkirk and was in action both at Narvik and at Dakar. Later when the ship was in port at Gibraltar and he was engaged in painting the funnel he fell to the deck and sustained a severe injury to his head. An operation was performed on him by a naval surgeon, but that did little beyond easing the pressure on the brain, and did not lead to any definite improvement, and he was ultimately sent home by the naval authorities. They thought he was incurable and that there was no hope. Fortunately, however, one or two prominent local men took up his case and sent him to a Manchester specialist, and another operation was performed—a dangerous operation—and as a result of that he is very much better. But he is still not fit to work again, and it is doubtful whether he ever will be. That case seems to be essentially one that should come under this borderline consideration and some pension should be awarded. The Ministry have turned down his application, on the grounds that there must have

  1531
  been something inherent in the system to cause the illness, but no family tendency has in fact been found in that connection. The brain is probably permanently injured, and both the man's speech and his walking are still impaired. That is the sort of case that is making for grave dissatisfaction. Every man and woman, seeing that man, says, "Here, if ever there was one, is a case where a pension should be granted."
  It really would go far to make a man think that he had had a fair deal if an Advisory Committee on the lines I have suggested could be set up. War pensions committees feel most strongly that the present position is intolerable and the question will probably be raised at forthcoming Area Conferences. It is no exaggeration to say that looking-after these men and the awarding of a pension in such cases is one of our first duties in the post-war world and must take priority over everything else. We surely do not want to see—we want to avoid it at all costs this time—men with barrel-organs and other musical instruments wandering about the streets for years after the termination of the war. There were all too many in London with cards round their necks or the words chalked on barrel-organs, saying, "No pension, and wife and children to keep; My only means of support." We know it all too well. They were a disgrace to our country and caused a great deal of unfavourable comment among foreigners who visited the country.
  There is one other point I would make as regards war pensions committees. I have been asked whether a record could not be sent to these committees of all cases of men discharged in the area covered by each committee. At the present time they have no means of tracing men who are discharged from the Services as being no longer fit, and the men are very often, probably in most cases, unaware that they have the right to state their case to these war pensions committees. It would no doubt make considerable extra work for them, but, on the other hand, in many cases it would prevent a sense of grievance. If appeal tribunals are set up, which we all hope will be the case, before long, as the Minister mentioned to-day, they will largely solve that particular problem, and I do urge that they should be set up at the earliest possible moment.
  1532
  Finally, there is the question of pensions for mothers, which the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) has also mentioned. There is a feeling that parents generally, but especially mothers, some of whom are widows, are receiving even less on the whole than they were during the last war. It would be helpful if the Minister could tell us how many of these parents are receiving a particular rate of pension. How many, for instance, under Section 2 of paragraph 49 of the Royal Warrant are receiving 5s. a week, 7s. 6d. a week and 10s. a week, and how many, or what percentage of the whole, are receiving the full extra 6s. 6d. which is allowed under that section in exceptional cases? We have not heard any figures in this connection and it would be helpful in enabling the House to assess what is being done for parents if these figures could be given. Do the pensions which are now granted take any account not only of the increased cost of living as represented by the Ministry of Labour figures, but of the increased cost of almost everything we have to buy to-day, including the addition of the Purchase Tax, which is on so many articles of every day use. The extra shilling or two does not make the difference that it used to make. One has to take into account this question of the Purchase Tax as well. I urge in the strongest possible terms, as indeed every Member has to-day, that the Minister should review the whole question of pensions, and especially consider amending Section 5 of the Royal Warrant. Only in this way shall we do justice to those men who have given the most valuable thing in their lives—their health—in the service of their country.
  Mr. Glenvil Hall: I am sure everyone in the House will agree with the hon. Member for Royton (Mr. Sutcliffe) when he said he hoped that as a result of this Debate something would be done by the Minister of Pensions: Some of us have sat here not only through this Debate but through previous Debates on this subject in the House, and as I have sat here to-day I began to wonder how many more Debates we shall have to have before we can move the Minister to do something in directions which call loudly for attention. I noticed in "The Times" yesterday morning a fairly long leader on the Debate taking place to-day. That leader began with these words:

  1533
  "The obligation of the community to provide for men and women disabled in war service is everywhere acknowledged."
  If it be true that we all acknowledge the duty of the State to provide for people who are disabled, or the dependants of those who are killed, in war why is it that we cannot get the responsible Ministry to do the job properly? A lot, of course, depends upon the meaning we place upon the words "to provide," and it is obvious that unless the Minister is to give us another instalment out of the bag referred to by the hon. and gallant Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) we shall get from him no different interpretation to-day of what is meant by "to provide," than that one he has put upon these words in the past. It seems to me that the Ministry of Pensions should without further delay deal with four definite sources of grievance. There is the question of appointing independent appeals tribunals. In spite of the disappointing nature of the Minister's reply to a Question earlier to-day, I think we can assume that that battle is won and that it is only a question of time and the provision of the requisite number of doctors before these independent tribunals are actually in being. On that point I would like to say how much I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Tottenham (Mr. R. C. Morrison) and the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for East Leicester (Major Lyons), both of whom dealt with this point.
  As to the setting-up of these tribunals, it is undoubtedly the case that the ordinary sailor, soldier or airman feels that he has not had a square deal unless he actually sees the tribunal which deals with his case. I am not a doctor, and it may well be that a doctor, looking through the case papers, may be able to judge whether a man should receive a pension and probably even the percentage of pension he should receive. But be that as it may, it is a fact that the man wants to be seen and should be seen. If the reply of the Minister is that he must leave matters of this kind to the doctors or to the tribunals, I think it is time that the House took a hand and insisted that in the Regulations laid down that a man should be seen whether the members of the tribunal thought it necessary or not.
  The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): I think there has been some
  1534
  misunderstanding. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Leicester (Major Lyons) referred to independent medical experts, not tribunals.
  Mr. Hall: I am thankful for that interruption, because I have probably not said quite what I intended. I meant to say that in all cases the man should be seen whether he was before an independent medical tribunal, or the medical expert, to which the Minister has now referred. It should be made obligatory that when a man's case is being dealt with the man should not only have the right to be seen but it should be part of the Regulations laid down. The hon. and gallant Member for Lonsdale dealt at some length and with great ability with the rates for disability that are being allowed and made a very strong and sincere plea that what he called the extra 2s. 6d. should be added. I agree with him. It passes comprehension why the rates have been reduced since the Royal Warrant of 1919. The reason given is that the cost of living is not so high as it was in 1919. I do not know where the Minister gets that view. The cost-of-living index figure, upon which the Government rely, is one which was elaborated many years ago when conditions were very different from what they are now and when both the standard of life and the things which go to make up that standard were very different from what they are to-day. Although the index figure may be a useful guide, we have to remember that we must not rely on it too far.
  I was surprised at the moderation shown by the hon. and gallant Member for Lonsdale. Even if the Minister were willing to add the other 2s. 6d. to the 100 per cent. disability pension, making it £2, it would not do anything like justice to those who have suffered. With the cost of living what it is to-day it is almost impossible for the ordinary man to attain on £2 a week the standard of comfort he should have today. If we remember, as we must, that that £2 is supposed to be not merely enough to keep body and soul together but to contain also a measure of compensation for all a man has suffered, it noes not need any further argument to show that if he gets the extra 2s. 6d. it would be far below what ought to be given.
  Sir I. Fraser: I did not say that £2 represented justice. I was arguing for family allowances.
  Mr. Hall: I was dealing with only one point made by the hon. and gallant Member. It will be within the recollection of the House that he did put forward further arguments to show that £2 by itself was not enough, that if a man had a family he would need more and that a beginning should be made with the introduction for war pensioners alone of children's allowances, to which the Government are now pledged. May I make a passing reference to the pension which is given to the parents of those who have been killed? In the last war the pension for parents was divided into three categories, the lowest of which was 5s. in 1919.
  Mr. Buchanan: Four and twopence.
  Mr. Hall: I hesitate to disagree with my hon. Friend, who has such a great knowledge of pensions questions, but——
  Mr. Buchanan: If my hon. Friend will allow me I will explain. It was 4s. 2d., and in 1919 the Labour Government raised it to 5s.
  Mr. Hall: At any rate it was at all material times 5s. and is now, so far as last war pensioners are concerned. Every parent had the 5s. without a test as to means. For reasons which I can understand in the present Royal Warrant no pension, even a pension of 5s., is given to parents unless they can show that they are in need. In other words, a means test applies. I can understand the Government taking the view that a paltry 5s. to parents, irrespective of whether they wanted it or not, was hardly the way to deal with this matter, that 5s. was of little help in thousands of homes where it was not needed and that under no circumstances could it be said to be compensation for the loss of a son. If I understand the Minister's argument aright, the flat rate of 5s. for everybody was dropped in order that more money should be available and that with the money thus saved better pensions could be given to the parents who were in actual need. That is the argument, but in fact it makes no difference to parents that this extra money is now available for use in this way. They have still to show that they are in need. The normal pension, I believe, is still about 10s., though if the Minister himself feels that a little more would be useful, it entirely rests with him whether that shall be given. At most, I believe, only
  1536
  12s. 6d. can be given, plus another 6s. 6d. Compared with the last war this is an enormous drop. Two parents under this Warrant can get only 19s. between them. Under the 1919 Warrant they could get 36s. So far as I know, no reasonable explanation has been given by the Minister as to why there should be all that difference. His argument about the cost of living surely cannot be the reason, and I would like him to tell the House what the real reason is.
  Some time ago, in answer to a Question asked by an hon. Member of this side of the House, the Minister said he would consider if something could be done to fill the gap that now occurs between the amount coming into the home because of allowances made by the War Service Grants Committee and the amount coming into the home under the Royal Warrant in the case of a widow and her children when the husband is killed. In many cases the gap is an enormous one. I have one case of a widow with five children who got 75s. a week, including an allowance from the War Service Grants Committee; her husband was killed, and within a very short time the amount dropped to 52s. 3d., a loss, as a result of the death of the husband, of 22s. 9d. per week. By no stretch of the imagination can it be said that that home needed less because the husband, who was in the Middle East, had been killed. There was still the same number of children and they were just as hungry as before, the outgoings from the home were just the same as they were prior to the husband's death; in every way the needs week by week had not been lessened. That is a grievous source of complaint. I would like to feel that the Minister, particularly after the Question that was put to him some time ago and the promise he then made, will be able to tell us to-day that something is to be done. It appears to me that a reasonable way of facing the difficulty would be for the war service grants to go on just so long as the need which led to the giving of the war service grants in the first instance continued; in other words, that the death of the husband on service should be disregarded and the needs of the home looked at without reference to anything else.
  A good deal has been said in this Debate about the rule which, if a man marries after the disability has been incurred, prevents him from getting any

  1537
  allowances in respect of his wife or children, or his widow from getting a pension, later on if he dies as a result of the wound he has received. Here again, it passes my comprehension that the Ministry should lay down this rule and stick to it. It is I think established that we are the only great Power which acts in this way. It is a blot on the Royal Warrant which should be got rid of at the earliest possible moment. Earlier in my remarks, I referred to a leading article which appeared yesterday in "The Times." Some excellent reasons were given therein why the Ministry of Pensions should think again and alter the Royal Warrant in order to make it possible, with proper safeguards, for a man who marries after having received a wound or disability to have that fact registered and, if necessary, later taken into account.
  I realise the enormous difficulties which the Minister is under in assessing what can be said truly to be attributable to war injury or service. Although the suggestion that "fit for service, fit for pension" would make an excellent rule for embodiment in the Royal Warrant, I realise that the matter is not as simple as that. The Minister should make more use of the X-ray. From what I am told by medical men it is impossible to say, from examining a man, whether or not he has incipient tuberculosis. A man's lungs may appear by sounding and external examination to be in perfect order, and it is only when an X-ray is taken that incipient tuberculosis may be discovered. In such a case it is more than likely that the Ministry would deny all liability on the grounds that it was not due to the man's war service. Unless it is established beyond doubt before a man goes in and is passed A.1 that a man is not suffering from constitutional weakness which war service of an ordinary and normal kind, in barrack and camp, will make worse, it is reasonable to ask that the Government should accept responsibility for what happens to the man.
  There is one further point arising out of what was said by the hon. Member for North Tottenham to which I want to refer. He mentioned a man who was refused a pension because he had been knocked down in Cairo while on leave. Looked at in one way, it is true to say that his death was not due to his war service. I have come across a case in England more or less similar where, also, the widow was denied
  1538
  a pension. At a camp in the Eastern Counties a man was crossing the road from some hutments on one side to the officers' mess on the other. If in crossing the road he had been carrying a letter from his own company orderly room to the battalion orderly room, he would have been on duty. As it happened, he was knocked down by a car which did not stop, and he was killed. The assumption was that as he was just crossing the road in the course of the evening his death was not attributable to war service and that it was the sort of thing that might happen to anybody. But if he had been carrying a letter, I take it the Minister would have accepted responsibility. These are very fine shades of interpretation, and it is very difficult to get over to ordinary working people living in the back streets of large towns the difference between the construction which the Minister would put on that and the construction which the ordinary person in the street puts on it. The widow feels that her husband would not have been in that place at that time if he had not been in the Army, and the mere fact that he did not happen to be on duty at that particular time seems to her to be a mere quibble. She and her family have lost the breadwinner; and he has lost his life as a result of service. It seems to me that something should be done to widen the scope of that provision so that many of these so-called borderline cases can be brought within the ambit of the Royal Warrant.
  I hope that before the Debate closes the Minister will realise the growing feeling that there is in the constituencies about these matters and will see to it that grievances are remedied without delay. I rather deprecate the suggestion that a Select Committee should be set up. A Select Committee, when set up, could keep us waiting for months and months, and even after it had reported it would not follow that anything would be done. Many of these points are urgent. The need for action has been established and we shall be very disappointed if we do not at long last get something definite out of the Minister to-day.
  Sir Henry Morris-Jones: I am sure the House will welcome the opportunity we have of debating this subject. It is one that appeals to the masses of the people of the country more than anything else, and I doubt whether any Minister at

  1539
  any meeting is asked more questions on any other subject than the conditions under which pensions are given. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) carried the House with him in his argument that the scale of pensions should be on the same level as those granted for the last war, and I do not think there can be any doubt in the mind of any average individual that he established his case that the difference between the 37s. 6d. and £2 for total disability is unwarranted and unjustifiable on every ground. I think it can even be challenged on the ground of the cost of living. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will make the concession without further consideration. I think he might also accede to the request for reconsideration of the question of an allowance for marriage after the disability is contracted. In his historic broadcast on Sunday, which will be a landmark in our home affairs, the Prime Minister made reference to the dwindling population and the very serious effect in 30 or 40 years' time. From the point of view of that argument alone, apart from the equity of the thing in itself, there is very justification for a review of the question.
  The Minister made a statement to-day on the question of appeal tribunals. I agree that they are necessary, but I have not myself pressed him to set them up because I know the very great difficulty he has been up against. It will be no use setting up these tribunals unless he has on them men possessing the capacity, the qualifications and the character. They must be exceptional men. They must not only be men of high academic qualifications but men of character and sympathy, who are able to sift evidence and who have a certain amount of legal bent at all events, if not legal training, because, although I appreciate the desirability of ex-Service men appearing personally before them, there will be such a large number of applications that if will be impossible in many cases, and therefore these medical men will have to decide on the evidence before them. [Interruption.] I know that in the last war they did so, but there were cases where they did not see the men at all, and in this war the number of applications will be so great that it will be physically impossible for the tribunals to see them all individually, and there will inevitably be cases where they will
  1540
  have to decide on the evidence before them. I understand the right hon. Gentleman has been furnished with a list of names. Naturally I have not seen it. I should like very much to have a look at it as a matter of interest. They will have a very responsible job, and I hope they are fitted for it. I would rather even not see tribunals set up at this juncture unless they can do their work adequately and with fairness and justice to applicants.
  I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman also established his case for a change in the whole method of approach to the Royal Warrant and even, if necessary, for a change in the Royal Warrant itself. In the last war I was a medical officer of a battalion in the line, and I have heard the experiences of those in this war. I am told by those who have served in both that while in the last war the amount of suffering in the line was probably even greater than to-day, in view of the intensive nature of the bombardment, the general conditions of service to-day take far more out of the individual than in the last war. One cannot help feeling a great amount of sympathy with some of our men serving abroad who are deprived of something which will affect their health very considerably as compared with the last war. In the last war, whatever the great hardships we had to meet in France, we had the estimable privilege of coming home and seeing our people every few months. Three or four months did not pass when we did not have leave. Now there are thousands of our men in the East and North Africa who have not been home for from two to six years.
  Mr. Tinker: The hon. Gentleman's experience of the last war and mine are quite different. I was away two years before I got any leave.
  Sir H. Morris-Jones: There were a large number of men in Salonica and the East who never saw any leave, but the overwhelming proportion of soldiers served in France, and they were continually receiving leave, every three or four months. Now the overwhelming proportion are serving in circumstances in which they are not able to have leave. That has a detrimental effect upon their health, and it will have an effect on their future health and produce those nebulous cases which the Ministry of Pensions are turning down as not attributable to service. With regard to the whole question of attributability,

  1541
  I would point out that medicine is a very vague and inexact science.
  Dr. Morgan: Medicine is not a science at all; it is an art based on science.
  Sir H. Morris-Jones: It attempts to be a science, although it is very inexact. My right hon. Friend is entirely in the hands of his doctors. We get cases by the hundred of men who are turned down, and our postbags are increasing week by week because of letters about them. Hardly a day passes when I do not get a case from my constituency of an applicant who is turned down on the ground that his condition is not attributable to service. What medical officer in the Ministry of Pensions could get up and say that the disability from which a man was suffering would have been contracted if the man had remained in civil life? There is not one. Yet over and over again cases are turned down on the ground that if the man had not joined the Services he would have contracted the ailment for which he was discharged. I submit that in the circumstances my right hon. Friend ought to view these cases with the greatest sympathy and stretch a point every time in their favour. Ex-Service men are having their cases tried on the basis that they make certain statements in regard to their pre-war health. A man may go before a medical board, and, very anxious to serve the country, he says that he has never had an illness in his life before. It is patriotic of him to do so.
  I have a case of a man who was invalided from the Army for rheumatism, and he is penalised because he stated in hospital that he had rheumatism before he joined the Army. He said on oath, and is prepared to repeat on oath, that he never had had rheumatism in his life. His local doctor in a rural area, who has complete knowledge of all the families there, says that the man never has had rheumatism. Yet because he has rheumatism now and made a statement that he had had it in the past, he is not allowed anything from the Ministry of Pensions. The statement was made when the man was in a state of delirium and high fever in the presence of a medical officer. I would ask my right hon. Friend to warn medical officers that statements of this kind should not be used to affect the right to a pension. We feel that the right hon. Gentleman has done his work well, that he is a man of
  1542
  sympathy and that he takes great interest in pensions. Circumstances have now changed, however, and there should be a complete review of the position and a change of mind at the Ministry.
  The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): I do not want hon. Members to think that I am winding up the Debate, but I thought it was due to the House that I should intervene at this moment to answer some of the main questions which have been put. Hon. Members who join in the Debate afterwards will be answered by the Parliamentary Secretary, who will be able to do it effectively. There was a journalist, who has often written scathing articles about the Ministry of Pensions and other Government Departments, who said that he would not have my job for all the money in the world. When I asked him why, he said, "Ministers of Pensions are the whipping boys of all Governments. They are there to be kicked and cuffed, and they never give any satisfaction, whatever they do." There is possibly something in what that journalist said, but I do not regard my position in that light. Indeed, this Debate has proved that there are many people offering me sound advice, and I do not think there has been any attempt to kick and cuff me. Hon. Members have been very reasonably and friendly disposed towards me. I hope that they will continue to be and that in future Debates on pensions we shall have the same helpful atmosphere as we have had to-day.
  My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser), who opened the Debate, delivered one of the most eloquent speeches I have heard on the subject of pensions, and I have heard many. It was a moving plea, and I felt like the man in the Bible who said, "Almost thou persuadest me." I have, however, to look at these matters and put them to the House in quite a different light. I hope that I shall be able to put them as fairly from the side of the Ministry as my hon. and gallant Friend put them from the other side. I take exception to one thing he said. That was that the British Legion wanted new life put into it. If he sat at my desk and read the letters and resolutions that I received from the British Legion, he would not think they wanted any enlivening or kick-

  1543
  ing into action. The Legion is the Service man's trade union, and it does its job nobly and well.
  Sir I. Fraser: I said they wanted to attract young men into the British Legion, but if they are gingering up the right hon. Gentleman, I am glad.
  Sir W. Womersley: The hon. and gallant Member need not worry about gingering up. They have been doing the gingering all the time, and I am with him in hoping that the British Legion will be able to bring into their ranks the men discharged during this war, just as they succeeded in amalgamating all ex-Service men's unions and associations after the last war. It is a good thing from the national standpoint to have a representative body, non-political in character, prepared to consider these questions entirely from the view of the ex-Service men themselves, and to bring them, without fear or favour, before the Minister in charge of the Department.
  Before I get down to answering specific questions put to me, may I also pay a tribute to the speech of the noble Lady who represents Central Bristol (Lady Apsley)? I am sure we have never heard a more moving maiden speech, or one so full of practical, sound common sense. I have known her in her position as chairman of the Women's Section of the British Legion, and I know in what affection the women of the Legion hold her, and I know also how she has devoted her time to the welfare of ex-Service men and of the women and children who have been left as their dependants. I can also say that since her husband joined the Forces in the early days of the war she has brought to my notice from time to time cases that have arisen in the constituency that her husband represented in the City of Bristol, and she is just carrying on with the same work that she did on his behalf. I give her, as I can give to all hon. Members, an assurance that all cases brought to my notice will, as in the past, have my most sympathetic consideration and that I will allow Members to know the definite reasons why pensions cannot be granted, so that they may have some knowledge of the facts of the case.
  We are allowed, I believe, to speak in a general way about the question of appeal tribunals. Let me make my position
  1544
  quite clear. I have said time and time again that I desire these tribunals to be set up, and quite apart from the feeling we have that justice cannot be done when a decision is left to, say, one man, but that justice will be done if there is a body of men or of men and women—realising that that is inherent in our British character, I have always been in favour of tribunals. I have another reason for favouring them, and that is that if tribunals were set up and if Parliament decided that they should be placed in the same statutory position as tribunals were after the last war, that is, that their decisions should be final and binding upon Ministers as well as upon appellants, it would remove a good deal of difficulty from my task. It would certainly reduce considerably the postbags of Members of Parliament, because instead of Members have to deal with them, the cases would go to the tribunals. On the other hand, I would point out that I should not expect Members not to bring up constituents' cases before they went to the tribunals if they so desired, because I still want to give cases the closest consideration to see whether anything can be done in the way of helping appellants. If we cannot, then their cases must go to the tribunals. I would, however, put in this little warning. It was my experience of the old tribunals that hon. Members were not always satisfied with their decisions. If one searched the records of my Department, one would find many hundreds, and maybe thousands, of letters from Members of Parliament complaining about the decisions of tribunals. So I do not think we shall ever get to the point when everybody will be satisfied, and I am inclined to think that Members would look upon me with grave suspicion if I could get the good word of everybody not only in this House but of the country.
  One newspaper has said of me that I am a jolly good stonewaller, the best stonewaller the Government have ever had; that I have staved off the question of tribunals by all sorts of excuses, and they wondered what new excuse I should bring forward to-day. It was also suggested that there would be some body-line bowling. I have always understood that body-line bowling was a bit unfair, but I have not experienced any body-line bowling to-day, because everybody has been fair to me and my Department. The

  1545
  hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) wanted to know why there has been some delay since the Sub-committee was set up. What I have to be sure of is that there is a sufficient number of doctors of the right type available before I proceed with the setting-up of tribunals. That must be made clear. Hon. Members may say, "Why, would not any doctors do?" I have a cutting here from the "Daily Herald" which speaks of "Hundreds of cases for Womersley" and suggests that there would be no difficulty in finding the necessary medical staff and that to talk about a shortage of doctors is absurd. It adds:
  "Doctors can be drawn from the older age groups to staff them. Surely there are many specialists in London who would be glad to give two hours a week to the tribunals."
  I ask hon. Members, Is it reasonable to talk of two hours a week? I shall want at least 24 tribunals to cover the whole of the United Kingdom, and those who undertake work on them will have to make it a full-time job. If they are to give a fair judgment, it will take them all their time to do eight cases a day. My hon. Friend opposite knows about the work of these tribunals, because he has been a member of one, and I hope he will confirm what I say, that we want a thoroughly careful hearing of the case, because it must be borne in mind that if Parliament says the decision shall be binding and final, it will not then be the case that, as now, cases can be brought to me for review. Once a case has been dealt with by the tribunal it will be done with. That is why I say we must have competent men to sit on the tribunal and feel sure of them—not for the sake of the Ministry or the Government, but in order to see that the appellants have a fair and square hearing.
  Mr. Evelyn Walkden: Is not the Minister presuming that it is absolutely necessary for a medical officer to sit on the tribunal and not to prepare evidence for the tribunal?
  Sir W. Womersley: If the hon. Member holds an opposite view, he will find himself in conflict with every ex-Service men's organisation. It is necessary to have a medical member of the tribunal there at all times to deal with medical questions. This has been thought out in the light of experience. There has been considerable experience of these tribunals. The ideal
  1546
  tribunal would undoubtedly consist of a lawyer in the chair, a fully-trained man, with a fully-trained medical man and a representative of the ex-Service men. There could not be a fairer tribunal than that.
  Mr. Gallacher: A Service man in the chair?
  Mr. Speaker: I am afraid we are discussing details of tribunals, and that is out of Order, because the setting-up of tribunals requires legislation.
  Sir W. Womersley: I must obey your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, but I wish to make it clear that it is necessary to exercise care in the selection of the right people, and I think that will be confirmed by most medical men in the House. We advertised, and received certain answers. An analysis of those answers showed that some of the men who had applied were not such as would give satisfaction to ex-Service men or to those who were appealing. Therefore, in consultation with my Subcommittee—I am glad to say that a member of my Sub-committee has confirmed this to-day—I thought it would be wise to call in a member of the British Medical Council to give us some help in the matter. This representative very kindly came along and told us frankly that he would want at least six weeks before he could present us with a list which he would be satisfied to put up as containing suitable men. We had to agree with that. We could not do otherwise. I have received that list only this week, and it contains a considerable number of names. I do not know the exact number of names. As I wanted the list to be thoroughly overhauled and examined, I thought I could not do better than to call in Lord Horder, who is an adviser to my Department.
  Dr. Morgan: Again?
  Sir W. Womersley: Would the hon. Member like a layman to be called in?
  Dr. Morgan: I do not object to Lord Horder, but I object to his being called in as though he had encyclopaedic knowledge of medicine, which he has not.
  Commander Locker-Lampson: Is not Lord Horder a first-class man?
  Sir W. Womersley: I am satisfied that he can give me good advice. This list

  1547
  will be back again to me in a very short time. I have asked my people to get on with it as quickly as possible. When I have it, I shall call my Sub-committee together. I cannot go right over their heads, since they were set up for this purpose. I hope to get the tribunals established in a reasonable time. I am anxious for them, and so are hon. Members, and we shall manage to get on with them pretty quickly.
  Then there is the question of the rates, an old story that has been told in this House time and time again. Actually, the hon. and gallant Member who raised it gave the answer which I was going to give, and I can confirm what he said. There is a good deal of misconception about the rates during the last war and the rates during this war. The statement has been made time and time again that soldiers from the last war got bigger pensions than the soldiers of this war. I have to make the position clear not only in this House but to the outside world. It was after the last war, when the House and the country knew our liabilities and what we could afford in the way of pensions, that this Royal Warrant of 1919 was laid down. Even then, and after the advice of a Select Committee of this House which went more thoroughly into the pensions question than any Committee has ever done, it was made quite clear that pensions were not to be static but were to go up or come down with the cost of living. They were arranged at that time upon a cost-of-living figure of 215. The cost of living did not go up; it certainly went down. It is quite true that the Government did not take advantage of the provision that a lowering of the rates would mean a lowering of the pension, and I say that that is right and I applaud it; but it is a fact that from that time onwards all the pensions had to be dealt with in the same way. Hon. Members will bear in mind that even during the time of peace we had one or two little wars, and we had pensioners to deal with. They were not dealt with by my Department, because they were not Great War pensioners, and the rates in all new classes, of pensioners were fixed on that cost-of-living figure of 215, less or plus. That is how the rates came into operation for the present war.
  The Government have carried out their pledge that there should be an adjustment
  1548
  for every five per cent. increase in the cost-of-living figure basis, and the figure has gone up on two occasions. We are just about 7 per cent. below now, and the next jump would have to be on the level of the 1919 pension rate. I can only give this pledge, that the Government will review this position from time to time, in the light of the cost-of-living figure, and will increase pensions accordingly. I want hon. Members to bear in mind that this does not apply just to war pensions for the Army, Navy and Air Force. It applies to every kind of pension that is granted as a result of war disability—civilian pensions, civil defence volunteer pensions and many others. We have to deal with a very great range this time. If we put up the rate for one class, we must put it up all round.
  The argument was also used that this was not quite enough. I agree that money compensation is not enough and never would be enough, however high we made it, because we cannot measure the sacrifice of these men in terms of money. The Government have to do something more than that. This is a point on which I wish to speak a little later. I am satisfied that we have a good case to put to the House for this "something else" over and above the merely money compensation. I would ask hon. Members to view the matter not merely in the light of what is given in the way of money, but what we try to do in other ways to make life tolerable for these men and women, to give them, as the Noble Lady said, a feeling that they can take their places alongside their fellows and to bring them as nearly back to normal as we can. If I have time, I want to give a few details about our scheme, which we are working just now successfully. I know that hon. Members are keen to have further information about one or two points.
  First there is the question of the allowance to the wife and children, where a marriage contract was entered into after the war disability has taken place. This is a very vexed question. It is nothing new, but is as old as pensions themselves and has been debated time and time again in this House. Anyone who looks up the records of my Department and of pensions Debates will find that it is a hardy annual which has been put up by hon. Members to all the Governments in office since the Great War, whatever their political complexion. It has been consistently main-

  1549
  tained that we should not give way on this point about the post-disability marriage. There are various points of view to be put forward and I shall submit to the House what have been the reasons why from time, to time successive Governments have refused to give this pension.
  The hon. and gallant Gentleman suggested that there is a way of helping, and that is by giving something in the nature of a constant-attendance allowance. I will come to that point in a moment and will now deal only with the main question. The hon. and gallant Gentleman made a calculation which does not seem to be borne out by my own figures. He took a block of 1,500 cases to find out how many of them had married after the disability. We have the definite percentage. The percentage of new war-disabled men who are drawing wife's allowance is 57·7 per cent. Actually, of the men who have been discharged from the Army as disabled in this war, 57 per cent. were married men before disability took place. I just mentioned that in passing to show that it is a little different figure from that quoted. I wanted the House to have the benefit of the proper figure.
  Sir I. Fraser: It is not a contentious point. The figures I gave refer to 1,500 men of the last war. My figures for a very small sample of men in this war are 48 unmarried to 36 married, which seems to suggest something like the same proportion. Justice should be done whatever the proportion.
  Sir W. Womersley: I simply quoted my figures as I wanted the House to have the proper figures. The point is that although my hon. Friend made light of the difficulties which might arise from abuses, believe me they are very real. Where this matter has been tried out in other countries it has proved a most difficult thing. He suggested on a former occasion when it was debated that we should have certain safeguards, and I was hoping he would elaborate that point to-day. I am anxious to find what safeguards we could have if we gave this concession. The only thing I can say further about it is that in my considered judgment—I say it frankly—I do not think you could get a scheme which would be workable and acceptable if you had to put in the safeguards, and if you did not have the safeguards you would have a scheme which would be open to much abuse. I am quite prepared to
  1550
  listen to suggestions put forward on this or any other aspect of pensions, because I do not say that I know it all, nor have I closed my mind to improvements in the Royal Warrant or the schemes which I administer. I am anxious to learn more, and I will never say I know all there is to know about it. It is a matter which would be useful to inquire into, but I want to point out what would be the obvious difficulties.
  We now come to the question of the Beveridge Report.
  Mr. Bellenger: If the right hon. Gentleman wants suggestions, would he read one of the Reports of his own Ministry, that of 1937, where it states that in Australia they did find some method of preventing a certain number of abuses?
  Sir W. Womersley: Of preventing a certain amount of abuse. I know that Report, and I know a good deal about the system in Australia. I am not here to criticise the systems of other Governments. If the Beveridge scheme is accepted—and the Government have said they are going to accept children's allowances—then a good deal of difficulty is removed, because it does not matter from what source it comes so long as the woman or the household has the income. If I may make this suggestion, in dealing with many pension questions I think it is worth while taking into consideration what the effect of the Beveridge suggestions are, if adopted by the Government, on the whole of our pensions system. Personally, I was very disappointed that he did not rope my Department in with the whole question of social security. I think it would have been a good idea. But he did not, and he gives his reason—that this is a pension given for a special reason. That was said by my hon. and gallant Friend. I agree with that absolutely. That is why we make no stipulation how much a man or woman shall earn. They get their pension whether earning a lot or a little, because we say that this pension is being given because of the difference between that man or woman and a normal person of that age or sex.
  I think it would be worth our while to consider many of these suggestions in the light of the Beveridge suggestions and link them up. I know it may be said that in the meantime somebody is suffering. I

  1551
  doubt that very much. It is an extraordinary thing that, speaking either at meetings or to an assembly of people, it is always presumed that the 100 per cent. disabled man is unable to do anything whatever. We have had an experience during this war which has been really astounding. This is what has happened to disabled ex-Service men when there is plenty of work available and employers are willing to employ them. I say this from my long experience, that the worst time this Ministry always has is when there is a large amount of unemployment in the country. There is no question of that, and for two reasons, because there is a diminution of the income into the household, which makes a fellow very uncomfortable; and, secondly, that when a man is doing nothing he is thinking about his disability, and it can easily become worse for that. The great idea and object are to find employment for ex-Service men.
  Here I want to pay another tribute to the British Legion. They set an example to the people of this country by setting up their workshops in various places and establishing industries at Preston Hall and so on, their employment bureaux, all kinds of things done for ex-Service men, so that unemployment among ex-Service men was lower than among the general population even during the worst periods. Our old pensioners of the last war have done wonderful work in the war, and from the latest count we took 19 out of 20, at a very low estimate, of disabled ex-Service men are employed full time, earning good wages and doing good work for the nation. [Interruption]. I said disabled ex-Service men.
  Mr. Lawson: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what is the nature of their employment?
  Sir W. Womersley: I can say that it is employment that is all in the national interest at the moment, and that their jobs have been selected for them according to their disability and ability.
  Mr. William Brown: Are these totally or partially disabled ex-Service-men?
  Sir W. Womersley: This is a cross talk. I said quite definitely disabled men.
  Mr. Brown: I know, but what does the right hon. Gentleman mean—totally disabled or partially disabled, or temporarily disabled, or what?
  Sir W. Womersley: Surely the hon. Member has common sense enough to know. The answer is what I have said, disabled men drawing pensions. [Interruption.] It is men wholly and partially disabled. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why did not the right hon. Gentleman say so straight away?"] Anyone with comprehension would realise that one meant all classes of pensioners.
  Mr. John Wilmot: The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the figures mean something quite different if 19 out of 20 were employed, and the 20th were all the totally disabled men.
  Sir W. Womersley: Yes, I will deal with that if the hon. Member will be quiet. The men of the last war are now, 25 years after the war finished, doing a job of national importance of some kind—19 out of 20. Now we come to the 20th, who undoubtedly will be the totally disabled man, or otherwise he would be employed at the moment. There is this point, that a man passing from one job to another often gets put on the register, but we will ignore that, and we will take it that the man is a totally disabled man. The point at issue is this. If he is a married man with two children, as was quoted by the hon. and gallant Member, he will get more than what the Beveridge plan suggests is a subsistence level, a good deal more. I want that to be made quite clear, because there is some misapprehension about this. [Interruption.] A man with a wife and two children. You must compare like with like. In the last war it was 40s., plus 10s., plus 7s. 6d., plus 6s., and in this war it is 37s. 6d., plus 9s. 2d. for the wife, 7s. 1d. for the first child, and 5s. 5d. for the second child—which comes to a larger sum than was suggested in the Beveridge plan. We come to the question of the totally disabled man and his wife. Twenty-five years after the last war all the children of that war are off our books at any rate, because they have grown past the age at which pension is payable. If the man is so badly disabled that he cannot follow his employment, if he is bedridden, we can make a grant of 18s. a

  1553
  week. It is called a constant attendance allowance. It really means a payment to his wife or somebody else for looking after him. At any rate, it is an addition to the household income. To my mind, that is the right way of dealing with this matter. Out of 400,000 men drawing disability pensions from the last war something like 4,000 were unemployed at the last count. I do not think anyone would put forward a plea for increased pensions to that large number of men who are working, and receiving, I hope, standard rate of wages. People would want assistance to be given to the 4,000 who are unemployed at the moment.
  The right and proper way to deal with this matter is this constant attendance allowance for those who are absolutely totally disabled. If the argument was put forward that that allowance was not enough, I should be inclined to ask the Government to reconsider it, because these are men who cannot supplement their income. I agree that that is a very difficult problem—in fact, it is one of the most difficult with which I have to deal. But people generalise from one or two cases that come to their notice, about the whole pension position. I want hon. Members to look with me into the wider field. A man is not necessarily totally disabled because he gets a pension, and if he gets work he can have the benefit. I agree that there is something to be said for dealing with the man who is totally disabled, and I think that the method I have suggested is the best method, but I will give the closest consideration to the matter and see whether a better one can be found.
  What I, and I think every Member of the House, would like to see for the men who are disabled in this war is something better than was provided in the last war in the way of rehabilitation, training and employment. I am proud of the part that I and my Department have played in the matter of rehabilitation. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than for hon. Members to come down to the hospital, quite close to London, where we deal with rehabilitation, fitting limbs and so on, and see how science has advanced in the last few years, and also how general knowledge and sympathy have advanced since the last war. An attempt was made after the last war to do this sort of thing, But I am sorry to say it did not succeed. But you learn wisdom from the mistakes that have been made. This time we have
  1554
  started our planning in good time. I have had the heartiest co-operation from my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service. He has gone so far as to set up a Committee, known as the Tomlinson Committee which has gone very carefully into this question and has issued a remarkable and very encouraging Report. I want to pay tribute to those who have served on the Committee for the way they have reviewed the position and for the suggestions they have made, which we shall carry out, so that never again will these men have to do the hawking of matches and playing in bands in the streets which they have done in the past. But very often, of course, these men make a lot more money out of selling matches and playing instruments in the streets than by doing their jobs.
  We have been able to deal with these new cases with great success because we have dealt with them early. We have had remarkable success. It is surprising how many people have been able to go back to their old occupations after rehabilitation.
  Dr. Morgan: There is a good staff.
  Sir W. Womersley: Yes; I want to pay tribute to my staff. They do their jobs conscientiously and well. No one is doing more than the doctors to try to make the system perfect. We have other difficulties to face. The case of the neurotics is very difficult. A large number of our cases are cases of neurosis. Neurosis is a question which the medical services of the country will have to face before long, because it is increasing. Actually, there is less of it among the Forces than in civilian life; but we have to deal with these cases and see if we cannot heal the mind, just as we heal the body. We are working in close association with the Ex-Services Welfare Society. I want to pay tribute to that Society for its work for neurotics in the past. It has a wonderful factory down at Leatherhead. It is astounding what a difference it makes if a man or woman afflicted in that way finds congenial occupation and a medical man who understands the patient. I want to pay tribute to the doctors, who have given their service in this great work. I want to build up on that scheme. We have medical centres where these people can go. It is surprising how quickly some people have reacted to the treatment. Many have

  1555
  been able to go back to normal life after six weeks' treatment. Without that treatment, many, as in the last war, would have become confirmed chronic neurotics. It would not have been in the best interests of the country, quite apart from the payment of pensions, to have such people unfit to carry on their normal occupations. I want to pay tribute to the doctors, who have done that wonderful work.
  Mr. Mathers: Would the right hon. Gentleman make clear what happens to the households of those men while they are away, getting that treatment? The allowance for the maintenance of the home while the man is away is in many cases too small to permit a man to take advantage of the treatment that is offered.
  Sir W. Womersley: Not if he comes under my Department.
  Mr. Mathers: Yes, under the right hon. Gentleman's Department.
  Sir W. Womersley: I am surprised to hear that, because the difficulty is that very often it is stated that a man is better off when under treatment than when drawing pension outside. It can easily be explained in this way. Our treatment allowances are based on loss of wages. When a man has been in employment and has had to go to our hospital we say we have the right to compensate him, and we do compensate him. The difficulty may have arisen in the case which my hon. Friend has in mind, and it happened even in the old days. When a man was out of employment at the time he went to hospital all he was losing was unemployment pay, and there was a smaller grant on that account, but that does not apply so much to-day, because those who go into hospitals are men who have been in full-time employment, and therefore we give them an allowance and their cases are considered.
  Mr. Mathers: I am thinking of the case where the man has been refused a pension because his psycho-neurosis condition is claimed not to be due to anything connected with his service which is not true.
  Sir W. Womersley: He comes under national insurance. It has nothing to do with my Department.
  1556
  I was asked to deal with the question of parents' pensions. We had a long discussion on that when my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) brought the matter before the House, and hon. Members will desire to have some further information about it and some idea of how we have arrived at our conclusions on that question. I shall have to ask the indulgence of the House because I want to read a short extract from the Royal Warrant of 1919 so that hon. Friends may understand exactly the various pensions that were granted under the old Warrant. It reads thus:
  "(a) If the parents were dependent on the soldier for a reasonable period prior to the war or enlistment if later. (Where enlistment was after outbreak of war any increase of dependence due to war circumstances was excluded from consideration.)
  (b) If at any time either or both parents was or were wholly or partly incapable of self-support from age or infirmity and in pecuniary need.
  (c) Where the soldier was under the age of 26 at the outbreak of war or date of enlistment if later, was unmarried and no pension or allowance was in payment to a child or dependant in respect of him, a flat rate of pension of 5s. could be awarded irrespective of pre-war dependence, age, infirmity or pecuniary need."
  That was under the old Warrant. We had a Select Committee on Pensions which sat in 1920 and recommended as follows, and I must ask hon. Members to excuse me reading this, as it is a question of accuracy:
  "That the whole system should he reconsidered as early as possible with a view to revision and assimilation of all three classes of case on a basis, broadly interpreted, of what is a reasonable expectation of what a son would have contributed had he lived."
  And then they added:
  "We believe that it is only by some such plan that the present inequalities can be remedied."
  The point that was made by hon. Friends repeatedly in this House was that the working of this system created all kinds of anomalous jealousies, because one was given more than the other and so forth. The recommendation by the Select Committee was adopted by the then Government of the day and came into operation on 1st April, 1922. Since then parents' pensions have been conditional upon the claimant being able to say that he or she was wholly or partly incapable of self-support and in pecuniary need. In the present war we started with the 1939 War-

  1557
  rant, which, exactly as I have just now suggested, was the agreed formula that the Committee had set. In 1940 I brought to the House suggestions for material improvement, and they were agreed to and placed in the Warrant. The condition of incapacity was removed, and full effect was given to the recommendations of the Select Committee of 1920, which said that you must regard parents' pensions on the basis of what, broadly interpreted, is a reasonable expectation of what the son would have contributed had he lived.
  That was included in that Warrant, and the present rates are, to one parent 5s., a maximum of 10s.; to two parents a maximum of 12s. 6d., but with the proviso that those rates can be increased by 6s. 6d. a week, that is, to one parent 16s. 6d. and to two parents 19s. if the circumstances warrant it. Further, the parents of a married soldier wholly dependent upon him to a substantial extent for a reasonable period before his death have now been made eligible for these pensions. The general point is about the widowed mother. I know a very few cases where a widowed mother has not succeeded in getting a pension. There are a few cases where the widowed mother has a private income or maybe is in a position to earn money and is earning money, but I cannot imagine the case of a widow who can show that she is in need, and who would be in need of support from her son, being refused pension. I give most sympathetic consideration to parents' pensions.
  Mr. Glenvil Hall: Would the Minister answer the question which I put to him as to why there is a difference between the amount given in the present Warrant and the last Warrant? It was 36s. in the last, and is only 19s. in this.
  Sir W. Womersley: 36s. was the maximum pension at that time, and we very rarely ever reached that sum.
  Mr. Hall: That is the maximum.
  Sir W. Womersley: I agree, but you have to assess the amount of dependence and the amount of dependence never came anywhere near the 36s., and therefore it dropped out. If we find 19s. is not sufficient, it is possible to come back.
  Mr. Buchanan: Why not fix it at 36s.?
  Sir W. Womersley: In the case of old age pensioners, there have been several useful concessions since then, and again, it
  1558
  would only mean that they would get it on one hand and have it taken away on the other. It is a supplementation, and we want to work the two Departments together so that we can get something like equity all round.
  Mr. Buchanan: The real reason is that when this sum of 36s. was fixed pensions were not subject to a means test.
  Sir W. Womersley: No, but I have read out the terms of the conditions on which pensions were given. They had to show that they were 36s. out of pocket before they received pension. That maximum was only applied in a very few cases, and it was out of date. It was much better to give the concessions we have given, and I could give a long list of the things we disregard, if time permitted. It is a most generous list. If the other disregards were given, I do not see that there would be any cause really for any alteration in the parents' pension. I think that we would find a good deal of resentment if we ever went back to the flat 5s. for everybody. I would never be an advocate of that myself, as I think it is entirely wrong. It is not a question of saying that it is needed; it is merely saying that you are getting some compensation because someone has been killed. I could not regard that as a safe policy, but there is something to be said for broadening the basis in accordance with the recommendation of the Committee, and I have done so in my last Warrant. We broadly considered it.
  There is one other point I would like to make, and that is on the question of accidents. We have dealt with that in a far better and in a more sympathetic way, and I think we have succeeded in relieving the position. It does not include every accident that may happen; I cannot go as far as that. What I have to deal with is what is reasonable under the circumstances. Consider the improvements I introduced recently, which were included in the last Royal Warrant. If a man was serving abroad in a district which was unfamiliar to him and in which people drove on the right hand side of the road as against the left in this country, it was an excuse to say that the man did not quite realise that, with the result that he got into trouble. We say, "Is there anything here which makes the man different from a member of the civilian population?" If there is, we try to see that he gets a pension. I have gone into

  1559
  this matter most carefully and have tried in every way to ease the situation, and I think I have succeeded to a large extent. Most of the difficulties concern men who are out on evening pass, away from camp, in a village or town, doing what they care to do, and making their way back to camp. They are taking the same risks as a member of the ordinary civilian population in the black-out, and in such cases we have not been able to introduce anything for their particular benefit. But in a case of a man going on proper leave, with a proper pass, having an accident on the railway or anything of that kind, we have brought it within the ambit of the Royal Warrant, and a pension has been given. I can assure hon. Members that we have extended our benefits for accident cases as far as is reasonable, but we have not yet a closed mind on this question.
  Dr. Morgan: Will the pensions apply retrospectively?
  Sir W. Womersley: Not as regards payment; payments will start from the time they received the approval of the House.
  Sir H. Morris-Jones: What about the soldier killed in Cairo?
  Sir W. Womersley: We have granted pensions to widows of men in Cairo who have been there only a few days and have not been used to their surroundings. Does the hon. Member suggest that a man in Cairo is taking more risk than in walking about in London?
  Sir H. Morris-Jones: How can the right hon. Gentleman refuse a pension? The man would not have been in Cairo if he had not been on war service.
  Sir W. Womersley: The hon. Member would not have been in the House of Commons if he had not been elected. There are many civilians who, because they have taken on war jobs, are a long way from familiar surroundings. We are all in this war together; many of us are moved from place to place.
  Mr. Vernon Bartlett: Does the Minister suggest that if a man is knocked down in the middle of Salisbury Plain while leaping on to a lorry to go to the nearest town he is running the same risk as a man sitting in his own
  1560
  home? Is it not time the Government faced up to the responsibility that when a man has once been accepted by a medical board for service to his country they should accept full responsibility for accidents that may happen to him?
  Mr. McGovern: What about the case I brought before the Minister of a man who was knocked down by a bus and who was killed, leaving a widow with five children under 14? A pension was refused. Can the Minister say why the risks are not greater for a man in Palestine than in his own town?
  Sir W. Womersley: I am not here to deal with individual cases.
  Mr. McGovern: The right hon. Gentleman should be.
  Sir W. Womersley: I am prepared to deal with individual cases if they are brought to me by the hon. Member.
  Mr. McGovern: The right hon. Gentle-, man has refused a pension.
  Sir W. Womersley: If the hon. Member will show me the papers, I will deal with it. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Bartlett) raised the hypothetical case of a man jumping on a lorry. What is the good of putting hypothetical cases to me? I am a practical-minded man and I deal with cases in a practical way—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: The Minister must be allowed to get on with his speech.
  Mr. McGovern: The Minister is humbugging the House.
  Sir W. Womersley: Not a bit of it. The hon. Member must not judge me by his own standards. I do not come here to humbug the House of Commons, or the people outside, either. However, there is only one more point I want to stress before I close, and that is about the procedure in connection with the independent medical experts. This question is being confused with tribunals. It is a certainty that a man will be examined by the doctor connected with the tribunal if it is necessary and a certainty that the man will go before the tribunal personally and have someone with him as an advocate. But when we come to the question of dealing with independent medical experts, whom I have been using until we have the tribunals, I can assure hon. Members that they have been very effective.
  Dr. Morgan: Iniquitous.
  Sir W. Womersley: I know that the hon. Member does not agree with certain aspects of this matter, but these men were not appointed by me; they were appointed by the Presidents of the two medical Colleges on the understanding that they would be entirely uninfluenced by my Department.
  Dr. Morgan: They are biased individuals.
  Sir W. Womersley: The hon. Member wrote a letter to a newspaper, for which I was grateful. He was about the only Member of Parliament who supported me in saying that we ought not to have tribunals until we get the right medical personnel. I want to thank him for that, but for some reason or other he does not agree with the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons.
  Dr. Morgan: Because they are not representative or democratic.
  Sir W. Womersley: We regard them as the trade unions of the medical profession. I hope we are not mistaken. I asked them to provide these medical experts. Because a medical man finds against a man and no pension is granted, it does not mean that the man is finished. If he is turned down, he can still go to a tribunal as soon as they are set up. In the meantime, however, the present practice has enabled me to get a definite decision. But when you have differences of opinion between two medical men, the only thing to do is go to a recognised expert and get his opinion, although whether we shall ever find a doctor with whom other doctors agree entirely, I do not know.
  Mr. R. C. Morrison: The point I raised was not of objection to these eminent doctors. It was that the ordinary man in the street does not believe that a doctor can give a decision on his case unless the doctor has seen him.
  Sir W. Womersley: I agree that popular opinion is that unless a doctor examines one thoroughly he does not know anything about the case, but the point at issue is that the doctor has to decide, not what is the matter with the man, but whether his disability has been caused or aggravated by war service. That is an entirely different matter, and I was coming to that point. It is very difficult for me, when
  1562
  independent people are appointed and I have nothing whatever to do with their appointment, to tell them what they have to do. As a matter of fact, they would not do it. I should be glad if they would, just to pacify the minds of the people. Many men have the idea that unless they are examined by a doctor their case has not had fair treatment. The answer to them is that they still have a right of appeal beyond that. This is a thing that ought to be made known. Even though their case has been before one of the independent medical experts, they will still have the right to go to the tribunals as and when they are set up. I am afraid I have exceeded the time——
  Mr. Mathers: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer a point which I think is due for answer in this Debate? Some weeks ago he promised an inquiry into the position of a widow who is left in a serious position because of the loss of her husband resulting in her coming on to a low pension rate as compared with what she enjoyed previously by way of allowances and war service grant. Can the right hon. Gentleman give the result of the consideration which he promised?
  Sir W. Womersley: No, Sir, because of one very important thing. I challenged the hon. Member, and also the hon. Lady the Member for Wallsend (Miss Ward), who spoke on this matter on the Adjournment, to send me cases. I have not got those cases yet. I am waiting for them.
  Miss Ward: Will the right hon. Gentleman produce the letter that I wrote to him on the subject and read it to the House? When he produces that letter I will take up his challenge.
  Mr. Beverley Baxter: May I hand this telegram to my right hon. Friend?
  Mr. Speaker: We must get on with the Debate.
  Miss Ward: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. When a Minister challenges a Member of the House, has not the Member the right of reply?
  Mr. Speaker: Certainly not.
  Sir W. Womersley: The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers) wanted me to give him a reply. On this matter I am anxious to make inquiries, and I ask for

  1563
  particulars of any cases of hardship. As I have said, we can deal with these cases, as the case which the hon. Member had in mind was dealt with. I said that I would give further consideration to the matter if it was shown that there was real trouble and grievance. I am prepared to deal with the subject. I had expected that, having made that public appeal which was reported in the OFFICIAL REPORT, I would receive quite a number of cases from hon. Members, not only from the hon. Members who mentioned the matter, but from others. I have not received them. I gave a general invitation to hon. Members to send cases of hardship to me, because we have to deal with these cases of hardship. May I say, in conclusion——
  Mr. W. Brown: Will the right hon. Gentleman give a clear reply to the request of the hon. and gallant Member who initiated the Debate that a Select Committee of the House should be set up?
  Sir W. Womersley: It is not for me to give any direct reply to that request. I am here to listen to the Debate, to take notice of the views and opinions expressed, and to report in due course to the Cabinet. That is what I shall do. My advice to the House is this. The time when we had the best and closest inquiry was in 1920, after the last war, when, Members of the House could sit down calmly and spend a reasonable amount of time on a thorough investigation on the whole pensions system. They came to conclusions, and we have had those conclusions as a guide during the last 25 years, and it is upon those conclusions that the basis of the present pensions system is built. My own suggestion is that hon. Members will be far wiser to wait until we have finished this war. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I am not speaking as Minister of Pensions at the moment, because it does not matter to me as Minister of Pensions. I do not mind what committee or what inquiry there is; I am not afraid of committees or inquiries. The point I want to put to hon. Members is this. What is in the best interests of the men themselves? I represent those men just as much as other hon. Members do, and I claim that I am here representing them now in my capacity as a Member of Parliament. My advice is that you should have a committee of inquiry or a
  1564
  Select Committee when the war is over, when you know what your liabilities are—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] It is very important. What is the good of promising anything to people if you cannot meet your promise? It is no use hon. Members saying "Oh!"; that is not argument; that is simply ballyhoo. I claim, and I shall continue to claim, that I have as much sympathy with ex-Service men and their dependants as any hon. Member. I have a task entrusted to me by the Government, the House, and the country. It is to see that justice is meted out to these men and to see to it at the same time that justice is meted out to the taxpayers who have to provide the money. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] It is all right hon. Members to say "Oh!", but they have the taxpayers as their constituents. I travel round the country. I am finding that the workmen are beginning to get interested in that side of the matter. Believe me, if what we used to call in the old days a scrimshanker succeeds in getting a pension out of my Department, I get complaints not from Members of Parliament but from the other pensioners in the district.
  Earl Winterton: Will the right hon. Gentleman give chapter and verse for the statement that other ex-Service men have written to him objecting to an increase for ex-Service men totally disabled in this war?
  Sir W. Womersley: The Noble Lord has not been in the Chamber and has not listened to the Debate. I said that when a man who ought not to have a pension succeeds in getting a pension—I did not say anything about a totally disabled man—the complaints come from other people who served with him, or live near him, and not from Members of Parliament. I was only pointing that out in passing. I have a difficult job. It is not so easy as some people think. I have my duty to do, and as long as I am Minister of Pensions I shall continue to do it. In conclusion, I hope hon. Members will give me credit for trying to do this job fairly and squarely. I repeat that I am quite prepared to receive at any time Members who have cases to put to me, to let them see the papers and let them know and understand why we have not been able to give pensions. What could be fairer than that? Hon. Members now have this

  1565
  assurance that not only are there war pensions committees to which complaints can go, not only are there independent medical experts, but that very shortly, I hope, there will be tribunals. Surely, then, hon. Members will be satisfied.
  Mr. Lawson: The right hon. Gentleman has just replied to one of the most critical and trenchant Debates we have ever heard. He showed his usual skill. In fact, for a change, he has been somewhat modest. But in spite of his skill and his modesty, the tone of the House is a far more effective answer to his case than any speech could be, and I hope the Government will take note of the fact that for once he has completely failed to meet the will of the House, or indeed to understand its spirit. I wonder if he even now understands what is abroad in the country on this question of pensions. I, like the rest of the House, have always admired his industry, but I do not admire his cynical estimate of a good many people. He uses that scrimshanker term too often. Everyone knows that there are doubtful odd persons in a million, but, when he is met effectively by an argument, he usually turns back and makes some aspersion upon some unguessed number of fraudulent claims.
  He was asked about this matter of a Select Committee and his reply was the best speech in support of the demand. He said he agreed with this, that and the other. What does that mean? Does it mean that he is going to do these things? It is a matter of using terms, that is all. I think a mistake has been made, not only by him but by the House itself. We started wrongly on this pension business this time. That is why the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) had to fall back upon the Beveridge Report in comparing the single man's pension now and after the last war. The hon. and gallant Gentleman quite rightly anticipated what the right hon. Gentleman would say and said he would argue the question on the ground of the cost of living. I am wondering why a single man who is totally disabled has not more pension, and not less, than last time. Let us review what has happened. The pension that he has now could not be argued on the question of the cost of living. The real argument is, What is the
  1566
  change in social values that has taken place since that time? When a totally disabled soldier was given £2 a week the old age pension was 5s. over 70 years of age, and there was no unemployment pay. To go back to that period is like going back into the Middle Ages. Young people now will hardly believe what the conditions were at that time. We should not be arguing for £2 a week merely because that was the amount granted in the last war. We should be asking for something more in line with the social outlook and the developments that have taken place since that time, and that is an unanswerable reason for a Select Committee to investigate the matter. Sooner or later either the right hon. Gentleman or some successor will have to give attention to the question of parents' pensions. They cannot go on in this way.
  Sir W. Womersley: The hon. Member never sends me cases.
  Mr. Lawson: No, I never send any. What is the good of sending cases? The right hon. Gentleman repudiates the right to a pension of a person who has lost a son. The son may have been a fine young fellow who was allotting 7s. or 10s. a week. The parent says, "Not only have I lost my son but I have lost what he gave me." How can anyone answer that? The right hon. Gentleman cannot answer it, and neither can Members of the House, and it puts Members in an unfair position to have to face parents in those conditions. The right hon. Gentleman's speech was the best possible answer to the claim for a Select Committee. It is time this question of pensions was overhauled by some of those who know something about it I hope the Government will take note of this, because, if they do not, this question, and the Motion on the Paper, are going to be dealt with, and those of us who do not want to oppose the Government will be compelled to think seriously of our ways unless that Committee is set up.
  Mr. Wakefield: My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser), in his brilliant speech, brought forward many points, and they have been supported by others. The Minister did not deal with them at all. It struck me that he was batting on a very sticky wicket and was slithering all over the place. While we appreciate the sympathy with which he deals with cases,

  1567
  and also the way in which he proposes to rehabilitate disabled men—I am sure the House appreciated all that was said in that respect—the fact remains that many points were raised to which no answer has been given. I hope my right hon. Friend will study the OFFICIAL REPORT and will see how important it is that a Select Committee should be set up at once, without waiting until the war is over. I am going to put to him a kind of case which illustrates the principle which the Select Committee, if set up, ought at once to investigate. It is the case of the man who has completed his service and retired with his Service pension, voluntarily joining up again and being disabled. What is the position when that man is disabled? He has half of either his pension or his disablement docked. Surely that is wrong.
  If a man has earned his pension it ought to be inviolate. If he undertakes a new contract and is disabled when carrying it out he ought to be entitled to the full disablement under that contract. The position of a man who has earned his Service pension is like that of a man in civil life who has done work and earned superannuation. Suppose such a man has an accident and becomes entitled to compensation, surely his late employers would not be able to dock his superannuation because he received compensation for the accident. That is what is happening in the case of disabled ex-service men. I will illustrate my point by an example which is typical of a number of cases in my constituency. It is the case of a man who served in the Worcestershire Regiment for 31½ years. He had the Distinguished Conduct Medal, Mons Star and the General Service and Victory Medals. He retired on pension at the age of 50 in 1935. He had earned his pension if ever a man did. At the outbreak of war that man, with great spirit, volunteers, is medically examined and is found fit. After giving service he is found by a medical board to be unfit and is granted 100 per cent. disablement pension. He is not, however, entitled to get it. He must lose either half of it, or half of his service pension entitlement. He is not allowed to draw both in full although he has earned them. This man was capable before disablement of a good day's hard work and was able to augment his pension by earning £2 10s. a week. This
  1568
  enabled him to keep his family on the standard which they had when he was serving in the Army. He is not able to do that now, for he is not able to follow, any employment. Yet he is not granted the disability pension to which he is entitled.
  That injustice ought to be put right. The right hon. Gentleman might say that there was only a small number of such men. If there is only a small number, financial considerations cannot be taken into account. On the other hand, does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that if there were many cases the injustice would be put right? If there is an injustice, no matter how many cases are involved, it ought to be put right at once. There is a good guide for all of us in the words, "Do unto others as you would be done by." The money, after all, has to come from the pockets of the taxpayers, and I am certain that there is no taxpayer who, faced with a case like this, would not say that the man ought to receive the disablement to which he is entitled, as well as the Service pension which he has earned.
  There-is the case, too, of men who are now completing their term of service. When they finish their contract they are entitled to have their Service pensions inviolate. If they are disabled during this campaign they ought to receive disablement as a separate contract. It ought not to be lumped into one and then part of it docked. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will consider this question among the many others which have been brought to him to-day. The case I have mentioned, together with the many others that have been raised, show that the time for a Select Committee is overdue and that such a Committee ought to be set up at the earliest possible moment.
  Dr. Haden Guest: I agree with the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Wakefield) that the time for a Select Committee is now. If we had heard no other speech but that of the Minister of Pensions, we should have come to the same conclusion. The right hon. Gentleman said that he had not been kicked and cuffed. That was in the earlier part of his speech. Afterwards he was considerably interrupted, and it was entirely his own fault because of the way he handled the Debate, and because of his inconclusiveness and his fumbling of the issues.

  1569
  He did not deal with the House in the commonsense straightforward way desired by hon. Members. He cannot complain of any of the speeches which were made before he spoke. The admirable speech, one of the best speeches ever heard in the House, of the hon. and gallant Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) set a high tone in this Debate, on this very important subject. If the right hon. Gentleman has not been kicked and cuffed, at any rate he will agree that he has been rather prodded. I made a list of some of the matters which require discussion and the further consideration of which ought to be brought before a Select Committee. There are rates of pension, parents' pensions, post-disability marriage and accidents. The question of accidents is not by any means disposed of by what the right hon. Gentleman said. There are, too, the questions which the hon. Member for Swindon brought up and a number of others.
  There is the much wider question which I had intended to bring up of the definition of attributability and non-attributability. The right hon. Gentleman correctly said that I had served on a pensions appeal tribunal after the last war. I held the senior post in that service because I was the medical officer of the Officers' Appeal Tribunal. I say so because I want to underline the fact that it is not necessary to have medical officers of extremely outstanding ability. We want just ordinary people like myself with reasonable experience—with a good experience of men, and it would be an added advantage if they had military experience also. It is not necessary to have outstanding people such as those to whom the right hon. Gentleman referred. From my experience, which was considerable, I think that attributability requires definition. This applies also to the question which the right hon. Gentleman brought up of referring cases to independent medical experts. Cases are referred to experts, but the experts are bound hard and fast by the rules of attributability which have been laid down. Some of the experts to whom the right hon. Gentleman refers these cases are in the Services, and they are bound by the regulations. At the present time those regulations are narrowly construed, and in justice to men and their dependants they ought to be very considerably widened. I go so far as to say
  1570
  that in certain cases where men have been in the Services for a considerable period of years, cases ought to be allowed for pension—or in the case of death for widows' pension—which are not now regarded as "attributable" at all.
  The right hon. Gentleman may remember a case which I brought to his notice some time ago. It concerned a pilot who had been in the Royal Air Force before the outbreak of the present war. He had served in France, was at Dunkirk and in the Middle East, and then was brought back to this country and was acting as an instructor. He was actually acting as an instructor on the day of his death. He came back from a flight, stepped out of his aeroplane, and was taking off his things and chatting with a man at his side when he dropped dead. The diagnosis showed coronary thrombosis—in a man of 31. That man's wife, who was about to have a child, has been denied any pension at all because it was described—quite accurately according to the pension definition—as non-attributable to service. I consider that is the kind of case which ought to be put on the list for consideration, because there, from the human point of view, is a very serious injustice. There are numbers of cases of that kind. It is extremely difficult to draw the line between "attributable" and "non-attributable" and "aggravated" and "not aggravated." It is one of the things which might be brought before the Select Committee and a new definition introduced.
  I must be careful in what I say about tribunals now that Mr. Deputy-Speaker is in the Chair, because Mr. Deputy-Speaker once appeared before me when I was a member of a tribunal and I turned down his case. Therefore I must be very careful lest I should be ruled out of Order. But there is one point on which we may congratulate the Minister, at least with a certain amount of reserve. He announced that he had obtained a list from a body which he described as the British Medical Council. I do not know what that body is. I suppose he meant the Central Medical War Committee, the body which supplies lists of medical men required for various services. He said it had taken him at least six weeks to get the list, and that it would be some time before it could be sorted out. Of course there was every reason for being very

  1571
  careful and getting men of good general experience, generalists rather than specialists. If a specialist is required for a particular case he can always be called in, but a good generalist is the man to have as adviser of the Board, as he is the doctor who will look at the whole man, not look at just one aspect or part of his anatomy and give on opinion on what is his speciality.
  I hope that we shall get tribunals appointed at an early date. The slowness of action of the right hon. Gentleman in regard to pensions appeal tribunals has been something phenomenal even in his Department, and I would remind the House that if, in six weeks, he has got a list of medical men suitable for appointment to pensions appeal tribunals he might as well have got it six months or a year ago. Every delay of a day, or a week, or a month makes the award of pensions to men who have not been given them very much more difficult. I would bring to the attention of the House a technical point, but a very important one. The basis on which pensions are awarded in the case of discharge from the Service is a man's medical record. The medical records of a large prooprtion of all the men who served in France at the time of Dunkirk—I am referring to base hospital records—a considerable number of the records of the men who served in Greece and Crete, some of those who served in Libya and a large proportion of those who served in Hong-Kong and Singapore have been lost, and it is, therefore, almost certain that a considerable proportion of those cases will have to come up for review.
  Then there are cases in which inaccurate or inadequate information was put down when the men were first enlisted or incorporated in some unit. The right hon. Gentleman will, perhaps, tell us that that was the fault of the doctors. It is not always the fault of the doctors. I know of a case, which occurred when I was acting as D.D.M.S. of a doctor who, in the course of 24 hours, had to examine something like 1,000 men. You cannot do it. An order came that those men had to be embarked and "medical movements" had to be gone through in order that it could be said that something had been done. Obviously a considerable number of mistakes would be made. Then we
  1572
  have doctors examining soldiers at medical boards who are civilians with no military experience at all. That creates another difficulty: of course it gets less as time goes on and the experience of civilian medical practitioners grows, but considerable difficulties arise from it. Then there is the case, not referred to in this Debate or in the last Debate, of the large numbers of women now in the Services. In the beginning, when they were taken into the Services they were not completely examined at all, from false motives of delicacy. That is perfectly ridiculous, but it is the fact. That will produce a considerable number of cases which will require to be dealt with by pensions appeal tribunals if, as is certain, claims arise.
  I, therefore, very much hope that the right hon. Gentleman will come down to the House very shortly and tells us that he has received a list of medical men from the Central War Committee and not that he is considering appointments but has actually made appointments and that the tribunals have been set up. It will need legislation of a special kind, no doubt modelled on the legislation passed in the last war. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will soon be in a position to bring that legislation forward, and I hope that he will, at the same time, take the opportunity of announcing that there are so many questions of doubt and difficulty in connection with his Department and that his heart is so overflowing with human compassion and desire to aid ex-Servicemen, that he has decided to refer them all to a Select Committee in order to be quite certain that justice shall be done.
  Sir Smedley Crooke: I welcome this opportunity of taking part in the Debate, because it gives a chance of putting the British Legion's point of view. I believe that the British Legion is generally acknowledged to be the outstanding organisation which has, since its establishment by the late Field-Marshal Earl Haig, looked after the needs of ex-Service men and their dependants. During the whole of that time it has done whatever has been possible in a legitimate way to see that the sacrifices of serving men were recognised by the State, and that those men got a square deal. I believe that the country is at the back of the British Legion in its advocacy of the rights of ex-Service men and their dependants. One has only to look at the enormous amount of money subscribed on

  1573
  British Legion Poppy Day to realise that the country has every confidence in the British Legion's administration of the funds which are given. I have been a Member of the National Executive Council for 20 years, and during all that time I have served on the Headquarters Pensions Committee, so I hope I may claim to speak for the Legion.
  A few weeks ago hon. Members received a circular letter from the British Legion. It was signed by the National President, the National Chairman and the National Vice-Chairman, the latter of whom is the chairman of the Headquarters Pensions Committee. In that letter, four points were set out which were called the Legion's short-term pensions policy. Hon. Members were told in the letter that it was necessary to urge the Government to agree to those four points, and those points are practically covered by the fording of the Motion which appears on the Order Paper. The first point is the need for establishing independent appeal tribunals. The second point referred to the rates of pensions and allowances. The third point concerned the need for a widow's pension in the case where the disability pension was issued before the marriage. The fourth point was that concerning alternative pensions. I am sure that the Minister of Pensions has the reasons for urging those points constantly in his mind and that they will be within the recollection of hon Members. I therefore need not labour them as a whole.
  Let me say a few words about the need for setting up independent appeal tribunals. Hon. Members will recollect that when the first Royal Warrant was brought into this House it had a bad reception, so much so that the Minister of Pensions agreed to set up a central Advisory Committee to go through the terms of the Warrant and help him to re-examine the matter. That Committee was set up and was composed of representatives of all parties in this House, representatives of the British Legion and representatives of war pension committees throughout the country. The committee held many meetings over a very long period, and during that time very useful concessions were made by the Ministry on the suggestion of the Committee and also as put up by the officials of the British Legion. At the last meeting of the committee the need was stressed for setting up appeal tribunals. It was asked why a start should not be
  1574
  made with a few of them. It was then that the Minister of Pensions made what I regarded as a very helpful and sporting offer. I say, "helpful," and "sporting" advisedly. He sometimes has to take a few bumps, so he should not be denied a bouquet occasionally when he deserves one. The suggestion he made at that meeting was that the Committee might set up a small Sub-committee, and he would arrange for the Sub-committee to come into the Pensions Department and see precisely what the right hon. Gentleman had done towards trying to get a sufficient number of qualified doctors for appeal tribunals. The Sub-committee would have access to all the files and correspondence, and they would thus know exactly what the Minister knew, about the possibility of manning the tribunals. I call that a very courageous offer. That is how the matter stands, and we are waiting now for the report which they are to make.
  At this time of the year all over the country the various areas of the Legion have their annual conferences. In all those conferences resolutions have been passed urging the National Executive Council of the Legion to press the Government to take up the four points of pension policy. I am sure that legioners all over the country are waiting anxiously of this Debate. They know that the Minister of Pensions is the first ordinary member of a British Legion, Branch to be placed in the position of His Majesty's Minister of Pensions. They know he has a warm regard for the British Legion, and they rely on his impartiality. They are very hopeful of the results of this Debate.
  Mr. Collindridge: While I deplore very much the necessity for discussions of the kind that we have had, I derive satisfaction from the idea that Members in all parts of the House desire some change in the treatment of our ex-Service men and their dependants. We have had a speech from the Minister concerned, and while I think there was a great deal of sentimental sympathy in it, I am afraid that it will not convey to the nation as a whole that any beneficial or radical changes are being made in pensions administration. As priority No. 1, I would put the desire of the general community that ex-Service men and their dependants should have better treatment than they have had. In the brief time

  1575
  which is at my disposal I would like to crystallise the many grievances which the general community have against the Ministry of Pensions.
  First, there is concern that so many people should fail to receive the pension. People are also troubled about the delay in receiving pensions when that pension has ultimately been awarded, and people are certainly troubled about the inadequacy of pensions. I deal in my Division, as no doubt many hon. Members do, with many pension cases, and it occurs to me that unless the individual ex-Service man has some visible sign of disability he is in some difficulty in being able to sustain his right to a pension. In this war, perhaps even more than in the last, the number of cases which are now described as psychoneurosis or anxiety-neurosis are very often in sore difficulty. If the Parliamentary Secretary is to reply, I would ask him now how many cases covered by the term "psychoneurosis" are accepted for payment of pensions. I know that a great many will be receiving treatment and allowances while that treatment is going on, but I want to know how many get pensions. I do not know whether my Division is typical, but I have nearly a score of cases of anxiety-neurosis where no pension at all has been received by those affected. All kinds of investigations take place, not only into the history of the individuals, but into their parents' past, and whether there has been any tendency to this complaint. As a consequence, I would claim that in these cases there is need for a more generous outlook. I have in my Division a couple of cases of very young men who were enlisted at 19 years of age, who went through Dunkirk, and had the experience of going to Norway and coming back, and in a period of nearly three years in war service contracted diabetes. In neither case will the Ministry agree that there was any tendency, even if they had this trouble before, to its being aggravated by the war service. I would like the Minister's consideration of that.
  I want to put in a plea, very briefly, in support of those who have sponsored the idea that we should have more generous treatment to the mothers of our men who lose their lives in the country's service. It may be argued by the Minister that even when these men have got to
  1576
  the adult age and enter the Forces and lose their lives there is not a loss of a particular amount in that home in the sense of finance. I am troubled very much about that. I have recently had to deal with a case with the Department. Here was a working man, working manually very hard, and devoting at very great sacrifice a good portion of his meagre wages towards the education of his boy. This boy succeeded in getting to college and then went straight away before earning a penny of advantage to his home, into the Forces and got killed. The contention on the part of the Minister is that there was no contribution being made by that boy and that therefore that house is not suffering. I do not know what the Minister finds in his constituency, but in mine there is a wholesale feeling that the sacrifice was big enough for this boy's parents in all conscience, and that the nation which would ultimately have had his services had he lived should surely therefore pay a contribution from the Pensions Ministry to his parents.
  I go a step further. In working-class homes where young men go straight from elementary schools into industry, and when military service comes along they go into the Forces. Surely we all of us, from whatever class we come, are aware of the fact that the standards of households would naturally improve with the advent of wage-earning on the part of these sons. Whether it was suggested that it was rather a bad relic of a bad past to make this grant, which was made in the last war, or not I do not know, but I contend that there is a need for consideration in cases of that description. We are still quite a considerable distance from the slogan which has been mentioned once or twice to-day, "Fit for service, fit for pension." Surely we should approve that, but if, after a very keen medical examination, we accept our people into the Forces, and they fall by the wayside from any cause whatever, then the State should give some consideration for pension. It may be said that they had the genesis of their trouble before service, but if we accept a man who was a fit man and if service then breaks him down, we ought, shorn of the aggravation part of it, to see, as that the State as good employers of men put into this hazardous job of fighting the country's battles, that such people should have every consideration given to them. I will not traverse the ground further, because

  1577
  of lack of time, for the need for appeal tribunals, but I should be glad if they could be instituted, because in so many cases the pension destiny of our Service men and their dependants rests upon the idea of one man's examination.
  I want to finish on the note of pension inadequacy. I would like to ask why this best part of our population, these single men soldiers who often volunteer, or who are called into the Services, should be consigned by the State, if health fails or through wounds, they receive pension while they are single but left to a life of celibacy practically, which is virtually what the State has ordained for single working-class men who go into the Army and receive wounds as a consequence of service. In the serving men in all branches of the Forces we have the best of what the nation must hope to depend on in the reconstruction period, and if we are consigning these men, merely because they were single men when they joined the Services, to these inadequate pensions, we are leaving the State as well as the individual sadly disadvantaged.
  May I address this particular point to the Minister? Take the case of a married man in the Services who receives wounds and thereby gets a percentage of pension and an allowance for his children up to a certain age because of the state of life he had when he received his wounds. When a child dies or reaches the age of 16, then the pension ceases. Surely, if yon take that step, as you do—you prepare in short for a changed state of life for the man who received the pension—then we should say to the single man who receives his wounds that we anticipate he will live the customary way of life by being married and bringing a family into the world, and we should have him advantaged by some pension in whatever may be his state of life later on. I strongly support the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) that we should have regard in the 20 years or so between the two wars, that we have new standards for all of us and so it should be with serving men. It is wrong to say that £2 operated in 1919, and that the figure should now, in 1943, be 37s. 6d., and that the Ministry should walk away with the idea, or at least try to get us to walk away to explain to our folks that the difference in the standard of living is the cause of that. Surely in all conscience this nation has
  1578
  progressed in the standards of life of everybody, even the right hon. Gentleman, and because of that we ask that this section of our community, the Forces, should receive this advantage too. The rate for widows is sadly too low.
  I want to deal with the question of delay. My criticism to the Department is not of individuals there but of the system under which they labour. I quote a matter I have been dealing with in the last week or two. Here was a case of a widow who lost her only son who was living with her at the time of his enlistment. He went into the Forces, and she lost him in North Africa. Why, I have never discovered yet, but the right hon. Gentleman's Department turned down this case for pension, and here was the widow on one bright morning interviewing me in my division. She was short of sustenance except for her 10s. widow's State pension, and it looked like public assistance for her. I intervened and said that until we had approached the right hon. Gentleman's Department she should go to the Assistance Board and not for public assistance. Some wonderful individual there said that her distress was not as a consequence of the war, but later it was decided temporarily to give her support. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman's Department has now considered this lady for pension. Her right ought never to have been in doubt. I would contend because of that unhappy experience, which I am satisfied so many have been subjected to, that there should be as little delay as possible in settling cases. I finish on the plea with which I began. While people may differ as to whether a second front should be here or there, there is no difference at all among the public on the question that our serving men who have fallen by the wayside and their dependants should be better treated than they have been. This more generous treatment would be of advantage to the serving men, it would strengthen the morale of people in industry, and it would help us thereby to shorten the war.
  Mr. Beverley Baxter: In the very few moments which I intend to detain the House, I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions will listen to me, with the belief that what I am saying is entirely friendly and that I am desirous of being helpful. It is a good thing that this Debate has taken place on

  1579
  the Consolidated Fund Bill. The Debate opened with a speech that has been praised very highly. It was a memorable speech. I cannot remember any Member for some years holding the House as my hon. and gallant Friend, by his sincerity, did to-day. But the reply of the right hon. Gentleman, not only to the opening speech but to the speeches that followed, was utterly inadequate. Speaking as a Conservative back bencher, I want to impress upon the Government, that unless in a short time the right hon. Gentleman comes down to the House in a different frame of mind, there will be an all-party revolt of a very serious character against the Government. There might well have been one to-day.
  My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) told a story. Once such facts are revealed on the Floor of this House we cannot permit the existing state of affairs to continue. Some hon. Members may not have been here when the story was told. My hon. and gallant Friend, as head of St. Dunstan's, described how a young man came back from the Middle East, having lost his sight and two hands, and how the young girl who had become engaged to him, with all the natural dreams of a happy life together, was true to him, and was about to marry this maimed young man. But there will be no allowance for her. If she has children there will be no allowance for them. The Minister of Pensions says "No." Had the man married some slut of a woman, who was untrue to him while he was away, and who had wrecked his home, she would have a claim, but this young girl, giving her life to this maimed boy, has none. I believe that the House will not allow that sort of thing to go on. For the sake of the State we should hope that such a mother and such a father would have many children. To what are we condemning them? If they have a baby, it means, with the few pennies we allow, misery and penury. It will be impossible to prevent the darkness which has already come to him, with his lack of sight, extending to her outlook as a wife and mother. The House will not allow that. By no Royal Warrant, by no Minister, shall a maimed man be told, "You shall not marry." If there happens to be some abuses, let us weigh the abuses against the decency and happiness on the other side. The other attitude is like that
  1580
  of the man who says, "I never give anything to a beggar in the street, because you do not know." Better risk it, because it will find its way to people who need it. I do not want to be over-romantic, but it seems to me that that story which the hon. and gallant Member for Lonsdale told, brings this whole issue to the point, that we cannot go on as we are doing now. There must be a change or this House will rise up in revolt.
  I do not want to detain the House any further except on one other point. The basic scale paid to a totally disabled man in the last war was £2. In this war it is 37s. 6d. The argument of the Minister is that that rate was determined after the last war, when the Government could see their capacity to pay, in the light of their full obligations, and that we had better not do anything now, until we are able to see our obligations. He also says that there are other pensions. The pension due to a man who has been totally disabled after having been called up for service, must have precedence over any other pension. To say that before fixing the rates of pension we must wait to see whether the books will balance——
  Sir W. Womersley: I was not referring to the rates of pension. I made it clear that they are according to the cost of living.
  Mr. Baxter: There was a question of a Select Committee. At any rate, I say that the small difference should be made up and that the totally disabled man in this war should draw the same as the totally disabled man of the last war. I am grateful for the courtesy my right hon. Friend has always shown us, but I ask him to treat this matter seriously. We cannot have another Debate like that of to-day. The House really means business. It will not gloat over him if he comes back to put things right, but it will rejoice in him, because the House means to have these things now.
  Mr. Holdsworth: I want to address my remarks, if I may, to the Lord President of the Council. I find that the Minister of Pensions always gives the most earnest attention to cases which have been brought before him, and the utmost sympathy, within the powers at his disposal. What we want is a change from the Cabinet. It has been interesting to me, having been laid aside for some-

  1581
  time, to read the Debates in this House. Sometimes I think emphasis has been put in the wrong place. I believe that, of all social matters, the first charge on the revenue of this country should be adequate, generous compensation for those who have been prepared to lay down their lives in the country's defence.
  There is one point I want to mention, because I have not heard it mentioned yet—I have not been here during the whole of the Debate. I think it abominable that we should talk about giving a smaller amount for a 100 per cent. disablement pension now than we did after the last war. The scale arising from that basic pension, if the man is married, is totally inadequate for him and his family. The point which worries me more than that, is that we sometimes forget the psychological effect upon a man of being turned down on the ground that his disability has not arisen out of war service. The community has to keep that man. If he is disabled and unable to work, are we to say to him, "You shall depend upon charity or the good will of your family"? The community is put to an expense in any event, but it makes all the difference, psychologically, to the man and his family if he is given a pension as a right. That is why people feel the grievance. I have dealt with several of these cases of men who loathe the idea of having to go to the Assistance Board, but who feel that they could stand up and face the world if they were given a pension as a right. I say to the Lord President of the Council, because I am told he is responsible in the Cabinet for these matters, that I really wish the Cabinet would adopt, not merely a new orientation, but a new outlook upon this particular subject. They should give over arguing, on miserable differences, about whether a man is entitled because of certain reservations or not. Let the men feel that he has the right.
  I hope that the Minister will not agree to the setting-up of a Select Committee. I was on a Select Committee appointed by this House more than 11 years ago, and not a single recommendation of that Committee has been implemented so far. That is the best way in the world to shelve a question. The Minister and the Cabinet know the feeling on the question of pensions not only in this House but throughout the country. They have the
  1582
  information; no Select Committee could obtain more. Of all the social requirements needed at the present time, surely, this House will give priority to the men who, for our sakes and the sake of the country, are prepared to lay down their lives.
  I have had some tragic cases brought to me in which a mother has been turned down for pension because she could not prove that she had been dependent upon her boy. The Minister had the privilege of being born in Bradford, and he knows that in that city, as in all cities in this country, there are thousands of widows who go out and do a bit of cleaning or take in washing, in order that a lad can serve an apprenticeship. Up to the age of 21 the boy's wages are small, but it is true to say that, although he had not been contributing to the home, his mother was looking forward to the day when, as they say, he would "get out of his time," would draw the proper wage for his job, and would be able to give her some little recompense for all the sacrifices she had made. It may be that, in theory, such a lad is not contributing to the home, but in practice, when he is taken, the mother, after having made all the sacrifices and having had no opportunity to put anything by, is in a tragic position if anything happens to the lad.
  Away with this red tape, this purely legal way of looking at things. I am certain that the Minister as well as the House wants to do so, but there is somebody somewhere keeping him back, and that is why I appealed at the outset to the Lord President of the Council. The Cabinet could not spend time better than in giving a few hours immediately to trying to rectify this position. The Empire could never have lasted if these lads had not gone. Our world could not have existed, and freedom and everything else we prize would have been lost if it had not been for the sacrifices of these lads. What can we do for them? Cannot we cut out the niggardliness and cut away the red tape? I suggest to the Lord President of the Council that, even to-morrow morning, they might begin to face the facts.
  Mr. Mathers: On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Before the Parliamentary Secretary replies, I would like to say that when the Minister was speaking I ventured to put a point to him. In reply he challenged me, in order to have

  1583
  his Advisory Committee look into the point I was raising—that of the bad position of widows—to produce the cases he had asked for, as a justification for putting the matter before the Advisory Committee.
  Mr. Buchanan: Where is the point of Order?
  Mr. Mathers: I did not challenge the point at the time, but I have refreshed my memory.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): It is not a point of Order, but a question of personal explanation.
  Mr. Mathers: I have the text of the Minister's speech before me. It does not make the qualification that cases must be furnished. Does that provide me with the opportunity of asking that the promise be implemented?
  Mr. Buchanan: Is an hon. Gentleman on the Front Opposition Bench entitled to get up and make a personal explanation, and would it be in order for me or any other hon. Member to intervene in the same way?
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions (Mr. Paling): Perhaps it would be convenient if I replied to one or two points that have been raised since my right hon. Friend sat down. The first speaker after the speech of my right hon. Friend was my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson), who spoke with passion about one topic upon which I know he feels very deeply, namely, parents' pensions. I was rather sorry to hear him say, "What is the use of sending cases to the Ministry?" I hope that he will not take that attitude. It is true that if he sends them, he may not be successful in getting a pension in all cases, but all cases are looked into most carefully and sympathetically. If anything can be done, it will be done. In any event, if a pension cannot be granted, it is possible in a good many cases to say that, if the parents should fall upon less fortunate days, they have established their right to a pension and can make their application again.
  The hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Wakefield) brought up a particular case and asked for information about it. He said he hoped the Minister would look at the OFFICIAL REPORT and read it very
  1584
  carefully. Well, I can promise him that my right hon. Friend always does; we in the Department very carefully note what has been said in any of these Debates.
  Mr. MacLaren: The hon. Gentleman did not think so when he was over here.
  Mr. Paling: The hon. Member also brought up the case of a man already on a Service pension who joined up, and was totally disabled, and he asked why such a man could not draw both pensions. I cannot go into the merits of the case to-day, but the rule is that he can have the whole of one pension, plus one half of the other, whichever is the more beneficial.
  Mr. Buchanan: Who invented this formula?
  Mr. Paling: My hon. Friend the Member for North Islington (Dr. Haden Guest) raised the question of tribunals and said he hoped they would soon be in operation. I hope so too. The Subcommittee which has been inquiring into this question lost no time; they met and asked that certain steps should be taken, in order to see if we could get the doctors. A list has been prepared and is being examined at the present time, and I hope that soon we shall be successful in finding the doctors and putting the tribunals into operation. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley (Mr. Collindridge) asked how many cases of neurosis have been accepted for pension. The answer is 2,500. He also asked what percentage of the whole is represented by this figure. I am sorry I cannot give him that information, but perhaps he may know that we are most anxious that they shall be treated in the best possible manner. We are doing everything we can to give treatment to these unfortunate people as early and as fully as possible. I am glad to say that in a great number of cases treatment has been successful and that men have been able to go back to their normal life, perfectly cured.
  Mr. McGovern: Can my hon. Friend give the number of cases which have been refused pension?
  Mr. Paling: My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley also brought up that question of parents' pensions and pensions for those who were married after being

  1585
  wounded. I do not think I can add any more to what the Minister has said already to-day, about these matters.
  Mr. McGovern: At least a Tory would have answered me.
  Mr. Paling: My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) raised the question of a widow who has been receiving a War Service Grant, The husband is killed, she continues to receive allowances for 13 weeks, then the allowance is stopped and she goes on to pension rates, with the result that the War Service Grant is also stopped. This question was also raised by others, and when it was last raised my right hon. Friend promised that he would put this matter to the Central Advisory Committee for their consideration. I am sorry to say that the Advisory Committee have not met up to the present time, but it is intended that the first time they do meet this shall be one of the questions on the agenda.
  Mr. Bellenger: I am glad to hear that the Minister of Pensions has decided to submit this matter to his Central Advisory Committee, but I am very sorry to hear that he has not called the Committee together, because they cannot meet until he does so.
  Mr. Paling: My right hon. Friend promised to put it to the Advisory Committee, which is called when occasion demands and when there is an agenda. I can promise my hon. Friend that when the Committee meet this question will have their full consideration. As my hon. Friend knows, War Service Grants are given for the purpose of relieving the hardship of wives and dependants of serving soldiers. On the question of whether this principle shall be extended after the serving soldier's death and the woman gets on to pension, this establishes a new set of circumstances. I have tried to answer as many as I can of the points which have been put in the Debate, and I promise hon. Members that all the points which have been raised will be duly noted from the OFFICIAL REPORT.

  ARMY OFFICER'S LETTER TO PRESS
  Mr. A. Bevan: I rise to bring to the attention of the House the subject matter of a Question which was put by me to the Prime Minister last
  1586
  Tuesday and to which the right hon. Gentleman gave a reply. May I be allowed to make a personal explanation to the House of the events leading up to that Question? I think I am entitled to do so, because I believe hon. Members will agree that in the answer which the right hon. Gentleman gave he did create an atmosphere of personal prejudice. The right hon. Gentleman said:
  "This Question should normally have been addressed to the Secretary of State for War but since the hon. Member, no doubt from those motives of delicacy in personal matters which are characteristic of him, has preferred to put it to me, I will answer it myself."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th March, 1943; col. 1033, Vol. 387.]
  My answer to that is this: I had to put the Question to the right hon. Gentleman in his capacity as Minister of Defence, because it is not the Secretary of the State for War who is primarily involved in this question of the status of Members in all the Services. You obviously cannot have a different area of freedom in the Army from what you have in the Navy and the Air Force and, therefore, it would have been perfectly improper for me to have put this Question to the Secretary of State for War, having regard to its wide implications. I did try to put this Question as a Private Notice Question which, had it been allowed, would have been answered by somebody speaking on the Prime Minister's behalf when he was not here and, therefore, I should have been exempted from any charge of seeking to cause personal embarrassment. Furthermore, I took the added precaution of sending a personal letter to the Prime Minister which, I understand, through some misadventure, he did not receive, so I shall not refer to it any more. I only say that, in those circumstances, I ought to have been exempted from the tartness of the right hon. Gentleman's reply.
  But when we come to the gravamen of the position, which will much more concern the House and the country than the right hon. Gentleman's relations with me, I think it ought to be made quite clear at the outset that we are not here discussing the status of a Member of Parliament. That is not involved. A Member of Parliament already has two important Privileges. He can decide that his service to this House takes precedence over a call to the Armed Forces; so he can decide not to serve. Or he can decide, having served, that at any time the atten-

  1587
  tion of the House ought to take precedence over whatever he may be doing in the Services. He has those two Privileges at the outset. But what a Member of the House has not got the right to do, in my understanding of the position, is to behave when he is an officer as though he is a Member of Parliament, and to behave when a Member, of Parliament as though he is an officer. He cannot enjoy both Privileges in each position; he can choose the one or the other. I am quite certain that hon. Members in this House who are in the Services at the present time would indeed like to be exempted from that position, because it would be extremely delicate for them in their relationship with their superior officer if in each instance of any disagreement they exerted their status as a Member of Parliament. The discipline of the Services could not be maintained if a Member of Parliament in the Services insisted upon his Member of Parliament's rights. He has his rights, and his rights are to come here to express his views if he wants to express them, but they are not, it seems to me, to use his position as a member of the Services to exert leverage not obtainable to anybody else. So I think we ought to dismiss at the outset the notion that may exist in certain quarters that we are here discussing the Privileges of Members of Parliament in His Majesty's Services. We are discussing a matter of much wider implication.
  We ought to dismiss a further question, if I may be allowed to say so. It has been suggested that there is disagreement between the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for War over the status of Members in the Services in this matter. I do not think there is any such disagreement. I think that a reading of the OFFICIAL REPORT will show that last June, as the Prime Minister said, the Secretary of State for War was perfectly clear about the position, that members of the Armed Forces are perfectly entitled to write to the Press and express opinions on all matters not immediately connected with military considerations, which is precisely, I think, what the Prime Minister said in his reply last week. So there is no conflict between the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for War, whatever conflict may arise between the Secretary of State and the Army Council in subsequent exchanges. But, unfortunately, the condi-
  1588
  tion of affairs described by the two right hon. Gentlemen as the status of members of the Services is not the actual status which they enjoy. There is all the difference in the world between what they say are the rights of a soldier and the rights a soldier is actually accorded, and I would like to know, therefore, on what occasion has the Army Council taken steps to inform serving men of their rights in this matter? I can give illustration after illustration where commanding officers have refused to pass letters to the newspapers written by men in their command. Indeed, not only that, but Members of the House have been prevented from expressing, or at least asked by officers not to express, opinions when they are not actually in the House itself.
  Mr. Molson: Only on military matters. I have had some experience of this when serving in the Army. No objection was taken to my writing letters to "The Times" on political matters. The only time I got into trouble was when I referred to something connected with the Army.
  Mr. Bevan: I am afraid the hon. Member's experience is not the universal one, because there has been interference. Furthermore, I want to strip this question of the rights of hon. Members, because it is a fact—and hon. Members are in a position to know it to be a fact—that it is the general opinion in the Forces at the present time that they are not permitted to engage in political controversy in the Press. Indeed, commanding officers in all the Services act on that assumption Therefore, the freedom which the Government declare that members of the Forces have got they do not actually enjoy. I want to know, as my first question, if steps have not already been taken, what steps are going to be taken to inform members of the Services that they are free to act in this way, because there is quite a number of my friends who would like to write if they were permitted to do so, and quite a number of members of the Services who are now hiding their identity furtively under noms de plume who would like to sign their names to articles in the Press.
  Commander Locker-Lampson: Would anybody pay for them?
  Mr. Bevan: That is a silly question. There are very many eminent journalists

  1589
  who are in the Services and whose services some day we may be very anxious to enjoy. The point I am striving to make is this—and I think the whole House should be seized of it—that it would be a very bad thing indeed if it went out to the Forces that certain members of the Armed Forces can enjoy privileges that are denied to others. Therefore, I hope as a result of this Debate—and I am happy to be the occasion for it—there will be sent out to the Services generally information telling them they are free to take advantage of this new immunity. If that is not to be done, we shall have to probe the matter still further. There is another aspect of this matter which is much more important. If we start off on the assumption that members of the Services are entitled to write to the Press in this way and that that is to be enjoyed by every rank in the Services, still that, does not make the action of the officer in question a proper one. He is engaged in a very important theatre of war. He wrote a letter to the "Evening Standard" which I have no doubt hon. Members in all parts of the House have read.
  I would be entitled to make a comment on the views expressed in that letter, but in view of the time I shall not do so. I will merely confine myself to the propriety of the officer writing that letter at all, Some of my hon. Friends and I, a little while ago, asked for a Debate on the North African situation. I pressed for it on several occasions. We were gravely disturbed by the establishment of Admiral Darlan in North Africa. We could not have the Debate in public. We had it in secret. We have had no public Debate on that matter in the House. Indeed, the Prime Minister, on his return from Casablanca, implored the House not to discuss the matter at all. He said:
  "I make an appeal to the House, the Press and the country, that they will, I trust, be very careful not to criticise this arrangement."—
  He was referring to the tripartite arrangement in North Africa of General Giraud, General Eisenhower, and ourselves—
  "If they do so, I trust they will not do it on personal lines, or to run one general against another to the detriment of the smooth and harmonious relations which now prevail among this band of brothers who have got their teeth into the job."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th February, 1943; col. 148, Vol. 386.]
  Members responded to the Prime Minister's appeal. We have had no Debate on
  1590
  the matter at all. Furthermore, the Prime Minister and President Roosevelt have made the political dispositions of North Africa in military questions. We said it was undesirable for a general to commit us to a political policy. Nevertheless, the whole House submitted to what were regarded as the military exigencies of the North African situation, so that the setting-up of Admiral Darlan, the appointments of General Giraud and M. Peyrouton all were decisions taken by General Eisenhower as Commander-in-Chief having regard to what he considered the military circumstances of the situation. It is precisely upon the wisdom of what General Eisenhower has done that this officer comments in his letter. An officer's right to commend the policy of his Commander-in-Chief involves the right to criticise it also if he wishes. I have friends in North Africa serving with the Eighth Army, men very dear to me, sharing the same point of view that I do, who would like to have the right to write to the British Press and disagree with General Eisenhower. Here, therefore, we have the officer in question not merely not submitting himself to the discretion that the rest of the Services impose upon themselves, but taking advantage of his situation to write to an important London newspaper expressing views upon the behaviour of his own Commander-in-Chief and attacking General de Gaulle and his friends in London and doing precisely what the Prime Minister asked us not to do.
  I am deeply distressed that the Prime Minister is personally involved in this matter. He must believe me when I say that and must not imagine that I have yet yielded to the political cynicism which has obviously overtaken him. It is undesirable that we should have these personal complications, but they are there, and they have their implications. Only Members of this House, having regard to the fact that we discussed this matter in secret, can now tell how far the terms of that letter agree with what the Prime Minister told the House of Commons in private Session. I can carry it no further, but the Prime Minister must realise that there will be a good deal of speculation. It is all the more undesirable that the officer, having special Privileges, should have seized this moment to express views calculated to set people who ought to be co-operating, at each other's throats.

  1591
  I do not want to carry the matter any further than that. I hope I have expressed it with restraint.
  I want to sit down upon this note. Messages are broadcast every night asking that Frenchmen should resist Germans now occupying their country and asking that they should sabotage and resist being called up and sent into Germany. It is painful in the extreme that an officer serving in North Africa, who is a Member of this House, should take this opportunity to tell the world that, if those who respond to our appeals are shot, we shall understand and sympathise with those French officials who shoot them.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): The hon. Member has mentioned that he wrote me a letter on 11th March, and he was good enough, after some conversation later on with an hon. Friend who helps me with my work here, to send me a copy of the letter. I only received the copy the day before yesterday, and he only sent me the copy, because the actual letter never reached me at all. I have a very efficient staff which deals with my correspondence, but no trace of the receipt of this letter can be found. The hon. Member, therefore, did not read the letter to the House as he was good enough to tell me he intended.
  Mr. Bevan: On the contrary. In view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman had acquainted me with the fact that he had not received the letter, I accepted his explanation and that is the reason I have not read it.
  The Prime Minister: Last week the hon. Member sent me notice that he was going to read the letter, but, having heard that it was not received, he did not intend to read it.
  Mr. Bevan: Out of courtesy.
  The Prime Minister: The letter was in no way relevant to the particular small point which led to some of our discussions. It offered no explanation why he did not address his Private Notice Question on 11th March to the Secretary of State for War, whom it concerned. Now he has explained that the reason he did not read it is because it had to be addressed to me in my capacity of Minister of Defence presiding over the three Services. But
  1592
  that was not the reason he gave when he rang up my private secretary on the afternoon of 10th March. He rang up to give notice that he was going to put the Question by private notice, and he gave the text of the Question. It was taken down by one of my secretaries, and a note was made of the conversation, and he was immediately told that such a Question ought to be addressed to the Secretary of State for War. What was the reason he gave? Was it that the Minister of Defence must deal with these matters? Not at all. He said it concerned the Prime Minister's son. That is a small point, but I think it justifies me in considering that there has been a certain personal flavour in the zest with which the hon. Member has brought this thing forward.
  Mr. Bevan: It is now perfectly clear that it is no use giving the Prime Minister any personal courtesy at all. I telephoned to his secretary before Mr. Speaker's decision had been given not to accept it as a private notice Question in order to give him the earliest opportunity. Why should I accept the dictation of his secretaries? Am I the servant of the Prime Minister's secretaries?
  The Prime Minister: The only point of interest is that the hon. Gentleman has given a different reason for not putting the Question to the Secretary of State for War from the reason he gave to one whom I regard as a highly credible witness. There was no reason why the Question should not have been put in the ordinary course to my right hon. Friend, who would have dealt with it. I do not want to dwell unduly upon the personal aspect of the Question.
  Mr. Sloan: The right hon. Gentleman has dwelt unduly on it.
  The Prime Minister: The word "unduly" is arguable, but I wonder whether, if this letter in the "Evening Standard" had been written by any other hon. Member of the House, it would have attracted the energetic attention of the hon. Member who raised this matter. There are, of course, elements on both sides of the Atlantic who indulge in this form of badinage. The President of the United States presents a much larger target than I do, as he has no fewer than four sons serving, whereas I have only one. When

  1593
  points are raised it is no use having all the points raised by one side and then to be told that one is dwelling unduly on those points when they are answered. I therefore leave the personal aspect while expressing all my acknowledgments to the hon. Member for his unfailing courtesy.
  Further inquiries have been made into this matter, which has gained a great deal of publicity. It now appears that the hon. and gallant Member for Preston (Captain R. Churchill), being separated from his unit, asked the Assistant Director of Public Relations, who was in Algiers, to act as unit censor, to pass the letter, and to frank it with a stamp. It is in accordance with the normal practice for the holders of unit censor stamps to act for officers not belonging to their units when circumstances demand it. The Assistant Director of Public Relations acted in this case.
  Mr. Evelyn Walkden: Will my right hon. Friend allow me——
  The Prime Minister: I think I might be allowed to proceed to unfold this matter. It is a small matter, but if the hon. Member regards it as important, I will gladly give way when I have finished my sentence. The Assistant Director of Public Relations acted in this case, and he passed the letter, censored it and stamped it. The War Office considered that he exercised his discretion rightly, having regard to the contents of the document.
  Mr. Walkden: Is it not true that those who hold censorship stamps usually accept the signature of the officer on the outside of the envelope and fix the censorship stamp right away without questioning what the contents of the letter may be?
  The Prime Minister: I do not know whether that is true, but it ought not to be true if it is. In this case the letter was shown in an open way to the Assistant Director of Public Relations and was passed by him after he had examined it.
  Mr. Walkden: Having had considerable experience in the Post Office during the last war, I am asking on a basic principle whether the officer in question who stamped the letter read what it contained?
  The Prime Minister: That is what I have been trying to say with as much plainness as the English language allows.
  1594
  That is my point. It is a new point and a different point from that which I was in a position to make on the information available last time. The letter was franked and censored by an officer entitled to take that step. Consequently, as far as the hon. and gallant Member for Preston is concerned, there is no case against him for having committed any irregularity.
  Now the question is raised whether he ought to write a letter of this kind, even though it had been passed by the censor. The text of the letter has now been read by a good many Members, and the House can form its own opinion. Whether it is a letter with which we all agree is another matter. I always claim the right to speak for myself, but I in no way inspired the letter. I have no need to do so. The hon. and gallant Member for Preston took his own line just as much as any other Member of the House That it is a perfectly proper letter to have been written, I do not think anyone who read it could possibly doubt. So far as information in the War Office goes, there is no rule in North Africa, where the supreme command is American, such as that referred to the other day by the hon. Member for East Fulham (Mr. Astor) which has obtained in the Middle East and which requires articles of a non-Service nature for the Press to be specially submitted to G.H.Q. To my mind, therefore, the only question open is whether letters for publication in the Press on non-Service matters should in all cases be subject to a rule of this kind. On this point the Secretary of State is consulting the authorities on the spot in North Africa. He has not pressed for an immediate answer to his inquiries, for the simple reason that at the present moment they are fully occupied in more urgent engagements.
  A somewhat larger issue has been raised in the course of these colloquies by a reference which I made in my answer of 16th March to an answer given by the Secretary of State for War to a Question by the hon. Member for North Lambeth (Mr. G. Strauss) on 16th June, 1942. Upon consideration it is clear that this reply might well have been fuller. It in fact consisted of a negative answer to a Question which happened to be a non-oral Question and therefore rather slipped through. The Question was whether there was any Army Regulation which prevented a soldier exercising his citizen's

  1595
  rights of writing to the Press on other than Army matters. The Secretary of State for War answered "No, Sir." On consideration, it is clear that the reply might well have been fuller. With a dozen or 15 Questions it is possible that the thing slipped through. I am bound to say, on reflection, that I do not think the matter could be left quite where it is. It was desirable that attention should have been specifically directed to the other well-known rule in paragraph 541a of King's Regulations, which forbids the publication by a serving officer or soldier of "literature in furtherance of the political purposes of any political organisation or party." No inconvenience has arisen in practice, however, from the answer of the Secretary of State on 16th June. In the first place, it attracted very little public notice, having been circulated with the Votes in the non-oral Questions. In the second place, the customary good sense of officers and other ranks of the Army has ensured that there could be no abuse of the latitude apparently open to them.
  Mr. Bevan: Except in North Africa.
  The Prime Minister: I think anyone who follows my argument will see that I should not think that was true. As I have said, the House can judge. The letter was a proper one, and there is no doubt it passed through channels which vouched for it, and what is the use of the hon. Member interrupting by saying "Except in North Africa"?
  Mr. Bevan: Is therefore the nature of the letter which was passed in North Africa as being a perfectly proper one to be written to serve as a model for other officers now considering similar letters?
  The Prime Minister: There is no reason at all why such a letter should not have been written by an officer serving in this country to "The Times" or to the "Observer" or any other newspaper, and if it were passed by the censor in North Africa, the North African aspect goes. I am on the larger aspect, and I had not intended to be drawn back on to this smaller point, which has such a strange fascination for the hon. Member. But certainly the answer of the Secretary of State on 16th June, 1942, does require restatement in such a way as to show the full implications both of Articles 541 and
  1596
  547 upon the writing of communications to the Press by Service personnel on controversial matters. It would certainly be very detrimental to the conduct of the war if we had a general diversion of the energies of the Army from the sword to the pen, and since this discussion has had such very wide publicity it is very likely that a number of officers and men will be encouraged to utilise the opportunity. Therefore, we must make a restatement of the rule upon this point in such a way as to show the full force of Articles 541 and 547. The Admiralty rules in this matter are somewhat stricter than those of the Army, and it is for consideration whether the Army and the Air Force practice should be brought into closer conformity with that prevailing in the Navy. So much I am saying for the ordinary serving officer or soldier, here or anywhere else, but the position of Members of Parliament as representatives of the electors is quite different from that of other serving officers and soldiers. Articles 541 and 547 clearly cannot be applied in their full rigour. Members have their political responsibilities and have an undoubted right to take part in political and party controversy. That is the whole nature of their function. The House has hitherto shown itself desirous that such rights should be fully maintained. We have seen in many of our Debates serving Members taking the freest part not only in political Debates but in the military aspects of affairs, including—and this, I think, is the most questionable case of all—giving information which they have derived from the unit in which they have been serving, and no great harm has come from it. The only remedy which the War Office has against Members of Parliament exercising their political functions apart from matters affecting military security is to suggest to them that they should devote their whole attention to their military duties. Hitherto, after 42 months of war, this has never yet been found necessary in the Army. It shows, I think, how very well the system has worked as far as Members of Parliament are concerned, in spite of some obvious anomalies and the obvious difficulty of reconciling the two functions of a serving officer and a Member of this House. It has worked in this way because of the good sense and discretion of those concerned, and in view of this I cannot believe that the House would

  1597
  wish any new or special restriction to be placed upon the discretion of Members of Parliament who are at the same time serving officers.
  Colonel Sandeman Allen: May I thank the Prime Minister for clarifying the situation? I should like to say that, as a serving Member of this House, I have always felt that my name should be Agag, and that anything I learned through the Army, unless I learned it also from other sources, I should not bring to the House, because that would not be playing the game. The one thing we serving officers feel so strongly is that we should be allowed to serve our country in the Army and at the same time that we should not be deprived of our privileges as Members of Parliament, but we should in nowise abuse them. I think officers have tried on the whole to act on those lines, and I trust there will be nothing to alter those lines on which we have carried on in the past.
  Mr. Driberg: Can we still take it, in spite of the modifications which the Prime Minister has just announced of what he said last week, that serving officers and men can still write for the Press without censorship on all matters other than military or "literature in furtherance of the purposes of any political organisation or party"?
  The Prime Minister: That is so until and unless any further statement is made as to the tightening-up of these rules, which may be necessary if an agitation is going to be started or efforts are made to break through them. One had hoped the good sense which has hitherto prevailed would continue.
  Mr. Bevan: As all Members of the Services have been watching this matter closely in the last few days—[HON. MEMBERS: "Who says they have?"] Of course they have. Do hon. Members think the Services are run by morons? In view of the fact that this has happened, will the right hon. Gentleman provide some procedure by which the suggested modification is brought to the attention of the House before it is promulgated? No? So he is running away from last week?
  The Prime Minister: Really, I do not know why I should be accused of running
  1598
  away, and of all the people to run away from the hon. Member is one of the last. So far from trying to run away from him, I should feel inclined to wait till Monday or wait till Tuesday.
  Miss Rathbone: I do not mean to say a word about the question of the disputed letter, but only to say very bluntly a thing which I think needs saying. Nobody who has watched the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) and his evolutions in this House can doubt that he entertains a malicious and virulent dislike of the Prime Minister. Last week showed what I thought most of us must have thought to be an example of bad taste. He selected as an occasion for doing something which would embarrass and perhaps pain the Prime Minister the very first time at which he was able to attend the House after a long illness, following upon a long and dangerous journey undertaken in the interests of the nation. The Prime Minister needs no defence from me. History will judge and will be able to say what we owe to him. But there is just one thing: I do not think we ought to part on an occasion like this without someone saying, and perhaps I may say it because I am so completely outside this issue, and not a member of the Prime Minister's party, and that is with what disgust and almost loathing we watch this kind of temperament, these cattish displays of feline malice.
  Mr. Gallacher: I want to ask the Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that the "Daily Worker" has a cartoonist who deals with Service matters, he will except cartoonists from any tightening-up?
  Question, "That the Bill be now read the Third time," put, and agreed to.
  Bill read the Third time, and passed.
  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.

  SOAPMAKING (NUCLEUS FACTORIES)
  SOAPMAKING (NUCLEUS FACTORIES)
PUBLIC HEALTH
  Tuberculosis (Statistics)
  Tuberculosis (Statistics)
  Soldiers' Dependants (Medical Treatment)
  Soldiers' Dependants (Medical Treatment)
  WOMEN'S LAND ARMY (HOSTEL, HALESWORTH)
  WOMEN'S LAND ARMY (HOSTEL, HALESWORTH)
  DISABLED PERSONS (REHABILITATION)
  DISABLED PERSONS (REHABILITATION)
  SKILLED OCCUPATIONS (APPRENTICESHIP)
  SKILLED OCCUPATIONS (APPRENTICESHIP)
ARMED FORCES
  Call-up (Industries)
  Call-up (Industries)
  Personnel (Letters to Press)
  Personnel (Letters to Press)
  Civil Service (Post-War Entry)
  Civil Service (Post-War Entry)
  Railway Junctions (Accommodation)
  Railway Junctions (Accommodation)
  Education Service (Post-War Entry)
  Education Service (Post-War Entry)
  TORPEDOED SEAMEN (LEAVE)
  TORPEDOED SEAMEN (LEAVE)
  MIDDLE EAST (NON-ESSENTIAL IMPORTS)
  MIDDLE EAST (NON-ESSENTIAL IMPORTS)
FUEL AND POWER
  Coal (Quality)
  Coal (Quality)
  Volunteer Car Pools (Petrol Allowances)
  Volunteer Car Pools (Petrol Allowances)
BRITISH ARMY
  Chaplains (Pay)
  Chaplains (Pay)
  Warning Notices (Welsh Language)
  Warning Notices (Welsh Language)
  Officers, Middle East (Promotion)
  Officers, Middle East (Promotion)
  Eighth and First Armies (Colonial Allowance)
  Eighth and First Armies (Colonial Allowance)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Income Tax (Scientists' Expenses)
  Income Tax (Scientists' Expenses)
  Bank of England Notes
  Bank of England Notes
  ADMIRALTY ESTABLISHMENTS, LONDONDERRY (EMPLOYMENT)
  ADMIRALTY ESTABLISHMENTS, LONDONDERRY (EMPLOYMENT)
Preamble
The House met, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
ANGLO-TURKISH FRIENDSHIP.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SIMON): My Lords, I have to inform your Lordships' House that I have received a cable from the President of the National Assembly of Turkey, sent on the occasion of the recent declaration of policy made before the Assembly by Mr. Sarajoglu, the Turkish Prime Minister, in which the latter emphasized and re-affirmed the attachment of Turkey to Anglo-Turkish friendship. The message refers with appreciation to recent statements in this House confirming our friendly relations with Turkey and expresses, in felicitous and moving terms, the support of the Turkish National Assembly for the policy of Anglo-Turkish friendship. Your Lordships will perhaps authorize me to send to the President of the Turkish National Assembly a suitable message in reply.

AGRICULTURE (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Duke of Norfolk.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF ONSLOW in the Chair.]
Clause 1 to 3 agreed to.
Clause 4:
Extension of powers as to drainage schemes.
(11) Where the landlord of an agricultural holding has become liable to pay any sum in respect of the holding, either to a catchment hoard under subsection (4) of the said Section fourteen as so amended, or to any other drainage board under the corresponding provision of the said section as so set out, or to the Minister under the Third Schedule of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1941, as applied by Section six of that Act, the following provisions shall have effect, that is to say:—
This subsection shall not apply in any case where the arbitration has made an award, or an agreement has been made between the landlord and tenant, before the passing of this Act under subsection (6) of the said Section fourteen as so amended, or under the corresponding provision of the said section as so set out, or under subsection (2) of the said Section six, as the case may be, but save as aforesaid shall apply, in substitution for the said provisions, in all cases where any such sum has become payable by the landlord of an agricultural holding whether before or after the passing of this Act.
LORD PHILLIMORE LORD PHILLIMORE moved, at the end of subsection (11), to insert:
"Provided that the landlord may, if he so elect, recover from the tenant of the holding or any assignee or successor of the tenant the cost of the works attributable to the neglect of the tenant, in lieu of interest thereon."
The noble Lord said: The point with which this Amendment is concerned is somewhat difficult and obscure and I want to acknowledge in the first place that the Minister of Agriculture in another place and the noble Duke in this House have gone some way to meet the point at issue. If I may I will briefly describe the situation with which this Amendment deals. Under a previous Agriculture Act it was provided that an area could be formed and treated as an area for drainage purposes, in which case what is called in the Bill "a scheme … under Section 14 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous War Provisions) Act, 1940," would apply. The effect of Section 14 was from one point of view somewhat disastrous to landowners, who already have a sufficiently heavy burden to bear and who have had no lightening of that burden since this war began.
In effect, a Section 14 scheme means that the cleansing of water courses included in the scheme would fall upon the landowner—it is true with the benefit of a fifty per cent. contribution from the State. It would, in the great majority of cases, have been the duty of the tenant or occupying owner to keep these water courses clear. The ordinary farm tenancy agreement provides that a tenant shall maintain in order the water courses on his farm. Under the Section 14 procedure the water courses have to be cleared out and the expense falls on the landowner. It may be that the landowner has for many years past appeared to connive at the neglect of the water courses by his tenants. There are instances well known up and down the country where a given

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water course has not been cleaned out for perhaps thirty or even forty years. The great accumulation of that work makes it extremely expensive to undertake now and its does not seem altogether fair that the expense should in the first instance fall on the landowner. This situation has been partly met by the concession that, where the tenant and landlord agree, the sum which the landowner will have to disburse should carry interest as against the tenant and that that interest should be amalgamated with the rent. In other words, the suggestion is that Farmer X, having neglected his ditches for thirty years, shall now, if he has got to have the ditches cleaned out, pay for them being cleaned out only by plying interest on the outlay.
As those of your Lordships who live in the country will appreciate, it does not follow in the least that a particular farmer will continue in his tenancy for another thirty years. In fact the expectation is that he will only continue a very few years having had already a long farming life. Therefore the provision for the farmer to pay interest on the landowner's outlay, although advantageous at the moment, tends to have very little interest a few years hence. My Amendment, therefore, suggests that it be at the land owners option to enforce his tenancy agreement as against the tenant, in which case he would recover the whole of the outlay, or, alternatively, only charge interest on the outgoing. The matter has already been discussed in another place and there has been considerable misapprehension, I am afraid, as to the wording of the clause. That I will leave to the noble Duke to explain. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 42, at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Phillimore.)
TEE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE DUKE OF NORFOLK): I fully appreciate the point which the noble Lord has made in moving this Amendment. My right honourable friend has in effect already amended the clause. The clause as it stands does not in any way affect any agreement which may be made between a tenant and a landowner. It is hoped that, in these days, when a tenant is in the position to pay the costs of these
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schemes, these friendly agreements will be made. In that case this Amendment would not be necessary. If there should be an exception, and a bad tenant does take a different view, then the landowner is safeguarded by this clause as it stands, for in such a case he will be able to get interest on his outlay. It is because we hope that these agreements will, as I say, be made in a friendly way between tenant and landlord, that we trust that the noble Lord will not press his Amendment. If this Amendment were adopted further amendment of Clause 10 would be involved.
LORD PHILLIMORE: As the noble Duke has pointed out, my Amendment does, or would, involve further amendment to Clause 10. In the circumstances, and in view of the statement by the noble Duke, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6:
Acquisition of land for drainage works.
(2) Nothing in this section shall authorize the acquisition of any land which is, or forms part of, a metropolitan common within the meaning of the Metropolitan Commons Act, 1866, or which is subject, or might be made subject, to regulation, under an order or scheme made in pursuance of the. Inclosure Acts, 1845 to 1882, or under any local Act or otherwise, or which is or forms part of any town or village green, or of any area dedicated or appropriated as a public park, garden or pleasure ground, or for use for the purpose of public recreation, or of any land the fee simple absolute in possession of which belongs to, and is held inalienably by, the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty incorporated by the National Trust Act, 1907, whether subject to any tenancy or not.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL THE EARL OF LISTOWEL moved, in subsection (2), after "recreation," to insert "or of any land which is Green Belt land within the meaning of that expression as defined in the Green Belt (London and Home Counties) Act, 1938." The noble Earl said: Since I tabled this Amendment on behalf of the L.C.C. negotiations have taken place between the Ministry and the Council, and those negotiations have resulted in an undertaking which satisfies the requirements of the Council. With

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your Lordships' permission I will read what I think is the material passage in this undertaking:
"Obviously before using this power there would be the fullest consultation with the authorities concerned; and I should expect that on the very few occasions on which the Minister may himself wish to do drainage work in the Green Belt, it will be possible in practically all cases to reach a satisfactory settlement with the authorities concerned."
I think that this implies that the power which the Minister is seeking will be used rarely, if ever, and that it the Minister wishes to use it he will take the local authorities into consultation. In taking them into consultation, he will use every effort to reach amicable agreement before resorting to compulsion. I think that a good deal of credit is due to Lord Latham for the success of his diplomatic venture, and also to the Ministry for their evident willingness to meet the desire of the County Council to protect its Green Belt from any possible encroachment. I beg formally to move my Amendment in order to give any noble Lord, who wishes to do so, an opportunity to speak on it, but I shall not press it.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 24, after ("recreation") insert the said words.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
EARL MANVERS: I feel rather like a fish out of water in rising to support my natural enemies the Earl of Listowel and Lord Latham, in pressing any course on the Government. But I, too, am a member of the London County Council, and I cannot help thinking that in this matter the view of the County Council is reasonable. Those noble Lords who own land, which has not yet been taken from them by Lord Justice Scott, Mr. Justice Uthwatt or the famous Sir William Beveridge, will perhaps regard the whole Green Belt idea as somewhat of a Cockney conception of bliss. The vision of the weary town-dweller, his eyes sated with the sight of bricks and mortar, enjoying a prospect of green fields, flowing streams, and standing corn, will perhaps be regarded without enthusiasm. You will reflect that corn does not always stand, that farmyards have a tendency to breed rats, that dung heaps engender flies, and that agriculture within the confines of a large city is not an unmixed blessing.
But that is not the point to-day. That position has long ago been abandoned.
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Parliament in its wisdom has passed the Green Belt Act of 1938, and I am not aware that the execution of drainage work on the Green Belt will improve the position as regards flies or rats. Your Lordships will remember the old rhyme:
"The law is hard on man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common,
But lets the greater felon loose
Who steals the common from the goose."
We thought we were in the presence of an attempt by the noble Duke to steal the Green Belt from the London County Council, but now that we have his assurance—if we have his assurance—that that is not so, we shall all be quite satisfied.
THE DUKE OF NORFOLK: I fully appreciate the noble Earl's view and also the fact that the statement which he read will result quite definitely in any negotiations which may be contemplated being discussed freely with the County Council. But I would like to emphasize that it is no object of the Ministry to try and purchase any of the land in any shape or form in the Green Belt unless, in connexion with some large drainage scheme, it was vitally necessary to have a certain drain passed through a certain part of that land. In order to do that it would be necessary to come to some agreement or otherwise to purchase that small strip of land in order that the large drainage scheme should not be held up. However, such a thing is so unlikely to happen that I hope the noble Earl will stand by the arrangements which have been reached.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I am extremely grateful to the noble Duke and to the noble Earl, Lord Manvers, for what they have said, and I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clauses 7 to 9 agreed to.
Clause 10:
Amendment of provisions relating to dams and sluices.
Provided that an owner from whom any sum is so recoverable may, by notice in writing served on the board within the said three months, elect to pay the said sum together with the interest thereon from the said date by such number of equal annual instalments, not exceeding five, as may be specified in the notice, so however that—

(a) the first instalment shall be payable within one year from the said date; and

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(b) the rate of interest shall, in default of agreement between the owner and the board, be fixed by the Minister.

(3) Where the landlord of an agricultural holding has become liable to pay any sum under the last foregoing subsection in respect of the repair or maintenance of a dam, the following provisions shall have effect, that is to say:
(a) if the landlord and tenant agree, or in default of such agreement the landlord proves to the satisfaction of an arbitrator appointed under the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1923, that any of the works in respect of which the sum is payable were rendered necessary by the neglect of the tenant to comply with any obligation relating to the maintenance or repair of the dam imposed on him by virtue of the contract of tenancy, the landlord shall be entitled to recover from the tenant or any assignee or successor of the tenant such amount as may be agreed between the landlord and the tenant, or in default of such agreement determined by the said arbitrator, to be such part of the said sum as was attributable to the execution of those works;
THE DUKE OF NORFOLK THE DUKE OF NORFOLK moved, in paragraph (b) of the proviso in subsection (2) to leave out "Minister" and insert "Treasury." The noble Duke said: This is drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 6, leave out ("Minister") and insert ("Treasury")—(The Duke of Norfolk.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE DUKE OF NORFOLK THE DUKE OF NORFOLK had given Notice of two Amendments in subsection (3)—namely, in paragraph (a), after "tenant," where that word occurs for the third time, to insert "interest on," and, after paragraph (a), to insert:
"(b) the interest shall be payable at such rate as may, in default of such agreement, be fixed by the Treasury, And shall be payable as from the date on which the landlord became liable in respect of the said sum, and shall be payable at the same times and be recoverable in the same manner as the rent payable under the tenancy."
The noble Duke said: I would like to take the Amendment respecting line 20 on page 9, together with the Amendment to line 24 as these two things are interrelated. They are intended to bring this clause as regards the recovery of sums from a tenant into line with subsection (11) of Clause 4 of the Bill. Clause 4 (11) enables the landlord who is required to pay a certain sum of money to recover interest thereon from the tenant whose negligence has made it necessary for the landlord to pay the cost of this work. The clause as drafted enables the landlord to recover the cost, but it is thought right
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that the same principle should apply here as applies in Clause 4, and this Amendment therefore enables the landlord to recover interest. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 20, after ("tenant") insert ("interest on").—(The Duke of Norfolk.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE DUKE OF NORFOLK: I beg to move the second Amendment standing in my name, for the insertion of a new paragraph.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 24, at end insert the said Paragraph (b).—(The Duke of Norfolk.)
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: In the proviso to Clause 10 (2) there are these words:
"Provided that an owner from whom any sum is so recoverable may, by notice in writing served on the board within the said three months, elect to pay the said sum together with the interest thereon from the said date by such number of equal annual instalments, not exceeding five, as may be specified in the notice.…"
So far as I can see, under this Amendment the tenant is under no such obligation to refund to the owner the capital outlay. I think that there should also be some time limit within which the tenant has to repay the lump sum expended by the owner, and in the case of the tenant giving notice I think that the lump sum should become payable immediately. There is another point to which I should like to direct the attention of the noble and learned Lord Chancellor. In the case of bankruptcy of the tenant, would the owner have priority as to the repayment of the capital? I do not wish to rush the noble Duke into an answer now, if he does not wish to give it. If he will consider the point between now and the Report stage, I shall be satisfied.
THE DUKE OF NORFOLK: The noble Viscount has put a question to the noble and learned Lord Chancellor as well as to myself. I should therefore like the matter to be dealt with on the Report stage.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: I shall be quite satisfied as long as the noble Duke moves an Amendment to meet the point.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 10, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 11 to 14 agreed to.
Clause 15:
Relief to tenants from liabilities and loss of compensation resulting from directions under Defence Regulations.
15.—(1) Where the occupier of any agricultural land has, in pursuance of directions given under Defence Regulations, ploughed up any land consisting of permanent pasture, and is thereby under any obligation or liability arising by virtue of any contract of tenancy or instrument affecting the land, any custom of the country or any rule of law relating to waste, to sow it again at his own expense or pay any sum by way of increased rent, damages or penalty or suffer any forfeiture by reason of the ploughing up of the land or of the failure to sow it again, the said obligation or liability and any guarantee given with respect thereto shall be extinguished; and for the purposes of any provision of any contract of tenancy or instrument aforesaid, any custom of the country or any provision of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1923, the land shall thereafter be deemed to be arable land and to have been arable land at all material times:
Provided that no tenant of agricultural land shall he entitled to claim an away-going crop, or compensation from the landlord assessed on the basis of an away-going crop, in respect of a greater acreage of land than that which would have been permissible under the contract of tenancy or custom of the country if this subsection had not passed
LORD PHILLIMORE LORD PHILLIMORE moved, in subsection (1), after "extinguished," to insert "save in cases in which obvious and substantial deterioration in its fertility shall have occurred since it ceased to be permanent pasture." The noble Lord said: I rise on behalf of my noble friend Lord Bledisloe to move the Amendment standing in his name. This is an important clause in the Bill and deals primarily with the relief of the tenant from the various covenants and obligations which he undertook and signed against the ploughing-up of pasture. It often seems a little odd, on looking at a tenancy agreement, to find that a man is penalized so much per acre for ploughing up pasture. The truth of the matter is that, in the long history of farming in this country, the only way in which fertility could be conserved to the soil was by the reservation of a certain portion of that soil to pasture. When this Bill was read a second time there was a considerable debate, in which my noble friend Lord Addison played a part, as to the effect on fertility of the ploughing-up of pasture. I want to make the point that although, as was pointed out in that debate, it is quite possible in these days to restore pasture and to restore a better herbage than existed before, it does
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not at all follow that the fertility of the soil has not been diminished by the process of ploughing-up, even though grass is restored subsequently.
This particular clause protects the tenant against the penalties enforcible by the landowner under the agreement. Since this clause as a whole has been accepted, and since the principle has been sacrificed by the landowners, my noble friend, I think quite rightly, seeks to deal with the very worst possible cases, where there really has been an abuse of the land, where the pasture has been broken up and the land cropped excessively, and it is a notorious and easily observable fact that the land has suffered. He therefore wishes to insert a protecting proviso, which I hope that the noble Duke will accept.
Amendment moved—
Page 11, line 36, after ("extinguished") insert ("save in cases in which obvious and substantial deterioration in its fertility shall have occurred since it ceased to be permanent pasture.")—(Lord Phillimore.)
THE DUKE OF NORFOLK: Clause 15 (1) provides that where, in pursuance of directions under the Defence Regulations, for the purpose of maintaining and increasing food production during the national emergency brought about by the war, an occupier of agricultural land has ploughed up permanent pasture, he is relieved of the pains and penalties which would otherwise be imposed upon him. An example of such a case was given by the noble Lord in moving the Amendment. Further, the occupier is relieved of any liability to sow down again at his own expense to permanent pasture, for the reason that, if there has been any diminution in the annual value of the land due to the ploughing up, the landlord will be able to claim compensation at the end of the war. The Amendment would do away with the relief to the occupier where obvious and substantial deterioration in the fertility of the land occurred after it ceased to be permanent pasture; but such deterioration may have been due to the necessity in wartime of the fertility of the land being temporarily drawn upon in order to produce more food. In so far as the tenant has failed to cultivate the land as arable in a proper manner, the landlord will, on the tenant quitting, be able to counter-claim; but, apart from this, there is no justification for penalizing the tenant for what he has been called upon to do in the national

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interest, especially as the position of the landlord is safeguarded, as I have already stated. For that reason, I ask the noble Lord not to press the Amendment.
LORD PHILLIMORE: In view of the noble Duke's statement, and on behalf of my noble friend Lord Bledisloe, I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 15 agreed to.
Clauses 16 and 17 agreed to.
Clause 18 [Amendment of Corn Returns Act, 1882]:
THE DUKE OF NORFOLK THE DUKE OF NORFOLK moved to add to the clause:
"(2) This section shall not come into operation until the first day of May, nineteen hundred and forty-three."
The noble Duke said: This is merely a drafting Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 15, line 43, at end insert the said new subsection.—(The Duke of Norfolk.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 18, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 19 [Application to Scotland]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to insert in paragraph (a) "for any reference to a contract of tenancy there shall be substituted a reference to a lease." The noble and learned Viscount said: On behalf of my noble friend Lord Alness, I beg to move these Amendments standing in his name. Clause 19 deals with the application of this Bill to Scotland. The particular application that is involved in this Amendment is the application of Clause 15, to which I think my noble friend Lord Phillimore made reference just now. Clause 15 was, I think, somewhat changed in the course of the passage of the Bill through the other House, and it is found necessary therefore slightly to vary the expression of the application of the clause to Scotland. The position to be dealt with is that which arises when a tenant towards the end of his lease has, under war Regulations, under the direction of a county agricultural committee, ploughed up permanent pasture and sown it, contrary to his lease or to the custom of the country. The Common Law of Scotland, as I understand, would lay it clown as a principle that, notwithstanding
810
that the tenant's agreement has come to an end, and that the tenant has left the farm before the crop matures, he none the less has a right to go back and himself harvest the crop which he has sown. Scots lawyers have a pleasant habit of putting most of these propositions into the Latin tongue, and I understand it is a commonplace in Scots Courts to say messis semina sequitur, or, perhaps in more biblical English "What a man sows that shall he also reap."
That being the Common Law, it is necessary, therefore, to have an adjustment which is expressed in this Amendment by saying:
"any growing crops sown, as a result of compliance with directions given under Defence Regulations, otherwise than in accordance with the lease or the custom of the country or to an extent exceeding that provided by the lease…"
now this is the variation—
"shall pass to and become the property of the landlord, and the landlord shall pay to the tenant in respect thereof such compensation for the tenant's services and expenses in laying down the crop or, as the case may he, the excess part thereof, as may be determined by arbitration."
That is the natural way of applying Clause 15 in the case of Scotland and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 16, line 24, after ("owner") insert ("for any reference to a contract of tenancy there shall be substituted a reference to a lease").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in paragraph (d) after "Section fifteen shall have effect as if," to insert:

"(i) in subsection (1) the proviso were omitted;

(ii) for subsection (2) the following subsection were substituted—

'(2) Where any directions under Defence Regulations have been given to the tenant of an agricultural holding affecting during the last twelve months of the tenancy the cultivation, management, or use of the holding, the tenant shall on the termination of his tenancy be entitled in respect of any tillages or manuring carried out for the purpose of complying with the directions otherwise than in accordance with the lease or the custom of the country or to an extent exceeding that provided by the lease or custom to such sum by way of compensation as fairly represents the value thereof or, as the case may be, of the excess part thereof to an incoming tenant; and any growing crops sown, as a result of compliance with directions given under Defence Regula-

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tions, otherwise than in accordance with the lease or the custom of the country or to an extent exceeding that provided by the lease or custom shall pass to and become the property of the landlord, and the landlord shall pay to the tenant in respect thereof such compensation for the tenant's services and expenses in laying down the crop or, as the case may be, the excess part thereof, as may be determined by arbitration.'"
The noble Viscount said: This is purely consequential. I am afraid I spoke of the two matters together. This really follows the explanation I have endeavoured to give to the Committee, and it is the same thing.
Amendment moved—
Page 16, line 35, at end insert the said subparagraphs.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The next Amendment is consequential.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 3, leave out from ("Court") to the end of paragraph (d).—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 19, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
First and Second Schedules agreed to.
Third Schedule [Amendments of Corn Returns Act, 1882]:
THE DUKE OF NORFOLK: There is a drafting amendment here.
Amendment moved—
Page 21, line 22, leave out ("if").—(The Duke of Norfolk.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Third Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

WAR DAMAGE (AMENDMENT) BILL.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
EVIDENCE AND POWERS OF ATTORNEY BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

GERMAN ATROCITIES: AID FOR REFUGEES.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY had the following Resolution on the Paper: To move to resolve, That, in
812
view of the massacres and starvation of Jews and others in enemy and enemy-occupied countries, this House desires to assure His Majesty's Government of its fullest support for immediate measures, on the largest and most generous scale compatible with the requirements of military operations and security, for providing help and temporary asylum to persons in danger of massacre who are able to leave enemy and enemy-occupied countries.
The most reverend Primate said: My Lords, I beg leave to move the Resolution standing in my name on the Order Paper. We are confronted, as all your Lordships know, with an evil the magnitude and horror of which it is impossible to describe in words. There has, I suppose, never been so great a manifestation of the power of sheer cruelty and of the determination to wreak upon a helpless people what is not vengeance, for there is no offence, but the satisfaction of a mere delight in power such as is to be witnessed on the continent of Europe at the present time. We are wisely advised not to limit our attention in this connexion to the sufferers of any one race, and we must remember that there are citizens of many countries who are subject to just the same kind of monstrous persecution, and even massacre. None the less, there has been a concentration of this fury against the Jews, and it is inevitable that we should give special attention to what is being carried through, and still further plotted against them.
We know that Hitler near the beginning of the war declared that this war must lead to the extermination of either the Jewish or the German people, and it should not be the Germans. He is now putting that threat into effect, and no doubt we are to a very large extent at present powerless to stop him. We are told that the only real solution is rapid victory. No doubt it is true that if we could win the war in the course of a few weeks we could still deliver multitudes of those who are now doomed to death. But we dare not look for such a result, and we know that what we can do will be but little in comparison with the need. My whole plea on behalf of those for whom I am speaking is that whether what we do be large or little it should at least be all we can do.
I do not think I need try to kindle your Lordships' imaginations afresh with a picture of what is going on, but perhaps it

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is worth while to recall some of the more recent reports that have reached us. Many of us heard the announcement from the B.B.C. a little while ago in the News that a decree has now been published in the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia which has the effect of sentencing all the Jews there to death by starvation. Their ration cards are to be taken from them, and they are forbidden to buy unrationed food. The Nazis have ordered that all Jews must be cleared out of Moravia by the end of next month, and by the same date there must be none in Berlin. The deportation of Jews from Germany is going on at an increasing rate, and most of them die in concentration camps and ghettos.
These reports have just reached the World Jewish Congress regarding Poland:
"In one district alone 6,000 are being killed daily. Before they die they are stripped of their clothes which are gent back to Germany. Not a single Jew is left in the great Ghetto of Warsaw where, before the mass murders began there were 430,000."
We cannot say that all these have certainly been killed. Some may be employed on forced labour behind the Eastern German front, but most of them are probably, by now, dead. Again:
"All the Jews now remaining in Bulgaria are living in daily dread of being sent to Poland, a fear which has been accentuated by the pronouncement of a member of the Commissariat for Jewish Affairs that it was eventually intended to outlaw every Jew in the country."
I have myself lately received this information through the Board of Deputies of British Jews:
"A message has been received from a Jewish member of the National Council of Poland who writes: 'Yesterday I received via Istanbul news from responsible sources about the situation of the Jews in Poland. The news relates to the beginning of February. The informants say—the information comes straight from Poland—that during January a new slaughter of Jews in Warsaw took place. The Jews defended themselves actively; over fifty Germans were killed. After this heroic defence a new slaughter of Jews followed. Over 5,000 were immediately deported. The complete extermination of the ghettos in Poland is going on. In accordance with this information only about one-quarter million Jews remain in Poland.'"
And this comes from Stockholm:
"The Rumanian Government has agreed with the Germans to send 20,000 Jews from Bucharest and 40,000 Jews from other towns to Poland in the spring."
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There is a report—this is probably not quite so reliable—from Zurich as follows:
"Four concentration camps have been set up in Bulgaria for 'unreliable Jews,' according to an announcement in the Bulgarian Parliament by the Minister of the Interior, quoted by the German radio. The 'worst Jews,' the Minister added, 'will probably be sent to ghettos in Poland."
This cable has just been received by the World Jewish Congress in this country:
"During the 26th February and 2nd March, 15,000 Jews of Berlin were detained and in day-time sent away in lorries to camps. S.S. officers, who are the initiators of this detention, have determined to make Berlin free of Jews by the 15th March. Rabbi Bach, the President of the Reichsverband Deutscher Juden, has been deported to Terezin. In January deportations from Holland reached the number of 17,000. The extermination action is reaching its peak."
I am sure there can be no need for me to continue the description of the horror. I believe that part of our difficulty in arousing ourselves and our fellow-countrymen to the degree of indignation that it would seem to merit is the fact that the imagination recoils before it. It is impossible to hold such things at all before the mind. But we are all agreed in this House on the main purpose of this Motion, to offer our utmost support to the Government in all they can do; but with all sympathy for members of His Majesty's Government, I am sure they will forgive some of us who wonder whether quite everything possible has really already been done. We remember the solemn statement of the United Nations made public on December 17, and it is inevitable that we should contrast the solemnity of the words then used, and the reception accorded to them, with the very meagre action that has actually followed. Of course, the difficulties are extremely great. We ought, in any words of criticism that we utter, to have the utmost sympathy for the Government in their task of administration, but we wish to offer our support not merely to show that it may be relied upon—for the Government I am sure know that—but also as a spur to greater rapidity to action if it may be possible. It is the delays in the whole matter while these horrors go on daily that make some of us wonder whether it may not be possible to speed things up a little.
One must admit that some of the arguments hitherto advanced as justifying the comparative inaction seem quite disproportionate to the scale of the evil confronting us. They are real in themselves,

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but they are the kind of thing that many of us feel should really be brushed aside if only we have before our minds the situation with which we are trying to deal. If I may allude to an event which took place before the German occupation of Vichy France, some of us went to see the Home Secretary with reference to the deliverance from France of those Jews destined for deportation to Germany. Obviously the urgency of the problem then was rather less acute than it has become since, and it did seem to many of us at that time it was hardly possible that anyone who had before his mind the facts with which we were dealing, would have thought it appropriate to give as reasons for no further action the kind of facts that were then set before us. We were given, for example, a very full statement of the great part that has been taken by this country and other countries of the British Empire in the relief of refugees and the reception of them into our country. That, of course, would be relevant if the people in the other lands were suffering great discomfort or great privation, but when what you are confronted with is wholesale massacre, it seemed to most of us not only irrelevant, but grotesquely irrelevant.
We come to the question: Is there anything that can in fact be done? We were much encouraged by the promise that was given by His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies on February 3 with regard to the admission of Jews, both children and adults, to Palestine. Your Lordships will remember that he said that Bulgaria has agreed to let go, and Palestine to admit, 4,000 Jewish children and 500 accompanying adults, also that up to 500 children from Hungary and Rumania would be admitted and that the 270 previously arranged for were already on their way. Further admissions to Palestine would take place later up to the permitted maximum of 29,000 available out of the four years immigration quota for Palestine. That was on February 3. On February 24 he was obliged to say that no movement of these persons had yet taken place. That was three weeks later. Once again we know there are great difficulties about shipping and the like, and we quite recognize that some delay is inevitable; but three weeks struck some of us as a long time in which nothing at all should take place, and we
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are most anxious to hear to-day whether anything has taken place since then.
So, first, I would put the plea that action should be taken as promptly as possible to carry out the promise given by the Colonial Secretary. Secondly, I would urge that we should revise the scheme of visas for entry into this country. Surely we might at least agree to admit to this country all those who are able to get here—they would not be very many—who have husbands, wives or sons already here, and especially those who have sons actually serving in our Forces. The probability of their being dangerous or unreliable is so slight that we may surely neglect it. But there have been cases where precisely that kind of applicant has been refused. I have instances here of some of these, as it seems to us, unduly hard cases. A Jewish couple, who escaped into Spain and were interned, have four sons in our Armed Forces, able and anxious to maintain them. Visas were refused them. The case was strongly pressed by the refugee organization concerned. There are several similar cases with one or more sons or brothers in the British Forces. The sons were recently told that they might shortly be sent overseas, and they longed to know that their parents were safe from a possible German invasion of Spain. Again a high official in the French Fighting Forces applied for visas for a Jewish family who had escaped from France into Portugal. Visas were granted for the two sons to join the French Forces but refused for their parents, though the French officials strongly pressed for them.
Again, a Counsellor in the Polish Government applied three months ago for a visa for a Polish Jew in a concentration camp in Spain, and, though the case apparently comes strictly within the regulations for visas, received a discouraging reply. The man is of military age and a qualified doctor of medicine who had previously applied to join the Forces in France. His aged parents and sister in this country were able to guarantee maintenance. Consideration of this was promised, but it is now many weeks since the promise was made and there is still no reply.
One more of the cases from enemy-occupied territory: A Czech Jewess, in hiding in Hungary, has her husband, son and daughter all in England; also a nephew and a friend in an influential

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position in Switzerland. The daughter in England was told by her Swiss friends that the Swiss authorities would give entry if a United Kingdom visa was obtained and notified to the British Consul at Zurich. The whereabouts of the woman in Hungary were known to these friends who believed they could make contact with her if visas for another country were secured. The British visa was refused late in 1942. I have other instances here, but it would perhaps be wearying your Lordships to go on describing them. I do not know what are the grounds given for the refusal in most of these cases, except that they do not fall for the most part within certain categories which have been drawn up to regulate the administration of German refugees. But these categories are not like the categories in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason a necessity of human thought, and it is quite possible to revise them; it would seem to many of us that in face of the evil now confronting us it is most urgently necessary that they should be revised.
But it is very doubtful whether more than a trifle could be done, except the avoidance of causing fearful pain to persons already in very bitter distress, so long as the administration from this country is limited to the handling of individuals. And so we want to suggest the granting of blocks of visas to the Consuls in Spain and Portugal and perhaps in Turkey to be used at their discretion. We know of course that the German Government will not give exit permits. What matters is that we should open our doors irrespective of the question whether the German door is open or shut, so that all who can may come. If nothing results then at least we shall not be to blame. We can trust the discretion of our own agents in these neutral countries to allow only those who could safely be permitted to pass through to our own shores to do so, and it is of the greatest importance to give relief to those neutral countries because there is at present a steady stream, or perhaps more accurately a steady trickle of refugees from France both into Spain and into Switzerland. The numbers that those countries, already suffering a good deal in shortage of food and with their standard of life so far below our own, will be able to receive are of course limited. If we can open the door at the other side and bring away from Spain and Portgual and (if the transport is available but probably
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it would not be) from Switzerland and also from Turkey those who are able to make their escape there, we shall render it far more probable that the channels through which that trickle percolates will not be blocked.
If I understand the matter rightly, the main roads and the railways are closed, but the paths of the hills in the Pyrenees are not; therefore this trickle goes steadily on, the Spanish authorities no doubt knowing of it but not thinking it sufficiently serious, or perhaps not having the desire to check it. Anyhow there it is. We can hardly expect it will last much longer unless we are willing that the door should be open at the other end and that some at least of those who go into the neutral countries and pass through them should come on to our own country, or to the territories of the British Empire or of the Allied Nations so far as they will agree. Then, once more, it is urged, that we should offer help to European neutrals, to encourage them to admit new refugees, in the form of guarantees from the United Nations, to relieve them of a stipulated proportion of refugees after victory, or, if possible, sooner; that we should offer gifts of or facilities for obtaining food, clothing, petrol, navicerts and the like for these neutral countries, and also that we should offer direct financial aid. I should like to ask if information can be given whether any of these States have indicated a willingness to receive more refugees if such help is available. These are some of the practical ways by which we urge that steps should really be taken at least to relieve this situation. It is fully understood that shipping difficulties are very great, but would it be possible perhaps to charter a few ships from neutral countries to act as ferry boats between ports of evacuation and ports of refuge? And could not ships that cross the Atlantic this way with troops, food, munitions and so forth, take back refugees to some ports on the American side within the British Empire or, if the United States would agree, also to their own ports?
There is one point I would raise more tentatively, but it has been responsibly put forward and I think it ought to be seriously considered, though I cannot urge it with the same confidence. It is that through some neutral Power an offer should directly be made to the German Government to receive Jews in territories of the British Empire and, so far as they

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agree, of the other Allied Nations on a scheme of so many each month. Very likely it would be refused, and then Hitler's guilt would stand out all the more evidently. If the offer were accepted there would of course be difficulties enough, but it would be the business of the Germans to overcome these so far as concerns the conveyance of the refugees to the ports, and efforts could be made to secure help from Sweden and other neutral countries for shipping from the ports. It would not relieve the German Government of any feeding problem, for Hitler is scarcely feeding the Jews now. It would do next to nothing in the way of benefiting him. Some of us have wondered how far the possibility has been considered of receiving any considerable number, particularly of children, in Eire and whether the Government of Eire have been consulted about this. I wish to repeat that I do not urge this proposal of a direct offer to the German Government with at all the same confidence I had in putting forward the other propositions. I can see general grounds on which it might be undesirable, and these must be very carefully watched, but I do think that it deserves very careful consideration and should not be turned down merely on the ground that we will have nothing to do with these barbarians.
It is said that there is danger of an Anti-Semitic feeling in this country. No doubt that feeling exists in some degree, and no doubt it could very easily be fanned into flame, but I am quite sure it exists at present only in comparatively small patches. It is very vocal when it exists at all, and therefore it receives a degree of attention beyond what it deserves. But if the Government were to decide that it was wise and practicable to put in action any of the proposals that I have laid before your Lordships, it would be very easy for the Government, by skilful use of the wireless, to win the sympathy and confidence of the people for their proposals, especially if a large number of those who were brought out were children and were being delivered from almost certain death. Then there is the question whether it would too seriously affect the feeding of our own people. I can only say that we are being at this time so wonderfully fed that we could well go without a little of our present convenience in that matter, and I believe the
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people would be most ready to do it if they knew it was required to free these people not from discomfort, not from any of the ordinary forms of persecution, but from massacre and the threat of it hanging over them during the few more weeks they might live.
The whole matter is so big and other claims are so urgent that we want further to make the proposition that there shall be appointed someone of high standing for whom this should be a primary responsibility. If we speak with impatience of what has been done or has not been done it is not, as I have tried already to show, from any lack of sympathy with the Government in the immense complexity of the tasks that they are carrying through, but just because of that complexity it seems to us more than can reasonably be asked of human beings that they should alongside of other responsibilities also undertake this on our behalf. For this reason I suggest appointing someone who should have real authority in the matter and should feel responsibility for this matter alone. So it is urged that there should be appointed someone of high standing, either within the Government or, if not that, from the Civil Service, to make it his first concern, and if the United Nations are ready to act together they should appoint a High Commissioner or else instruct the High Commissioner for Refugees, already active under the League of Nations, who has at present only limited authority in relation to the Jews for whom we are seeking relief at present.
My chief protest is against procrastination of any kind. It was three months ago that the solemn declaration of the United Nations was made and now we are confronted with a proposal for an exploratory Conference at Ottawa. That sounds as if it involves much more delay. It took five weeks from December 17 for our Government to approach the United States, and then six weeks for the Government of the United States to reply, and when they did reply they suggested a meeting of representatives of the Government for preliminary exploration. The Jews are being slaughtered at the rate of tens of thousands a day on many days, but there is a proposal for a preliminary exploration to be made with a view to referring the whole matter after

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that to the Inter-Governmental Committee on Refugees. My Lords, let us at least urge that when that Conference meets it should meet not only for exploration but for decision. We know that what we can do is small compared with the magnitude of the problem, but we cannot rest so long as there is any sense among us that we are not doing all that might be done. We have discussed the matter on the footing that we are not responsible for this great evil, that the burden lies on others, but it is always true that the obligations of decent men are decided for them by contingencies which they did not themselves create and very largely by the action of wicked men. The priest and the Levite in the parable were not in the least responsible for the traveller's wounds as he lay there by the roadside and no doubt they had many other pressing things to attend to, but they stand as the picture of those who are condemned for neglecting the opportunity of showing mercy. We at this moment have upon us a tremendous responsibility. We stand at the bar of history, of humanity and of God. I beg leave to move.
Moved to resolve, That, in view of the massacres and starvation of Jews and others in enemy and enemy-occupied countries, this House desires to assure His Majesty's Government of its fullest sup-port for immediate measures, on the Largest and most generous scale compatible with the requirements of military operations and security, for providing help and temporary asylum to persons in danger of massacre who are able to leave enemy and enemy-occupied countries.—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, on behalf of those with whom I am associated I should like to give our sincere support to the moving and eloquent speech to which we have just listened. I do not propose in view of the large number of speakers to detain you for more than a few minutes. It is unnecessary and would be almost impertinent, in view of the recital to which we have just listened, to say anything to remind ourselves again of the magnitude of this horror and of the determination with which it is ruthlessly pursued. It is true that we feel almost hopeless in facing the situation, but I cannot help feeling that regarding some of the very practical suggestions the most reverend Primate has made there lies a
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degree of inaction which is not deliberate but which is just consequential upon the fact that the Ministers concerned have so many other things to do. One has heard of a good many cases similar to those mentioned by the most reverend Primate in which, for reasons which in face of the magnitude of the horror seem trifling, people have been refused entry to this country. I cannot but think that in this great matter there are deeper considerations. This is a big national and indeed world responsibility. Upon us depend these poor people so far as they can be got out, and it is disconcerting to hear of the long delays that have occurred in the different stages of dealing—so far exceedingly ineffectively—with what we can do.
I would like to reinforce pleas which have been put forward. The first is that His Majesty's Government should use their utmost efforts promptly to secure the appointment of a body of persons authorized to act in this matter on behalf of the United Nations, so far as they can possibly get agreement to that end. I feel that while we blame ourselves—quite rightly perhaps—for what we cannot do, it is a responsibility which rests upon the United Nations, and somehow, when one has heard of the difficulties that have been presented about the admission of this person or this body of persons to this country, or of the smallness of the contribution that has been received, or can be received, into Palestine, one cannot help looking at the map sometimes and thinking that there must be lots of big places, other than those, in the wide world to which some of these poor people can be directed. I do not like to mention territories or places. It would be for those concerned to negotiate with those affected, but there are two or three or more areas in the world, which are present in one's mind all the time, to which these poor refugees might be directed, and where they might be assisted.
It calls for united effort, and I hope that the noble Viscount will be able to tell us that amongst other matters which the Foreign Secretary has had in his mind, while in Washington, this has been included. It will only be, I am sure, by an effective lead culminating in the appointment of a person or a body of persons authorized to act and get on with the job that we shall ever redeem our self-respect in this matter. After all, with regard to these people, so far as they can be liber-

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ated, we shall be shamed in history if it can truly be said hereafter that there was no room for them in the world of the nations who are now fighting for freedom.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, I feel some diffidence, on personal grounds, in intervening in this debate, and, indeed, I had intended to refrain from doing so. But my noble friends on these Benches, in the absence, through illness, of the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, have pressed me to speak on their behalf and to express the feelings, the strong feelings, of horror and indignation which they entertain regarding the events which have occurred, and their full support of the Motion which the most reverend Primate has brought before the House. I would, in the first place, thank the most reverend Primate for his intervention and for his speech. It is not surprising that he should have thought it incumbent upon him as the head of the Church of England, the greatest religious organization in this country, to express those feelings of horror and sympathy, and that will for action which must fill the mind of every man of religious faith.
Your Lordships will remember that when the declaration of the United Nations was made on December 17 last, it created a profound impression both in this House and in the House of Commons. That declaration exposed to the world terrible facts, it denounced the crimes, it held up the perpetrators to the scorn and anger of contemporaries and to the stern censure of history. But the only positive action that it proposed was retribution—penalties and punishments for the perpetrators. And at that moment nothing more could have been expected, for it was not possible to improvise a broad positive policy and to ensure the assent to it, in a few days, of many Governments with varied ideas and varied interests. For my own part, I confess that I feel no special interest in this question of penalties and punishments. I am very much more concerned with the problems of relief and rescue. The declaration of the United Nations was made on December 17. To-day is March 23, and so far as is publicly known, nothing has happened except discussion, conferences and exchanges of Notes. We are glad to learn that measures are afoot for securing close co-operation between this
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country and the United States. But there seems to be a great danger that action is liable to be lost in the sands of diplomatic negotiations, and, as the most reverend Primate has said, all that is now proposed by the Government of the United States, after long delay, is that there should be a preliminary exploration of ways and means, this, to be undertaken informally, not as a precedent to immediate action, but as a preliminary to the reference of the whole matter to an Inter-Governmental Committee.
While Governments prepare memoranda and exchange Notes and hold conferences, week after week and month after month, the Nazis go on killing men, women and children. We speak in statistics. I hold in my hand a letter which I have received from an elderly Czech lady, unknown to me, a resident of this country, which may help us to translate these statistics into terms of human life. She wrote to me quite recently and this is what she said:
"I am a woman nearing the sixties, a naturalized subject of Great Britain, and I have lived here for a considerable number of years. My nearest relatives lived in Czechoslovakia and in Vienna. My brother, when nearing seventy-four years of age and still very ill after an operation, was deported with his wife from Czechoslovakia. Both had had a very distinguished position in the town of their residence. Within three weeks after deportation he was dead, and his wife died a few days after. Their nephew had been murdered in a concentration camp in Germany. Relatives of very long residence in Czechoslovakia were deported; nothing is known of others. Various cousins were deported in 1942 from Prague, Vienna, etc. The greatest blow came when I knew that in October my three sisters, together with cousins and their daughters, were deported; the eldest sister, a woman of seventy-four, dragged from her bed; she was partly paralysed; the others nearing seventy and sixty-four respectively, both frail although doing useful work to the last …. The protests, whilst so impressive, do not seem to have stopped the murders at all. The, threats of retribution on murderers and their gangs seem quite inadequate."
What action is to be taken to deal with events such as these?
The most reverend Primate has made a number of quite definite suggestions. I support them all. I do not propose to take up time by repeating the suggestions and commenting upon each in turn. They constitute a programme of definite, practical action, which could well be put into effect with no delay whatever. I should like

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to mention, however, just two of these proposals. One relates to Palestine. I was "here a year ago, and found the country alive with activity, agricultural and industrial, the various industries lending to the British war effort and to the British authorities, military and civil, invaluable help. The difficulty with which the country was faced was a shortage of labour. Since the Hitler persecution began, ten years ago, some 80,000 Jewish refugees have come from Central Europe and have found a home and occupation and a livelihood in Palestine. If political conditions allowed, a very much larger number could be absorbed at the present time, without detriment to the Arab population, and indeed with great advantage to the Arab population. Just as the immigration of Jews into Palestine since the last war has resulted in an equal increase in the number of Arabs in Palestine, and in a most remarkable rise in their standards of comfort and of culture, so such a fresh influx would add to the permanent prosperity of the country as a whole.
The other point to which I should like to refer is the assistance which might be given to those who succeed in escaping from this persecution. We have asked our Allies, the Dominions, the Colonies, and the neutrals, or we are proposing to ask them, what they can do. After all, there still remain Spain, Portugal, Sweden Switzerland and Turkey, as islands of freedom in a submerged and enslaved Europe, and across their frontiers there may infiltrate a certain number of refugees from these atrocities. But, not unnaturally, when we approach them they will reply to the British Government: "What are you doing yourselves?" That is the second point to which I wish to direct the attention of your Lordships. The numbers concerned, as the most reverend Primate has said, must inevitably be small; few can escape. Questions of transport, we know, are very difficult. So small is the number that it seems monstrous to refer to difficulties of food-supply, in this country of nearly 50,000,000 people, or to difficulties of employment, when we know that here also there is a shortage of labour. That there may be a danger of enemy agents mixing with these refugees and coming to this country is possible, but they could be sent, in any case of possible doubt, to the camps in the Isle of Man until the facts can be fully ascertained.
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There is still in this country, however, a rigid refusal to grant visas for any persons who are still in enemy-occupied territory. I have had two or three cases sent to me of people who are well vouched for and of unexceptionable reputation, who are well known in their own countries, and who could be enabled by their friends to escape to Sweden, to Spain or to Switzerland if only it were known that they would afterwards be allowed to proceed to this country or to America, but in whose cases in each instance visas have been definitely refused, on the grounds of the general principle that that is the policy of His Majesty's Government. It is said that it would be of no assistance if those visas were granted. I am convinced that that is not so, and all who are best informed in regard to these matters also believe that that is not so. If this rule could be relaxed, some hundreds, and possibly a few thousands, might be enabled to escape from this holocaust. Those who have been in touch with this matter even more closely than I have tell me that the Home Secretary is very obdurate. The noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, will be able to tell us whether any relaxation of any kind whatsoever has been made, or is contemplated, in the very rigid rule with regard to admission to this country. To maintain a rule unyieldingly when circumstances have changed in an important particular is not a sign of strength in a Government or in a Minister; it is often an act of weakness, the weakness of fearing to appear weak.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT CRANBORNE): I did not quite catch in what respect the situation has changed.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: The situation has changed as a result of these terrible events in Europe. It is not merely a question of enabling people to come to this country to improve their position, or to relieve themselves from disabilities. It is a question of people who are fleeing from murder, who are fleeing from men who have swords and torches in their hands, and who are killing and burning. When they come to your door, are you to slam the door in their faces? That is what I mean when I say that the situation has changed, and that is why I say that the Government should modify their rule. The Government say, of course, that public opinion in this country must be considered; they

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say that there is floating about in this country a certain amount of Anti-Semitic prejudice, and that to make any change might crystallize it and stir it up into formidable opposition. Possibly that might be so if it were a question of a hundred thousand or a million refugees, but in any case it would not be more than a few thousands at the most who would succeed in making their way here.
However, let me be frank. I know quite well that what is in the mind of many people in this country is an Anti-Jewish prejudice largely due to Black Market offences. It is not surprising that that feeling should be rife in many quarters. I have felt deeply concerned myself on account of the reports of cases which I have read in the Press. I have ascertained, however, that these reports are not typical of the real situation. When the offender is, as sometimes happens, a person with a foreign name, and especially with a Jewish name, the Press is very likely to report the matter somewhat fully. I had my attention drawn to an important trade journal, circulating throughout the country, in a trade in which a certain amount of Jewish enterprise is engaged, and in which is given week by week a report of these cases. In the week ending January 30, there were forty-two prosecutions in such cases by the Board of Trade, and in nine of them Jewish people were concerned. This paper reported three cases, two of which were Jewish. In the week ending February 20 there were thirty-four cases, of which six were Jewish; four cases were reported, all of them Jewish; none of the other twenty-eight was mentioned. I do not suggest that that is characteristic of the whole of the Press; the great news papers are undiscriminating and impartial; but the fact is that the reports in the Press do not indicate the true situation, and that while it is true that in some instances in which there are a very large number of Jewish traders the number of Jewish cases is considerable, on the whole there is probably no reason to think that the number of offenders in the Jewish community is statistically larger than that in the nation as a whole. We do not know precisely what the facts are, but at all events the indications are in that direction.
And there is a public opinion on the other side, of which there are many expressions—a public opinion which recognizes the value of many of those refugees
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who have come here, scholars and scientists, some of them men the most illustrious of our time, who have been welcomed at our universities and have enriched their intellectual wealth, and who have strengthened every branch of our cultural life. On the economic side, just as in previous centuries the Flemings and the Huguenots brought to this country industries of the utmost value to this country, so in these days many of these refugees from Germany and Austria have brought here new trades previously unknown which before the war, when the needs of employment were acute, gave employment to British working people to a far greater number than the number of the refugees themselves. And of course the Jewish community in this country bears its full share of the war effort, both at home and abroad. I may be pardoned for mentioning that in the last war this tiny fraction of the population gained no fewer than six Victoria Crosses, and the other awards for gallantry were in proportion to their numbers. Let me remind your Lordships of the famous words of Macaulay:
"Let us not presume to say that there is no genius among the countrymen of Isaiah, no heroism among the descendants of the Maccabees."
THE DUKE OF MONTROSE: My Lords, as one recently appointed to be Lord High Commissioner of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland I have been asked to attend this debate and to offer support as fully as we can to the most reverend Primate who made such an eloquent speech to-day. I do this willingly, and not only so but I will go further and say that in the few words I shall utter to-day I shall speak for all the members of the Free Churches in Scotland. In a previous debate I made a passing remark that on an occasion like this when we would wish that the views going forth from your Lordships' House should represent the combined view of all those professing the Christian faith, those of us who belong to other Churches than the Church of England are at a great disadvantage. Members of the Church of England are represented in your Lordships' House by their leaders and office holders, men of high position, of great eloquence and great experience, but we of the other Churches have to take pot luck for our representation. We have to take our haphazard chance and find some Peers in London who happen to be able to attend to re-

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present our view. That is most unfortunate, and it is not right. We talk in these days of planning for this and planning for that, and most of the planning is as regards material benefit and social welfare, but it would be refreshing to hear a little about planning for a great spiritual unity in this House. We may not be able to have uniformity in our ways of worship, but we can at least have unity in speech when we meet to discuss important questions of religion such as this. We would like to feel that the views go forth from this House not merely as the views of the Church of England but as the views of all those who profess the Christian faith in the British Isles.
In supporting the plea for Jewry so eloquently made by the most reverend Primate I may say that the policy of "Let Judah perish!" never was a policy supported by the people of Scotland. We in our past history have experienced all the vicissitudes of religious persecution and we have known all the unhappiness that such persecution brings in its train. So years ago we abolished the idea of persecution and gave religious toleration, and we hope that persecution will never be restored. It is not merely a question of persecuting Jews, but it is a national question of most vital importance, for, though it is a question of the persecution of the Jews to-day, it may be the Hindus to-morrow, the Moslems another day—and who knows next? In the matter of religious persecution for conscience' sake, we Christians must take our stand firmly, and now at the present moment. I cannot remember who it was, but years ago a statesman said in Parliament that the man who initiated religious persecution was immortally above all mortals damned. That is the position of Hitler to-day; he is immortally above all mortals damned for persecuting people for conscience' sake. But I am afraid this persecution going on in Germany and in the satellite countries under Hitler's rule is not the only religious persecution we have known of in history. There have been many persecutions in the past. But I think of all the persecutions, for atrocity there is none in this century or the last equal to the present one.
There is one lesson which stands out prominently from all the religious persecutions in history, and that is that a nation by itself can do very little to put a
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physical stop to cruelties and persecution because a nation working by itself, unless it gets inside the enemy lines, suffers a kind of diplomatic paralysis. The persecution of a people in time of war needs a concert of nations to stop it, and what we must do after this war is to try and get together from our Allies and all the people who support them concerted action to prevent any repetition of this religious persecution in the future. I need not say more, except that on behalf of the Christian people of Scotland I strongly support the plea put forward by the most reverend Primate.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I too am a Scotsman, and I cannot refrain on this occasion from paying a tribute to the very lofty sentiments expressed by the noble Duke. After listening to the eloquent and moving speeches made by the most reverend Primate and by the noble Lords who have spoken, I do not intend to touch on this unprecedented persecution which the Jews have undergone and are undergoing in the countries under Nazi domination. I could indeed add nothing to what has been said. I have the honour to be Vice-President of the Council of Christians and Jews. The Presidents are the most reverend Primate, the late Cardinal Hinsley, whose strong feelings on this subject were so well known, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Moderator of the Council of Free Churches and the Chief Rabbi. It is therefore, your Lordships will agree, a very representative body. The primary objects of the Council are to combat religious and racial intolerance and to promote mutual understanding and good will between Christians and Jews in all sections of the community, especially in connexion with problems arising from the war.
Although these are the chief activities—and I can assure your Lordships that they are very necessary in order to frustrate efforts which are still being made in various quarters to sow dissension between Christians and Jews; I cannot help thinking such efforts must be very pleasing to Herr Goebbels—the Council has naturally had under consideration the terrible situation arising from the persecution of Jews in Europe. As a result of its deliberations it passed a resolution, of which I should like to read to your Lordships the salient points, because they express far better than I can do

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the action we should like to see the Government take. I may add that the resolution has already been sent to the Prime Minister and to those members of the Government chiefly concerned. The resolution begins by expressing appreciation of the assurances and promises given by the Government to alleviate in certain respects this great evil, and then goes on:
''Subject always to consideration of national security, His Majesty's Government should grant temporary asylum in their own territories and in territories under their control, including Palestine, to such refugees from Nazi persecution as may succeed in making their way to such territories; and His Majesty's Government should make every effort to induce similar action on the part of the other Governments of the United Nations."
I ask your Lordships specially to note the word "temporary." The fact that the asylum is to be of a temporary character ought to alleviate the fears of those, even in countries where there is a large Moslem population, who are apprehensive of a permanent settlement in their territories of a large number of Jewish refugees. I ought to add that this basic assumption does not preclude the final settlement in the countries in which they may wish to remain of those Jews who desire to stay there permanently, subject always to satisfactory arrangements being feasible.
I return to the resolution:
"His Majesty's Government, acting as far as possible in association with the other Governments of the United Nations, should give assurance to the Governments of those neutral countries in which refugees may seek sanctuary both of present financial assistance and/or food supplies, should cither or both be necessary. His Majesty's Government and the Governments of the other United Nations should further, in view of the declaration of December 17, 1942, pledge themselves to provide for the ultimate settlement of the above-mentioned refugees in the post-war period."
This proposal has been already emphasized by the most reverend Primate.
"The Council trusts that the United Nations will take steps to convey the warning contained in the declaration of December 17, 1942, to the Government of all States where Jewish lives are in danger.
"Finally, the members of the Council, as representing both Christian and Jewish public opinion, desire to press upon His Majesty's Government their deep sense of urgency in this matter and their hope that a decision as to the practical steps that can be taken will be reached and applied in time."
These are the chief features of the Council's resolution. Your Lordships will note that it does go, in some respects,
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beyond the Resolution now moved by the most reverend Primate though it does not go beyond what was said in his speech. It urges the Government to take action. I know the most reverend Primate agrees with this resolution, because he happened to preside over the meeting of the Council at which it was adopted. I trust, therefore, that the Government will find it possible to take, as speedily as may be, the steps indicated in the two resolutions. I can assure your Lordships and the Government that any measures to this end will receive the warmest support and approval of the Catholics of this country, and I may add, I believe, of Catholics everywhere.
LORD ROCHESTER: My Lords, I am glad to follow the two noble Lords who have just spoken with such fervour and eloquence. I begin to feel that if I were not an Englishman I would sooner be a Scotsman after listening to them. Speaking as a Methodist layman I should like to associate myself, and I believe the vast body of Free Churchmen, with what has been so ably and persuasively said by the most reverend Primate this afternoon. In common with members of his own Church, we thank God and take courage that such a fearless Christian leader is found amongst us in these dark and difficult days. He exercises an influence not only in this country but also far beyond our shores, the œcumenical value of which it would be difficult to exaggerate. Blessed, as he is, with a virile mind and gracious disposition, we welcome his leadership, not alone on this Jewish question, but also on other public issues.
If I may crave your Lordships' indulgence for a moment, let me take this opportunity of thanking the most reverend Primate for the firm and courageous stand he has taken against the spurious and pernicious argument that leaders of Christian Churches have no right to enter the field of politics and economics. No one can preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and remain indifferent to social institutions which contradict that teaching. Wherever the Churches find practices which are contrary to Christian doctrine, whether they be such diabolical and horrifying practices as those we are more especially considering this afternoon, or others, it is no more than their bounden duty to denounce them. The intellectual process of straightening must precede the political process of settling, and when ulti-

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mate values are stressed in so doing we breathe an ampler and more vitalizing atmosphere.
It is strange that those who complain of the Churches' intervention seem only to recognize as politics proposals to change existing conditions, and fail entirely to realize that to accept and to extol the present social order is just as much politics. It is of inestimable value that the two Archbishops of the Anglican Church should be in the vanguard of the fight for social righteousness; and their insistence on the right of Christian teaching to play its part in the great social and economic movements which will shake the world to its very foundations in the coming years, is unreservedly to be welcomed. Christian democracy is indeed fortunate to have two such leaders, and I make no apology, as a Free Churchman, for thanking them publicly in your Lordships' House this afternoon for the stand they are taking and the lead they are giving.
The Motion submitted by the most reverend Primate to-day is really a plea for immediate measures to be taken to provide help and temporary asylum for persons in danger of massacre who are able to leave enemy and enemy-occupied countries. I desire to support that plea as a matter of the utmost urgency. It may well be that some neutral countries are doing more than we are aware of in this regard, but in that case they might be prepared to do even more still if they were officially or unofficially assured of the support of the United Nations, and especially if they were indemnified against costs. I am not at all sure that I can subscribe to all that has been said this afternoon about the impossibility of getting big numbers out of these countries of horror. That some Jews are still managing to escape from the hell in which they find themselves is common knowledge. The tragedy of it is that the number is not greater, but I believe that that number could be multiplied many times. Why is the number so small? I submit that it is partly owing to the rigidity of the regulations on neutral frontiers abutting on enemy and enemy-occupied territories; but if neutrals were assured of facilities for passing on refugees, and if arrangements could be made immediately to evacuate those already in neutral countries, and if, in addition, neutrals and non-belligerents
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were guaranteed food and money for maintenance for such Jews as could find their way across the frontiers, that might substantially increase the number of those reaching asylum.
In any case such action on our part would at least be a practical expression of our anxiety to assist in the work of rescue; but the best evidence of our genuine concern would be the immediate revision of the regulations which so drastically restrict our own issue of visas and transit visas. Such action would at the same time be a recognition of our sacred duty to do all in our power to rescue as many as possible of our fellow human beings from these looters of lives. In view of the mass deportations and horrifying massacres of Jews going on at this moment while we are here discussing the problem, is it too much to ask His Majesty's Government to relax in some degree the severity of the regulations governing the entry into this country and the Colonies? It is really of paramount importance that the Government should not only be assured of your Lordships' fullest support for the immediate measures as set out in the most reverend Primate's Motion, but that they should realize how deeply concerned your Lordships are by the lack of initiative shown in attempting ameliorative measures to meet the ghastly and heartbreaking situation that faces us. I want, if I may, to emphasize as the most reverend Primate said, the necessity for some sort of answer to the question as to what can be done.
So much for ourselves. As regards other countries I give pride of place to Turkey, for she is no longer a neutral but a non-belligerent; our friend and Ally whose Prime Minister, speaking in the Turkish Parliament last week, said:
"We warmly grasp the hand extended to us by the British Government, and we affirm that Anglo-Turkish friendship is not dictated by the emergencies of the moment, but is a vital need of both nations."
The Turkish Prime Minister was announcing the new Government's continuity of policy to the Grand National Assembly, and referred to it as no longer exclusive the policy of the Turkish Foreign Minister nor of the Government, nor even of the Grand National Assembly; "it entirely belongs," he said, "to the nation and to the sons of Turkey." And then, according to the report in The Times, he added there was one point that ought to

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be emphasized: "Anglo-Turkish friendship."
I want to emphasize that too. For about a quarter of a century I have been a member either of your Lordships' House or the other House of Parliament, in the course of which it has been my privilege to be a Minister of the Crown. I can therefore speak with some knowledge of public opinion in this country, and I say with a full sense of responsibility as a member of your Lordships' House that I believe there is at the present time among our people a volume of support for our friendship with that great country of Turkey, which stands sentinel at the gates of Europe and Asia, that has seldom been surpassed in respect of any country. I believe therefore it would be equally true for us on our part to say of Anglo-Turkish friendship, "it belongs to the nation" and also that it is fortified and strengthened by a warmth of feeling that is the best augury for its continuance alike in war and peace.
I have visited Turkey in the past and I know something of the Turkish people, and I delight in the sureness of the foundation upon which Anglo-Turkish friendship indubitably rests. But that being so, I am the more at a loss to understand why there seems so much diffidence in our Government's approach to the Turkish Government in this matter of the rescue of the Jews upon which there is such a volume of feeling in this country. One does not mind seeking co-operation with one's friends. Let us show our appreciation of and confidence in that outstretched hand of friendship by asking more of it, not for ourselves, but for those who are suffering this cruel wrong and threatened with mass extermination unless means of escape are made available. This is not a question of principle but of degree that needs to be stressed in the case of Turkey. For some help is already being given. Admittedly there are difficulties within Turkey which make cross-country traffic far from easy, but the Turkish people are not dismayed by difficulties; on the contrary they are at their very best in surmounting them.
May I now refer for a moment to the references of the most reverend Primate to the statement made in another place by the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the 3rd of last month, when he gave the immigration certificates still available
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for Palestine? The numbers involved make a total of 34,000, including 270 Jewish children from Rumania and Hungary. Now clearly the main difficulty of handling such a number is transport. As to that, I know something about transport, for I earned my living in the business. In the case of the 270 Jewish children from Rumania and Hungary, to whom the Colonial Secretary referred as being already on the way, it was the good offices of our friends the Turkish Government that enabled arrangements to be made for their transit through Turkey in groups of fifty. There are at present, I believe, only two trains weekly running through Turkey on which children can travel, and even on these trains only a limited number of places would be available. The maximum number which could be coped with by such a limited railway service would be only, say, 500 a month. If therefore nothing is done to extend these railway facilities only about 6,000 children could possibly be so moved during the next twelve months. This is of course entirely inadequate. Will His Majesty's Government use all their influence with our Turkish friends to secure some expansion of the existing railway facilities? "The only way to have a friend is to be one."
In addition, I hope that the Government will explore every suggestion of the most reverend Primate as to the feasibility of procuring additional steamer transport either from allied or neutral ships. Could not steamers be run from Bulgarian and Turkish ports to Palestine, under the protection of the Red Cross, or could neutral steamers be chartered from Istanbul to Mersin, the railhead near the Turkish-Syrian frontier? I have been along that coast from Istanbul to Smyrna and Beirut, and I say without fear of contradiction that the port of Mersin is almost ideally situated for the purpose. It has deep water and pier facilities for passenger and goods handling both traffic. It has rail connexions to Egypt, to Syria and Palestine in one direction and to the Persian Gulf through Turkey and Iraq in the other. By the way, I see in the Daily Telegraph this morning, that extensive improvements are now being carried out at Mersin, and as a member of the Port of London Authority I know how important it is for port facilities to be kept up to date. When they are kept up to date let us use them in such humanitarian matters as we are dis-

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cussing this afternoon. One thing is quite certain, unless some further definite concrete action is taken, and that without delay, to increase the existing transport facilities, it will be too late, for the sands in the hour-glass are fast running out and the bulk of these 34,000 certificates will be useless for they will be represented by so many mutilated and massacred bodies. Oh, the abject horror and tragedy of it! I agree that there is a less sombre side to the picture. There have been some refugees evacuated to Palestine and I think it only just to recognize that the news from North Africa is definitely better and more encouraging.
Now as to neutral countries. After setting an example ourselves we should be in better heart to explore all avenues of approach to non-belligerent and neutral Governments in an effort to organize co-operative action. Sweden is understood to have agreed to receive Jews from Norway and Finland, but in neither country are there many Jews. Speaking of Sweden reminds me that the publicity of such a debate as this is invaluable and most distasteful to the Germans. For consider this a delegation of the Swedish Red Cress, investigating the medical needs of the Baltic States, I am told, was required to give pledges to the German authorities that it would not deliver either food or medicine to the Jews, and not only so, but a promise was extracted from every member of the delegation that on their return they would make no statement whatever about the condition of the Jews in the countries they visited. Comment is superfluous. In the case of Spain, ever since the Nazi occupation of Southern France, there has been increased infiltration of Jewish and other refugees through the Pyrenees to Spain. It is estimated that there are at present about 7,000 Jews in Spain and between 1,500 and 2,000 in Portugal. Some little relief is being obtained by the emigration of Jews to America via Lisbon, though not yet on a large scale. Can the Government see their way to expedite transport from Lisbon?
As the most reverend Primate said, it may not be necessary to tax Allied shipping, for neutral Governments might possibly be willing to place vessels at the disposal of relief organizations if our Government gave the required navicerts. I hope your Lordships will be able to use your influence—where others have
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failed—to short circuit official difficulties and persuade the Government to grant the necessary navicerts, for the problem may be accentuated at any moment if further Axis aggression should eventuate. As the most reverend Primate reminded us, there are men serving in our Forces at the present time whose parents are in Spain and are in danger of being transported to Poland and massacred if the Germans invade Spain. Consider the tragic and pitiable position of the Jews in what was known as Unoccupied France, who had either fled or been expelled from Germany or German-occupied territory. Given the premise of Allied landings in North Africa, the corollary was not far to seek—the Germans would for a certainty occupy Southern France with the result that those Jews who might have been rescued are now beyond reach. So the tragedy goes on.
In regard to Switzerland, there is great scope for co-operative action. The Swiss people are definitely anti-Nazi and they have the overwhelming advantage of geography. Two of the three main railways connecting Germany and Italy cross the immensely fortified Alpine stronghold and these would no doubt be immediately and irreparably blown up in the event of Axis aggression. This geographic and strategic position, I submit, effectively dividing as it does, the two Axis Powers, creates an inner fortress within the so-called "fortress of Europe" and gives to Switzerland immense bargaining powers which she can use without in any way infringing her neutrality. Notwithstanding Germany's economic power she has totally failed to build up political supremacy over Switzerland, and I submit this is a case where co-operative effort might be of immense service to the Jews. The ordinary war-time restrictions on the entry of aliens into Switzerland are maintained but—and this is the point—a debate in the Swiss Legislature last September—I think it was on the 23rd of that month—gave a trend to subsequent action so that Jewish and other refugees from France who get across the border surreptitiously and afterwards report to the police are permitted to remain in Switzerland in camps set up for the purpose. It is understood that Switzerland is not primarily concerned about financial aid, but would be very much interested in and likely to expand her

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good work by an assurance that at the end of the war refugees on Swiss soil would be accepted by us or other countries until repatriated to their own.
On January 19 last the Deputy Prime Minister said in another place that the Government were consulting with other countries to discover "what further measures it is possible to take, as soon as possible, to assist those refugees who make their way to countries beyond German control," and he added that His Majesty's Government "are themselves working out certain practical proposals which they can make as a further contribution to this concerted effort." After more than two months can the Government tell us what international measures have in fact been taken other than accenting the proposal for a preliminary Anglo-American discussion which has already been referred to in this debate? What if any "practical proposals," to use the Deputy Prime Minister's words, have the Government since made? Are or are not the Government prepared to accept ultimate responsibility for the refugees who do succeed in reaching countries bordering on Axis or Axis-occupied countries in their efforts to escape the Nazi slaughterhouse of cold-blooded massacre? The answer to that question, I submit, might have a very material bearing upon the attitude of the Swiss and other Governments in offering asylum to additional refugees who can escape and remove themselves from the clutches of this diabolical Nazi terror.
The needs of neutrals vary, of course, according to the country, and include food supply, financial help, transport facilities, and, last but by no means least, assurances that in the ultimate settlement after the war, the neutral countries of first refuge would not be left indefinitely to bear their refugee responsibilities unaided. Whatever the difficulties, and however specious the arguments against affording such help, I would urge that the plain call of our common humanity should prevail in this issue of life or death of our fellow human beings. Hitler is the head and front of crime that literally staggers the imagination; he has polluted with every kind of crime and filled with echoes of torture and horror every land he has occupied. We are concerned with all persecuted minorities, but the Christian necessarily feels an intimate responsibility
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in regard to the Jews since Christ "according to the flesh" came out of Israel. Almost every page of the New Testament shows how close was the association between religious Judaism and the first followers of Christ.
Delay in rescue means death, and the correspondence between Washington and London emphasizes the need to avoid long-drawn-out negotiations. One thing is quite certain—nothing but unqualified determination will overcome the difficulties and obstacles inseparable from this ghastly inhuman tragedy. And time is of the very essence of the matter, for while we debate and correspond hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent men, women and children are suffering indescribable torture, and stand in hourly jeopardy of their lives. On the other hand 300,000 Jews have entered Palestine since Hitler's advent to power, and about 30,000 since the outbreak of war, most of whom would now have been inmates of his torture chambers had they not escaped in time. This tragic problem is so immense and is fraught with such immeasurable consequences that it is altogether too serious to be cast as an additional burden upon the already overburdened shoulders of the Home Secretary, who is carrying so many other Departmental duties as well as being a member of the War Cabinet. I should like to support what the most reverend Primate said under that head.
As has been well said, the treatment of the Jews is so wanton in its cruelty, so naked and unashamed in its inhumanity, that to fail to meet it with such counteraction as is open to us would be to share in the degradation of humanity. I submit that the very essence of Christian democracy is a belief in the supreme value of each individual soul and in the brotherhood of man. The scale of suffering in the present case seems to paralyse us. However little we can do we must at all costs do that little soon and to the very utmost we can. If we cannot save multitudes let us save some, however few. While the only final remedy is an Allied victory, that I submit, does not exonerate us from seeking temporary measures of relief in the meantime. I believe, with the fullest conviction, the country will accept any sacrifice consistent with winning the war in order to bring relief to these tortured and helpless sufferers.

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"It must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh."
And woe to us if we leave any stone unturned in seeking to aid and succour those of our fellow human beings who are suffering this cruel Nazi stumbling-block of offence. The Nazis have indeed debased themselves even unto hell, but let us remember "the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity," as we recall those words in the 57th chapter of Isaiah:
"Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumbling-block out of the way of my people."
Thus shall our strength be renewed to secure an Allied victory, which we are all agreed will, in itself, be the most effective way of succouring the Jews and other tortured peoples. I apologize for trespassing for so long upon your Lordships' time. I support the Motion of the most reverend Primate, and I would urge the redoubling of our efforts to succour "one of the least of these," as we recall the latter part of the 25th chapter of St. Matthew.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, I will not detain your Lordships for more than a very few minutes. I do very sincerely desire to press on the Government, what I am sure they are quite well aware of already, that there is behind this Motion, which the most reverend Primate has submitted to your Lordships, a great body of opinion, a vast body of opinion. I do not propose to give to your Lordships all the reasons that might be given for that opinion, but I will, if I may, point just to two facts which seem to me to be very striking. In the first place there is the fact that a Motion, in, I think, exactly the same words as that of the most reverend Primate, was submitted to the House of Commons and has received no fewer than 277 signatures in its support. That is very striking proof from the representative Chamber of the amount of feeling that exists on this subject. Then, in this morning's newspaper I read that a cable was sent to the Foreign Secretary in America urging him to take every opportunity of raising this matter in discussion with the American Government, and substantially repeating again the points which the Archbishop has laid before us. That cable was sent by a very large number of people. Only three days were spent in collecting signatures, but they include
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those of leaders of religious bodies in this country, of a considerable body of members of your Lordships' House and the other House, and of no fewer than twelve Lord Mayors and three Lord Provosts in this island. The signatures also include those of outstanding men in the realms of science, literature and art, and indeed of every department of life.
These facts are, I think, of very great importance. They show that this is the sort of question which occasionally arises in this country and sweeps away all barriers between different sections of thought among our people. The country is really unanimous in thinking that everything that can possibly be done should be done—subject of course to this; that everything which is done by the Government should be consistent with winning the war. Naturally, the sooner we can win the war the more effectively and quickly shall we be able to stop these horrors, among other things. The question is whether there is anything we can do in a practical way meanwhile. I am not going to repeat what has been so admirably said in the debate already as to various steps that might be taken. I cannot help thinking that more might have been done to facilitate the escape of these unhappy people from the countries in which they are threatened—not only Germany and the occupied countries, but countries like Bulgaria and Rumania, where they are threatened, though no great massacres have so far taken place. There are tremendous numbers of people who can yet be saved if we take the necessary steps to accomplish that object.
The difficulties, of course, are immense. The difficulties of transport have already been referred to, and I need not repeat what has been said about them. But something might be done, as many speakers have already said, through the neutral countries. In any case, will not the Government consider the suggestion made, I think, by the Archbishop of York, that we should declare openly, and I particularly to the neutrals, that we are prepared to give an asylum to any of these refugees who are flying for their lives who can possibly reach this country? Cannot the statement be made that the moment they reach here they will be safe, and that there will be no question of visas or anything of that kind, but that as soon as we are satisfied that they are genuine refu-

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gees, flying for their lives, they will be admitted to this country and taken care of here or in some other country? It would be a great thing to have a statement of that kind made and brought to the notice of the neutral countries, because the neutral countries would then say: "We can take these people in temporarily and then hand them over to some British-ruled country, where they will be safe and where they will no longer be a burden on us"—and that, in the case of some of the smaller countries, is a serious consideration at the present time.
I agree very much with what was said by my noble friend Lord Perth, that it must be made clear that what we are doing is to afford a temporary measure of shelter to these people until the end of the war. There is no question of permanent settlement. We are prepared to shelter them until the end of the war, and afterwards we must consider what is to be done with them. We must sweep away what I may call the Departmental point of view. In addition to the instances of that given by the most reverend Primate, no one can read the answers in the House of Commons without feeling that in some of the Departments, and in some of the most important Departments, this matter is still dealt with as if it were similar to the question of the admission of aliens in time of peace, and that we have to consider whether they were going to be a burden to us, whether their admission was in accordance with precedent, and whether there was a possibility of some popular or factitious opposition being aroused to what was being done. I feel that we must put this matter on quite a different footing. This is a terrific emergency. There has been a deliberate threat made by Hitler and his friends that they will do their utmost to extinguish the whole Jewish nationality before they are finally defeated. Hitler has said so in the most express and definite terms, and that it what he is trying to do. Women and children are affected in the same way as men. There is no precedent unless we go back a thousand years for the wickedness of the German proceedings in this connexion. In view of that, we cannot treat this as an ordinary question of the admission of aliens.
I entirely assent to everything that the most reverend Primate said about the immense difficulties that are placed on the
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shoulders of Ministers at the present time, and about the terrific burden on their strength and on their energy. But there is no reason why they should bear this additional burden. Let them lay down the broad lines of policy, such as have been indicated by every speaker in this debate, and then let them appoint some individual—it does not matter whether he is called a Minister or not; he might be called a High Commissioner—whose business it would be to look everywhere to see how these pople can be enabled to escape. That must be his primary duty, and he must be furnished with the proper constitutional machinery to press for any reform that he can devise on the Government as a whole. He would have a Committee consisting of representatives of the Departments principally concerned, but he would be responsible. I remember very well what an enormous work Dr. Nansen was able to achieve. He was the kind of man we want, although I may be told that there are not many Nansens. He devoted himself absolutely to the work. He had no authority, apart from what was given to him by his position, but everything he suggested was adopted, because nobody would venture to oppose his considered opinion.
I do not think that it would be difficult to find a man with that energy and of that description amongst the citizens of this country. I would go further and say that he could be found amongst the members of this House. I think anyone could suggest a member of this House who has immense courage and who is prepared to support even unpopular views with great strength and eloquence, and who would, if he could be induced to undertake these duties, be the kind of man well fitted to carry them out. We do not want a "safe" man; we want a man, to use the old phrase, "with fire in his stomach," a man determined to do his utmost. I am quite sure that, if such a man could be found, the difficulties in the way of action would be found to be far less than sometimes may be imagined at the present time. I have heard in this debate, and have read in the newspapers, the various suggestions which have been made for international action. I am in favour of international action, but it must not be made an excuse for the British Government to do nothing. I am sure that that is not intended by my noble friends opposite, but I am not sure that it is not in-

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tended by some people—not the Government, but others. I hope that it will be well understood that the responsibility of the British. Government must remain, whatever is done internationally. They are bound to do their utmost to save these people if they can. That is the view which I want to submit to your Lordships.
There is one other thing that I would add. The case on the grounds of humanity and religion is overwhelming and I could not say anything to strengthen it; but there is one other point of view which I venture to submit to the House and to the Government. In this great struggle we stand for a bettor condition of life and a higher international standard. That is really the main thing for which we do stand. We hope to establish, as we heard last Sunday night, a new system in this country and in international affairs which will be better than the old one, which will remove some of the injustices, some of the fears, and some of the horrors that at present exist. We shall want all our national authority to get these things done. The one greet asset which we have is a certain reputation for honesty and sincerity. As long as that remains, our influence internationally will be very great, and our influence in our own country will be immense. I do beg the Government to consider that if, through any fault of their own, they are unable to do anything to help in this great crisis, it will be very difficult to persuade the world that we are really in earnest in these matters, and a great deal of our authority will have gone when we want it most in settling the terms of peace.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My Lords, the question which has been raised by the most reverend Primate in the very powerful speech which he delivered to your Lordships this afternoon is clearly one of the very first importance. We must all recognize with my noble friend Lord Cecil of Chelwood, that in what he has said he has voiced the anxieties of a very wide body of opinion in this country. We live to-day at a time when we might almost have expected to have become callous to horrors, but I do not think there can be anyone, if he thinks at all, who is not appalled by the catalogue of horrors which is retailed to us every day in the newspapers through their correspondents in neutral countries, and which is supported by documentary photographs, so
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that there can be no doubt whatever of the facts. The most reverend Primate himself and those noble Lords who followed him have painted a vivid and moving picture of the situation in Europe and of the odious persecutions which are being inflicted upon the Jews, the Czechoslovaks, the Poles, the Yugoslavs and the other subject peoples. For I think it would be a mistake to throw undue emphasis on the Jewish side of this question. We all admit it is perhaps the most horrible feature, but it is only a feature of a much bigger problem, and the problem must be faced as a whole.
There is nothing, I think, that I can add to the terrible facts which the most reverend Primate and other noble Lords have exposed, except to say that His Majesty's Government accept in full what they have said. The most diseased imagination could not exaggerate the horrors which are at present being perpetrated, and which make the name of Germany stink in the nostrils of the civilized world. Nor would His Majesty's Government quarrel in any way with the view of the most reverend Primate, that it is up to us, as to other nations, to do all in our power consistent with military security considerations—and I would add with the vital interests of our own people—to provide assistance and asylum for the victims of this policy of extermination. That has been throughout the policy of His Majesty's Government, and it remains their policy to-day. The refugee problem is not one of those problems on which there is any difference of view, so far as I know, as to the object which is sought to be attained: on that we are all of us united. It is purely a question of methods and means and practical possibilities. That is the whole of the problem. It does not make it a small problem but that is the whole nature of the problem. It is with regard to this aspect alone that any differences of view are expressed.
The most reverend Primate himself to-day in his speech indicated that in his view His Majesty's Government were not treating this problem sufficiently seriously. He drew attention to the solemn nature of the declaration of the United Nations, and he deplored the contrast with—I took clown his words—"the meagre results achieved." If he will forgive me for saying so—because I am sure he will realize I am entirely sympathetic with the aim he seeks to achieve—I equally was a

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little shocked by what appeared to be a certain lack of appreciation in the minds of the most reverend Primate and of other noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon as to the formidable nature of the difficulties which have to be faced. It really is no use belittling these difficulties, because they are immense. It was suggested, I think by the most reverend Primate himself, that His Majesty's Government were so concerned with other affairs that they have no time to deal with the refugee problem. That is surely an unjust charge to make against the Government. I know from my own experience in the Colonial Office how much of the time of Ministers is taken up with this terrible and difficult problem.
The most reverend Primate himself occupies a position of immense authority and responsibility. Everything that he says will be repeated and reported all over the world. And yet it seemed to me that he did not take sufficient account of essential factors in the situation which must inevitably limit unilateral action on our part. He talked of the inaction of His Majesty's Government, he said he regarded as irrelevant any reference to the steps which had been taken in the past by this country, and he mentioned figures which I think had been given to him in an interview he had at the Home Office. Those figures would indeed be irrelevant if the only object were to show that we had done enough, that we wanted to wash our hands of the whole problem. That would be both smug and hypocritical. But that is not the attitude of His Majesty's Government, and if I quote these figures again, which I propose to do, it is not for that purpose: it is to point to the inexorable fact that there is already an immense body of refugees both in this country and in the British Colonial territories overseas, and that this inevitably limits the further numbers that we can take in.
If I may take, first of all, this country, certainly I should have thought it could not be said that Great Britain had been backward in the taking in of refugees from Nazi oppression. Even before the war, in accordance with our traditional policy towards the victims of persecution, we had admitted from Germany and Austria alone over 55,000 adults, and many of these had children with them. There was also a further 13,000 children without
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adults. In addition nearly 10,000 Czechoslovak nationals found refuge here in the twelve months which preceded the war. The refugee population of this country, therefore, at the moment of the outbreak of war, was 78,000, not counting children with parents.
LORD WEDGWOOD: Many of these have gone on already.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: No, those were the ones which remained in this country at the outbreak of war. There had been a constantly fluctuating population. Some came in, others went out; it was a process which was going on the whole time. But 78,000 was the number that existed here when the war broke out. Now I should like to examine the intake of refugees since the start of the war. In 1940 we took in approximately 35,000—these figures are inevitably somewhat approximate—in 1941, when the conditions were much more difficult, we took in 13,000; and in 1942 we took in 15,000. These figures include 20,000 seamen. I want to be quite frank with the House, I do not want to overstate the case in any way. Of course some of these seamen are not here the whole time. They are not a burden on our resources in the same way as ordinary refugees would be.
LORD WEDGWOOD: Some of them are not Jews.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: The noble Lord must not regard this as a Jewish problem. Every nation in Europe is being tortured by the Germans, and the noble Lord will only do the Jews themselves harm by taking that attitude. The figure does not include the members of the Allied Forces, which are very considerable in this country. This makes a total of a little over 63,000 refugees since the war. Adding the number of pre-war refugees and war refugees, including all children, we get a total of about 150,000 souls, all of whom have to be fed and cared for. If it is argued that we have ourselves, during that time, sent abroad very large numbers of troops who do not need to be fed in this country, I would remind your Lordships that they have got to be fed somewhere, and therefore they do not represent a reduction of our ration strength. I hope, in view of these figures which I have given, that we at any rate shall not be regarded as having been callous or unmindful of our obligations.

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This country, as your Lordships know, is not self-supporting. It is dependent on supplies from abroad, and every ounce of food imported into this country at this moment is being brought in by the blood and sweat of British sailors. There must be limits, inevitably, whatever our wishes are, to the task we set these heroic men. The most reverend Primate talked at one stage of his speech as if we had ample supplies in this country. I understood him to say we were so well off for food that we could very easily receive as many refugees as were likely to get here. Does he really believe our situation is as easy as that? It is quite true that there is no definite shortage of food in this country at the present moment, but that is entirely due to the merchant seamen of this country, to the farmers, and, if I may say so, to the magnificent administration of my noble friend Lord Woolton. To suggest that there are large surplus supplies in this country is a most dangerous illusion.
Moreover, in war-time, the nation must preserve some reserve against the rainy day. As your Lordships know, the battle of the Atlantic is at present raging with perhaps greater ferocity than at any previous period of the war. No quarter is being given on either side. At present we, the Allies, are holding our own, and we are even gaining, thanks to the unprecedented efforts of the great American shipbuilding industry; but at any moment we might have a bad spell, and we might have need of all our reserves if our production and power to wage war were not to be seriously and, perhaps, dangerously hampered. Were such a situation to arise, and a large number of refugees had been brought in, the Government would be very naturally and very rightly censured. There is also the problem of accommodation. I do not stress this because I am anxious not to over-state the case. This is such an immensely painful and urgent subject that any impression that the Government were trying to make a case Would be deplorable and disastrous, and I would not lend myself to it. I do not over-stress it, but there is no doubt that in this country there is a very considerable shortage of accommodation, very largely due to the destruction of houses during the "Blitz."
If that is the situation which faces us here in this country, the difficulties are no
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less in the Colonial territories. There are not unlimited supplies, as the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, suggested in his speech. This is a subject about which I know something from my period in the Colonial Office. Take the case of East Africa. Before the war it had a white population of 30,000. Since the war the East African Colonies have received an additional white population, including Italian prisoners, of over 90,000. By an immense effort they have managed to feed this quadrupled population and maintain it, and in addition they are playing a large part in supplying our Armies in the Middle East. The present situation in East Africa, from the food point of view, is not a happy one. It is a very difficult one, and I understand, having made careful inquiries, that it is really undesirable to take any more refugees into East Africa at present. We hope the situation will improve, but the position is such that it would indeed be impossible at present to add to the numbers already there. In the case of India, the Government of India have taken, and are maintaining, where necessary, over 400,000 refugees in addition to the normal population. As the House will know from the statement made not long ago, even in India the food situation at the present time is by no means easy. I could, if I wanted, multiply such examples both as regards Jamaica, the other West Indian islands, and Cyprus. In all those countries, at present, owing to the dislocation of the normals channels of trade, the food situation for the normal population is difficult.
Finally, I come to the case of Palestine which was mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel. Here, as your Lordships know, we not only have an economic but a political problem. As it has fallen to my lot to explain again and again in this House, it is not possible for His Majesty's Government to go beyond the terms of policy approved by Parliament. I was very much surprised that the noble Viscount to-day should say that if His Majesty's Government took in more Jewish refugees into Palestine it would have no repercussion on the Arabs.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: I did not say it would have no repercussion. I said it would not be detrimental to their welfare. I appreciate the possibility of political repercussion.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: That is the main point. I thought it was generally accepted in this House that you could not go beyond the terms of this policy because it would lead to immediate repercussions in the Middle East, and that is the case. Therefore we are limited to the principles laid down by that policy. What we can do, and what in my opinion we must do, in the cause of humanity, is to go to the absolute limit that that policy allows, and that is indeed what my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies has already done. The most reverend Primate referred to this point to-day. In the statement made on February 3 it was announced that the Government of Palestine had agreed to admit from Bulgaria 4,000 Jewish children, with 500 adults accompanying them, as well as 500 children from Hungary and Rumania. In addition my right honourable friend said, and I quote his words:
"His Majesty's Government will be prepared, provided the necessary transport facilities can be made available, to continue to admit into Palestine Jewish children, with a proportion of adults, up to the limits of immigration permissible for the five-year immigration period ending 31st March, 1944. The numbers involved are approximately 29,000, still available under the White Paper. The usual conditions governing immigration would have to be fulfilled. My right honourable friend will realize that the very considerable difficulties involved in making the necessary arrangements for transport—"
I ask your Lordships to note those particular words—
"and for the accommodation and sustenance in Palestine of such large parties of refugees, may limit the numbers that can be handled under this procedure."
If there have been delays they arise from practical questions relating to transport. His Majesty's Government are not at fault. It is not a question of undue delay. It is because the transport is not forthcoming. I was surprised to hear the most reverend Primate say that three weeks have passed, and the transport is not available. Has the most reverend Primate any idea of the transport situation at the present time? Every ship is earmarked. Every ship is moving the whole time. A ship has to be taken off a certain route in order to put it on another route. The situation is not in the least normal, and I am afraid I could not agree that three weeks is an unduly long time. What I can say is that it is clearly right we should reduce the time to the minimum, that every effort should be
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made to get these unhappy little children to Palestine as soon as they can possibly be got there, and I can give the House an absolute assurance that is what my right honourable friend the Colonial Secretary is at present doing. I am not going to say he will achieve these results immediately. I think it very likely it will take some time. But he will do his utmost, and nobody can do more.
I hope the House will forgive me for going so fully into these figures, but noble Lords will appreciate that so far from being irrelevant they are the crux of the whole matter, so far at any rate as unilateral action by this country is concerned. The capacity of Great Britain and of her Colonial territories to maintain vast quantities of refugees is dependent, and must be dependent in war-time, on two vital and inter-related considerations. Those are shipping and food. Already our resources are greatly stretched. I do not say no more refugees can be taken in; it would be quite absurd to say that not a single other refugee can be taken into this country or the Empire. I hope a good many more will be taken. But I do say that Great Britian alone can find no solution to this terrible problem, though of course they can, and I think must, use every method they can to try to alleviate it.
I should be deceiving the House if I suggested that the kind of proposals which have been put forward this afternoon by the most reverend Primate for unilateral action by this country present in themselves a way out of our difficulties. There is, my Lords, no evidence that any inducement such as he has suggested would encourage neutral nations in Europe to modify their refugee policy. Indeed, to press them would be likely at the present moment to cause them acute embarrassment and increase the difficulties of the situation. The neutral countries in Europe are few and they are themselves short of food, but in spite of their difficulties—and, I think it will be generally agreed, to their eternal credit—they are maintaining at the present time large numbers of refugees and more are constantly coming in from the occupied territories. If we ask them to take greatly increased numbers they are likely to require assurances that these refugees will be rapidly removed to another country of refuge, and immediately we shall come up against what is our main and our most intractable

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difficulty. We have ourselves alone nowhere at the present time to offer as a country of ultimate refuge for any substantial number of refugees. This difficulty is not surmounted by the most reverend Primate's proposals regarding neutral shipping, though I shall be very glad to go into that suggestion and see whether it provides any contributory cure for this appalling ill. Nor is the difficulty surmounted by his second proposal about ships bringing munitions and returning loaded with refugees; nor is it surmounted ever by his proposal regarding block visas.
It is of course not true, as I think has beer suggested this afternoon, that visas are not at present being granted. Take the case of the 2,000 Jewish children to which I think the most reverend Primate himself referred, and on which I know considerable misapprehension exists. It is constantly said in various quarters that visas were refused to these children, with the result that they were deported to Germany. I have been making inquiries into this case and I find that that is not a correct description of what happened. Mora visas were in fact available for these children—and indeed not only for children from France but children from other occupied countries—than were in fact made use of. What happened was that the children could not come to this country for the very simple reason that the Germans and the Vichy authorities refused to grant exit permits. I repeat that it is untrue to suggest that His Majesty's Government are not taking any refugees from Nazi oppression at the present time. We are indeed ready and willing to help, to the limits of our resources.
The noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, asked that we should make a declaration, if I understood him aright, that we would grant asylum to any refugee, to anyone flying from oppression, who chose to ask for it. We cannot do that because of the difficulties of our own national situation. But we are ready to do anything in our power. We are in fact at this moment admitting over 800 refugees a month, who have escaped from the occupied territories and many of whom are anxious to join in the common fight against the Germans and other Axis Powers. There is, however, a certain point beyond which, in this country, we cannot and will not go. The essential
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need—and this is the only real hope of a cure for this difficult and tragic situation—is to find somewhere where the refugees can be taken in without creating those dangers which face us.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: May I ask if the 800 refugees were persons who were going to join the Armed Forces?
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Not all of them, but some were. I should think a good many were, but I would rather like notice of that question. I made inquiries and I was told a considerable proportion of them were. Some of them may well have been the wives and children of refugees already here, because they are, as the noble Viscount knows, allowed to come in. I see the noble Viscount opposite shakes his head.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: I was shaking my head because statements have been made to me that even the wives and children are not always allowed to come.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: I understand that wives and children are allowed to come, but it is true to say that parents cannot come and that most distant relations cannot come. I understand, however, that wives and children can come, and of course men who wish to join the Armed Forces of our Allies are allowed to come. Indeed it would be difficult to refuse them, when the Allied Governments are situated here and are forming Armies in this country to fight the common enemy.
The difficulties which stand in the way of all these limited proposals to which I have already referred seem to me to apply with even greater force to the tentative proposal put forward by the most reverend Primate. As I understand it, it was that we should approach Hitler and suggest that he should release so many Jews a month. I imagine that it was a slip of the tongue on his part to limit this proposal to Jews, because clearly, as I said before, it should apply equally to the other tortured peoples of Europe. I have the impression that the most reverend Primate had no very great hopes of this proposal himself, and that he mainly put it forward in order that it should be apparent both to ourselves and to the world that we had done all we could in the matter. He indicated that Hitler

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would probably refuse, in which case his guilt would be more evident to the world. I should have thought that Hitler's guilt was sufficiently visible to the world already. Supposing he did refuse to allow these Jews and other Europeans to come out, we might indeed feel more comfortable; but the miserable people themselves would not be advantaged. We should get a very barren satisfaction from that. If on the other hand Hitler agreed, contrary to our expectations, and we were unable to fulfil our side of the bargain, His Majesty's Government, my Lords, would rightly be accused of a breach of faith, and by no one more than by the most reverend Primate himself. We who are in the Government cannot salve our consciences as easily as that. We must put forward proposals which we ourselves believe practicable.
Therefore, the Government have been driven to the conclusion, for reasons which I have tried to state to your Lordships, that there is not much more we can do alone. Internationally, however, the matter has a different aspect. His Majesty's Government think there is reasonable hope that more progress may be made on an international basis. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Addison, who recommended that and it was a very wise saying. There is no doubt that it is only on an international basis that we can handle this problem. After all, even before the war, it was recognized that the refugee problem was an international responsibility. The establishment by the League of Nations of the High Commissioner for Refugees, and the establishment, by the generous initiative of the American President, of the Evian Committee are witness of that. If it was an international problem before the war, how much more is it an international problem now! The first step which obviously had to be taken if we were to put this matter on an international basis was to approach the United States of America. For the United States, as noble Lords know, has shown the most whole-hearted sympathy with this problem and has herself in recent years taken a very large number of refugees. The first thing was to ask for her collaboration.
His Majesty's Government therefore, as your Lordships know, made an approach to the United States in January
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last and suggested an informal Conference. In reply, the United States Government expressed themselves as sharing the concern of His Majesty's Government with regard to this terrible problem and explained the contribution which the United States Administration and people had already made towards a solution. In answer to the proposal for a Conference, which was what I may call the executive proposal of the British Government, they suggested action on the following basis. I hesitate to state this at length to your Lordships, because many of you already know the story in full: but I should like it to go on record. First of all, they said that the refugee problem should not be considered as confined to any particular race or faith. With that I think we shall all be in the very fullest agreement. Secondly, they said that inter-Governmental collaboration should be sought for the accommodation of refugees as near as possible to the areas where they were at present receiving hospitality. That is of course intended to overcome the immense difficulties caused by the shortage of shipping. Thirdly, they said that plans should therefore be made for the maintenance of refugees in neutral countries in so far as there was transport to get them there. This would involve assurance of support and return to their native countries when the war ended. That is rather on the lines of some of the things suggested this afternoon, and, on an international basis where more shipping resources may be available, it may very likely be a practicable proposition. Then there was a suggestion in regard to the exploratory Conference. His Majesty's Government accepted the suggestion for Anglo-American exploratory consultation and they agreed to the basis for discussion which I have just detailed to your Lordships.
The noble Lord, Lord Addison, said this afternoon that he hoped this matter had been raised by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary in Washington. I am very glad to be able to tell your Lordships that it has been raised. He took the oportunity of discussing this question as a matter of great urgency with the American Government, and I am in a position this afternoon to make a statement which has been agreed between the two Governments and which only reached this country this morning. This is the statement:

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"Question of the plight of oppressed and persecuted persons in Europe has been taken up between Mr. Hull and Mr. Eden. It has been decided that conversations in connexion with this matter should take place in the immediate future.
"His Majesty's Government and the United States Government have given expression to their deep interest in coming to a decision as to practical steps which may be taken to supplement the actual measures now being undertaken by the two Governments. Particular reference has been made to persecuted peoples in Eastern Europe for a number of whom refuge in Palestine has already been offered, and to those in Western Europe for some of whom actual arrangements for relief and evacuation have already been made and further arrangements are under preparation.
"The two Governments have previously agreed by exchange of Notes upon the necessity for urgent and immediate action and have arrived at an agenda which they intend to implement in their forthcoming conversations. This programme would have the full support of His Majesty's Government and United States Government and no doubt of other United Nations and neutrals whose collaboration it is hoped to secure.
"It is expected that the place of the meeting and names of representatives of the two Governments will be announced in the immediate future."
I think that is satisfactory, indeed most encouraging news. When that meeting takes place—and in the view of His Majesty's Government the sooner it takes place the better, for I can assure my noble relative, Viscount Cecil, this is not an excuse for delay—all such proposals as have been put forward by the most reverend Primate and by other speakers here, which may appear to be practicable on the international plane, will no doubt be given full consideration. Among these, I would include the most reverend Primate's proposal with regard to a High Commissioner. I must not be taken as giving any pledge on behalf of His Majesty's Government, but of course any proposals regarding these matters will clearly come under examination when the meeting is held. In the meantime—for
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there will be no doubt some inevitable delay before decisions are taken—both countries are continuing their measures of relief to refugees. The relations between His Majesty's Government and United States authorities are very close and cordial with regard to the refugee problem both in Spain and in North Africa, and in face of very formidable difficulties they have made considerable progress both in setting refugees at liberty and in providing maintenance for them. The most reverend Primate—and I think his words were echoed by other noble Lords—urged that the progress that was being made was too slow. Like him I wish it could have been quicker. But it is idle to ignore the difficulties. Terrible cases have been quoted in this debate, the sort of cases that makes one's blood curdle.
But the truth is there is no rapid or easy cure for this problem. Even before the war, as I know personally, because I was concerned with the question in Geneva and at League Committees in Paris and elsewhere, the difficulties regarding a complete solution were almost insuperable. To-day they are increased one hundredfold. All we can do, and must do, is to keep pegging away in the hope of doing something to alleviate the agony of these unhappy people. That has been throughout—and I can assure your Lordships' House with all sincerity will continue to be—the policy of His Majesty's Government. That is the purpose of the most reverend Primate's Motion. And as he has explained that he does not tie himself to all the specific proposals he has put forward, proposals which are really intended as a contribution to a solution, I am very glad on behalf of His Majesty's Government to accept his Motion, as a symbol of that essential unity of aim which inspires our country in facing this terrible problem.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, there are very few words I need say in view of what has fallen from the noble Viscount who replied for the Government. Inasmuch as the Government accept this Motion it is clear there is no substantial point of dispute between us. I think perhaps I should disentangle myself from one or two of the knots with which he endeavoured to tie me up, but the interest of that is more personal than public. I really did not suggest that we had a large surplus of food on which

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we could draw. I only suggested that we are being so very well fed that the entry of, say, 100,000 new people into the country would not reduce our standard of living to such an extent as to injure any of us very badly, and that the country ought to be ready and willing to face the consequences of such an addition to the population. Neither did I ever contemplate a flow of vast numbers of refugees. I have constantly reiterated my view that it would be, at best, but a trickle, and I suggested that there should be refuge available for those, necessarily very few, I fear, who would be able to make their way out. I did not mean to suggest that I was shocked that in the three weeks that elapsed between the Colonial Secretary's two statements it had not been possible for anything to be done with regard to the people of whom he spoke. I merely mentioned it as a fact, and asked whether anything had yet become practicable.
It is inevitable that in circumstances like these when all of us, members of the Government just as much as anyone else, are desperately eager to see action taken, those of us who have no direct responsibility for taking it should be a little impatient, while those who have the responsibility are conscious of difficulties which others of us cannot know to a like degree. I confess that I still cannot escape the impression, which is shared, I gather, by my noble friend Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, that it will be a very great relief if there can be somebody appointed, whether he is called a High Commissioner or anything else, for whom this will be a prime responsibility. Though I have not the slightest doubt that Ministers of the Crown and those working in their Departments are very busily occupied at the present time, I feel that this is a matter of such urgency and such magnitude that it deserves the whole-time thought of some leading personality who could act in the name of the Government and feel that this is his first responsibility.
The Motion does not refer to any of the specific proposals that I, or the noble Lords who took part in the debate, have suggested. Those proposals were brought forward only as illustrations of action that might be taken, as points that seem to deserve consideration, and as evidence that those who feel strongly on this matter have also tried to acquire information and to think with some relevance about it. But
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those proposals, as I say, are not included in the Motion. The Motion merely pledges our support to the Government in taking immediately, and on the largest and most generous scale, measures that are practicable to help these poor people. We offer that to the Government at once in a spirit of sympathy and urgency. We have no desire to embarrass them unless they regard it as an embarrassment that we should administer a stimulus.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932.
Orders made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department extending Section 1 of the Act to the
City of Bradford,
Rural District Council of Petworth:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and ordered to lie on the Table.

ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that by virtue of the powers vested in him by Section 2 of the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, he had nominated the Lord O'Hagan to be a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee established under that Act, to serve for the duration of the present Parliament in the room of the Lord Luke.
HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
Second Report from the Select Committee made, and to be printed.

ADJOURNMENT: BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: My Lords, I move that the House do now adjourn.
Moved, That the House do now adjourn.—(Viscount Cranborne).
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, I understood from my noble friend, with regard to the Motion (concerning the maintenance of peace after the war) which stands in my name, that he thinks it would be more convenient if it were postponed for the present.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: That is so.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: Perhaps the Clerk will be good enough to put it down as a Motion for which no date is fixed, and then I can confer with my noble friend as to what is the most convenient course to take.
VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: I am most grateful to my noble friend and I will get in touch with him with regard to the most convenient date for bringing on his Motion.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned.