Sitting of 26 July 1944

PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS

  LOUGHBOROUGH CORPORATION BILL [Lords]
  Ordered:
  "That in the case of the Loughborough Corporation Bill [Lords] Standing Order 231 be suspended and that the Bill, as amended, be now considered, copies of the Bill, amended in manuscript, having been deposited."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
  Bill, as amended, considered accordingly.
  Ordered:
  "That Standing Orders 240 and 262 be suspended and that the Bill be now read the Third time."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
  Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

  BRITISH AND GERMAN CIVILIANS (EXCHANGE)
  Mr. Edgar Granvilleasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why the repatriation of 800 British civilian internees from French camps has been held up.
  The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden): Some 400 persons arrived in Spain on 21st July in the first convoy of trains and are now on board the exchange ship at Lisbon. I have no definite information with regard to the whereabouts of the second convoy and am awaiting reports from His Majesty's Representatives in Switzerland and Portugal. I imagine that the delay in the passage of the first convoy across France was due to the effects of the Allied air offensive and of the activities of the French Forces of the Interior upon the French railway communications.
  Mr. Granville: As this was an exchange, can the right hon. Gentleman say what has happened to the German civilians who are to be exchanged?
  Mr. Eden: I think they are waiting, too.

  PRISONERS OF WAR AND CIVILIAN INTERNEES, FAR EAST
  Miss Wardasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any further progress has been made with regard to getting food and medical supplies to prisoners of war and civilian internees in the Far East.
  Mr. Eden: I regret that we have not yet been able to secure the agreement of the Japanese Government to any practicable proposal.
  Miss Ward: In view of the fact that a statement made, I think, on 5th July, contained the information that the Japanese had approached us, what is the objection?
  Mr. Eden: The difficulty, I can assure the hon. Lady, does not lie on our side. We are doing everything in our power to induce the Japanese to agree to this arrangement, but, so far, they have not done so. The discussions are continuing and my hon. Friend can be assured that we will do all we can.
  Captain Gammans: Can my right hon. Friend say if the ships that were at Vladivostock carrying supplies have, in fact, left?
  Mr. Eden: I rather think they have not, but perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will put that question down.

  LIBERATED FRANCE (CIVIL ADMINISTRATION)
  Miss Wardasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now make a statement on the basis of the agreement come to between ourselves, the U.S.A. and the French National Committee.
  Mr. Eden: As I informed the House on 12th July, the recent discussions with representatives of the French Committee of National Liberation regarding Civil Affairs in liberated France were conducted on the basis that the French

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  Committee would, in fact, exercise governmental authority in France as that country's liberation proceeds. This basis has also been accepted by the United States Government, and I hope that the negotiations which are still proceeding in Washington will shortly reach a satisfactory conclusion.
  Miss Ward: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the information will be available before the House rises?
  Mr. Eden: I, personally, very much hope so, but, of course, it does not lie with us alone to make progress.

  UNITED STATES AIRMEN, JAPAN (EXECUTIONS)
  Mr. Priceasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the fact that the Japanese have executed Allied airmen who have been shot down over Japan, he will consult with other Allied Governments concerned with a view to exacting retribution for these murders.
  Mr. Eden: The Allied airmen in question were Americans. In a statement on the subject of these executions issued on 21st April, 1943, President Roosevelt declared that the United States Government will hold personally and officially responsible for these diabolical crimes all of those officers of the Japanese Government who have participated therein and will in due course bring those officers to justice. I can assure the United States Government and the American people that they can rely upon the full support of His Majesty's Government in pursuing that aim.

  ANTI-BRITISH GERMAN PROPAGANDA
  Captain Gammansasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has considered the pronouncement by the German Government that, in an official handbook of modern irregular warfare, British soldiers are ordered to gouge out the eyes of helpless enemies and to commit other similar atrocities; and what steps he is taking to counteract this propaganda.
  Mr. Eden: Yes, Sir. I am aware of the statement which my hon. and gallant Friend has in mind. Such distorted and unfounded propaganda only discredits
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  those who stoop to use it. British troops are, of course, ordered to conduct themselves, in all their operations and in their treatment of enemy prisoners of war, in accordance with the provisions of the relevant international Conventions. Hon. Members will have noted that this monstrous allegation was made in a German radio broadcast designed to confuse the clear issue of the murder of British prisoners of war who had escaped from German camps.
  Mr. Cocks: Is there any basis at all for this allegation? My right hon Friend has used the word "distorted." If there is no basis for the allegation, will the Government issue a public statement to that effect?
  Mr. Eden: I not only used the word "distorted "; I also used the word "unfounded."

  ROYAL AIR FORCE

    Transferred Personnel
    Colonel Greenwellasked the Secretary of State for Air whether men now training as members of air crews who have volunteered for these duties from reserved occupations are now to be liable for transfer to the Army.
    The Secretary of State for Air (Sir Archibald Sinclair): No airmen who have actually started and are successfully continuing aircrew training are being compulsorily transferred to the Army.
    Mr. Driberg: Could the right hon. Gentleman tell us what is the position of men in the R.A.F. who have applied to be transferred to air crew duties from other duties where such transfer is pima facie allowable?
    Sir A. Sinclair: That is another question.
    Colonel Greenwell: Does the answer of my right hon. Friend mean that men who have gone from reserved occupations, men who would never have been allowed to join the Army, or the Navy, because of their value to industrial war effort, will now be transferred to the Army rather than returned, if not yet actually trained, to their civil employment?
    Sir A. Sinclair: My hon. and gallant Friend says "if they are not yet trained." This question refers to those under training at the moment, and they

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    will not be transferred to the Army if they continue successfully in their training.
    Mr. Mathers: If men have been taken from their industrial work, in a way in which they would not have been taken for the Army and Navy, because they have volunteered for air crew duties—against which there is no appeal machinery available—what is their position with regard to these transfers?
    Sir A. Sinclair: If they are in training now and have failed in their air crew training, then their disposal after they leave the Royal Air Force is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour.
    Mr. Buchanan: Is the Minister aware that a man gets no such option? He is immediately transferred from the Air Force to the Army without any discharge at all. If he were discharged, it would allow the Minister of Labour to deal with him, and that would be fair enough, but he is transferred from the Air Force without discharge.
    Sir A. Sinclair: No, Sir, if he is in the class to which my hon. Friend referred—a man who is in a scheduled occupation—that is a matter for the Minister of Labour.
    Mr. Buchanan: That is not the case, because I have had communications with a sheet-metal worker, who was reserved, but who was transferred automatically without being discharged from the Royal Air Force, and I could get no satisfaction, despite a long correspondence.
    Mr. Bellengerasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he can make a statement as to pay and allowances of R.A.F. personnel to be transferred to the Army.
    Wing-Commander Hulbertasked the Secretary of State for Air if he will give an assurance that airmen compulsorily transferred from the R.A.F. to other Services will not suffer financially or in regard to promotion; and will those so transferred retain their acting rank.
    Sir A. Sinclair: I would refer hon. Members to the reply given yesterday to the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Granville). The question of retention of
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    acting rank does not arise as only aircraftmen are being compulsorily transferred.
    Mr. Bellenger: Will my right hon. Friend elaborate a little the reply given by the Parliamentary Secretary yesterday? If these men are being transferred, are sufficient accountants also being transferred to the Army, to watch their pay accounts, because the Army have no knowledge of Air Force rates of pay?
    Sir A. Sinclair: These men are to be paid at rates not less than they now receive. They will, of course, receive the Army pay under Army arrangements. There is no suggestion that Royal Air Force accountants should be asked to administer Army pay.
    Mr. Bellenger: Do I understand that these men who are transferred will go into the Army on Royal Air Force rates of pay; and, if so, how is that to be arranged financially?
    Sir A. Sinclair: I never said that they would receive Royal Air Force rates of pay. They will receive rates of pay in the Army, not less than they now receive. They might be higher.

    Parliamentary Franchise (Register)
    Mr. Prittasked the Secretary of State for Air to what proportion of the Forces serving under his Department the forms of registration as voters have been distributed; and what proportion of the recipients have actually registered.
    Sir A. Sinclair: I would refer the hon. and learned Member to the reply which I gave on 10th May to Questions by the hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth (Sir J. Mellor), the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. Loverseed) and the hon. and gallant Member for Stockport (Sir A. Gridley). As I then explained, arrangements are being made, where practicable, for a copy of the registration form to be handed to every airman and airwoman at pay parades and it is hoped to cover all units by 1st August. As for the second part of the Question, test checks have been carried out among home units which suggest that approximately 75 per cent. of all personnel at those units have registered.
    Mr. Pritt: Could not the right hon. Gentleman do a little better than to refer me to the answers given two and a half months ago? He only tells

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    me what happened two and a half months ago. I would like him to tell me, if he can, what has happened in the two and a half months.
    Sir A. Sinclair: I have no records, but I think it is, roughly, 75 per cent.
    Mr. Hugh Lawson: Can the right hon. Gentleman say if, as well as keeping a check on the number of forms handed in, a check is being kept on the forms sent to the registration officer?
    Sir A. Sinclair: My hon. Friend knows that that is not being done, but we are keeping a test check.

    Retired Officers
    Flight-Lieutenant Teeingasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is aware that on stations where officers over 49 years of age were to be informed that they might shortly become redundant, actually officers over 39 years of age have been brought before a board for the same purpose; and whether, if these officers are retired, as they are still of military age, they will be conscripted as privates for the Army or directed into any kind of work by the Ministry of Labour.
    Sir A. Sinclair: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply given to him on 6th July last. As was then stated, it is the policy of the Air Ministry to review the position of all officers irrespective of age in view of the need to maintain the efficiency of the Service and to ensure opportunities for advancement for young and energetic officers. The employment of officers after retirement from the Service is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service.

    Administrative Posts (General Duties Officers)
    Flight-Lieutenant Teeingasked the Secretary of State for Air whether it is the present policy that R.A.F. officers of the Administrative and Special Duties Branch should be replaced by officers of the General Duties Branch; and, if so, what steps will be taken to dispose of the administrative and special duties officers thus displaced.
    Sir A. Sinclair: Certain administrative posts in the Royal Air Force established for General Duties officers have been filled
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    by officers of the Administrative and Special Duties Branch until such time as General Duties officers are available for the purpose. It is proposed to fill these posts by suitable General Duties officers coming from operations. This will provide a wider range of administrative experience for General Duties officers who will from such experience become better equipped for command and staff appointments. Officers of the Administrative and Special Duties Branch thus displaced will be considered for such other administrative employment at home and overseas as may be available and for which they are suitable and medically fit.

  IRELAND (CENSORSHIP)
  Sir John Mellorasked the Minister of Information what communications are now permitted to pass uncensored from the United Kingdom to Eire.
  The Minister of Information (Mr. Brendan Bracken): All communications other than diplomatic communications passing between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Eire are subject to censorship.
  Sir J. Mellor: Are not diplomatic communications liable to defeat the purposes of the drastic restrictions upon travel to Ireland?
  Mr. Bracken: This matter has been most carefully investigated by the security officers of the Government, and they are satisfied about the present arrangements.
  Mr. Thorne: If a man or woman sends a letter to relatives in Eire, is it censored?
  Mr. Bracken: Yes, Sir.
  Professor Savory: Is not the Eire Government still in diplomatic relationship with the German Government?
  Mr. Speaker: That is another question altogether.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS CHAMBER (NOISE)
  Mr. Pethick-Lawrenceasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works whether his attention has been drawn to the disturbance caused to Debates in the House of Commons Chamber by the noise in the Lobby when the exit door at the bar end is open; and whether,

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  during the Recess, he can take any steps, by double doors or otherwise, to reduce this inconvenience.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works (Mr. Hicks): I am in consultation with the authorities of the House and I will in due course communicate with my right hon. Friend about the matter.

  ROYAL NAVY

    Mails (Delays)
    Mr. Bowlesasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has any statement to make upon the delay in sending mails to a naval party established in a place of which details have been supplied to him by the hon. Member for Nuneaton.
    The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. A. V. Alexander): No opportunity of getting mails to this party is lost and the difficulties to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention are due solely to operational reasons which cannot, of course, be made public.
    Mr. Bowles: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the House any assurance that the arrangements may be better in the future?
    Mr. Alexander: I am quite certain that every step will be taken. Perhaps I could have a word with my hon. Friend about it.
    Captain Bullockasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that there is a considerable delay both in outgoing and incoming mails to and from personnel serving on landing craft operations between France and England; and whether he will arrange for a quicker service both for letters and parcels in the near future.
    Mr. Alexander: Yes, Sir, I am well aware of this delay. As I informed my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Loughborough (Major Kimball) on 18th July, energetic action has been taken by the Admiralty and the General Post Office, and I am glad to say that the results are already apparent in a considerable speed-up of deliveries and a reduction of arrears. The Admiralty fully realises the great importance to welfare of a prompt and efficient mail service and is watching
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    the situation closely to see that everything possible is done to secure further improvements.

    Promotions from Lower Deck (Flag Rank)
    Mr. Bellengerasked the First Lord of the Admiralty how many officers promoted from the lower deck have reached flag rank.
    Mr. Alexander: One officer from the lower deck has been promoted in recent years to flag rank and retained on the Active List.
    Mr. Bellenger: In view of the length of time this system of promotion has been in force, now over 30 years, does the right hon. Gentleman's answer reflect on the abilities of those officers who have been promoted, or does it cast some reflection on the operation of the system?
    Mr. Alexander: Certainly it does not reflect on the abilities of the officers. The original system, introduced before the last great war, did tend on experience to bring men to commissioned rank at too old an age to get right through to the top. This was revised in the scheme called the Upper Yardman Scheme in 1931, and I think that the tendency in future will be to have a larger number of promotions.
    Mr. Woodburn: Is my right hon. Friend making any arrangements so that likely young men who come into the Navy can be picked out, as they are in some parts of the Civil Service, and given an opportunity for training equal to those outside?
    Mr. Alexander: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Cocks: Was not promotion from the lower deck more rapid in the last war?
    Mr. Alexander: No, Sir.

    Marriage Allowances (Payment)
    Mr. Priceasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will reconsider the practice of his Department in paying the allowance for wife and children direct to a serving man instead of, as in the case of other Services, paying it to the wife through the Post Office.
    Mr. Alexander: Except in a limited number of cases where men are accommodated with their families in official

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    quarters at their station, marriage allowance in respect of naval ratings and other ranks R.M. is not paid to the man but to the wife, or in the case of motherless children to the guardian, through the Post Office, as is the practice in the other Services. The question of revision of the practice does not, therefore, arise.
    Mr. Price: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are cases where that does not apply, and that the money is paid only to the man, as the case which I have sent him proves; and will he look into this case and see whether serious hardship does not arise sometimes?
    Mr. Alexander: I will certainly have a look especially at the case my hon. Friend raises, but I know of no general exception, except this, where men have quarters and their wives are with them.

    Education Service
    Mr. Priceasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has inquired into the condition of technical and adult education in the Navy and especially into the status and pay of the schoolmaster grade in the service; and whether he proposes to make any changes.
    Mr. Alexander: There have been considerable developments in adult education in the Navy since the Debate on this subject which took place on a Motion by my hon. Friend, and they will, I hope, continue. Changes in technical education depend on the technical requirements of the Service and although there has not been the same marked development in this form of education during the last four months, I have no reason to think that the facilities now available are inadequate. As I promised, I have instituted inquiry into the status of the schoolmaster branch of the Royal Navy but the subject is one of some complexity and the inquiry is not yet completed. I will undertake to inform by hon. Friend as soon as a conclusion is reached.

    Parliamentary Franchise (Register)
    Mr. Prittasked the First Lord of the Admiralty to what proportion of the Forces serving under his Department the forms for registration as voters have been distributed; and if he is yet in a position to announce what proportion of the recipients have actually registered.
    Mr. Alexander: The distribution of registration cards arranged by the Admiralty is on the basis of rather more than one for each officer or man in the Naval Service, but I have no information when the forms despatched to the more distant stations arrived and how far distribution has progressed. The result of the samples which I have taken among the Naval Establishments at home shows an average of 80 per cent. of the personnel as having completed the registration forms. Allowing for the fact that the Home Fleet and the Home Port depots have been concerned with the operations in Normandy during the last two months, I think the hon. and learned Member will agree that this is a reasonable percentage. As I promised those Members of the House who were present at the meeting in the Home Office on 6th July, I have taken action to make doubly sure that every officer or man has had an opportunity to complete a form if he desires to do so. I am not yet able to report concerning the stations abroad.
    Mr. Hugh Lawson: Does that mean that in the Navy an actual record is being made of the forms which are completed and sent for registration as voters?
    Mr. Alexander: No, Sir. It means what I have said—"from the samples I have taken."
    Mr. A. Edwards: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have visited a Home establishment during the last six weeks, and even in the last two months, and in many cases they have not even heard of these forms, and that an officer explained on one occasion to his men that the reason they had not got them was that their lordships had been busy recently on the coast of France but that he hoped soon to have them? There are many places where they had not got these forms, at least up to the last six weeks.
    Mr. Alexander: If my hon. Friend had pressed me two months ago, I am afraid that the answer would have been rather gloomy, but the thing is going satisfactorily now.
    Mr. Graham White: On a purely constitutional point will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the promise made to hon. Members at the meeting to which he referred, applies to all Members?
    Mr. Alexander: I am sure that my hon. Friend would not wish me and my Ministerial colleagues to be discourteous to those who wait upon us.

  BRITISH HONDURAS (LAND TAX)
  Mr. Edmund Harveyasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how much land has been surrendered to the Crown in British Honduras in lieu of arrears of land tax; what was the amount of the tax in question; and what use has been made of the land thus surrendered.
  The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Colonel Oliver Stanley): I regret that full particulars are not available in the Colonial Office. I am inquiring of the Governor and I will communicate further with the hon. Member.
  Mr. Riley: May I ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman whether he has in view as part of his plan its use for land settlement in British Honduras or the West Indies?
  Colonel Stanley: That is quite a different question and perhaps the hon. Member will put it down.

  MANDATED TERRITORIES
  Mr. Hugh Lawsonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies on what date the last Report on the Mandated Territories was made to the League of Nations.
  Colonel Stanley: The last reports on the administration of the Mandated Territories for which His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom are responsible, were submitted to the League of Nations during 1939 in respect of the year 1938.
  Mr. Lawson: Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman prepare reports for the years since 1939 so that they can be submitted to a properly constituted international authority after the war?
  Colonel Stanley: No, Sir. I have explained before in this House that there have been far too many urgent jobs to permit of this being done.
  Mr. Lawson: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman suggesting that this is not an urgent job?
  Colonel Stanley: I do not think that the making of a report, however interesting it is and however much we want to have a record after the war, is nearly as important as the preparation of plans for the future, or the carrying on of the war effort.
  Mr. Hugh Lawsonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will give an assurance that no change will be made in the status of the Mandated Territories without the approval of a properly constituted international authority.
  Colonel Stanley: Any proposal to alter the status of Mandated Territories would, clearly, be a matter for international discussion at the appropriate time in relation to the general peace settlement. It directly affects a number of Governments, Dominion and foreign, as well as His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, and I am not at present able to make any statement on the matter.
  Mr. Turton: Can my right hon. and gallant Friend give an assurance that there will be no delay in seeking the common wealth of the Mandated Territories?
  Colonel Stanley: I hope so.

  PALESTINE (DEMOBILISATION)
  Mr. Edmund Harveyasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will make a statement on the plans for demobilisation and for the absorption into civilian life of Palestinian members of the Forces.
  Colonel Stanley: Plans for the demobilisation and absorption into civil life of the Palestine Local Forces are at present under consideration by the Government of Palestine in consultation with the Military Authorities concerned, but I regret that I am not yet in a position to make any announcement on the matter. The plans of the Government include, of course, the matter of reabsorbing into civil life those Palestinians serving in other than local Forces.
  Mr. Harvey: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend see that an announcement is made as soon as plans are completed? It would give great encouragement.
  Colonel Stanley: Yes, Sir, as my hon. Friend knows, there is now a reconstruction commission in Palestine and as soon as plans are prepared, no doubt they will be published.

  UGANDA (MALTESE DETAINEES)
  Mr. Edmund Harveyasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many Maltese British subjects are still detained in internment in Uganda; and whether any proposals for their repatriation are being considered.
  Colonel Stanley: Twenty-five Maltese British subjects are at present being held in detention in Uganda on behalf of the Government of Malta. Of the original party of 42, 17 were repatriated last year after all the cases had been reviewed. The cases of the remainder are at present again under review by the Governors with a view to possible repatriation and release.
  Captain Alan Graham: Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman assure us that he will be in no hurry to release the notorious anti-British Monsignor Pantellerscu?
  Colonel Stanley: If my hon. and gallant Friend is going to ask about particular cases, he had better put a Question on the Paper.

  LOST DRIFTERS (COMPENSATION)
  Major Neven-Spenceasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport how much compensation for total loss has been paid and credited to the owners of the steam drifter "White Daisy"; and how much has been offered to the owners of the motor drifters "Honeydew" and "Winsome."
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport (Mr. Noel-Baker): The compensation paid for the total loss of the steam drifter "White Daisy" was £1,968. In addition the sum of £492 was placed to the owners' credit in the Fishing Vessels (Deferred Payments) Account. The motor drifters "Honeydew" and "Winsome" are in a different category and are chartered on a different form of charter. No final settlement has yet been reached about the compensation to be paid. If there should be a recourse to litigation, the amount offered by the
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  Crown would be material to the proceedings. It would, therefore, be wrong for me now to state the offers which have been made.
  Major Neven-Spence: Is my hon. Friend aware that the owners of "Honeydew" and "Winsome" are completely dissatisfied with any offer made so far, on the ground that there is no justification at all for discriminating between motor drifters and steam drifters? Will he undertake to look into the whole question carefully again and, in view of the fact that mainly Scottish and Shetland fishermen are concerned, will he agree to consult with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland before coming to any final decision?
  Mr. Noel-Baker: I will certainly review it again. I have looked at it very carefully but I will certainly consult my right hon. Friend. In this case, however, I think the decision will have to stand, and, as it may be a matter for litigation if the owners do not accept offers made to them, I think I had better say no more.

  MERCHANT SEAMEN (PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE)
  Mr. Prittasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport, to what proportion of the merchant seamen to whom they are applicable the forms for registration as voters have been distributed; and what proportion of the recipients have actually registered.
  Mr. Nod-Baker: Declaration cards are issued to seamen by the Mercantile Marine Offices in United Kingdom Ports, and by British Consular Officers abroad. I regret that I have as yet no information about the total number of cards which have so far been issued, nor about the number of men who have already registered.

  ROAD SAFETY (SPECIAL CAMPAIGN)
  Mr. Edgar Granvilleasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether he has or will set up a special committee to examine what steps may be taken to inaugurate a special campaign to reduce the number of casualties upon the road.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: The Committee on Road Safety are considering the question of a special campaign and will make recommendations on the matter to my Noble Friend in their Report.
  Mr. Granville: In view of the decrease in civilian motoring traffic and the increase in military traffic, will the Committee have power to make recommendations with regard to safety regulation of military traffic? Are the pedestrians and cyclists' associations represented on this Committee?
  Mr. Noel-Baker: I will send my hon. Friend a note of the composition of the Committee, as it would take too long to give it now. Certainly the Committee has power to examine all the matters he has mentioned and to make a report thereon.

  LIBERATED COUNTRIES (FOOD SUPPLIES)
  Miss Wardasked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that U.N.R.R.A. has been charged with feeding liberated territories, the organisation is already operating in such countries; and whether sufficient foods have been released to feed these populations.
  The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Arthur Henderson): U.N.R.R.A. is not yet furnishing supplies to liberated territories, the provision of supplies for which is necessarily in the first phase a responsibility of the combined United Kingdom/United States military authorities. Food to supplement local production, up to the standard necessary to prevent disease and unrest, has been and is being despatched by those authorities to the areas so far liberated. Owing to the agricultural nature of the territory so far liberated in Normandy, the demand there has up to now been small, but it is likely to become much greater when industrial areas are freed.
  Miss Ward: May I ask my hon. and learned Friend where food supplies are drawn from? Presumably not from U.N.R.R.A.
  Mr. Henderson: No, they are supplied by the military authorities of the United States Army and the British Army.
  Miss Ward: Will my hon. Friend be quite certain that there will be sufficient food available for all the liberated territories, before U.N.R.R.A. goes into operation?
  Mr. Henderson: Up to date there has certainly been sufficient. As a matter of fact, the amount sent has been relatively small because of the small demand, and medical supplies also are already on the way.

  BRITISH ARMY

    Retired Officers (War Gratuity)
    Flight-Lieutenant Teelingasked the Secretary of State for War whether he can make any statement as to whether serving officers will receive any gratuity or bonus on leaving the Services at the termination of the war; what form such gratuity or bonus will take; and whether officers now being compulsorily retired to make way for younger men will share in such award.
    Mr. A. Henderson: I regret I am not yet in a position to make a statement on this subject. Officers who have honourably retired from the Service to make way for younger men would not be precluded from receiving any war gratuity which might be approved.
    Mr. Bellenger: As it is obvious that the Government must have some sort of plan to enable my hon. and learned Friend to give that answer, will he make an early announcement, particularly in view of his own statement about an early termination of the war, so that the men in the Services—other ranks as well as officers—will know what they can expect?
    Mr. Henderson: I think my hon. Friend had better address that question to other quarters.
    Sir Herbert Williams: Could my hon. and learned Friend, as a start, give us a White Paper, which is common form now?

    Proposed Jewish Unit
    Mr. Muffasked the Secretary of State for War if a decision has been made to recruit Jewish inhabitants of Palestine into units which are definitely Jewish, with flashes and markings to identify them as such.
    Mr. A. Henderson: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given yesterday to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Leeds (Major Adams) by my right hon. Friend.
    Commander Locker-Lampson: Has not the time arrived when the Jews, who have been so loyal to the conception of liberty, should have their own Army?
    Mr. Henderson: Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will refresh his memory by looking at the answer which my right hon. Friend gave yesterday.

  PENSIONS AND GRANTS
  Major Sir Jocelyn Lucasasked the Minister of Pensions whether uniformed education officers in the R.A.F., wounded and disabled by enemy action, are entitled to a pension at Air Force or civilian injuries scheme rates.
  The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): The persons referred to are engaged under an ordinary civil contract. Accordingly they come under the Personal Injuries (Civilians) Scheme for injury or death due to enemy action unless they are eligible for awards under the Injury Warrants applicable to civil servants.
  Sir J. Lucas: But when an officer of that category gets seriously injured in a room full of other officers, is he to be paid differently from them?
  Sir W. Womersley: He is paid under the civilian injuries scheme because he enters into a civil contract.

  WHEAT AND BARLEY ACREAGE (BREWING)
  Dr. Littleasked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the reduction in the acreage of wheat by 250,000 and the increase in the acreage of barley by 150,000 for 1944, the increase in the acreage of barley is for the purpose of maintaining at pre-war standard the supply of cereals to brewers; and by how much the reduction in the acreage of wheat will necessitate more wheat being imported.
  The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. R. S. Hudson): No, Sir. The changes in the respective acreages under wheat and barley have arisen through the necessity of a
  758
  return to more normal farming practice after the abnormal cropping with wheat in previous years.
  Dr. Little: Did not that arise through the enhanced price brewers are willing to pay for barley? Has my right hon. Friend noted that, owing to the large grant of cereals to brewers, the production of beer has been increased by 16 per cent. since the war started to 30th September last, and is still increasing while, on the other hand, the fowl population of the country has decreased in the same period from 72,000,000 to 12,000,000 through lack of cereals? What will he do about this alarming decline?
  Mr. Molson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is still a serious shortage of beer in the country, and could he increase supplies to brewers?

  EQUAL PAY (ROYAL COMMISSION)
  Mr. W. J. Brownasked the Prime Minister whether he can now announce the personnel and terms of reference of the proposed Royal Commission on Equal Pay.
  The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): I cannot at present add to the answer given to the hon. Member on 19th July last.
  Mr. Brown: If it takes us about six months to get a Commission appointed, how many years will it be before we get a report? Can the right hon. Gentleman not speed things up?
  Mr. Attlee: I have already replied that I hope to make a statement before the House rises.
  Mr. Brown: Yes, I know, but we do not get the information.

  MINISTRY OF SUPPLY (RAW MATERIALS GUIDE)
  Mr. Kendallasked the Minister of Supply whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that in the index of commodities published by his Department certain manufacturers have been prejudiced by the fact that a commodity produced by several firms is described by the name applied to it by one particular foreign manufacturer; why the only kind of synthetic strong yarn men-

  759
  tioned in the index is a product called Nylon; and can he state the names of other forms of strong yarn known to his Ministry.
  The Minister of Supply (Sir Andrew Duncan): The "Raw Materials Guide" was compiled, in response to requests from many inquirers, to indicate the form of control and other particulars in regard to various commodities. Nylon was specifically mentioned, as it was subject to special control arrangements. Other strong yarns used commercially include Durafil, Fortisan, Tenasco and Tyrenka.
  Mr. Kendall: Is the Minister aware that Fortisan, manufactured in this country, is very much stronger than Nylon? Will he take the necessary steps to encourage the manufacture of this important British product?
  Sir A. Duncan: The purpose of this Guide has nothing to do with the respective qualities of these products.

  FLYING BOMB ATTACKS

    Food Supplies (Evacuation Areas)
    Mr. E. J. Williamsasked the Minister of Food what steps are taken to meet the increased demand for meat, fish, fruit and vegetables in South Wales and other evacuation areas.
    The Minister of Food (Colonel Llewellin): I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave him last week.

    Bombed Property (Looting)
    Captain Gammansasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department to what extent looting of bombed property has increased during the present air attacks on London and Southern England; and if he has taken adequate steps to deal with it.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peake): My information about the extent of these offences is that up to the present they are substantially less than during the blitz period in 1940 and 1941. The police are taking all possible steps, consistently with their other duties, to guard damaged property, to prevent offences and to detect offenders, and they have been successful in making a number of arrests. So far as the courts are concerned, they have
    760
    been made aware of the need for imposing appropriate penalties. The matter is kept under consideration by the Civil Defence Committee, over which my right hon. Friend presides.
    Captain Gammans: Does my right hon. Friend feel that some of the sentences given recently by the courts are appropriate for this despicable form of offence?
    Mr. Peake: I cannot undertake to criticise particular sentences, but I would remind the House that a very large number of these so-called looting offences are really cases of petty pilfering, and that, as regards serious cases, magistrates have been reminded on more than one occasion by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that they are to be dealt with very seriously.
    Mr. Thorne: If a magistrate feels that he is not in a position to inflict a very heavy penalty can he commit to the assizes?
    Mr. Peake: Yes, Sir, Defence Regulation 38A was amended in 1940 to provide that persons may be committed for trial at assizes, and sentenced either to death or penal servitude for life for such an offence.
    Mr. Goldie: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the death sentence has yet been passed in any looting case?
    Mr. Peake: Not so far as I am aware.

  POLAND (COMMITTEE OF NATIONAL LIBERATION)
  Mr. Speaker: I have here a Private Notice Question and, strictly speaking, I ought not to allow it, because there are Questions to be answered next Tuesday on the same subject. But I am assured that the matter is very important and urgent, and therefore, though it must not be taken as a precedent, I will allow this Private Notice Question to be put now.
  Major Lloyd(by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the formation of the Polish Committee of National Liberation, it is still the intention of His Majesty's Government to recognise the Polish Government in London as the Government of Poland.
  Mr. Eden: There has been no change in the attitude of His Majesty's Government, who continue to recognise the Polish Government, let by M. Mikolajczyk, as the Government of Poland. Since, however, we are here concerned with relations between two of our Allies, I would ask the House not to press me further at this stage. The House can rest assured that His Majesty's Government are doing all in their power to further an early solution of problems between two friendly nations, engaged together in war against the common enemy.
  Mr. Thorne: Is there any possibility of getting a committee to adjudicate on this matter?
  Mr. Eden: I could try to answer that and other supplementary questions, but I think the feeling of the House would be, as it would be mine, that we must do all we can to find a solution. I shall not help it by public statements.

NATIONAL FIRE SERVICE REGULATIONS (LAYING)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I much regret to have to tell the House that by an oversight there has been a failure to lay before Parliament a number of Regulations which have been made under the Fire Services (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1941. These Regulations fall into three groups. First, there are the National Fire Service (General) Regulations, 1941, which were made in August of that year, and provide for the establishment of the National Fire Service, and a number of Regulations which have been made from time to time since that date amending the original Regulations. The total number in this group is 19, including the original Regulations. The second group consists of three sets of Regulations made in November and December, 1942, and in August, 1943, amending earlier Regulations relating to the preservation of pensions of whole-time members of the National Fire Service who had previously been in the service of a local authority. The original Regulations in this series which had been made in August, 1941, had been duly laid before Parliament. Thirdly, there are the National Fire Service (Employment Overseas) Regulations, which were made in June of this year and authorise the employment
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of members of the Service, as volunteers, in support of the operations of the Allied Forces in Europe.
All these Regulations ought to have been laid in accordance with the Act, which provides that Regulations made thereunder are to be laid before Parliament "as soon as may be," and that within the next twenty-eight Sitting Days they may be annulled by Resolution of either House. The House will, I hope, acquit me and my Department of any deliberate disregard of this requirement. The Regulations have, of course, all been printed as Statutory Rules and Orders and have been placed on sale. Moreover, as I have already mentioned, a set of six Regulations dealing with the preservation of pensions, which were made in August, 1941, were duly laid before Parliament. I think, therefore, that I may fairly ask the House to accept my assurance that the omission to present the other Regulations to which I have referred was unintentional, and hon. Members will appreciate that at the time when this series of mishaps began we were particularly hardly pressed in the reorganisation of fire-fighting against enemy attacks. I can now only express my great regret for the oversight. Needless to say, arrangements have been made to ensure that a mistake of this kind does not occur again.
Such steps as are possible have also been taken to repair the omission by laying the Regulations before Parliament at once; and they are being presented. They will have to lie for twenty-eight Sitting Days; and as we are to adjourn shortly this period will not elapse until well after Parliament reassembles in the autumn. They will of course be examined by the Select Committee on Statutory Rules and Orders. This will give hon. Members ample time to consider them, but I think that it will help the House if I add that I had it in mind in any event to consolidate, with certain further amendments, the General Regulations. This may take a little time, but I will issue the revised Regulations, with a full explanatory memorandum, as soon as possible after the Recess. There have been fewer amendments in the Preservation of Pensions Regulations, and as at present advised I do not think it necessary to consolidate them. In conclusion, I can only say again that I much regret this omission, which I felt it my duty to bring

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to the notice of the House as soon as possible after it came to light.
Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: While the House, of course, must treat as a very serious matter any failure to conform to the arrangements made by Statute, it is generally, shall we say, friendly towards a Minister who comes frankly before us in a white sheet and admits his errors. I am sure that the House will accord that friendly consideration to the right hon. Gentleman in this matter. I would like to ask two questions. I would like to know whether there are any sanctions in the Act necessitating these Orders being laid, and, if so, whether it will be necessary to come to the House for any Act of Indemnity, to omit the application of any such sanction to the Home Secretary. In the second place, have any individuals suffered damnification in their liberties as the result of these Regulations?
Mr. Morrison: With regard to the first point, the Act undoubtedly requires that the Regulations should be laid and they are in a form in which a Prayer may be moved against them. That is the provision which I have unwittingly broken. As far as I know, there are no sanctions for failing to do so and I think their legal effect is all right. I do not think any question of indemnifying legislation will be necessary. With regard to any injustice to individuals, my right hon. Friend, as far as I know, may be assured that none has resulted from the Regulations, which have been generally acceptable.
Sir Irving Albery: What steps have been taken to ensure that, in future, in no case shall any Regulations be put into force until they have been definitely brought to the notice of, and approved by, Ministers serving under the Crown? Further, I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether he will give instructions that all Departments which have been issuing Regulations shall go through their files and ascertain whether in any case a similar lapse has occurred.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): I think, after the remarks that have been made in this discussion, and after the statement of the Home Secretary, it will scarcely be necessary for a formal direction of that character to be issued.
Mr. Morrison: On the first point by the hon. Member for Gravesend (Sir I. Albery), there was no question of evading Ministerial approval. These Regulations were all approved by me and, I think, signed by me personally. I am entirely responsible to the House, but there has been such a shake-up in the Department that I think it will be a long time before anything like it occurs again.
Sir Herbert Williams: I think the Home Secretary has disarmed criticism by his frankness, but I understood him to say these Regulations were subject to a Prayer. They were Defence Regulations and would not have been signed by him, but approved by the Privy Council. I was under the impression that, when an Order in Council was published, the responsibility for laying it rested with the Privy Council and not with the Minister concerned. I would also point out that all Statutory Rules and Orders are numbered. Would it not be possible for the number-issuing authority to communicate the numbers to the Library, and the Library could check whether they had received all the documents they ought to have received?
Mr. Morrison: I think it is the Minister concerned who is responsible for seeing that the Regulations are laid and not the Privy Council or the Privy Council Office. As to the numbers, the hon. Gentleman has made a suggestion which may have its uses and I will examine it to see whether it is possible or desirable.
Mr. Silverman: If the Regulations were not placed on the Table of the House so that no Prayer could be moved, were they not invalidly made, so that any action taken under them would be an illegal action? Secondly, did the Regulations contain any possibility of disciplinary action or criminal proceedings against any person? Have any such proceedings ever been taken and, if they have, would any remedy be offered to persons who have suffered by being proceeded against illegally?
Mr. Morrison: On the first point, I speak without advice but I do not think that any question of legal invalidity arises. If it did, I should have to bring in a Bill to cover that point. With regard to disciplinary action, I could not be sure. It is possible that under the Regulations disciplinary action may have been taken

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in a number of cases but I can assure my hon. Friend that it would have been taken fairly, and I do not think any individual could say that he has suffered injustice. Everyone was aware of these disciplinary provisions, including the trade unions concerned. I should not however like to give an answer on the facts on the spur of the moment.
Mr. Silverman: Surely my right hon. Friend will agree that any man is unjustly treated if he is proceeded against under a law which has not been properly authorised by the House and, whatever the actual merits may have been, on the assumption that the Regulations were valid. The injustice remains, once it is established that the Regulations were invalid.
Mr. Morrison: It all depends on the case. I ought to think about that, before I give a definite answer, but the disciplinary code has been fairly worked out by all the parties concerned, and fairly administered. I do not think I ought to go further.
Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: I put the point in the first instance whether any individuals had been damnified by acts on behalf of the Home Office, under these Regulations. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will look into that point and be prepared to answer a question next week? It is one of considerable importance.
Mr. Morrison: I will look into it.
Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Surely the Home Secretary should have informed himself on that point. Is it not most unusual that the right hon. Gentleman should make a statement, and not be able to inform the House on this very important point whether, in fact, if the procedure of an Act of Parliament has not been complied with, the Act of Parliament is legal in its operation? Surely, it cannot be legal, unless it is legally carried through.
Mr. Morrison: I think if I am going to answer a point, on which legal action may ensue, I ought to have notice and give a considered answer. I am sorry that I am not ready to give a considered answer, but life is pressing at the moment.
Mr. McGovern: I read of a case on Monday where two men were prosecuted
766
and, as it may be the case that some people have been prosecuted illegally, will not the right hon. Gentleman consider taking action to suspend such actions? When he talks about the trade unions knowing, may I suggest that we are more interested in whether the individual concerned knew?
Mr. Morrison: I will consider the point.
Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward: May we take it that any convictions obtained under these Regulations which were not laid before the House, will be automatically quashed?
Mr. Morrison: No. I am certainly not prepared to give such a sweeping undertaking.
Mr. Woodburn: Apart from convictions, will my right hon Friend look into the question of whether any person who has suffered loss of employment, or any disabilities resulting from Regulations which are not valid, should have a right of action at the expense of the Home Secretary?
Mr. Morrison: That is possible, but the House ought to distinguish between a lapse—which is a serious lapse, the legal consequences of which I must consider—and the question of whether any real injustice of substance has been done to the individual. We must not necessarily assume that definite injustice has been done owing to a fault—serious though it is—in procedure.
Mr. Pickthorn: May I ask for your guidance, Sir? I am a little foxed by this procedure. Normally, when a statement is made after Questions, by way of personal explanation, it is a statement of a Private Member. This is a statement by a Minister. How far does this series of questions and answers in any way comport any kind of acquiescence by the House, or cut out the House from any right of discussion or criticism which it might wish to exercise?
Mr. Speaker: The House is not bound in any way. The Minister makes a statement. No Member is committed by it, but only the Minister himself.
Mr. Silverman Mr. Silverman rose——
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member has already asked three questions.
Mr. Silverman: It is true that a number of questions have been asked, but the matter is an important one. The right hon. Gentleman in his last answer, in the opinion of many Members, has stated a position which requires further elucidation——
Mr. Speaker: It is not a matter which can be debated now.
Mr. Silverman: I do not propose to debate it, but I would like to ask my right hon. Friend whether he will bear in mind that it is a vital principle of our law that no man shall be proceeded against by anybody, certainly not by a Minister of the Crown, except in the due process of the law, and that if the Regulations under which the Minister has acted have not had the sanction of the House as the Act requires, it will be a manifest and most atrocious injustice to persist in any penalties inflicted on the persons proceeded against.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is now arguing the matter and not asking a question.
Mr. Molson: Will my right hon. Friend consider whether it would not be the right thing to introduce a small Bill validating what has taken place in the past? Is not that the right procedure?
Mr. Morrison: I will consider that. I do not know whether it is necessary or not. What is clearly necessary is that the Regulations should be properly laid and the House given its full opportunities.
Commander Sir Archibald Southby: When will my right hon. Friend be in a position to be so fully informed that he can come to the House and make a further statement so that the House will have the opportunity of discussing this matter, which it is impossible to do now by way of question and answer?

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS
That they have agreed to—
Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, without Amendment.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)
Ordered:
"That this day, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 14, Supplementary Estimates for New Services may be considered; that Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before the hour appointed for the interruption of Business; and that if the first Resolution reported from the Committee of Supply of 25th July shall have been agreed to before the hour at which Mr. Speaker is directed, by paragraph 7 of Standing Order No. 14, to put forthwith certain Questions, Mr. Speaker shall proceed to put forthwith those Questions."—[Mr. Eden.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SUPPLY
  [20TH ALLOTTED DAY]
  REPORT [25th July]

CIVIL ESTIMATES AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1944, AND ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1944.
Resolutions reported:
CIVIL ESTIMATES AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1944, AND ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1944.
  CLASS V. VOTE 8

    MINISTRY OF LABOUR AND NATIONAL SERVICE
    "That a sum not exceeding £22,710,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1945, for the salaries and expenses, of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, including sums payable by the Exchequer to the Unemployment Fund, grants to local authorities, associations and other bodies in respect of unemployment insurance, employment exchange and other services; expenses of transfer and resettlement; expenses of training; contribution towards the expenses of the International Labour Organisation (League of Nations); expenses of the Industrial Court; and sundry services."
    [For details of remaining Resolutions, see OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th July, 1944; Vol. 402, c. 702–709.]
    First Resolution read a Second time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Tomlinson): Over three months have elapsed since the close of the International Labour Conference at Philadelphia, at which I had
778
the privilege of leading the British Government Delegation. I feel, therefore, that I am now sufficiently far from it, both in time and space, to be able to review some of the principal characteristics of the Conference and to give some estimate of its significance. I have before me on the Table what is, in effect, the agenda of the Conference, but Members need not be perturbed, for it is not my intention to go through it. I have also the provisional record of the proceedings which, as hon. Members can see, constitutes a reasonable volume. I may say that the speeches in the volume, particularly those of the British representatives, are worthy of some consideration. I want to say, in the first place, that the Philadelphia Conference was genuinely international. It was international, not simply because 41 States members of the organisation were represented, but because of the real international spirit displayed by the various delegates. If the Philadelphia Conference had done nothing else than demonstrate the value of international co-operation and the interdependence of nations, that alone would have made it worth while holding.
As I listened to the delegates of Governments, employers and workers, describing the problems in the field of labour and industry with which they were faced in their own countries, I sometimes wondered whether, out of this mass of differing national problems and differing national experiences, any international agreement could possibly be achieved. Yet international agreement was achieved on a very large number of important points. The Acting Director of the International Labour Office characterised the conference as a conference of achievement. It succeeded in being a conference of achievement only because of the genuine spirit of international co-operation that was manifest. Within the international framework of the organisation the need became clearly evident at Philadelphia for some development on regional lines. Particular problems arise in particular regions of the world, on which it would be helpful for discussions on a regional basis to take place. This need for regional development was voiced by speakers from various parts of the world, from the Fast East, from the Near and Middle East, and from the occupied countries of Europe, as well as from

779
America. The desire to have special regional conferences is due to the desire to have discussions of regional problems, on a regional basis, and also to afford direct evidence to the peoples of the various parts of the world of the operations of the I.L.O.
The Philadelphia Conference was genuinely representative, not only of Governments, but of workers and employers. It has always been one of the essential characteristics of the I.L.O. that it is a tripartite body in which, through consultation between Governments, employers and workers, comprehensive programmes of labour and industrial reconstruction can be worked out. I would like to remind the House that the first draft of the constitution of the I.L.O. was prepared in our Ministry of Labour under the impulsion of Mr. George Barnes. It is interesting to recall also that the present acting director, Mr. Phelan, Was on the headquarters staff at the time. The draft was submitted to the International Peace Conference in response to the demands of the delegates of the nations gathered at that conference. The Commission met under the chairmanship of Samuel Gompers and thus the I.L.O. was brought into being as a tripartite organisation representative of Governments, employers and workers.
It was an experiment, and the experiment worked. Time and again, at the Philadelphia Conference, the importance of this tripartite system of representation became evident. Both in committees and in the plenary sessions of the Conference, the co-operation of Governments, employers and workers was indispensable to the success of the Conference. In this country we have a long and honourable tradition of co-operation between the Government, the employers and workers in dealing with matters of common concern. This tradition has now become internationally embodied in the I.L.O. Its maintenance is an earnest of the continuing success which will, I hope, be achieved by the I.L.O. in the post-war world. The Philadelphia Conference was, in a real sense, an historic conference. It was the first regular session of the International Labour Conference held since the war.
A conference had been held in New York in 1941, but the ordinary Constitution and Standing Orders did not apply to that conference. At Philadelphia, repre-
780
sentatives of the Government, employers and workers came together, after the testing years of war, to consider the action to be taken by the Organisation in relation to the problems which would arise in the transition from war to peace and in connection with post-war reconstruction. Further, the conference took the opportunity to re-examine the constitution and procedure of the Organisation with a view to rendering it better fitted to cope with the problems which lie ahead in the difficult times that face us. I want to submit that it is a sign of vitality when an organisation voluntarily undertakes a process of self-examination and self-criticism. This process resulted at Philadelphia in the adoption of a declaration concerning the aims and purposes of the I.L.O., the text of whch has already been communicated to the House. If each of the representatives of the Governments, employers and workers a t Philadelphia had been asked to submit to the conference a draft of this Declaration, these would no doubt have been very different; but they could and did agree wholeheartedly with the final draft adopted, which represented in a very real sense the common will of the Conference.
The discussion which led to the adoption of this Declaration showed that there was agreement among all the speakers that the International Labour Organisation must be maintained and that it should be developed in order to undertake its increasing responsibilities. It was agreed by all that if this organisation had not existed, it would have been necessary to create it now. It was recognised that the world needs, more than ever before, an organisation to bring together the representatives of Governments, employers and workers of the freedom-loving peoples of the world, to work for the promotion of the common well-being. It would be wrong of me, in emphasising the importance of the Conference and the success of the work it achieved, not to draw attention to certain dangers against which, it became evident in the proceedings of the Conference, the International Labour Organisation must be on its guard.
The principal danger, as I see it, is that of adopting recommendations or resolutions without sufficient preparation and discussion. The normal procedure of the Organisation is based on careful preparatory work by the Office and by technical

781
committees of the Conference, detailed prior consultation of Governments, on the basis of a questionnaire, and the submission to the Office of drafts for the consideration of the Conference, sufficiently far in advance of the holding of the Conference for consideration to be given to those drafts by all concerned in the various countries. This procedure has sometimes been criticised on the ground that it is too elaborate and complicated, but experience in connection with the Philadelphia Conference shows that some such procedure providing for adequate preparation and consultation is essential if the respect with which the decisions of the Conference have always been treated is to be maintained.
In the case of the Philadelphia Conference there had been no time for the Office to undertake the usual procedure of preparatory consultation, technical committees or conferences or even to consult the Governments on the basis of questionnaires. The drafts for submission to the Conference were prepared by the staff of the Office on the responsibility of the Acting-Director, and in some cases, owing to difficulties of communication with which we were all familiar, they did not reach Governments, employers or workers before they left their own countries for Philadelphia. The Conference, as a consequence, found itself faced with such a mass of business to transact that it was very difficult to give sufficiently careful consideration to all the details of some of the proposals made. In these circumstances there was considerable risk of hasty decisions being taken which would not redound to the credit of the International Labour Organisation. The British Delegation felt this danger to be particularly acute in connection with some of the proposals made on social security. The Committee on Social Security submitted to the Conference their detailed recommendations, one dealing with income security, one dealing with medical care and the third dealing with income security and medical care for persons discharged from the Armed Forces and assimilated services, as well as from war employment. In the case of the third recommendation we agreed that it was urgent, in view of the nature of the problem, that the views of the Conference on this matter should be formulated at that Session in the form of a recommendation and we voted for it.
782
On the other hand, we felt strongly that the very detailed recommendations proposed regarding income security and medical care had been adopted by the Committee without it being possible to give them the thorough consideration that they deserved. We therefore took the view that it would be best, in the interests of the development of social security legislation and in the interests of the standing of the International Labour Organisation, that those recommendations should not be adopted at the Philadelphia Conference but that they should be sent to the Governments for their observations and report and that the whole matter should he placed on the agenda of the next Conference, with a view to the adoption of draft conventions. We felt strongly that this procedure would lead to more effective action than the immediate adoption of recommendations, but the Conference did not agree with us on this point, and the British Government Delegation therefore abstained from voting on those two recommendations.
This country continues to lead the world in the sphere of social security and it has ratified all the social insurance conventions previously adopted by International Labour Conference. We recognise the admirable work that has been done by the I.L.O. in the field of social security and we are anxious that that work should not be compromised by the hasty adoption of recommendations, some of which, by recapitulating the provisions in existing Conventions, may have the effect of weakening them.
I have referred in some detail to these social security recommendations because they illustrate the danger to which I have referred of decisions being taken by the Conference without adequate prior preparation and consultation. Even when one country is concerned we know, from our own experience, the care with which the plans have to be considered. When all countries are affected, and when there are so many different stages of development, it is obvious that hastily considered proposals, however attractive they may be, may not be practicable over wide areas of the world. As I have said, this attitude of ours led to misunderstanding. We took up the position that if the Conference were to concentrate upon guiding principles and if those guiding principles

783
were referred to Governments for them to report upon, with a view to a Draft Convention at the next conference, we should get more progress on the part of the nations represented than by the simple adoption of the recommendations there and then. The Conference chose to regard this as delaying tactics. Why it should be assumed that the British Government should want to delay it is difficult to understand. Our record should surely have saved us the necessity of answering this charge. I am not referring to remarks which may be made in this House, and I am not particularly concerned about being criticised and egged on by people who have done more and are wanting to do more, but I do feel resentment at being charged with seeking to delay progress when all that has been asked for by that Organisation has been previously done and a lead given to the world.
Mr. Hynd: Surely that is not correct. When did this Government ratify the whole of the Social Security Convention, the Childbirth Convention, the 48-hour week Convention, and others?
Mr. Tomlinson: I said, and I repeat, that this Government leads the world so far as the adoption and application of Conventions are concerned. I have not suggested that this Government has ratified every Convention that has come before it—it certainly has not—but very often we have passed legislation covering points which are part and parcel of recommendations, and agreements entered into between organisations of employers and trade unionists also cover the recommendations which are embodied in a Convention.
Mr. Leslie: But surely there was time for the Government to ratify these Conventions and thereby encourage other countries to do likewise.
Mr. Tomlinson: One of the reasons for the ratification of Conventions is that other Governments will follow suit. When questions are asked with regard to social security I would ask hon. Members to read the recommendations that have been put before the Conference by the I.L.O. and, with the exception, maybe, of two items they will be found to be embodied already in legislation which this House
784
has passed and from which the I.L.O. has received its inspiration and will, I hope, receive more inspiration in the future.
It has been suggested that if we were not prepared to vote for these recommendations but had put in reservations with regard to their application, that might have been a better procedure than to allow ourselves to be charged with using delaying tactics. In my view reservations can render a recommendation innocuous, and it seemed to me that many of those at the Philadelphia Conference who were finding fault with our attitude were voting for resolutions with sufficient reservations to make those resolutions non-effective after they had been carried. Honesty, it has been said, is the best policy. I have discovered that it is not always the best policy, particularly at international conferences, but I believe it is the best line to follow if one wants to come out right in the end. A further danger against which the Organisation will have to guard is the risk that the Conference should be used for the adoption of resolutions of a propagandist nature. The prestige which the Organisation has rightly acquired throughout the world has been based on its success in avoiding being used for propaganda ends, and if its status is to be upheld it is essential that any such danger should be carefully guarded against.
Much will be done to overcome these dangers when it is possible for the regular procedure of the Organisation to be restored. As the Acting Director pointed out, frequent meetings of the governing body, followed by regular meetings of the Conference, should once more bring the technical work of the Office into the closest harmony with the policy which the representative organs of the Organisation pursue and should allow time for Governments to consider proposals well inadvance of their discussion by the Conference. I should like to take the opportunity of paying a tribute to the Acting Director and his staff for the admirable work which they accomplished under conditions of exceptional difficulty in preparing and carrying through the work of the Conference. The governing body of the I.L.O., which met immediately after the Conference, adopted a budget for the Organisation for 1945 which should enable it to face its developing responsibilities and to undertake adequately the fresh duties that will be laid upon the Office as a result of the Philadelphia Conference.

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Hon. Members will not expect me to refer in detail to all the various recommendations and resolutions adopted by the Conference. The report of the British Government delegates has been submitted to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service, and he proposes to present it to Parliament at an early date, together with the full text of the recommendations and resolutions adopted. In the meantime, however, I should like to refer to one or two matters which are of particular interest. In the consideration of the declaration on the aims and purposes of the International Labour Organisation, the Conference had before it the views of those who thought the Organisation should assume some responsibility for formulating and coordinating economic and financial policy, but it decided, wisely, I think, that the proper function of the Organisation was to examine and consider all economic policies and measures in order to see whether they could be regarded as promoting or hindering the attainment of conditions in which the fundamental objectives of the Organisation could be achieved. The Organisation will judge all policies and measures, in particular those of an economic and financial character, in the light of their effect on the well-being of the people, and will use its influence to ensure that the main object of such policy shall be the improvement of human conditions.
To this end the declaration which I have previously referred to and which has been reported to the House makes what I consider to be a first-class declaration in this direction. It begins by saying—and this was part of its original constitution—that "labour is not a commodity." How fundamentally true that statement is has been more clearly demonstrated in our own country during the past four years than at any other time in its history. Had labour not been regarded as something other than a commodity to be bought and sold it would never have been possible to utilize it to the forging of a weapon by the means of which the freedom of the world could be saved. It also reaffirms that freedom of expression and of association are essential to sustain progress. This, I think, is self evident, for it is the basis upon which the constitution of the I.L.O. rests. It also states that poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere, and if only we
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could make that a living faith it seems to me we should be on the high road to many achievements. Finally, it suggests in the first paragraph that the war against want should be waged with the same urgency as is the war that is being conducted at the present time. This declaration, reaffirming the principles and setting out the new objectives, is not only worthy of the consideration of the House but, I believe, is worthy of the support, and the active support, not only of the people of this nation but of people of good will throughout the world.
Interim provision has already been made for the association of the Organisation with the Food Organisation, with U.N.R.R.A. and other international organisations, and the governing body, acting in accordance with a decision of the Conference, has appointed a committee to consider the whole question of the relationship of the I.L.O. with other international organisations. That committee will also review the constitution and finance of the Organisation in the light of present day circumstances. The Conference recognised that the promotion and maintenance of high levels of employment and the raising of social conditions require action in many fields to make these objectives attainable.
Perhaps the main preoccupation of all delegates to the Conference was the question of full employment. From the beginning and throughout the Conference it was clear that this matter filled the thoughts and informed the actions and speeches of all those present. One of the most heartening features of the Conference was the unanimity of representatives in their determination that we must never again acquiesce in the kind of unemployment from which so many countries suffered in the inter-war years, but that, on the contrary, Governments and peoples must take every practicable step to ensure that suitable employment is available for all those who desire to work. In the words of the Committee on Employment, on which I had the privilege to sit along with one of my colleagues in the Ministry:
"Policies to assure full employment constitute an indispensable condition for the successful solution of the problem with which this Conference is faced."
Access to employment in the production of useful goods or services is essential for

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the preservation of human dignity as well as for the proper support of physical existence. The assurance that sufficient jobs will be available must depend upon the willingness of nations to adopt whatever measures may be necessary and appropriate to promote employment—opportunity for as many men and women as may seek employment. The work of this Committee was not concerned with wider measures for ensuring full employment. Those are matters for discussions elsewhere. Its deliberations were concerned with the organisation of employment in the transition from war to peace. Its business, in other words, was to consider organisational arrangements. It must not be thought that these are unimportant. The organisation is not right if it does not perform efficiently its function of bringing together available workers and available jobs in an orderly manner. Even in a time of widespread prosperity there may be waste, dislocation and avoidable unemployment. Organisational arrangements are, it is true, only part of the problem of full employment but, again in the words of the Committee, "They are of great potential significance for the post-war era." Even questions of organisation may give rise to controversy, and it was not to be expected that there would not be any difference of opinion on this very large Committee, a Committee of 33 representatives of Governments and 22 each of employers and workers, or 77 in all. Members addressed themselves to their task in a spirit of co-operation, and with the determination to make a report which would be of maximum assistance to Governments, and of great potential benefit to people. I believe they succeeded in their aims. They produced three most valuable recommendations, and two resolutions which, with the full support of the representatives of His Majesty's Government, were adopted by the Conference. It is not possible to describe in more detail the provisions of these recommendations and resolutions, but I venture to hope that hon. Members will study the provisions for themselves, when, I think, they will agree that they make a substantial contribution to the important problem of employment.
The recent International Monetary Conference was a further important step towards this aim. In their recommenda-
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tions for present and post-war social policy the Conference expressed the great importance they attached to
"the establishment, at the earliest possible moment, of effective international machinery for settling balances arising out of international trade and other transactions, and for maintaining stability in rates of exchange"
and urged
"the authorities responsible for its application to have regard, in framing and applying their policy, to the effect of their decisions on employment and living standards."
A very necessary and, I believe, a very vital admonition. All of the recommendations of the Conference on this subject indicated the importance of international measures for the expansion of constructive economic activity to the achieving of the Organisation's own objectives. The cooperation of the I.L.O. in these measures will bring the employers and workers of the world into close touch with all such measures. It will not only enable their experience and knowledge to be brought to bear on international deliberations, but will also give them, in their various countries, that sense of responsibility which is necessary.
In the resolution concerning social provisions in the peace settlement, in which it is hoped that the Philadelphia Declaration will be included, the Conference recommended that the Governing Body should call a special conference of the Organisation when, in its opinion, there is a danger of a substantial fall in general employment levels, for the purpose of recommending appropriate national or international measures to prevent the development or spread of unemployment, and to establish conditions under which high levels of employment may be maintained or restored and to correlate the activities of the I.L.O. for the end of maintaining full employment with those of any other international agency or agencies which may be designated by the United Nations to have responsibility in economic fields. The Conference also proposed that there should be a regular exchange between Governments of information and statistics on uniform lines, for the purpose of assisting in the promotion of economic advancement and social well-being. Thus, the I.L.O., as a tripartite organisation, seeks to take an effective part in the great work of world reconstruction and to bring all those affected into active relationship with

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Governments in this great task. Recommendations on social security, transition from war to peace and minimum standards of social policy in dependent territories, may all be regarded as a commencement of the work of the I.L.O. in their own post-war field. It will be possible to discuss these in more detail when the question of their adoption is debated by the House, but, in the meantime, they provide a basis for consideration of all Governments in reconstruction and resettlement after the war.
The representatives of the occupied countries, however, pointed out that many of these proposals applied to countries which have not been devastated by the invader and there must first be relief and rehabilitation. Other countries, also, in which the conditions are primitive, have a long period of development to face before they can be expected to put into operation measures more suited to the most advanced countries. Having set out their long-distance proposal, it is necessary for the I.L.O. to have regard to these practical considerations and to provide the guidance and assistance that are required, and it is interesting to note that the I.L.O., through the difficult years, has been doing this. More than one representative from what might be described, not as a backward, but a somewhat backward, nation, referred with gratitude to the assistance they had received from the Office in the promotion of their own social service organisation. It is with that in mind that, as soon as circumstances permit, regional conferences in the East and elsewhere are proposed. It is in the interest of the whole world that educative measures of this kind should be taken.
I should like to refer to one other matter which was considered by the Conference. The British Government proposed that international joint committees should be established in the major industries of the world, such as coal, textile, transport and the metal trade. Two objectives are in mind, first, to increase the machinery for international co-operation by bringing together those who have that close natural affinity which comes from working in the same occupation, and, secondly, to enable those in these great industries to mix together internationally for the discussion of their common problems and to assist in raising the conditions in the new areas of in-
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dustrialisation. I am glad to say that this proposal was adopted by the Conference, and that the Office was instructed by the Governing Body to set up an Industrial Relations Department, among the duties of which will be the formulation of proposals for setting up such committees. That is my report of some of the things which took place at Philadelphia, a truly historic Conference. I want to express to the House my thanks for having been given the privilege and also to express the hope that the work that was done will lead, as we believe it will, if it is honestly carried out, to the promotion of the well-being of the peoples of the world.
Mr. Thorne: May I be allowed to put two questions to the Parliamentary Secretary? The first is whether there is any Convention to be ratified by this House, and the second is whether hours of labour were discussed.
Mr. Tomlinson: The answer to the first question is that the two recommendations and regulations which will come before the House were passed. The answer to the second is that the hours of labour were not discussed, except in relation to employment.
Mr. James Griffiths: We have had from my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary the frank kind of report which we expect from him, and I am sure he will agree that the best purpose we can serve to-day is to be as equally frank about the Conference and the future of the International Labour Office. The I.L.O. is the only piece of machinery created at the end of the last war which has survived the storm. All the rest has gone. All the rest has been overwhelmed in the international anarchy that destroyed both the hopes and the peace of the world. It is, indeed, the orphan of the storm, and the fact that it has survived for these last 25 years is proof that it has, by its work and by its influence, won for itself a permanent place in world organisation. Its survival gives us hope that this time we shall build on firmer foundations a world organisation, of which the I.L.O. will be an integral part, a world organisation that can create the conditions of peace and that will provide effective machinery for creating and for keeping the peace.
In its 25 years existence, I think it can be fairly claimed that the I.L.O. has

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performed three major services to the world. First, it has, by its recommendations and by its Conventions, laid the foundation upon which a just labour code could, in part, have been built and can still be built. I say "could in part have been built" because the recommendations and the Conventions agreed to at the trade conferences of the I.L.O. were not adopted by the Governments at the Conference. That includes our own Governments of the inter-war period; I will come back to the rôle of our Governments later. The second service that has been rendered by the I.L.O. is that it has proved that there is, in the field of industrial and social improvement, a great opportunity for the development of international action. This is the field which offers the best opportunity, for it is in this field of international economic cooperation that we can lay the basis upon which a peaceful world can be built. Thirdly, I think the International Labour Office has created an organisation which can be made into an effective instrument for achieving the aims and purposes which it has set for itself. I would like to say, too, that it has not only created the organisation, but has created a staff fully equal to the tasks which have been imposed upon it and which, with strengthening, can be made fully equal to the tasks to be imposed upon it in the future.
Those of us who have endeavoured to follow the work of the I.L.O. in the last 25 years have occasionally had opportunities of meeting those who serve on the staff, and I am sure we would like to pay our deep debt of gratitude to the staff for the way they have done their work. I can only wish that the Governments had done their work as well. I should certainly like to pay tribute to the way they have tenaciously hung on to their tasks and done the work of the I.L.O. in these war years. The Philadelphia Conference, in the main, devoted itself to passing a number of resolutions. It adopted a number of recommendations, and these resolutions and recommendations have now to be considered by the separate Governments, including our own, and, as the Parliamentary Secretary has told us, in due course they will come up before the House. Perhaps before the end of the Debate we may be informed when our own Government will submit these recom-
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mendations and resolutions for adoption by this House.
I do not propose, therefore, to discuss these detailed resolutions and recommendations, but to discuss the two major issues which came before the Conference. The first was a resettlement of the aims and purposes of the International Labour Organisation, and the second was what place the International Labour Office—the International Labour Organisation—is to occupy in the immense tasks of reconstruction that confront us on the morrow of victory. First, about the restatement of aims and purposes which took the form of what has become known as the Philadelphia Declaration. My hon. Friend referred to the fact that there were two dangers which the I.L.O. had to avoid. I shall say a word about both. The second danger to which he referred was the danger that the I.L.O. would adopt Declarations and Conventions and resolutions for mere propaganda purposes. I agree. I think it would be a very bad thing if representatives of Governments, or employers or trade unions, went to a conference of this kind, and gave their consent and approval to and voted for any recommendation or convention, resolution or declaration, if they did not mean it. I want to put this to our own Government, because we cannot put it to any other Government. Do they mean everything they said in the Declaration? Do they mean to carry it out? The Declaration is one of very great importance. I hope it will be read. I do not propose to quote at length from it, but I may wish to quote one or two sentences, because this has been agreed to by 41 nations assembled in Philadelphia, these 41 nations being represented by representatives of their own Governments and the employers and the trade unions, in the usual manner of the I.L.O., and unanimously they have made this Declaration, which I venture to hope, like my hon. Friend, is not propaganda which will be forgotten when the victory is won. Look at what it claims and asserts:
"All human beings, irrespective of race, creed or sex, have the right to pursue both their material well-being and their spiritual development in conditions of freedom and dignity, of economic security and equal opportunity."
It says "of race, creed or sex," and our own Government, which has responsi-

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bility not only for our own country but for a great Colonial Empire, has declared that every human being in the world is entitled to those material conditions, without which no real dignified human life is possible. Having laid down that objective, it lays down, secondly, that
"the attainment of the conditions in which this shall be possible must constitute the central aim of national and international policy."
First there was stated, "This is the goal"; secondly "That goal must be the central aim of national and international policy"; and thirdly:
"all national and international policies and measures, in particular those of an economic and financial character, shall be judged in this light, and accepted only in so far as they may be held to promote and not to hinder the achievement of this fundamental objective."
That is what 41 nations have said. If they mean it, not as propaganda but as a definite aim in policy, then I believe we can at the end of this war look forward to a better world, but only if they mean it as an aim in policy and not merely window-dressing propaganda.
I want to refer to the second danger to which my hon. Friend referred, that is that resolutions will be adopted without sufficient attention or pre-consideration. I agree entirely; but that is not the only danger. There is another danger which is emphasised very clearly in the Report made by the Office to the Conference. It is that really we must not judge the speed at which we require to do things in the light of that required in pre-war years. I want to refer to that in two connections. I want to refer to what my hon. Friend said about the attitude he was compelled to take, as the representative of the British Government, towards the proposal on economic security. Let me say frankly that I regret that the Government took that view. I do so for two reasons. First I regret it as a Britisher, if I may be allowed to say that. For a few months last year I was in America and Philadelphia. My experience as a Britisher was that I found everywhere that this country's prestige and standing there and, as I am told, elsewhere in the world, fell in those miserable inter-war years. There was a time long ago when this country had a prestige in the world which could not be explained by its material possessions or wealth but was in great
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measure due to the fact that in the 19th century it took the moral leadership in the world and not merely the material leadership. In the inter-war years we lost that place of pioneer nation, a nation of great moral strength, of greater moral strength than all our economic wealth. The fact that, as the Minister of Labour has said, for 17 years we suffered—and we ought to be ashamed we suffered it—1,700,000 unemployed persons, and that in international policy we scarcely ever took the lead, gave us a low place.
Then I found that the events of 1940–41, the behaviour of this city and of its common people, the way in which the common man sprang to the challenge, have given this country a new place in the mind and the heart of the world. I think it is desirable and essential for the future of the world that this country shall keep that place, that we shall be known as a country that is prepared to take the lead and not to keep behind or draw back. Therefore—I know my hon. Friend realises that I am speaking frankly but not personally—I do not like the idea that when a question of economic security comes up—because without that we are not going to have a peaceful world—the British Government should have even given the impression they were holding back and not prepared to go with others.
The second reason why I regret it is because of what is set out so clearly in the Report presented by the Office to the Conference, for the Office has an unrivalled knowledge of world conditions and world trends. If any body of men and women is able to sense how the world is moving and how the people are moving, what is taking place, what are the hopes and desires, it is the I.L.O. If I needed advice as to how things are going in the world I would go to the International Labour Office and its staff. They talk about the social trends, the claims laid down in the Declaration and say:
"These social claims are the claims which the common man whose conception of the possible has been enlarged by two world wars expects the economic system to satisfy. The problem of post-war reconstruction is the problem of how these claims shall be met."
Note, not whether they shall be met but how shall they be met, for they say this about the problem of whether they shall be met:

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"No political or economic system which fails to satisfy these claims will be acceptable to the people who have understood the potentiality of Government action in two world wars."
Here is the second danger. Here is a great chance. Here are these social claims. We have in the last five years taken our part, and have every reason to be proud of the part we have taken, in this great conflict. The mass of our people everywhere have given their best to the nation, to Parliament and to the Government. Never has there been such loyalty, such effort. Common men all over the world have been profoundly affected by this war. They begin to ask questions. It has enlarged their view of possibilities. All over the world there is a movement of the common people which will demand these rights from the economic and political system, and in the post-war period no economic system and no political system which fails to satisfy these claims of the common man will survive the storm. That is the truth—they will not survive the storm.
Sometimes I listen here to question and answer on what we will do in the postwar world—chop off a bit of one country and chop off a bit of another. That is not the problem of post-war reconstruction. The problem is to build a world which will provide peace and economic security for the people. If we cannot do that no chopping about of nationalities will accomplish anything at all. This is said by members of this staff, who have an unrivalled knowledge. That is a declaration. This Government, a Government composed of the major parties in this country, has been committed by the Parliamentary Secretary and his associates to that Philadelphia Declaration. There is the commitment. The Parliamentary Secretary has said that the worst thing to do would be to make that Declaration mere propaganda. That means that our economic policy and social policy at home and in the Colonial Empire, our influence in helping to shape the economic and financial policies in the world, must be determined by that Declaration, and if we do not live up to it, we will have passed it for propaganda purposes, not for real purposes.
I want to examine for a moment or two the part which the International Labour Office can play in these aims and objects
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set out in the Philadelphia Declaration. There are two aspects. First, what place is the I.L.O. already accorded in the consideration which has been and is still being given to some of the problems of. post-war reconstruction by what the Report calls "functional organisations" set up during the war? Instead of a comprehensive organisation to consider all international problems, we have had set up in the last two years functional organisations to consider special problems. First, there was the Hot Springs Conference on food supplies. There is U.N.R.R.A. Then there has been the Bretton Woods Conference on finance, which has just come to an end. The Office, in their Report, make the point that in the past the International Labour Office and the International Labour Organisation were very often precluded—more often than otherwise—from examining general economic and financial policies. Their job was to consider whether they would agree, say, to a draft convention for a 48-hour week, to the abolition of night baking, or specific matters of that kind. Up to now they have been precluded from examining general economic and financial policies pursued by nations, either singly or in collaboration, or financial and economic policies that regulate the relationship of nations.
The claim they make is that the I.L.O. should not be restricted in that way. Questions of financial and economic policy must affect aims and purposes. Therefore it is not fair or right or desirable to say to the I.L.O., "Here is a little bit. Examine that, but what happens outside is no concern of yours." Let me give an example from the coal industry. The I.L.O. was permitted in the interwar years to consider questions of the length of the working day, questions of workmen's compensation, questions affecting the standard of life of those in the industry. But when the I.L.O. sought to have a voice in another problem vitally related to it, that of the marketing of coal, and the price-fixing of coal, they were told "That is economic and financial policy. That is outside." How can it be outside? How can a body be asked to consider terms on which men work if it is not allowed to consider the very terms on which those wages are based? I would like the Minister, when he replies, to say whether the British Government

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fully accept the view that the I.L.O. ought to be accorded a full place in all the discussions on social and economic policies, because those policies must vitally affect its work.
I come to the question of the place of the I.L.O. in any contemplated world organisation. So far we have had these international conferences: Hot Springs, U.N.R.R.A., Bretton Woods, and the others. But not only our own Government, but the Congress and Government of the United States, too, are committed—by both parties in their election proclamations—to the setting up of a comprehensive world organisation. The I.L.O. was set up at the end of the last war, and it had a very definite organic relationship to the old League of Nations. Now that we have, unfortunately, allowed the old League of Nations to die, and another world organisation has to be created with a new constitution, what is the place of the I.L.O.? Is it to be accorded a place? If it is, is its authority to be widened in the ways that I have described? If it is, there comes the other question, which the Conference pronounced upon, I believe, with equal unanimity. That is, that it was desirable to write into the peace terms that would finally be adopted, setting up a world organisation, the Philadelphia Declaration, to which I have already referred, as part of the objectives of that world organisation.
Then there is the question of speeding up its procedure. I know that the dangers of inadequate consideration have been urged. But at the end of the war we shall move with very great speed. Problems will crowd upon us. Is the procedure of the I.L.O. to be of such a character as to enable it to play a full and effective part? There is a danger of problems and events crowding upon us so rapidly that we shall be discussing a problem which was acute 18 months ago when we are confronted with other problems. Speed in action is going to be essential in the post-war period, and I do not think that any of us, including the Parliamentary Secretary, would claim that at the moment the procedure of the I.L.O. is quick enough to meet coming events. The other problem is what can be done to bring influence upon Governments who agree to Conventions, and fail to ratify them. There is the question whether we ought to adopt more than
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influence, some sanctions. If there had been sanctions of that kind before the war, our own Governments would have had sanctions applied against them—and they would have deserved them. Is not some machinery for such sanctions desirable?
Another aspect is referred to in the Report. I will not quote it literally; I will trust to my memory. That is in relation to the formation of a United Nations Bank, to provide loans to countries to enable them to rehabilitate their economic life. It is suggested that the United Nations bank, when making loans, should lay down conditions. Generally speaking, these loans to other countries, in the past, have been made by financiers in Wall Street and the City and elsewhere. They have been concerned only to secure their own vested interests. But if a loan is made by the United Nations bank to a specific country to develop its economic life, cannot we lay down that, in its economic development, that country must observe the conditions laid down in the I.L.O. Code? We can tell a country: "Yes, you can have a loan to rehabilitate your country, to develop its resources, and to build up its economic life, but not unless you observe the conditions of the I.L.O. Code." [An HON. MEMBER: "The Fair Wages Clause."] There would be much more than that: it would include social services, and all the other things. In that way, it will be possible to build up the standard of life in countries everywhere. I have tried to raise some very general questions. I have left out a good deal that I wanted to say, but I have already taken more time than I ought to have done, and I know that we shall have time later on to consider these detailed recommendations and resolutions, which must come before us for ratification. I hope that we shall be told by the Minister when these are likely to come before the House.
In its discussions the Conference was preoccupied with these enormous problems which will confront us at the end of the war. Peoples have been disturbed as never before. I do not know whether Members have read a document by the Conference—one of the most striking documents I have read—on the displacement of populations during the war. The enormous problem of finding new roots and new homes, and of bringing back people, is dealt with in this document,

799
which I hope will be read by many Members. It is a document which indicates the measure of the problem which awaits us. We have all had the experience, as we have seen problems mount up, of feeling a sense of being overwhelmed. The staff of the I.L.O., having looked at the problems, having listed them, examined them, and reported upon some of them, say, "Here are immense problems, so immense that perhaps the first reaction is to hide from them, because they are so big. But there are the assets. We shall face these problems with great resources and great assets." They list those assets. On the material side here is one—the stimulus given by the war to technical development. I will quote their words:
"In terms of technical and social evolution, the war has telescoped years into months, and generations into years. We, therefore, at the end of the war, will be technically equipped for facing these problems in a way the world has never been technically equipped before. Secondly, there is another material asset and resource at our side to meet these problems, the fact that during the war there has been the acquisition of new skills by labour, on a scale hitherto undreamed of."
It is true of our own country. We shall have more skilled, better trained, and more competent workers than we have ever had in our history. They have learned new skills. Our girls have learned new skills. Who cannot be proud of the work they have done, and are doing still, and the adaptation they have learned? On the material side, therefore, we have assets big enough to meet this problem. On the other side, the Report lists the moral and spiritual assets. Mr. Henry Wallace said that this is the century of the common man everywhere—not the century of an Empire but the century of the common man—irrespective of race or colour or creed. In the young men in the world there are great moral resources. It seems to me that, in so far as we can determine our own policies and shape the future of the world, the challenge to all Governments is, "Here are the problems: here are the assets. How can we mobilise these assets so as to conquer these problems and provide a world which the common people not only want, but deserve, for the part they have played in the last few years? "I hope that we shall, as a Government, as Parliament, as a nation, not only continue our adher-
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ence to the I.L.O., but become a pioneer and a leader among the nations of the world, and play our full part in the work of the I.L.O., without which there can be no lasting peace in the world.
Mr. Hamilton Kerr: I am certain that the House has listened with interest to the wide and comprehensive survey which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary gave us of the work of the Philadelphia Conference. He mentioned that the British Delegation had been the subject of some criticism; but, whatever our shortcomings are, let us not forget to tell the world that this country has been the pioneer in a humane outlook and in the development of the social services. Do not let us forget that here in this House of Commons William Wilberforce first raised his voice against slavery, that here in this island Lord Shaftesbury first protested against child labour in factories, that here in this country Elizabeth Fry first toured the prisons and improved the conditions of the poor wretches locked in their cells. Among all classes of our people pioneers have been found in the development of the social services, health insurance, unemployment insurance, and old age pensions; and these have left our generation a legacy to improve upon, and an encouragement to go one better. Looking through the Report of the Philadelphia Conference, one is tempted to pick out so many points that one might fall into the error of Miss Margaret McBride, known as "the housewife's friend" in America, who is accused by her critics of "prattling rudderlessly."
The first point I wish to stress, which was noted by the Conference, is that
"poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere."
When M. Litvinov told the League of Nations that peace was indivisible, it was thought by the statesmen at Geneva that he was uttering something very new and very important. But, surely, if peace is indivisible in the political sphere, so prosperity is indivisible in the economic sphere. We cannot have a shattered Europe or a shattered China, and a prosperous world. I ask myself why the I.L.O. has succeeded and has maintained its reputation as an international body, when the League of Nations has already passed, and is to some extent discredited. It is for this reason. The I.L.O., I believe, has dealt with concrete problems in

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a practical way. Surely international affairs do not concern themselves solely with the mere signing of conventions, or the signing of treaties. It is not merely the statement of principles that is important. It is the fact that men and women in every part of the world learn to work together successfully.
We have had a remarkable illustration of this fact, in the military sphere, in this war. Look at S.H.A.E.F. in this country, where British and American officers do not work as two separate teams, but as one. We have our joint general staff conference in Washington, and likewise the Middle East Supply Centre, and I hope that this practical co-operation will continue effectively in the post-war years with the joint occupation of strategic bases. If that is the success which can be achieved in co-operation on the military side, how much more can the practical approach to economic and labour problems hope to succeed after the war. For if we can ensure that workers in every part of the world—say in China, Brazil or in Europe—can come to their factories in the morning, to work in a well-ventilated and well-lit building with the best working conditions, safety devices against accidents, good feeding and reasonable hours of work, and can return at the end of the week with an ample pay roll, then indeed we shall have found a practical way of reaching peace in the world.
What are some of these tremendous problems which will face our people after the war? Let me take a brief look at the world. We must all hope that the great country of Russia will see its way to rejoin the International Labour Office. Obviously, so vast a country, stretching from the Pacific to the borders of Europe, and from the Arctic in the North to the confines of India in the South, must play an effective part in the world, and its absence from world councils when labour problems are discussed must be damaging. What are these problems? It seems to me that, in Europe, it is a question of salvage, first and foremost. We must not forget that the German General Staff has organised the entire industry of Europe for the benefit of its war effort. The German army, fighting in Italy, on the Eastern front and in Normandy, has been supplied and supported by the work of the subject peoples in Europe. When the day comes on which the workers stand
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by their factories, and see the German tanks disappear down the bend in the road for the last time, they will be temporarily unemployed and will have to find new work in times of peace.
Then, again, there is another great problem for the I.L.O. the problem of Germany. What goods is Germany to manufacture? All her workers have been employed entirely in the armament industry, but, when Germany is struck down and her power dissolved, they will have to find new work to do. Secondly, we had the question raised at Philadelphia of dependent territories. I believe that nothing will more effectively help to increase the understanding of the peoples of the world of each other than the fact that the great Colonial Powrs are collaborating to ensure standard conditions of welfare in those territories.
Finally, we come to what, to me, is the most important question of all—the question of Asia. Look at Asia at the present moment. In India, I believe I am right in saying, during the last twelve years, the population has increased by something like 60,000,000. How are these people to get rice for their rice bowls? They must import more food from abroad, and if they do, they must earn the money to pay for their imports. Obviously some attempt must be made to industrialise India, and where, before, the primitive plough scratched a bare living from the soil, factories will have to rise and increase the purchasing power of the people. Look at China. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek has stated that he intends to develop his country in a great series of five-year plans. Perhaps, in twenty or thirty years, China may find itself linked by great arterial roads and railways, and equipped with hydro-electric plants, and perhaps some of us here, if still alive, will fly over the Yangtse Valley and will see below us the smoke rising from the chimneys of a Chinese Detroit. But what about the people working in those factories? It is important that their living conditions should approximate as closely as possible to those of Europe. I remember in 1931 touring my constituency with samples of Japanese goods and telling people how the Japanese managed to under-sell Lancashire, not only because of lower wages but because girls from the agricultural districts came to live in hostels to earn their marriage dowry.

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That is a problem of Eastern ways. If we are to avoid a terrible trade war between East and West, I believe the I.L.O. offers the best way of overcoming that problem. If we can assure that the workers in China and the metal workers in India shall work to standards very much approximating our own conditions then a great cause of friction will be removed.
The second point I wish to deal with concerns full employment and the raising of the standard of living. I was very interested to see some figures used by Mr. Colin Clarke in his book "Principles of Economic Progress," showing how very low the purchasing power of the masses in the world is at this moment. If Mr. Clarke is correct, only in the United States, Canada, the Argentine, Australia and New Zealand, Great Britain and Switzerland, is the average worker's income £200 a year. In India, it is only something like £40 a year, and in China £25 a year. I would say that the most urgent problem facing the I.L.O. is how to raise the purchasing power of the masses of the world. I believe that our Government were right in thinking that the practical way of tackling that problem was to get workers and employers of identical industries together to discuss their particular difficulties. If, for instance, a coal-miner from South Wales could discuss his problems with a coal-miner from West Virginia, or a French coal-miner from Lille, or a Lancashire cotton-spinner could talk to a Czech cotton-spinner, or an engineer from Birmingham could discuss with an engineer from Detroit, we could begin to establish more or less equal conditions in those industries. I would say that that is the right way of approaching the problem, and not by attempting to obtain an overall reduction of hours of work, say to 40 hours. The French example was disastrous. While French Deputies made eloquent speeches in the Chamber, and people dreamed of a new age, across the Rhine Germany was working her factories 24 hours a day. While, on French airfields, only 40 bombers a month were delivered, German production was soaring to 1,500 or 2,000 planes.
I warmly support the view of the Minister of Labour that a practical way of equalising conditions throughout the
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world is for employers and employed in individual trades to meet each other and hammer out their problems together. That is the way to establish good and fair conditions, and I believe that the I.L.O., if it sees that the worker gets a good day's pay for a fair day's work and ensures that workers all over the world obtain reasonable wages and conditions, will prove itself to be by far the most effective instrument for international co-operation that we have so far found.
Mr. Graham White: I have no means of knowing what great hopes or ambitions the Parliamentary Secretary took with him when he "left for Philadelphia in the morning" of 18th April, or whenever it was, but I think the House is to-day well satisfied that he and his colleagues on the British Delegation have done a very useful piece of work. In fact, the word "useful" is quite a trivial word to use for so important a piece of work, which, I regret to say, is very imperfectly understood throughout this country. This arises in part from the difficult conditions of the supply of paper and the like, but the vast importance of the problems which are laid before the I.L.O. and also the importance of the decisions reached in the Conference itself are so little known that I hope the earliest opportunity will be taken of making them known throughout this country, because they are a challenge to our people.
The hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) referred in some detail to some aspects of the Declaration of the Conference. It is a profoundly important document. It is, in fact, a new Declaration of the Rights of Man, and if any of us who sit here were to put that Declaration on our political banner and work for it for the rest of our days we should hope to accomplish something worth while. It is important, too, that we should realise what place the I.L.O. will have in relation to the postwar international organisation. It is to be noticed that that aspect of the matter has not escaped the attention of the Governing Body at the Conference itself, because it set up a committee to consider its relationship to other Government bodies working in the international field. In order that the I.L.O. may not overlap these bodies, it should be fully informed upon everything that is going on, so as to be able to co-operate. I

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rejoice that there are to be set up certain functional committees to consider individual industries. That will bring it into direct relationship with many other bodies considering international problems at the present time. The International Labour Office and its functional committees will certainly come into the active consideration of questions of training, industrial education and the like, and it would, therefore, be essential that it should know whatever is going on in education of an international character. These are some of the matters which are of the greatest importance.
I am not sure whether we all realise to the full the significance of the fact that this Conference has again started after 4½ years and has made a good beginning. A gap of 4½, years in a business so intimately concerned with human affairs and developments is a very long time, and when those 4½ years have been revolutionary years with regard to ideas, to say nothing of personal feelings and animosities, and revolutionary in the field of production, the handling of labour and the means of co-operation in production, I think its restart is a remarkable achievement and one in which our own Delegation may be glad to have had a hand. It is also interesting to note that the international nature of the Conference has been advertised by the fact that it was least successful when it became least international, and notably in its consideration of the treatment of Germany after the war. I think that was where it went over the international line and became, perhaps inevitably, involved in those alignments which exist to-day in a world which does not exist so much for co-operation as for conflict.
Previous speakers have pointed out one or two dangers which lie before the I.L.O. In particular, reference has been made to the danger of proceeding with too little preparation and inadequate consideration of the problems. I confess that I think that is the least difficult of the courses which lie before us. My experience, going back over some years, of social security and these matters which come up at conferences is, that they are threshed out again and again, for years, before they come to a practical point. We say that we in this country are the leaders in social services, and that is right. We were the pioneers and we have, on the
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whole, kept ahead in that field. But it has taken a war and revolutionary ideas to bring us to the sensible point of coordinating all our efforts and putting them, as I understand we are likely to do, under one Minister.
The matter which is urgent is that attention should be given to the means by which the machinery to give effect to the Conference should be speeded up. Sanctions against Governments whose representatives have supported Conventions or recommendations and do not carry them out have been suggested. I do not think that is a very hopeful way of accelerating the machinery, but the dilatory methods pursued by Governments since the I.L.O. began to operate should be dealt with. I am glad that steps were taken at the Conference to bring some machinery to bear on this problem with a view to trying to settle it.
I am convinced that an important step has been taken in setting up a number of committees to deal with regional organisations. The more we can establish, in modern society, organisations for the consideration of common service throughout the world, the more likely we are to break down international barriers and make the world fit for human habitation and make Europe into a family of nations. The I.L.O. has a great and important work in that field. If it does not function and it cannot be made to carry out its work effectively and efficiently, the fifth chapter of the Atlantic Charter will not be carried out, because there is no other agency in the field at the present time by which it can be carried out.
I said that we claimed to be the leaders in social services and labour matters generally. It is a claim that we are entitled to make and have to sustain, but it follows from that that no other country has a greater responsibility than we have towards the I.L.O. It also follows that in our own interest, apart from the international interest, we should support it in every conceivable way. I have a very lively recollection of sitting in this House during the discussion on the Beveridge proposals and hearing Members getting up and arguing, "These schemes are all very fine and very good, but what are they going to cost? They are going to put up the cost of our manufactured goods to such an extent that we shall be put

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out of business." If these things were all to be done in isolation it would, no doubt, create a very awkward situation, but in the International Labour Organisation we have a Declaration pledging the various peoples to work nationally and internationally for the purpose of carrying out that Declaration. Therefore, we have a special interest in seeing, as leaders in these matters, that we share to the full our knowledge and experience with other countries where they are minded to proceed on the same lines and to follow our example. This fits very much into the rôle which we, as a people and as a Commonwealth, will be called upon to play when the war comes to an end and the transition period has been worked out. What that transition period will be is difficult to imagine.
My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) referred to the number of people who will have to be resettled when the war comes to an end. The best estimate that I have seen is that, including the people of Russia, there will be 40,000,000 of people to be resettled in Europe after the war where homes no longer exist and when railway transport will almost have ceased to exist. This will not primarily be the work of the I.L.O., but it indicates the background and the difficulty of the matters with which it is particularly charged and will have to contend. The rôle which I would like to see us filling when we emerge into times of peace is that of the best example of a practical working democracy which has ever been seen in the world. That is the best example and encouragement that we can give to a prostrate Europe. We cannot, as a country or as a people, or even as a Commonwealth, aspire to be military dictators, or aspire to military supremacy in the world even if we wished to do so, although we shall make a great contribution to the maintenance of order in the world and the maintenance of any international force which may be necessary. That we can do and that we will do. Our population and resources, in comparison with those of America and of Russia, will preclude us from the possibility of aiming at a great measure of industrial supremacy. That is not to say that we cannot do a great deal and cannot make an important contribution to the rebuilding of a shattered Europe, but it indicates that it should be in the moral and politi-
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cal sphere that we should seek to give such leadership as lies within us. I think that the part we have taken so far, and the part we may play in the future as supporting the I.L.O. and all it stands for, should be in keeping with this ambition and purpose.
Mrs. Adamson: I, too, would like to pay my tribute to the splendid survey and report given to the House by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour. Reference has been made to the fact that the I.L.O. is the only organisation that has been kept alive during the war years. It has used its opportunities wisely and well, and I am certain that greater opportunities will be open to it as the days advance. I was reading a speech made by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour last December in which he outlined the functions and work of the I.L.O. and the objects and aims of the Atlantic Charter. They desired to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field, with the object of securing for all improved labour standards, economic adjustment and social security. I feel that the I.L.O. has been successful because it is an independent international organisation, is the servant of no Government or party and can make an independent approach to these problems. We are not likely to get social security unless we base the principles on the firm conviction that any country's greatness is built upon the foundation of the homes of its people. If I were asked what British women desire most I would say, good homes, security against poverty, a better chance for the children, and peace on earth and good will to all men. These are linked up with the work of the International Labour Office.
Several hon. Members have repeated the Declaration of the aims and the purposes, and I was particularly interested in two of these aims and purposes of the I.L.O. and the one which suggests that poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere. Only those of us who have suffered from poverty know how true that is. If there is one section of the community very poor and unable to live decently, then they are not only degrading themselves but the whole of the community. If that applies to any section of any community in any country, then it equally applies to all the peoples in the other countries of the

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world. I was interested—and I think it was significant of the change of modern thought—in the Declaration which was quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) that all human beings, irrespective of race, creed or sex, have the right to pursue both their material well-being and their spiritual development in conditions of freedom and dignity, of economic security and equal opportunity. As a woman who has fought for economic liberty and freedom for the women workers of this country, I thought that this would bring hope to the women of Britain and elsewhere.
I hope that the British Government are going to affirm their belief by the practical application of legislation for equality of opportunity for women in the industries and in the professions of this country. If they do, it will remove the anomalies that now exist inside our own Civil Service, where many of the higher posts are reserved for men. Women who have proved their ability should not be shut out simply because they are women. I would also like to feel that this Declaration applies not only to women in industry, but also that we will give a new status of freedom and dignity to women in the home. We hear a great deal about charters for miners, charters for nurses and charters for different sections of the workers and the community, but we rarely hear anyone speak about a charter for the women in the home. These ideals, these aims and purposes of the I.L.O., include the wife and the mother, the housewife who, in the main, is doing work of the highest national importance in keeping the home going and also in rearing the children of the nation. Tremendous problems will face every Government at the conclusion of hostilities in the reconstruction period, particularly with regard to employment. Employment readjustments during the transition period will raise special problems and difficulties for particular groups of workers. I have in mind three groups: the young persons, the women workers, and the disabled workers. I find that consideration was given to these three groups by the International Labour Organisation and its committees.
If we examine the special needs of the young persons, we find that the Conference recommended that full advantage should be taken of the transition period to promote wide opportunities for work,
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and training for juveniles and young workers, who have been unable, owing to the war, to complete their training or education. It is suggested that national youth employment programmes should include a higher school-leaving age, vocational guidance services for all young persons, pre-employment medical examinations, and follow-up health care, and broad apprenticeship and training facilities. I think the Conference did well to consider the special needs of the young workers. We all know how the youth of our country have been handicapped in their apprenticeships and in their education because of the devastating effect of the war, and I am reminded that this House considered some of these problems when it discussed, recently, the Education Bill and the National Health Services.
Then there is the question of the women workers. Everyone admits the splendid part the women have played in this war, whether it be in industry or the Services. They have made a very fine contribution to the success of our war effort, and I sincerely hope that, after the war, we shall not be faced with a special woman-worker problem. I believe it will be essential in the interest of the nation, and indeed of all nations, that we should make use of the skill and the expert knowledge of our women workers and give them greater opportunities for the utilisation of their skill and knowledge in wider spheres. What did the I.L.O. say on this problem? They called for the application of the principle of complete equity of employment opportunity for men and women, and asked States to encourage the establishment of wage rates based on job content, without regard to sex. They pointed out that action to improve standards in industry and occupations in which large numbers of women have traditionally been employed will serve to encourage women to seek work in these fields. So I hope that the Government will take cognisance of these recommendations of the I.L.O. and seek to give effect to them.
The third group of workers for whom the special need exists is that of disabled workers. The recommendation there suggests a series of steps to provide these workers, whatever the origin of their disability, with full opportunities for rehabilitation, specialised vocational guidance, training and re-training, and em-

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ployment in useful work. I was particularly interested in this problem because in our own country, by the joint efforts and co-operation of the Ministry of. Labour and the Ministry of Pensions, we have a very fine scheme for the rehabilitation, the training, and the employment of our disabled Service men and women. If we could make a great success of that in this country, as we have done, then in my judgment it can be extended to include all disabled workers, no matter what the origin of their disability may be. That scheme has been a success because, although it was initiated by the Government, we have secured the cooperation of the employers and employed in carrying it out. I think it reflects great credit upon all concerned. A great many people think that if men and women are disabled, they have no future. That is not true. Work gives disabled men and women a chance to feel that they can be made economically self-supporting, that they are of some use in the world, and by doing useful work they can promote their own health and happiness to a very large extent. We have proved in this country, in the splendid work which has been done in this sphere, that it can be made a great success, and it can be extended to other sections of the community.
I am interested in the place of the International Labour Office in the peace organisation. I feel that when the United Nations set up the peace machinery, the I.L.O. should be given a place therein. I believe it can do tremendously important work for the benefit of mankind. Our difficulties will arise very acutely at the end of hostilities. All the different problems associated with employment, with the removal of poverty, with full employment—all those will be very difficult of solution. It is no use trying to defude ourselves that things will be easy but, with good will and determination, and with our ideals capable of practical interpretation, I am quite certain that we shall be able to surmount those difficulties. But the people of this country, and particularly the women of this country—indeed, one might say the peoples and the women of every country in the world—are desirous that peace shall be built on a secure and lasting foundation. After all the years of the
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devastation of war, when we have seen our homes blasted, when we have lost our sons and some have lost their daughters, we feel very acutely about securing a just and lasting peace. I believe that, with the experience of the I.L.O. and the work it has done, it should be given some place in the peace machinery which will be created by the United Nations. We simply must have a lasting and just peace if we are to have social security and prosperity, because wars not only create misery and sorrow but prevent nations from getting on with the task of reconstruction. Security for the peoples will result only if we are able to maintain the peace of the world.
Sir Lewis Jones: I would like in the first place to add my tribute to those already paid to the Parliamentary Secretary, for the review he has given us of the work of the I.L.O. and of the Conference at Philadelphia. The Parliamentary Secretary has already grown in stature since he took office in the Government, and on every occasion that it has been his responsibility and privilege to speak for his Department, he has won the general approval and confidence of the House. I feel that Great Britain was very fortunate indeed this year in its representation at the International Labour Conference at Philadelphia, and His Majesty's Government are to be congratulated on putting as leader of the Government representation, my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. Just as he has won praise from his colleagues in this House, I am sure that he came away from America having won for himself the general approval of those he met in conference.
We must not forget, however—I think we have been reminded of it to-day—that the representation at this Conference was tri-partite. The employers were also a very good team. Sir John Forbes-Watson was probably the doyen of the Conference. He has represented British employers at 21 consecutive conferences and was fortunate in that he has always kept himself well in touch with the Ministry of Labour itself, and with trade union leaders. So far as the trade union representation is concerned, they were led by that very able trade unionist, whom some of us have had occasion to meet at many conferences and joint committees, Mr. Hallsworth. So that Great Britain was

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fortunate in its tri-partite team, and I gather from friends of mine at the Conference that the British representation was unequalled by any other country. In opening the Debate, the Parliamentary Secretary referred to this essential feature of the Conference—the unique character of the formation of its delegation. I think the preamble to Part 13 of the Peace Treaty sets out the constitution for this labour organisation as a tri-partite one, with Government representatives, employers representatives, and representatives of employees, and all are given an equal status. By that preamble, these delegates become, as it were, the trustees of international democracy. I said that this tri-partite organisation is unique in the history of international economics and policy generally. Not only do they secure equality of status, but they are there, independently, to express their individual view and, what is more, can vote as they like. I emphasise this to point out what I believe to be the reason why in the years before the outbreak of war, Japan, Germany and Italy withdrew from the International Labour Conference. Obviously, the very method of election, the status given to the individual delegations, and the rights which they possess at the Conferences were in complete conflict with the ideology of those particular countries.
I have been reading some of the speeches delivered at Philadelphia and I was impressed by one point made by Mr. Hallsworth and by Sir John Forbes-Watson, which was referred to by the Parliamentary Secretary to-day. They emphasised that the International Labour Office will never be what it ought to be until in each country there is that tripartite co-operation, collaboration and consultation which we have in this country between the Government, the employers' organisations and the trades unions. I gather that one of the great weaknesses of the Conference in Philadelphia was that there was so much conflict between the delegates from the individual countries, whereas so far as we were concerned, our employers' representatives, our trade union representatives and the Government representatives knew each other so well, and had been in consultation and collaboration so much during the period of the war, that it helped them all very much at the Conference.
It is very obvious to me that national collaboration between Governments, em-
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ployers and employees is essential before we can hope to have international collaboration in the same field. Cynics have questioned the wisdom of holding this Conference in Philadelphia while we are engaged in the war. Should the Conference have been held this year? Is the Conference carrying out policy which is set out in its constitution? Is it playing the part that was expected of it when its charter or constitution, was incorporated in the Peace Treaty of 1919? I suppose that in the years between the wars there was room for such cynics. They imagined long-haired economists, sociologists and the like, at Geneva, collecting and tabulating statistics, translating reports and sending out schedules. It was felt by many people that the officials of the I.L.O. were always aiming at bettering the industrial conditions of those counties which had the best conditions, and were doing very little to improve the conditions of the countries with the low standards. However, in spite of the few cynics, some of us who are particularly keen on the I.L.O., and on improving the social standard of the common man, were concerned lest the suspension of the activities of the I.L.O. Conference during the war might result in the complete cessation of the activities of the I.L.O. itself.
The circumstances of the war might easily have contributed to this state of things, when so many member States arc overrun by the Axis Powers, when so many member States are away from their own capitals, and when so many of the leading supporters of the member States are engaged in the awful task of waging war. When one considers the adverse conditions in which this Conference met, I think we are bound to look upon it as being one of the most momentous ever held, although at the same time one of the most difficult. What surprised me was that so many of the people who attended the Conference failed to understand its real limitations. I suppose this was due to the fact that, because of war conditions, so many inexperienced representatives had to attend the Conference on this occasion.
The House has already been reminded that the Conference has no executive power; it cannot enforce a decision. Its decisions can take one of two forms. They can take the form of recommendations—and I agree that recommendations may be

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good propaganda, and that that is as far as they have gone up to now—or they may take the form of suggested international Conventions. We in this country have real reason to be proud of our record in regard to these international Convenventions. I have been examining the figures. The Conference does, however, behave rather strangely. For instance, an important country like Great Britain has only the same voting power as a small country, with a population of a few millions. When a State votes for a Convention at a Conference it need take no steps towards ratification of that Convention when its representatives go home. We find that in the last 25 years of Conferences there have been 66 recommendations. Nobody knows exactly what happened to them, but in regard to new Conventions, we have a good record of what has happened to them. Up to date 67 Conventions have been adopted at these International Conferences.
The country that ratified most of them was Spain. She ratified 34, although she is not a member of the I.L.O. at the moment and is probably not operating even one of those Conventions. The highest score, if I may put it like that, for ratification of Conventions over a period of 25 years is that of Great Britain. We have ratified 33 Conventions. It was suggested earlier to-day that we have not ratified all the Conventions that we approved But I think it is true to say that we have ratified the bulk of those which we supported at international conferences. It is pleasant to know that except in one case those ratifications had the full approval of the employers' delegates at these conferences.
I would ask the House to remember that 11 countries have ratified less than nine of the Conventions which have been drafted at Conferences. My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) made a point with which I am in agreement. I have always felt that some obligation should rest on member States who have voted for Conventions to ratify them afterwards. If a member States goes to a Conference and votes for a Convention there is a moral obligation on that State to ratify that Convention and pass any legislation that is necessary to enact it. Once Acts of Parliament have been passed, based on, or following, the ratifi-
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cation of a Convention, the country passing that Act ought to see that it is enforced. Anybody who has studied this matter knows that in the past, in most cases, these Acts have become dead letters. I well remember the case of the 48-hour week Convention. There was an exception to operation on the grounds that continuous processes should be outside the scope of the Convention, to cover electricity undertakings, gas works, blast furnaces and so forth. One of the countries which ratified this Convention saw that sausage-making and ice-cream making were continuous processes, and were outside the scope of the Act. That kind of thing makes Conventions a laughing stock.
It is surprising that an accusation should have been made against the British Delegation at the Conference that we were sabotaging and obstructing its work. I was delighted with the spirited reply made by the Parliamentary Secretary to-day, and also with the spirited reply which he made to this accusation at the Conference. To suggest that we have failed to give a lead in social and labour matters is stretching it a little too far. Anybody in Philadelphia who would suggest that must be grossly ignorant of the labour and social conditions of this country. What a tremendous improvement would take place in the labour and social conditions of all countries if it were possible to bring their standards up to ours.
The hon. Lady the Member for Dartford (Mrs. Adamson) hopes that the I.L.O. will have for itself a permanent place at the next peace conference. I feel confident that the agenda discussed at Philadelphia, and the recommendations made, have forced on the attention of the Governments of the United Nations the importance of the I.L.O. It is no good talking about planning a new world unless the United Nations are prepared to take the advice of the I.L.O. I am confident that the United Nations cannot afford, and will not desire to ignore, the I.L.O. in the peace negotiations. The Philadelphia Charter has been defined as the counterpart of the Atlantic Charter and as an international code of the rights of the common man.
Reference has been made to the fact that freedom of expression and association is essential to all progress. These are defined as the fundamentals of the

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Philadelphia Charter. Whoever cares to examine the preamble of the constitution will find that these things are set out in greater detail, and with greater force, in the original Charter itself. I am convinced that it is impossible to operate the Fifth Article of the Atlantic Charter unless the I.L.O. is given its proper place in the post-war world, and unless it receives the full sympathy of member Governments in carrying out the objects for which it was brought into being. I am very glad to think that some of the recommendations affecting the transfer of labour, demobilisation, training and retraining of labour have already received considerable attention from our own Government. I very much hope that the result of this Conference and the action that Great Britain has already taken will provide a model for some of the other member nations as to the way they should proceed during the next few years. An international code of rights for the common man can be achieved.
It is hoped that all member Governments will renew their pledge to the I.L.O. The hon. Member for Llanelly expressed the view that the scope of the I.L.O. should be widened and that it should now examine and consider all international, economic and financial policies and measures. It is very difficult to see how it is at all possible to consider the raising of labour and social standards without allowing for the very serious examination of these economic and financial policies and measures. If the I.L.O. Charter is to be amended, I assume that the amendment will have to wait, perhaps on the recommendation of the I.L.O., until the Peace Conference is held. Whilst again congratulating the representatives of Britain on the part that they played in the momentous Philadelphia Conference, and expressing my pride at the unstinted support that Great Britain has always given to the I.L.O., I feel confident that, in any expansion of its responsibilities, Great Britain will always play a leading part.
Mr. Leslie: I listened with considerable interest to the very instructive speech of the Joint Parliamentary Secretary and I certainly think no better representative of this country could have gone to Philadelphia. My hon. Friend expressed fear of hasty and ill-considered decisions. He was probably right as far
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as the Philadelphia Conference is concerned, but in the past that has never been the case with the I.L.O. Its procedure has usually meant a delay of from two to three years before a recommendation or a Convention could be passed. Meantime defects hitherto hidden or glossed over were brought to light. Unfortunately, even in this country many business men knew very little of what was happening at Geneva. I have had occasion to address Rotarians and I was surprised how little these business men knew of what was happening. That was through lack of publicity and I hope that more publicity will be given in the future. Whatever may be thought of the League of Nations on its political side, no one can deny that the I.L.O. accomplished a great deal on the industrial side and, when I visited Geneva, I was struck with the efficiency and the energy displayed by the staff in their work. The I.L.O. has been very fortunate in the choice of its chief director. First of all there was that great Frenchman M. Thomas, enthusiastic and earnest in his task of making the I.L.O. a powerful force in the world. Next came Mr. Butler, one of the best type of civil servants. He was a master of efficiency, a follower in every respect of that great Frenchman. After him came Mr. Winant, a firm believer in international action, whose honesty and ability brought the United States into active participation in the work of the I.L.O. Today its chief director is a worthy successor of the former devoted chief.
The I.L.O., acting on the principle that universal peace could only be established if based on social justice, worked towards that end. It established a network of labour treaties, setting up a standard of life in many countries, hitherto thought nigh impossible and, if it was for nothing else than what it did for child labour in India, Persia, China and Japan, it deserves our wholehearted support. To my mind the nations must organise for peace no less earnestly than they have organised for war. Article 23 of the League of Nations stated that the League should endeavour to secure and maintain fair and humane conditions of labour for men, women and children, both in their own countries and in all countries to which their commercial and industrial relations expanded. I cannot do better than quote what the Leader of the House said about the I.L.O.:

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"The I.L.O. has struggled manfully, and with considerable success, to remove certain evils which are among the root causes of war, low standards of living, insecurity and unemployment. Unless we can cure these evils, no peace structure can be enduring. The I.L.O. must be strengthened and developed. I should like to see it become an improved instrument, giving effect to Article 5 of the Atlantic Charter."
In the work of the I.L.O. I see the hope of the future in carrying out the main features of the Atlantic Charter, to which our Prime Minister, President Roosevelt and Marshal Stalin have appended their signatures. The recent Conference at Philadelphia, representing 43 countries, unanimously adopted a Declaration of world wide significance. It held out high hopes of a better world for all, and the I.L.O. is well placed to carry out this Declaration. It has a well qualified staff which, however, must be strengthened because it is of too meagre proportions. It has records of conditions in every country, and it has a chief director of wide knowledge and ability. There is one clause in particular, in the Declaration, to which I wish to direct attention:
"The effective recognition of the right of collective bargaining, the co-operation of managements and labour in the continued improvement of productive efficiency, and the collaboration of workers and employers in the preparation and application of social and economic measures."
Enlightened employers in this country have recognised the principles mentioned, but it behoves those progressive-minded employers to use their efforts in their respective associations to get their fellow-employers to toe the line, and so set an example to other countries. I want to see the I.L.O. armed with greater powers so that Conventions passed may be effectively carried out in every country. If we are to prevent the re-arming of enemy countries, so as to avoid future wars, I take it that there will be a form of inspection by the Allied Nations to see that the conditions of the peace settlement are effectively carried out. I think the same principle should apply to Conventions passed by the I.L.O. to prevent any country embarking upon unfair competition by sweated labour. I hope that, when Conventions are passed, the British Government will not decline to ratify them on the plea that similar conditions are already in operation here. I well remember being on a deputation to the then
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Minister of Labour on the question of the 48-hour week and we were told that it was in operation among at least 95 per cent. of the workers of this country. My retort was, "If that is so, surely it is an easy matter to ratify a Convention which will only affect another 5 per cent. and, by ratifying the Convention, it would be an example to other countries to follow suit, and so long as Britain did not do it they would use that excuse and think there was something behind it." I hope that in future, when Conventions are passed after long and due consideration, this country will be the first to ratify them and so set an example to other countries.
Mr. John Dugdale: I should like to add my congratulations to those already offered to the Parliamentary Secretary both for his speech to-day and also for his handling of this Conference. In fact his stature has risen so much, that it was indeed a tribute to the International Labour Office that he should be sent there. I had the interesting experience recently of seeing the I.L.O. in cold storage, as it were, at Montreal. It was a very suitable setting, very much like Switzerland in the winter, and the distinguished staff there were proud of the icicles which hung round their windows and reminded them of their old home. I think we are all agreed that the I.L.O. was the outstanding achievement of Geneva. In spite of the war, and in spite of the hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Mr. Petherick) and his friends, who have tried so hard and for so long to destroy all that was made at Geneva, the I.L.O. is continuing. It has come out of cold storage, and is now making preparations for peace and for a new world.
I want to discuss one particular aspect. I did not think the Colonial Secretary would be here, but I am interested to see that he is. It has been said that our task is mainly to persuade other countries to have suitable standards, and that we at last have those standards. Certainly we have standards of which we are proud. What they are due to, I do not know. It may be that they are due to the generosity of employers. On the other hand, I have a shrewd suspicion that they may be due to the work of the trade unions. I think my case will be a little stronger if I say that in the Colonial Empire, where in fact we have

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not got trade unions, we find that the conditions are not such as would satisfy the I.L.O. I have here a note on the recommendation before the I.L.O. on minimum standards of social policy in independent territories and I hope it will be possible for the Minister to tell us something about what has been done to carry out those recommendations. The recommendation on wages says:
"There shall be created and maintained machinery whereby minimum rates of wages can be fixed for workers employed in certain of the trades or parts of trades in which no arrangements exist for the effective regulation of wages by collective agreement or otherwise and wages are exceptionally low."
If that is so, I should like to know what we are doing and propose to do to carry out that recommendation. In the Windward Islands, to take an outlying part of the Empire, wages are is. a day. I do not think that is a satisfactory wage according to standards. That is not the only case. Throughout the Empire there are many other countries with very low standards of wages. Take, for example, the wages in Southern Rhodesia, which again do not come up to those recommended by the I.L.O. Wing-Commander Eastwood, in a debate in the Legislative Assembly of Southern Rhodesia, said:
"There were many adult Africans living in the urban areas who were receiving from 15s. to £1 per month, and even when housing and rations were supplied they had to provide themselves with clothing and blankets.… The irreducible minimum—where no housing or rations were provided for an adult inexperienced native—would be 45s. per month."
They were getting 15s. to 20s. instead of the irreducible minimum of 45s. The second recommendation is on workmen's compensation and says:
"Provision shall be made by law for the payment of compensation to employed persons in case of incapacity for work caused by accidents arising out of and in the course of their employment, and to their dependent survivors in case of death caused by such accidents and for the medical care of persons injured by such accidents."
In one of our Colonies, Kenya, the only workpeople, so far as I know, who receive workmen's compensation are miners. I hope that I am wrong, but I understand that that is so. I hope that that recommendation will be carried out in every part of the Colonial Empire. I come to the key point of industrial organisation. If
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it is the fact that the height of our standards here is due to the work of our trade unions, it is essential that the third recommendation of the I.L.O. should be carried out. It is:
"The right of employers and employed alike to associate for all lawful purposes shall be guaranteed by appropriate measures. All practicable measures shall be taken to ensure to trade unions which are representative of the workers concerned the right to conclude collective agreements with employers or employers' organisations."
To give a third instance of what is going on in part of our own Empire, a part for which we here are responsible, I will quote the case of Mauritius, where I understand that until recently trades union legislation was so bad that not only did it not come up to I.L.O. standards, but it did not even comply with the requirements of the Colonial Welfare and Development Act, so that the Colony was not eligible for a grant under that Act.
These are three examples of what the I.L.O. recommend. I want to know whether we have given our full support to all these recommendations and whether we intend to carry them out within our own Empire as rapidly as possible. The recommendations are tar wider than that. They include also questions of housing, health, the use of land and, above all, the prohibition of the colour bar. I hope that all of them will be carried out when the time comes. This is, primarily, a task for the Colonial Secretary rather than the Minister of Labour, but I would submit that it is a task for all of us, not only for one Minister—for we cannot throw the whole responsibility on him—but for other Ministers and, in fact, for every Member of Parliament.
The party opposite maintain that the best economic solution of international trade is a policy of tariffs and Imperial preference. I do not see how conditions such as those desired by the I.L.O. can be obtained throughout our Empire if that policy is pursued. I suggest, instead, that we should have a kind of adaptation of the fair wages clause. We should say that we will only buy from those countries, both outside and inside our Empire, which have a standard that is considered to be satisfactory by the I.L.O. If we carry that out we will be in truth doing our best to implement the recommendations of the I.L.O. This

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is a policy, not only of generosity, but of enlightened self-interest. It will help both workers and employers, and not only workers in our Colonies, but workers and employers in this country who do not want to meet competition from sweated industries abroad, whether it comes from foreign countries or our own Empire. The only person that it would not help is the Englishman who goes out to the Colonies deliberately to exploit the native's inability to defend himself. If, as I hope, there are very few of these people, we shall in so doing be helping the overwhelming majority of our employers and our workers at the sacrifice of a very few, a few whom I personally do not in the least mind sacrificing.
Mr. Hynd: I think it is well to recall, when discussing the Philadelphia Conference of the I.L.O., that when this organisation was launched some 25 years ago, it was an unprecedented experiment and that it was launched in a world where the idea of social security was almost unknown. In fact, outside Germany and Great Britain, there were no comprehensive schemes covering even sickness, invalidity and old age for the working man. It was a world in which the almost unrestricted policy of laissez faire was allowed to run rampant, and those who were responsible for the establishment of this organisation were looked upon as idealists and idle dreamers. It was because in those circumstances the I.L.O. began its task with a considerable degree of boldness and vision that it laid the foundations of its success. We may recall that at its first Conference in 1919 it was so bold as to tackle such fundamental problems as the 48-hour week and the maternity Convention, among others. At the second Conference in 1920 it laid down the series of Conventions which have come to be known as the Charter for World Seamen.
To-day, it is obvious that if the much more tremendous and urgent problems with which the world is to be faced immediately after the cessation of hostilities are to be adequately tackled, there must certainly be no less vision and boldness than were shown in the first experiment of 1919. There is no question but that the Declaration of Philadelphia is an admirable expression of principles and resolutions. The first principle, for example,
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is that all human beings, irrespective of race, creed and sex, should be assured of economic security and equal opportunity, and that the attainment of the conditions in which this shall be possible must constitute the central aim of national and international policy. Further, to go beyond the scope of what was recognised as the I.L.O. field of activity in wages and hours, the Declaration adds:
"It is a responsibility of the International Labour Organisation to examine and consider all international and financial policies and measures in the light of this fundamental objective."
Little criticism can be made of that, and it certainly opens up tremendous scope and expectation among millions of the world's people.
But I do not think it is irrelevant, having in mind the opening statement of the Parliamentary Secretary and some subsequent speeches, to recall that, in spite of the high ideals expressed in 1919, there were certain serious shortcomings in the implementation of those ideals, not only by European and Asiatic countries, but by our own country. I cannot understand why the Joint Parliamentary Secretary slipped up in his brief, when he said that this country had ratified all the Conventions dealing with social security. I was surprised to hear it, because it is simply not the case. There was the Maternity Convention, which was one of the first Conventions adopted at the 1919 Conference, and was never ratified by this country, although it has actually been adopted or implemented in the legislation of other countries. There were the Conventions dealing also with the 48-hour week, with white lead in paint, and with night work in bakeries, none of which has been ratified by this country. Again in the Preamble to Part XIII of the Treaty of Versailles, it was recognised by the high contracting parties that among the most important and urgent of the principles to be applied by them in their respective countries, were such provisions as equal pay for equal work, upon which I do not think any comment is necessary. Nor is it desirable, when facing the present-day tasks of the I.L.O., to satisfy ourselves by referring to what has been done in this country in the past. Reference has been made to some of the forces which have been responsible for the comparatively high standards achieved in this country, but that of itself is no criterion,

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nor is it sufficient merely to preen ourselves on our past history in social legislation. In fact, we were not actually the European pioneers of social security; the credit for that goes to Bismarckian Germany. So that arguments of that kind do not get us very far.
In facing our new problems, we certainly have a great advantage over the pioneers of 1919. We are not embarking on an entirely uncharted sea with an untried craft. We have the advantage of 25 years of experience, during which we have piled up tremendous reserves of documentary evidence, research work and statistics which must prove invaluable when facing the new tasks. It may be that some of the instruments with which we have to work may be a little faulty, or may be found inadequate for the modern tasks. It is to be noted that the Governing Body is now giving consideration to some of these outstanding questions, such as the question of machinery and the operation of the organisation as a whole. I presume that it is unnecessary for me to make reference to some of the most persistent of the difficulties, such as questions concerning the interpretation of the provisions in regard to the organisations of workers in relation to the U.S.S.R., and the question of the most representative organisation in relation to such countries as the United States, and European countries which may have big Catholic organisations, and so on.
There are one or two other points which are worth mentioning. I would refer, first, to the constitution of the Governing Body, which, with its emphasis an the industrial side, is not sound. The prominence of the representation of the eight countries of chief industrial importance seems to me to prejudice the position of the agricultural communities which, after all, represent 60 to 70 per cent. of the world's population. It tends to create the great difficulty of pushing into the background the importance of establishing and maintaining a high level of living among the primary producers of the world. Another difficulty is the fact that the trade-union-employer basis, which was quite obvious and inevitable, and should remain obvious and inevitable, nevertheless again tends to rule out, to some extent, or to prejudice the agricultural community, because, as has already been pointed out, vast areas of the earth, including particularly the Colonial terri-
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tories, are not highly organised, and therefore have not the same representation at the Conference as have the industrial communities. The answer to that, in my opinion, is that steps must be taken towards encouraging organisation of the workers in those agricultural communities, so that they can be assured of complete representation.
The question of the Organisation's budget has already been sufficiently mentioned, but it remains a very important problem. I understand that the budget is to be doubled this year and that the staff is to be extended, which is inevitable in relation to the new and extended problems that will have to be faced, but the question of a greater measure of autonomy in the budget of the I.L.0. remains a problem that must be solved. The most important of the matters that have to be faced by the Governing Body in this re-examination of the position, is the implementation of Conventions and recommendations I will say nothing about those countries whose representatives move or support Conventions at the Conferences and then refuse to implement them when they get home, but one of the weaknesses of the present constitution that always impresses me is the fact that a country which does ratify a Convention immediately lays upon itself the obligation of reporting annually to the Conference what steps it has taken to carry out the conditions of the Convention, and it thereby lays itself open to criticism, and even to accusation. It is the target of all trade union inquiries and of the searchlight of public opinion. On the other hand, the country that takes no steps to ratify a Convention is entirely free. I have never been able to understand why it is impossible—or why it is regarded as impossible—that every member State should be required to report annually either on the steps taken to implement a Convention it has ratified or on the reasons why it has failed to ratify. I hope that this point may be given serious consideration.
The adjustment of some of these difficulties, and the refashioning of some of these tools, have become all the more urgent because of the development and extension of the powers of the I.L.O. as is referred to in the report. The I.L.O. has now gone beyond the stage of an organisation merely for considering questions related to wages and hours, and has

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become one of the primary instruments in the war against want, which is now on an international scale; and it is having to take into account all the complex financial and economic policies, upon an international as well as a national scale—questions like full employment, the standard of living, the extension of production and consumption, economic fluctuations, world prices and the maintenance of a high volume of international trade. Those and other matters constitute the field now laid open to the I.L.O. and it is evident that very wide consideration must be given to the question of its recognition and participation in questions relating to reconstruction and rehabilitation, monetary policy, and food and agricultural organisation. In regard to the last point, I do not know the present position, but certainly the first representations made by the I.L.O. for recognition and participation in the food and agricultural committee were not a good augury of the collaboration that they might expect in future, in regard to those operations.
It is probably inevitable that the Philadelphia Conference concentrated particularly upon the European situation and upon immediate post-war prospects. It has to be recognised presumably that the United Nations are to be regarded as the immediate authority, as they must be those principally concerned with the establishment of peace conditions immediately following the end of the war. While that may be so, it is equally important that the status of the I.L.O., its universality and its authority, must be in no way weakened in the long-term programme. I have just referred to its universality. In passing, let me say that I noticed that the reference to the treatment of enemy countries and their administration in the first report has disappeared from the official bulletin. Presumably it has been referred to the Governing Body for consideration. That may be desirable, but we cannot ignore the fact that there will be an economic problem here that must not be laid aside simply because of any political policy; I would remind the House that Clause 5 of the Declaration of Philadelphia lays it down
"That the principles set forth are fully applicable to all people everywhere."
It would be a colossal blunder if we were to sacrifice the economic necessity which
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exists in this problem to the considerations of a pure political demand for retribution. It is relevant to remember that, in 1919, the Charter of the I.L.O. itself drew attention to this fact, that
"the failure of any nation to establish humane conditions of labour must be an obstacle to other nations,"
which were prepared to establish such conditions. Again, referring to the Philadelphia Charter, there is the very significant Clause which says:
"Poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere."
That is true irrespective of political colour, or of the difference between victor and vanquished in the war, or creed, or anything else. Those are facts which have been before the representatives of the 41 Governments, workers and employers at Philadelphia, and they have deliberately, not out of sentiment, but because of pure necessity, recognised them. Anyone who has had anything to do with these matters in the history of the I.L.O. will be aware of persistent difficulty in securing adequate progressive steps, as is shown by constant references to the plague spots of sweated labour. Governments in some cases, and employers in almost all cases, whether on a question relating to the abolition of child labour, the limitations of hours, or anything else, have gone into a sweat over that fear, that, if a Convention is adopted, some country will not accept its conditions.
It is probably inevitable that these European questions have been a central point at the Philadelphia Conference. European questions must predominate, but the problem remains a universal one. That is, of course, recognised in the recommendation that was adopted in regard to social policy in dependent territories. As a recommendation this must, of course, come before this House in the next two or three months and there is no need to discuss it here, but I should like, in passing, to congratulate the Government's delegate on the statement that he made during the Debate on that recommendation, when he assured the Conference that the immediate aim of His Majesty's Government would be to ensure, so far as was within their power, the implementation of that recommendation in dependent countries.
Europe rightly predominated at the Conference because European problems will be the most vital and urgent of all in

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the post-war years. It is probably upon the handling of the European problem that the future of the International Labour Organisation and of our entire civilisation may depend. Asia will have its tremendous problems and so will South America. Problems in our own country will be severe and urgent. Nevertheless, the statement submitted by the delegation of the occupied countries to the International Conference at Philadelphia emphasised sufficiently clearly that all those are almost incidental to the completely new problems that will be presented by the European situation. Theirs will not be a problem of transferring from a war economy to a peace economy but a problem of building up a new civilisation on barren ground, with entirely new systems of communication which have been completely destroyed and in most cases of building up social conditions, industries, distribution and everything else, just at a time when millions upon millions of their men are being released from forced labour in Germany, concentration camps and prison camps, or are coming back from the Army to find jobs where there is not even a factory to work in. Our problems will never even touch those.
Therefore, it is necessary that the I.L.O. should turn its first attention to that situation, and the effectiveness of any steps that may be taken by the I.L.O. will depend inevitably ultimately upon individual Governments. I would therefore close by making an urgent appeal to the Government to give the lead that has been called for by other speakers in this Debate; by the workers in Europe; and by the world in general, irrespective of the selfish pleadings of our narrow-minded people who talk of charity beginning at home and generally meaning in their own pockets—beginning and ending at home. Let the Government give a lead that will be worthy of our country to-day. It is a fact that the whole of Europe will be looking to us as the only country that can give that lead. If our Government are prepared to give that lead they can be assured not only of the unanimous support of the workers of this country, in the tremendous organisations represented by Members on these benches, but of the support of the whole of the organised workers' movements that will spring up in Europe immediately the war is over.
Mr. Woods: I am among those who appreciate very much the services given by the Parliamentary Secretary in connection with this matter. I listened not only with interested appreciation to his report of the Philadelphia Conference, but I was impressed with his sincerity, which I knew, and his enthusiasm. The task which he has laid before us, as confronting the International Labour Office, is so staggering in its magnitude and its complications that it will need all the enthusiasm and sincerity that can be put into it, to make it a success in the circumstances which will present themselves at the end of this colossal war.
My hon. Friend who has just spoken wisely elaborated the extensions and ramifications of the work, if it is to be successfully handled. I thoroughly endorse his appeal that this country should give a lead. We have a very fine record, in spite of minor failures, and it warrants a certain amount of faith throughout the world in our credentials. For that reason, I was very glad that the Parliamentary Secretary was not jockeyed into assenting to ideals, without seeing ways and means of realising them. Like other hon. Members, I noticed reports in the Press during the proceedings of the Conference. In some organs, our representative came in for a certain amount of criticism. I felt at the time that one would have to await a full report before coming to a decision The full report that we have had confirms this impression of those of us who still retain our faith, in spite of adverse criticism. It would be a tragedy if the I.L.O. became just a propaganda platform, and were exploited for party purposes and vested interests, making pretences which were only pretensions.
The real task confronting not only the Government of this country but Governments throughout the world, cannot be solved in isolation. The one centre where they can come together to be dealt with is the I.L.O. The fact that the organisation has survived, is the greatest tribute to its vitality. If this country maintains its allegiance to these ideals, and realises that there is no such thing as isolation in the modern world, I believe that, difficult and complicated as the tasks may be, the I.L.O. is the one hope of a peaceful and satisfactory solution, especially as the problem has now been extended beyond a mere mathematical calculation

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of hours and wages to the implications of wages and standards of living. There is one aspect of it which appeals to me particularly. As the organisation has developed, it has not appreciated to the full the part in its problems that is to be played by co-operation. The co-operative movement in this country and other countries has had, on a local and domestic scale, very largely the problems which are the basis of the problems confronting the I.L.O., namely a reconciliation of the interests of the consumer, on the one hand, and of the producer, on the other, and the problem of adjusting those claims to the advantage of both. I think the experience that we have had should be of very considerable service.
The extension of the co-operative movement throughout the world is now taking place at a very rapid rate, not only in this country and other European countries unaffected by Fascism, but also in the Far East. China's experiment in the co-operative movement has, perhaps, done more than any other single thing to help her to endure the nightmare of Japanese occupation. There are organisations growing up which have intimate experience of correlating producer and consumer interests. We fall, therefore, between two stools. It is important for us to be associated directly with the employing interests by the I.L.0. While there is a sub-committee of the I.L.O. dealing with co-operative problems, I feel that there should be fuller recognition of the movement as an employing organisation, and experience gained in the various countries of solving the problem because, fundamentally, the ideal of the co-operative movement is to raise the standard of living. It is the same objective as that postulated for the I.L.O., and it will be appreciated by the House, irrespective of our attitude or ideals, that the experience gained will be of inestimable value on an international basis, for the general solution of these problems.
I hope that the Minister, or those responsible for the policy of our contribution to the I.L.O., will bear this in mind, so that the experience gained can be applied and made of value to the whole world. I sincerely hope that, in spite of the criticisms, justified or unjustified, of those who have spoken, and in spite of the difficulties and handicaps,
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that we shall maintain this as one of the major responsibilities, not only of our own people, but throughout the Colonies and the world, because it is impossible for us in the modern world to maintain a high standard of living in any one country, while conditions are allowed to deteriorate in other parts of the world, or even to be maintained at the present low level.
Mr. Hammersley: The International Labour Organisation can be looked upon as an instrument of international co-operation either in a critical or praisworthy vein very much according to one's point of view. A good case may be made out in either direction. It is true that criticism, on the whole, is criticism on points of details, and that praise is on the major, general, broad activities of the Organisation. But it is a fact that there is a dichotomy, a difference, between the ambitious character of the resolutions which are passed and the ambiguous legislation which sometimes follows the ratification of Conventions. If one bears in mind the fact that of all the various Conventions which have been ratified by all the various countries, Spain stands at the head of the list and has ratified more Conventions than any other country, and that Chile is second, and if one contrasts that fact with the assumption that merely passing these resolutions improves conditions, there is definitely a point of view to be put to indicate that there is a big gulf between the mere passing of resolutions and their implementation by effective legislative action.
Some countries have legislation of a very flexible kind. I am using the word "flexible" as a polite word, because in this country when we pass laws we see that those laws are carried out. May I give an example? Years ago we had many discussions in connection with the Washington Convention—the hours of labour Convention. I remember some details concerning one or two European countries that ratified that Convention. We in this country did not. We were blamed. But one of those countries that did, in fact, ratify the Convention described hours of work as "effective hours of work," that is to say, they took off any time which was taken in getting to work and, additionally, they took off from the hours of work such hours as, in the opinion of the employer, were considered to be wasted. Moreover, any

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hours of work which were lost by sickness or other causes were allowed to be made up; further, they had legislation which allowed overtime and imposed rates of overtime somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10 per cent. The point I am making is that the mere ratification does not necessarily give that higher standard of living which is the aim of all of us on both sides of the House, and I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary that it is very desirable that there should be very effective preparations on these matters, which are essentially technical and necessitate very great consideration, not only of the law, but of the habits and standards of life of other countries and peoples.
The resolution about income security and medical care has, I understand, been referred back by the British representative. It seems to me that that action is one which we should support, not because we do not want the maximum amount of income security, but because we want to see that we are moving ahead in step, though perhaps with Great Britain a little in front. There should be a general, wholehearted movement throughout the world for higher standards. To talk about economic and financial policy in the absence of Russia seems to me to indicate a certain degree of non-reality. Those are, of course, criticisms of detail, which I think ought to be put.
On the whole, the broad purpose of the I.L.O. is one which we support. Its purpose is to advance the international charter of human rights through general agreement to various Conventions, and I wholeheartedly approve that and support it. I have not been able to see very much about what happened at the Philadelphia Conference other than what has appeared in the public Press. I understand there is agreement on the aims and purposes of the I.L.O., and that those aims and purposes set a new and very high target. It is desirable that that should be done, but it is also desirable that we should appreciate it is a target and not something which can be seized or obtained by the passing of a resolution. A generation that has known two wars has learned two things; first, the curse of unemployment, and, secondly, the influence of the State in the provision of employment. In the interval between the two wars we have learned that economic prosperity is indivisible and that it is
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impossible to have a prosperous country in a starving world. These lessons have shown the importance of an organisation of this character. We do well to support the International Labour Organisation. Social justice and international security go hand in hand.
The constitution of the I.L.O. which, as is well known, is representative of the employers, the employed and the Governments, is admirably suited to the purpose in view, that of impressing on public opinion throughout the world the necessity for these higher standards. Through this kind of organisation these problems can be faced and dealt with without the clash of party politics. Therefore, in my judgment, although it is right that these two aspects of the activities of the I.L.O. should be put, the major benefits, of course, far outweigh the minor disadvantages. The Organisation will have very great responsibilities in the future. These have been mentioned by many speakers. They will have to move forward from the field of mere labour protection proper into the rather more difficult field of economic policy. The history of the British Government in these matters has been a very good one. They have taken a very great part, not only in the inception, but in support of, the I.L.O. I congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on the part he himself played in the matter, and on the excellent speech he has made to-day giving us the details. There are three resolutions and two recommendations. I understand they are to come before us in the future. In the meantime I am sure that we, in all parts of the House, will continue as we have done in the past, in supporting the I.L.O. in the hope that in due time the weight may be lifted from the shoulders of all men and that all men may have an equal chance.
Mr. Evelyn Walkden: I am sure that in the coalfields of Lancashire and Yorkshire and in the various industries in Northumberland and Durham and throughout the industrial North there will be satisfaction drawn from the facts presented to the House by the Parliamentary Secretary, because those folk have for years believed in the principles he enunciated to the House today. In the arguments he has used some contrasting evidence was presented. There can be no doubt that the grim realities of working class life have at least

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been witnessed by those folk, and they are themselves a testimony to the need for social change. I am certain that when the Minister comes to reply to this Debate he will portray to us the Government's intention to place in proper perspective the Conference at Philadelphia and the Government policy of to-day in relation to the Atlantic Charter, because I believe that, looking back, we can see that many of the troubles in our coalfields and in the industrial North are due to the absence of regulations, codes of understanding or conventions such as have been outlined by the Parliamentary Secretary.
We feel, somehow, that when we talk about Indian and Japanese and Chinese competition we are not thinking in terms of such social change as that the Chinaman must change his chop-sticks for knives and forks. We are not arguing that way at all, but we do not for a moment think there will be any real social change so far as the Chinaman is concerned if we leave him in the same desperate position as that in which he found himself in the inter-war years. I believe, for example, that in Lancashire, when we were competing between 1926 and 1933 with the Silesian and Polish miner it was a devil-take-the-hindmost cut-throat competition on the part of countries like Silesia and Poland which dragged us down, and we have the indelible evidence in the Lancashire coalfield that our wages were being determined by that devil-take-the-hindmost cut-throat competition. We saw the cost of production of coal reduced from round about 16s. per ton in one pit in the Wigan coalfield which I know well to 6s. 7d. a ton from the pit point to the pit-head, but our standard of life was accordingly reduced week by week, month by month, year by year. In the Westhoughton Division also, our mills closed down. In our very towns and villages, where the mills were closed down, we were selling garments, odds and ends of cotton piece goods, but garments in particular, children's underwear, at is. or is. 3d. a piece when we knew full well that in our Lancashire factories it would have cost 3s. or 4s. to produce the same article. We are resolute and determined that that kind of condition shall not endure after the war.
We do not want to lay down, as it were, through the I.L.O. what kind of
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housing conditions or social standards shall exist, but we do believe there can be no peace in the world, no good will or understanding in the world, if one set of workers in one country in a particular, or the same, industry are to be used or bargained against the other, as it were, to cut down the cost of living simply because employers determine or will that it shall be so. I remember that a friend of mine went out to India some years ago. His job was to organise an enormous wireless service in India similar to the B.B.C. I saw him three years later and asked him why he had left the job and come back. He said, "The only reason I came back was that whilst it was easy to organise a wireless service in India, there was no one in India who had a wireless set, except a few British families." The real meaning of this Debate to-day is that the proposals mentioned actually refer to homesteads, social comforts and happiness for those people, the raising of standards, the provision of all those things which really make life tolerable.
I would say that we cannot afford to divorce or separate this Debate from Debates on Colonial policy. We cannot separate this Debate from those major issues which will have to be decided upon very shortly, the true effect and the true meaning of the Atlantic Charter. Therefore I welcome the statement of the Parliamentary Secretary, and I would say that the man in the street who listened to him when he broadcast from Philadelphia a few weeks ago was cheered, was encouraged, by the spirit and the resolute determination which were contained in the Parliamentary Secretary's broadcast. I believe equally that so far as the Minister of Labour is concerned none would question his sincerity. None would question his knowledge of the importance of this subject. But we say to the other side, "You must be equally sincere, you must believe, not just as we do politically, but believe in the true meaning and need for social improvement such as has been outlined here to-day in this Debate, and for the real content and the real effects and the application of the Charter or conventions which were outlined at Philadelphia a few weeks ago."
Mr. S. O. Davies: Like most Members I have always been interested in the work, and particularly the difficulties, of the International Labour Office,.

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but for a considerable time I have been compelled to take a somewhat pessimistic view. That has not been dissipated by the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, although he made the very best possible case out of the subject-matter at his disposal. There are very serious dangers, particularly from the point of view of Socialists, in the impressive and attractive phraseology used at these conventions of the I.L.O. Looking through some of the reports, I have felt that I must be reading some of the best Socialist literature ever issued in this country. I speak as a Socialist, and I regard the Parliamentary Secretary as a Socialist. Our danger is that, when reading these reports and considering the resolutions and the declarations of these conferences, we may cultivate the illusion that words become synonymous with deeds. I have no doubt of the passionate desire of the permanent staff of the I.L.O. to establish social justice, and to bring vastly improved conditions to the workers of the world, but I have an unhappy feeling that these declarations, couched in such impressive language, that appeals to the heart of every decent man and woman in the world, may become just the safety valves that the representatives of predatory Governments require. That has happened in the inter-war period.
Take one of the first matters referred to by the Parliamentary Secretary today. He told us in some detail about the deliberations of the committee dealing with unemployment, at the Philadelphia Convention. There were 41 Governments represented, with 22 representatives of organised labour, and 22 representatives presumably of organised capital. They agreed, somewhat vaguely, to a certain course being taken, and stated that certain objectives should be achieved. But let us be perfectly frank. What do we, as Socialists, expect in the interests of world social justice, and how on earth do we imagine that the economic conflicts which give rise to political conflicts, and worse conflicts than that, will be achieved by representatives of Governments that are based upon a predatory system and upon class distinction among their own people? I want the I.L.O. to do all the work that it dreams of doing, but I cannot remove the suspicion from my own mind that we can get nothing out of these irreconcilable elements other than high-sounding and
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very impressive platitudes. Apart from declarations, very few concrete decisions were reached. One of the most important matters for the workers of the world is the question of hours of labour. There was no decision about that, and I do not know whether there was any discussion about the establishment, in the near future, after this war, of a uniform working day among the workers who are represented at the I.L.O. The Parliamentary Secretary told us that it was decided that international organisations of great industries should be set up, in the form of industrial organisations. The first thing we want to do is, obviously, to destroy these secret international cartels and monopolies. They form international understandings, to control production in many of the most important industries, to control prices, and largely to control conditions of labour. I do not think that there was much, if anything at all, said about that menace to international understanding.
My fear is that the I.L.O. will go the same way as the League of Nations went. I speak as one who cannot derive any pleasure from a statement of that kind. Like many hon. Members, I passionately desired that the League of Nations might be able to make a contribution so substantial that it would at least postpone these frightful conflicts until the world became saner than it has been up to now. But the League of Nations failed because no capitalist Government was prepared to give away one inch of its national sovereignty. We were all impressed by that extraordinarily fine quotation that was given by my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), and I think it has been quoted again since. I have looked up that quotation, but I do not want to quote the same passage again, although it would not do us any harm, because it states the proposition that human beings, irrespective of race, creed, or sex, have the right to pursue both their material wellbeing and their spiritual development, in conditions, of freedom and dignity, and so on. I wonder what were the feelings of my hon. Friend and fellow Socialist the Parliamentary Secretary when he heard that Declaration being made—a Declaration that was accepted by no fewer than 41 nations. I have looked at the report to see whether, after carrying that Declaration unanimously, they got up immedi-

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ately and sang the "Internationale." I do not think that is reported.
Mr. Austin Hopkinson: My hon. Friend quoted from the Declaration, but he did not say that it merely shows that they have the right to pursue these things, and does not say that they have the right to catch them.
Mr. Davies: That is just the point. We give them the right to pursue it and we see to it that they do not get it. That is my reply. It is really, perhaps, not unhealthy in this divided House that one of our most sincere and hard-bitten Tories, apparently, accepts the construction which he has just placed upon that Declaration. I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary along what lines his thoughts ran when this Declaration was read out and passed unanimously at the Philadelphia Convention. I am certain that his mind went back to the ghastly inter-war period, to the destruction of production forces in this country, causing the penury and distress of millions of our own people, by those who will control effectively the work of the I.L.O. until their power has been destroyed.
I want to pay this tribute to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. My hon. Friend's mind must have wandered off to our Colonies and particularly to India when this Declaration was made, drawing no distinction between race, sex or creed. We have on our conscience the appalling conditions of overwhelming and unspeakable poverty of 400,000,000 people for whom we are answerable in this House. Those are my feelings, misgivings and suspicions. I hope it will be taken that I, with all my colleagues on this side of the House, will join in every movement, in every struggle and in every fight in order that, ultimately, these great ideals shall materialise in the lives of the people of this world.
Dr. Haden Guest: I want to refer particularly to a sentence uttered by my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, in his opening statement to the effect that the Philadelphia Declaration was to be included in the peace terms—I have not got his exact words. That is, I think, the most significant statement that has been made up to the present time, and, if the Philadelphia Declaration is included in the peace terms,
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that is to say, if it is mandatory, and not merely a statement of general good intentions, it will get rid of the basis for the pessimism of many hon. Members in this House, who know perfectly well that you may have good intentions, very beautifully expressed, and even end up by singing the "Internationale," but if you do not do something about them, it makes no difference at all.
I do not think, however, that it is a fair criticism to make against the statement of my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to-day. I notice that he talked not only about this Declaration, but also about setting up international committees dealing with trade of international scope. That, I think, was a piece of most valuable constructive work, and I want, particularly, to refer to the question of bringing in and making mandatory in the peace terms this Philadelphia Declaration, because, of course, the I.L.O. is not the only piece of international machinery which has been recently developed and is proving so extremely valuable. It is not, by the way, if I may correct my hon. Friend, the only one which has survived the war. The International Health Organisation has also survived the war, and is an extremely valuable organisation. In addition, there have been the International Food Organisation and the International Monetary Conference. These international arrangements, which have been come to after long consideration, and which have been assented to by the representatives of the United Nations, are beginning to assume the nature of a declaration of the economic rights of man, which, if written into the peace treaties, will be of the utmost possible value for the future.
I confess that, at the present stage of the war, I cannot help my thoughts being dominated, as I think those of most of us are, by the question of what is to grow out of the armistice and what, after the period of the armistice, is to come out of the peace treaties, and how a repetition of the terrible struggle in which we are now taking our part can be prevented. It is quite clear, unless humanity can come to some arrangement at the end of this war, by which we shall secure for the world as a whole a long, protracted and, one hopes, perpetual period in which this type of war will not break out again, then, of course, our discussion on the I.L.O., on the Hot Springs International Food Organisation, or on any of the other

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projects that are now debated, discussed, received and acclaimed by international organisations—all these things will be of little use. It is because I believe that we have the possibility and the opportunity of writing into the peace conference arrangements, when they come to be made, something that will be a statement of the rights of man, and especially of the economic rights of man, that I think that this Debate to-day may have great historic importance, because of the statement made by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, that it is hoped to embody the Philadelphia Declaration in the peace terms.
That, in itself, would not be enough. It is no use merely making our enemies, when they come to sign the peace treaty, assent to a general declaration. They must be made to agree to implement it and carry it out in their social organisation; that is to say, we must have a form of freedom of trade union organisation among the nations that are now fighting us, the freedom of association and the freedom of speech, written into and guaranteed in the peace treaty. If we do that, I venture to say that we shall have done as much to provide for international security in the future, as we shall do by providing for large military forces to be held in reserve to take action, by force, if necessary. I believe that that provision is absolutely necessary, but the way to defeat Fascism—and this is what we must keep our minds on—is by creating in the Fascist countries a political organisation which will be inimical to and will defeat Fascism—free trade unions, freedom of speech, freedom of association, all guaranteed as part of the peace treaties. That will defeat the Fascist organisation. That, I think, is of tremendous value, and that is why I hope that, when the Minister replies, he will have something to say on this question of writing the Philadelphia Declaration into the peace treaty.
This is so important that I hope the Minister will devote some time to amplifying what the Parliamentary Secretary said on this point. This is no time for pessimism. We are living in a grim time, but the grim time is the opportunity for determination, for serious thinking and for constructive plans to be put forward. I believe that the really good constructive plan to put forward as far as the I.L.O. is con-
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cerned is to see that we have this Declaration of Philadelphia written into the basis of the peace treaties so as to give in those treaties, as I have said, a statement of the economic rights of man, which will be the defeat of Fascist organisation.
Mr. Austin Hopkinson: There is one thing that always interests me, particularly in a Debate of this sort, in my hon. Friends of the Labour Party. It is that they seem to live in a world which is totally unreal, a sort of Nepholococcuguia, if I may express it in that way. It is a world also in which they continue, as they have done as long as I have been acquainted with them, to forget nothing and to learn nothing. We have had one speaker after another getting up and talking about the League of Nations, not realising in the least that the history of the League of Nations is a cogent argument against any form of international agreement such as is suggested by hon. Members. Why did the League of Nations go down? Because we, alone among the subscribers to the Covenant of the League of Nations, were prepared to carry out our duties under it and did so, with the result that we had to fight the war alone, deserted by every one—the only one country which fulfilled its obligation under the Covenant and went to war over the invasion of Poland. We had our warning at the time of the Abyssinnian affair, when it was obvious that if we had imposed sanctions which meant war with Italy we should have gone out alone to fight it out ourselves. That is the reason why the League of Nations broke down and why any international agreement will break down until the nations of the world are very different from what they are at the present time.
Look carefully at this idea of an international convention on hours and conditions of labour. As an hon. Member behind me pointed out with several examples, we have had experience of that. As soon as ever an agreement is made between two countries every country begins to see what loopholes there are and how it can dodge it and how to observe the letter and not the spirit of the agreement. That has always been our experience. Let us get down to brass tacks for once. What is the one condition under which any international agreement can succeed? It is the condition that the subscribers to that agreement must really

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genuinely wish to carry it out. That is the trouble with all international agreements and there is only one international body, which from its very inception has been perfectly successful and is successful to this day and which overrides every distinction of clime, race, and religion, and that is, curiously enough, the War Graves Commission, because it happens to be founded upon a sentiment which is common to the whole human race. Therefore, every participant in the War Graves Commission no matter what its nation and What its religion is determined to make it succeed and it does succeed. [Laughter.] It is not the least use hon. Members opposite laughing like that. If hon. Members have not sense enough to see the point they might at any rate keep quiet.
Mr. J. Griffiths: It is because we see it that we laugh.
Mr. Hopkinson: There is no agreement in living memory which has been successful as the War Graves Commission has been, simply because it is based on a common instinct of humanity. Any international agreement must have ultimately an ethical basis of some sort or other and that is what the League of Nation's history has proved. You cannot get agreement between nations which have different ethical standards so that to one nation a thing is execrable and to another admirable. These are the lessons that we learnt from the League of Nations. First that without an ethical basis the organisation is bound to fail, and secondly that as nations are at the present time it is utterly futile to make these agreements with them because they will not be kept if it is not to the advantage of any particular nation to keep them. We have seen it again and again when we get down to practical proposals. The hon. Gentleman the Member for North Islington (Dr. Guest) talked about imposing upon Fascist States freedom of speech and freedom of association and so forth and so on. What does he propose to do in the case of Russia? Is he going to impose freedom of speech and freedom of association on Russia?
Dr. Guest: I am content with the existing conditions in Russia. They have increasing freedom, and, more than we have in this country, economic freedom.
Mr. Hopkinson: Is it freedom to be the slaves of one master, so that if you disobey that one master, you are done for? Is it freedom not to be allowed to join any political party except one? Is the O.G.P.U. freedom, and is enforced labour freedom?
Dr. Guest: We ought to have a debate on this on the B.B.C. It would be a very good one.
Mr. Hopkinson: I am willing to have a debate, but, unfortunately, my opinions are not popular with the B.B.C., and I should have considerable difficulty in getting that august body to consent to it. Unless you are at least a sort of pale pink, you do not get a look in there.
I want hon. Members opposite to give attention to this and think about it. The hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. S. 0. Davies) protested very vehemently against the modern habit of using words without attributing any meaning to them. I submit to hon. Members opposite that what they have been saying here to-day is very largely what he repudiated so stringently, and that we are talking about things that do not exist. We are talking about the will among the various nations to carry out these international obligations, and the whole history of our times shows that they have not the least intention of doing so. When we have put our signatures to any form of international agreement at once they say "Those silly Britishers will fulfil their obligation, so how can we get out of ours?" Every other member of the League left us to apply sanctions to Italy and put us in the position of being alone among the nations of the world to fulfil our obligations. In 1939 we decided to carry out our obligation under the Covenant and not a single other nation did. They all "ratted" on us and in this particular case of hours and conditions of labour they will rat on us in exactly the same way.
Mr. Rhys Davies: I think that the Minister of Labour and his Deputy will, on the whole, be pleased with the Debate up to now. The hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. A. Hopkinson) talked of the success of the War Graves Commission, and I hope he will not be offended if I say that a good epitaph to be carved on his own tombstone would be, "What is the use of anything?

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Nothing." Perhaps he will forgive me if I quote a verse from the Old Book:
"Where there is no vision, the people perish,"
That is the main reason why I support the efforts of the International Labour Organisation. Perhaps the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will pardon a personal note. I wish he would lay aside his papers and talk to us in a more familiar fashion; I know he can talk to us very much better than he can read his own script. In opening the Debate to-day he did well to point out the value of the Philadelphia Conference. The document now before us is called the Philadelphia Charter. I am hoping that the fate of the Philadelphia Charter will not be the late of the Atlantic counterpart; one half of the Atlantic Charter has already gone. I think the Minister of Labour will agree with me, however, that there is no chance of success for an international organisation such as the I.L.O. unless Members of the House of Commons of all parties support it. That is what I shall try to do. I have had some experience of the I.L.O.; I happened to be the official Government Delegate to Geneva in 1924. I cannot understand the hon. Member for Mossley when he suggests that we cannot trust or do anything at all with a foreigner; that we are the only people who always do the right thing. For that is the contention. Surely, if he reads the history of this country, he will find that we have been guilty of some awful things in international affairs on occasions.
Mr. A. Hopkinson: I do not think the hon. Gentleman is quite fair. I think it is within the recollection of the House that I said we alone of all the signatories of the League of Nations carried out our obligations under the Covenant and nobody else did.
Mr. Rhys Davies: I want now to put a very pertinent question to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. He mentioned that at Philadelphia they debated regional conferences. Will the right hon. Gentleman, in his reply, be good enough to say what is in the mind of the executive of the I.L.O. when they talk of regionalism? I have travelled a little, and the more I travel the bigger the world seems to become. There are five Continents, and it seems to me it would be a good thing if we regionalised the I.L.O. con-
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tinentally. Take, for instance, the American, the European, and the Asiatic Continents. I hope I am right in assuming that the. I.L.O. is in favour of that sort of regional organisation, because I can well conceive that we might secure something like an equalisation of the level of the standard of life in the whole Continent of Europe very much more quickly than between the North and South American Republics.
May I refer again to the hon. Member for Mossley? He suggested that separate races and nations cannot live together. Would he be good enough to bear Switzerland in mind? There the French, Germans and Italians live in one country in agreement and harmony. He forgets, too, that in these islands there are Welsh, English and Scottish living together, and that is a tremendous achievement. [An HON. MEMBER: "And Irish."] And a few Irish, too.
Mr. A. Hopkinson: Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that although he manages to find a modus vivendi for his race, our ethical standard is the same as his?
Mr. Rhys Davies: The hon. Gentleman must not be too self-righteous; if he looks at some patches of Manchester, Liverpool and London, he will find in his own country something to criticise. I want to refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Hamilton Kerr). I do not want to be too critical, but I had the idea that his argument was that the raising of the standard of life in this country must wait until conditions are raised in Japan and China to our level. Really, that is the usual tendency of the Tory minds in this House of Commons. Whenever we have a Debate upon international labour standards, they say, "Look at the labour conditions in Japan; look at China; look at India." Then they use the argument that the average working-class income in one country is £200, whilst in another country it is only £40 or £60. When I got married 42 years ago we bought a bedroom suite for nine guineas. I passed a shop recently and saw one not so good for sale at £159. It is not the income of the workman that matters; it is what he can buy with that income that counts.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. McCorquodale): What happened to the bedroom suite?
Mr. Rhys Davies: It is still there, of course. Let me pass on to something else. There are Members in this House by the score who are members of the British group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. That has kept itself alive too, by the way, during the period of the war, but I believe it is right to say that the most important international organisation to survive this present conflict is the I.L.O. Being Joint Secretary of the Inter-Parliamentary Union I feel sometimes that the Inter-Parliamentary Union is the most important, but when I come to my senses I must confess that the I.L.O. is paramount. Perhaps the hon. Member for Mossley will give me his attention, because I want to refer again to his speech. When he harbours the idea that we lead the world in social legislation and there is no country in the world like us, that is conceit and self-righteousness, of course. I believe I am right in saying that with all our achievements in social security, the highest standard of life that has ever been achieved in the world is in New Zealand.
Mr. J. Griffiths: With a Labour Government.
Mr. Rhys Davies: If we had a Labour instead of a Coalition Government, we might have achieved the same thing here too.
Mr. Hopkinson: As in 1931.
Mr. Rhys Davies: What I meant was a Labour Government, not a minority. I do not want the argument to be used that ours is the one country in the world which has achieved everything that is desirable in the way of social security. With regard to the hon. Gentleman's comparison between the standard of life here and in India and China, I would ask, What about the standard of life in the U.S.A. in comparison with the standards in Mexico, the Argentine, or Brazil? I am sure I am right in saying that the difference in the standards of life in the several countries on the one Continent of America itself are as great as the difference between the standards of the working classes in Great Britain, India and China. Therefore, supposing the Ameri-
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can people, whose standard of life is higher than ours, by the way, as the hon. Gentleman knows, said, "We cannot go any further with our legislation to improve the standard of life in the U.S.A. until Great Britain comes up to our level." They might say that.
Mr. J. Griffiths: The Tories over there say that now.
Mr. Rhys Davies: Of course, the Tories do, especially the hon. Member for Mossley. Therefore I am all in favour of our country achieving what we can within our own shores. Of course, I have been very proud when I have been lecturing abroad on our own social security schemes to point out what we have already been able to do, but I object to people in the House of Commons always saying that all is well with us. Let us bring the hon. Gentleman, and the Minister too, down to earth about the latest I.L.O. propositions. What relation, for instance, is there between these Philadelphia Declarations and the conditions in my own constituency? There is a population of 3,000 in one village, and not a job for anybody within that urban area; they are all working outside in connection with the war effort. There is no industry of any kind left there. There is another village with a population of 6,000 and now in the most prosperous times for 20 years, only 100 are employed in that urban area, 80 of them being women. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary knows the districts well. The same applies to other parts of my constituency too. I hope the House does not mind my speaking strongly on this matter. I do not therefore intend to join in the glowing promises of a New Jerusalem after the war. I remember the last war too well. I remember its consequences, and I defy the Government of any belligerent country in Europe to build a better world after all the destruction of life and property which has taken place, and which has not finished yet. But in spite of that, I do not wish to be a pessimist. I will say that unless you aim high you achieve nothing, and that is why I am in favour of these Philadelphia Declarations.
Let me say a word or two on other aspects of this Report. I have spent most of my adult life in social insurance, and I am very pleased that proposals of an ambulance character have been put

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forward. Some of my fellow Members may argue that if we nationalise and socialise industry we shall remove the causes of these problems and will not require an ambulance service. I have come to the conclusion, however, that it does not matter if we do nationalise the mines, railways and the land; we shall still have sickness, accidents, need for workmen's compensation, and even, perhaps, some unemployment assistance as well. Therefore, I am very keen that we shall do what we can to lay down in every country an economic foundation through which nobody shall fall. I have not noticed a word on the means test in these recommendations, and I take it that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, when speaking for the British people in Philadelphia, did not suggest a means test in connection with any recommendations that are before us.
The question that concerns me most is: What about the future machinery of the I.L.O.? What is it intended to do? Will the principal office be situated on the Continent of America? The chief office is, I understand, in Montreal now. Will there be a sub-office in Washington, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Vienna or Delhi as well? I would like to know the trend of thought within the I.L.O. itself on that point. I have been a trade union official for about 36 years and I agree with what has been said about world organisation when peace returns, although not in so many words. People imagine that wars are caused through racial, language, religion, frontier, colonies, tariffs and monetary troubles, but I am sure that the present conflict which is devastating Europe has come upon us as much because of unequal labour conditions as through any other factor. I repeat what I have said many times over that it is not enough for the statesmen of Europe to say that Hitler made this war. The real issue when statesmen come to make the peace is this: What was it that made Fascism? In spite of all the condemnation of ideologies, I say that Fascism is in a large measure the product of the poverty of millions of people in Europe. I would not put beyond possibility my own country having to face civil commotion when the war is over unless a Government here is prepared to find work which will provide a decent standard of life for our people. Having said that, I wish the I.L.O. well;
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I trust it will live long and do good work for all the peoples of the world irrespective of nationality, colour, caste or creed.
The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): I cannot be expected to deal with the cause of this war and the last war and peace treaties, and all these other problems arising out of a report of a meeting in Philadelphia. It would take too much time even to attempt to answer all the issues which have been raised. I was intrigued to find that the only time I ventured to smile during the course of the Debate I was rebuked by the hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson). It reminded me of the rebuke of the comedian who comes on the stage and says, "Shut up; do not laugh at me." This theatrical kind of performance is no contribution to our intellectual development.
Mr. A. Hopkinson: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman take a joke?
Mr. Bevin: The hon. Member tries so many of his own at other people's expense that he can never see one against himself.
I want to deal with as many points as I can, and if I may I will summarise them instead of mentioning Members by name. Several speakers put questions to me about the future organisation of the I. L.O. It is impossible for me to say what this will be, because the matter is under consideration by the Governing Body, which cannot give an answer to that question until it knows the shape that the new world organisation will take. Whatever happens, the I.L.O., as I visualise it, is bound to dovetail itself into other forms of international organisation. The nutritional body, I think, is the place in which the co-operative movement ought to find its position. It is the consumer side of international development. As that develops, so the monetary side develops. Article VII cannot function without consideration of how this side will function. It is a parallel organism alongside the maintenance of a stable international exchange. If this contributing factor is not worked out correctly, the other parts of the work will not be done correctly. I would like to give some information, but I can only say now, from the British Government's point of view, that we want to put the I.L.O. as high in the scale of world organisms as we can.

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Personally I am opposed to independence in the I.L.O. I think it would be fatal if it were not a part of the world organism, because I am not, and I do not think the British Government are, daunted by the alleged failure of the League of Nations. After all, what was attempted? The biggest thing in the world. It is perfectly true—and let us acknowledge it—that the conscious moral force behind the League of Nations at that time did not exist, that is to say, there was not the same kind of moral force as that which supports a law carried by this House in our own country. But the fact that it did not exist, which weakened the League and produced this second war, has done more to develop the moral force which is now emerging and will ultimately lead us back to a better world organisation.
There is another contributing factor which cannot be dealt with by cynicism or an attempt to be funny. The development of communications and travel has made the world far smaller and far more dangerous to a small country, such as this country was a couple of hundred years ago. These things have caused the acceptance of responsibility. This country made a great contribution to peace for 300 years because she helped to police the world. But no one country can police the world again. No one country can ever again, even from the point of view of wealth or taxable capacity, carry such a burden. Therefore, the sheer necessity of defence and the preservation of international law and order, are bound to drive nations on. It is not a question of sentiment or of someone's predilections. It is invention, it is development. I noticed in the discussions at Philadelphia the idea that the I.L.O. should be independent and separate, with its own budget and all the rest of it. They must take rather a longer view than that, and must be prepared to fit into a greater world organism. The question has been asked where its headquarters will be. I cannot answer. I dare say there will be headquarters somewhere or other. All I can hope is that there will be a great development of devolution afterwards, in order to bring this organisation closer to the people themselves.
It was in that spirit, to which I am glad that hon. Members have called attention, that the British Government pro-
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posed a meeting of joint committees of industries and trades and services. We have had some experience of this. In 1919, I crossed to Amsterdam and wrote the constitution of what is now the International Transport Workers Federation. It also has stood the test of time and the war. It is a very active international organisation now, and it has done a grand work for the Allied nations during the war. In drafting that constitution, instead of trying to develop it into a conglomerate mass, I tried the experiment of grouping—railwaymen, dockers, seamen and so on. Those who have been associated with any kind of organisation know that, if you can bring together people working in similar occupations they soon forget their race, and are talking their trade, and you produce a friendship which it is very difficult for war or anything else to break.
I look upon that as trying to meet the point of the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Kerr). You must in these international conferences get off generalities, and try to get down to the particular. Criticism has been made of the interpretation of the 48-hour week. I presided once at Geneva over an investigation, which the war interrupted, into the steel trade. What in fact was a 40-hour week in America, what was it in France, and what was it in Great Britain? I found, as the investigation went on, that there was the American system of going three months in rotation to get the 40-hour week; France was making another interpretation, and Britain was presumed to have a 48-hour week, not working on Saturday afternoons, but, in fact, our hours were very nearly the same on actual production. Immediately you get from the general to the particular, that kind of thing becomes vitally important, as I dare say it will be for the miners when they come to examine how it works out. For instance, in London I found that, while, on paper, we had a 48-hour week for busmen, their actual driving time was less than that of busmen in Paris with a 40-hour week. But that is not a thing about which we need throw mud at each other. That is a thing to investigate in conference, as you would in discussing wages and conditions in different parts of the same country. In conference you educate both sides with the result that people admit they did not understand points on which at first there was diffi-

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culty. That brings me to a point which several Members have raised. Can you trust other nations? Do not let us be too self-righteous.
Mr. Petherick: We do keep our bargains.
Mr. Bevin: I do not think we are going to build up international confidence by approaching other nations in a spirit of unctuous self-righteousness. Human beings are very much alike. [Interruption. ] Hon. Members behind me throw the Germans at me now, but their party had big business waiting to go to Germany, to settle an agreement with the Nazis, a week before Munich.
Mr. Petherick: Will the right hon. Gentleman first state what firm was concerned; and why should he throw that at the Conservative Party?
Mr. Bevin: The hon. Member provoked me. It was appointed by the Chamberlain Government—an official delegation—which was interrupted by Munich. Hon. Members threw the Germans at me. They throw the Germans at me now, but I will not pursue that point because I do not want this to develop into a party controversy. On the other hand, there is an answer from Labour and the trade unions as to the position we might have been in if another policy had been pursued.
Mr. Petherick: I do not wish to cause trouble, but the right hon. Gentleman is saying that he places considerable trust in other nations and that it is possible to build up some international organisation on that basis of trust. I ask him whether he would apply that to the Germans, the Italians and the Japanese.
Mr. Bevin: Certainly, when this war is over and they are back in the comity of nations, and have paid their price, you will have to deal with these nations somehow or other as you did before. What we want to do is to purge from Germany and Japan the treaty-breaking cliques, those who break treaties every time.
Captain Cobb: That is about 95 per cent. of the German people.
Mr. Bevin: I venture to suggest that we cannot ignore the existence of 80,000,000 people anywhere in the world. It will be found, as was found between the two
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wars, that sooner or later—it may be years, it may be after a long armistice or re-education—whatever steps you take, you will have to recognise their existence. We are already dealing with the Italians at this moment. We have been forced to have the signatures of Italians since the armistice and we have recognised the new Italian Government in Rome, and yet hon. Members throw these nationalities at me when I am trying to deal with an absolute fact.
Take the case of the Foreign Secretary bringing a treaty to the House. He meets other Governments and then comes to the House, and reports, "I have made a treaty and the signatures of both countries are on it." That is a treaty in the political and diplomatic field. Do hon. Members get up and say to the Foreign Secretary, "I know that we are going to keep that treaty, but will the other people whose signatures are on it keep it?" Has that ever been done in this House? I venture to suggest that hon. Members will have to arrive at the point at which labour matters have to be treated on the same basis. They will have to rise to it. I know it is difficult, but they will have to come to it. There are going on at this moment great commercial discussions with the United Nations. One of these days, the Foreign Secretary, or the President of the Board of Trade, will report to the House what the commercial proposals are. Will anyone get up and say of this treaty in the realm of commerce, "The United States has signed, France has signed, and the United Nations have agreed to this treaty, but we cannot trust them"? Members will not do that; they will accept it on its merits. Therefore, I claim that treaties regarding labour matters will have to be accepted by this country on precisely the same footing as we have always accepted financial, commercial or diplomatic arrangements. When that is done, the I.L.O. will become an effective instrument and we shall expect observance from those whose signatories have signed the treaties.
It is said that the procedure advocated by the British Government at Philadelphia was dilatory, and that we rather stuck to our conservative past. The difficulty is this. We have to make up our minds as to the kind of procedure that the I.L.O. should adopt. If the I.L.O. tries to become a legislative body and to deal with detail to such an extent that it

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becomes impossible to apply it by law and practice in the different countries, I think it will make a mistake. We carried through some years ago a Convention, which, I am glad to say, has now become operative in every maritime country. It was my good fortune to carry through the Convention dealing with the prevention of accidents in loading ships. It dealt with such matters as the position of the ladder from the coamings, which had to be in the same place on all ships, with handholds, gangways, and all that kind of thing. We went a little too far, and carried it into too much detail. In the result, we had to go back a third time and amend it slightly so that it could pass into the marine architecture of the world, and so thousands of accidents were prevented. I mention that as an illustration of the fact that details can be overdone.
The Government took the view that it would be better at this Conference, if the principle could be agreed to of having another conference a little later, so that when our delegates went to the second conference they could go back with definite Government instructions. It worked out all right in the end, but the difficulty is that when Government delegates are going to an international conference time is needed to work out their instructions before they sail. Work comes in so fast owing to the pressure of war that this was not possible and we do not complain about it. But that would prevent what my hon. Friend called using the I.L.O. for propaganda purposes. One does not want to carry a lot of resolutions that may sound very nice. The only thing that will make the I.L.O. effective is for each resolution to be one which can be carried out. That can be done if we do not overload the agenda and the business of the meeting. I would rather get a couple of pretty big resolutions in a session than a lot of things which will be relegated to pigeon holes. It is for that reason, and with a view to building the organisation on a more concrete basis, that we followed that procedure.
Several hon. Members raised the question of putting the Conventions into practice. In this country we are presented with a great difficulty. The European mind is one that thinks of decrees or laws in giving effect to all these things, but in the industrial field there are voluntary
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agreements which, on the whole, are in effect as strong as laws. The I.L.O. must try to reconcile those rather different approaches to enforcement with the United States and ourselves, and what is called the European mind, operating upon different bases. I believe they can be reconciled. In the last Seamen's Conference, at which the seamen of the world asked me to be their spokesman, I tried to get over that difficulty in this way, as hon. Members will see from the records. In the plenary Session, I said that if it was found, owing to law and practice, that there would be difficulty in getting Merchant Shipping Acts amended in our Parliament, we would undertake, as an industry, to give effect to those Conventions equally with any other maritime nation in the world.
It is very gratifying that, while many nations are operating Conventions relating to hours and welfare, as we are today, some nations have applied them through their laws, while others have applied them through collective agreements. One of the processes is to have, say, a certificate by the British Government, that an agreement is being carried out in this country as effectively as if it were a law passed by Parliament; that certificate should be accepted as of equal validity with a decree. It is really a question of different methods of approach but I believe that we can find a way of reconciling them.
I have been asked about the dependent territories. Steps that have been taken during the last four years have been reported to this House. They include the sending out of trade union officials and of industrial relations officers, the stimulating of organisations in the dependent territories. I must enter a caveat, however, that trade union organisation is not manufactured from above, but must grow from the people themselves. With the best will in the world, we run the danger of creating from the top a sort of Fascist organism, with dictators, instead of letting a free organisation grow up from the bottom. Where there is a social obligation in the dependent countries you can accept the principle of trusteeship—which we do. Then, whether you are subject to pressure or not in the actual Colony, you are, from the very acceptance of the trusteeship, under the bounden duty of giving effect to these international recommendations.
Dr. Haden Guest: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that we ought to make sure that the laws in every dependent territory allow trade unions to be formed?
Mr. Bevin: They do, now.
Dr. Guest: Yes, but they have not done so invariably, and they may go back.
Mr. Bevin: We have ratified all these Conventions in the last four years, and I do not know of any dependent territory under this country now, where trade unionism is barred.
Mr. John Dugdale: I might mention Mauritius.
Mr. Bevin: I will look into the case of Mauritius. I have never heard that it was so, and I went into this matter very carefully four years ago, with the Secretary of State at that time, and I believed that every obstacle was removed. In accordance with the request of the I.L.O. we shall, therefore, as part of our duty and responsibility for dependent territories, go carefully into every one of these recommendations. I have no doubt that when next there is a Debate on the Colonies hon. Members will expect a report as to what we have done in this direction.
I would say to my hon. Friend the Member for Attercliffe (Mr. Hynd) that I appreciate very much the contribution he made to the discussion. It is a difficult job. I do not parade our ratifications, and we would not have said a word at Philadelphia about them if we had not been attacked. I am sure that my hon. Friend, however critical he may be in this House, once he was outside the three-mile limit, would find that he was a Britisher abroad.
Mr. Hynd: May I asure my right hon. Friend that I have many times been outside the three-mile limit, and have participated in conferences of the I.L.O.?
Mr. Bevin: Yes, I know, but we do feel that way, when we are attacked. We have, in fact, done a lot of work that led to this Conference.
The other point about enforcement is that it is not enough to say that you have covered a matter by other legislation. If we argue that way, it puts us in a very great difficulty. Let me take the point
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about the Maternity and Childbirth Convention. We have to deal with that as part of our social services. If we say that a woman shall not work for six weeks before and six weeks after childbirth, and she is dependent upon her work for her income, we must give her a payment for the twelve weeks so that she can stop working. I cannot reveal what will be done, but hon. Members know the Beveridge Recommendation on the matter, and that is an indication.
Can we ratify a Convention merely by passing a Bill confined to the Convention or should it be ratified as part of the social service structure? The I.L.O. should be satisfied with the fact that a matter has been dealt with in a way that meets Article 408, that is, by giving effect to the Convention. Here another great difficulty arises, in this question of application and in view of the very thoughtful contributions that have been made, this matter ought to be studied. In the case of the 48-hour week, what was the trouble? The trouble was—and it is no use discussing it—that transport could not be fitted precisely into the Convention. I went all through those negotiations, and the railwaymen's unions said, over and over again, that they would not have the 48-hour week as designed at Washington, because they could not reconcile with it, some of the very valued things that were in their agreement, and which I do not criticise.
In the precise draft of the I.L.O. Convention the Government of the day was expected to get over this difficulty and yet keep within the law. It could not be done. It broke down every time, not on the facts but in the adaptation of the other services. Therefore, the I.L.O. will have to consider allowing States a little flexibility in adapting these Conventions provided they can satisfy the Governing Body and the Committee responsible for investigation that they have, in fact, given effect to the principle laid down. These are things that have to be studied very carefully, in order not to weaken the effectiveness of a Convention, but in order to make its application work out to suit the practices of various countries without making any beneficial interpretation for one country as against another.
I have been asked about Russia. The only thing I would say about Russia is this: When we can sit down and discuss

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all this world organisation, and this kind of development that has to come within the ambit of the new structure, I have no fear that Russia will not play her part in this field, just as she is playing her part at Bretton Woods and in other matters which are developing at the present time. Meantime there is one lesson to be learned about Russia. Do not be in too great a hurry to throw people out; it is a little difficult to get them back sometimes. It does say to the I.L.O. "You stick to industry, stick to your last so to speak, and do not become a supplemental organism of politics and diplomacy." That is very important. If there had been a little more thought and a little longer delay, the Russian situation would probably never have arisen so far as the I.L.O. is concerned. I profoundly regretted its occurrence at that time, because, after all is said and done, what was the great step the United States took to come into the international field? It was not in the League of Nations. In 1934, I think it was, President Roosevelt linked up with the International Labour Office, and one of the great links forged internationally between the United States and the rest of the countries at that time was this very International Labour Office. Equally, we may have been criticised after Manchuria, for allowing Japan to go on for so long, but I would rather take that risk than agree to turning people out. One never knows, in the whirligig of political affairs, how these things are going to change.
I would conclude by saying that I do not want to paint the lily and say that the I.L.O. has done wonderful things. What I do say is that it is the duty of this generation to hold on to every international organism which has survived this war and which goes to the future generation. We shall need them. Great will be the problems. One thing you get in the International Labour Office, which you get nowhere else, is people drawn from the workshop, the field and the factory, employers and workpeople, sitting in open and common assembly discussing international difficulties. I, somehow, feel that that may be the road towards an international Parliament in the wider field. Wherever men and women can meet, with the same problem affecting in the same way the countries from which they come, applying their energies to find
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some solution, I think that institution is worth preserving and worth developing.
I would not say we have not had our disappointments. I would not say that I have not criticised previous Governments for not doing in this country all I thought they ought to do. I will not deny that I have sometimes been impatient, like others. When your men are surging on and you want to do something you sometimes feel the leash and the strain against you, and you cannot get on fast enough. In international commerce, in international law, in international labour or in international health—let us do nothing which will weaken these great organisms which are growing. They may become the penicillin of the peace effort and stop the gangrene from developing in our international life. Whoever has that terrible responsibility, whether it be our present Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs or any other statesman, I feel, and those of us operating in other international fields feel, that it is our duty to try and evolve, organise, and develop every instrument that will help to put the crowning achievement on the result of this war, of building an organism that will bring the nations together in the end, and will give us something which will prevent a recurrence of what we have gone through in, the last five years.
Question, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution," put, and agreed to.
Mr. SPEAKER then proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House this day, to put forthwith the Questions, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolutions reported in respect of Classes I to X of the Civil Estimates, and of the Revenue Department's Estimates, the Navy Estimates, the Army Estimates and the Air Estimates."

CIVIL ESTIMATES AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1944
  CLASS I

    CENTRAL GOVERNMENT AND FINANCE
    Question,
    "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of Class I of the Civil Estimates,"
    put, and agreed to.

CLASS II

  FOREIGN AND IMPERIAL
  Question,
  "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of Class II of the Civil Estimates,"
  put, and agreed to.

CLASS III

  HOME DEPARTMENT, LAW AND JUSTICE
  Question,
  "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of Class III of the Civil Estimates,"
  put, and agreed to.

CLASS IV

  EDUCATION AND BROADCASTING
  Question,
  "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of Class IV of the Civil Estimates,"
  put, and agreed to.

CLASS V

  HEALTH, LABOUR AND INSURANCE
  Question,
  "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of Class V of the Civil Estimates,"
  put, and agreed to.

CLASS VI

  TRADE, INDUSTRY AND TRANSPORT
  Question,
  "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolutions reported in respect of Class VI of the Civil Estimates,"
  put, and agreed to.

CLASS VII

  COMMON SERVICES (WORKS, STATIONERY, ETC.)
  Question,
  "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolutions reported in respect of Class VII of the Civil Estimates,"
  put, and agreed to.

CLASS VIII

  NON-EFFECTIVE CHARGES (PENSIONS)
  Question,
  "That this House doth agree with the Committee on the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of Class VIII of the Civil Estimates,"
  put, and agreed to.

CLASS IX

  EXCHEQUER CONTRIBUTIONS TO LOCAL REVENUES
  Question,
  "That this House doth agree with the Committee on the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of Class IX of the Civil Estimates,"
  put, and agreed to.

CLASS X

  WAR SERVICES
  Question,
  "That this House doth agree with the Committee on the outstanding Resolutions reported in respect of Class X of the Civil Estimates,"
  put, and agreed to.

REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1944
Question,
"That this House doth agree with the Committee on the outstanding Resolutions reported in respect of the Revenue Departments Estimates,"
put, and agreed to.

NAVY ESTIMATES, 1944
Question,
"That this House doth agree with the Committee on the outstanding Resolutions reported in respect of the Navy Estimates,"
put, and agreed to.

ARMY ESTIMATES, 1944
Question,
"That this House doth agree with the Committee on the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of the Army Estimates,"
put, and agreed to.

AIR ESTIMATES, 1944
Question,
"That this House doth agree with the Committee on the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of the Air Estimates,"
put, and agreed to.

WAYS AND MEANS [25th July]
Resolutions reported:
1. "That, towards making good the supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ended on the 31st day of March, 1943, the sum of £22,738 5s. 6d. be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."
2. "That, towards making good the supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1945, the sum of £1,395,929,702 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."
Resolutions agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolutions, by the, Chairman of Ways and Means, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Assheton.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL
"to apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the years ending on the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and forty-three, and one thousand nine hundred and forty-five, and to appropriate the Supplies granted in this Session of Parliament"; presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 41.]

FLYING BOMB ATTACKS (LOOTING)
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Captain McEwen.]
Captain Cunningham - Reid: I want to raise a matter which is causing great anxiety. The question is that of the urgent necessity of dealing adequately with looting from bombed premises. The flying bomb has now been with us for six weeks——

SECRET SESSION
Viscount Hinchingbrooke: On a point of Order. In view of the fact that this House has decided, on several occasions, not to hold its proceedings in public, when questions affecting the flying bomb and the consequences of the flying bomb are being discussed, I beg to draw attention to the fact that Strangers are present.
Notice taken, that Strangers were present. Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to Standing Order No. 89, put the Question, "That Strangers be ordered to withdraw."
The House proceeded to a Division
Viscount HINCHINGBROOKE and Mr. STOREY were appointed Tellers for the Ayes, but there being no Members willing to act as Tellers for the Noes, Mr. SPEAKER declared that the Ayes had it..
Strangers withdrew accordingly.
[The remanider of the Sitting was in Secret Session.]

POST OFFICE
  Prisoners of War (Air Mail)
  Prisoners of War (Air Mail)
  Postal Orders (Football Pools)
  Postal Orders (Football Pools)
  ROYAL NAVY (W.R.N.S., UNIFORM ALLOWANCE)
  ROYAL NAVY (W.R.N.S., UNIFORM ALLOWANCE)
  CHILD MURDER (TRIAL)
  CHILD MURDER (TRIAL)
FLYING BOMB ATTACKS
  Evacuees (Disused Service Camps)
  Evacuees (Disused Service Camps)
  Premature Explosions
  Premature Explosions
  PREFABRICATED HOUSES
  PREFABRICATED HOUSES
  GERMAN PRISONERS OF WAR (INTIMIDATION)
  GERMAN PRISONERS OF WAR (INTIMIDATION)
BRITISH ARMY
  West African Soldiers (Corporal Punishment)
  West African Soldiers (Corporal Punishment)
  Welsh Units
  Welsh Units
  Educational Pamphlets (Presentation Volumes)
  Educational Pamphlets (Presentation Volumes)
  FOREIGN SERVICE (REFORMS)
  FOREIGN SERVICE (REFORMS)
  WOMEN'S LAND ARMY (HOSTEL MEALS)
  WOMEN'S LAND ARMY (HOSTEL MEALS)
  MERCHANT SEAMEN (MAIL DELAYS)
  MERCHANT SEAMEN (MAIL DELAYS)
ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Motor Cyclists and Drivers (Pay)
  Motor Cyclists and Drivers (Pay)
  ITALY (GRAIN HARVEST)
  ITALY (GRAIN HARVEST)
FOOD SUPPLIES
  Kippers
  Kippers
  British Restaurants
  British Restaurants
  JET PROPULSION AIRCRAFT
  JET PROPULSION AIRCRAFT
MINISTRY OF INFORMATION
  German Forces (Propaganda)
  German Forces (Propaganda)
  Control of Communications Orders
  Control of Communications Orders

Preamble
The House met, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers.

EMERGENCY POWERS (DEFENCE) ACTS:

  MESSAGE FROM THE KING.
  THE EARL OF CLARENDON: My Lords, I have to convey to the House the following Message from the King, signed with his own hand:
  "I have received your Address praying that the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, 1939, as amended by any subsequent enactment, be continued in force for a further period of one year, beginning with the twenty-fourth day of August, nineteen hundred and forty-four. I will comply with your request."

NATIONAL FIRE SERVICE REGULATIONS.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA AND BURMA (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I desire to make a statement on behalf of the Home Office. I much regret to have to tell your Lordships that by an oversight there has been a failure to lay before Parliament a number of regulations which have been made under the Fire Services (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1941. These regulations fall into three groups. First, there are the National Fire Service (General) Regulations, 1941, which were made in August of that year, and provide for the establishment of the National Fire Service, and a number of regulations which have been made from time to time since that date amending the original regulations. The total number in this group is nineteen, including the original regulations. The second group consists of three sets of regulations made in November and December, 1942, and in August, 1943, amending earlier regulations relating to the preservation of
1124
pensions of whole-time members of the National Fire Service who had previously been in the service of a local authority. The original regulations in this series, which had been made in August, 1941, had been duly laid before Parliament. Thirdly, there are the National Fire Service (Employment Overseas) Regulations, which were made in June of this year, and authorize the employment of members of the Service, as volunteers, in support of the operations of the Allied Forces in Europe.
All these regulations ought to have been laid in accordance with the Act, which provides that regulations made thereunder are to be laid before Parliament "as soon as may be," and that within the next twenty-eight sitting days they may be annulled by Resolution of either House. The House will, I hope, acquit my right honourable friend and his Department of any deliberate disregard of those requirements. The regulations have, of course, all been printed as Statutory Rules and Orders and have been placed on sale. Moreover, as I have already mentioned, a set of six regulations dealing with the preservation of pensions, which were made in August, 1941, were duly laid before Parliament. I think therefore that I may fairly ask the House to accept my assurance that the omission to present the other regulations to which I have referred was unintentional. Noble Lords will appreciate that at the time when this series of mishaps began, we were particularly hardly pressed in the reorganization of fire-fighting against enemy attacks. I can only express, on behalf of my right honourable friend, his great regret for the oversight.
Needless to say, arrangements have been made to ensure that a mistake of this kind does not occur again. Such steps as are possible have also been taken to repair the omission by laying the regulations before Parliament at once, and they are being presented. They will have to lie for twenty-eight sitting days, and, as we are to adjourn shortly, this period will not elapse until well after Parliament reassembles in the autumn. They will, of course, be examined by the Select Committee on Statutory Rules and Orders in another place. This will give noble Lords ample time to consider them, but I think that it will help the House if I

1125
add that my right honourable friend had it in mind in any event to consolidate, with certain further amendments, the general regulations. This may take a little time, but my right honourable friend will issue the revised regulations, with a full explanatory memorandum, as soon as possible after the Recess. There have been fewer amendments in the Preservation of Pensions Regulations, and as at present advised my right honourable friend does not think it necessary to consolidate them. In conclusion I can only repeat again, on behalf of my right honourable friend, that he much regrets this omission. He felt it was my duty, as his representative, to bring it to the notice of your Lordships as soon as possible after this had come to light.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, I do not know whether my noble friend can give any indication of what the position of the regulations which have not been laid on the Table is; whether they have any force at all, and whether any action taken under them is invalid, or anything of that kind.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: My Lords, I think that that is still a matter for regulation, but I will certainly convey those remarks to the Home Secretary. Perhaps I can communicate with the noble Viscount at some future date.

AGRICULTURE (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE DUKE OF NORFOLK): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. It is another of those Bills which it has been necessary for us to introduce in war-time to deal with matters connected with the agricultural industry. It has been delayed, I am afraid, in coming to your Lordships' House on account of its hybrid nature, and also because it had to go before a Joint Select Committee of both Houses. Those formalities have now been complied with, and I am asking your Lordships that this Bill should be passed through all its stages to-day. The Bill, unlike its predecessors, contains provisions of vital importance to the future
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of the agricultural industry. The two most important of these are the establishment of a National Advisory Service and the proposals which will enable the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation to extend its business and so facilitate the arrangements by which farmers will be able to borrow money at favourable rates of interest for long periods for the purpose of buying their farms or making the necessary improvements in their farm buildings and other capital equipment.
Clause 1 imposes on the Minister of Agriculture the duty of establishing and maintaining a National Agricultural Advisory Service and, with the Schedule to the Bill, provides for the Transfer of personnel to the new Service, for the conditions of that transfer, and for the compensation of certain persons who might be adversely affected by the establishment of the Service. As your Lordships will remember, the Committee presided over by Lord Justice Luxmoore, which reported last year on the whole question of the post-war situation regarding agricultural education, recommended the establishment of this National Advisory Service in place of the dual system of advisory work existing before the war, under which there was a general advisory service run by individual county councils as an extension of their agricultural education service and a specialist service run by university departments of agriculture and agricultural colleges on a provincial basis.
During the war the bulk of these staffs have been seconded to the war agricultural executive committees, with the result that a great measure of co-ordination has been effected and a great deal of help has been given in the way of advice to farmers. There is no doubt that as a result of this service a great deal of help has been given in the production of food for the country. Although this system was started under the stress of war, it has been of such great benefit that we feel that this technical advice should be continued after the war. It has afforded abundant justification for an adequate service of advice for those engaged in the industry, so that they will be able to make use of the very latest methods and science available. I think it can be admitted that the case for such a service is unanswerable. So long as the Minister of Agriculture is responsible to Parliament and to the nation for the general

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welfare and efficiency of the industry, he must also be responsible for the execution of any measures which he regards as necessary to secure this end.
We can with justification claim that the proposal to make this a National Advisory Service has met with a very favourable reception. I recognize that there is a feeling in some quarters that our proposal is objectionable in principle on the grounds that it encroaches on the powers of local authorities. But if, as I submit, it cannot reasonably be contended that it is an appropriate function of local authorities to ensure the development and efficiency of a nationwide industry, then this objection goes by the board.
Your Lordships will also remember that the Luxmoore Committee recommended that farm institutes should be placed under the same central control as the advisory service. In spite of certain manifest advantages which it offered, we rejected that recommendation because we were satisfied that it would not in the long run be of advantage to the nation or to agriculture, that agricultural education should be outside the general educational structure of the country. At the same time, we recognize that this decision, however abundantly justified, that farm institute education should remain the function of local authorities, does create a number of difficulties for all concerned. If we are to achieve our objective, it is essential that the service of agricultural education, which will be provided by local authorities and for which the Minister of Agriculture will remain to some extent, even if only indirectly, responsible and the service of advice and guidance to be given to the industry and for which he will have direct responsibility, should not be kept in water-tight compartments. How these two services can best be made complementary and any overlapping prevented, are matters which will call for the most careful consideration. In working out the necessary arrangements we are assured, I am glad to say, of the good will and co-operation of the County Councils' Association.
Before leaving this clause, there is one point to which I should like to take this opportunity of drawing attention. It will be seen that the right to transfer to the new service under certain assured
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conditions, is offered to some classes of officers who have been engaged on advisory work. In order to prevent any possible misapprehension, I wish to make it quite clear that while this right to transfer is restricted, the new service will also afford opportunities for employment to many other of the technically qualified officers who have during the war been working under county war agricultural executive committees and in other capacities. Any application for appointment to the new service from anyone with the appropriate qualifications and experience will, when the time comes, receive favourable consideration. I will only add that the date when this system comes into force is one that I cannot give at the present time.
In Clause 2 of the Bill provision is made for the supply of necessary credit to agriculturists on favourable terms. There is much maintenance work to be done on our farms. Buildings and equipment have suffered through lack of proper attention during the war years and, as soon as labour and materials are available, landowners and farmers will want to put these repairs in hand. They will also wish to modernize their buildings to carry out the necessary improvements, and so be able to press forward with the schemes for the future development of the industry. It is, therefore necessary that adequate arrangements should be made to enable farmers to borrow the money they require at reasonable rates of interest. The Agricultural Credits Act of 1928 enabled the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation to make loans "on terms most favourable to the borrowers." The story of the activities of the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation from the time it was established in 1928 and the difficulties that were encountered during the intervening years up to 1939 is rather long and complicated and, as it was so fully discussed by the Joint Committee set up to consider this. 13ill under the Chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Hemingford, I do not think there is any need for me to worry the House with a long description of it.
Clause 3 deals with the fixing of a minimum time rate for piece workers in the agricultural industry and to give holidays with pay. It gives effect to a unanimous recommendation by the Agricultural Wages Board. Clause 4 extends the period of the lime subsidy for another three years. Incidentally, the time

1129
orginally granted expires on the 31st July next, which is the reason I am asking your Lordships to give your approval to this Bill to-day. Clause 5 allows the 5o per cent. grant to be paid towards the cost of a water supply to farms and farm buildings. It extends the powers my right honourable friend already possesses in giving financial assistance for the laying on of a supply of water to agricultural land.
The primary purpose of Clause 6 is to extend to boars the system of licensing now applicable to bulls before they can be used for breeding. The pig population has been drastically reduced during the war largely owing to shortage of feeding stuffs, but there are now signs of a revival which is likely to grow as soon as supplies of feeding stuffs improve. In any such expansion it is obviously desirable to use only sound breeding stock and the boar plays a very important part in settling the constitution and quality of the rising generation of pigs. In all essentials the system of licensing for boars will be the same as that now in force for bulls, with similar provisions for appeal to a referee against a refusal to issue a licence.
Clause 7 of the Bill deals with the period during which betterment can be claimed from landowners whose land has been improved by State expenditure on fen roads or on drainage. It has been found that owing to difficulties and delay in ascertaining ownerships, in certifying the completion of all the necessary works, and in getting valuations made, the preparation of claims for betterment and service of notices on the proper parties takes longer than we anticipated. It frequently happens that the actual ownership can only be ascertained after service of a claim on the reputed owner, followed by pressure of a fresh notice upon the true owner after he has been identified. The clause accordingly increases the period in which a notice can be served on him, specifying the amount of his liability, to two years. The effect of the clause is retrospective, but I would ask the House to remember that the owner has had the advantage of these improvements ever since they were made and that he will, therefore, in no way be injured by the extension of the period within which the Minister can make a claim. Clause 8 deals with these matters as they affect Scotland with
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certain modifications. Clause 9 provides that the Bill, with the exception of the lime subsidy clause, shall not extend to Northern Ireland. I hope your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Duke of Norfolk.)
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, on behalf of my friends on this side of the House I would like to support the Second Reading of this Bill. In particular, I should like to say how gladly we note the provisions of Clause I and the creation of a National Advisory Service, because there has been built up during the war a system of advisory agricultural services of the highest value, and it would be a great pity if afterwards this were to be scattered and not made full use of. I see that there is a prospect, to put it no higher at the moment, of developing that well co-ordinated and well-directed National Advisory Service and of making use of the experience that has been gained by a number of very valuable men during the war period. For that reason we generally welcome the scheme. I sincerely hope that the noble Duke will see that his Department lives up fully to the indications he has offered to us to-day.
I cannot profess any enthusiasm for Clause 2, which proposes to deal with capital improvements on land, through the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation. On a previous occasion I have made some animadversions on this subject in your Lordships' House. The operations of that organization have been almost entirely confined to assisting purchases of land and enabling farmers, in times past, to deal with their overdrafts at the bank which have been incurred owing to land purchase. What we really want is money devoted to improvements—the improvement of buildings, farm roads, water supplies, and a hundred other things. Your Lordships will notice that the advances are to be up to £2,500,000. I suppose we have to be thankful for small things, but if that figure were multiplied by one hundred you would come somewhere near the requirements of the industry in improvements. I suppose we must accept that, as we do as a matter of routine, as a beginning. I am glad that amongst the other provisions the percentage charge is limited. As we know, the big handicap of the Mortgage Corporation hitherto has

1131
been that it was bound to charge 5 per cent. It was an advantage to repay loans to the Corporation and borrow money more cheaply elsewhere. It is now proposed to put that right, which is all to the good. I confess that in the long run, looking to what the land requires, I consider this a very piecemeal and inadequate way of dealing with a vast subject. However, such as it is, we welcome it, and we shall try to make the best of it.
I am glad that the grant with regard to water supplies has been continued. The big difficulty there, as all of us know who are associated at first hand with this matter, is that the needs of the industry are prodigious. In a very large number of cases, unfortunately, those who happen to own the land are not able to provide their 50 per cent. The result is that a very large number of schemes which ought to be got on with are not got on with, simply because the money is not forthcoming from one of the parties. However, the more it is encouraged the better, and here again I should like to observe in passing that in existing circumstances this is as much as we can expect the Ministry to do. I am quite sure, however, that by the operation of this scheme as it stands we shall never get the farming industry adequately supplied with water as it needs to be. Nevertheless, I repeat, we welcome the extensions that the Bill provides, and I hope your Lordships will be willing to give the Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.
Then, Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended, Bill read 3a, and passed.

ROAD ACCIDENTS.
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA LORD BRABAZON OF TARA rose to call attention to road accidents; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am rather loth ever to put my head in a noose, and I feel that I am in a rather delicate situation here, having been at one time responsible for the policy of the Ministry of Transport. The other day, when I was speaking about the film industry, my noble friend Lord Selborne replied to me and chid me because I was not familiar with a regulation that the Board of Trade had issued while I was at the Ministry of Transport. In
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these days, when papers and orders fall from every Minister like a cascade, and when even the Home Secretary forgets to lay them on the Table, I do not think I can take that pre-war criticism very seriously.
Relative to the position that I occupied as Minister of Transport, I must say frankly to your Lordships that I had very great hopes that one day I might occupy that great position, and I had hopes and dreams of trying to deal with some of these important matters—because they are indeed important. When I arrived at that Ministry, it was in the days of the first great "Blitz," and I was doing nothing but moving transport about, dealing with Tubes, getting buses into London, trying to repair the Southern Railway, fighting, indeed, the great second battle of Waterloo! Then I was involved in all the congestion at the Port of London, and I had no time at all to deal with this important matter. I want to make it quite clear that I know perfectly well that my great successor, Lord Leathers, has had his plate full right up to to-day, and has not had the opportunity or time to deal with this matter. I hope he will not think that I am censuring him or his Department in any way. It is not often that one has an immense admiration for somebody who succeeds you in any office, but I have for the present occupier of that position. I do not believe there is anybody in this Kingdom who could have done what he has done, on the difficult shipping and transport side, which has meant so much to us in this campaign. As your Lordships will see, therefore, I subscribe to the old adage, "There is nothing like Leathers!"
My purpose to-day is to draw attention to the magnitude of the question and to make some suggestions of a remedial kind. I am indeed happy to be able to debate this matter in your Lordships' House. When your Lordships are not making bombs to the orders of the Moscow Jews for blue-blooded swine to throw at Hitler (according to Dr. Ley, the German Labour Minister)—when you are not doing that, I find there is in this House an atmosphere of calmness and detachment which is what one wants in dealing with this question. In the other House, I regret to say, the matter has sometimes been wrapped up with vote-catching. We shall not, anyhow, have any of that here

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to-day. This problem is a big one. We never get sufficiently shocked at it for the reason that each accident is isolated. It is a curious thing that, when you are dealing with tragedies, geography always comes in. If somebody in the house next door falls down the stairs and kills himself, that is a very poignant tragedy which affects you very much. On the other hand, if you read at the same time that 50,000 Chinese have been drowned by the flooding of a river, you turn over the pages of your newspaper in no way interested. That is because it does not concern you immediately. And that is what happens in regard to these accidents. If there is a railway accident, if you get a hundred people killed, what excitement, what inquiries, what debates, what recommendations occur! Yet here we are being told that 6,000 people are killed year by year and we do nothing about it.
We are getting completely callous to it, and it is because we are getting callous to it that I take the opportunity of bringing the question again to the notice of your Lordships. I hope to do so even once more later on so that we shall be aware of it and not get so callous to this particular matter. I do not want to dwell on the human side, on the tragedy of the killed child or the bereaved mother. I do not think that is quite the way to attack the problem. I want to put it on an economic basis. In ten years up to 1940, 69,000 people had lost their lives and 2,250,000 were injured. On a conservative estimate, that shows that the average cost of these accidents to the country NI as £50,000,000 a year. I want to stress that point because I wish to make it plain that if the accident rate can be decreased by money spent on physical alterations to the roads it is well worth while. There is a definite economic advantage.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport has given us figures in very difficult times to which I think I ought to draw attention. First of all, one curious thing is that the rate of accidents is proportional almost to the increase in the number of vehicles on the roads both in England and America. That is, of course, what you would almost expect. The deaths before the war were in the region of about 6,000 a year. In 1939–40 this went up to 8,000. In 1940–
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41 they reached the astonishing total of 10,000, when the number of vehicles on the road had obviously gone down, especially those of a private character. In 1941–42 the number was 7,600 and in 1943 it went down again to about the normal figure. Considering the very few private cars on the road the figures, I think, are odd, but they do of course show one thing—namely, that when you get some new danger like the black-out to which people are not accustomed there are more risks and the casualties go up until people get used to those conditions, when the casualties go down again. From that I think we may deduce that if new difficult circumstances arise the casualty rate goes up and if you make the whole situation easier they will go down.
Your Lordships set up in 1938 a Select Committee to consider what steps should be taken to reduce the number of casualties on the road. The Chairman was Lord Alness and on that Committee were Lord Reading, Lord Iddesleigh, Lord Birkenhead, Lord Brocket, Lord Rushcliffe and Lord Addison. That Committee took over a year and after hard work they had investigated every point of view. The Committee were completely dispassionate. They made a good many recommendations and very sound and valuable were those recommendations. I myself feel that there is no student of this subject who is not deeply grateful to the members of the Committee for what they did. It was a remarkable Committee. They did that job in a most magnificent way. Frankly, I look upon their Report as a sort of Bible on road accidents. That famous Report ended up with these particular words:
"Finally the Committee venture to express the hope that this Report will not share the fate of the Reports of several Departmental Committees of which they heard in evidence, and merely find a resting-place in the pigeonholes of Whitehall."
So far as I can gather not one single recommendation has ever been put into effect.
Now there are two schools of thought and they are contending schools of thought. One is that all accidents are due to human error; the other is that they can be avoided by physical changes in conditions, such as the elimination of blind corners, the provision of two-track roads and non-slipping roads, and that sort of

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thing. Here we come up against a very curious situation. In 1939, the Ministry of Transport issued a famous memorandum called Memorandum 483 in which they gave it as their opinion that roads should have a new type of lay-out and construction and made suggestions as to what should be done so as to introduce better safety. Then there came along a Mr. Bennett, a county surveyor of Oxford-shire. He was alarmed at the number of accidents occurring in his county and he made one of the few scientific objective investigations that have been made into every one of these accidents to ascertain what would have been the difference in the number of accidents if the roads had been changed according to Memorandum 483. He came to the conclusion that 76 per cent. of these accidents were due to road defects and 24 per cent. were not due to road defects. Well, when the Ministry of Transport was being examined by the august Committee to which I have referred, the Ministry of Transport advanced the view that go per cent. of the accidents were due to human error and only 1 per cent. were due to road defects. There is thus an enormous difference of opinion between those two expert views.
The Committee I think quite rightly said in their Report that there was doubt in their minds whether the Ministry believed in the theory it advocates as to road improvement. On that point we have got to ask ourselves, Are we content to put new wine into old bottles? Are we going to try and impose modern traffic on a road and street plan designed years ago for horse traffic? If anybody thinks that can be done and can be continued, then I am afraid they must take the responsibility for the future. There are some rather interesting recommendations in the Alness Report, one on a subject which probably I think those of us who are not lawyers know little of, and that is that about misfeasance and nonfeasance. Apparently in England you can only bring an action for repairs badly done and you cannot bring an action for repairs that have not been done at all. In Scotland it is different. There the authorities can be proceeded against for accidents. If an action could be brought when the accident arose from road conditions, I think that would bring the
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authorities sharply up against their responsibilities.
Now I come to that bone of contention, speed, and the moment I mention it I know my noble friend Lord Cecil of Chelwood is pricking up his ears. No one can pretend that you can have accidents without speed. You cannot have accidents unless something is moving, and if something is moving you must have speed. Consequently in a sense it is true to say that accidents are, in fact, due to speed. The question, of course, is whether the speed is overdone. I want your Lordships to remember that when you are dealing with moving things you are dealing with danger, and I would like to remind you of something which I think few people realize, that the total number killed per year per locomotive is nine times more than the number killed per motor vehicle. I am not going to deduce anything particular from that, because when you try to make deductions you generally get the wrong answer. I only want to say that when you are dealing with moving things you are dealing with danger.
The motor car is one of those moving things. Mr. Noel Baker, speaking on accidents the other day, said some people tried to throw the blame on drivers of motor vehicles, which he considered unjust. The motor driver, he said, was to blame in only a tiny proportion of accidents; moreover, speed was not responsible for the vast majority occurred at very low speed. That seems to answer some of those people who think the whole of this problem can be solved by the introduction of speed limits. It is not so easy as that. A right reverend Prelate, in a speech in a former debate, said that the accident rate in London was very small because the speed was low. As your Lordships know, the speed of traffic in London is just below eight miles per hour, but in spite of that low speed it has for its square mile the highest rate of fatalities in the world. That is a curious thing. It is due to the congestion which is a factor in the accident rate.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, who have done noble work under Colonel Pickard in trying to correlate statistics, give some curious figures which I should like to bring to the notice of your Lordships. I suppose that nothing is more pathetic than the slaughter of

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children. The society have made a special study of accidents to children and do very good work in trying to educate children in schools. In 1942, in May, June and July, 291 children were killed. Of these 235 were killed by lorries, vans, trams and omnibuses, and 34 by cars. I have heard it said too often that children are killed by mad road hogs rushing about the country, but here we find that of those 291 children 235 were killed by lorry and omnibus drivers. Would anybody go to the Transport Union and tell them that their drivers are all road hogs, who speed about the country irrespective of children or any other obstacle? It is not true. They are perfectly decent, hard-working citizens who do their job as best they can. It is not their fault that these accidents occur. Remember that they are subject to a speed limit. Omnibuses killed seventy children in these three months. I do not believe anybody can say there is a better set of drivers in the world than the London omnibus drivers. They are most considerate and the way in which they carry on during an air attack is something for which we should pay them the highest tribute.
This particular society brings to our notice another thing—the danger we are in during our life as pedestrians. You are in most danger when you are five years old. The curve of danger goes down when you are ten, and when you are between fifteen and forty-three you are very safe. The curve then rises and you get more prone to accidents from the ages of sixty-five to seventy-five. That is in fact what you would expect. A child of five is irresponsible. It rushes out at the wrong moment. When you get used to the situation, and when your reactions are normal and fixed, the risk is very small until you start getting old and your reactions go.
Then the society consider the cyclists. In their case accidents mostly occur between the ages of fourteen and fifteen, when they are experimenting and not sure of themselves. In the case of motor cyclists the dangerous age is twenty. These figures, I think, do a good deal to dispose of the theory that accidents occur by people "blinding" about the country as road hogs. In fact it is very interesting to see that investigations into road accidents in London show that 98 per cent. of fatal accidents were caused by
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drivers who had never before had any previous conviction for even a technical offence. I think, therefore, this road-hog bogy has been exposed. Mr. Mabane, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, said to me one day, "I consider you not only a dangerous driver but a dangerous walker." That was because in the morning I nearly ran over him and in the afternoon he nearly ran over me. That shows how liable you are to become an extremist if you only look at the thing from one point of view.
One of the most important recommendations of the Alness Report was the setting up of a Road Safety Research Board—an organization so much advocated by that great student of all road matters, Colonel O'Gorman. Curiously enough there is a Road Research Board to-day. That is organized in exactly the way I would like to see this new Road Safety Research Board organized. It has nothing to do with the Ministry of Transport and nothing to do with the police. It comes under the Department of Industrial and Scientific Research and consequently is able to look at the thing objectively and is not concerned to get convictions for offences. It is the ideal set-up. What I am pleading for, and the whole thing I want the Minister to promise to-day, is that this Road Research Board should be enlarged and should become the Road Safety Research Board as advocated in the Airless Report. I know perfectly well that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport is going into these problems as well as he can with great expert advice, but Mr. Noel Baker may one day look after foreign policy as is his ambition and leave the Ministry of Transport. Then we may have somebody not so enlightened. This is a matter for scientific investigation, and it should be done by people detached from politics and especially detached from the Ministry of Transport and the police. I would like this body to be independent because this is clearly a scientific matter, and if you organize this Board in the way I suggest it would have allied research organizations helping it.
Let us see what might be done. The Board should study first of all road congestion in its relation to accidents. We know nothing about that. It would be interesting to know to what extent congestion, when you

1139
do get it, is the cause of accidents. A man is not a homicidal maniac while driving down the Cromwell Road, but it seems that he becomes one when he gets into Hammersmith Broadway. That, apparently, is what is accepted to-day. It cannot be true. We want to investigate that particular matter. Then there are road surfaces. We do not know how non-slippery a road surface ought to be. I do not know if any of your Lordships read a well-known national scientific weekly, Nature, but there was a most interesting article in it by Mr. W. W. Davies, of the Road Research Board, dealing with this topic. He stated that non-slipping surface had been put down on a particular area of highway in London and it was found that the accident rate afterwards had diminished from sixty-three to four. We want to know what is the amount of slipperiness that is allowable before it becomes culpable from the point of view of the local authority. That is the sort of thing that can be, and will be, investigated by such a body as I am advocating.
And there are hundreds of other problems which we know nothing about. Take for example refuges for crossings. Mr. Davies has investigated this and he finds that when refuges were put down the accidents over a period of three months rose from 20 to 42. I call that a most extraordinary result. I should most certainly have imagined that accidents to pedestrians would have gone down as the result of the installation of these refuges. We are only guessing at the solutions to these problems; nobody really knows. Mr. Lyddon has gone into the question of roundabouts. He finds that the putting down of roundabouts has decreased the accidents by 78 per cent. in some cases and increased them in others. How did that occur? What were the reasons? Then there are light signals at crossings. They have diminished the accident rate by 53 per cent. in a number of cases, and increased it in others. Why was that? We do not know. It may be that it was because of the conditions relating to congestion. A cyclist gets in front at a crossing just when everyone wants to start and that causes trouble. What lies behind things of this sort is not known. It ought to be investigated. Halt signals in 76 per cent. of cases have caused a
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decrease in accidents, whereas in 11 per cent. an increase is shown. That is very curious. Again, I suggest, investigation is called for.
There is the accident rate on arterial roads. We want to know what is the change when an arterial road is built up, what is the advantage of the side roads and so on. These are all things that nobody knows anything about at present. Then there is the matter of the breadth of roads. I am perfectly certain that for the last ten years we have been putting down roads which are ideally wrong. We have in fact been asking for accidents when we make what I call three-track roads. In roads of that type the centre track becomes a battleground between people travelling in opposite directions. I think it is far and away the most dangerous type of road in the world. May it not be better to have two-track roads? Three tracks must be wrong. We want to know what is the ideal breadth. One thing is certain: improvements in these matters would pay for themselves in a reduction of accidents.
Nobody knows what is the extra danger caused by one-way streets. The ordinary Londoner when he crosses the road looks to the right. That is instinctive, because normally the traffic is coming from that direction. But when you have a one-way street it may be coming from the other direction, and, if that is so, no doubt this is a factor which produces accidents. We do not know whether the one-way streets are so numerous as to be the cause of substantial danger or not. Take the case of railings at very congested spots. We do not know whether putting impassable railings at a particular spot really saves accidents or just transfers them from one place to another. It may do so. We want research to give us accurate information on that matter.
Now let us look for a moment at things from the driver's point of view. There has been no real investigation as to what degree of danger arises from the obstruction of a driver's vision by the pillar in front of him which supports the roof of his vehicle. Some of these pillars are very big, but some makers try to make them as narrow as possible. Here is another matter for investigation. With regard to the rules of the road, we have not even got legislation to make people keep to the left. That is a most extraordinary thing. We

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do know that we ought to keep to the left but it is not so laid down in the Statute Book. On the economic side we should know what the cost of remedies is likely to be in relation to the cost of accidents. That is a very important matter which requires a good deal of study.
Then we come to the question of London traffic in general. We do not at present know whether, if accidents are the outcome of congestion, it would be better to speed traffic up. Mr. Shave, who was manager at one time of London Transport, as it was, said that if you could speed the traffic of London up from eight to ten miles an hour he could take 100 omnibuses off the road and earn £100,000 more per annum, while at the same time giving better service. If accidents are related to congestion it might be that speeding up would save accidents. But we do not know. This really wants to be dealt with by a body such as that of which I have been speaking. About kerbs we know practically nothing. What is the best height for kerbs, to what extent are they responsible for accidents?—those are two questions which come to one's mind. The banking of roads, the camber of roads and the orderliness of roads are further matters requiring close study. I do not suppose that in any other branch of our life in which moving bodies are concerned is it the case that only one of two sets of moving bodies is subject to any rules. If you had upon the seas one set of ships subject to rules and another which did not know where they were going to, and were quite incapable of giving any signal of their behaviour, you would have a lot of collisions, on the seas just as you have them on the road to-day.
The lighting of paths and the colours of roads are points I would next touch upon. There was a very interesting experiment in America recently in which the colours of roads were changed from light to dark, and it was found that the accident rate went up in consequence of the change of colour. We do not take any notice of such things here. We have no knowledge of these subjects. Is there an accident-prone class? By that I mean, are there some of us who never should drive because we are accident-prone? That is a psychological study which ought to be investigated. What is the actual effect of alcohol on driving? I personally would not say that you have got to be
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roaring drunk to be incapable of driving. But that awful "last one for the road" of which we hear so much: what effect does that have? Does it not give you just that over-confidence in driving which so often leads to taking a risk? I do not know. Road junctions now. There is the question whether a right angle is better than an easy flowing curve. The economics of the fly-over also come into question in this connexion. All these are topics about which we know nothing. Our signposts: are they the right height? Street names: are they printed too high up so that sometimes we find ourselves looking up into the air while we are running into somebody who is in front of us? About all these things we know almost nothing. There is also the question of the efficiency of the police car. I could go on for a long time, but one of the most important points is that we should really know and be conscious of our own ignorance. We are not conscious of it at present.
Everyone has his private suggestions and his pet theories, his belief that the problem can be solved in this way or in that, but they are all guessing. There is no proper investigation going on into this this matter. We talk glibly to-day of what science can do. Are we making use of science in regard to road accidents? Not at all. This question has to be investigated objectively by an organization which is detached—detached from politics and detached from the police. It is only by adopting the Alness Report—the Report of the Road Accidents Committee—that we shall find a solution. It is a sorry story, the story of the penalties which we have paid for the invention of the internal combustion engine, in the toll of the road and the toll of the air. It goes to prove how mechanical science rushes ahead of human wisdom. I have a great respect for people who, like my friend Professor Joad, advocate as a solution of this problem the total abolition of all motor cars. That is at any rate logical. I cannot accept, however, the attitude of those who think that all the blame lies on one class. The motorist has to obey five thousand regulations; the pedestrian can only do one thing which is wrong, and that is dawdle on a crossing; otherwise he is never to blame. It would be amusing if it was not so tragic.
Do not think that we are alone in this matter. We are not a race of homicidal maniacs. We are not the exception. In the United States of America, in 1941, 40,000 people were killed on the roads. We have been pioneers; we have led the world in many walks of life. I ask that, in the right way, we should get down to this problem, study it objectively and see what we can do, because it is a task well worthy of our united efforts. I beg to move for Papers.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, there is one point on which I am sure that the whole House will be unanimous, and that is in our gratitude to Lord Brabazon for bringing this matter before us. This is not, as he knows, by any means the first time that the House of Lords has discussed this matter. We have discussed it frequently, and under the very eloquent leadership of the late Lord Buckmaster we arrived at very strong Resolutions that something should be done. The subject is, as Lord Brabazon has truly said, one of the very greatest importance. He gave us some figures—such figures have often been given to your Lordships—to show the frightful slaughter and destruction now going on. He rightly said that, putting it merely on economic grounds, it is a most reckless waste of material that we should be killing these people, and still more that we should be maiming them for life, which is in some ways the worst thing that can happen.
I am not going to attempt to add anything to what the noble Lord said on that point. I agree most heartily with him that the matter is of the first possible importance. This is not something new; the trouble has been going on for many years, and on the whole has been increasing. I hope that we are going to take some active steps to improve the existing state of affairs. It is a real scandal that at this stage of our civilization we should have to admit that the roads, which are the principal instruments of transportation, are no longer safe in the proper sense of the word. Compared with the old danger from highwaymen, the danger from road accidents is extravagantly greater. From every point of view, therefore, it is a matter of the greatest possible importance, and should be one of the first interests of any
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Government which comes into power in this country after the war is over.
I was very glad to hear from Lord Brabazon—I think that we have heard it before from other sources—that the present Minister of Transport has set up a Departmental Committee which is investigating the whole subject. I like that idea very much. I am not a great believer in Royal Commissions as instruments of reform. Like the Alness Committee, which was substantially of the nature of a Royal Commission, they conduct immense investigations and generally present very elaborate recommendations as to what should be done, but they have no means of enforcing their views, and, having made their Report, they disappear altogether. It is left entirely to the executive Government to decide what steps shall be taken in consequence of their Report. On the other hand, if you have a really efficient and vigorous Departmental Committee, which might well be made a permanent body, you have an instrument perpetually at work to try to solve the difficulties which exist and to produce reforms which will be effective. I desire, therefore, for what it is worth to express my personal gratification that that step has been taken by the present Minister of Transport. I hope that his efforts in the matter will bear much more fruit than those of any of his predecessors.
My noble friend spent a little time in defending road-hogs, or rather in denying that they have any substantial existence. From another point of view, I come across people who say that pedestrians are totally free from blame, and that all the blame rests on the motorists. Each section puts forward not only the defence of its own conduct but the grievances under which it says that it lives. I hope that your Lordships will not pay too much attention to that very arid controversy. It seem to me quite immaterial whether this or that section is most to blame. That there are people who are very much to blame belonging both to the pedestrians and to the motorists I do not think anyone will deny; but, after all, the fundamental fact of the situation is that this is a danger which has arisen since motors came upon the road, and whether they are to blame or not there can be no reasonable doubt that it is the advent of the motor on the roads which has caused

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the great destruction which has taken place.
I think that is the central fact of the situation. The matter has been entirely misconceived. When motors began to circulate through the country they were treated as a kind of improved horse vehicle, as if all the conditions that applied to horse-vehicle traffic applied to motors, except that no doubt they were faster and therefore more dangerous. And so they said that the roads could remain just as they were, that everybody could have access to them in exactly the same way as before, and that they should be used for the necessities of traffic, whether the traffic was a moving mass of several tons at a speed up to fifty or sixty miles an hour, or whether it was a child going at two or three miles an hour. I think that was a fatal error. Motors ought never to have been regarded from that point of view.
If an analogy were wanted you should have taken the railways, where you have exactly that condition of affairs, only it was very much exaggerated in the case of motors—vast weights of material moving at very great speed, up to about the same speed, now even higher than that, sixty, seventy or eighty miles an hour. I think we ought to have arrived very rapidly at the conclusion that it was quite impossible to devise any system under which roads would be reasonably safe as long as they were open to unrestricted traffic, or very little restricted traffic, of such a totally different character and quality as I have indicated. I believe that really to solve this problem we should go back upon that early decision and we should ask ourselves, "Now what ought to be done with this new kind of traffic on the road, which really is much more analogous to railway traffic, that is to say, mechanically driven traffic at considerable speeds and of considerable weight? How are we to make that safe and at the same time preserve the roads as the necessary means of communication for the population?" My noble friend stressed the necessity for scientific examination of a great number of different problems, some of which are peculiar no doubt to motor traffic, but some of which apply equally to arty form of traffic, including the railways; and he urged in effect that we should do nothing at all until we had the conclusions of that inquiry before us. I hope your Lordships
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will not agree with any such doctrine. That would mean that we should have to give up any serious attempt to get rid of this terrific evil until we have had a most elaborate scientific investigation.
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: If I may interrupt the noble Viscount, I certainly did not mean to convey that. I am all for anything being done at the present moment, but that was a long-range plan for the future.
VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: I am much obliged to my noble friend. If he merely asks for a scientific investigation I am entirely with him. But we must not stop. There are certain facts which are pretty plain. We should proceed on those facts, and we can do a very great deal, I believe, without any very elaborate scientific inquiry. I am glad my noble friend has corrected me in that respect. I return to what I was saying before that digression took place, and I would ask the House to consider what in fact was done about railway trains. The fundamental difference between railway trains and motor traffic has been that the railway trains are confined to their own roads. It is true the railways were built by private enterprise, but that does not affect this particular question. Railway trains are confined to their own roads. Very elaborate provision was made to prevent any traffic going on to those roads except the railway trains or officials connected with them.
As your Lordships know, when the railways were first begun it was quite common to have level crossings by which you could even then, with certain restrictions, drive or walk across a railway on the level. Your Lordships are probably aware—I know I am—that it has been the settled practice of Parliament to get rid of these level crossings everywhere, and for many years now whenever a railway company came with a scheme to widen or enlarge its railways or anything of that kind, it has always been made a condition that all the level crossings on the railway affected should be abolished and replaced by bridges. That only shows the great care which Parliament has taken to keep the railways apart from the rest of the traffic. I believe that in the early days in America, when that was not done and there was no attempt to fence off the railways, very serious evils arose. I do not know to what extent, but to a very large extent,

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that evil has been excluded in modern American life.
That is the first thing that it seems to me you have to do. Where you wish to go at anything like these great speeds you must do it on roads set apart for that purpose. There is something to be said for some of my pedestrian friends who say, "Well, these roads belong to us; we pay for them, we ought to be allowed to use them as we like, and other people who use them must take care not to interfere with our use of them." That is the kind of theoretic consideration with which I have sympathy, but which I do not think is a good guide to practical administration. You have to recognize that motors have become a very important part of the transport of the country, and that speed in itself is an advantageous thing. It means obviously better transport, and to say merely that you are going to exclude motors from doing anything more than 25 miles an hour on the roads is an impracticable policy, and I do not think it is desirable. But I think it is desirable that you should say that there should be roads on which you may proceed at more than 20 miles an hour, and that nobody should be allowed to go on those roads without full warning of the danger. I believe that conception of two classes of roads is the most fundamental of all that could be carried out. But that is a long-term policy. It cannot be done in a moment, and I most heartily agree with my noble friend that what we have got to do is to find palliatives until a final policy is adopted for the country, as I hope ultimately it will be.
There are a great many things that ought to be done. My noble friend attaches great importance to research. I attach great importance to research too, but I do not think you can put the responsibility for active measures on to any body of experts however able they may be. You have got to do something more practical than merely setting up a research board, though I agree that that should be done as a foundation for ultimate further action. There are a number of things that might be done immediately. I believe that the institution of police patrols, as tried in the County of Lancashire, has produced very encouraging results. I do not pretend to have examined the details, but there is no doubt that these results have been most
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encouraging. Of course, while the war lasts, it is impossible to have this patrol system extended throughout the country, but as soon as the war is over I hope that the Ministry of Transport will induce the Home Office or the other proper authorities greatly to increase the system of road patrols. I am sure that that would help a great deal.
A great many of my friends are anxious to see the law enforced with greater rigour and decision. I was amused in reading a pamphlet on the other side at the suggestion that motorists are always very much ill-treated by the courts and are always found guilty whether they have done anything wrong or not. I do not believe that either allegation can be completely established, but we all notice from time to time reports of accidents in which a motor vehicle has been engaged, the victim has been left dying on the side of the road, the motor driver has gone on either because he was ignorant of what had happened or because he was callous about it; and you have every week, perhaps more often than once a week, wireless appeals on behalf of the police to try and find out what motor it was that did these things and the man responsible for doing them. That kind of indifference to the law is a very shocking thing. It is a great evil in itself and is productive of part of the destruction on the roads.
I want to say this, because I feel it is essential that it should be said. Among younger motorists it is extremely common to find a kind of sporting antipathy to all regulations designed to increase the safety of motor driving. That really is a very bad thing. I remember very well, when motors were in their infancy, being in the company of a very distinguished Peer of very progressive opinions who explained that in order to prevent his car being recognized by the police he was in the habit of putting grease all over the number plates so that dust would stick to them and make the number quite illegible in a very short time. Of course that is all past now. In any case the increased number of tarred roads makes it less practicable than it was in those days; but that is the kind of spirit which everybody who is honest will admit does exist to a very large extent amongst the younger people who drive motors, whether they are driving them for pleasure or because of business. That is a shocking thing, and the

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only remedy I can see for it is a very rigid enforcement of whatever law is necessary.
Then there is, of course, a lot to be done in improving the roads. I shall not attempt to develop that—my noble friend has said a good deal about it—but I observe with satisfaction the growing number of white lines down the middle of the road. That is an excellent thing, and it has produced excellent results. In spite of my noble friend we have got to have more efficient machinery with regard to speed. It is quite true that speed is not the only danger on the roads, but it is an element in almost all the accidents that occur. I know that you will quote against that the evidence of the police who say, in answer to the question "At what speed was the motor travelling when the accident occurred?" that it was going at some quite small speed, ten or fifteen miles an hour. No doubt—at the moment the accident occurred; but at what speed was the motor going when the accident first became possible or probable? That is the time when a child is seen about to cross the road. What speed was the motor going at then?
It is difficult to recognize the very short time that will elapse, even with a careful driver, between the moment when he sees the possibility of an accident and the moment the accident takes place, supposing there is no diminution of speed. A motor, going at fifty miles an hour, if my arithmetic is right, takes two seconds in going twenty-five yards. Two seconds—that is the whole margin between the time when the accident becomes imminent and its taking place. No doubt the motorist will diminish his speed to the utmost extent, but I imagine it would be quite impossible for him, going at fifty miles an hour, to bring his car absolutely to a standstill before he gets to the child; and a motor two or three tons in weight striking a child, even if it is only going at ten or fifteen miles an hour, is bound to cause fearful injuries. Therefore speed is a very important element.
I should not have troubled your Lordships with these few observations were it not for the fact that it is still denied by enthusiastic advocates of the motorists and the motor trade that speed has anything to do with these accidents. That is really a very dangerous fallacy. I have
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advocated before in this House and I advocate again, though I am not going to argue it now, that rather than have a mechanical alteration to preclude speed, it is better to have some method by which the speed will be easily known to all who are present—to have such a device as a speed indicator of largish size fixed at the back of the car so that everyone knows, as the car passes, at what speed it is moving. That would be a very important advantage. That we must have speed regulation is now common ground. We have abolished, rightly or wrongly, the twenty mile an hours speed limit, but we enforce thirty miles an hour in certain districts, and enforce on certain classes of traffic a variety of different rates from thirty miles an hour downwards. Therefore we must have regard to speed, and I suggest that something in the nature of speed indicators would be well worth investigation and application.
I do not want to be accused of partiality. I quite admit that pedestrians and other people who use the roads must recognize the existence of this motor traffic, and must be reasonable and take all the precautions they can. I am all for every possible assistance being given to them in taking precautions, whether it be by fences or whatever other device is likely to be useful, and in particular, at any rate in the country districts, of making it an obligation on the authority for all main roads between considerable centres of population to provide as a matter of right footpaths on one side or both sides of the road. It is a scandal that constantly happens, particularly in wet weather, that you have to choose between marching through muddy grass or running the risk of being run over. That ought to be altered. The last Traffic Act gave power to the road authorities to establish these footpaths but put no obligation upon them to do so. I venture to say that that ought to be changed. But I do not want to go further into the detail of all the possible things that might be done. I have no doubt at all that you ought to have a segregation of traffic, a classification of road traffic, sending the really fast traffic on to roads specially prepared for the purpose and specially protected, and leaving the other roads for the general traffic with a very strict speed limit, a very low speed limit, so that a car—and this

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should be the real test—can always be brought to a standstill within whatever distance you might fix, but some relatively small distance, so that as long as the driver kept a reasonable view of the road he would always be able to bring his car to a standstill before any accident had taken place.
I want to say this one thing in conclusion. Nothing can be done for the roads except by the Government. That is quite plain, because in the first place they will have to administer whatever system is established; and in the second place there is not the slightest chance of getting any measures through Parliament without Government support. I have made efforts myself to get measures passed that were designed to improve the safety of the roads and I found that unless one could get Government support one could not get those measures through Parliament. Therefore it is the responsibility of the Government. I want to say this as strongly and as definitely as I can, that if nothing practical is done to improve the safety of the roads it is the responsibility of the Government. I must very respectfully say that. I think previous Governments have been very much to blame in this matter. I have known many Ministers of Transport who have been anxious to do what they could. My noble friend Lord Brabazon has explained his own efforts. The point is that under our existing system unless the Government are prepared to back the Minister of Transport in any really effective measures, and to set aside an adequate part of Parliamentary time in order to pass them, nothing will be done. This horrible slaughter will go on, vast expense will continue and we shall see perpetuated, as my noble friend justly said, this curse, this horrible condition of affairs, which never ought to have been allowed to come into existence at all. So far as your Lordships are concerned I trust this will not be by any means the last occasion on which you will return to this subject. I trust you will watch very carefully what the Government are doing. They have done an excellent thing in appointing a Departmental Committee. We now want to see what that Committee will recommend and what the Ministry of Transport will do to see that what they recommend is made effective.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, this is a matter which your Lordships' House has debated on several occasions. I have not myself ventured to intervene in any of those previous debates for I cannot lay claim to any specialized knowledge such as that possessed by the two noble Lords who have addressed you this afternoon. If I speak to-day—and I shall detain your Lordships for a very short time only—it is because I have come to feel very strongly that this is a matter which has attained to the dimensions of a national scandal, and that this House as a whole should no longer leave it to the specialist, but that from all quarters of the House strong representations should be made to the Government that adequate measures should be effectively taken. In that I must say that this House of Parliament will be doing no more than representing a very strong body of opinion which permeates the whole nation. I endeavoured to ascertain how many deaths had occurred on the roads since motoring first became a general practice in the first years of this century, but I was told that no statistics of that kind exist earlier than the year 1909. But from 1909 to 1943, both years inclusive, a period of thirty-five years, the number of people in this country who have been killed upon the roads has amounted to 161,000. That number, people of all ages, have been killed upon the roads of Great Britain in a single generation. The Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Transport, Mr. Noel Baker, said a few days ago in the House of Commons that during the present war the number of men of all Services killed and wounded was no fewer than 370,000. On the roads in the same period during this war the number of people killed and injured was 588,000–50 per cent. more than all those who have been killed and wounded in those terrible campaigns on land, on sea and in the air.
It is not too much to say that this state of things, if it continues unchecked, and the statistics in spite of the much smaller number of cars upon the road show no considerable improvement, is a discredit to the nation. I feel bound to say that although one has to make allowance for the present period of the war and the great difficulties that attend the Ministry of Transport, taking it as a whole and looking back on the whole period during which the Ministry of Transport has been in existence, the present complete failure

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to cope with the situation is a discredit to that Ministry for which, of course, successive Governments must take responsibility. The root cause, as the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, has said, is obviously the speed of motor traffic. I cannot agree there with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon. It is a question of fast-moving traffic. If traffic is moving at thirty, forty and fifty miles an hour you have a different state of things from that which obtainer when there was only horse-drawn traffic moving at six or eight miles an hour or, in the case of coaches, ten or eleven miles an hour. That is the root cause, and I suggest to your Lordships this simple proposition: either the roads must now be adapted to the traffic or else the traffic must be adapted to the roads. There must be one or the other. We cannot go on indefinitely as we are.
For my own part I suggest that the roads should be adapted to meet the traffic. Roads exist to provide communications, and communications of the kind which the state of knowledge permits and which the people as a whole desire; and if the roads are not able to carry the traffic that belongs to the present age and which the people desire, then the roads must be altered to make them fit to do so. When the traffic consisted of foot traffic or pack animals you could pill up with one class of road, but when civilization progressed and those forms of traffic were replaced by horse-drawn vehicles, carts and carriages, then you required another kind of road. The speed of the horse determined the speed of the traffic and determined the character of the roads for centuries, and they remain substantially unchanged. I remember reading once an interesting comparison. One of the Roman Emperors, if my recollection is right, Septimius Severus, was in England at the time when the Emperor died in Rome and he was called to ascend the throne. He travelled from London to Rome with the utmost speed, with the best horses, as fast as the conditions of that age permitted. Seventeen centuries later Sir Robert Peel was in Rome when he was summoned to come to London with all possible speed to assume the Premiership and the time that Sir Robert Peel took lo travel from Rome to London was precisely the same as that taken by Septimius Severus to travel from London to Rome. That was because the
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speed of the traffic was determined by the speed of the horse.
Now we have mechanical transport with entirely different conditions and we need entirely different roads. This was foreseen in the year 1910 when the Road Board was established and the Road Fund was provided under a measure introduced by Mr. Lloyd George, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer. The intention was that a large annual revenue, derived to a very great extent from motor traffic, should be spent on a rapid remodelling of the road system. That Fund, however, was continually raided by Chancellors of the Exchequer in need of money to meet deficits in their Budgets. The money provided has been obviously totally inadequate for the purpose in view. It has been proved to be inadequate by the state of things to-day. During that period of some third of a century we have made great progress undoubtedly, but it has been wholly inadequate. We are very slow in this country to adapt ourselves to new circumstances. When the railways came in the first railway carriages were made to look exactly like coaches and the way of carrying luggage and everything else was precisely the same as if a coach had been put upon a railway bogie travelling upon rails. Only after a generation or two did we get proper corridor trains, and still our railway transport vehicles will probably be regarded by the next generations as extremely primitive. Now, after forty years of motoring, we still have for 'the most part only the road system that was created for horse traffic.
Let us have minor remedies undoubtedly, let us have what the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil of Chelwood, calls palliatives; let us have anything that can be done immediately as fast as possible. Let us have research, by all means—the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, with his great wealth of knowledge has given a remarkable series of examples of how many points there are still to be investigated—but the fundamental point is that the road system must be adapted to the motor age. When the war is over we have a flood of cars coming on the road, and in another ten years, possibly, the number of cars will be many times greater than before the war began. The holocaust, so far from diminishing, is likely greatly to increase. It is quite possible

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that the terrible statistics we have to-day will be greatly worsened in the next three or four or five years. The conclusion I would press on your Lordships is that the aim to be achieved is not to compress the traffic to fit the roads, but that the roads must be adapted to fit the traffic, and that the care and construction of our roads must be one of the prime factors in the future planning of Great Britain.
THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: My Lords, I should like to say how much I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, in his remarks, particularly with reference to the Road Safety Research Board advocated in the Alness Report. I hope that His Majesty's Government will as soon as possible bring such a Board into existence to study the vital question of road accidents. I do not want to dwell on the figures of accidents—they are, as the noble Viscount has just said, appalling and likely to get worse—nor do I want to dwell on the war situation, because there are obviously extraneous circumstances causing a great increase in accidents to-day, circumstances such as the black-out, war strain and the number of young drivers now on the roads in charge of lorries and machines of war. That is a problem which we hope will eventually, and probably soon, be ended. It seems to me that if we are going to cope with this matter we must have a long-term solution. No palliative will really effectually reduce this terrible death-rate and this terrible accident rate. I think the best thing that could be done would be to bring the Alness Report out of its pigeon-hole and study and discuss the measures so ably advocated in the Report in order to discover how they can be put into practice.
One point I would like to bring out is the lack of co-operation on the road. In spite of what the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, said, it seems to me that there is distinct antagonism between different users of the road, between pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. Intead of all cooperating to try to make the roads safe they each try to insist on what they look upon as their particular rights on the road. If there was more co-operation I think there would be undoubtedly fewer accidents. Not only is there that lack of co-operation but there is still, I think, a great prejudice against the motorist.
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There is a feeling that the motorist is usually to blame. Recently, I saw a case reported in the Press in which a pedestrian, without taking any care, had stepped into the road from the front of a parked vehicle and was knocked down by a motorist. No evidence was produced that the motorist was going fast or driving dangerously, but the motorist and not the pedestrian was convicted. I maintain that however carefully and however slowly a motorist may be driving he cannot see a pedestrian stepping into the road in such circumstances in time to avoid him. In a case like that inevitably it is the pedestrian who is to blame. It is he who should look and take care and not the unfortunate motorist.
I know of nothing of that case except what I read in the Press, but there is another case of which I have first-hand knowledge. A young man driving before the war unfortunately ran into a child. He was proceeded against in the courts, convicted of dangerous driving, and his licence was endorsed—all on the evidence of one woman who said she had never seen a car being driven so dangerously. After the trial was over the motorist, knowing he had only been proceeding at about 15 miles an hour, went to the scene of the accident and discovered that at the spot from which this woman who had given evidence said she had seen the accident, the place of the accident was completely invisible. He reported the matter to the police who then proceeded against the woman for perjury and the charge succeeded. The woman was convicted and his fine was remitted. But so great was the prejudice and the feeling against the motorist that he had to have police protection when going to and from the trial. I mention this matter only to show that there is still a great feeling in the country that the motorist is always wrong.
I am not saying that there are not motorists who drive very dangerously, but the average case does not, I think, bear out the general charge. I submit that that is important, because we have got our laws, rules and regulations, as has been pointed out by Lord Brabazon, framed almost entirely to control one party and not the other. I think you will find that out of the terribly large number of accidents which do occur an enormous proportion are actually caused by the heedlessness of pedestrians—pedestrians for example who step off the pavement

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without taking any care or trouble for their own safety, and women who push perambulators out from their doorways on to the road without looking either to right or to left. Actions of this sort cause accidents when there is no fault whatsoever on the part of the motorists. This was borne out in the Alness Report. In the year 1936–37 the Ministry of Transport, as quoted in the Report, said that out of 71,622 accidents in which cyclists were concerned, 43,944 were cases in which the cyclist was obviously to blame. The Assistant Chief Constable of Leeds, giving evidence before a committee inquiring into accidents, said that out of 18 fatal accidents in the first quarter of this year, 16, in his opinion, were due to the failure of pedestrians to take any reasonable care. I could quote one or two other illustrations, but I think that no one with experience of driving a car will be surprised to hear how often it is that the pedestrian will take no care. There are no ruler or laws which can make him take the care necessary to prevent an accident.
Now we come to another point which, I think, is a much more difficult one than the point relating to pedestrians—and, in passing, I should say that I sincerely advocate that some law should be brought in to control the pedestrian. I wish now to deal with the case of young children. That is a different and more difficult problem No one can expect young children to have the same sense of responsibility which adult pedestrians should possess and exercise. I would like to suggest that there are two ways of dealing with this problem. One way is through education. The other way is by the provision of more playgrounds. I think that in all towns and villages the schools should have more adequate facilities for play provided for the young children. It is a scandal that there should be places where there is nowhere for young children to play except in the streets. The provision of the second remedy I am sure is a task for the Board of Education. The children must be taught how to use their common sense on the roads, and how to get out of the way of traffic.
I was informed that there was a very useful experiment carried out by the Russian authorities in Moscow in their park of rest and culture. They have a big cement road made out with side roads leading into it,
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and this area is devoted entirely to children, to provide a place where they can hire and ride little pedal-propelled cars, bicycles, tricycles and so on. They ride up and down the main road and out of the side roads while other children act as policemen. These police officers have to direct the traffic and there are all sorts of signs upon the roads—"No parking here," "One-way street" and so on. If any child does not do the right thing he is turned out of his car and if the "policeman" makes a mistake he loses his job. The result is that the children, whilst enjoying themselves enormously, instinctively develop that road sense which is so important in the prevention of accidents. I should like to see some sort of education of that kind introduced in some of our schools in this country to-day.
Lastly, I come to the question of the dangerous driver. I would not like my noble friend Viscount Cecil of Chelwood to think that I ignore the fact that there are dangerous and bad drivers. I would like to suggest that, with a view to bringing about a reduction in the number of dangerous drivers there should be more adequate instruction than is given here at present, and, if possible, a more rigorous driving test. It has been my fate to endeavour to drive motor cars in many different countries—not in many on the Continent of Europe, but in the Americas and the Antipodes. I must say that the most rigorous driving test I have ever had to undergo was in Mexico. When you apply for a licence there you have first to establish your identity with a passport. You then have a short examination in the course of which you answer various questions to show that you know the rules of the road and how to conduct yourself. You next proceed to undergo an examination by a doctor who tests your sight and your heart and generally examines you to see if you have any disease that might render you a dangerous or incompetent driver. When you have passed the doctor's examination you go out with a police officer, who takes you round Mexico City and gives you an exceedingly rigorous driving test, making you back and park and go round corners and generally putting you through every test of driving skill that he can think of. And he does not forget to take you through the most unpleasant kinds of traffic.

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In the last stage you go through you have to provide a photograph, and they take your finger prints. Both the photograph and the finger prints are then attached to the licence. I was informed that as my photograph was taken when I had on spectacles, which I always use for driving, if I was found driving without them at any time that would be an offence for which I should be sent to prison. I may add that I was always very careful to wear spectacles when driving in Mexico. The result of these very careful tests is, I believe, a standard of driving in that country which is extremely efficient. I think that if a more rigorous test, and a more careful check up of people were imposed in this country it might eliminate some of the very bad drivers whom one occasionally does see.
But the final solution—and here I would very much like to support the noble Viscount who spoke immediately before me—is that of roads. I do not want to go into the matter of which we have heard such a full and lucid exposition by the noble Lord who opened this debate, but obviously the real crux of the whole matter must be to suit the roads to the traffic—overhead, on the ground, under-around and roundabouts and so on. Everything must be done that will make fast traffic safe for the public. A matter in this connexion interested me very much in Germany. I learn that when they introduced the Autobahnen there, although traffic increased by 31 per cent. accidents decreased by 32 per cent. Those are quite considerable figures when you consider them. I do hope that the Government will now undertake a policy of planning roads that will be adequate all over the country even if all the plans cannot be carried out now. If research is started by this Road Safety Research Board, and if at least some start with the plans can be made immediately and carried out after the war, that will go a great way towards dealing with this most dreadful question.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My Lords, I wish to say that like everybody else who has spoken I heartily support this Motion. I confess, though, that that does not mean that I agree with everything that Lord Brabazon said in support of it. I do not think that this is an occasion on which to draw comparisons between
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guilt and innocence, drivers of private cars and of lorries and omnibuses. By whomsoever this terrible slaughter is caused, we are all very desirous that an expert scientific view should be taken of the causes of accidents, and that something should be done to remove what has been justly called the scandal which exists at present. For my part, I share the opinion expressed by my noble friends Lord Cecil and Lord Samuel that excessive speed is very largely the cause of a great many accidents. I noted that my noble friend Lord Brabazon in a way avoided a contest on that point by admitting that speed was the cause of accidents, because he said that speed meant motion, and that the motion of heavy bodies caused accidents; but "speed" in the sense in which we all use the term means excessive speed. It is excessive in the City of London to drive at 20 miles an hour. The driving in the City of London, owing to the narrow streets and the low speed thereby occasioned, is such that there are hardly any accidents there. There could be no stronger proof that high speed is one of the causes of a number of accidents.
They have the same experience in America. Not long ago a law was introduced imposing a speed limit on automobiles of 35 miles an hour. It came into operation on September 10, 1942, its main purpose being the conservation of rubber. With that my noble friend the Minister is well acquainted. It is very difficult to form an exact view of the effect of that law, because contemporaneously, or very nearly so, the number of cars on the road driven by private persons considerably decreased; but I have a comment here which is worth quoting. There is in Chicago a Safety Court, and Judge J. Schiller, sitting in the Safety Court of the Chicago Municipal Courts, said recently:
"The present enforcement of the 35-mile speed limit has shown clearly that tens of thousands of lives throughout the nation might be saved by making the 35 limit permanent. It is more important to save lives than to save rubber. This war restrictive measure should be made permanent."
That is only an item in the matter of evidence, and I can quite believe that there are people who will think that the learned judge was mistaken; but it is a view which is very largely held, and for my part I very largely hold with him.

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Some speakers have suggested that the speed with which we have to deal goes up only to 50 or 60 miles an hour. The problem is much more serious than that. After this war, unless a speed limit is enforce I throughout the country, many motor car manufacturers will provide cars which can be driven with ease at 120 miles an hour, and, if those cars are put on the road, there are many young men who will be perfectly willing to drive at such a speed. I say with some shame (though it was not my fault) that I have been driven at over 100 miles an hour on several occasions on the public roads of England. I think that that is absolutely wrong and should be stopped. It is true that there were no accidents in my case, or probably I should not be here; but young men will drive at these speeds if they are allowed to do so.
That brings me to the view, which I share with my noble friend Lord Samuel, that roads ought to be adapted to the traffic, by which I mean that there should be road; available for speeds of a considerable magnitude, such as 50 or 60 miles an hour—I doubt whether any road is suitable for higher speeds than those—and that a number of roads should have a very strict speed limit. That leads me to say a word about the children, to whom the noble Earl, Lord Huntingdon, referred. Until there are playgrounds available in very village in the country, we have to understand and to accept the fact that the roads of the villages are the playgrounds of the poor children of the country. When playgrounds are provided in all these villages, we may say that the children ought not to be on the road, but it is preposterous to say that the children of poor people in the villages in this country are not to be allowed on the road. That is the place where they play. That argument alone shows that the public roads, as at present existing, are not fitting places for motorists to pass along, whether driving a car or a lorry, at anything but a very moderate speed. I have known people who always drive through villages at a pace not exceeding ten miles an hour. It makes very little difference in driving from London to Brighton or from London to Birmingham if you follow that principle throughout, and slow down as soon as you reach a village street. The motorists of whom I am speaking have never had an accident
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in a village, but it is in the villages that accidents constantly occur.
Speaking as a lawyer, I admit that the law with regard to cars and lorries and all other motor-driven vehicles is defective and should be amended. I have some experience of the matter, because when I was in the Court of Appeal I helped to decide a large number of motoring cases. What I think has not been sufficiently realized is that the offence of dangerous driving is an offence of a very special kind. There is no malice, no mens rea or intention to commit a crime on the part of the motorist who drives a car in such a way that an accident may and does occur. He does not mean any harm; he is simply driving in that way from high spirits or because he does not realize that there is the possibility of an accident at that place. Accordingly, he is a person who is guilty of a crime which is exceedingly difficult to define, the crime of dangerous driving. He kills or injures a human being, whether man, woman or child. With regard to such a person there should, I think, be an amendment of the law. I am not going into it in detail, but it seems to me that we ought to alter the law with regard to the killing of an unfortunate pedestrian if it should turn out that the only possible person who can give evidence as to the cause of the accident is the motorist, because the person killed is dead. Such a person goes off scot-free, and of course it is not sufficient to say that a mile or two away he was seen driving at 60 or 100 miles an hour. That will not be proof of the speed at which he was driving at the time of the accident. I think the law might be amended so as to make it more difficult for people of that kind to go away leaving a person dead or dying on the road—a thing that occurs all too often in this country. We have to realize—and I am not sure that all of your Lordships have quite realized—that it is all very well to say that the pedestrians are negligent, but we must remember that, in addition to children, old people have a right to cross a road, and I am not aware that it is an illegal act for a deaf person to be walking along a road where there is not a pathway of any kind. He has a right to be there, and a motorist—I am one of them—has to realize possibilities of that kind and to take precautions accordingly.

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In conclusion, I would only wish to say that my experience is not that there is a prejudice against motorists in the various Courts that have to deal with these matters. If it were not that the hour is rather late I could tell your Lordships of one or two events where motorists, obviously guilty of dangerous driving, have been let off with a perfectly trifling fine and have been excused payment of the fine because of poverty. That happened more than once in my knowledge, and I am not aware of any case where the prejudice is so greatly in favour of the pedestrian that the motorist is held guilty when he is innocent. I can only add my feeling as to what has been said by my noble friend Lord Brabazon about the present Minister of War Transport, who has, as I know, taken the greatest pains over this matter. He has met me, on the two occasions when I have tried to persuade him to do something in the direction of further diminishing the number of accidents, with the greatest kindness and consideration, and given every sort of assistance which I could fairly expect.
THE MINISTER OF WAR TRANSPORT (LORD LEATHERS): My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Brabazon for giving me an opportunity to-day to speak on this subject, and it is well that your Lordships should devote time to the consideration of this intractable problem. I was going to give a number of statistics, but I think they have been quoted adequately already, and I will not go over them again. It is agreed that all the figures support the view that there is a distressingly high number of casualties on the roads demanding the fullest inquiry and action. Your Lordships have, as I know, long been alive to this social evil and active in seeking every possible remedy and in combating it in every way. Some most valuable suggestions have been made in the course of the debate to-day. I want to assure your Lordships that not one of them will be lost sight of. We have already a large number of them under review. Any others that come forward and those that have been mentioned to-day which have not already been on our books for investigation, will be added. I can assure the House that my Ministry is very much alive to the seriousness of this
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problem and there will be no delay in handling the matter. We are indeed all at one in our anxiety to find practical and effective cures. If there are some differences of view as to the best treatment, there are none about the need for the closest diagnosis and the application of any promising remedy.
Although results have so far been disappointing, much thought, time and labour have been devoted to this subject and to the analysis of causes and the devising of remedies. Before the war the Ministry of Transport published in considerable detail analyses of the cause and nature of road accidents compiled from police reports. Chief Constables, highway engineers, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and many others studied the subject from their various angles. The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, with its special Road Research Laboratory, had also begun studies from the point of view of safety as well as of the durability of road surfaces. The Road Research Board, I would inform my noble friend Lord Brabazon, is in no way identified with the police, and I can assure him that there is no limit to the scope of their consideration and their work. A Committee has been established to coordinate the activities of scientists and highway engineers and has done, and is doing, admirable work. Shortly before the war the Committee over which Lord Alness presided made a most painstaking and exhaustive Report. I have no doubt that, had not the war intervened, many of the results of this work would have been translated into action by this time.
During the war conditions on the roads have vastly changed. Black-out, redistribution of the population, and the urgent nature of most of the traffic have offset the results which one might have expected from the largely reduced numbers of vehicles on the roads. At the same time, means available for dealing with the problem were severely restricted. Manpower had to be diverted to war activities; materials were in short supply. None the less, we have not been inactive within the limited means available to us. The Parliamentary Secretary to my Ministry presides over a representative committee which has worked with industry and enthusiasm which I gladly take the oppor-

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tunity to acknowledge, and they have undertaken at my request a systematic examination of the recommendations of the Alness Report so that we may be prepared against the return of vehicles and drivers to the roads after the war.
It is a mere truism to say that there is no single or sovereign remedy—the problem is indeed partly psychological, a human problem, and partly physical, a problem of machines and their roads; of segregation of different types of traffic; even of curves and frictions. On the psychological side it is fundamentally a question of training, the human mind to more acute traffic sense and to more considerate traffic behaviour. Conditions of the last few years have been all against this. Not only have we all been living dangerously, but our perceptions of danger on the ground are perhaps blunted by a new sense of danger from the air. On this side of our problem I hope to intensify the use of our two main weapons—education and propaganda. There are many ways in which these can be brought to bear, and while the schools, the B.B.C. and the Press must continue to be the principal media, I attach the greatest importance to the help which the women of this country can give whether as mothers or as teachers, towards the solution of a problem which so nearly concerns them.
I hope to revive, as soon as the manpower provision allows, the valuable work that was being done before the war by police patrols, and particularly in those areas where they were being used intensively. We shall have to overhaul our system of driving tests and to make it more searching, trough I do not think we can b expected to go the length which the noble Earl, Lord Huntingdon, mentioned he had experienced in Mexico. We have in the Highway Code an embodiment of those standards of behaviour by which the dangers inherent in fast-moving traffic may be minimized. The physical side includes a wide range of study to which I intend to call in scientists to aid the highway engineer and the designer of vehicles. This will not be a new thing, but it will be carried very much further. Traffic movement in relation to road design with all subsidiary aspects of road surface, traffic signs, lighting, vehicle designs, and control have to be studied more intensively and. if I may so express it, more imaginatively. In this I shall, I
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know, have the assistance of the Minister of Town and Country Planning as well as the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research who have already been giving some preliminary consideration to the matter. We shall have to deal, too, with the problem of standing vehicles, particularly in towns. Not only do they occupy road space, which is obstructive and uneconomical, but they are a danger to pedestrians and drivers alike by masking approaching traffic.
It will probably be necessary to revise our system of accident statistics in order to make them serve the needs of scientific and experimental investigation rather than the filling of columns of Blue Books. Mere numbers are often of less importance in the investigation of a problem of this nature than the collection of data on a scientifically selective basis and possibly over a narrower field. Nor should we necessarily confine the statistical study to the accidents which occur. In investigating causes and prescribing remedies, it is equally important to have a measure of the effectiveness of particular remedies already applied. I am fully conscious that the methods of approach which I have briefly indicated will make substantial demands upon trained man-power if they are to be used extensively, but your Lordships will feel that if we succeed in reducing this terrible problem to comparatively small proportions it will be labour well spent. I hope that what I have said will be sufficient to show with what concern the Government view the distressingly high accident figures. Death and injuries on the roads not only entail misery and hardship in the homes of the people concerned, but they clearly have a seriously adverse effect on the efficiency and well-being of the nation as a whole. What we must have is a comprehensive programme of measures of many different kinds which, as I have tried to indicate, my Department is working to produce. In the meantime, I appeal with the greatest force at my disposal to all road users to play their part in the reduction of accidents on the road.
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: My Lords, I am a little disappointed that, instead of having one of those acrimonious debates which we have had so often in another place, everybody to-day has been constructive, even my noble friend Lord Cecil and my noble friend Lord

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Maugham, neither of whose speeches could be described as Bourbon speeches. They were both helpful and suggestive of something they wanted done. I listened to the noble Lord, the Minister of War Transport, and no doubt we shall hear a great deal more soon about the activities of his Parliamentary Secretary. When he has something to disclose, I hope he will let us have it at the earliest possible moment.
LORD LEATHERS: May I say that I think it will be available in the matter of a couple of months?
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: Perhaps then we might have another exploratory debate on the subject. In these circumstances, I have pleasure in withdrawing my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

COTTON INDUSTRY RE-EQUIPMENT.
LORD BARNBY LORD BARNBY had the following Notice on the Paper: To call the attention of His Majesty's Government to the report of the Cotton Board Committee on postwar problems, and in particular the following extract:
"The Board of Trade to arrange with the Ministry of Supply for early relief for textile machinery makers from some part at least of their munitions obligations and for appropriate steps regarding materials and labour, so that re-equipment may not be unduly delayed";
and to ask if in view of the emphasis laid on the need for export, and in view of the low relative labour content of textile exports in relation to value, tonnage and cubic space, they are yet able to indicate acceptance of this part of the report and any plans for its early implementation.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we recently had a very interesting and effective debate in this House following a debate in another place on the Government's policy of full employment as set out in the White Paper. All agreed that that document dealt in an effective manner with the problem before the country. The successive debates in both Houses with regard to post-war reconstruction brought cautions from Ministers that the essential thing is the winning of the war. Those who, from their responsibility in industry, concern themselves
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with the achievement of the announced Government policy, feel no grounds for apology in drawing attention to post-war aims, and do not feel that their plans conflict in any way with the achievement of the main immediate object—namely, the successful conclusion of the war. The policy of full employment as was emphasized by Lord Woolton, the Minister of Reconstruction, and has been emphasized repeatedly by other Ministers, not excluding my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade, makes it clear that full employment involves an adequate supply of raw materials. These in the main have to be imported. Importation of raw materials involves payment for them. Payment for them will follow from exports.
I ask permission of the House to refer again to the Foreword of the White Paper on Employment in which industrial efficiency is stressed as a requirement of a high level of employment and a rising standard of living. I would from that pass to Paragraph 5 of the same Paper and quote:
"In the interest of the whole national economy our export industries must be resilient and flexible; and in the period immediately after the end of the war their claims for raw materials, labour, and factory space freed from war purposes must have a high priority."
That presupposes that the general question is recognized by the Government as involving progressive steps which will have to anticipate in their initiation the conclusion of hostilities, whenever that may be. The feeling widely exists that the plans at present are insufficient, in that the opportunities for manufacturers to prepare prototypes and patterns for the type of materials and equipment they are going to export are inadequate and may indeed be described as niggardly and tardy and as robbing them of the chance of making the plans which their competence would permit them to make were the Government to give proper cooperation.
In order to illustrate the point I have preferred to select a specific industry, and I have taken the cotton industry which, in response to the President of the Board of Trade, has set forth its proposals for post-war reconstruction. It is from these proposals that I have taken the illuminating quotation which forms the subject of my question. I did that because, as I would remind your Lordships, the textile

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industries as a whole, before the war, contributed about 10 per cent, or more of the total exports from this country. It is an undoubted fact that, of all the industri2s in the country which can be quickly brought into full production, provided labour is made available, the textile industries rank first. That is because the disturbance of their plant and equipment, particularly in woollen textiles, have been of a minimum. These industries are capable of being expanded very rapidly. Incidentally I would remind your Lordships, in passing, of the discouraging position of those industries which have been kept down to 50 per cent. of their capacity during the war. The actual position of the textile industries is that they can make an effective contribution very quickly so the national export programme, but—and here is the caveat—the Government must make available conditions under which they can produce efficiently, cheaply and in volume. If that be done, then the most important thing is to get efficient equipment. Owing to the insane deflation policy, now so emphatically discredited, those industries, particularly in the pre-war period, had great difficulty in re-equipping themselves.
That was the pre-war position. There is now a lag of five or six years and the situation is much worse. Those industries in particular want to get new equipment and it is for that reason that I have brought forward this matter. The wool textile industry is a particularly good one to give as an illustration. I ask the House to reflect for a moment upon the present position. It is understood that the textile machinery makers have a very small part of their capacity employed on textile production, none of it naturally for the home trade. In the wool textile trade the Government are the owners of very large amounts of raw material, which after the war may amount in value to anything between £1,000,000 and £2,000,000 sterling. That industry can only be manipulated on equipment largely in this country and that equipment is out of date. There are very few makers of machinery in this country to make either for this country or for export and those firms are in the main now employed on munitions work. Their contribution to the total munitions programme must be very small because we hear on all sides that there is a rapid release of certain parts of the munitions programme and
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that great displacement is taking place. It is therefore suggested that these firms could be relieved of their current munitions work and given raw material and labour to start getting into their stride now on textile production.
I have given the conditions in the textile industries as an illustration of what the position is in regard to industry generally. The Minister of Reconstruction, Lord Woolton, has shown strong sympathy in this matter. I realize that it is a subject for my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade, but in talking with industrialists up and down the country I find that the feeling among them on this particular matter is very strong indeed. In view of that I felt at one time that I should move a Resolution in this House requesting the Government to take steps in the matter, but, believing that the President of the Board of Trade is very sympathetic and is limited at present by the difficulties of labour, I decided to raise the matter in the form of the question which I now beg to ask.
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, I feel that in calling attention to the necessity for re-equipment in regard to the textile industries the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, has performed a very useful and important service. The noble Lord has pinned his remarks very largely upon the textile industries, but it is not only the textile industries which have reason to make their voices heard in this matter. In several directions many industries are anxious about this question of reconstruction and re-equipment, and we do not always get any very satisfactory reply from the Government upon the subject. Perhaps I might refer for one moment to the question of shipping and the shipbuilding industry. I say this with no sense whatever of any grievance. I think the noble Lord, Lord Templemore, will know I have had a Motion on the Paper since, I think, last November or December, on this subject. Owing to requests which have reached me I have postponed bringing forward the question of the re-equipment and reconstruction of those two industries, and now, apparently, it will be October before the Government are prepared to give a reply upon the subject. Naturally doubts arise in the minds of those concerned as to how far the Government are active in this matter

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in regard to such important industries as shipping and ship-building. There is a delay apparently of a year before the Government are prepared to make any statement whatever on the subject.
I must say that does lead one to feel that the Government have no very clear policy or plans or programme for the reconstruction and reconstitution of industry. No doubt the Government have done something, but we get no very clear picture of what they have done and what they have not done. As regards re-equipment it may be that industry sees its way so far as plant and equipment are concerned. That may not be the most serious difficulty. But there is a time factor involved in this matter. British industry requires reconstructing and modernizing if we are to get a fair start in the post-war world. As regards the ship-building industry that industry started the war with its equipment ment largely obsolete. I believe that when the war broke out only one ship-building yard in the country had a lift of more than five tons on the berth. The equipment was obsolete when the war broke out. It has been working under an unusual and excessive strain during the war and quite clearly the shipbuilding yards are going to end this war with their plant and equipment very largely worked out and in urgent need of re-equipment.
The more important point in regard to this matter of the re-equipment of industry is this, that reconstruction and modernization of plant and equipment depend upon invention, upon research work and upon development work. Those three things, invention, research and development, all require the release of small quantities of raw material, of labour and of research workers. Otherwise it cannot proceed. We ought to be building now in many industries the prototypes of the new machines, the new tools and the new equipment which will be required. Work of that sort is hindered and I believe is, to all intents and purposes, at a complete standstill because the Minister of Production and the Minister of Labour will not release the very small quantities of raw materials and of labour and of technical advice which are required in order to carry on that development work. If we
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cannot get on now and complete prototypes, if we can only begin with prototypes after the war is over, obviously we are going to be at a most serious disadvantage compared with our competitors in the post-war world. Whenever we raise these questions about the release of raw material or of labour we are told that we have to get on and win the war. I will come to that argument in a moment or two. If the Government say they cannot release the small number of technicians and designers required, I can only say I hear constantly of many techicians and designers who certainly are not fully occupied by the work upon which the Government are employing them at present.
In the transition period of which my noble friend Lord Barnby spoke, speed will be vital and the question has got to be considered in its long-term aspect. Steps should be taken in my opinion immediately, and pressed on with urgency, in order to facilitate the switch-over of war production to peace production. The Americans are doing it. There is no doubt whatever about that. If anyone takes the trouble to study the American Press or American technical journals, they will find convincing proof of the fact that the Americans are doing that. Can the Minister of Labour say he is releasing any technicians or designers or labour for this purpose? I can quite see his difficulties and I am quite capable of appreciating those difficulties, but this should be done, and I ask if the Minister can say that he is in fact releasing technicians and labour for the purpose of carrying on development and research.
Everything possible should be done to prepare for peace production. It should be one of the most urgent questions at the moment, and the Ministers concerned should be doing all they possibly can to prepare for speedy transition to peacetime production. I confess that I for one do not believe that enough is being done in that direction. If that is contradicted perhaps the Government can tell us what is being done. I know that the Board of Trade circularized many industries about a year ago asking what were their postwar plans and what would be their requirements in labour and machinery during the first six months after the war. I imagine that all replies have come in now. I admit the point at once that some of the industries circulated do not know

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very clearly what it is they want, but generally the replies which have been received should enable the Board of Trade to formulate a policy here and now regarding the release of labour and materials which industries will most urgently need when the end of the war comes. From the information that reaches me I am afraid that preparations have not gone very far, although' the information the Board of Trade have received should enable a decision to be made regarding what machinery will be required, how much of that machinery can be produced at home and for what machinery we shall have to rely upon America.
I mentioned the argument that we must win the war first. A great many Ministers make that reply when asked about postwar plans, and I have a feeling that they like to look rather Napoleonic and say that all that matters is the war and that we must win the war first. But many of the Ministers who make that reply really have not got to occupy themselves with questions of winning the war. It is not their job. We are not back in the days of 1940 when, owing to the fact that Admirals and Generals and Air Marshals had not got quite into their stride and winners had not got quite to the top, we had to rely upon what was called the gifted amateur. That was the period of our most resounding defeats—Dakar, Greece, Crete, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaya. We are through all that now. The right men have appeared at the top in all tae Fighting Services, the professional; are in the saddle and they are conducting the war very well. We have begun to win the war and the professionals are going to go on winning the war for us. We can safely leave the matter in their hands. Ministers who make that reply about winning the war first, as if it depended upon their personal efforts, would be far better occupied in concerning themselves with the post-war problems of their Departments.
When we ask about these things, what happens? To-day we are going to have a reply from my noble friend Lord Templemore, but frequently the answer is given by my noble friend Lord Woolton, who conies to that box—I sometimes think of it as a soft-soap box—and makes a speech full of tie most amiable platitudes which amount to crooning a melody "Go to sleep baby, Mother is near" and covers
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the whole gamut of clichés—the matter is being investigated; it is receiving the earnest attention of the Government; it is being reviewed by a sub-committee of a sub-committee of a committee; the Government hope to bring in a Bill before the next 29th February, or to issue a White Paper before the next All Fools Day. That is the sort of reply we get, but of hard fact we get very little indeed. We have heard a great deal about what has been described as the criminal negligence of the Baldwin Government and the Chamberlain Government in their faulty preparations for the war. Believe me, my Lords, it will be equally dangerous if this Government fail to prepare properly for the transition to the post-war period.
As I have mentioned America, let me say in conclusion that there is no doubt—I repeat it—that America is going ahead very quickly with her preparations for peace, and day in day out, week in and week out, is giving facilities for the switch-over from war to peace production. America came into the war in 1942 and that means that her industry and commerce were working on a peace-time footing for two years longer than our own. Therefore in any case America is that two years ahead of us. If we are to be told that we can do nothing because of the necessity of winning the war, I would point out that since America came in in 1942 she has taken over a considerable share of the war in Europe, is taking part in another great war in the Pacific, has got this country out of the jam about merchant shipping, has got the Fleet Air Arm out of a jam about aircraft, and has got the Army out of a jam about tanks. America has done all this whilst not ceasing to press ahead mast actively and most urgently with her preparations for the post-war period. It is for reasons such as those that I most warmly support my noble friend Lord Barnby in calling attention to the necessity for the re-equipment of industry. I hope that now far more urgency will be manifested by the Government in consideration of this problem and that an end will be made to this process of putting off inquiries by talking about the necessity of winning the war.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, I am sure your Lordships will be very grateful to my noble friend Lord Barnby for raising this subject and also for putting down a question instead of a Motion,

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although I gather that the latter course would have been preferred by the noble Lord who has just spoken. I am rather nervous in coming to this box for fear of being accused of administering soft soap, as my noble friend Lord Woolton was accused, quite wrongly, of doing in his speeches to your Lordships. However, I must do my best.
This recommendation of the report of the Cotton Board Committee on Post-War Problems is an extremely important one, and my noble friend is very well qualified to deal with it. It is one of a number of closely related recommendations made in this report. My right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade, in consultation with other Ministers concerned, has been giving very close consideration to the problems dealt with in this report, and to its recommendations, and these have been discussed with representatives of the industry. The efficiency of the textile industries of this country is a matter of direct concern to every citizen, not only because he or she is a user of their products, but also because textiles are still our largest export, and we cannot achieve the level of export necessary after the war to maintain our standard of living unless our textile industries are equipped to play their due part.
The future of this particular industry presents difficult and very controversial problems which it would not be in place to discuss here and now. There can, however, be no doubt that there is room in all sections of our textile industries, as in others, for extensive modernization of plant. This particular point was stressed by my noble friend Lord Winster in the interesting speech which he made just now. He spoke more particularly, I think, about the shipyards wanting modernization. Well, the textile industries are in just the same case. At the outbreak of the war, of course, modernization was long overdue in many sections of these industries, and the need for it has been intensified by five years of war, during which little, if any, replacements have been possible and repair and maintenance have necessarily had to be very largely curtailed. Whatever other measures may be necessary to help the textile industries to play their proper part in the post-war economy of the country, and to compete effectively in export markets, all will be in vain if they have not
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the advantage of the best machinery that modern invention and experience can offer. The Government can thus have no hesitation in recognizing the vital importance of enabling the textile machinery manufacturers of this country to resume their normal lines of production as soon as circumstances permit. The problem is to discern how quickly this can be achieved without prejudice to the rapid defeat—I hardly dare to mention this—of Germany and, after that, of Japan.
The problem is vital not only because of its importance for our own textile industries, but also because of the value of our exports of textile machinery. Before the war the greater part of our output of textile machinery was exported, and in 1937 exports of textile machinery and textile machinery parts and accessories were worth over £8,000,000. We are looking to the textile machinery industry after the war to help to achieve the needed increase in our total volume of exports by improving very considerably on their achievements before the war. We hope too that by improvements of design and manufacturing technique, our textile machinery manufacturers will be able to produce satisfactory machinery at satisfactory prices, of some at least of the types which before the war we had to import.
There will be a big demand for textile machinery from overseas countries after the war. Their textile industries, like our own, have had to defer normal replacements and extensions because we and other exporting countries have not been in a position to supply. Their existing machinery has had to work long hours to meet essential wartime needs, and although we have done our best to meet essential demands, the pressure of war production has inevitably made it impossible for us to keep pace with their demands for repair and maintenance. While the supply of textile machinery after the war falls short of demand, we shall certainly have to ensure that our own textile industries get their proper share for necessary replacement and re-equipment. But it is also vital that as soon as possible we should be in a position to begin to supply the machinery which overseas countries will want to buy from us after the war. If we are not in a position to supply, there are other countries who will be anxious and able to do so.

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The report of the Cotton Board Committee also includes a recommendation dealing with this problem. The section containing the direct recommendation to which the noble Lord called attention also recommends the Board of Trade to
"agree with the two industries a suitable proportion of the total output of the textile machinery industry which would be reserved on priority for meeting the needs of the home cotton industry, and no doubt other home textile industries, the remainder of the output to be allowed for export trade."
In answer to a Parliamentary question in another place on February 22 last, my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade has already indicated that while textile machinery remains in short supply, an appropriate allocation, as between the home and export markets, will have to be made. To-day our makers of textile machinery are necessarily engaged almost entirely on the production of munitions of war. Only a very snail proportion of their capacity is still engaged on their normal lines of production, and this is largely occupied on the production of spare parts for the maintenance of our own textile industries and of the textile industries overseas which have previously been equipped with British machinery and depend on us for their repairs and maintenance.
The problem of arranging the cancellation of existing contracts and the placing of new contracts so as to free first the capacity that will be most urgently required for civilian production, is one on which the Board of Trade, along with the Ministry of Supply and other Departments concerned, have been working for some time. The textile machinery industry must clearly enjoy a very high place among the various industries whose early release from war contracts is important to our future national economy. It has, however, to be recognized that the speed at which a particular industry or firm can be released from war contracts must depend not only on the importance of its peace-time products, but also on the extent to which it may be required for the production of war stores which cannot be made elsewhere.
Although it is as vet impossible to indicate when additional capacity can be made available for the manufacture of textile machinery, this does not mean that much preliminary work cannot be
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and is not being done in preparation for the time when the future trend of war demands on the textile machinery industry can be more clearly seen. The report of the Cotton Board Committee refers to certain estimates which had been prepared on post-war requirements of plant and equipment. Other sections of the textile industry have also furnished, or will be furnishing, similar estimates of their post-war requirements. At the suggestion of the Board of Trade, the cotton industry and the woollen industry and other sections of the textile industries, have been discussing these estimates of requirements in detail with representatives of the textile manufacturers, and reports will be made to the Board of Trade in due course. Simultaneously, steps are being taken to obtain from the textile machinery manufacturers a picture of the volume of orders both for the home market and for overseas likely to fall on them during the immediate post-war period.
It is only natural that the textile industries both in this country and overseas should be getting impatient to know how soon we shall be able to supply them with the textile machinery they will need to instal as quickly as possible after the war. I only hope that this debate will serve both to explain why we cannot undertake to satisfy these demands at any given date, and to demonstrate our realization of the importance of our being able to resume production on a scale sufficient to provide adequately both for the home market and export as quickly as our primary task of defeating the common enemies in Europe and then in the Far East permits. This is a complicated subject and a most important one. As my noble friend and the House know it is difficult for anyone like myself, who is not an Under-Secretary or connected with the Department, to deal adequately with the subject. I should very much have liked, had I had a little more time for preparation, to have answered more of the points which my noble friend Lord Winster raised about the Government Departments being asleep and that sort of thing. I can assure him that he is quite wrong, and I could have produced proof if I had had more time. I hope that I have answered the questions to the satisfaction of my noble friend Lord Barnby.

REPATRIATED R.A.M.C. PERSONNEL.
LORD NATHAN: My Lords, I beg to ask the question standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Huntingdon.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many personnel of the Royal Army Medical Corps, repatriated from enemy prison camps, have been sent to detention camps in this country after returning to duty; and whether sufficient account was taken of their mental condition resulting from long detention in prison camps.]
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Croft, I have to say that in all thirty-four other ranks of the Royal Army Medical Corps have been awarded detention since they returned to duty in this country. In most cases the men were absent from their units without leave, and in no case did the sentence of detention exceed 28 days. It is, without doubt, most regrettable that it was necessary to award these sentences, but the noble Lord will appreciate that if a man persists in staying away from his unit there is no alternative open to the military authorities. On the matter raised in the second part of the question, I can assure the noble Lord that careful and special attention is given to the mental condition of prisoners of war. All repatriated prisoners on return to this country undergo a special rehabilitation course to fit them as efficiently and happily as possible into their new environment. This course consists of careful medical examination, lectures, discussions, demonstrations and films designed to attune them once more to life in this country. Care is also taken to ensure as far as possible that the men are found suitable employment. I hope that that will satisfy the noble Lord.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD STANMORE): My Lords, your Lordships will be glad to know that Lord Onslow's health has greatly improved, and that he will be able to serve as a member of the Standing Committees of the House. I beg to move the Motions which stand in my name.
Moved, That the Earl of Onslow be added to the Select Committee.—(Lord Stanmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE.
Moved, That the Earl of Onslow be named of the Committee in the place of the Lord Snell (deceased).—(Lord Stanmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMITTEE OF SELECTION.
Moved, That the Earl of Onslow be added to the Committee.—(Lord Stanmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SPECIAL ORDERS COMMITTEE.
Moved, That the Earl of Onslow be added to the Select Committee.—(Lord Stanmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PROCEDURE OF THE HOUSE.
Moved, That the Earl of Onslow be added to the Select Committee.—(Lord Stanmore.]
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ESTATE BILLS.
Moved, That the Earl of Onslow be added to the Select Committee.—(Lord Stanmore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LOUGHBOROUGH CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments; the said Amendments considered and agreed to.
HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
Third Report from the Select Committee made, and to be printed.

ACCOMMODATION IN THE PALACE OF WESTMINSTER.
Message from the Commons that they have ordered that the Committee appointed by them to join with the Committee of this House do meet the Lords Committee on Tuesday next at half past three o'clock, as suggested by this House.
House adjourned.