Sitting of 7 March 1944

Preamble
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  KINGSTON-UPON-HULL CORPORATION (AIR TRANSPORT) BILL [by Order]
  Second Reading deferred till the Third Sitting Day after 5th March.
  KINGSTON-UPON-HULL CORPORATION (DEVELOPMENT, &c.) BILL [by Order]
  Second Reading deferred till the Third Sitting Day after 5th March.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  COAL INDUSTRY

    Transport (Loss of Working Time)
    Mr. Tinkerasked the Minister of Fuel and Power how many working days have been lost during December and January owing to lack of transport wagons; and will he consider the stacking of coal near the collieries instead of playing the pits when there are not sufficient wagons to take the coal away.
    The Minister of Fuel and Power (Major Lloyd George): The total number of man-shifts lost owing to transport difficulties and want of wagons during the eight weeks ended 29th January, 1944, was 200,600, representing roughly one-third of a working day for the country as a whole. Facilities have been provided at or near collieries in the main coalfield areas for stacking coal in conditions of transport difficulty. In most cases, however, wagons are required for transporting coal to these sites and where difficulties arise from a shortage of railway wagons at collieries, some loss of coal production is unavoidable.
    Mr. Tinker: Would it be possible to stack coal on the surface without using any transport at all? My knowledge of the colliery working is that, adjoining the collieries, there are plenty of places for
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    stacking coal which would be of great help in times of stress such as we are passing through now. As it is, shifts are wasted and no coal is got.
    Major Lloyd George: That has been done, and is being developed in places where it is possible, but my hon. Friend will agree with me, that, taking the country as a whole, the question of stacking any appreciable quantity of coal at the colliery surface, is an extremely difficult one, and there must be some method of transport for moving the coal.
    Mr. Foster: How is it that it can be done in peace time, when coal is stacked for a purpose, and yet cannot be done in wartime? Is the transport of this coal really necessary, when there is plenty of room about the collieries for stacking?
    Major Lloyd George: My hon. Friend will agree that, in the vast majority of cases, it is impossible without wagons to do any stacking at all. This is one of the difficulties which arise at the present time.
    Mr. Tinker: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman make an attempt to get something definite done?
    Major Lloyd George: I can assure my hon. Friend that every effort is being made at the present time to improve the stacking facilities. I am fully aware of the need for doing so.
    Mr. R. J. Taylor: Is the Minister aware that in peace time it is not uncommon for 250,000 tons of coal to be stacked at the collieries, and that by stacking they are able to keep the pits working?
    Major Lloyd George: As my hon. Friend knows, there are, in his district, very good facilities even to-day for the stacking of a large tonnage. But in peace time wagons were available in order to do the stacking. I am aware that, in many parts, especially in the Midland districts, it was done in peace time.

    Priority Supplies (Elderly People and Children)
    Mr. Channonasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether, as warmth ranks almost as high in importance as food in the case of elderly people and young children, he will devise a system in the coming months ensuring priority

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    of small supplies of coal to those who, through years or infirmity, need this with special urgency.
    Major Lloyd George: I would refer by hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rochester (Captain Plugge) on 15th February. I would add that local fuel overseers have power to give priority to premises which are without fuel and to provide increased allowances in cases of exceptional hardship.
    Mr. Shinwell: Is the Minister aware that although the fuel overseer in many cases is approached, he has not the power to enforce the provision of coal as far as the distributor is concerned; and is he also aware that many young children are going without warmth because there is no proper rationing system of coal, electricity and gas in this country?
    Major Lloyd George: I am sure that my hon. Friend will realise that the last part of his question has nothing whatever to do with it. If there was a rationing system, the situation would be no better. The fact is that where there is hardship, the local fuel overseer has the power to take action. If my hon. Friend has a case in which nothing has happened, will he please let me know?

    Goal Charges Account (Claims)
    Mr. Fosterasked the Minister of Fuel and Power the name of the firm of accountants employed by his Ministry to check any claims made against the Coal Charges Order Fund; and whether these claims are checked at the collieries or on information supplied by the colliery owners concerned.
    Major Lloyd George: There is no single firm of accountants employed by the Ministry to audit payments made out of the Coal Charges Account. The work of verifying the amount of the coal charge and the examination of claims against the Coal Charges Account (other than claims for grants to necessitous undertakings) is carried out under my instructions and the general supervision of my officers by the independent accountants appointed under the wages agreements. The work is carried out by the staff of the independent accountants at the collieries and their reports on the audit are submitted to and dealt with by my officers. Claims made
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    by necessitous undertakings are examined by accountants especially appointed for the purpose.
    Mr. Foster: Is the Minister aware of the statement which was made recently by the coal owners that these claims against the Coal Charges Order Fund were checked by independent accountants employed by the Ministry; and am I to take it from the answer that has been given, that these claims are checked by the employers' accountants, and then sent on to the Ministry for payment?
    Major Lloyd George: Auditors of the coal owners do the work, but they are helped in that work by auditors on the men's side, and with regard to the necessitous undertakings, the final arbitrator is the Ministry itself.
    Mr. Keeling: Do not drawings from this Fund for guaranteed wages under the Essential Work Order count as proceeds and thus diminish the amount otherwise available as price allowances, so that there is no additional charge on the Fund?
    Major Lloyd George: I believe that is so.
    Mr. Foster: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

    Coal Supplies, Swindon (Quality)
    Mr. Wakefieldasked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he is aware that his Department is supplying to Mr. Wilmer, a coal merchant in Swindon, coal so dirty that in some cases householders in Swindon are receiving 25 per cent. slate and stone in their deliveries; and what steps he is taking to remedy this state of affairs.
    Major Lloyd George: The answer to the first part of the Question is, "No, Sir." The merchant named has made no complaint to my Department, nor has he, according to my information, received mare than a few isolated and minor complaints from his customers. With regard to the second part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the statement which I made in reply to a Question by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson) on 18th February.
    Mr. Wakefield: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that there is a great deal of stone and slate in the supplies of coal to the households of my constituents—I have here an example of the sort of stuff that is being supplied—and that 25 per cent. of this kind of stuff is given in some cases?
    Major Lloyd George: My hon. Friend asked me a question about a Mr. Wilmer. All I can say is that Mr. Wilmer has been interrogated; and he has no idea of how this Question arose.

    Wages Award
    Mr. Colegateasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether, in view of the fact that when discussions were initiated in the districts for the settlement of anomalies arising out of the Porter Award the men's side of the Joint National Negotiating Committee stipulated that the cost must come out of the Coal Charges Order Fund, he will state what information was given by him to both sides regarding the source from which the money required was to be provided.
    Major Lloyd George: On the 3rd February, 1944, without prior consultation with my Department, the Joint National Negotiating Committee agreed that the anomalies arising out of the Porter Award should be adjusted by the two sides of the industry in each district, provided the cost of such adjustment was met from the Coal Charges Account. Later the same day representatives of the Mining Association informed my officials of this agreement and were at once told that no undertaking could be given that the cost of such adjustment would be paid from the Coal Charges Account and that important issues were being raised which would require consultation between me and my colleagues. On the following day, I myself saw representatives of the Mining Association and confirmed this statement of my officials, and also intimated that I was not prepared, without consulting my colleagues, even to agree that any sums paid in order to implement the Porter Award itself, quite apart from the adjustment of anomalies, would be refunded from the Coal Charges Account. The Mineworkers' Federation on the 4th February, 1944, was informed verbally of the answer given by my official on the previous day to the Mining Association, and I understand that, before any district
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    negotiations took place, the Mineworkers' Federation made it clear to its district officials that any agreements which might be reached as to the adjustment of anomalies would be subject to His Majesty's Government agreeing that the cost thereof should be met from the Coal Charges Account.
    Mr. Shinwell: Is it not clear by now that the anomalies cannot be adjusted by the existing methods; and what does my right hon. and gallant Friend propose to do in order to clear away the complications that are causing disturbances all through the coalfields?
    Major Lloyd George: My hon. Friend had better await the result of the meeting to-morrow.
    Mr. Shinwell: My right hon. and gallant Friend has had several meetings and there has been a great deal of negotiation going on, and yet there is more trouble breaking out. What is to be done about it?
    Major Lloyd George: There has been no negotiation on this at all; the first meeting is being held to-morrow.
    Mr. Colegate: Would not my right hon. and gallant Friend agree that the time has come for some bold imaginative step which will clear away these difficulties and allow the mining industry to get on with its job?
    Major Lloyd George: I shall be glad to have the suggestions of my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Colegate: I shall be delighted to give them.
    Sir Irving Albery: Is it not the fact that the situation in the coalfields has been well-known to the War Cabinet for the last four years; and does not the real responsibility lie with the War Cabinet?

  ELECTRICITY SUPPLIES, RURAL AREAS (CHARGES)
  Brigadier-General Clifton Brownasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether, in view of the fact that electricity undertakers have a monopoly of erecting lines in their own districts, he will lay down an average standard price to be paid by owners who erect lines on their estates in rural areas to supply their farms and cottages since in many cases electrical

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  installation in country districts is being held up owing to the varied and excessive charges of local undertakers.
  Major Lloyd George: I am afraid it is not possible to adopt the suggestion of my hon. and gallant Friend, because the cost of extending supplies of electricity to consumers in rural areas varies considerably according to the amount of electricity required, the nature of the ground and so on. In any case, the Electricity Supply Acts give me no authority to lay down an average standard price. This matter is an important part of the development of electricity supply in rural areas, which, as I informed the hon. Member for Devizes, on the 18th January, is receiving the active consideration of the Government.
  Brigadier-General Brown: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman treat this matter as one of great urgency? Some of these cottages are now without light and without coal, and if we want to encourage agriculture in the country, those things must be provided.

  LONDON AND HOME COUNTIES JOINT ELECTRICITY AUTHORITY
  Sir Herbert Williamsasked the Minister of Fuel and Power what percentage of the electricity generated by electricity undertakings is generated by the London and Home Counties Joint Electricity Authority; and for what percentage of units sold is the authority responsible.
  Major Lloyd George: The answer to the first part of the Question is "Nil." I regret that on grounds of security I cannot answer the second part.
  Sir H. Williams: Having regard to relative unimportance of this body, would my right hon. and gallant Friend not take too much notice of its various publications?

  AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (AGREEMENT)
  Mr. Ivor Thomasasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he will obtain and publish as a White Paper the agreement recently made at Canberra between Australia and New Zealand.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (Mr. Emrys-Evans): Yes, Sir. Arrangements will be made accordingly.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE

    Children's Footwear Repairs, Edinburgh
    Lieut.-Commander Hutchisonasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the widespread dissatisfaction in Edinburgh in regard to the inadequate supplies and poor quality of leather and rubber available for repairing children's footwear; and whether he is now in a position to make any statement on this subject.
    The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Dalton): The best leather must be reserved for the Services, but I am glad to say that both the quality and quantity of material for civilian repairs have recently improved. I have called for a special report on supplies of repair material in Edinburgh.
    Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his answer, may I ask him to bear in mind that in respect of this I was informed by two shoe repairers in my constituency only yesterday that supplies are still hopelessly inadequate and of bad quality?
    Mr. Dalton: When this question was placed upon the Paper, I called for an immediate interim report to be obtained from my Edinburgh officers, and this showed that, with one exception, leather merchants in Edinburgh say they have been able to get their quotas without difficulty, and the quality of the leather being received is good. I am, however, looking into the matter further.
    Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: I was referring to repairers.

    Packet Tobacco (Weight)
    Captain W. T. Shawasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that a large number of tobacco packets are found, upon being weighed, not to contain the weight of tobacco specified; and if he will take measures to see that tobacco packers give the public the full weight.
    Mr. Dalton: No, Sir. Although the restriction on wrappings increases the risk of evaporation, very few complaints of short weight have been received.
    Captain Shaw: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that investigations in my constituency show that on the average there is a shortage of 3 drachms on every ounce packet and that one firm alone packs over 30,000 ounce packets per day? If these average 3 drachms short, it represents 90,000 drachms or about 3 cwts. of tobacco—enough to supply 5,625 ounce packets. Does the Minister not think, as the price of tobacco is mostly due to duty, the Government have a special responsibility to see that the proper weight is given?
    Mr. Dalton: I would like to check over all that arithmetic when I read it in the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow.

    Handbags
    Mr. W. J. Brownasked the President of the Board of Trade, whether, in view of the high prices now being charged for handbags for women, he will consider producing a utility handbag of standard pattern at a reasonable price.
    Mr. Dalton: I will consider this possibility, but, in the present shortage of leather, any such handbag would have to be made of some other material.

    Insurance Companies (Schedule of Investments)
    Commander King-Hallasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will revise the classification of the schedule of investments, at present compulsory in the balance sheet of insurance companies, so that these companies may be enabled to prepare balance sheets giving a clearer picture of the nature of their investments.
    Mr. Dalton: The balance sheet prescribed in the third Schedule to the Assurance Companies Act, 1909, already requires investments to be classified under 17 separate sub-heads. It is open to companies to supplement the information so provided if they desire, but I have no power to alter the statutory requirements.
    Commander King-Hall: Would my right hon. Friend agree to remit this rather complicated question to Mr. Justice Cohen's Committee on the Companies Act?
    Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir, I shall be glad to ask them to look at it.

  BRITISH ARMY

    Specialist Medical Examination
    Mr. Martinasked the Secretary of State for War whether he has yet been able to arrange for 11057595, Sapper L. V. Moody, to be examined by a specialist, as recommended by his private doctor and by an Army psychiatrist; and whether, in view of the long delay in this matter, he is satisfied that the medical and administrative arrangements of the Army are adequate to their present duties.
    The Secretary of State for War (Sir James Griģģ): Yes, Sir. This man was examined by a specialist last Tuesday. Two earlier appointments were made for him to see a specialist but on the first occasion owing to the rush of Christmas mail and on the second occasion owing to his posting to another unit the letters notifying the appointments did not reach his unit in time for him to see the specialist. This is regrettable but I do not think my hon. Friend would be justified in drawing any conclusions from this about the medical and administrative arrangements in the Army.

    Middle East Forces (Amenities)
    Mr. Bellengerasked the Secretary of State for War why troops serving in the Middle East are compelled to pay for use of Government transport when proceeding to places of entertainment and what charges are usually made.
    Sir J. Griģģ: The provision of transport to places of entertainment is normally an amenity towards the cost of which the soldier can be properly asked to contribute. The charges are moreover very modest. They are ¼d. a mile for each man, with a maximum of 6d. for each occasion. But in theatres of operations and in other neighbouring areas where conditions for the troops are similar these charges are usually waived and, as far as I am aware, these charges are in fact waived throughout the Middle East Command except in areas with reasonable amenities close at home, such as Cairo and Alexandria.

    Regular Commissions
    Mr. Bellengerasked the Secretary of State for War how many applications from officers and other ranks he has received in response to his call for volunteers

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    for Regular commissions and Regular engagements in the post-war Army; and how many have been accepted by him.
    Sir J. Griģģ: Up to 26th February, 3,940 applications for Regular commissions from officers holding emergency commissions had reached the War Office. 1,219 applicants have been found suitable for Regular commissions but their final acceptance will depend on the requirements of the Army for officers. Over 30,000 men have enlisted or re-enlisted on Regular engagements since the beginning of the war.
    Mr. Bellenger: In the case of the 1,200 who have been accepted, may I take it that they will now be granted Regular commissions and will not have to wait until after the war?
    Sir J. Griģģ: I shall be very grateful if the hon. Member will put that question down. The answer is not without complications.
    Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew: When these men put in for Regular commissions, are they given any advantage over those who have not?
    Sir J. Griģģ: In what way?
    Sir C. MacAndrew: In the way of promotions and things of that kind.
    Sir J. Griģģ: Certainly not.

    South-Eastern Asia Command (Newspaper)
    Sir Stanley Reedasked the Secretary of State for War whether, when supplies are available, he will have copies of "SEAC," the daily newspaper published in Calcutta for the South-Eastern Asia Command, placed in the Library for the information of Members.
    Sir J. Griģģ: Yes, Sir.

    Wireless Sets, Italy
    Mr. Bellengerasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of complaints amongst British troops in the forward areas of Italy regarding the shortage of radio sets; and what arrangements he is making to remedy such deficiencies.
    Sir J. Griģģ: A considerable number of wireless sets is already in Italy. Additional sets will reach Italy from the Middle East and this country shortly and further supplies will follow.

    Parcels, Italy (Thefts)
    Lieutenant-Commander Hutchisonasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the indignation which prevails amongst our troops in Italy at the disappearance of packages from home containing cigarettes and tobacco; and whether he will cause a full inquiry to be made into this matter.
    Sir J. Griģģ: As I said in reply to the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) on 22nd February this question is receiving very close attention in the War Department. War-time conditions greatly increase opportunities for this particularly mean type of theft, but I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that everything possible is being and will be done to check it.

    Mail Deliveries (Hospitals, Italy)
    Mr. Palmerasked the Secretary of State for War the reasons why considerable delays occur in the delivery of mails to personnel in hospitals in Italy.
    Sir J. Griģģ: When a man is admitted to hospital he may inform his correspondents of his new address. A special card is provided for the purpose. If he cannot do this the hospital lets his unit know where he is and the unit re-directs his letters. This should work smoothly but my hon. Friend will appreciate that enemy action and moves of the unit or the man may upset these arrangements in individual cases and delays may occur. In order to ensure that delay is avoided wherever possible I am having the attention of the military authorities in Italy drawn to the substance of my hon. Friend's Question.

    Troops Under Canvas
    Mr. Wakefieldasked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware of the indignation caused, in cases of which he has been informed, by his Department taking troops out of their billets and putting them under canvas; and what steps he is taking to re-billet these troops for the rest of the winter.
    Sir J. Griģģ: Every effort is made to avoid accommodating troops under canvas but as my hon. Friend is doubtless aware the pressure on existing accommodation is in general very severe and it is not always possible to avoid it. But I am glad to say that only about 1 per cent. of British troops are at present so accommodated. The cases referred to by my hon. Friend are being investigated.
    Mr. Wakefield: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these troops have returned to this country from a hot climate, and that to put them under canvas in cold weather is very severe, whereas troops who have been put in billets ought to carry out their training under cold conditions?
    Sir J. Griģģ: Yes, Sir, I am aware of most of the facts about this, and the only thing I can say is, that to know all would, I think, be to pardon all.

    Interned Dependants, Far East (Family Allowances)
    Mr. Hoggasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider paying into a suspense account the pay and allowances due in respect of the wives and children of serving soldiers and officers who are civilian internees of the Japanese Government.
    Sir J. Griģģ: I assume the hon. Member refers to the payment of family lodging allowance for officers and family allowance for other ranks in cases where the families are interned by the Japanese. The arrangements in force were described in a reply I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Petersfield (Sir G. Jeffreys) on 25th January. I need hardly add that the payment of the allowance continues if they can be applied to the maintenance of the families, for example, if they are in this country.
    Mr. Hogg: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the fact that in cases where these sums cannot be applied to the use of the family, there is every prospect of the soldier or officer needing to use them when he returns; and is there any reason why the Government should make a profit out of his private affliction?
    Sir J. Griģģ: I do not accept that description of the facts at all. This is a case with a very long history behind it. I am prepared to discuss it with my hon. Friend, but there is another side to it.

    War Office Administration (Civil Side)
    Miss Wardasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the difficulties that senior officers in the Army have had over a period of years in obtaining sympathetic co-operation from the civil side of the War Office administration; and will he consider, in the interests of the Army, of so reorganising his Department that financial decisions within the Department are taken by men who have had active experience of modern Service life.
    Sir J. Griģģ: I cannot for one moment accept the suggestion contained in this Question. From my own knowledge and experience I can say without hesitation that it is quite contrary to the facts. A spirit of collaboration and good will exists, and is recognised by military and civilian staff alike to exist, throughout the office.
    Miss Ward: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that a great deal of the dissatisfaction against the War Office arises as a result of its present lack of internal organisation?
    Sir J. Griģģ: I can only repeat my original answer. My hon. Friend is quite mistaken in supposing that there is a lack of internal organisation. There is extremely good organisation.
    Sir I. Albery: Is it not a fact that a high official of the Civil Service is now attached to every Army Command?
    Sir J. Griģģ: Certainly to every Command in this country and to some of those abroad, although I am not quite sure whether to all Commands abroad.

    Anti-Aircraft Units (A.T.S. Personnel)
    Mr. W. J. Brownasked the Secretary of State for War whether women crews on London anti-aircraft gun teams are kept on the stations indefinitely, or whether there is a change of station after a period; and, if so, what the period is.
    Sir J. Griģģ: The A.T.S. component of an anti-aircraft battery is an integral part of such a battery and could not be moved by itself without seriously impairing the efficiency of the unit. These units are not stationed anywhere for a specific period but the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, who is naturally

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    concerned with the well-being and efficiency of the troops under his command, can carry out such moves as he considers desirable. Moreover, the war establishment of a mixed anti-aircraft unit allows sufficient reliefs and no member of the A.T.S. need be on duty for two nights running.

    Civilians, Italy (Supplies)
    Mr. Bartle Bullasked the Secretary of State for War whether it is the practice of the Army authorities in Italy to furnish supplies to adult virile male Italians who decline, when requested, to do any work to assist our troops.
    Sir J. Griģģ: No, Sir. I am not aware of any such practice.
    Mr. Astor: Is a virile Italian an Italian who is as strong as a bull?

    Italian Operations (Monte Cassino Abbey)
    Mr. Ivor Thomasasked the Secretary of State for War whether the Abbey of Monte Cassino is now occupied by Allied troops.
    Sir J. Griģģ: No, Sir.
    Mr. Thomas: Could the right hon. Gentleman say what military advantage has accrued from the bombing and shelling of this ancient shrine?

    Overseas Service
    Major Nieldasked the Secretary of State for War (1) if he will consider permitting regular soldiers who were enlisted before 1925 and have served for a substantial period of time overseas in this war to elect to be posted to home establishment;
    (2) after what period of service overseas in this war regular soldiers, who have served overseas before this war, may claim to be posted to a home establishment.
    Sir J. Griģģ: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply given by the Prime Minister on 22nd February to my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker). Regular soldiers are in this respect subject to the same rules as the rest of the Army.

    Tanks
    Mr. Stokesasked the Secretary of State for War to what extent the absence of a British tank equal in gun-power to the
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    German "Tiger" has had a deleterious effect on the fighting at the bridgehead; and what steps he proposes to take to repair this defect.
    Sir J. Griģģ: I do not accept the implication contained in the Question, but it would certainly not be in the public interest to give any information about the weapons used in operations which are still in progress, and still less about weapons we may use in the future.
    Mr. Stokes: Has the right hon. Gentleman received any representation from people on the spot that a tank equal to the "Tiger" or "Ferdinand" is really very necessary?
    Sir J. Griģģ: Perhaps the hon. Member will put that question down.

    Educational Booklets
    Miss Rathboneasked the Prime Minister whether, to avoid unnecessary labour in the preparation of educational material for the Services, he will consider pooling the efforts of those engaged in preparing such materials so that, for example, the pamphlets prepared by the Army Education Corps for the "British Way and Purpose" series and by A.B.C.A. can, except where exclusively relevant to the Army, be made available to the responsible officers and group leaders of Civil Defence and of the N.F.S. and through the appropriate organisations for factory and other civilian workers.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): The booklets prepared by the Army authorities are intended for the soldier but, as my hon. Friend is no doubt aware, they are also used by the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. I am advised that a somewhat different variant would be required for the Civil Defence Services and other civilians. The several Departments concerned will receive copies of these booklets and may of course reproduce any articles which they consider helpful to their work.
    Miss Rathbone: Does the "British Way and Purpose" differ as explained to the Armed Forces and to civilians? Considering what admirable material there is in it could it not be more widely used for civilians?
    The Prime Minister: There are a great many points in common with the Armed Forces and civilians. I am advised that

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    special variants are desirable in each case, but I am assured that no great waste of time and labour is caused by catering for these different tastes.
    Sir H. Williams: Is the British way and purpose for the people of this country that which was defined by the Home Secretary on Saturday?
    The Prime Minister: I have not had an opportunity of reading my right hon. Friend's speech.

    Demobilised Soldiers (Civilian Clothing)
    The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
    43. Mr. EVELYN WALKDEN.—To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can now announce the charges and the comprehensive scheme of supplies of clothing to be issued to soldiers on demobilisation.
    At the end of Questions:
    Sir J. Griģģ: With your permisson, Mr. Speaker, I should like to read the answer which I should have given to Question 43 if it had been called, because it is a matter of some interest.
    Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order. I just want to get clear on this procedure. The Minister has said that although the Question has not been called, he wants to read the answer, because it is important. Will a Member whose Question has not, been called, be allowed to put that Question at the finish, in the same circumstances? Can a Member approach you, and have this procedure the other way round?
    Mr. Speaker: No, I could not allow a Member, who had not been here in person to ask his Question, to do so later, simply because he thought his own Question important. It is a matter within the discretion of the Minister concerned, subject to my consent.
    Mr. Gallacher: If he satisfied you of its importance, could he not put it?
    Sir J. Griģģ: This Question relates to the supply of clothing to soldiers on demobilisation, and the reason for my asking permission to give the answer now, which I would have given had the Question been asked, will be quite clear when I have given that answer. The answer is:
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    This matter is not yet sufficiently advanced for a comprehensive statement to be made. I feel, however, that it may interest Members of Parliament to see a demonstration of the clothing which will be issued on demobilisation, and of the method of issuing it. I am therefore making arrangements for this demonstration to be held at Olympia next Tuesday, 14th March, between the hours of 10 and 12 and 3 and 6. I should be obliged if Members who wish to go would get in touch with my private office.
    Mr. Evelyn Walkden: While thanking my right hon. Friend for the explanation, may I ask what is the actual obstruction between the War Office and the Treasury as to the ratio of money allowed to be spent by the War Office on equipping demobilised soldiers on discharge?
    Sir J. Griģģ: There is no obstruction on anybody's part. The scheme is in complete working order. As I say, I am not in a position to make a final and comprehensive statement, but I suggest that the hon. Member should go to the demonstration. He will then see for himself.
    Mr. E. Walkden: I shall be delighted.
    Mr. McGovern: Is the Minister aware that there is a case in which a man was discharged without any civilian clothing, and that he cannot get a job because he has only his uniform, and is therefore refused unemployment benefit because he cannot take a job offered?
    Sir J. Griģģ: That must be a very special case and I am quite prepared to look into it, if the hon. Member will send me particulars of it. It is not in accordance with the normal practice.
    Mr. Leslie Boyce: Cannot a suit be exhibited in the House? Is the journey to Olympia really necessary?
    Mr. Maxton: Would it not be helpful if the Minister would put on one of these suits?

    SERVICE PAY AND ALLOWANCES
    Mr. Turtonasked the Secretary of State for War what was the rate of civilian wage that was taken in August, 1942, in making the comparison in Cmd. 6385 between Army pay and civilian wages; and whether he has obtained any comparative figure of current civilian wages.
    Sir J. Griģģ: I think my hon. Friend will find that no comparison such as is suggested in the first part of his Question was, in fact, made. As to the second part of his Question, figures of civilian wages are published from time to time in the Ministry of Labour Gazette but in the Government's view no valid comparison can be made between such wages and the emoluments of soldiers.
    Mr. Kendallasked the Prime Minister if he is yet in a position to implement the promised investigation into Army pay and allowances; what will be the constitution of the group to be invited to discuss the problem; and have any invitations yet been extended.
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I have no new statement to make. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House suggested last week that the same kind of informal discussion which took place in 1942 might be repeated. Arrangements to give effect to this undertaking, subject to the reservation set forth by my right hon. Friend, will be made through the usual channels.
    Mr. W. J. Brown: In addition to the orthodox representatives of parties who will take part in these conversations, will my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Kendall) be called in on behalf of the Independants?
    The Prime Minister: I think I had better leave the arrangements to be made through the usual channels.
    Commander Sir Archibald Southby: Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that the question of an increase in basic pay will also be considered by this informal committee?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. and gallant Friend must study carefully the record in the OFFICIAL REPORT of what my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said.
    Major C. S. Taylor: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the discussions will embrace all three Services?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Gallacher: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is any means whereby I can find myself sailing through the usual channels?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is in a unique position. I can only suggest recourse through the usual channels.
    Mr. Brown: Are we to take it that all that happened last Thursday has had no effect on the mind of the Leader of the House, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and that we are still restricted to the narrow terms of what the Leader of the House said on that occasion?
    The Prime Minister: I have already given an answer to the Question that was asked and I am not prepared to submit myself to interrogation as to my mental state.
    Mr. Greenwood: Is it not the case that the Leader of the House, while making no commitment, accepted the view of the House that basic pay should be considered?
    The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend's remarks are on record but I certainly do not think it at all likely that a fundamental change will be made in basic rates of pay.
    Mr. Greenwood: I do not ask for any commitment. All I am asking is whether it is the intention of the Government to permit those who speak for bodies or individuals to raise their points about basic pay. It would be absurd to ask for any commitment but my right hon. Friend has said that these matters would not be ruled out from consultation.
    The Prime Minister: Nothing that I have ever heard of prevents any Member of Parliament discussing any topic in an interview which is amicably arranged.
    Mr. Shinwell: If there is a general consensus of opinion that the question of basic pay should be considered by the Government may we understand that it will not be ignored?
    The Prime Minister: All kinds of matters are constantly being considered by the Government. They have a great responsibility. There are very large issues which may have to be considered on such subjects.
    Miss Wardasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether in view of the fact that the continual pressure that has had to be exercised by the House of Commons in order to obtain financial concessions

    1867
    sions for the Services and their families has created a widespread feeling that their interests from a financial point of view are less well protected than those in civilian life, he will give an assurance that in future, when increases of wages and bonuses are awarded to civil servants or the industrial community to meet increases in the cost of living, an automatic equivalent increase will accrue to members of the Services.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Anderson): No, Sir. I cannot accept the premises on which the hon. Lady's Question is based. As has been pointed out on many occasions, there are many factors which tend to vitiate any comparison between civilian salaries or wages and the remuneration of members of the Services; and, in particular, the fact that so much is provided for members of the Services in kind would rule out any plan for an automatic equivalent increase as suggested in the last part of the Question.
    Miss Ward: Is it not a fact that the cost of living affects the dependants of the Servicemen in identically the same way as the civilian population? Cannot this question be considered by the committee which will be investigating the pay of the Services?
    Sir J. Anderson: It is the sort of question that might be raised.
    Vice-Admiral Taylorasked the First Lord of the Admiralty (1) whether he is aware that the net marriage allowance for a wife paid to commanders and lieutenant-commanders is less than that paid to an able seaman; and if he will take steps to remedy the position of these officers;
    (2) the total cost of officers' marriage allowance; what amount of this cost is borne by the officers themselves due to having their basic rate of pay reduced by 2s. a day in the case of lieutenant-commanders and above and up to 1s. 8d. a day in the case of commissioned warrant officers according to their seniority;
    (3) whether he is aware that in the case of a lieutenant with a wife and two children, under the revised marriage allowance, when he is promoted to lieutenant-commander he loses 3s. net a day, 1s. on account of the children's
    1868
    allowance and 2s. a day due to his basic rate of pay being reduced by that amount as his contribution towards paying for the marriage allowance scheme; and if he will take steps to have this hardship remedied.
    The Financial Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. J. P. L. Thomas): As the answer is a long one, I will, if my hon. and gallant Friend agrees, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: Is my hon. Friend aware that, under the revised rate, all officers of the ranks of lieutenant-commander and up to and including captain, receive in marriage allowance a net 4s. a week less than an able seaman; and does he consider that that state of affairs should continue?
    Mr. Thomas: I cannot accept the accuracy of my hon. and gallant Friend's question, but perhaps he will await my reply, which is very full and will be available to him as soon as Question Time is over.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: Will not my hon. Friend accept the statement that, owing to the marriage allowance scheme, these officers have had their pay cut by 25. a day, and that, therefore, my statement is correct?
    Mr. Thomas: I am afraid that I must again ask my hon. and gallant Friend to await my reply. I deal with that very point in it.
    Mr. Gallacher: Can we take it for granted that the hon. Gentleman will not inform the hon. and gallant Member that there is a danger of inflation if these allowances are increased?
    Following is the answer:
    To make the position clear, I must refer to some earlier history. Rates of pay of officers of the three Services were fixed in 1919. The Army and Air Force received marriage allowance; the naval officer did not, but the naval rates were fixed at a somewhat higher level than would have been possible if marriage allowance had been granted. In other words, naval pay contained an element of marriage allowance prior to the introduction of marriage allowance in 1938. Accordingly, His Majesty's Government in 1938 publicly announced that it was necessary to substract the element of marriage allowance already included in the pay of

    1869
    captains, commanders and lieut.-commanders. This is the 2s. a day sometimes erroneously referred to as a reduction in pay. Marriage allowance for the wife of a commander or lieut.-commander is either 4s. 6d. or 4s. a day, free of Income Tax. I am therefore, unable to accept the suggestion that their marriage allowance is worth less than that paid to an able seaman, which is 2is. 6d. a week. For security reasons I am unable to state the total cost of officers marriage allowance, but the so-called "reduction" in pay is only sufficient to pay about one-tenth of it.
    With regard to the alleged reduction suffered by a lieutenant on promotion to lieut.-commander, the sole difference is that, under the revised marriage allowance scheme, the rate for the first child is 3s. a day in the case of lieutenants and below, and 2S. a day in the case of lieut.-commanders and upwards. This differentiation is the result of a decision taken by the Government in September, 1942, when with the avowed object of improving the pay of junior married officers of the Armed Forces, the rate for the first child was raised from 2s. to 3s. for officers up to and including the rank of captain in the Army and equivalent rank in the other Services. It must be borne in mind that a lieutenant on promotion to lieut.-commander receives an increase in full pay of not less than 6s. 2d. a day.

  ARMED FORCES, OVERSEAS (VISITS OF MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT)
  Mr. Hoggasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the recent request by R.A.F. stations in the Middle East for a visit by Members of Parliament to the Forces overseas for the purpose of keeping them informed of current political thought; and whether he will take steps to grant this request.
  Mr. Reakesasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware of the desire of Service men and women for the visit of Members of Parliament to overseas camps to explain the Government's postwar policy for housing reconstruction and employment; and if he will arrange for a representative panel of Members of Parliament to make such visits.
  The Prime Minister: I am informed that no requests have been received from Royal Air Force stations in the Middle East or elsewhere for Members of Parliament to visit the Forces overseas with the object of explaining current political thought and the Government's post-war policy of reconstruction. We do not propose to arrange any visits of this character at the present time.
  Mr. Shinwell: How would it be possible for hon. Members to explain the Government's policy when the Government have not explained it themselves?

  SOCIAL SECURITY (GOVERNMENT PROPOSALS)
  Mr. Graham Whiteasked the Prime Minister if he is now in a position to state when the proposals of His Majesty's Government with regard to social security will be laid before Parliament.
  The Prime Minister: I am not yet able to assign any particular date for this statement. It will be made as soon as possible. There is a good deal going on.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Post-War Monetary Policy
    Mr. Craven-Ellisasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will give an assurance that the Government continues to be committed to the British currency declaration, of July, 1933; and will he give an undertaking that no material change will be made in the terms of the declaration without this House being consulted.
    Sir J. Anderson: As stated by my predecessor on 11th March, 1943, in reply to a Question by my hon. Friend, the British Empire Currency Declaration of July, 1933, could not, without material modification, be regarded as applicable to the facts of the present ime. In reply to the second part of the Question, I have on several occasions stated that no decisions in regard to post-war monetary policy will be reached without full discussion in this House.
    Mr. Craven-Ellis: Are we to understand from that reply that the currency declaration is only suspended?
    Sir J. Anderson: The House is to understand exactly what I said.
    Mr. Stokes: Are we to understand that there has not already been a merging of minds in America on this matter?
    Sir J. Anderson: That is not in the Queston.
    Mr. Craven-Ellisasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if we are still committed to the Tripartite Agreement of September, 1936, since France, one of the parties to the agreement, capitulated.
    Sir J. Anderson: The so-called "Tripartite Agreement" of September, 1936, took the form of parallel statements issued simultaneously by His Majesty's Government, the United States Government, and the French Government. In the British statement H.M. Government pointed out that they must in their policy towards international monetary relations take into full account the requirements of internal prosperity of the countries of the Empire. The statement then re-affirmed the purpose of H.M. Government to continue the policy previously pursued
    "one constant object of which is to maintain the greatest equilibrium in the system of international exchanges and to avoid to the utmost extent the creation of any disturbance of that system by British monetary action."
    The statement went on to express the conviction of H.M. Government that
    "the continuation of this twofold policy will serve the general purpose which all Governments should pursue."
    I think the above principles hold good in the circumstances of the present time and they will continue to govern our policy.
    Mr. Craven-Ellis: Is it not a fact that under this tripartite agreement the United States deliberately kept the dollar undervalued at the expense of British exports? In these conditions should the agreement not be terminated?
    Sir J. Anderson: That is the sort of question that ought to be seen on the Paper.

    National Savings Certificates (Encashment)
    Mr. Craven-Ellisasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether consideration will be given to priority in liquidation to those holding National Savings
    1872
    Certificates if an undertaking to use the proceeds in the purchase of a newly-built house accompanies such application to repay.
    Sir J. Anderson: No, Sir. Any holder of National Savings Certificates who is over seven years of age has a right to encash his certificates at any time, with the single exception that certificates of the £1 issue are not encashable within 90 days of the date of purchase. There can be no question of qualifying these encashment rights. It would be out of the question for the State to dishonour its loans by making their repayment subject to conditions not provided in the terms on which the loans were issued to the public.
    Mr. Craven-Ellis: If the replacement of these savings certificates should, in fact, cause inflation, do the Government intend to take no action at all; and would it not be in the interest of the country for these people to spend the money in providing homes for themselves?
    Sir J. Anderson: That is a hypothetical question. The Government intend to stand strictly by their obligations.
    Mr. Graham White: Does the right hon. Gentleman's reply apply not merely to war certificates specified in the Question but to all Government loans?
    Sir J. Anderson: It applies generally. The terms on which loans have been raised will he adhered to.

    Old Age Pensions
    Mr. Tinkerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware of the feeling in the country for an increase in the basic rate of old age pensions; and if provision will be made for it in the forthcoming Financial Statement; the Budget, in April.
    Sir J. Anderson: I am aware of the feeling to which the hon. Member refers but, as the House has already been informed, the whole matter of old age pensions is under consideration as part of the Beveridge Report and I cannot anticipate the conclusions which will be reached.
    Mr. Tinker: If there is no change in the forthcoming Budget Statement, there will be a fight on the question when the time comes.
    Sir H. Williams: Is there any estimate of the number of the people concerned, who are in employment and earning handsome wages?
    Sir J. Anderson: It would be difficult to say offhand.

    Post-War Revenue and Expenditure (Estimate)
    Sir H. Williamsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, having regard to the new financial commitments incurred since the outbreak of war, he will consider the publication of a future normal Budget, similar to that issued by his predecessor a quarter of a century ago, so that the House and the country may be able to consider objectively any future legislation involving large expenditure.
    Sir J. Anderson: At an appropriate time I shall be glad to give the House all the estimates I can of our probable revenue and expenditure after the war. At the moment it would be premature for me to attempt to do so.

    Plastic Industry (Taxation)
    Sir Frank Sandersonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider, with a view to not impeding the plastic industry and assisting our export trade, removing the tax on the raw materials used in the process of manufacture.
    Sir J. Anderson: Yes, Sir. This question shall receive due consideration. It is a complex problem; and I do not expect that it will be possible to reach an early decision.

  CENTRAL STATISTICAL ORGANISATION
  Mr. Molsonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will give an assurance that the Central Statistical Office, which is now collecting a very wide range of statistics relating to the financial and economic activities of the country, will be retained as a permanent institution after the war.
  Sir J. Anderson: Yes, Sir. It is in-intended that a central statistical organisation in some form shall be part of the
  1874
  permanent machinery of Government after the war.

  RE-EMPLOYED CIVIL SERVICE PENSIONERS
  Mr. Keelingasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury (1) whether pensioned civil servants who are re-employed by the Government receive extra pay to meet the increased cost of living;
  (2) whether pensioned civil servants who, on re-employment, are given more important work than the work they were doing on retirement are eligible for higher pay than they received on retirement;
  (3) whether pensioned civil servants who, during re-employment, complete the period qualifying them for maximum pension, are eligible to receive it.
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Assheton): A Civil Service pensioner who is re-employed receives the pay appropriate to his new post, together with the Civil Service war bonus (if any) appropriate to his rate of pay. He is not limited to the pay of his former office, and if the normal remuneration of his new office is higher than that of his old office, he is eligible to receive it. If he is re-employed in an established capacity, his further service is reckonable for superannuation purposes. Under wartime arrangements, however, all Civil Service pensioners are being re-employed in a temporary capacity and their further service does not so reckon. As against this, civil servants who reach normal retiring age but are retained in the service are at present allowed to choose between formal retirement, followed by re-employment, and continuance in an established capacity. In the latter event, their service continues to count for pension purposes, and is thus of benefit to them unless they have already qualified for maximum pension.
  Mr. W. J. Brown: Can the Financial Secretary give the House one case out of 250,000 appointments where a retired civil servant has been brought back to enter the post he occupied at the time he retired, and is it not the case that although bonus is given, that affects the amount of pension a man can draw under the 1934 Superannuation Act?
  Mr. Assheton: I cannot answer the first part of the Question without notice. We were able to discuss the other part of the Question the other day, and my hon. Friend knows perfectly well what the answer is.

  SCOTLAND

    School, Banavie (Accommodation)
    Mr. Kirkwoodasked the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) if he is aware that children of from five to 11 years of age have to walk three miles, wet or fine, from Muirshearlich to Banavie school along an exposed road; and in view of the fact that no drying accommodation for clothing is available at that school will he institute an omnibus service to take children to and from school;
    (2) if he is aware that the school at Banavie is over 100 years old and that the lavatory accommodation there is insanitary and not up to modem standards; and if he will take steps to see that this and other defects in the school buildings are thoroughly remedied.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston): Inverness-shire Education Authority do not normally accept responsibility for the conveyance of children residing, as the Muirshearlich children do, at a distance of less than three miles from the nearest school. The authority have, however, endeavoured to arrange for a bus service for children attending Banavie School from Muirshearlich, but I am informed that no local contractor is able to provide a service. The education authority were prepared in 1939 to build a new school at Banavie, but unfortunately the outbreak of war prevented the scheme from being carried out. The Scottish Education Department are in correspondence with the Education Authority regarding conditions at the school, and while I do not think that large expenditure on the existing buildings would be justified at this stage, the Department will give favourable consideration to any proposals which will effect a temporary improvement.
    Mr. Gallacher: Will the Department urge on authorities that this temporary improvement should be made in view of the bad conditions that exist?
    Mr. Johnston: That is implied in my answer.
    Mr. Sloan: Is the excuse given by the education authority that a contractor cannot be found considered sufficient to allow the authority to contract out of their obligation to convey the children to school?
    Mr. Johnston: I am afraid I did not follow my hon. Friend's Question. The point is that the local authority have been unable to secure local contractors to provide a service.

    National Fire Service, Dundee
    Mr. McLean Watsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what complaints he has received showing the resentment felt in the N.F.S. as a result of criticisms reflecting upon the quality and efficiency of the service in Dundee; and what action he is taking to allay this resentment and to restore public confidence in the N.F.S. in that city.
    Mr. Johnston: My attention has been directed to Press reports of a statement made by a member of the Lord Provost's Committee of the Corporation of Dundee reflecting upon the quality of the Fire Service personnel, and I have received representations showing that resentment has been aroused in the service as a result. My inspectors and I have every confidence in the general efficiency of the National Fire Service in Scotland and I hope that this assurance will remove any misapprehension resulting from the statement referred to in the Question.
    Mr. Watson: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been drawn to any instance in which any branch of the N.F.S. has failed to carry out its duties efficiently?
    Mr. Johnston: No, Sir.

  CLUB, LONDON (PROSECUTION)
  Mr. Thorneasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can give any information in connection with the raid for the sixth time made by the police on the Chesterfield Club in Dean Street, Soho; what persons were charged with using the dub as a common gaming house; and if he intends closing down the club.
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peake): This club was entered by the police on the

  1877
  25th February. Albert Edward Bell, the person in charge, was arrested, together with 24 persons found frequenting the premises. On the 29th February, Bell was fined £15 and ordered to pay £11 11s. 0d. costs, and the frequenters were bound over. Eight of these frequenters had been previously bound over in the sum of £10 each, and the full amounts were ordered to be forfeited. As my hon. Friend was informed on 10th February last, there is no power to order the closing of a club of this character.

  INDUSTRIAL WAGES
  Mr. Turtonasked the Minister of Labour what was the average wage paid in industry in August, 1942; and what was the comparative average wage paid in January, 1944, or on the most recent date available.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. McCorquodale): Statistics which have been published in "Ministry of Labour Gazette" for December, 1942, and February, 1944, copies of which are in the Library, enable a comparison to be made between July, 1942, and July, 1943, in the earnings of manual wage earners in certain industries. The increases in average earnings between these two dates represent the combined net effect of a number of factors, including changes in rates of wages, payment for overtime and night work, payment by results and changes in the proportions of men, boys, women and girls employed in different industries and occupations.
  Mr. Turton: Has not the increase in the average wage of adult male workers been 8s. a week, between January, 1942, and January,1944?
  Mr. McCorquodale: We have not the figures for 1944 yet. We are collecting them.
  Sir H. Williams: Did my hon. Friend say that the figures related to February, 1943, or to February, 1944?
  Mr. McCorquodale: I said they related to July, 1942, and July, 1943.
  Mr. Gallacher: How do the overtime rates compare with the overtime rates of the soldier when he is in active service, and on Sunday work?

  TURKEY (BRITISH MILITARY MISSION)
  Mr. Granvilleasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can make a statement on the withdrawal of the British Military Mission from Turkey.
  The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden): I have no statement to make on this subject at present.
  Mr. Granville: In view of the serious statements in the Press this morning from Cairo, will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the importance of making an official statement at the earliest opportunity; and can he say whether, in fact, the British Mission has left Turkey?
  Mr. Eden: I have given the only answer I am prepared to give. I have no statement to make at present.

  MATERNITY CASES (ACCOMMODATION, NEWCASTLE - UNDER - LYME)
  Mr. Mackasked the Minister of Health what progress has been made for the provision of a maternity hospital in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Horsbrugh): The provision of a permanent maternity hospital would not be practicable during the war. Suggestions have therefore been made to meet the immediate needs of women requiring institutional confinement, for medical reasons or on grounds of unsuitable home conditions, in new beds which are being provided in neighbouring areas. The town council have also been informed that if a suitable house can be found far temporary use as a maternity home the Ministry's officers will give all possible help.
  Mr. Mack: Is the hon. Lady aware that continuous representations have been made to the Ministry by the borough council since 1934, and that there is grave concern in the area that mothers-to-be are not getting the treatment they ought to have in these difficult circumstances? Is she also aware that in the neighbouring area of Stoke-on-Trent the accommodation is taxed to capacity, thereby causing grave hardship to the people in that area?
  Miss Horsbrugh: Further accommodation is being provided in neighbouring

  1879
  areas, and there is the possibility, if a house can be found, of providing a small unit locally. It is, however, better to have larger units serving areas than many smaller local units.
  Mr. Mack: Is the hon. Lady aware that only recently representatives of Newcastle-under-Lyme town council went to the Ministry of Health about the matter, but that the interview was not satisfactory, as the Ministry was not able to give an assurance on the lines which she has indicated?
  Miss Horsbrugh: The assurance that was given to the deputation is exactly the same as the assurance I have given to the hon. Gentleman now.
  Mr. Mack: I wish to give notice that, owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

  PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS, ESSEX (INMATES, POCKET-MONEY)
  Mr. Thorneasked the Minister of Health why he ordered the Essex County Council to stop giving pocket-money to patients under 65 years of age in their public institutions; if he has considered a protest from the mayor of Saffron Walden about the matter; and what action he intends to take.
  Miss Horsbrugh: My right hon. and learned Friend has not given any such orders, but his inspector, who was consulted by the county public assistance officer, advised him that the payments in question would not be lawful. My right hon. and learned Friend has considered a letter from the mayor of Saffron Walden about this matter and he is informing him of the facts and of the purport of the replies which have been given to previous Questions in this House.
  Mr. Thorne: Did the council in question break any of the laws or the regulations connected with the Order in Council?
  Miss Horsbrugh: The inspector was asked by the public assistance officer whether a certain procedure would be lawful, but the inspector had naturally to reply that, under the present law, it was not possible to make these payments.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituted "An Act to extend the objects and powers of the Jewish Colonization Association; and for other purposes."—[Jewish Colonization Association Bill [Lords].
  That they give leave to the Lord Portal to attend in order to his being examined as a Witness before the Select Committee appointed by this House on House of Commons (Rebuilding), if his Lordship think fit.

ORDERS OF THE DAY
  SUPPLY

    NAVY ESTIMATES, 1944
    Order for Committee read.
    The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. A. V. Alexander): I beg to move, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
    The naval war in 1943 has been marked by three dates which stand out like peaks along our road to victory. The first, which is rather a short period than a date, was the last 10 days of March; the second, 11th September, and the third, 26th December. The last two will be readily identified. On 11th September, with poetic justice, the major units of the Italian Fleet anchored under the guns of the fortress of Malta. On 26th December, the "Duke of York," and other ships of His Majesty's Home Fleet, destroyed the "Scharnhorst," which, following upon the amazing attack on the "Tirpitz" by our midget submarines, was the last of the effective full-sized German capital ships. The few days from 20th March onwards were, perhaps, an even more important turning point, for, in that short space of time, the trend of merchant shipping losses changed with a suddenness which it is hardly possible to exaggerate.
    In the previous December, January and February, merchant losses had shown a welcome reduction, after the peak which they had reached in November, 1942. This reduction in the winter was, however, partly due to the weather, for that winter in the North Atlantic was one of the worst on record, hampering the U-boats and subjecting their crews to considerable strain; but, of course, the escorts and our aircraft were also affected, indeed more than the U-boats, since they suffered more severely from weather damage. Nor did the U-boats in any way relax their efforts, notwithstanding the stresses which they had undergone. In the first 20 days of March, the losses leapt up again, and

    1897
    among ships in convoy those losses reached a new high level. On a superficial view, it might have seemed as if perhaps after all, the U-boats with their pack tactics might defeat the convoy system, but all the time, our maritime forces, that combination of ships and aircraft which nowadays is the foundation of sea power, were constantly expanding. With our growing strength, we were able to make new dispositions, including the formation of special reinforcement groups of ships which could be sent to the aid of threatened convoys. In the last 10 days of March, the merchant sinkings dropped headlong by two-thirds. The losses have fluctuated about this lower rate, and at no time have they approached the level they reached before this dramatic change.
    The great actions, lasting as much as four days and nights, which preceded this remarkable turn of the tide continued for some time after, and I think it is well that our people should comprehend their size and their significance. Sometimes the enemy deployed as many as 30 U-boats against one convoy, and, on our side, the number of surface ships and aircraft together, acting in close co-operation, would be of the same order. When the last U-boat is safe at the bottom of the sea or in our ports, and we are able to look back over the vast panorama of the whole war, these actions may well be seen worthy to be counted among the decisive maritime actions of history. When they had been fought out, the U-boats had received such a battering that they virtually abandoned the North Atlantic for several months. As a result of this success there have since been periods, as the House will know from the monthly statements issued by the President and the Prime Minister, when more U-boats have been sunk than merchant ships. The total sinkings of merchant ships for 1943 were, in fact, below our most optimistic hopes at the beginning of the year, and indeed were little more than half of the working estimate that we then thought it prudent to adopt. The average for the last eight months is actually below the level of 1918. The reduction is further exemplified by the falling proportion of ships lost in main North Atlantic and United Kingdom coastal convoys. In 1941, one ship was lost out of every 181 which sailed; in 1942, one out of every 233; in 1943, one out of every 344. The
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    losses in these convoys during the second half of last year were less than one in 1,000.
    This change in the situation is due to a number of causes. At times the enemy have ascribed it almost entirely to the improvements which have taken place in our weapons and devices. Great credit is certainly due to our scientists and technicians but naturally there were other reasons also. It would be invidious to attempt to place them in any formal order of importance, but equally it would be right for me, speaking for the Admiralty, to give prominence to the growth and efficiency of Coastal Command of the Royal Air Force, the ability of its Commanders and their excellent co-operation with the Navy. I would emphasise again that these aircraft, especially adapted, and with crews specially trained, for work over the sea, are an essential component of the forces required under modern conditions for the exercise of sea power. I cannot speak too highly of the skill, the courage and the endurance which the crews of Coastal Command have shown in succouring convoys and developing offensive operations against the U-boats. The past twelve months or so have witnessed not only a global expansion of the Command, but also an increase in the proportion of very long-range aircraft which are able to provide cover for convoys hundreds of miles out to sea and even right across the North Atlantic.
    A no less important cause of the turn in our fortune is, of course, the skill and the leadership of the senior officers of our escort groups. Naval action operating round a slow moving convoy, unlike battle between surface vessels, is, as I have said, a long drawn-out affair, imposing great strain on the officers and ships' companies of the escorts, and upon crews of the merchant vessels. These escort group commanders have not only to control and operate their groups against the enemy, but also, and at the same time, to hold their very large convoys together, often in adverse weather, and force them through the ocean danger areas.
    All the time, of course, as a result of the plans made long ago, our surface escorts were increasing. They have continued to increase in number. The American forces have similarly expanded, and we are very much indebted to

    1899
    America, not only for many of the very long-range aircraft but also for a considerable proportion of the escorts now manned by the Royal Navy. Apart from the frigates, corvettes, the destroyers and the sloops, our two Navies now possess tens of escort carriers, which can provide air cover for convoys at any point on their route. These ships have indeed proved most valuable, whether they have been used in offensive hunting groups, or in the no less exacting and responsible duty of providing close protection for the convoys.
    This growth in the numbers of air and surface escorts has enabled us to do three things which lack of resources previously prevented us from doing on anything like the scale we should have wished. I have already mentioned the special groups which we have been able to form to reinforce the escorts of convoys actually threatened with attack. Next, it has enabled us to take the offensive with other special forces against the U-boats in the areas, principally the Bay of Biscay, through which they must maintain a dense traffic on their way to and from their patrolling grounds. This offensive has been principally conducted by Coastal Command with some American air squadrons, who have most resolutely carried out this dangerous task with skill and gallantry, and great success. Naval forces—sloops, destroyers and escort vessels of the Royal and the Canadian Navies and escort carriers of the United States Navy—have also taken an important and very effective part in this offensive.
    Thirdly, our increased resources have made more training possible; and enabled us to keep the composition of the escort groups much more stable, and thus to develop the high degree of team work which produces the most astounding results. I will not compare the achievements of the different services and units which have been engaged, because the number of kills obviously depends to a very great degree upon opportunity. As an example, however, of what can be achieved by intensive training, highly developed team work, and skilled leadership, I would mention that there are escort groups, composed of just a few ships each, whose total score of U-boat kills already exceeds half a dozen. The Second Escort Group, under Captain F. J.
    1900
    Walker, C.B., D.S.O., has been out-standing, both in special operations and in the defence of convoys. The kills of that one group have now reached the respectable total of 17. Two other groups have also been particularly successful, mainly in protecting convoys—the Seventh British Escort Group, commanded by Commander P. W. Gretton, D.S.O., and the Third British Escort Group, commanded throughout most of its history by the late Commander A. A. Tait, D.S.O., who unfortunately was killed in action shortly after scoring his final success against the U-boats.
    This description of our anti-submarine forces would not be complete without a mention of the headquarters which is principally responsible for their training, development, organisation and operation. The Western Approaches Command under Admiral Sir Max Horton, himself an old distinguished submarine officer, comprises not only this headquarters, but also the bulk of the training units and of the escort and support groups which actually fight the U-boats in the Atlantic. From the Commander-in-Chief himself and his directing staff to the most junior members of the ships' companies, the whole Command is entitled to great credit on their record of the last twelve months.
    The reduction in the loss of tonnage has been happily reflected in the Merchant Navy casualties, and in 1943, I am glad to say, the number of officers and men lost was roughly only half of that of 1942. The Admiralty, in consultation with the Ministry of War Transport, has been able to increase substantially the number of the special rescue ships, which are sailed with convoys for the sole purpose of rescuing survivors and giving medical attention. Each carries a naval doctor and a hospital staff and they are now an integral part of the convoy system. There have been many reports from the naval escorts praising the high standard of seamanship and efficiency of the Masters, officers and crews of these vessels, which have been operated with magnificent courage and efficiency. A special scheme has been in force for some time now with the object of enabling merchant ships to eliminate funnel smoke and thus reduce their chances of being detected. Over 600 sets of equipment have already been

    1901
    delivered under this scheme, and large-scale arrangements have been made to train firemen in the best methods of stoking. The results are most encouraging and they have already helped materially to reduce the number of convoy stragglers.
    Similarly we have been successful in cutting down the losses from ordinary marine risks by 25 per cent., as a result of improved navigational aids, added to, of course, the growing experience of the personnel themselves of the navigational hazards peculiar to wartime. The total effect of these and all the other measures to help merchant ships protect themselves, can be gauged from the estimate which the Admiralty operational research section have made that, since July, 1942, the saving effected by those means has been at the rate of, roughly, 100 ships per year.
    Having thus described the great improvement in the situation which has been wrought by unremitting effort, I am anxious that no one should begin to think that any relaxation is possible. Indeed, we must recognise that there may yet be periods when losses will mount again. The Germans have probably at least as many U-boats now, as at the beginning of 1943. In the early months of last year the production of U-boats exceeded kills, and in recent months the U-boats have often sought to avoid destruction by avoiding action. The bombing of the U-boat building centres has certainly reduced output; but there is not the slightest evidence that the enemy has in any way abandoned his intention to cripple our sea communications if he possibly can. On the contrary, the Germans are still making every endeavour to improve the performance and the equipment of their U-boats. They have provided them with greatly increased anti-aircraft fire power; they have brought their new acoustic torpedo into service; and we must expect further developments still. Recently the Germans seemed to be trying to develop tactics based upon an increased use of very long-range aircraft, acting in co-operation with their U-boats. We have already reported in the Press a number of successes against these aircraft by our shipborne fighters to whom credit should be given. Perhaps the best indication that Admiral Doenitz aims at putting more U-boats into the fight, is the fact that more and more concrete shelters
    1902
    are still being built by them in the operational bases. It can, therefore, be regarded as certain that he will try, and try again, to stage a comeback, and these efforts may be more sustained than that made in September last, when the U-boats sallied out once more in force on the main Atlantic routes, but failed on that occasion to keep the campaign going. We must also expect that the U-boats will, as at present, seek to expand their effort in far distant waters such as the Indian ocean.
    Many may, of course, be tempted to ask whether, since the net shipping gains of the United Nations in 1943 so much exceeded estimates, there will now be cargo space to spare for less essential imports, and whether economy in the use of the ships themselves is as necessary as it was before. It is true that we are better off than we expected to be. The re-opening of the Mediterranean through-route to our shipping is worth a gain of about a million gross tons, and the liberation of North Africa and Italy together, have brought in half as much again as that in actual ships. And yet the fact remains that all these unforeseen profits must be firmly, indeed ruthlessly, ploughed back into this business of war. It is the policy of the United Nations to use these extra resources to accelerate the pace of the war. In his speech a fortnight ago the Prime Minister warned the House that the European war may well take a good deal longer than many people had thought. I feel sure, therefore, that there will be every support for the policy of using every additional ship in the most direct way possible to prevent the war lasting a day longer than it need. I can say now, that in order to launch the North African landings nearly eighteen months ago, we had to withdraw merchant ships and escorts from other duties, on a scale which our economy could not possibly have stood indefinitely. The risk was justified only because we had already entered upon a period when each month was witnessing an expansion of the shipping resources of the Allies. Ever since, the United Nations have been preparing new operations both in Europe and in the East, and as these grew, so the service demand for shipping space rises without ceasing.
    I have spoken of the dramatic suddenness with which the statistical picture of the Battle of the Atlantic changed last

    1903
    March. As the House will have realised, this change was actually the result of a long, planned build-up, and those officers at the Admiralty with the greatest knowledge and acutest judgment predicted a radical improvement even in the dark days a year ago. I remember in particular the calm confidence expressed at that time by the late First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound; and I could not allow this yearly review to pass without paying tribute to the memory of this great sailor. His one idea was to serve his country to the last with all his power, and this indeed he did. With this all-consuming purpose always in mind, he shunned rather than courted public notice. But his great qualities are now more and more appreciated as it becomes more apparent how steadfastly he brought the naval affairs of this country through the most critical period we have ever known in our history. Possessing great vision and a practical sense of which I have never met the superior, he declined firmly to be diverted from the primary objects which he always kept in mind; and the incomparably brighter picture which I am able to present to the House to-day derives more from his steadfast planning than from any other professional source. I am glad to say his place has been filled by another distinguished sailor, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham, who I feel certain the House will recognise has the most brilliant record of any of our sea commanders in this war. The House will no doubt join with me in expressing the hope that, having now received the surrender of one enemy fleet in person, he will, as First Sea Lord, still be guiding the destinies of the Navy when messages reporting the surrender of the other two are received.
    I have dealt in some considerable detail with the so-called Battle of the Atlantic, because, situated as this country is, that Battle is fundamental to its fortunes. The past year, however, has seen many other notable achievements of which I could speak—the deathless courage, so typical of the submarine service, of those crews in the midgets which struck the "Tirpitz"; the combination of superior gunnery and tactical manœuvre which sank the "Scharnhorst"—but these have already been well described in the official communiqués and Press reports, and I
    1904
    am anxious to pass to less well-known matters which may be of some interest to the House. For the same reason I do not propose, much as I should like to do, and highly though they deserve it, to catalogue again the ever-growing contribution of the Navies of the Dominions and of our Allies. I was able recently to pay tribute in the House to the outstanding part played by Canadian industry and the Royal Canadian Navy and Air Force. All the Dominions, India and all the Allies have pressed forward as eagerly as ever to bear the biggest share of which they are capable, and the mutual support of the Royal Navy, the Dominions Navy and the Allied Navies is a source of strength, moral as well as material, which our cause could not do without.
    Nor can I make more than a passing reference to the meritorious service of all the various branches of the Navy—the never-ending hazardous work of the minesweepers: the superb courage shown by the submarines wherever they operate, from the Norwegian Leads to the tropical straits of the Malay Archipelago: the ceaseless vigil of the battleships and the large carriers providing together the battle fleet cover which still remains the ultimate foundation of naval strategy: the skill and devotion of the Fleet Air Arm in the small carriers flying on and off their restricted landing decks in Atlantic weather, occasionally even in gales blowing at 60 miles an hour. Nor ought I to forget the constant, devoted and efficient service of the Women's Royal Naval Servicé. All these and many more activities each merit a chapter to themselves, but time unfortunately does not allow more than these few words of sincere admiration and gratitude.
    I pass accordingly to some aspects of that wide sweeping subject which may be termed the maintenance of the Fleet. There was a time when our ship production came in for a great deal of criticism. No doubt there are many people who are still not satisfied with what has been achieved. Nor for that matter are the Admiralty. We never are, and are always seeking to do better. Nevertheless, there is much in the record on which we are not ill-content to rely before the bar of history.
    The number of skilled men in the labour force available for shipbuilding

    1905
    and ship repairs must, of course, progressively decline, since wastage from natural causes and the indispensable recruitment of tradesmen for the Services, can no longer be entirely replaced now that the man-power of the country is fully mobilized. These disadvantages the Admiralty, with the co-operation of the industry, have sought to overcome by further dilution, by the adoption of new techniques, and by the installation of more modern equipment. As regards dilution, I must confess the employment of women in the industry did begin rather slowly, but it now proceeds at a much more satisfactory rate, and the number of women workers increased by about 60 per cent. in 1943. In the result, the output of warships in this country up to the end of January was only very slightly less than that of the last war, if one makes allowance for the difference in the number of capital ships which were in hand at the beginning of the last war. The output of merchant ships up to the end of the year appreciably exceeds the total output of the last war. That is the result judging by tonnage figures alone. Judged by the amount of work per ton, that is to say taking full account of the much greater complexity of ships to-day, and particularly the tremendous increase in the detail of equipment, the achievement in ship output in this war is incomparably superior.
    The burden of repairs has certainly not diminished, but tends to rise with the growing number of ships using our ports. Added to this, there is the great volume of conversion of ships and refitting work which has become heavier during the past year, partly because so many ships have had to be converted for use in combined operations and partly because the development of weapons and equipment is so rapid, that ever more strenuous efforts are called for to see that our existing warships are fitted with the latest models at the earliest possible moment.
    Once more, the merchant ship target output was achieved, in spite of an increase in the number of special jobs which that side of the industry was called upon to undertake at short notice during the year. At the same time, the quality of the vessels coming off the stocks was again improved, and we have heard so much in past Debates about the speed of ships that I am certain the House will be glad to know that the horsepower per gross ton
    1906
    of ocean going ships completed in 1943 was 12½ per cent. above the figure for 1942. The provision of special fittings to meet special operational needs continued on an expanding scale. For example, all tramps and cargo liners completed were equipped with heavy derricks; all oceangoing cargo vessels had more water ballast tanks—and that brings great comfort to many a Commodore—and more accommodation for defence personnel; several ships were specially strengthened to enable them to operate in the ice conditions which our North Russian convoys have to face. Fourteen small tramps were specially fitted out as crane ships, and have done invaluable service in ports lacking sufficient equipment to handle all the traffic which the war places on them. We estimate that the extra work required, for example, on these fourteen ships to fit them for their special duties would have been sufficient to produce between four and five ordinary tramps of the same tonnage.
    The year 1943 saw the general completion of the scheme launched the year before for the provision, with Government assistance, of more modern equipment for the shipyards and improvements in layout. We are now beginning to see the return in increased output. The use of welding was further expanded; and the number of welders, many of whom are women, is now over 30 per cent. above what it was on the 1st January, 1943. The greatest advance was, perhaps, in the field of prefabrication and pre assembly. In the most recent class-of frigates at least 80 per cent. of the structure has been prefabricated, and certain deck-houses have been pre-constructed and fitted out to enable them to be delivered complete to the shipyards for lifting into the vessels. This has enabled a substantial proportion of the load of building to be transferred from the shipyards to the structural engineers. With the ready co-operation of the shipbuilders, the structural engineering industry, and the classification societies, the Admiralty was able to organise for this prefabrication in a comparatively short period, but with, the most gratifying results. Again, with the help of the structural engineers, we have been able to superimpose on the ordinary shipbuilding programme, a vast programme of landing craft of all sizes and shapes, from small boats holding a few men, to tank-carrying craft up to 200 feet

    1907
    in length. In 1943, in the one year, many hundreds of these landing craft, large and small, were produced in this country.
    The Admiralty are not only concerned with the production and maintenance of ships. They are equally concerned with the training and contentment of the officers and men who serve so faithfully in them, and there are some matters connected with personnel administration which I should like to report to the House. First, there is the continued progress of the Dartmouth scholarship scheme in which I take a special personal interest and pride. This has now been running since 1941, and the scholars, who are equally divided between grant-aided secondary schools and other schools, number not far short of half the total entries. It seems undoubtedly to have achieved the purpose I had in view of opening this doorway to boys from every income group. A large proportion of the parents of the scholars receive very substantial financial help, and in over 30 per cent. of the cases they have been relieved of all expenses. The scholars include—already admitted—the sons of labourers, mechanics, clerks and naval ratings. The scheme has also achieved another purpose, the widening of the field from which our naval officers of the permanent service are drawn. Reports from the College say that the scholars settle down well, and that their presence has tended to raise the general standard of effort throughout the College in work and play. I think that is a very great tribute to the boys entering from the working classes.
    Mr. Tinker: Would the right hon. Gentleman tell us how many scholarship entrants there are?
    Mr. Alexander: I am giving to the grant-aided secondary schools 10 scholarships each term, three times a year, so I should say there would be about 90 from the grant-aided schools already in the College.
    In spite of the very serious difficulties of fitting in all the special training and courses under wartime conditions, we have more than maintained the improved system of direct promotions from the lower deck to permanent commissions which scheme, you will remember, was inaugurated in 1931. Thus in the executive branch, whilst there were only four such
    1908
    promotions in 1936, and 17 in 1938, the last three years have shown an average of 37 each year. A similar avenue of promotion has now been opened up in the Fleet Air Arm where a special scheme was started in 1941; and also in the Accountant Branch where the first promotions were made in 1942.
    Special attention has also been devoted during the past year to the arrangements for selecting and training temporary reserve officers. In order to accelerate the training process without sacrificing quality, the psychological testing element in the course has been greatly strengthened, and during training the candidates are now given stringent leadership exercises and tests, which greatly facilitate the task of the authorities who will subsequently appoint them to their various duties. Furthermore, it is now possible to provide special seagoing training for officer candidates. Before last year, the imperious demands of operations left us with no ships to spare for this work, and sea training was, therefore, done in ships on operational duty to which the potential officer was drafted for a period of some weeks. In general, ships were too busy to devote much time to the special care of those officer candidates, and the impossibility of predicting the movements of ships on operations, made it very difficult to maintain anything like a regular flow. Three warships are now specially set aside to receive and train these candidates, and as this is their sole duty, the instruction is now much more intensive and beneficial. This new method is already accepted as an indispensable part of the officers' training scheme and I trust that there will be no fresh dearth of resources during the war to force us back to the previous arrangement.
    The other main channel of entry to temporary commissions is through the Universities and, I must say, is most valuable. Under this scheme suitable candidates who are at least up to School Certificate standard and are recommended by the Headmaster of their school, are given six months' free education at one of six Universities which are co-operating in the scheme. The candidates spend not less than one and a half days a week on naval subjects in addition to their ordinary University courses and they are free to select

    1909
    these University courses according to their bent. As a result of this free entry training, their preliminary naval training, once they join, can be reduced; and the quality of the officers derived from this source has been so good that the scheme deserves to be called an unqualified success.
    Hon. Members who take a special interest in the higher training of officers will, I think, also be glad to hear that the Staff Course has been revived, though necessarily in a shorter form than that of pre-war days. The new Course is open to officers in the R.N.R. and R.N.V.R. as well as the Royal Navy, and is designed to give them a thorough grounding in the duties which a staff officer is actually called upon to perform in wartime. The second of these courses is now in progress, and the other Services, as well as the Dominions, are represented.
    I should like to return, if I may, to my main theme of the war at sea. To-day the Fleet is stronger in relation to enemy naval strength than it has ever been since the fall of France brought us to the brink of disaster, and the United Nations have regained much of the general freedom of movement throughout the seas of the world which was so drastically restricted in 1940 and so seriously threatened in 1941 and 1942. The Mediterranean has been reopened. The Battle of the Atlantic has taken a favourable turn. In the Pacific the forces of the United States, aided by the Dominions, are sweeping forward through the outer bulwarks of Japan with a speed that would have seemed beyond expectation a year ago; and they are not only winning one brilliant victory after another, they are also waging a successful war of attrition against the Japanese Navy and Mercantile Marine throughout the whole of the Far Eastern theatre of operations. In the far Northern waters the Naval situation has also improved, and we have continued to deliver weapons of war, machinery, railway material and large quantities of miscellaneous stores to the North Russian ports.
    The naval forces engaged in this task and the merchant ships of many nations who have carried the cargoes to Russia, have had to endure heavy strain and sacrifice. Since the commencement of these Russian convoys 13 British war ships have been sunk on this duty, and in some periods there were very considerable losses of merchant ships. Yet, over all, 88 per
    1910
    cent. of the cargoes consigned have got through. That great effort has been more than rewarded for those cargoes, so costly in ships and blood, have surely been most magnificently turned to account in the hands of the Red Army.
    Conversely, the Axis hopes of limited but highly valuable trade between Japan and Germany have been largely extinguished. Of the 11 blockade runners which set out during the past 12 months on the long, furtive voyage to Europe, only two reached port, and both were damaged.
    It is not only the enemy's trans-oceanic trade which has suffered. His coastal movements have also been subjected to dislocation. In conjunction with the strike wings of Coastal Command and R.A.F. fighters our Light Forces have constantly attacked enemy convoys in the Channel, off the Dutch coast and in Norwegian waters. In these vigorous operations, surface and air forces have acted in the closest combination, the efforts of the one being complementary to the other. In the Mediterranean, also, our Coastal Forces, together with the destroyers of the Fleet, are making the Adriatic uncomfortable, to say the least, for the enemy.
    German coastal navigation has also been much impeded and, I am certain, suffered many losses as a result of our minelaying activities. I am sorry that for reasons of security those activities cannot be described in detail, but we have sufficient information to warrant the statement that they are a great deal more than a thorn in the enemy's side. This is another aspect of maritime warfare in which ships and aircraft work together in the fulfilment of a single comprehensive plan. The fast minelayers, submarine minelayers and Coastal Forces minelayers sow their deadly cargoes in the more accessible waters, but the plan requires that enemy traffic should be attacked in waters which ships cannot penetrate, and here Bomber Command takes up the task, as far afield as the inner recesses of the Baltic. Air crews and ships' companies alike have shown the utmost keenness, skill and devotion to duty, and the co-operation between the Naval and Air Staffs concerned has, I am certain, been admirable.
    The present commanding position at sea has only been reached by dogged persistence after many disappointments, and we recognise that it will only be retained

    1911
    by the same strenuous efforts in the future. But, however hard the struggle, the Navy can be relied upon not to spare itself in holding what has been won already; nor will it do so in discharging the other heavy responsibilities to which it is committed in support of our armies and air forces in the field, both now and in the larger operations yet to come.
    The scope of these burdens which the Navy is pround to assume, is, I believe, difficult for the layman to grasp. The Prime Minister has already mentioned to the House the 716 bombardments carried out in support of the Army in the Sicilian and Italian campaigns and which are continuing almost daily. There is every evidence that these bombardments have rendered most effective assistance to the land operations. Such under takings are not carried through without less, and already the Navy's share in the struggle of the Nettuno beach-head alone has cost us two cruisers, the "Spartan" and, as we announced early this morning, the "Penelope", a great ship with all her wonderful record in this war, and two destroyers, the "Janus" and the "Inglefield", and five major assualt vessels. The total losses of the Royal Navy and the European Allied navies in the Mediterranean since the start of the Sicilian campaign amount to these two cruisers, a minelayer, 10 destroyers, two submarines, and 10 minor war vessels. The support of the Navy in these amphibious operations is given only at a great price.
    When one considers the many hundreds of landing craft already produced in this country, and adds to this the large assignments from America, it will readily be realised that the business of organising all these diverse vessels into flotillas and larger units has indeed been a formidable one, more especially seeing that we had to begin on that job from the beginning not much more than three years ago. Special repair facilities have had to be created, and large numbers of men specially instructed in the maintenance of highly-specialised craft. Living conditions vary considerably. In the larger ones the crews can live on board, but in others, except for very short periods, they have to be accommodated in depot ships or at shore bases; in either case, the administration of this vast number of small mobile units has
    1912
    a whole crop of new and complex problems.
    Then, again, the officers and men of the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines who man them, have had to receive intensive training, which in many respects differs widely from that required in the other branches of the Service, and this has often had to be arranged in a very short space of time, because of the speed with which some of these craft have had to be turned out. It is a matter of no little credit to all concerned that a great many of these vessels sailed to the Mediterranean, through the storms of the Bay of Biscay, under their own power, and that in all the recent landing operations the report has always been that the Navy got the troops to the right place at exactly the right time.
    But the preparations are by no means finished when these special craft and all these converted ships have been provided, manned, maintained, and organised into tactical formations. Each operation demands, as well, its special parties to control the disembarkation on the beaches, and to maintain communications in the hectic early stages of the landing. The number of officers and men of the Navy now engaged upon these different duties connected with combined operations is very large indeed, and a charge upon our naval man-power far greater than ever experienced before. Nor must we forget the large part played by the officers and men of the Merchant Navy in the landings in Sicily and Italy, and in other Combined Operations. They have carried out their duties most ably and resolutely, in novel and dangerous circumstances, and nothing could be better than the mutual loyalty and admiration with which they and their comrades in uniform have co-operated.
    We have, of course, while devoting our immediate endeavours to preparing for the further operations in Europe, to look beyond them to the time when we shall descend with our full might upon the Japanese. This is not to say that we are idle in that quarter of the globe even now. Our submarines are taking an increasing toll of Japanese shipping, and we shall at every stage contribute to the Far Eastern war to the maximum of our power at the time. But, whether one has an eye only to the present or to the future as well, the Far Eastern theatre of war

    1913
    presents certain special problems of its own, which are of such importance that it would be well to remind the House of their essential features. These problems all spring from the fact that thousands of miles separate the Far Eastern theatre from all the chief bases of British power, and that even within the Far Eastern theatre itself, very long distances will have to be covered between one assault and another. This means that all the additional forces which will be turned against Japan, and all their vast stores of weapons and equipment, except perhaps some of the aircraft, will have to be brought by sea to the Eastern bases. It means also that most, if not all, of the steps in the great campaigns still to be fought in the Far East will be fundamentally maritime operations, at least in their initial stages.
    It accordingly follows that when we bear down upon Japan for the final blow, our maritime forces will be more obviously than for generations past the corner stone of our whole strategy. The services of the Navy, and the men who man it, will be needed. They will be needed more acutely, and probably in as great, or nearly as great, strength as hitherto. What is more, the fight that we face with this other island sea power will demonstrate most pointedly once more that the ultimate sanction and final arbiter of sea-mastery is still the battle fleet, supported, of course, by the air element, which is now inseparably part and parcel of maritime dominion. The responsibilities resting upon the Navy will be enormous, but the merit and glory of the task still greater. The distances between one point of attack and the next, also impose upon us the necessity of ensuring that the fleet, and the large amphibious forces that will be required, possess the greatest degree of mobility that we can bestow upon them, and, within the limits allowed by our resources, we are working to fulfil this obligation. For the same reason it seems clear that the Fleet Air Arm will be called upon to play a peculiarly vital part. In the North African landings and at Salerno the Fleet Air Arm had a foretaste of providing the spearhead of protection for a landing, but it was a foretaste only; and at present the Fleet Air Arm, still expanding, is equipping and preparing itself for these greater duties which appear to lie ahead.
    1914
    The Navy thus stands to-day in a more commanding position than it has held since 1940, strenuously preparing for further and greater responsibilities. Heavy sacrifices lie before it, as before the other Services, and, indeed, before the whole of our people, but the House will, I know, readily agree that, on the Navy's record so far—and I have no apologies to make for that record—the country can have the utmost confidence that it will not for one moment falter or spare one ounce of effort of which it is capable. I will only add that I have felt grateful during the last 12 months for the good will and the tolerance of Parliament, which has recognised, as we have gone on, month by month, how greatly the Navy was serving the nation.
    Mr. James Griffiths: It is with fear and trepidation that I, an ordinary mortal, intervene for the first time in a Debate of this kind, before a formidable array of experts, both Service and lay. But it may have this one advantage: that, speaking, I am sure, for all the men and women of this country, I, as one outside the Service itself, am able to pay a tribute to the work which the Royal Navy has done, is doing, and will do. The First Lord has given, in his usual vivid manner, a very fine account of the past year's work of the Royal Navy. He, and those associated with him, can take pride in the fact that it has been a year of real, solid achievement. It is perhaps even more true of the Navy than of the other Services that in this war its main work is of an unspectacular nature. Occasionally there are great decisive battles, and, as the First Lord has told us about the prospective battles in the Pacific—on which I want to say a word later—we assume there may still be very great decisive battles in front of us. But, in the main, the work of the Navy has been that solid day-by-day work the results of which we do not see until we look back, as the First Lord has done to-day. If I were asked to offer a motto for the work which the Royal Navy has done in the last few years, I should have to fall back on my mother tongue, and offer this:
    Dyaal donc a dyrr y garreg.
    For the benefit of those poor mortals who do not understand the best language in the world, I will give a free translation:
    "It is persistent hammering which breaks the biggest stone."

    1915
    That is what the Navy is doing. The day-to-day work, the persistent work, the unrelenting work, which goes on, which does not get headlines in the Press, is the work which in the long run brought results in the last war and which will bring results in this war.
    When the First Lord gave us his review 12 months ago, he was disturbed, and the House was disturbed, about the U-boat campaign in the Atlantic, and we had a very disturbing Debate. I heard most of that Debate, and I recall the words the First Lord used in describing this battle in the Atlantic. He told us then—on 3rd March last year—that in the preceding months and at the time when he was speaking the U-boat attack constituted the greatest threat that we had ever experienced to our sea communications. In the Debate that followed, concern was expressed and criticism was voiced. A good deal of it was constructive criticism, and it was all imbued with the desire to help us to overcome what we realised was the crucial battle; because if we did not win that, it would be almost impossible for us to win other battles. It is with pleasure and pride that we learn that in the last 12 months we have won the first Battle of the Atlantic—there may be more, but we have won this.
    I would like to express my own debt of gratitude to all those who have contributed to winning this Battle of the Atlantic. I say that as one who had the privilege of being brought safely across the Atlantic quite recently. First, we should pay tribute to the devotion and the sacrifice of those thousands of men who man the ships and pilot the planes and perform all the other services which are required. This nation feels to the depths of its heart the gratitude which these men have earned by their devotion and sacrifice. I would also join in paying tribute to those who planned this campaign, for, behind it there must have been an immense amount of complex organisation, with very great detailed problems, hour by hour, day by day, and night by night. Often these battles are battles of wits as much as anything else, and I want to pay my meed of praise to the scientific workers of this country, whose capacities have been mobilised in this struggle. Hitler and his gang are continually boasting of their secret weapons, and threatening us with
    1916
    what they are going to do with some other secret weapons. We, as a nation, are not given to boasting, and we are not given to using idle threats. I hope that we never shall do so. We are perhaps masters of the under-statement rather than of the over-statement. But the war has shown that in the field of scientific research we need take second place to no nation on earth. We have the ability, and we have the young men.
    I meet some of these young men, drawn from my own area, drawn from our secondary schools. I hope that we shall remember them when we come to discuss education. Our expenditure on education has paid handsome dividends in this war, and I hope that we shall learn to use this capacity in solving the problems of peace, just as we are using it in the service of war. There will be thousands of young men and young women, trained in our schools and in our universities, many of whom have gone straight from the schools and universities into serving the nation in this great battle of scientific research. They fear that, at the end of the war, they will not be required in these Services, and I hope that the Government are giving real attention to ways and means by which their scientific ability, so devotedly given to the country in war, will be adequately used at the end of the war for the purposes of peace. The winning of the Battle of the Atlantic, the change in our fortunes between this year and last year, and the change in tone as well as in the content of the speech of the First Lord, will be welcomed all over the country as being a relief from the threat which last year was so great, and will be a very good beginning for the great events which we expect in the future.
    I was interested in what the First Lord said about our shipbuilding programme. Last year there was a good deal of debate and criticism. Some of it we all felt, in some ways, to be justified. We were not happy about our shipbuilding programme. We know—and this is true of all our basic industries—that we began the war with a crippled shipbuilding industry. The First Lord and the Admiralty are not responsible. We began it too, with a crippled coal-mining industry. I hope that the nation has taken firm note that it was the fact that we allowed the basic industries of this country to run into decay in the inter-war period that

    1917
    crippled us to such an extent, as to make it very dangerous during this war. We have built them up as much as we can. Sometimes, we have thought that it could be done better and more quickly, but the report of the First Lord to-day of the shipbuilding capacity, and of the work done by shipyard workers shows that we owe a deep debt of gratitude to these workers and to the women who have so willingly given their services to the nation. Women in this industry—which was formerly entirely closed to women—are, indeed, playing their part, and are becoming an increasing percentage of the number of people employed.
    I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend pay tribute to the work done by the men. Recently I paid a visit to the United States of America and I had the privilege of seeing some of the shipbuilding yards. They publicise much more than we do here. They are doing a magnificent job. I saw new methods being adopted over there, as I have seen new methods being adopted here, as the First Lord said, by prefabrication, assembly and the use of welding. I was able to talk to these men. I have not the technical knowledge to know whether these developments are going to be permanent, but some perhaps will be permanent and some may not. If these new processes are a success, obviously they will revolutionise our shipbuilding in the future. I was immensely impressed by what I saw, and when I came back I made some inquiries. Our shipbuilding industry is on a smaller scale because we began with a crippled industry, and we are able to disperse man-power much more widely over other fields. But man for man, hour for hour, the work done in our shipbuilding yards compares favourably with that of any other country in the world. Per capita, ours is as good as, and sometimes even better than, the magnificent work that is being done over there. I do not think that friendly competition between the two countries would do any harm. Greatly as we admire them, in our own way, we too, are doing equally fine work, particularly in shipbuilding, and increasingly so as the war goes on.
    This applies to the men engaged in that industry and in other industries—I am glad to see the Deputy Prime Minister here—and increasingly, as the tempo of
    1918
    the war increases, the men engaged in all these tasks, just as the men engaged in all the Services, begin to think about the future in those industries which mean so much now, and which had such a miserable time in the pre-war years. If, in addition to paying tribute to the work done in shipbuilding—and that before too long, because delay takes away the real joy of it when it comes—the Government could make a statement indicating to these basic industries, and particularly to shipbuilding, that it is their intention to maintain them and to give security to these men after the war, nothing could more galvanise our men to supreme effort in the coming months. As one who has spent the whole of his life with, and in the service of, the workers, I feel confident that, in these crucial months ahead, the men and women in this country, in the shipyards and elsewhere, will think of the fact that their services have never been more vital than they are at the moment. I believe that there will be industrial peace and the galvanising of all effort in readiness for the supreme one. The Government could help very much if, before very long, they made a pronouncement to this effect, "You are helping us to win the war and we intend to give you a secure place in the life of the nation when the war has come to an end." I hope that that can be done in the shipbuilding industry.
    I was glad to welcome what the First Lord said about the personnel of the Navy, and particularly about utilising, in the very best possible way, the very fine material which is attracted into the service of the Royal Navy. It attracts the best in our country, and it is our bounden duty to use it in the best way possible. Last year I listened with a great deal of interest to my hon. Friend the Member for White-chapel (Mr. W. Edwards)—I am afraid he is absent to-day because news has come that he has just lost his son. He was speaking with many years' experience of the lower deck, and he told us with much concern that the work of the lower deck is very hard, and that it often seemed that the main consideration in making promotions was the financial capacity of the man and not his ability to serve.
    From what the First Lord has told us to-day there has, since then, been an improvement. I hope that it is merely a beginning and that it will go on. We have

    1919
    to learn, as a country, that if we are to win all the problems of peace, we must get the best men to serve us, irrespective of the place from which they come. The men in every field should be judged by their capacity, and not by their bank books. This is true of the Navy and also true outside. Some time ago I raised this question in this House. The schoolmaster of one of the best secondary schools in my constituency said to me that he was frightfully disturbed. He had been anxious, he said, to encourage boys to enter a wider diversity of careers but he found our educational system was too narrow; we turned out too many teachers and did not encourage boys to take up other trades and professions. He encouraged boys to take the opportunity of joining the Services. One of the boys, one of the best fellows in the school, a very good scholar, a leader among his fellow-pupils, captain of the school, who had obviously the qualities of leadership, was encouraged to sit for a naval cadetship. There was an examination in which he came out 18th and this was followed by an interview. Admission was on the aggregation of marks as a result of the examination and the interview. When the boy went for an interview, he was given only 40 marks and put outside. Of the 89 who were declared successful, 79 had fewer marks than he had had, in the written examination.
    This headmaster later told me that he believed that there was, among headmasters, a belief that there was a prejudice against their boys in the older Services and that they did not get a fair chance. He said, "It discourages us very much. Here I am, having encouraged these boys to think of going into this Service, and when I have encouraged them, what happens? All the other boys say, 'Do not bother about it. You will not get into the Navy as your father has not enough money. You do not stand a chance against the public school boy.'" I hope that we shall see the end of that sort of thing, because the Navy, like the other Services, will in future require the best brains in the country, and often in these days many of the best brains are to be found among the boys who come from the cottages and go to our secondary schools.
    Mr. Alexander: Would my hon. Friend mind sending me the date of the incident?
    Mr. Griffiths: I will. It was some time ago.
    Sir Patrick Hannon: Whatever may be said about the selection of candidates, and the special examination for entering the Navy, would the hon. Member agree that there is no snobbery of any kind in the Navy at the present time?
    Mr. Griffiths: This all relates to the period before they enter the Navy. I do not want to go into the whole of the details, as I have raised this matter before. For the time being, we have our own methods of recruitment, and when we get to the end of the war we shall have different methods. I want the First Lord to take full note of this. I will send him the fullest particulars and I am certain that he will go into them very fully indeed.
    There is another point which has been raised before, and it has been raised by trade unions and the Trades Union Congress. I refer to the engineer-fitter apprentices, and their entry into the Navy. I will send all the facts that have been brought to my notice to my right hon. Friend and I am sure he will give an assurance to consider them very fully and give a reply. I would rather do that than enter upon the subject now.
    Mr. Alexander indicated assent.
    Mr. Griffiths: May I say a word about the future. We have listened during the last few days to all three Service Ministers; we have listened to them this year with perhaps a new note even for the war. We have all been conscious of the fact that we are on the eve of the great combined operation that we have come to regard as the second front. There has been a tendency among Ministers and others, in speaking about this, to warn us about its perils. We do not object to that, but I would like to enter this note of caution. If a thing is told too often, it loses the effect it is intended to convey. In these days I suggest rather too much gloom is being caused about this coming operation. I do not think that the nation is in any doubt about the perilous nature of the operation. The nation, deep down in its heart, is very conscious of the fact that the price may be a heavy one, the highest we have ever paid. I believe that the nation is prepared to face up to it,

    1921
    because it realises that we have to do it in order to win the war and keep our pledges to our Allies in this war.
    The nation expects of us, as Members of Parliament, realising the perilous nature of this great operation and the price that will have to be paid, to urge upon the Government that no effort shall be spared in providing the best equipment possible and in organising, as efficiently as possible, the utmost degree of co-operation between all who are responsible. If it were discovered that there was some defect in organisation or in equipment, which we could have foreseen and prevented, it would be something the nation would not forgive. I am certain that, when the time comes, the Royal Navy will have a very great part to play. It will very largely, in co-operation with the Air Force, condition the circumstances in which this great operation will be undertaken. There is one thing of which I am sure, and that is that when the people of the country read the speech of the First Lord they will feel happy and more confident and realise how much the Navy will have to do with the success or otherwise of this adventure. I am certain that the people will feel that the Navy is right, and will play its full part in the success of this operation.
    I was glad to hear the First Lord make reference to the war in the Pacific. Recently I was privileged to visit the West coast of America and speak to the men and women and discuss the problems of the war. At meetings all over the country, and particularly on the Pacific coast, I was asked, "Will you go all out to beat the Japs after you have beaten Hitler?" That was the question that was being asked, and I was very glad to hear the words of the First Lord today. I gave my answer, speaking for those with whom I am associated, and, I believe, for the whole of the nation, that we intended to go all out to beat the Japs after we have beaten Hitler; that we regarded this as one war and would not rest until the whole war had ended victoriously, both in the Pacific and in Europe.
    It is clear that the war against Japan may be a different kind of war in some respects from the war in Europe. It will be an oceanic war. The combined navies will have duties to perform there, perhaps more spectacular than in the European war. It may be that before the Pacific
    1922
    war is over, we shall see great decisive naval battles. It may be part of the policy to seek out the Japanese Navy, and to determine the war by a great naval battle, in which we shall conquer and submerge them. Whatever may be the tactics, the Royal Navy will have a very great part to play. I believe that the words that my right hon. Friend has uttered to-day will re-echo over that other great Continent and that they will feel satisfied that it is the intention of all of us to go all out to win that war just as it is in the war in Europe. They will also have the satisfaction of knowing that the Royal Navy, which has in the last four-and-a-half years of war brought us through many perils and dangers, and many threats, will be equal to those duties when the war in the Pacific comes. I end by saying to the First Lord, to those associated with him and to all concerned, and, to more than any one else, the brave men who man all these Services, that we owe a debt of gratitude, which I hope we shall continue to remember in war time and shall not forget in peace time.
    Commander Galbraith: I feel that the House has been privileged to listen to-day to a record of achievement on the part of the Royal Navy such as can rarely have been surpassed in its long and glorious history. I am sure that the sense of the House is, that we should convey our congratulations to my right hon. Friend, to the Board of Admiralty and also to every officer and man in the Royal Navy and in the Royal Marines. What my right hon. Friend has told the House of the valour and enterprise of the Navy in action simply proves to us once more that the spirit of the Navy remains unsurpassed. If we read between the lines we can be assured, also, that the technical efficiency of the Service is being maintained at the very highest pitch and that scientific developments are constantly being applied to render the fighting units of the Fleet ever more effective, ever more formidable. That is something which will gratify the House and will heighten our appreciation of all the work that is being done by the scientists and by the technical officers. I feel with my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) that the report which the First Lord has given to the House to-day will indeed be an inspiration to the country as a whole. The brilliant actions of which

    1923
    he has spoken against the "Tirpitz" and the "Scharnhorst,"' and those long drawn out battles which have been fought by the convoy Escort Forces are but the high-lights of a campaign that goes on continuously. They are the reward of months of watchfulness and unremitting labours. They are achieved by the work of thousands of men who, though constantly in danger, may never see the enemy at all. I speak—and my hon. Friend has already referred to them—of the work that is done by the men in the minesweepers, by men employed on the patrols around our shores and also, to a certain extent, by those who man the convoy Escort groups for whom life, except for brief occasions, is one of long drawn out monotony. Their work is never done, and without their service and the co-operation of all of the Merchant Navy, behind the shelter of the bulwark of the main Fleet, many vital supplies necessary to our existence would never reach these shores. These men are working for the most part in obscurity, far from the limelight, and they are often apt to be forgotten, but to them the country indeed owes a very deep debt of gratitude.
    As the hon. Member for Llanelly has reminded us, a year ago this House was very gravely concerned as to the progress of the war against the submarine. To-day that menace, as the result of the increased use of aircraft in co-operation with more sufficient surface forces for which many of us pleaded on that occasion, has reduced that menace to proportions which would not have been believed possible 12 months ago, and the Fleet Air Arm and Coastal Command deserve credit for that great achievement together with the surface forces. It is not only in naval combat that the Navy has enjoyed a very glorious year. It has shepherded armies across the intervening ocean and landed them safely on hostile shores. It provided the foundation for these unprecedented and successful amphibious operations in Italy and Sicily which, I think, every hon. Member here will agree, were masterpieces of organisation. The House will not forget those who planned and carried out these great and complicated operations, nor the manner in which those of every Service submerged their individuality to achieve that complete co-operation
    1924
    which was essential to success. As they approach a greater, a more hazardous, and a more momentous occasion, I am sure that the confidence and the good wishes of this House go out to all these men. My right hon. Friend spoke for some considerable time on the process of education in the Navy. That is a matter which will come up for discussion later to-day, but I do feel that the House will be very satisfied with what he told us.
    I think it is right, on this annual occasion, that we should express our appreciation and our thanks to the Navy for the great service which it has rendered not only to this country but to our Allies. I cannot, however, but feel that if there exist in the Service, and under Service conditions, things which give rise to dissatisfaction, fair words are not enough, and that the Navy will look to this House to show its appreciation in some more tangible form by seeing to it that any real cause for dissatisfaction is removed. On Thursday last we had a Debate on Army pay and allowances when, from every quarter of the House, the Government were pressed to increase the emoluments of that Service, and when we obtained an undertaking from the Leader of the House that cases of hardship would be looked into, that allowances would be reconsidered, that the door was not closed for the reconsideration of basic rates of pay, and that, in fact, any matter whatsoever concerned with pay and pensions was open to discussion. I assume naturally that that undertaking applies to all three Services. Therefore I do not propose to reiterate the arguments which were then set forth, because obviously they applied equally to the Navy and to the Air Force as to the Army, but I would like to say this to my right hon. Friend—and I trust he may make it clear in the proper quarter—that from the information at my disposal the feelings of the Navy on this matter are equally as strong as they were represented to be in the case of the Army.
    There are two points in the reply of the Government to which I would like to refer very briefly, because they puzzle me, and I am certain they will also puzzle the men in the Services. The Secretary of State for War said that the great increase necessary to bring Service pay into line with industrial wages—at a cost which he estimated at about £200,000,000 a year—would result in a vicious spiral of inflation.

    1925
    I am not going to argue whether it will produce that result or not, but it would clear the air if we could be told to-day why it is only Service pay which produces that result, or why Service pay alone requires to be stabilised to balance other inflationary influences. I really cannot think that that bogy of inflation, though it may be very real, and though it may indeed come home to roost, will carry much conviction with Service personnel so long as the Government continue to accept without demur the award of higher wages to almost every section of industry and, in most cases, to meet the bill itself. The other point I would like to refer to in connection with the reply we got from the Government is that the Leader of the House flatly rejected the suggestion that Service pay should be equal to industrial earnings. What he said was this:
    "We are not prepared to have a discussion with a view to raising the basic rates in our Army to those levels."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd March, 1944; col. 1736, Vol. 397.]
    One of the levels to which my night hon. Friend referred was the level of wages in industry. I do not want to get at cross-purposes on a matter of words, but what I think the House had in mind, and what certainly was in my mind, was that the total remuneration of the serving man—that is, pay plus allowances should approximate to that of the man in industry. Why not? Surely the Service man gives an equal amount of service. Surely he works as long hours, and surely, at least, he undertakes an equal amount of risk. Is there anything unreasonable, therefore, in asking that he should receive equal remuneration? I would be glad if whoever is to reply to the Debate could tell us why the Government consider that suggestion so outrageous that they are not even prepared to discuss it. Might I point out that the Navy to-day is not a pre-war voluntary service Navy, but is recruited at the direction of the Government while that Government is directing others of its citizens into highly remunerative employment. We learn from the "Ministry of Labour Gazette" that the average earnings in the manufacturing industries in July, 1943, amounted to £6 is. 3d. per week, or an increase of 76 per cent. over the level ruling in October, 1938. The figure in which I am interested is the monetary figure of £6 1s. 3d and not, in
    1926
    view of the low rate of pay ruling in the Service, the percentage figure of 76 per cent.
    Before I leave the question of pay I would like to make a brief reference to the pay of members of the Women's Royal Naval Service, to whom my right hon. Friend paid a very fine tribute. The ordinary mobile "Wren" receives between 25. and 2s. 8d. a day and a specialised mobile "Wren" between 2s. 4d. and 3s. a day. I do not know whether there are any deductions from these rates. I am under the impression that there are, but perhaps we can be told that later. But apart from that—and I do not wish to make any comparison with the level of wages in industry in this connection, because we all know the gap is very great—does my right hon. Friend consider that this is sufficient for a young woman, stationed far from home, in strange surroundings and with probably no friends in the vicinity, to defray the upkeep of her clothing and provide her with a small measure of recreation? Is 14s. a week really sufficient for these purposes? I am given to understand that many of these young women cannot even scrape together enough to pay their train fare home when they happen to get a week end or a short period off duty. It is right to keep in mind that many of these women are now doing the kind of work which was previously done by able seamen or other naval ratings, and are doing it with great efficiency. If they are performing that kind of work as efficiently as men they are entitled to equal pay.
    There are one or two other small matters I would like to speak of for a few moments, because I find that it is often the smaller matters which create the greatest irritation and the most discontent. The uniform allowance given to an officer granted a commission amounts to £55. This has been raised from £40 at the beginning of the war. I have calculated what that £55 will provide. It will provide two suits of uniform, two caps, two pairs of shoes, a British warm and a raincoat. Those articles take up the whole sum. Nothing is left at all for uniform shirts, ties, southwesters, oilskins, seaboots or the warm woollen clothing which is absolutely essential. I presume from the fact that an increase has been given that the matter is kept under review, and I would like to express the hope that it will be

    1927
    kept constantly under review, and the allowance be kept adequate to meet the need.
    Another matter which has caused considerable grievance is the compensation which is paid to officers who lose their kit through enemy action. I have had a number of cases brought to my notice and as far as I can ascertain the compensation received is about two-thirds of the officer's estimate of the value of his loss. I am informed that the Admiralty pays compensation on kit which they consider necessary for war-time purposes but I have never heard the details of that kit disclosed. The most unsatisfactory feature of all this is that the claimant is not informed how the compensation is arrived at. He is merely presented with a cheque for a sum which he is not in a position to question, he does not even know whether the amount has been properly calculated. If he makes inquiries he is told that no information can be given to him because the scales of compensation are secret. Officers should be able to check the amount to which they are entitled. It is unreasonable to keep them in the dark. I am sure that it is the wish of the House and people in the country that in circumstances like these officers should be treated with the utmost generosity. Might I appeal to my right hon. Friend to look into that matter again and see whether it can be put right, because it does not redound greatly to the credit of his Department and, moreover, it raises a sense of grievance which is not in the best interests of the Service.
    To-day, junior officers are in command of important fighting units of His Majesty's Fleet, that is, officers junior in rank to those who normally command such ships in peace-time. They are junior to officers in the Army and Air Force who hold commands of similar responsibility and importance. As will be readily appreciated, that may well place a naval officer who is co-operating with the other Services in a somewhat invidious position. But in any case I think an officer should have the rank and receive the pay which are applicable to the importance of the vessel which he commands. In the Army, when you are short of a battalion commander, you do not put a captain in command. You raise him to the appropriate rank. The same thing applies in the Royal Air Force. Why not in the Navy? I know that my right hon. Friend has on previous
    1928
    occasions given an answer to this question, but it did not either satisfy or convince me or many others, especially the officers concerned. Will my right hon. Friend look into the matter again and see whether acting rank cannot be given to officers in command of ships where normally a senior officer would hold command? For at present great anomalies arise. May I close by congratulating once again my right hon. Friend and the Board of Admiralty on the highly satisfactory statement which has been to-day presented to the House on the achievements of the Navy, both at sea and in the air, which redound greatly to the credit of the Service over which my right hon. Friend has the honour to preside.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: I, too, desire to congratulate my right hon. Friend on his most satisfactory report of the proceedings of His Majesty's Navy during the past year, and to associate myself with what he has said about the services rendered by the officers and men of the Royal Navy. The duties of the Navy, as has been pointed out, are many and various during this war but whatever demand has been made upon it, whether it has been with regard to the security of our vital sea communications, to submarine operations, to the operations of our light coastal forces and the keeping clear of the Channel, or combined operations with the Army, that demand has been met in a manner of which the nation and Service may well be proud. The officers and men of our Navy have added great lustre to the records of their Service, a record which has never been surpassed in efficiency, courage and sacrifice. I would also like to pay a sincere tribute to the exemplary manner in which officers and men of that great sister sea Service, His Majesty's Merchant Navy, have carried out their duties, often in the face of very great hardships and dangers. I was glad that my right hon. Friend included in his thanks the officers and ratings of the W.R.N.S. Those who have had dealings with "Wren" officers and ratings, as I have, will agree with me as to the amazingly efficient manner in which they have carried out the many duties which they now have to perform. Their work has been of inestimable value to the Service.
    My right hon. Friend described at great length the improved position of our offensive

    1929
    against the U-boats in the so-called Battle of the Atlantic. It was most satisfactory to hear what he said. That position is no doubt due to the increased strength of our surface vessels and to our seaborne aircraft, which have been able to provide for security for the convoys. The combined operations of surface craft and air craft in force have been the dominating factor in our great successes over the U-boats. We have been told of the immense increase in the sinking of U-boats, but to my mind that is not the most important fact. I think the most important fact is that in so many instances, owing to the increased forces which have been provided for escorting the convoys they have been able to prevent U-boats carrying out their attacks on the convoys at all. In many instances convoys have gone the whole range of their voyage and, though menaced by the U-boats, have not been attacked by them. That most clearly shows the necessity of not only maintaining the strength of the escort—I am not suggesting that measures are not taken—but of constantly increasing it, especially with regard to the provision of aircraft carriers. Great credit is due to the officers of the merchant ships for the exemplary manner in which they have maintained their position in the convoy, often in face of extremely difficult conditions. Any straggling, any getting outside the fold of the escort, renders them a very easy prey for the U-boat.
    I should like to refer to the Naval Air Arm. In the past the Navy suffered to a very considerable extent because the Admiralty did not have sufficient say as to the type of aircraft with which it was provided and which it had to use. Since the Admiralty have taken over complete control of the Air Arm that position is immensely improved as far as ship-borne aircraft are concerned. I was always an advocate of the turning over of the Fleet Air Arm to the Admiralty and I think Coastal Command should also come directly under their control at the same time, though I realise that at this stage of the war it would be most inadvisable to bring about any alteration in the present position. At the same time I am firmly of opinion that in the future development of the efficiency of the operations carried out by Coastal Command it should as soon as possible be turned over to the Admiralty. In the main the work carried out by Coastal Command is essentially naval
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    work, and therefore the manning, training and running of the work should be under the control of the Admiralty.
    I think the tendency in the development of air power has been to concentrate upon land and ship-borne machines to the detriment of the development of what, in my opinion, is a most useful and practical type of aircraft for use by the Navy in peace and in war. I refer to the flying-boat. If I am right that the flying-boat has not been seriously developed there is a danger of our lagging behind in its development in future. The flying-boat is essentially a practical type of flying-craft for use not only by this country but throughout the Empire, because of the innumerable harbours and port facilities for them. There is an ever increasing demand for increasing the size of land-borne transport planes. That is only natural. We have nothing like reached the limit of size and with the increase of size arises the necessity of providing them with an increased length of runway to enable them to get off the ground. I am informed that even to-day a runway of some 6,000 yards is nothing out of the ordinary. In many parts of the Empire where transport planes will have to be provided it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to obtain the necessary length of runway, whereas if the flying-boat is developed there is no limit at all, because nature provides the runways in the harbours that are available to us in all parts of the world. Therefore, I hope the Admiralty will not lose sight of the great importance which the flying-boat can be to the Navy in peace and in war and will not let development lag behind.
    During the war the torpedo as an offensive weapon of attack has come into its own as it has never done before. It has proved a most dangerous weapon of offence against us. It is particularly so with regard to aerial attack, where you get a number of aircraft carrying torpedoes attacking our ships in volume—a very difficult problem to deal with. We have the example of the sinking of the "Prince of Wales" and the "Repulse" in the Far East. We have the great advantage obtained by the lessening of the speed in the attack on the "Bismarck" and we have the beneficial results of the attack on the "Scharnhorst" by torpedoes in lessening her speed prior to contact being made by our battleships. It would appear that in the design of our

    1931
    heavy ships the defence against this form of attack does not give sufficient security against torpedo attack. It is a difficult problem to solve, but it should be a matter for most serious consideration how defence, especially from the air, can be countered.
    I should like to make a few remarks about the war in the Far East. Japan is an island Power, as we are in the West, entirely dependent not only for her maintenance but for the prosecution of the war on the security of her sea communications, just as we are. Sea communication is the Achilles heel of Japan. Those sea communications are extremely lengthy. They absorb an immense tonnage of merchant shipping to carry commodities to and fro and equally large naval forces to give security to their merchant ships. Japan's shipping position and power of replacement of ships sunk, whether merchant ships or men-of-war, is none too good from her point of view. The ultimate defeat of Japan will entirely depend upon the destruction of these sea communications. There is no question about that at all. We have received information of very successful operations carried out under General MacArthur, which is most encouraging considering the forces that she has at her disposal, and great credit is due to all concerned on the success of those operations which are still going on; but to bring about the defeat of Japan her battle fleet must be brought to action and her sea communications must be continuously and relentlessly attacked. Her armies in Burma, Malaya and Singapore depend upon these sea communications to a considerable extent; her Island conquests entirely depend upon them.
    It is very natural that people may become a little impatient with regard to the operations against Japan. There is a natural desire, not limited to this country, to increase the naval forces that we can send out and without which we cannot possibly bring about her defeat, but however great may be the desire to send them and to increase our effective operations the overriding consideration above all others is the fact that success or failure of the United Nations in the war depends primarily and entirely upon the defeat of Germany in the West. Japan must be dealt with intensively
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    later on. Therefore, this impatience, this desire to increase naval operations against Japan, must be curbed and not one single ship sent to the Far East that would in any way reduce the necessary force that we have at our disposal in the West to bring about the defeat of Germany. With the elimination of the Italian Fleet, with the sinking of the last of the German battleships, the "Scharnhorst," our position has immensely improved in that respect, and no doubt the Admiralty are taking full advantage of that fact.
    Lastly, I wish to deal with the question of officers' marriage allowance. I put down three Questions on this subject today. I have the answer here, and I am dissatisfied with it. I fought this scheme tooth and nail when it was introduced. I thought it was a mean and parsimonious scheme which made a differentiation against naval officers, and I feel just as strongly about it to-day as I did then. The present First Lord did not introduce the scheme. He is not responsible for it, but he is the head of the Admiralty, and is in a position now to alter the scheme. I hope that he will pay great attention to the points I propose to make. The three Services have the pay of the officers more or less synchronised in accordance with rank and length of service. Prior to the introduction of marriage allowance, a Naval Committee had deprived a lieutenant of the pay due to him owing to length of time he had passed in the Service. It was a long time before that matter was put right, and then the lieutenant had his pay increased, and rightly so. Marriage allowance is given to the officers in all three Services, and, in accordance with the revised rates, the allowances for a wife and children are identical in all three Services. That is as it should be.
    In the answer I received to-day I am told that officers' pay in the Navy was increased and that, taking that fact into account, they had to contribute 2s. a day for their own marriage allowance. That argument was never produced on the Floor of the House during the Debate on the marriage allowance. I brought forward many instances showing that the naval officer was worse off than officers in the other Services. One would imagine, if one did not know the facts, that as the pay of the officers had been synchronised, the marriage allowance was identical in all three Services and that the naval officer

    1933
    would be in the same position as the officer in the Army or the Air Force. That is far from being the case. Alone of the officers in the three Services, the naval officer has to contribute to his own marriage allowance whether he is married or unmarried. Officers' pay from lieutenant-commander up to and including captain has been cut—that is the Admiralty expression—by 2s. a day to provide marriage allowance. Therefore, when the Admiralty publish what the naval officer receives in marriage allowance for his wife he is, in fact, receiving 2S. a day less. He has had his pay reduced by 2s. as a contribution towards paying for marriage allowance.
    What is the result of this reduction in pay? I have it here in a book which anybody can buy. My right hon. Friend no doubt knows as well as I do what is inside this publication, which is called "Appendix to the Navy List." It shows all the rates of pay and allowances to naval officers. An officer of the rank of lieutenant-commander up to and including captain receives under the revised rates of pay 14s. a week net for his wife. The able seaman on the lower deck receives 18s. I am very glad that he does, but I ask the First Lord how the Admiralty can justify an officer receiving 4s. less a week for his wife than the able seaman.
    Mr. Alexander: I think that that statement is made in good faith, but when my hon. and gallant Friend says "net" I do not think he has recognised that that allowance is not subject to deduction of Income Tax.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: Whether it is subject to deduction of Income Tax or not has nothing to do with the question. The officer is deprived of 2s. a day. Does the First Lord deny it? Will the First Lord say I am wrong in stating that the officer has to pay 2s. a day as his contribution to his own marriage allowance? Will the First Lord deny that?
    Mr. Alexander: I certainly will not deny the fact that there was an adjustment of 2s. a day at the time, but in the reply given to the hon. and gallant Gentleman to-day it is pointed out that in 1919, when the level of pay was adjusted, there was no marriage allowance and officers received a higher rate of pay than they would otherwise have got if they had had marriage allowance then.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: The question of deduction of Income Tax from the marriage allowance has nothing to do with the matter. There is no deduction from the marriage allowance of officers in the other Services. I am not satisfied with the First Lord's statement and I want more details of this higher rate of pay. A lieutenant who is promoted lieutenant-commander has to pay 2s. a day as his contribution to his marriage allowance. My right hon. Friend will not deny that. He is then receiving as lieutenant-commander 2s. a day less than he would have received if there had been no marriage allowance. My right hon. Friend will not deny that. Therefore he is 2s. a day worse off. In addition to that, he has his children's allowance for the first two children reduced by 1s. a day. On promotion from lieutenant to lieutenant-commander, when his children are a little older, he gets 1s. a day less for the first two children, and, therefore, he is on the whole 3s. a day worse off.
    How can that be justified? Why should a naval officer alone have to pay towards his marriage allowance? Why should the scheme in the Navy, alone among the three Services, be a contributory scheme? What justification is there for this differentiation against the naval officer? Is it the opinion of the nation or of the Admiralty that by his services he is not entitled to the same treatment as the officers in the Army and the Air Force? I consider it a disgrace that the conditions which I have stated—and nobody can contradict them—are as they are. The naval officer looks to the First Lord to see that he gets a square deal and fair play. He has no one else to look to. I would put this with all respect to my right hon. Friend. If similar conditions to these existed in industry my right hon. Friend, an ardent supporter, as I am, of trade unions, which do not exist, cannot exist and never will exist in any of His Majesty's Services, would be, I imagine, in the forefront of the champions of the employees who were treated like this. Therefore, naval officers look to the First Lord to see that they get justice and to take steps to have this matter put right. I trust he will not fail them.
    Mr. Guy: I do not intend to keep the House for a long time, because my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths) has expressed

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    most of the sentiments which I desired to express. I am sure that the hon. and gallant Member who has just sat down, will forgive me if I do not follow the lines of his speech; I confess straightaway that I am more concerned with the lower deck than with the upper deck. There are very few occasions on which this House has listened to a member of the lower deck. Until the advent of my hon. Friend the Member for White-chapel (Mr. W. Edwards) last year and myself, the House was rarely privileged to hear a speech on behalf of the lower-deck service. My hon. Friend the Member for Whitechapel has served in this war; I was privileged to serve for a time in the last war. Speaking on the Estimates last year, I ventured to hope that it would be the last occasion on which the right hon. Gentleman would be addressing the House in a war-time capacity. That hope has not, unfortunately, been fulfilled, and to-day again we have listened to what was, in my opinion, a great speech about the work of the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy during the past year. If I venture to make one or two criticisms I feel sure that my right hon. Friend will take them in the spirit in which they are offered, and if he finds that the grievances can be remedied, I shall certainly be very glad.
    We listened to a glowing record of achievement of the Navy against the U-boats in the Atlantic and other spheres, and my right hon. Friend stressed the fact that we should not be over-confident, or relax in any way, because we have to be prepared for the many dangers that confront us in the year to come. I am deeply interested in the class of work which has been performed by our section of the Merchant Navy, namely, the coastwise traffic, and I want to utter a warning. The right hon. Gentleman made no reference at all to the danger of the E-boat. I do not know why he left it out of his speech. Perhaps it was for some good reason, but I am sure he will forgive my mentioning it. One does not like to hear of the sudden appearance of the E-boat in the "E-boat alleys," as they are called. I would like to be assured that our coastwise convoys receive all the protection which it is possible to give them; I hope that the First Lord will look very carefully into this point so that we can
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    be reassured, and feel that every protection is being given to this kind of shipping.
    Like my hon. Friend the Member for Whitechapel—with whom, I am sure, every Member has sympathy in his recent loss—I am very keen about one matter, and I am sure the House will forgive me if I stress it, as I did in my speech last year. I refer to the selection from the lower deck of candidates for commissions. I asked my right hon. Friend whether he could give us facilities for seeing the kind of work which was being carried on, as we have seen it in the Army. We have visited various places in the Army, and many hon. Members have seen the work that has gone on, in the selection of officers. I repeat my request this year. Will my right hon. Friend give us facilities to see the kind of work that is being carried out in the selection of candidates for commissions in the Navy? We want to be assured in this matter. The selection too often depends upon the old school tie, and we want that sort of thing cut out. We want a candidate to go before the Board of Admiralty confident that he will be given equality of treatment, whether he is the son of a labourer, or the son of a lord.
    My right hon. Friend spoke about Dartmouth College. It is a great piece of work and I hope that he will continue it and press it for all he is worth. Why cannot the Government make entry entirely free by paying all the expenses of every candidate going to that college? That would be also a fine piece of work, and would receive the admiration and good will of every Member of this House.
    I was glad to hear of the great improvements in ship construction and of the output of shipping and ship repair work, which has so increased in volume as to be a record output. I am sure that my right hon. Friend appreciates that that result is due entirely to co-operation between the works committees in the ship repairing yards and the managements, and I think he will agree that ships have been repaired twice as fast as previously. That says much for the fine work our ship repairing workers have carried out during the past year.
    I have taken the trouble to look up the history of Navy Estimates in this House, and I find that many famous men have stood at that Box in the past and

    1937
    presented the Navy Estimates. My right hon. Friend has placed before this House to-day such a record of work and achievement, standing to the credit of himself and those who serve under him, that his speech, if it does not excel, at any rate equals in interest and importance that of any previous First Lord of the Admiralty who has stood at that Box, and presented the Estimates in days gone by.
    Sir Percy Harris: We have just listened to two speeches which were remarkable for their style. Happily, one was from the quarter deck and one was from the lower deck. They had, in common, a desire to improve the status and pay of the gallant officers and men in the Navy. I hope, that at the conference on Service pay and allowances which is to be summoned as a result of our Debate last Thursday, representatives of the senior Service as well as of the other Services can be present, because they have a point of view to present. I hope also that the men who are fighting for us so well in the three Services will feel that they are going to get a square deal.
    With a modesty characteristic of the Navy, which never indulges in self-advertisement, the Navy Estimates have been presented third in order although they were entitled to come first, as the Estimates for the senior Service. We hear all too little, in my view, of the exploits of His Majesty's ships. It is only when an officer is decorated by His Majesty that we hear of his deeds of valour. That does not mean that there is less affection among us for the Navy. Situated on an island, we all realise that we should be powerless without the Navy, but so much publicity is given to the gallant deeds of the other two Services that the Navy has, to some extent, gone into the background. I am very glad that an hon. and gallant Member of this House has been charged with the duty of giving more publicity about the Navy, not because there is any doubt among the people of this country in regard to the Navy, but because people abroad, I think, do not fully appreciate how much we and they are indebted to the work of the Navy. We are all proud of the great deeds the Navy has done.
    The right hon. Gentleman had a good story to tell, and he did not in any way fail in the telling of it. Much of the work of the Army and of the Royal Air Force
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    would not have been possible but for the Navy, who have kept the sea routes open. If they had not continued to do so, the great work of the Army, for example in North Africa and in Italy, would have been paralysed. We have sung the praises of Malta—quite rightly—and the island has been decorated, and immortalised by its deeds. But if it had not been for the Navy, the great deeds of Malta would not have been possible. I am glad to know that the Navy has produced great leaders, in the Nelson tradition. Two names occur to me at once. One is that of Admiral Cunningham, now the right-hand man of the First Lord, who did such great work in the Mediterranean. The other is that of Admiral Fraser who, a year ago, was in the Admiralty and who has shown great leadership in the North Sea. I pick out only two; it is just as well not to forget the admirals, while we sing the praises of the generals of the Allies.
    The First Lord gave a deserved tribute to the builders of the ships. However gallant our admirals and sailors may be, if the work of the Naval Construction Department, the dockyards and the shipbuilders were not constantly brought up to date, all that gallantry would be in vain. One of my justifications for intervening in this Debate is that I had two happy years, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, as chairman of a sub-committee of a Select Committee to investigate in detail the organisation of the Navy. We did not merely investigate the Board of Admiralty; we went all over the country. We visited dockyards and went on board ships. I must say that anybody who has come into direct contact with all those activities must be inspired and impressed. I felt that good work was being done.
    One thing I am very glad to be able to emphasise is the disappearance of an old bitter controversy which used to disturb our Debates on these occasions between the friends of the Navy and those of the Royal Air Force about the Fleet Air Arm. I think that here we might very well pay a tribute to the First Lord and to the Secretary of State because it is on account of their good will, and active co-operation and their preparedness to give and take, that this old controversy has sunk into the background. I would be glad if the Minister who is to reply, would give some sort of guarantee—I am sure that we would all like to be satisfied—that the

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    Navy is being supplied with a fair share of up to date models of aircraft and that all the planes they have to use, particularly in the aircraft carriers, are of the very latest design. We know that the United States have made great progress in invention in this direction. I am told they have now a design of a very fine model with folding wings that in speed and efficiency can compete with land based models. We know the difficulty of providing planes which operate from a ship with the speed and power of those which operate from land.
    Reference has been made to the Pacific. Quite clearly, when we concentrate our sea power on the Pacific the aircraft carrier will play a very big part. We have some very fine aircraft carriers—probably the finest in the world—and I would like to be sure that, in our building programme, added attention is given to aircraft carriers and that they are being provided with the right type of machine in fair proportion in the inevitable competition with the R.A.F. I understand that the aircraft industry is now the biggest industry in the country. The R.A.F. have a tremendous appetite; their casualties are heavy. But it would be a misfortune if, as a result, the Navy were not getting its fair share of the output of our aircraft factories.
    I would like to say a word on something which I learnt a lot about in my experience earlier in the war—the little ships. One of the wonderful things the Navy has done is in the production and manning of thousands of little ships by men who, before the war, were mostly occupied in offices and banks and in industrial workshops and factories. There is the mine-sweeper, the landing craft, of which we have heard something to-day, and there are the M.T.B.s—a great variety of types, employing thousands of men under the gallant leadership of, I think I am right in saying, Admiral Kekewich. It is a wonderful organisation. It is almost an independent section of the Navy, which is almost completely manned, I think I am right in saying, by temporary officers and men who have joined the Navy since the outbreak of war. They provide a complete control round our coasts, and in addition hold their own with some of the larger and faster and more heavily armed types of
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    E-boats. When the E-boats appear and see some of our coastal patrols, these little ships that patrol round our coasts, they rapidly take flight.
    One thing I have never been able to understand is why it should be necessary to emphasise the difference between the temporary officer and the permanent officer in the Navy. It is a distinction which has long since disappeared in the Army; it is disappearing now in the Air Force, and though the officers themselves do not object, I think the Navy might well recognise that it is one Service, instead of there being one section known as the "Wavy Navy" and the other as the "Permánent Navy." They might very well be regarded as one Service. They do the same work, suffer the same risks and attract, of course, a splendid type of man. I would suggest to the Board of Admiralty who are, I know, conservative in these things, that they should consider whether the time has not come now, when the distinction might disappear. I am sure very few men will be dispensed with until we have tackled Japan, and many of them will have been in the Navy for seven years before Japan has been accounted for. The distinction between the permanent and temporary naval officer might, as I say, disappear now, and instead of the "Wavy" badge, all might have the magic straight gold line. On the larger ships I am told it puts a temporary officer at a disadvantage compared with the "Regular" officer, because he has a different badge on his arm. It does not matter on the small ships.
    There is only one other subject I would like to touch upon, and I do this with the greatest diffidence, especially as there is an Amendment on this matter of education. I am not thinking so much of education in the Navy for promotion. The right hon. Gentleman was able to give a very good account of the fine work done in that direction. Here I pay tribute to that war creation of the Admiralty, "King Alfred," one of the finest pieces of work that has been done, for training rapidly men from the lower deck and making them into good officers. But I wish to refer more particularly to general education. There is nothing in the Admiralty like A.B.C.A. or the A.E.C. I appreciate the great difference between the two Services. It is one thing to be able to organise these things when men are in

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    camps and barracks, and far more difficult when men are in ships scattered all over the world. But the Naval man, just as the soldier and the airman, will have to return to civil life. I think the Lords of the Admiralty might see whether, in co-operation with the Army, they can provide more opportunities for general education in the Navy. It is done, I understand, in the big flagships, but in the smaller ships and in the depots very few facilities are provided. As a matter of fact, when a man is shut up in a ship or limited to a port, his need is really greater than that of the member of a land force. Time hangs heavily on his hands, and the officers have consequently to devise ways of keeping him occupied and out of mischief. I suggest that the time has come for the Admiralty to do something for the Navy similar to what has been done by A.B.C.A. and the Army Educational Corps.
    I wish to put in a word for the engineer officer, as I have done on several previous occasions. I think the time has come when the engineer officer should be given improved status. One of the great things which Lord Fisher did when he was First Sea Lord was to improve the status of the engineer. He, with his vision and insight, saw the increasing importance of the technician in the development of the Navy. At Dartmouth, the officer who is to become an engineer goes through the same course, the same training, as the officer who is to become, say, a navigator. I am sure that many parents are reluctant to admit their sons to specialise as engineers, because the opportunities for promotion to the very top, are so much less in that branch. There are many posts that could be opened to them at the present time. I was amazed when going round the country, to find that in every dockyard there was an engineer officer, but in no case was he allowed to be a superintendent of dockyards. Obviously, in a matter of technical supervision the training of an engineer officer would qualify him particularly to control and manage a dockyard. I would like to see a suitable engineer admiral on the Board of Admiralty, in one of the higher posts. I think the time for that has come. Ships are becoming, more and more, mechanised. A ship now is a mass of gadgets, largely run by electricity. The design and running of a ship depend largely on the engineering, and though I may be trenching on a very conservative
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    tradition, I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman might use his persuasive eloquence to secure a better status for the engineer officer, on whose efficiency and capacity and ability depends so much the success of the Navy. In conclusion I would testify again to the magnificent work of the Board of Admiralty and the splendid service that the officers and men are giving to safeguard our shores and to help us to get our Armies to the places they have to attack.
    Mr. Gretton: I have never had the privilege of serving in the Royal Navy but I now have the honour to represent a constituency which, although it is in the centre of England, many miles distant from the sea, takes a very real and sincere interest both in the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy. In addition, many of its sons are serving in both Services at the present time. I should, therefore, like to add my tribute to what has already been said by the First Lord and by other speakers, on the achievements of the Navy in this war and what it has done throughout the whole of our history. It would be invidious to try to draw comparisons between the three Services, and I take this opportunity of saying that I have no such intention. I have, however, asked myself one question. It is this. Which of the three Services, ultimately, is really fundamental to the security of this country in both peace and war, and which of these Services is vital to the prosperity of this country in times of peace? I think the answer is, undoubtedly, the Navy. First of all, there is the fact of our geographical position in the world. We are an island. There is also the fact that many thousands of miles divide us and all parts of the Empire which is distributed throughout the world. We know that the aeroplane has made great advances and, periodically, we learn how it is now able to transport an ever-increasing volume of goods and, when the necessity arises, also a greater weight.
    But if we look at the position a little more critically and closely we cannot help but be struck by the fact that no large expeditionary force can reach this country or leave our shores except by sea. Then, again, no matter what part we are taking in our contribution towards the national effort, whether we are civilians or whether we are serving in any of the three Services, including the Navy, we are

    1943
    dependent in this island for a large proportion of our food from overseas. It is evident that without food a man can neither work properly nor do his part in fighting. Again, we are dependent on the Navy for large quantities of fuel oil, raw materials, and heavy equipment, all of which has to come by sea. I raise this point to-day because I hope that when the Financial Secretary comes to reply he will be able to assure us that thought is being given, even at this time, to both the type and the number of ships which we shall require, not only after hostilities have ceased in Europe, but when peace once again returns to the world.
    I should also like to take this opportunity of expressing the hope that the question of the part which the Navy can play will be on the agenda for discussion among the Dominion Premiers when they meet and, especially, the greater contribution which the Dominions can make in the future. In conclusion, I am sure that all of us look forward to the time and very much hope that it is not now far off when we shall want to know very clearly what form of League of Nations, or whatever it may be called, is to be set up. When that time comes, we shall want to know what is the major contribution or one of the main contributions that we can make from this country and from the Empire. I suggest that we are best fitted to play our part with our Royal Navy, not only because the sea, as a lifeline of communication, is vital to us, but because—and let us always bear this in mind when we are pondering the question—the United States of America, Russia and China are first and foremost Continental Powers. We alone are vitally dependent on the sea. There is one further reason; through Providence we are and have been a seafaring nation, and therefore we are among those best fitted not only to continue to build the finest ships in the world, but also to find the men to man them.
    Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: Earlier to-day the House listened in rapt attention to the First Lord giving his annual review, and it was, indeed, of a most encouraging nature, although the satisfaction with which we all listened to it must, unhappily, be tempered with regret at the thought of the
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    large numbers of officers and men who have lost their lives in upholding the traditions of the Navy during the past year and also of the fine ships which have gone to the bottom, in particular the famous cruiser "Penelope" whose passing I know will be mourned throughout the Navy and throughout all circles interested in naval affairs. It may well be that when history is written the "Penelope" may take a place alongside the historic little "Revenge." Whatever else may be said of this war, when its history comes to be written, at least the historian will say this of our sailors—the officers and men of the Fleet, between the years 1939 to 1944 and onwards lived up to the very highest traditions of the Navy and, indeed, their endurance has exceeded anything that has ever been known in the past. I feel, therefore, that this House, in paying a tribute to the personnel of the Fleet, ought to look very carefully to the care and treatment of those who are serving them so faithfully and, for that reason, I do hope that the Government will pay heed to what has been said by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith) and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Paddington (Vice-Admiral Taylor) on the subject of pay and allowances, and that they will take a wise view of this question, upon which the feelings of so many hon. Members run very strongly.
    Unlike all the other hon. Members who have spoken to-day, I propose to adopt an entirely different line and to bring to the notice of my right hon. Friend the First Lord and my hon. and gallant Friend the Civil Lord certain points in connection with one of the Civil Departments of the Admiralty. I was serving in the Department concerned, the Naval Ordnance Inspection Department, until last autumn and, therefore, when the Estimates were discussed in 1942 and 1943 I felt it unwise to intervene in the discussion in case, however unwittingly, I should be the cause of any embarrassment to my colleagues in that Department, although I hasten to assure my hon. and gallant Friend that anything I should have said on a previous occasion and which I intend to say to-day would have been of a friendly and constructive nature. However, this year, being in a position of greater freedom, I feel disposed to speak

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    out, knowing that I will not cause difficulty in any Service quarter.
    There are two specific points which I wish to bring to the notice of my hon. and gallant Friend the Civil Lord, and to which I hope he will allude in his reply. The first is policy and concerns the future of the Naval Ordnance Inspection Department, and the second is the system of pay and allowances in force for the industrial staff of that Department. So far as the future of the Naval Ordnance Inspection Department is concerned, there is a feeling of apprehension among the technical officers in that Department that it may be amalgamated or absorbed into the much larger Departments of the Chief Inspector of Armaments and Aeronautical Inspection Department, which are the two equivalent Services in the Army and the Air Force. Indeed, a vague hint to that end was thrown out in a Report by the Select Committee on National Expenditure last year. I am, I think, speaking for every technical officer in that Department when I say that I consider it is essential in the interests of the Navy that that Department should not be amalgamated with these other two Departments. I think I am the only person in this House who has served in that Department and therefore I want to put the arguments against amalgamation.
    It is highly probable that very few hon. Members and very few members of the public know very much about the Naval Ordnance Inspection Department, which does a great deal of useful work in a somewhat unobtrusive manner and, for security reasons, I do not propose to say much about it. It is, in fact, a fairly modern Department, founded, originally, about 1912 and developed to a considerable extent during the last war. But in its present form it really dates from the re-organisation period after the Armistice. The work of the Department, as its name implies, lies, of course, in the inspection of filled and empty ammunition stores, the components for guns, torpedoes, mines and other weapons used in naval service. The personnel of the Department functions in the various naval armament depots attached to the dockyards and also in industrial firms up and down the country where munitions for the Navy are being produced. The justification for its existence lies in the fact that during the present war there has not been a single catastrophe of the nature
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    which overtook us during the last war, when owing to defective ammunition, we lost by internal explosion a number of fine ships. I would cite, for instance, the battleships "Vanguard" and "Bulwark" and the cruiser "Natal." But thanks to-day to the efficient inspection service no similar disasters have occurred in the course of this war.
    Many hon. Members may say, "That is all right; we quite agree that there must be an inspection service, but why cannot you combine it with the inspection services of the Army and the Air Force in the various industrial firms?" I am going to submit that there are powerful technical objections to any too close form of combination or amalgamation although there is a field for co-operation, and, in fact, there is quite a considerable degree of co-operation between the three inspectorates. The arguments against amalgamation are twofold. The first concerns the very high degree of accuracy required for weapons used in naval service which arises out of the very conditions of naval warfare itself, which are, in many respects, entirely different from land and aerial warfare.
    For example, if I may illustrate the position simply, in the Navy the gun platform itself, that is the ship, is subject to vibration and to the motion of the sea, the target is usually a very small one moving at high speed and zigzagging, and probably at great range, and there is very often poor visibility, which means that to obtain hits is a matter of difficulty for the gunnery officer and personnel, however good they may be. On the other hand, unless you get a hit the shell is wasted altogether, because a near miss is useless in marine warfare, although in the case of the Air Force and the Army, even if a bomb or a shell misses the target, a near miss may do great damage. Therefore, there must be accuracy in the naval guns and sights. Again—and this was borne out very strikingly by Lord Chatfield in his book—great trouble was caused in the last war by ammunition not being up to standard, and shells failing to detonate. One has to be very certain, therefore, that shells and fuses are of the highest quality, and that the filling is done correctly. Without casting any aspersion on the inspectorates of the Army and the Air Force, the Navy requires a higher standard. In the other

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    Services one may accept, shall I say, a more mass-produced standard of weapons.
    My next point, which is of great importance, concerns the safeguarding of life and material. In the case of the Army and the Air Force, explosives and ammunition are stored in places remote from where people are living. If, as sometimes happens, there should be a fire or an explosion, damage to material and personnel is minimised. In a warship large quantities of very dangerous explosives must be kept in the magazines, and the crews live above these magazines, day and night, in all weather and in all climates. It is of the highest importance, therefore, that the examination of those explosives should be most rigorous, otherwise, our sailors will be exposed to unnecessary perils, and disasters may occur, such as the blowing up of the cruiser "Natal" in the last war, to which I have aleady referred. It is essential, for the lives and morale of our sailors and the protection of our ships, that the naval inspection service for ammunition should be kept at the highest pitch of efficiency. I hope that my right hon. Friend the First Lord and my hon. and gallant Friend the Civil Lord will see that any proposals to absorb the Naval Ordnance Inspection Department into any of the other Departments are resisted to the last, in the interests of the efficiency of the Navy.
    The next point also concerns my old Department. It is a much narrower one, but it is important as it bears on the wellbeing of the industrial staff in the Department, the people whom we call Examiners. I speak with a good deal of feeling on this question of pay and allowances, because I had to struggle with it for four years, as the officer in charge of a sub-area. The time has come for an overhaul of the system. I might explain briefly that the personnel of the Department are located either in naval armament depots attached to dockyards or in Government factories or private firms all over the country. For purposes of administration, the country is zoned into inspection areas, such as the Portsmouth area, the Sheffield area, the Birmingham area, the Scottish area, and so on, and the pay arrangements for each area are concentrated in the hands of an Admiralty civilian cashier, situated in the dockyard or specially assigned to that area. There is
    1948
    no objection to decentralisation; the Department was more centralised before the war, but, for obvious reasons, it was found convenient to decentralise it. What is disturbing is the lack of a clear-cut pay code.
    I do not want to exaggerate. I will admit that the basic rates of pay are fairly clear—although I will underline the word "fairly". But when we come to the allowances—subsistence allowances, travelling allowances, proficiency allowances, and so on—we find that the whole system is in a state of chaos. The cashier for each area puts this own interpretation on the regulations I am all for private enterprise in its proper place, and I admire sturdy independence, but it becomes a grave nuisance to have all these different local interpretations. The personnel of the Ordnance Inspection Department are not static; they may move from one area to another. Thus, you may find a mechanic moved from Woolwich to Glasgow or from Birmingham to Leeds, and when he puts in his weekly expense sheet at his new station he will find that instead of receiving x shillings, to which he thinks he is entitled, he gets x-2 shillings. Then the fat is in the fire. He comes to the officer in charge of the area, and wants to know the reason for this different treatment in the new station. The officer in charge of the area has to initiate a voluminous correspondence with the various cashiers. The matter is then eventually referred to the Director of Navy Accounts, who is the arbiter in these matters, and there either the correspondence dies a natural death or, a few months later, there comes back a totally irrelevant reply. I speak with feeling on the subject, having had to deal with it.
    In my opinion, the root trouble of all these difficulties is a semi-mythical volume called the Home Dockyard Regulations. I call it "semi-mythical" because whilst I was the Assistant Inspector in Edinburgh I and my superior, the Deputy Inspector in Glasgow, frequently had bits of this volume quoted to us by various cashiers, but whenever we asked for a copy of it we were told either that it was out of print or that we could not get one. So I am rather in the dark as to what these regulations are, but, so far as the cashiers are concerned, this volume appears to occupy a position somewhere between the Koran and the Domesday Book, and provides an

    1949
    alleged answer for all pay questions. So far as I know, the Home Dockyard Regulations may fill the bill so far as dockyard workers are concerned, because dockyard workers have the advantage of being more or less static, being attached to established dockyards, but "Home Dockyard Regulations" simply do not cover the special position of examiners in the employment of the Naval Ordnance Inspection Department, who are constantly travelling from firm to firm, from district to district, and from town to town.
    I would summarise the defects of the present system as being threefold; first, the lack of a standard practice in dealing with the pay and allowances of the industrial staff causes discontent; secondly, the lack of clarity in the regulations is the cause of a great deal of unnecessary clerical work to the office staffs in the various inspection areas; and third—and this also is a very important point—a great deal of time has to be spent by the technical officers in charge of areas in trying to sift out all these minor problems instead of devoting themselves, as they ought, to their technical duties in inspecting materials and components for the Naval service. I submit to my right hon. Friend the First Lord and to my hon. and gallant Friend the Civil Lord that it would be easy to remedy this state of affairs. I know that they themselves are far too busy to look into these wretched Home Dockyard Regulations, but I suggest that they should get hold of one of their bright young civil assistants and give him a mandate to go over the thing and try and bring it up to date. I have a strong suspicion that it was written at the time of the Armada, or the Battle of Trafalgar at least. Let them revise the Home Dockyard Regulations, or, perhaps an even better suggestion, let them draw up a new pay and allowances code for the Naval Ordnance Inspection Department and for every similar department, such as that of the Warship Production Superintendent. At least give us something that is clear and can be followed and will cut out a good deal of the friction and unnecessary correspondence on pay matters which exist to-day. I would urge my hon. and gallant Friend the Civil Lord to look into this matter, which is quite capable of being remedied by administrative action.
    Finally, I want to say a word on the subject of the scale of allowances in force in the Department. These allowances are
    1950
    not, in present circumstances, entirely adequate. A great many of the industrial staff, more especially the mechanic examiner staff, have to do a lot of travelling and may have to be away from their station for three, four or more days. The scale of allowances is 10s. 6d. a night for the first week, that is, for the 24 hours; 7s. 6d. per night for the second week, and 5s. 6d. thereafter, up to one month. That may sound reasonable, speaking about it in this House, but in actual practice, it does not work out so well. We have noticed in the newspapers in the last day or two articles about extortionate charges for board and lodging levied upon troops in the Midland area and other places. It is very difficult for these mechanics and others to get board and lodging at any reasonable price when they go to a strange town. A year ago I was advised that a certain new device was to be manufactured in my own area.
    I had not any practical experience of it at the time, and so I sent one of my mechanic examiners twice to London and Birmingham in order to get detailed information about the thing. On each occasion he had to spend several days in those towns, and on each occasion, when he came back and worked out his expenses, it was found, that with the best will in the world and the utmost economy on his part, he was out of pocket. It is wrong that men should be sent on important duties and have to pay money out of their own pockets and not have their expenses fully covered. I therefore urge my hon. and gallant Friend the Civil Lord to try and wheedle a little more cash out of the Treasury for these allowances. If, as it may well be, he meets some obstruction in suggesting a flat rate increase, let him press that the officers in charge of the inspection areas be authorised to make up the difference between the scale rate of expenses and the actual out-of-pocket expenses, so that a man does not have to pay any of the cost himself when proceeding on duty. Something in the nature of a discretionary allowance might be permitted in cases of that nature.
    I have spoken longer than usual in this House, but, like all other hon. Members, and particularly those in the naval contingent here, I am very anxious that my old colleagues in this Department should get a square deal, and I hope that the First Lord and the Civil Lord will give

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    due weight to the points that I have made and do their best in these matters.
    Mr. Viant: The House has had a most pleasant record placed before it to-day by the First Lord of the Admiralty. It was one of those reports from his Department which must be, and I feel will be, most reassuring to the people in the country. It would be impossible to place any value upon the services rendered by the men and women both in the Royal Navy and the Mercantile Marine. With others, I desire to express my gratitude and thanks for the sacrifices and efforts that have been made both by those men and those women, and I hope that the Government will not lose sight of those facts when they consider the results of the Debate that took place in this House on Thursday last. I hope facilities will be offered whereby this House, on behalf of the people of this country, will be enabled to express their thanks and gratitude in a far more tangible form.
    I am not going to roam over a wide field; other speakers have covered a considerable amount of ground, and I shall touch on one or two subjects. A week or so ago my attention was directed to questions that were put by the Selection Board of the W.R.N.S., the Board appointed for the purpose of selecting candidates for promotion. After due consideration I thought it wise to put a Question on the Order Paper. That Question was down to be answered this week, and in view of this Debate, I informed the First Lord of the Admiralty that I should raise the question to-day as I thought it would be preferable if he had an opportunity of making a very much fuller reply than would be possible by question and answer. These were the questions that I was informed were being put to candidates by the Selection Board. "What is your father? Who are your bankers? What was your school?" and, finally, "Who recommended you?" I am raising this in no hostile spirit, but there is a very important principle involved here. I thought over those questions very carefully and tried to make up my mind as to whether they were likely to enable any Selection Committee to ascertain the most suitable candidates to be recommended for commissions and, up to this moment, I am
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    persuaded that these questions will help very little indeed, if they help in any way whatever. I know the difficulties which confront any Minister in a Department of State. He cannot know everything that is going on in his Department. Therefore, I thought it wise to bring this to the notice of my right hon. Friend. Since the Question has been on the Order Paper, I have been inundated by letters of confirmation. One letter states that the main qualifications for a commission are:
    "A good social standing in private life, a private income, a higher school education, influential relatives or friends."
    From my point of view it is serious indeed if these are the questions that are put. There are three outstanding questions which should determine the fitness of a candidate for a commission. First of all, integrity of character; secondly, ability; and, thirdly, personality, If a Selection Committee are satisfied on those three points, the economic position of the candidate's parents is of no concern.
    Mr. Alexander: I think that is a most excellent statement, if I may say so, because that is exactly the basis upon which we proceed.
    Mr. Viant: The right hon. Gentleman will avail himself of the opportunity, I hope, to answer this in full. I have correspondence here from persons who must be telling an untruth, or the right hon. Gentleman must be misinformed. I want to develop my case in my own way. Those three tests I consider to be the most important to put to any candidate. I am informed that it seems to be the business of the officers responsible to select the most intelligent young women in order that they shall become petty officers and assist very materially the officers of higher rank in doing duties that they are quite incapable of fulfilling. We cannot afford to joke about this matter, it is most important. If this kind of thing obtains, it is bound to develop a spirit of frustration, if nothing else, and I know of nothing that contributes to the undermining of morale more than the spirit of frustration. This is a modern Service and I can appreciate the difficulties with which the Department were confronted when developing it. It has developed most rapidly and it has not been an easy matter to find the officers to take up responsible posts. I can appreciate all that, but I cannot appreciate questions

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    being put to a candidate as to whether they have a bank balance, and who are their bankers, much less asking what their father was.
    The point we have to consider is that this is no new thing to the Admiralty. We know that questions of this kind—if not at the present time, within the near past—have been put to male candidates who have submitted themselves to Selection Boards. If this is the case, I am persuaded in my own mind that we are not getting the best type of candidates and that, in itself, is bound to undermine the morale and efficiency of the Service. In weighing this up, and knowing my right hon. Friend as I do, I ask myself this question. If, in our early days, he and I had appeared before a Selection Board, as we have done from time to time, and they had invited us to state what bank balance we had and who our bankers were, we should have stood very little chance of getting here, much less of becoming Members of the Government, and I submit that the country would have been very much the poorer had my right hon. Friend not had an opportunity of filling the position he occupies to-day.
    Mr. Alexander: I really must interrupt my hon. Friend. I was commissioned from the ranks in 1916 or 1917. I was not asked what my bank balance was, but I was asked exactly what we ask the W.R.N.S. to-day—who are your bankers, and do you wish your money, when you get your commission, to be paid through a bank or paid direct?
    Mr. Viant: Excuse me, but that is not the way in which the questions are put by any Selection Board. If that is the explanation given to my right hon. Friend, he may accept it, but I would not, and I do not think the majority of reasonable men and experienced men in this House would be prepared to accept an explanation like that. I know the country will not. I am making an appeal to my right hon. Friend to go into this matter more thoroughly because we cannot afford to allow it to remain there.
    I want to touch upon one other question. The Admiralty has, in no sense of the word, made the progress that has been made by the Army and the Air Force in regard to giving commissions to those who have been called back into the Service during hostilities. What I mean
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    is best explained by a quotation which I will give him from a letter I have in my hand:
    "It has been conspicuous that no rating of the equivalent rank of sergeant-major in the Army has been given a temporary commission on the same lines as the War Office has done. To ex-R.N. reservists and pensioner reservists a few dead-end promotions to acting temporary officers have been given, but it is impossible to advance from that rank. In 1943 a C.A.F.O. was issued, giving temporary commissions to ex-Royal Fleet Reservists, and some were recommended, but on appearing before the selection board candidates were told by the Admiral that they were more use as petty officers than they would be as R.N.V.R. lieutenants and the R.N. captain told each of them that they had been too long on the lower deck."
    If the War Office has seen the wisdom of giving of this character to men who have seen a considerable amount of service, why has not the same concession been made by the Admiralty? I think it would be very valuable. Furthermore, it would undoubtedly be an encouragement to these men, who are playing their part in acting as instructors to the young recruits who are at the present time being brought into the Service. They feel they are not getting a square deal and I want to know whether my right hon. Friend will give consideration to this matter.
    I make no apology for having butted into this Debate on the Navy Estimates. I happen to be the son of a sailor. I was born in a seaport and I have always been interested in the Navy. I do not wish to take up any more time of the House except to say that we were all delighted with the record given to us by my right hon. Friend. I want to prevail upon him to use his influence to see that the appreciation of all of us for the sacrifices and efforts of the officers and men of the Navy will be expressed in a more tangible form than by mere platitudes.
    Lieut. - Commander Tufnell: We have listened to a Debate ranging over a large number of subjects and I want, first of all, to pay my tribute to the speech made by the First Lord of the Admiralty. It was an account which should make the Navy feel proud of its achievements and hearten it in its great task of keeping our sea highways clear for the supply of food to this country. The words of praise which have gone out to-day to our silent and gallant Service have been richly deserved. I also want to pay a tribute to those who were brought

    1955
    into the Service at the beginning of the war and who are plying on the seas with different small craft—men of the R.N.V.R. and temporary lieutenants who came to the assistance of the Regular Navy when it was short of personnel. These men have taken to the seas like ducks to water. My right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) suggested that they should be given the same status as men of the Regular Navy, but I am not quite sure that I agree with that, because the House will recollect the position of the Navy at the end of the last war, when it was flooded with men who came into the Regular Service from outside, so that the latter became a dead-end Service for those who were left in it. Many who had entered the regular Navy suffered because of the axe which fell on them and entailed their having to retire or resign and accept some tribute from the Admiralty.
    Sir P. Harris: I did not say that they should be absorbed into the regular Navy. I merely said that their ranks should be equal, as in other Services. Instead of a "wavy" Navy let us have a "straight line" Navy.
    Lieut.-Commander Tufnell: I am sorry, I thought my right hon. Friend said that they should have the same status as regular naval officers. The Admiralty have recognised the ability of these men and have given them their chances of rapid promotion. I would like to support what was said by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith) about the position of junior lieutenants in the regular Navy. Since the war started many have been given jobs which, in peace-time, were carried out by officers with two and a half stripes on their arms. The junior lieutenant has to wait his full eight years before he can achieve that extra half stripe. They are taking on jobs in big ships, such as gunnery and torpedo specialists, and they are commanding destroyers and they should, at least, be given the acting rank of the extra half stripe and that sense of dignity to which they are entitled.
    I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider sympathetically the idea that the skill and ability of these men should be recognised by giving them their acting rank and removing a well-founded grievance I should also like to support my
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    hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith) in the suggestion that we should take a very active part in the investigation as to the proposed alterations in pay from the naval point of view. When the marriage allowances were revised, I remember suggesting that it was like giving a dog a bit of its own tail to eat. These allowances could very well be revised, and officers and men placed in a very much better position. There must be bitter resentment amongst wives of naval personnel living next door to industrialists who are getting very much better pay, though the sailors bring in the raw material, on which the industrialists work.
    With regard to future policy, I was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman suggest that the future of the Navy would depend upon the battleship. I hope he is considering, even now, what is to be the position 10 years hence. In pre-war years we had the finest Navy in the world, yet it was inadequate for its responsibility of defending this country and the Empire, without the assistance of naval allies. When we found ourselves alone after Dunkirk, we were barely able to maintain our superiority at home and in the Mediterranean—certainly, not in the Far East. Who knows, if we had been able to maintain our superiority in the Far East, whether Japan would ever have dared to enter the war? That was our position then when, thanks to naval conferences, our Fleet bad been very much reduced. We had 15 capital ships, 10 of which were warn out, and unsuited to modern conditions of naval warfare. Not only that, but we were not able to supply our battle fleets with the necessary escort, as the result of which we lost those two ships at Singapore. I want to be sure that the country and the Government realise the necessity of the battleship, During the war the battleship, with air and underwater escort, has shown itself a very effective weapon. It was by the co-operation of those three Services that the "Bismarck" and "Scharnhorst" were sunk. When the "Graf Spey" escaped, it was a very grave menace to our shipping, and the fact that the Japanese had such complete naval superiority in the Far East enabled them to carry out that swift and sweeping invasion of our possessions there. I hope we shall always, in the future, base our fleet on battleships, with

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    the necessary air escort of carriers, cruisers, destroyers and submarines, because we depend on that for our very existence.
    The great expense of battleship construction makes it necessary that they should either be continually reconstructed in order to meet modern naval conditions, or scrapped and replaced by other vessels. The fact that they take three or four years to build, means that we have to look ahead. We should start now replacing battleships that are out-of-date. It has been pointed out that the building of these battleships, with their necessary escorts, means employing the dockyards, keeping them going ready for any emergency, with a permanent nucleus of skilled men. For all these reasons, I hope the First Lord will consider a policy of laying down at least one or two battleships a year, so that in to years' time all the old ships will be replaced and we shall be able to man the Mediterranean, the Home stations and the Far East. We must never forget the lesson of Singapore. If we can always keep these fleets or battle squadrons maintained in peace time, it will be the most effective obstacle against war in future.

  EDUCATION OF NAVAL PERSONNEL
  Mr. Price: I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  "in the opinion of this House adequate provision should be made for the systematic development of general and technical education amongst all ranks of His Majesty's Navy, including improvement in the opportunities of promotion available for all men of the Service engaged in teaching."
  In raising this matter, I feel that I do not need to apologise because the subject may be a little dull after those which have been raised in the Debate hitherto. I think that on reflection Members will see that it is a matter of fundamental importance. The House has before it a great Education Bill, which we hope will become one of the landmarks in the educational history of this country. But it is borne in upon me in these days that, for the last four years—and we do not know how much longer it will continue—young men at the most formative age have had their educational careers interrupted and have had to leave their studies, their workshops and their laboratories to take up the stern task of war I, therefore, suggest that it is incumbent upon the great Services
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  to see that everything is done to fill the gaps in the education of these young men and women, as far as it is possible to do so in time of war.
  Scientific and technical training is the lifeblood of a great Service like the Navy. Therefore, one hopes that, at least, young men with ambition can have a chance to study branches of science which are indispensable to such work at the running of a great battleship, or to becoming acquainted with the intricate mechanism necessary for the working of a submarine. There should be no lack of opportunities for education in science, as applied to war at sea. At the same time, one may question whether this is quite so in the Navy. It is no secret that for a long time in this war, the Fleet Air Arm was without the right kind of aeroplanes to combat submarines and to do coastal command work. It would not be in Order for me to go into the reasons for this on the present occasion, but I suggest that one possible cause was that the Navy did not have its own educational and research establishments, for dealing with naval aircraft science, and was, in this respect, dependent on other Departments, particularly the Ministry of Aircraft Production. The Navy has its own educational and research establishments in connection with the construction of surface craft, but has it a corresponding department for naval aircraft? I think not, and I suggest that this is one of the flaws in the technical training of the Navy and the reason why in the early part of the war, the Navy was not at its best, in regard to the type of aircraft available for dealing with submarines and the various strategic and technical problems of the war.
  There is the other side of education, what I might term adult or general education. This is a people's war, and just as man cannot live by bread alone, so, I suggest, a sailor cannot live by technical and scientific knowledge alone. It is necessary to inquire, therefore, how far attempts have been made and how successful they have been to carry on in the Navy adult education on general subjects, so that a sailor will know something about what he is fighting for, the country he is defending, its history, constitution and culture. The naval authorties can do much to inspire our fighting men with know ledge and zeal for our cause. I need only

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  give the example of the Red Army in Russia. It has been one of the greatest educational institutions in that great country, and that, in part at least, has been responsible for its marvellous successes in the war. The parallel may not be quite fair, because Russia started with 90 per cent. of illiteracy, whereas we have not such a leeway to make up. I admit the difficulties in regard to adult education in a Service like the Navy. Men are cooped up for long times on ships; opportunities are not easy to get, space is often inadequate, the movements of ships are irregular, and it is difficult to plan a long way ahead. These are difficulties, however, which can be got got over if there is a will. There are, too, long periods of time on shore in which it should not be impossible to organise work of this importance.
  I will put a question or two to my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary in connection with what I have said. What steps have been taken to secure for the Navy adequate research and training in the science of naval aircraft construction, so as to prevent the recurrence of what happened in the early part of the war. Secondly, what opportunities has the naval rating for improving his technical qualifications and gaining promotion by efficiency and knowledge in technical subjects? Thirdly, I would ask what is the position as regards the educational staff of the Navy. I have some evidence that all is not well with this branch of the Service. There are two sections of this branch, the instructor officer section and the schoolmaster section. There is a feeling that the rate of promotion is irregular, and that the conditions of service, at least in the schoolmaster branch, are unattractive. Promotion and pay in the instructor officer branch are not, apparently, a subject of complaint. This branch is confined to the higher educational qualifications, to those with university honours degrees. Promotion to the higher ranks of this branch goes forward automatically at intervals of six to eight years.
  Matters are different with the schoolmaster branch. There is a percentage limit to promotion from one grade to another. For instance, there is, I understand, a limit of 25 per cent. of possible promotions of all candidates going in for promotion to, say, the senior schoolmaster
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  grade, Only 25 per cent. of applicants can, even if they are qualified, get promotion in a given year, and it sometimes takes 28 years for a schoolmaster to reach lieutenant's rank. The position is entirely different from that which obtains in the instructor officer branch. I know it can be said that the schoolmaster branch has educational qualifications which are very much lower than the instructor officer branch, qualifications which are confined to pass degrees at universities or teachers certificates, but, in actual fact, I am informed, that is not the case to-day, as in recent years a very large number of people have got into the schoolmaster class who are honours graduates of universities like London, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, and other big provincial universities.
  In the instructor officer branch is a very large number of Oxford and Cambridge honours graduates. As an old Cambridge graduate myself, I am always glad to hear that Cambridge is to the fore in matters of this kind, but I should resent any feeling that Oxford and Cambridge honours graduates got their position for any reason of privilege, other than that of their qualifications. There is a suspicion, and perhaps my hon. Friend will be able to allay it in his reply, that there is a privileged grade in the teaching profession in the Navy, that the schoolmasters, although often qualified, do not get the same treatment as the others and that, generally, the status of the schoolmasters is lower. They are the lowest paid of all the warrant officers, and they receive no increase of pay upon promotion to commissioned rank. I submit that if the best is to be made of the opportunities of education in the Navy, the status of the schoolmaster branch needs to be placed on a proper level, in order to attract ability and to command respect.
  There is a fourth point, relating to adult education. I have referred before to the need to stimulate interest among the sailors in matters outside their more technical training. It is desirable to arouse in them a feeling of citizenship as members of a great Commonwealth and Empire, and attempts should be made to do this, even in war-time. I suggest that it might be well for the Navy to see what the Army is doing in this respect. We were informed last week by the Secretary of State for War that the Army has appointed a

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  General Director of Army Education. The Army has also the Bureau of Current Affairs which publishes most excellent pamphlets. I have been reading some of them in the Library of the House, and they go a long way towards making adult education attractive in the Army. For instance, there is a pamphlet which comes out fortnightly called "War," on the technical lessons of the war. A recent issue dealt with United States Army units in this country; and with questions such as wherein they differed and wherein they were the same as our own; what kind of fighting material the American soldier was going to make, and so on. There is another issue on the lessons of the Sicilian campaign, and another on the use of tanks in war.
  There is another extremely important series of pamphlets, about current affairs. These pamphlets come out fortnightly and are excellent for the purpose of stimulating adult education in public affairs, and stimulating discussion among the men. Junior officers are asked to initiate discussions in their units on the basis of these pamphlets. Looking over recent publications, and taking them at random, I found this kind of thing: "How to use the vote," "How to take part in influencing public opinion," "How Parliament works," "What kind of houses ought to be built after the war," "What part women ought to play in the State." That is the kind of thing to make the serving man realise that he is fighting for a nation which is thinking of its future, and trying to make him into a citizen-soldier. The title given to those courses is "The British Way and Purpose." It is an educational purpose in the Army, and the Air Force. What better method is there of achieving this end than the documentary film, which has come to stay as one of the great vehicles of education? I should like to know whether any steps have been taken to apply these methods used by the Army and the Air Force to the Navy as well. The Secretary of State for War told us in the Debate on the Army Estimates that the Navy had imitated them. I do not know whether that is really so. I should rather like to have a little more evidence from the Minister who replies on whether this is so or not.
  I know that the Royal Air Force have followed after the Army and are doing
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  a lot of interesting things, including initiating discussions on important subjects. Only the other day a young flying officer who had returned from Russia, where he had been co-operating with a unit of the Red Air Force, was giving lectures to the men of his Service on his experiences in Russia and on what he had seen of the people over there, and of their ways of thinking and outlook on life. All this, I think, goes to show that the Army and Air Force are moving along the right lines in this matter of adult education. They are indeed blazing a trail through the jungle. And what is the Navy doing? I rather suggest it is lumbering along behind like a great elephant along the jungle trail, and I do not think that that is a very dignified position for the Senior Service. I have heard that the Navy has ordered a certain number of copies of "Current Affairs," these pamphlets to which I have referred, but how far they have got, and what is done with them, no one seems to be able to tell. Possibly the Minister will have a little more to tell me, which, I hope, will be of satisfaction to the public.
  So I conclude as I began. This is a people's war, and we ought to do all we can to prevent this period of service, during which people are turned away from their former occupations, from being too great a break in their educational careers. In the technical field I believe that the Navy will naturally excel, because that is the very essence of its service. But we must see to it, the Navy must see to it, that those who fight in this war for civilisation, to use the words of Oliver Cromwell, "Know what they fight for, and love what they know."
  Rear-Admiral Bcamish: I beg to second the Amendment.
  I wish it had fallen to the lot of someone other than myself to do so, though I face the task without any fear. If I may say so, I was delighted to hear the hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) pay his tribute to the great Service, to which we all owe so tremendous a debt. I should like to see people who are experienced in coal, agriculture and in many other of our activities in this country, pay their tribute to the Navy and get to know as much as they possibly can and become as highly educated as they can, about all the Navy means to us.

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  In listening to the First Lord's speech to-day, I was immensely impressed, because it was so full of interest and of hope. But it did remind me, because of the very interest of it, of the hopelessly wrong attitude which is sometimes adopted by the Services, speaking generally, in preventing serving officers from coming to address committees of Members of Parliament in this House. I do not suggest that that is a particular fault of the Admiralty, but it does exist. The result is that many of us, including myself, are kept in a condition of ignorance, which I do not enjoy. I say, as we are speaking of education, that it would be a very good thing if serving officers were encouraged to come because they, no less than we who legislate and provide, would be enlightened and inspired, and, I think, educated. The prejudice which certainly does exist between the Services and Members of Parliament is, I think, an archaic and obscurantist prejudice, and has barnacles on it; it is time it was removed. I would very much like serving officers to come here and address us under proper regulations and control. Nothing but good would come of it.
  I trust that the Government will not hesitate to accept the principle of the Amendment which has been so ably moved by my hon. Friend, and that they will accept it in a broad, generous and progressive spirit, because there is no reason whatever why we should hold up the Government with a Division or anything of that sort on such an admirable and broad question as that of education. No doubt we shall get a good deal of information which will be of value to all of us, and it will not be for us, on this subject, to hold up the Government. After all, the glorious record of the Navy is a mighty response to any critic; it is a devastating proof of grandeur and it is certainly a reaffirmation of sea power and of the absence of the word "impossible" from the naval vocabulary.
  My hon. Friend said that sometimes people looked upon education as dull. I think there is nothing dull about education except those who are detractors of it, and perhaps I would add to that, also "dull teachers" and they can be very dull. The mover of this Amendment has stressed, and I was glad he did, his particular aspect of this question. He stressed the war period and the interruption of
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  men's lives and of their education because of the necessities of war. That is very terrible and very bad indeed for those concerned, but it will pass. I want to touch, if I may do so without boring the House, and as shortly as I can, upon the past, and also upon the future of what I would call permanencies. There are certain things which if we do not make them permanent, will get us into trouble again. Hon. Members of this House will not fail to agree with me when I remind them that we all have a certain measure of blame attached to our records—perhaps not those Members who have come into the House since the war began. But certainly the rest of us have some measure of blame, because there were wholly indefensible gaps in material and personnel, which parsimonious Governments and, may I say, a nation which to a great extent was blinded by phrases and sloth created for the Service we are now speaking about—difficulties which were widened in the black years before 1939, to my great distress. As I say, they all concern both the technical and professional education of the Navy. The object of what I want to say to-day is this: Whatever we do for the education of the Navy, the Admiralty, and we as a House of Commons, should do everything possible to close those gaps which brought us to the very verge of immeasurable peril. Those gaps consisted of lack of landing craft, convoy-protecting craft, submarine-hunting craft, and a great many other types of ships which have been found absolutely vital for our survival in this war.
  There is another gap, which is purely connected with education. The standard of competition for the entry of executive officers of the Navy was deplorably low, because the Service was so very unattractive to boys. That was the fault not only of the House, but of the whole country, and the Admiralty had to suffer. "Systematic development"—to use the words of the Amendment—was discouraged in this country. Things are so much better now that it is almost unbelievable what a change has come over our circumstances. Of the three Services, the Navy is unquestionably the most difficult in which to perfect in what I might describe as day-to-day education. I speak from experience of small ships, on which men live in cramped conditions, in impossible weather, doing service on the seven seas. In war-time at sea there is no moment

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  of the day or night when you dare relax your vigilance, or your readiness for instant action. I want to be as constructive as I can. There are great opportunities for improving the education of the personnel. In Fleets certainly, in big ships certainly, in depots certainly, in parent ships of submarines and destroyers certainly, for mosquito craft, as they may be called, the same, and in big training camps, much has been achieved, and more can be done. Ships have libraries. I remember them now for 40 years. They have been gradually improving in quality, and I see no reason why there should not be a much greater measure of improvement. The deliberations of this House, and even the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes, might interest the personnel in distant seas; therefore, I urge the Admiralty to do what they can to popularise and circulate HANSARD.
  I come to the question which I think is of perhaps the highest importance in regard to naval education. I refer to special university courses for officers—and may I say, and stress it, that I include petty officers? I will not go below petty officers for the moment, but I know that they would all gain immeasurably by a higher standard of education—although I left the Service many years ago, and I know that their standards have vastly improved since then. Contacts with the civilian population's outlook would be educative for officers and men. They are subject to the grinding processes of the sea continuously with only very short intervals. That is not good. The Admiralty exacts, and is expected to exact, from the personnel close and continuous service, and would advocate for educational purposes something to broaden the outlook I believe that the Admiralty occasionally have permitted intervals of at least up to a year in the service of an officer or a man. Opportunities for travel and education would broaden their minds and infuse new zest into them. I know that the results would be admirable. In 34 years' service, the longest continuous period of leave on full pay that I ever had was just short of six weeks: that was after three years and five months' service in China. Civil life was all but a closed book to me, to my great detriment; and I have had to make up as best I could for that after leaving the Service.
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  I hope that the Minister who replies will speak about the Royal Naval University—perhaps the name by which it is, and should be best known, is Greenwich University. After the last war a great attempt was made to make use of Oxford, Cambridge, and perhaps other universities, to make up for the gaps in education which officers, particularly, had suffered by reason of the war. It was my experience, and my friends all tell me the same, that, although the attempt was well meant, the scheme was not suitable for a great profession like the Royal Navy. I advocate, therefore, that it should not be repeated. In 1922 the Greenwich University, placed as it is in magnificent buildings, with quite unrivalled historical associations, was established, and up to 1939 it prospered, and was extended. I plead for still further encouragement for if from the Admiralty. I believe that there is a large number of W.R.N.S. there at present. Everybody likes them, and they do magnificent service, but it was suggested to me by a friend of mine that if we were not careful the "Wrens" might grow into cuckoos, and remain there, to the detriment of the university. We all wish the W.R.N.S. well, but we must have that university back as soon as circumstances allow. Let us expand it for the education of the Navy. Literature, history, and civics were taught at that university. I think I am in Order in saying—because it comes into the question of education, not only for the Navy but about the Navy—that I should like to see short courses, of a week or less, set up at Greenwich University for Members of Parliament, civil servants, local authorities, university professors, trade union officials, coalminers, the Foreign Service, chambers of commerce, and schoolmasters. No doubt there are certain other proper categories and I feel sure that any proposals made by Members to the First Lord will receive genuine sympathy.
  I wish to be very serious indeed. I am confident that something of the kind would have a very great effect upon the maritime outlook of the people of this country We have been too prone—and many people have told me so—to keep the sea Service lights obscured, and it is time that a little more was done to make them better known. I want to go right away from the university down to the Sea Cadet Corps and make an appeal,

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  which I know will not fall upon deaf ears, to the First Lord to do everything he can to put that great movement upon a permanent basis. It is already doing a magnificent work. It was designed and created originally, I believe, by private enterprise and the Navy League, and it is nothing more or less than a school for the maritime service of the Empire. Could we have a greater or finer object than that? Not only the Royal Navy but all services of the Royal Navy, and the Mercantile Marine are catered for. It has one special object, one great asset, which I wish to impress upon the House. The boys who belong to the Sea Cadet Corps have a definite object which will be carried into effect when they join the Service which they have set out to adorn for their future. I want specially to advocate that this great Corps should be put upon a permanent basis and that the Navy League should be encouraged to do its best, as it will do, to support the Admiralty.
  I want to support what my hon. Friend said about the status of schoolmasters. My own ship's company got a great deal out of schoolmasters in the last war. Education was extremely popular as long as we had the right schoolmaster and the right atmosphere. Therefore, the teaching procession in the Navy should be raised in status. I see no reason why, gradually and not too slowly, members of the schoolmaster branch should not enter as commissioned officers and ultimately be merged with naval instructors. When I was a cadet we were called young gentlemen and out of the 1s. 9d. a day which the Admiralty gave me so generously for my services, they took away 3d. to give to the naval instructor. That sort of thing has been brought to an end, I am glad to say. The growth of education and the high standards of all the personnel in the Navy, of petty officers, and officers and men alike admits of a higher and a better standard of teaching. For all these reasons I join with the mover and say to the officers and men of our incomparable Navy that the education of the Navy is a thing which we here must never forget, and so I say:
  "Let us not blunt so fine a will nor daunt with ignorance."
  Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: I rise to support the Amendment. The speech to which we have just listened from
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  the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Rear-Admiral Beamish) has been so broad-minded that I hesitate, as a landlubber, to make any further comment. I wish that the spirit that he has shown in his remarks was widespread throughout the Navy. I have had the privilege, in the last year or two, of seeing, here and there, something of the amazing story of naval training, and I wish to speak in support of the great work which is being done during the war and to hope that something of it may be continued in the post-war years. I wonder if hon. Members realise—though they may have from the speech of the First Lord to-day—that hundreds—nay thousands—of ordinary land-lubbers are now in command of very considerable ships of war and yet how little training that they have had in order to make them qualified for this tremendous job. The work which is being done by H.M.S. "King Alfred" is, not only an amazing tribute to the Navy but it has shown us some new techniques in education.
  I rose to put one or two questions to the right hon. Gentleman and to the Financial Secretary. If you take the Sea Cadets, the "Y" scheme and H.M.S. "King Alfred," and the six months' course at the universities, it is true to say that the Navy, for the first time, has become part of the nation. Before, naval training was a thing apart. There is force in the remarks which have been made by my hon. Friend the Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Price). But I do not believe that you can reproduce A.B.C.A. in quite the same way as you do in the Army. A ship is a different proposition from a regiment, which has more opportunities available. I was going to intervene in a question which the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Miss Rath-bone) put to the Prime Minister to-day, as to whether A.B.C.A. and "The British Way and Purpose" could not be more utilised in other Services. I do not think they ought to be. I would like to see a greater variety, and the Navy develop its own scheme on original lines. The conception of a nation in training which we see before us to-day in the Services is something which, I hope, can be taken over into peacetime. How is this to be done? I remember that when I was Civil Lord a great deal of criticism that you could not extend this to secondary schools. It was said that there was something

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  peculiar about the naval officer and he ought to come through a particular channel. Obviously that was not true. Dartmouth has been democratised. Could the hon. Member tell us something of the secondary schools from which boys have come and is the Admiralty keeping a record of their after careers?
  Obviously that was never true, and I should like to know, if it is not published already, the names of the secondary schools from which these boys would come. Boys are dying to get into the Navy and into the Merchant Service, and at Aberdovey there is one of the most interesting experiments in this country where boys are going through 28 days' training. They have some boat work and some simple navigation, obviously not very much in 28 days—but many have been discovered to be born seamen although they have come in most cases from London and from the inland towns.
  As to the university course, if there is any conception after this war of some form of national service are there not the elements of a new technique present there? These two or three days combined with ordinary education have been a complete eye-opener; I have been to the universities and seen these courses in operation. There again is something which might be developed. I remember the time eight years ago when we tried to get some knowledge of naval training into the schools—Admiral Dunbar-Nasmith was then Second Sea Lord—and we could not get the local authorities in this country to take any interest. Fortunately that is all changed now, but how long is it going to last?
  There is also the dockyard school which has just achieved its centenary which my right hon. Friend went down to celebrate last year. That has anticipated young peoples' colleges by 100 years. I think we may look to much of the education work in the Navy as a guide as well as to the somewhat dull work that is going on outside. In other words the schools of this country tend to get too much out of touch, not only with life but with the elements, the sea, the mountains and the countryside. As far as the sea is concerned, it has been borne on me more and more during the last three or four years that the average boy between the ages of 14 and 18, if given a chance, would join the Sea Cadets or some similar body. You
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  could quadruple the sea cadets to-morrow if you had the officers. Instead of 50,000 you would have 200,000. In the Sea Cadet camp in Scotland this summer we had practically no equipment, unfortunately, and if it had not been for two Cadet officers, one of whom had yachting experience, 1,000 boys who gave up a week of their holiday would not have had this chance of learning the elements of seamanship, and we were only able to "scrounge" equipment at the last moment.
  My remarks are only made because I am immensely glad to see this new development right through from the age of adolescence up to the university, and in this I believe there are lessons to be applied both to ordinary education and to some form of national service after the war. I hope that, in replying, the Minister may be able to tell us (a) a little more of what has been happening at Dartmouth and (b), whether adult education, which has taken this quite extraordinary development in the Army, could not also be developed by some more novel method, apart from the libraries and the grand work which has been done by Dr. Albert Mansbridge in the past, through some closer relation of adult education to the actual technical life of the sailor. I do not believe you can teach civics in a vacuum. It ought to be connected with the actual life the man is living. And there is so much in the life of the sea from which, if you have the right people to develop it, you could develop a first class curriculum of studies. There is a change for experiment and I think the Admiralty is just a little wooden on this point. I have had to address two or three courses to officers—American, British and Dominion—at Oxford and I have noticed that only lately are there any sailors there. There are all ranks of the other Services but not the Navy. Why? Is it still impossible to have all ranks on a course like that at Balliol or at this House? I do not see why it should be, and I therefore support what my hon. Friend said about broadening the general approach to adult education in the Navy, but I also congratulate my right hon. Friend on the excellent work which has been done in the last few years.
  Mr. Hugh Lawson: It is with a little diffidence that I rise to support this Amendment because I am neither a

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  professional educationist nor am I in the Navy, but I have seen something of education in all three Services, particularly in the Army when stationed at Gibraltar, where it was possible to have very close contact between the three Services. I feel that there are some general principles which apply not only to the Navy but to education in the Services generally, and it is on those one or two points that I want to speak in support of this Amendment. I am particularly interested in general education, the sort of education for citizenship that the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Price) talked about. There seem to me to be three reasons why we should have this type of education in the Services and, in this case, in the Navy. In the first place I think it was introduced to combat boredom. I am not going to suggest that in the Navy, when ships are a sea, there is any large amount of boredom in the same way that you can get bored in the Army, but I imagine that in shore stations you have exactly the same problem in the Navy as in the other Services.
  Secondly, general education of this nature is necessary so that we may consciously build up morale in the way Cromwell did in his Army of Ironsides, so, that when people realise what the war is about, and the issues involved, they will be all the keener and more determined fighting men. That is a thing which must lie at the root of our approach to this subject. Thirdly, we must realise that the war is not really an end in itself but is only justified if it is leading to something better in the peace. Even during a war we must link victory with the tasks of peace, and so have this constant training for citizenship to see if it is not possible to keep the values of civic virtue in being during the war and that they do not get lost in our concentration on matters of destruction. It is, therefore, on those three points that I think we should try to base our education.
  Something has already been said about what is being done in the Army, and I am not going to elaborate on the business of the Army Bureau of Current Affairs, which is well known to all hon. Members. I would, however, like to say what has been my experience of the advantages and disadvantages of this particular method, so that when we come to the consideration of the application of
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  these principles to the Navy it may be helpful. I think A.B.C.A. is good because it is widespread. The material, on the whole, has been good, and it is put out not as a basis for a lecture to be delivered, but as a basis for discussion, and A.B.C.A, without discussion is not carrying out the spirit of the thing. The disadvantages I find are these: that it is compulsory, and education of this nature which is compulsory tends to detract from it. I am not suggesting that we should debar people from the opportunity of having this sort of instruction in normal training times, but if your audience is not voluntary it is not quite so easy to get the stuff over. That has been my experience, anyway. I have asked one or two naval officers of my acquaintance if they have met these pamphlets in the Navy and one said, "Yes, the A.B.C.A. pamphlets are circulated with the Intelligence Summary every week, which is only seen by certain high officers, and it is just minuted from one officer to another." This may be only an isolated example at a shore station, but it seems to one that we are not doing much good with these pamphlets it that is all that is happening to them in the Navy.
  The second aspect of education we have in the Army and, it has been suggested, it is applicable to the Navy, is the "British Way and Purpose." Although we cannot quarrel with the truth of the facts set out in the "British Way and Purpose" it seems to me that they are in the form of a lecture which has to be delivered with the inference that no questions shall be asked. Every topic is approached in a non-controversial manner and that lacks something if we are to try to develop awareness of the issues which are at stake in this war. Therefore, it is rather on the style of A.B.C.A., rather than the "British Way and Purpose," that we should concentrate in the Navy.
  There is a third matter on which I can speak from my own personal experience, namely, voluntary education. When conditions in Gibraltar were static, and when people were thrown more or less on their own resources for recreation, it was easy for societies and groups of all sorts to spring up. There was much spontaneous cultural activity at the station which, according to the persons who have left there recently, is still going on and increasing.

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  At the back of this voluntary effort there were people like the sergeants in the Army Educational Corps. I do not know much about naval schoolmasters but I have gathered that most of them are regulars. I found in the Army Educational Corps that those who had come in from civil life to teach for the period of the war were the mainsprings of discussion groups in units, debating societies and suchlike. They were the people who were making the best approach to the question of general education for citizenship.
  There were two kinds of groups. One was held on a unit basis one night a week, when anything from a dozen to 100 men would gather in their own time and arrange their own programme, and the other was run on a wider basis, such as groups, in which members of the three Services could meet—an excellent thing. We managed at that station to go even further and to arrange broadcasts over the local radio diffusion system. That could be done on large ships where there is public address equipment. We also had a troops' magazine which not only had the usual amusing cartoons and stories which one expects in such magazines but also articles on controversial matters such as politics. The basis of this education, which was going on primarily in the Army and also in the R.A.F., and to a smaller extent in the Navy, was that it was linked with present day problems, especially the problems of post-war reconstruction. It tried to give a driving force to those who were endeavouring to encourage controversy. Such things as the Beveridge Report, medical services and town planning were discussed to good purpose and at great length. That is the sort of education which will make people more aware of the things for which we are fighting and will make them better citizens. It will also counteract boredom, if there be any boredom. It is almost impossible for one to get up and talk on town planning or the Beveridge Report without somebody asking, at question time, whether all this will be possible unless we have some changes in the economic system. This is not the time or place to enlarge on that theme, but I want to say that you cannot discuss to-day's problems intelligently without getting on to politics.
  Perhaps the reason why the Navy lags behind in this aspect of education is because
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  its traditions and regulations are more stringent as regards political activity than are the regulations of the Army or Air Force. Paragraph 17 of King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions states, among other things, of persons belonging to the Fleet:
  "They are further forbidden, without first obtaining Admiralty permission, to deliver publicly, or broadcast, or read any paper on such subjects or in any public speech dealing with such subjects, to express opinions which are likely to give rise to controversy."
  Such subjects include "matters of public policy." Paragraph 18 states:
  "Any form of political activity on His Majesty's ships, or in Naval Establishments, is prohibited."
  If a Service is putting a strong clamp on the expression of opinion on matters of public interest which may be controversial you cannot, in that atmosphere expect any great development of general education for citizenship or awareness of what the war is all about. I would like the First Lord to apply his mind to that problem. This is not the time to ask for an alteration of the Regulations, but I think that we might ask for a different spirit, so that education could be developed on more liberal lines. As a result of these activities, which we see in the Army at Gibraltar and which could take place in the Navy, we should get a better understanding of present day issues. We should get better fighting men and boredom, if such exists, would be relieved. We are looking to the future, and I think we should get more people consciously to develop their citizenship.
  This House has gone to some pains to prepare schemes whereby those in the Services shall be able to record their votes. If people have a right to do that, surely they may have the right to educate themselves so that they can do it in a reasonable and fitting way. Quite recently the Prime Minister expressed the view that it was a very good thing that members of the Services should be represented in the House. If we are going to expect after the war, and after a General Election, large numbers of candidates who have seen service, we shall also expect that during the war there should be a large amount of political activity in the three Services. To some extent that is possible in the Army and the Air Force, but I do not think it is very possible in the Navy. If the First Lord is looking for an increase in education in the Navy I think he should start looking at the Regulations.
  Commander King-Hall: I think the hon. Member who has just spoken is mistaken in supposing it is impossible to have boredom in ships at sea. Unless the Navy has very greatly changed since the four years of the last war I spent at sea, one's life might be described as long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of intense fear. Although I admit that the air meance has probably added somewhat to the general state of alertness, I can assure the hon. Member that there are very long periods of boredom. In a general way I wish to support the arguments of the mover of the Amendment, though there were one or two details on which I cannot go all the way with him. When he spoke of the Navy being a kind of elephant following the other two Services through the jungle, it sounded as if he wanted to put the Navy on wheels or caterpillar tracks, a difficult and dangerous operation. I must confess, though, that when I see some of the latest landing craft it is hard to know where the Navy ends and the Army begins. Perhaps the Navy should be described as a maid of all work. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Lewes (Rear-Admiral Beamish) made one suggestion which I should like to support very strongly. It was that arrangements should be made whereby serving officers should come to the House and, presumably, give short talks on various technical aspects of modern war. Very soon after I came to to the House I put up a suggestion of that kind. The reason I made the suggestion was that I was standing by the tape machine and an hon. Member turned round to me and said: "How do they sweep these mines up? With a kind of shovel?" I then began to realise how necessary it was for hon. Members to have instruction in the modern aspects of modern war. There is a vast range of subjects in which no question of security is involved, such as the number of ships needed to move a division. I have a very high opinion of the staff officers of the Services, who are perfectly competent to come here and answer questions, and hon. Members need not imagine that the Services could not put up people who could evade any question not properly put such as matters regarding their plans and preparations. I feel that the Minister of Defence will not support the proposal, nevertheless I make
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  it, because I believe it is important that Members should understand facts which are well known to the German General Staff.
  I am glad of an opportunity of speaking to the Amendment, because I want to pay a tribute to the work of the naval education authorities and, by implication, to the great educational movement that is taking place throughout the Forces. War is, of course, an evil thing and, viewed objectively, it is a terrible indictment of our civilisation that hundreds of thousands of the best of our young men and women are having to spend these years of their lives and devote their energies to destructive purposes. Therefore, it is a consoling thought that, to an extent which I am sure is unparalleled in our history, we are combining military operations for the defence of our liberties with what I may call intellectual operations calculated to make our soldiers, sailors and airmen better fitted to make use of their liberties when they are finally freed from Nazi aggression. We are engaged in the consideration of an Education Bill part of which consists of provision for adult education. It must be many years before those provisions can possibly come into force, whatever they may be, but I am very thankful that many hundreds of thousands of our people in the Services are now enjoying this adult education and some good, at any rate, is coming out of the war in that respect.
  The educational activities of the Services are really one single problem and should be discussed as such. We still have the mid-Victorian custom by which the Service Estimates are presented one by one, as if the three Services lived in watertight compartments. One must confine oneself to-day to the naval side of the subject, but I hope that one of the educative results of the war will be a realisation that one Debate should be devoted to Service problems as a whole—a much-needed reform.
  The mover of the Amendment stressed the difficulties that are particularly attendant on education afloat. That is a second point on which I differ from him. The naval authorities, as a matter of fact, have a very great advantage over the other Services as far as the Navy afloat is concerned. The personnel is ready at hand in the extremely confined space of a ship. They have not to stagger out across a

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  wind-swept barrack square. They are there right under the hand of the commanding officer and the education authority. The counter-attractions of a town often do not exist even if the ship is at a place which I will not specify for security reasons but which naval officers will recognise as having been described as miles and miles of water surrounded by miles and miles of—I will leave the rest of the sentence to the imagination of the House. But it will be recognised by naval officers. With an exceedingly high percentage of the Navy—as the First Lord pointed out to-day, hostilities only mean people who were civilians four years ago—the Navy, of course, has a great responsibility for doing all it can to make its men good citizens as well as good sailors, and I am sure the House will support their Lordships in anything required to carry out that task.
  I have three suggestions to make, and there is one assurance that I wish to ask for. The first suggestion is that courses should be started for young men who may desire to take up the teaching profession after the war. I want the President of the Board of Education to go to H.M.S. "President," that is the Admiralty, and pay a call on the First Lord and discuss the subject. We all know the difficulties which the President of the Board of Education will be up against in the provision of teachers. I want the House to imagine the effect on a village school of a schoolmaster who has sailed the seven seas under the White Ensign, who has been to the Far East and has served all over the world. When he is doing a geography lesson and talks about the Suez Canal, he can say that he has been there and knows what it looks like, and what happened to him at Port Said if he was unlucky. I appreciate that the Board of Education will say that teachers must have proper qualifications but nowadays it is not impossible to have examination papers sent out, and if a young man has had three or four years' experience in the Navy and is of the right type, I would swallow him as a village schoolmaster even if his academic qualifications were not quite up to standard.
  The second suggestion is concerned with what will happen when the European war is over. The First Lord indicated something of that problem to-day. It is
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  probably certain that the Navy will be operating in a very big way, and for quite a long time, in the Far East. That war will be an oceanic war over vast spaces, which one cannot imagine unless he has seen them. Ships will be at sea for days and days, and the conditions will be almost like those of the Napoleonic war—something such as we had at the beginning of this war—but greatly magnified. The First Lord must be making plans now for the naval operations that will take place out there, and I ask him to make special plans for the educational operations which should accompany the Far Eastern war. I hope he will be able to have a really good education service. The strain on our resources will be relieved by the fact of the European war being over, and he should be able to draw on resources for the use of the Fleet which are possibly not now at his disposal.
  The third suggestion is that the Navy should take a leaf out of the Army's book in one small respect. It is one that should be of special interest to this House. The Army Council, by arrangement with the Empire Parliamentary Union, has been arranging for military officers from every Command to come to the House of Commons for a short three days' course on Parliamentary affairs. I can assure the House that it has been a great success and has been much appreciated by these officers. I would like the First Lord to consider whether some naval officers could come from the home ports on this course. It is a great mistake to imagine that everybody in naval uniform is floating about on the ocean all the time. There are large numbers in the home ports. There is a staff college which, I was glad to hear, has been revived. It is a serious matter that it ever had to be closed, and I am delighted that it has been opened up again. I had the privilege of talking to some of the officers there a few nights ago, and I can assure the House that they are thoroughly on the top line with every sort of modern problem. I am convinced that these officers would greatly appreciate being allowed to come up to the Parliamentary courses which are being organised by the Army Council and the Empire Parliamentary Union, and I hope that the First Lord will give favourable consideration to the idea. The Secretary of State for War said in his speech on the Army Estimates that other Services

  1979
  had followed the lead of the Army in education. It used to be usual for the Navy to lead the way in combined operations; it may be that now we must admit that the Air Force has to lead the way, but certainly the Navy must not be behind the Army—
  Mr. Alexander: The Navy at Salerno had to take the Fleet Air Arm carriers.
  Commander King-Hall: We are not in disagreement on the part the Navy has played in actual operations. All kinds of naval services had the most intolerable strain on them in the early days of the war. Things are not so bad now. It may be true that, in respect of education, the Navy has been a little astern of station, but I hope that it will ring down for some more knots and get up to where I expect it to be, right in front. I do not see any reason why the officers of the staff college should not attend the Parliamentary courses and similar courses.
  I come to the assurance that I want to receive from the First Lord, and I will not take "No" as an answer from him. When I was on the Naval Staff I spent a good deal of my time drafting documents to persuade their Lordships to spend more money on the Navy, and we never found the Treasury easy to overcome in argument. I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend finds it much easier now, in war time, to get what he wants, but even so I venture to surmise that it is not just a case of "Ask and ye shall receive." I want to draw his particular attention to one fact. If he turns to column 1544, of HANSARD of 1st March, 1944, he will find that I succeeded in getting him something for nothing for naval education. In order to satisfy his curiosity without further delay, I will tell him that he will see in that column that the Treasury has undertaken to supply extra copies of the HANSARD of both Houses to the educational centres of the Navy. I asked for 100 copies, and that is worth £550 a year. It may not sound much, but I venture to say that it is perhaps the first time a back bench Member has obtained money for the Naval Estimates, and it is an interesting precedent of which I hope their Lordships will take due note. I would like the House to take note of the fact that this is probably the only time in their lives when, in the course of the year, some of my naval friends, their
  1980
  Lordships, are in fact politicians. That is not always known to their Lordships. They are not paid on the Naval Vote, they are not on full pay, they are on half-pay, and they put their names, although they are naval officers, on the bottom of the Estimates. I therefore submit that I am really in order in addressing their Lordships as if they were politicians; in fact, in the last century they changed every time the Government changed. Technically they are not subject to naval discipline, they cannot be court-martialled, and they have a legal right to resign. I hope I shall receive an assurance that the Admiralty will reap where I have sown, and that—and I am going to mix my metaphors—they will not look these gift HANSARDS in the mouth, but will see that this bread is cast upon the waters.
  The Financial Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. J. P. L. Thomas): I am sure the House will agree that the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Price) was justified in saying at the beginning of his able and helpful speech that he would make no apology for the subject of his Amendment. He feared that the subject might seem to be a dull one, but in a Session when the whole future of education is before the House it is very necessary that we in the Admiralty should be able to show that the Navy is doing its share. The hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Rear-Admiral Beamish) and the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Lindsay) spoke from their personal experience of the Navy and the Admiralty, and we welcome their wise advice and suggestions. I can answer straight away the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes that, as far as the Royal Naval College at Greenwich is concerned, we intend to increase our relations with the civil universities. I can assure him also that the general obligations of the college will be extended in peace time, though I cannot go so far as to say that it will be able to take in all the candidates whom he said were in need of a course at Greenwich. We were also glad to have the personal experience of the hon. Member for Skipton (Mr. H. Lawson). I can assure the hon. and gallant Member for Ormskirk (Commander King-Hall) that educational plans in the Japanese war are very much in our minds and that the foundations are being laid for them. With regard to HANSARD I am certainly not going to look a gift

  1981
  horse in the mouth. The moment after the great triumph achieved on Wednesday by the hon. and gallant Member, the Admiralty put in their application at once to get this charitable gift, won for us, after a very gallant fight, by the hon. and gallant Member.
  The hon. Member for the Forest of Dean rightly reminded the House in moving his Amendment that, in the last four years, men, in the crucial period of their lives, have run grave risk of interruption in their educational career, and suggested that it might be the task of the Admiralty not only to reduce that risk but to go on to develop the whole system of education in the Navy. I will do my best to reassure him on this question. As he asked me to give the House a general picture of naval education I propose to accept the suggestion, and to answer the specific questions raised by him and other hon. Members as I go along. The activities of the educational branch of the Navy may seem less spectacular than those of the other Services, but I think we can claim in the main that the reason is that those activities have been established as part of the Navy for a great number of years. The public have since long ago taken their existence, and I think I may also add, their efficiency, for granted. Really, the public have a very good reason for doing so. If hon. Members will consider what the achievements of the Royal Navy have been, I believe they will agree with me. My right hon. Friend the First Lord gave, in the speech with which he opened the Debate, a long record of successes during the last 12 months. If hon. Members remember, at the same time, how enormously complex the day-to-day work is on even the smallest ship, they will realise how effective the educational branch of the Navy has been.
  Behind all these achievements of the Royal Navy there are, as hon. Members will see for themselves, the results of a very thorough technical education. A lot of this educational work which is bearing fruit now was done by the educational branch of the Navy before the war. It is a matter of great pride to the Admiralty, and of great congratulation to the branch concerned, that the peace-time structure has stood up so admirably to the stresses and strains of war. I do not think there is any need for me to explain
  1982
  at length to hon. Members the difficulties of education of the Navy in war-time. Ships at sea during war obviously cannot devote as much time to education as they can in peace-time but, time and again, studies, and examinations—I must ask hon. Members to realise that the Navy manage to tackle even examinations, under the most extraordinary difficult circumstances—are not only carried out, but are liable to be rudely cut short by the approach of the enemy. Still, somehow, these men seem to be able to carry on their educational studies and their examinations at action stations. All these tasks take place in every kind of atmosphere and very often under some very difficult physical conditions.
  An example was suggested to me by the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean by something he said in his speech of what I mean by these very difficult conditions. If I have his words down correctly, he spoke of the educational forces behind the Red Army, on the frontier which he must of course have known very well. They are a very great source of pride to the U.S.S.R. I think that we also have reason for great pride in the knowledge that our seamen can take credit for carrying enormous supplies of armaments to help our Russian Allies in their gallant victories, and while doing so have carried on their own education and examinations in the Arctic Circle, even in the depths of winter. I am very glad that my hon. Friend reminded me of that point, by his illustration of the Red Army.
  Now, if I may, I will turn to the professional and technical aspect of the educational work of the Navy, which is mentioned in the Amendment. It takes pride of place, as the hon. Member himself said. It is the foundation of the Navy's existence and is the mainstay of all our efforts. It is carried on ceaselessly at colleges and establishments, at all naval bases, on board ship and while in dock, and it varies from the simplest principles of navigation to the intricacies of modern wireless. Instructors and schoolmasters are used both for the theoretical and practical side of this technical work. We have learned by experience that the trained teacher has an advantage every time even over the most experienced practitioner. The House will see the need for carrying the schoolmaster in the battleship, the cruiser and the destroyer—this partly

  1983
  answers the right hon. Member for South West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris)—as well as on shore establishments. I know the House will realise that it is not possible to carry educational officers in some of the smaller ships, so special arrangements are made at the bases from which these smaller ships operate, so that there will be no break in the link between the men on the smaller ships and the shore establishments. Everything is done to keep the technical and professional ability of the officers up to the highest possible pitch.
  A question was put to me by the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean on the need for a separate naval institution—if I have his words down aright—for research and education in the science of naval aircraft production. The hon. Member is perfectly correct in saying that the Navy has no separate institution for learning about the science of naval aircraft construction. Both the Navy and the Royal Air Force entrust this work to the Ministry of Aircraft Production. We have in those establishments of the Ministry a great number of naval officers who have contributed of their knowledge, and have gained further experience. More than that I do not think I can usefully say at the moment. Quite frankly, the hon. Member has raised a question of basic principle involving more than one Government Department and I really am afraid that, if I go on any further, I shall be well outside the scope of the Amendment.
  Mr. Price: May I have the assurance that this matter is being considered?
  Mr. Thomas: Yes, Sir, certainly. I am glad to give the hon. Member that assurance, but I do not think I can go more into detail at the present moment on this present Amendment. There is much more I can say about technical training and that must be obvious to the House, but I have other forms of education to tackle, in answer to the questions of hon. Members. I think I can leave technical education by saying that the House and the country have seen, during the last four years, the practical achievements of technical education in the face of the enemy, and I, for one, am prepared to leave the matter there and to let those achievements speak for themselves.
  1984
  The hon. Member who moved the Amendment said quite rightly that the sailor cannot live by technical and scientific knowledge alone. Of course, he cannot, and that brings me at once to general education. I use the expression "general education" in the most specific sense. I propose to deal separately with adult education. General education is not compulsory for ratings, except in the communications branch, either during their preliminary training or during their subsequent service, but the Navy provides three education tests, for those who wish to do them. The first is elementary, the second is on secondary school lines, and the third approximates to matriculation standard.
  The House will be relieved to know that, in spite of the four last strenuous years of war, the results of these examinations are extremely satisfactory, and the figures of candidates who pass the higher educational tests is on the increase. I think also I should point out to the House that these tests are worth whole noting, as one of the ways in which the Navy, while filling its own immediate needs, is giving these men the kind of help which will remain with them and help them when peace comes. I ought to add that "hostility only" ratings who wish to improve their educational standard, either before or after selection as candidates for a commission, receive every help and encouragement from the educational officers. My hon. Friend has drawn attention to the importance of that help, and I am grateful to him for having done so to-day.
  I have tried to show how the Navy, while meeting its own needs at the present time is also attempting to minimise the break which the war has caused in civilian lives, especially in those of the younger men who would in peace time have been receiving education in one form or other. We have a duty to them and an even more important duty to the boys who enter for continuous service. Their welfare is the very special care of the education branch. They receive compulsory education as a regular thing up to the age of 18, which fulfils the same object as does the scheme of young people's colleges under the Education Bill which is before the House at the moment.
  If I add only a sentence or two about the W.R.N.S. I hope the House will not think me discourteous or unappreciative

  1985
  of all that they do. The fact remains that the W.R.N.S. had one of these Amendments all to themselves in the Debate on the Navy Estimates last year and, after all the same principles and the same ideals, and to a very large extent the same machinery, apply. Of course it has to be adapted to suit the particular Service. It applies to them as I have described it as applying to other branches of the Navy in an earlier part of my speech. I have looked up last year's Debate and I see that my hon. Friend the Member for East Islington (Mrs. Cazalet Keir) drew special attention on that occasion to the need to increase the educational work in the W.R.N.S. A great deal has been achieved, and as my hon. and gallant Friend the Civil Lord promised, the educational organisation has been strengthened and is going on being strengthened still at the present time.
  The hon. Member for the Forest of Dean came in his Amendment and in his speech to the question of adult education. I would remind the House that adult education is a war-time development to meet the needs of a war-time service. The Admiralty realises its full importance, but it is quite impossible to organise it in the same way for the Navy as for the other Services. I assure hon. Members that we have made several attempts, but the more attempts we make the more we are confirmed in our opinion of the difficulty of setting up compulsory classes in current affairs and the responsibilities of citizenship.
  I think this perhaps is one of the reasons, and I hope that the House will not misunderstand me in what I am going to say—I think I can claim that there is in the Navy less waiting for strategic employment. The Navy, after all, is always in the front line. At sea watch-keeping is continuous, and every man is potentially on duty all the time. Even when a ship is in port the Service duties of a sailor are, as I feel that the House will realise, pretty continuous. In training establishments there is always the overrriding consideration of intensive training in the art of war. At drafting depots there is always a shifting population and more intensive training, and there is the reasonable demand by sailors for as much time off as possible before going on the next draft. Throughout the Navy, and especially at those home bases where a proportion of
  1986
  men are standing by for lengthy periods, lectures and lecture courses are in full swing. They cover a very wide range. Our ideal throughout adult education is to build up a balanced understanding of the war and current events and problems, and full appreciation of a man's responsibilities as a citizen.
  Perhaps I can best illustrate what I mean and also the whole range of activities, by giving the House two specific examples which have come to me. I should like first to quote a paragraph of a letter from a schoolmaster in a ship off Italy. It came to the Admiralty a few months ago. He says:
  "Sicily, then Italy, and finally Salerno gave us plenty to cope with. Since then we have had a lot of fun with debates and discussions. Last Sunday I gave the men some idea of the educational system of England as a preliminary to the White Paper when we eventually see it."
  I assure the House they have by now.
  "Over 120 men attended and the discussion went on for two hours till pipe down and the men are still asking questions about it. There is a real wave of enthusiasm among a lot of men to be doing something."
  The other example I should like to give to the House is this: I have taken for their information the present month's programme, that is mid-February to late March, at one very important naval base. The subjects include a pretty wide range, to begin with "Modern America." They go on to "The U.S.S.R.," "How native races are governed," "Farming in its possible post-war developments," "The Far East," "South-Eastern Europe," "Our sea tradition" and "The French naval disaster." I call that a pretty mixed bag, and a pretty useful bag. Also the House might like to know that officers and ratings help us with lecturing. We take care to see that first-hand information is given to the men about actions with the enemy and about those spheres of war in which those men to whom the lecture is being given have not yet played a part. That meets to a certain extent the point made by the hon. and gallant Member for Ormskirk about developments in the Japanese war.
  There have been many lecturers from among hon. Members of this House. They have travelled to the very far corners of this country—I see some of them in their places at this moment—at great discomfort to themselves, and I would like to

  1987
  say how grateful the Board of Admiralty is to them for their kindness and help to all of us on all occasions in this matter of lecturing.
  The hon. Member for the Forest of Dean praised the adult educational work of the Army. We share his opinion. We have already got adult educational work of our own but not to the extent which I know the hon. Member for Kilmarnock would wish. We supplement this work and we are indeed grateful to the Army for making it possible for us to do so, with the A.B.C.A. pamphlets, and "The British Way and Purpose." I have gone very carefully into this matter raised by the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean. I can assure him that these circulars really do no vanishing trick as I think he suggested in his speech. Very frequently we get letters to the Admiralty telling us how much they are appreciated and how very grateful the recipients are.
  I must pay this tribute to the Central Advisory Committee for Adult Education in His Majesty's Forces, and to similar bodies for lectures and discussions, and to the various other organisations, too many for me to mention to the House now. Before I leave the subject of adult education, I wish to mention one link between civilian life and the Services which must not be forgotten, the vocational and scholastic correspondence courses. They range very widely, from religion and history to Esperanto and Zoology. These courses cater for every possible field of ambition. Also, adult education; as hon. Members have said, is vastly helped by films. From the very early days the Navy have been careful to develop the use of the film industry throughout the Fleet, both for training and for entertainment.
  I have left to the end my reply to the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean about the men of the educational branch. He devoted considerable time to that question. I now propose to give the answer. The main work of education is done by instructors and schoolmaster officers. These men are trained teachers: perhaps hon. Members do not realise to what extent they are also members of the fighting organisation of the Fleet. They have their action stations. They occupy positions which need scientific qualifications,
  1988
  and instructor officers carry out much of the meteorological work of the Navy. Officers of the educational branch have their share of honours and distinctions for gallantry. Shells and bombs are very much, in these days, a civilian possession, as well as the possession of Service people; but I was told only the other day a very strictly authenticated story of a shell which passed straight through the legs of an educational officer. It brought home vividly to me the conditions under which many of these men of the educational branch are serving in action to-day. The House will probably think it a wise decision that instructors and schoolmaster officers serve both at sea and ashore. Therefore, they can gain experience alternately of work both at sea and ashore Schoolmasters are graduates or certificated teachers.
  I was also asked whether there were not among them a large number of honours graduates of other universities than Oxford and Cambridge who should be moved up to the instructor branch. The only ones with the academic qualifications of instructors serving in the schoolmaster branch are a few who chose to do so when they were not selected for the instructor branch, and a few who did so some years ago in the absence of instructor vacancies. The question of whether they come from provincial universities does not enter into the matter. I am authorised by my right hon. Friend the First Lord to say that he was very much impressed by what the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean and other Members said about the status of the schoolmaster branch, and that he intends, on going back from this Debate, to give that question his own personal inquiry and supervision. My hon. Friend was kind enough to warn me in advance that he felt that perhaps in the instructor branch Oxford and Cambridge were favoured at the expense of other universities. I have gone into the figures which he gave me. He is torn, as I know, between his love for his old University of Cambridge, and the desire that Oxford and Cambridge should not overwhelm the others. Having gone into the figures, I can give the perfect diplomatic answer. Counting all the instructor officers serving on the active and retired lists, Cambridge is first, but only equal first with London University. Oxford, for some reason which I cannot understand, is well down the course, with only 15 per cent., and

  1989
  other universities have 25 per cent. There has been a great influx from London since the last war and it may well be that when the Estimates come before the House next year Cambridge no longer will hold the lead.
  We propose to accept the Amendment in principle—and I am very careful in the use of the words "in principle." If I did not use those words I am afraid that, you, Sir, would be confined to your Chair for some time. As we are accepting the Amendment in principle, I hope that the hon. Member will not forget to withdraw it, when I have finished, if he approves of my speech. Already I have asked a lot of the patience of the House to-day, but I have tried to show that the work of the educational branch of the Navy, to which I pay once more a final tribute, is not only wide, but, in the fullest sense of the word, systematic. My hon. Friend, if I understood him aright, wishes the Navy to emulate the ideals of the Minister of Education, which this House at the moment is passing into legislation. The Navy's first object in war is to seek out the enemy and destroy him; but I think I can assure my hon. Friend that we are not behind the Minister of Education and his ideals. If ever there is a gap between the needs of the Service for education and the machinery which provides it, it will be a very sad day for the Service and for this country; but I do not believe that such a day will ever come.
  Earl Winterton: Before my hon. Friend withdraws the Amendment, I think it might be appropriate if I said with what great interest we listened to the admirable speech of Financial Secretary, and the great felicity with which he dealt with the subject on his first appearance at the Box. My only excuse for saying that—it is probably egoistic, but not egotistic of me—is that I was a Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Admiralty nearly 40 years ago, thus having been connected with a Ministry before any other Member now in the House, including the Prime Minister.
  Mr. Price: I would like to thank my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for his most able and interesting speech, and to say, as that as this was his first time of speaking at that Box, that I hope he will have many other successes of a
  1990
  similar kind. I appreciate the spirit in which he replied to my Amendment. I accept what he says, that the Government, in their turn, accept the principle of my Amendment. I do not want to keep you, Sir, sitting in that Chair indefinitely—though I believe it is historically recorded that a Speaker in the days of Queen Elizabeth had to sit in that Chair for three days and three nights. Also, I do not wish to deprive my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Vote, which he will not get unless you leave the Chair, and therefore being satisfied that the principle of the Amendment is accepted, I beg to ask leave to withdraw it.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," again proposed.
  Rear-Admiral Sir Murray Sueter: I should like to join other Members in congratulating the First Lord on the fine survey which he has given of the work of the Navy during the past year. As an old torpedoist, I was very glad to hear the tributes he paid to my old colleague, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound. Sir Dudley Pound was a great servant of the State. He worked long hours, and grappled with the problems before him in the most able manner, and I am certain that the hard work he put in contributed to his early end. I am certain that the Alexander-Pound administration will go down to history as one of fine record and of very great achievement. I congratulate the First Lord upon the success of his administration. The Navy ended last year in a fine way by the sinking of the battleship "Scharnhorst." That was an operation which was very well carried out and was in the highest traditions not only of the British Navy, but also of the fighting Frasers, and all Scotsmen will agree with that. The hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir S. Chapman) will agree that no happier man existed than Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser when he sank the "Scharnhorst" with the guns and torpedoes of his Fleet. The First Lord mentioned the midget submarines. As an old submarine officer, I admire the wonderful work of these small submarines. When we first introduced submarines into the Service, I commanded most of the early Holland submarines when putting them through their acceptance tests, and I can assure my colleagues that to take a submarine across

  1991
  the North Sea, and dodge all the nets and mines and so on, demanded courage of a very high order indeed. We were delighted when we saw that the gallant captains of the submarines and their crews had been decorated by His Majesty the King for damaging the German battleship "Tirpitz."
  The First Lord devoted a good deal of attention in his speech to the work of the Fleet Air Arm, and there was a very fine booklet issued the other day about the achievements of the Fleet Air Arm right from the day of the reconnaissance work, when the "Graf Spee" was shadowed before the River Plate Battle and included the Battle of Bomba Bay, which was a great achievement for the Fleet Air Arm. There, the Swordfishes hit four enemy ships with three shots. In the last war the Admiralty sent one of our aircraft carriers to the Dardanelles in command of an old colleague of ours, Lieut.-Commander L'Estrange Malone, who, I believe was Member for Northampton. He was a great officer. He took his ship to the Dardanelles, sent a flight of three seaplanes armed with torpedoes and got three hits on three enemy ships. We thought that a great achievement—100 per cent. of hits—but now the Fleet Air Arm has knocked that record out. We have read of the Battle of Taranto and that great victory was planned by Admiral Lister and Captain Boyd in command of the "Industrious." He secured, with his pilots, a great achievement by knocking out half the Italian battleships, many cruisers and supply ships. There was Sardinia and the Matapan, where Admiral Cunningham had a very great victory and, following that, there was the sinking of the "Bismarck." All that was done through the co-operation of the Fleet Air Arm and the Navy. I am certain that the Admirals concerned will pay tribute to the Fleet Air arm for their devotion to duty and their assistance in these victories.
  The only criticism that I have heard about the Fleet Air Arm is that they are very short of spares. If we are to have operations in the Far East, as we certainly shall have when Germany is defeated, it will be very awkward indeed if the carriers have not a sufficient supply of spares for their aircraft. I ask the First Lord to have that matter looked into to see that
  1992
  the position is put right. Many officers come over from America. They are told that when they get over to England there will be plenty of spares for aircraft, and when the pilots get here they find it is not so. I want my right hon. Friend to give an assurance to the House that the Fifth Sea Lord has proper technical advice. People often say to me, "It is all very fine talking. You are the Admiral who built up a very efficient technical section when in charge of the Royal Naval Air Service, but that does not now exist in the Admiralty." The position of the Fifth Lord would be strengthened if he had a really high-class technical expert to advise him. Surely, there must be some big men, who perhaps are not in the right place now and who could take charge of the technical section of the Admiralty with a few assistants. It need only be a small section. Aircraft are altering almost every day and technical questions often arise, and it would help the First Sea Lord to have a really first-class technical expert at his elbow.
  I want to touch upon another point. The question of sea time of sea officers will, I hope, be settled. It is not fair to the naval airmen who are kept in appointments for long periods by the necessity of their service to be told that they cannot get promotion because they have not got in their proper sea time. On the last Navy Estimates I raised the question of a very distinguished flag officer not having received adequate recognition, and I was going to do so to-day, but, unfortunately, he has passed on, and I need not pursue that any more, except to say that it is very regrettable that that distinguished officer did not receive proper recognition for his air work, etc., from the Admiralty. I received a letter from another naval air officer complaining that the Order in Council had been altered and that had prevented him from reaching flag rank. I asked the First Lord a Question about this, and he gave a long reply and admitted that the Order in Council had been altered. I want to tell the First Lord that the original Order in Council, of 16th July, 1914, was carefully drawn up by the present Prime Minister and myself. We went through all its clauses and did everything we could to protect the air officer.
  The reason we did this was because we could not get enough naval captains to join the Naval Air Service. They would

  1993
  not come. I remember that I tried to leave the Naval Air Service before the last war. I asked nine different officers to come and relieve me, and not one would agree to do so. Unfortunately, the war broke out, and I had to continue at the Department. These regulations were drawn up to protect the naval air officer. Service in the Royal Naval Air Service should count in all respects as service in ships of war at sea. Now the First Lord says that he cannot be promoted to flag rank because he has not had actual service in command of one of His Majesty's ships. When that Order in Council was altered, Captain Briggs was never told. I was not told. At that time I was Superintendent of Aircraft Construction at the Admiralty and I knew nothing about it until I received the letter from Captain Briggs. I and all my colleagues here represent the people of this country, and it is our duty to see that these men do not get a bad deal.
  Here is a case of an officer getting a bad deal from the Admiralty, and I ask the First Lord to refer this matter to the Law Officers of the Crown for their opinion, and also to the Sea Lords. The Sea Lords now have had great victories to their credit, largely due to the torpedo aircraft of the Fleet, but they did not sow the seed; they are reaping what other men sowed. Therefore I ask the First Lord to look into this question again, and give justice to this officer who has been deprived of flag rank.
  Mr. Gallacher: I have been very anxious to say a few words in this Debate because there is a matter to which I want to direct attention, which has not been dealt with to any extent and which I consider to be of the very first importance. I have been the more concerned, in view of the fact that it must be admitted I let down my party very badly by not being present at the battle on Thursday, but that is by the way.
  Several hon. Members have spoken about the necessity of drawing lessons from the past. I would touch on only one of these which I hope will be taken serious note of by the Members of the Government. One of the worst things that happened from the point of view of the situation with which this country has been faced during the war was the Anglo-German Naval Treaty. The right hon. Gentleman, who is now Ambassador to
  1994
  Madrid, defended that Treaty and said that it would never be used against this country or against the Empire. The outstanding feature of that Treaty was the right of Germany to build U-boats. The right hon. Gentleman told the House in effect—it is in the records—that these U-boats would never be used against this country or the Empire. Unfortunately for the people of this country and the Empire he was wrong. But fortunately for the people of this country and the Empire, the Navy and the merchant seamen were found capable of standing up to the U-boats, and the U-boat packs, and they have been able to keep the life-lines running all the time.
  The First Lord had a story to tell, brilliant in its character, massive in its achievements. It would be trite to say that the present members of the Naval Forces have maintained the tradition of the past; they have not only maintained them but have brilliantly embellished the traditions of the past. It is not a question nowadays of the Nelson touch. There are operations now, such as were never dreamed of before, and all these operations call for initiative, courage and resolution and these have been given in a manner that could not possibly be surpassed. But at what a price to the Navy; at what a price, in like measure to the Merchant Service. Time and again, in the worst days of the U-boat packs and the bombing planes, as I have travelled up and down the country, and have spoken to those lads who were going to join the convoys, I have marvelled at their courage, their unbreakable courage. I often wondered how they could face it, trip after trip. And as we think of them, we think of the mothers and the relatives at home.
  I know the mother of one of those lads who served in the convoys, such a fine, big, handsome lad. Time and again he went with the convoys and then, on one occasion, the message is sent to the mother that the lad is missing. How she waited and waited, day after day, night after night, hoping against hope that he might be picked up. Where in history, where in fiction, have there ever been suffering and endurance to equal those of many of our merchant seamen, day after day, week after week, under the harshest conditions, drifting about in the wild water of the oceans. It was a remarkable part

  1995
  of the story that the Minister had to relate about the convoys getting through to Russia, and the success which attended them, but when we think of the convoys getting through, it is not enough to think in terms of ships. We should think of the men who made it possible for the ships to get there, the men who sailed the convoys and the men who protected the convoys. Always there exists this human element, which must be remembered; it is not just a matter of tonnage.
  There is something else. In addition to the naval forces, and the merchant seamen, there are the men and women of the shipyards who have toiled and sweated day and night, who have given of their best, so that the men who sail the convoys should have the best ships, and so that these ships should have the best protection. They, also, are worthy of the highest tribute, these men and women in the shipyards.
  The point I want to make is this. You have the Navy men, you have the merchant seamen, you have the men and women in the shipyards. They are all complementary. They all fit into a pattern. They are giving service to this country, making it possible to maintain the population of this country, and to maintain the country from invasion and defeat. You cannot think of one without the other. What is the prospect for the future for these men and women in the Forces, in the Merchant Service, in the shipyard, who are serving the country at the present time? I, in common with many Members of this House, have relatives in every branch of the Services, in the Navy as well as in the others. What is the prospect for them in the future? The First Lord can say that so far as the Navy men are concerned, they will be retained in employment, there is no question about that. They will be guaranteed employment. The men who are serving in the Navy are guaranteed employment, but the men who are serving in the Merchant Navy will not be guaranteed employment. The whole position would have been hopeless without these brave men, the lads of the Merchant Navy. Are they not to be guaranteed employment in the future? The men and women in the shipyards—are they to be guaranteed employment after they have toiled and sweated to save this country? No.
  1996
  There is no guarantee for the Merchant Navy men, no guarantee for the men and women in the shipyards.
  Why is this? The First Lord could tell us if he wanted to, but he is very backward on these matters, although I can understand why that is so. The reason is that the State owns and controls the Navy and can guarantee employment to the men who are serving in it but it does not own the merchant ships and when the war is over shipowners, concerned only with profits, will heave them out by the hundreds and thousands. The First Lord must remember those bad years of depression. Maybe he sailed down the Clyde and saw the empty stocks. It was like going through a cemetery; it was ghastly and terrible. That can happen again. If the State owned and controlled the shipping of the country, it could guarantee employment for our Merchant Navy. Some of the old hard-baked Tories who are all for the Navy being in the hands of the State, shake their heads when you talk about the Merchant Service being in the hands of the State. If the shipowners are so clever at running the Merchant Navy, why not hand over the Royal Navy to them? The First Lord has responsibility for men who are in the shipyards, many of whom are Admiralty employees. So long as other yards are left in the hands of private owners, there cannot be guaranteed employment for his own people. If the Government want to do the fair thing by our merchant seamen, and by the men and women who have given so much to the saving of this country, there must be guarantees for the future. The First Lord cannot depend upon the Tories to support him in that.
  Mr. Kirkwood: Certainly not.
  Mr. Gallacher: If those Tories get the chance, they will destroy this country as they tried to destroy it in the period between the two wars. As regards pay and allowances, I agree that the discussions which are to take place should involve all three Services. It is not enough to pay high tributes to the officers and men of the Navy, however desirable and however much they deserve it. I am pleased that those tributes have been paid, but along with them I want to see proper recognition of those who are serving and proper care and consideration for their dependants at home. I object to philanthropic

  1997
  organisations existing to look after men or women who have been associated with any branch of the three Services. The Admiralty should take the necessary measures and, if necessary, fight the Treasury to see that everything possible is done to provide the highest standard for those who are serving in the Navy and to put an end to such anomalies as that referred to by the hon. and gallant Member for South Paddington (Vice-Admiral Taylor)—the anomaly in connection with officers and marriage deductions. When the Prime Minister said to-day that there would be discussions on Service pay and allowances through the usual channels, I drew attention to my lone and neglected situation and, as a result, I have hopes and expectations that when their discussions—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Charles Williams): We shall be very near to getting out of Order, if we discuss the hon. Member's loneliness.
  Mr. Gallacher: I will not labour that point. I only wanted to suggest that there was no need for me to deal fully with this matter now, because of the high hopes I have of dealing with it elsewhere with the Ministers concerned. I ask the First Lord and the Government to take these matters into account, to give the highest possible standard to the men in the Navy and see that there are the greatest care and attention for their dependants. I ask also that there should be a guarantee for the future, not only for those in the Navy but also for their companions in danger, our merchant seamen, and the men and women in our shipyards who make it possible for them to carry on.
  Mr. Guy: I think it is only fair to point out to the hon. Member that merchant seamen have a better guarantee than they had in the last war, as a result of the passing through this House of the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Measure.
  Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Perhaps the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) may derive some comfort from a reply, given to me during our discussions on the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Bill, to a question about the future of the Merchant Navy.
  Mr. Gallacher: The Bill introduced by the Minister of Labour was admitted by him to be very limited in scope and was criticised by hon. Members opposite on that ground.
  Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: At the same time the Minister of Labour gave a definite pledge about the future employment of men of the Merchant Navy, but it would be out of Order to develop that on this Debate. The First Lord has had a long day and my only excuse for detaining him a little longer is that I happen to be the first serving officer of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I rise to make three points on the subject of man-power, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred in his excellent speech in introducing the Estimates to-day, followed by one more of general application. I wish to call attention to the machinery by which officers are appointed by the Admiralty. One appreciates that with the tremendous number of junior officers now passing through H.M.S. "King Alfred" and elsewhere there is bound to be a considerable time lag in the appointments being made, owing to pressure of work in the Department. There is also a long delay, in many cases, in drafting officers of the rank of Commander R.N.R. from one appointment to another, which deprives the Service of most valuable man-power at a time when the country can least afford it. I wish to give the House one example.
  A commodore, whose name I have supplied to the First Lord, developed signs of strain last May and, after two years' continuous sea service, was given 28 days' sick leave and then allocated to three months' shore service. He was applied for by the convoy base from which he had been sailing and served there for some three months. After that time he came up for re-survey, in November, and was found unfit for further sea service, but fit for shore duties in the United Kingdom only. Immediately after that re-survey he was relieved of his appointment and removed in 48 hours. It is not for me to question that decision. It was made much higher up. It caused considerable surprise to his fellow commodores, who knew he had carried out his duties with great diligence and efficiency. It is not the decision that I would question but the sequel, which was a very curious one

  1999
  This senior officer reported to the Admiralty and was informed that they had no appointment in view and were unlikely to place him for several weeks.
  He is not the type of officer to appreciate enforced idleness so I took it upon myself to put him in touch with the Admiralty Press division, where they were in sore need of such as he to give talks in shipyards and factories employed on Admiralty contracts. He left his previous appointment on 3rd December and, owing to this quite fortuitous circumstance, was employed by the Press division during January and was eventually appointed to another base as from 1st February. Had events taken their normal course the Navy would have been without the services of this valuable officer for almost exactly two months. This is by no means an isolated case, for an officer of his rank joining the base where I served had been on leave for 11 weeks, another for eight weeks and another for seven. I quite appreciate the difficulties in the Department where appointments are made. They work at very high pressure, but I wonder whether the explanation does not lie in the slow circulation of the necessary papers. In these matters one is continually encountering a superfluity of the Nelson tradition with nothing of the Nelson touch. Could not such matters be arranged by telephone or signal, leaving routine service documents to pursue their dignified and leisurely course?
  I believe the Navy is better from this point of view than the other two Fighting Services but there is, nonetheless, plenty of room for improvement and acceleration. There is a similar point affecting ratings, though this refers to movement in bulk rather than individual cases. Some 300 ratings have changed their category three times in six months. Commencing as ordinary seamen, they have been converted into convoy signalmen, hastily trained and turned over to another specialised branch which it would probably not be in the interests of security to mention. Of course, their disciplinary signal training has not been entirely wasted, and one must realise that requirements alter with the war situation, but I feel that such changes could be much more smoothly effected if the Admiralty had more direct contact with the training establishments themselves. It came to my personal knowledge that a base only
  2000
  40 miles from London has not during the whole war been visited by representatives of the Department which controls the allocation of lower deck man-power. Cannot this be put right, as so much can be done by direct contact?
  I should like to ask the Minister if it is not possible for young officers who have come up from the lower deck and who show outstanding gifts of leadership to be put in touch with the Ministry of Labour Appointments Department with a view to placing them in post-war jobs worthy of their abilities. It would be a tonic to the whole Service if there could be a Fleet order establishing procedure by which men of this type could go through courses of post-war training for executive posts. Many, I am sure, would do well in the Civil Service and many others in the great public utility companies. It may sound premature to raise the matter now, but the Estimates will not be before us again until next year.
  I should like to end on a personal note and to make an appeal to the First Lord on another matter. It happens that the right hon. Gentleman and I have twice been engaged in election contests. Naturally the one more enjoyable to me was the one in which I was successful, and no doubt he feels the same about the one in which he won the seat back. I have never been in any doubt as to where his sympathies lie in the matter that I am going to raise. I feel that last Thursday the Army were a little unfortunate in their spokesman and that the Secretary of State for War, when he replied to the Debate on Service pay and allowances, forgot that he was the champion of the soldier and reverted to type as a Treasury official for the time being.
  I do not think there is anything of that kind about the First Lord. He will be taking part in the forthcoming discussions and I look to him to advocate what I am sure he knows to be justice in this matter of Service pay. I should like to read a sentence from a letter that I have received from a serving colleague in the Navy, who saw that I had taken part in the Division and given a vote which I should repeat in similar circumstances.
  "However, despite all our groans and grumbles, ours is still the finest country and the finest Navy in the world,"
  I believe there speaks the Fleet, but surely those words place a greater obligation still

  2001
  upon us who have their future and their remuneration in our hands.
  I was rather surprised that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Paddington (Vice-Admiral Taylor) did not raise another little matter which has caused soreness for some time past. The officer's pay is based on the fact that he normally serves afloat. When he comes to a shore appointment he receives what is known as lodging and provision allowance, to make good the difference in the cost of his living between being at sea and being ashore. If he is so indiscreet as to have his wife with him, away goes the lodging and provision allowance. It is far better for him either not to have his wife down at all, or, as I have heard it suggested by a facetious colleague, for him to go through the procedure of divorcing his wife for the war and remarrying her afterwards. In such case he would draw the provision allowance, which is of more value than the marriage allowance. This has been a bone of contention for some time and this is the time when the whole thing might be reconsidered. As soon as the marriage allowance was brought in the married officer living with his wife was no longer allowed to receive lodging allowance, which in the case of a captain meant as much as £100 per annum, and a commander £80. There is, whatever the Admiralty, or, as I suspect in this case, the Treasury, may say, no connection between lodging allowance due to an officer because no service accommodation is provided for him, and marriage allowance to which he is entitled because he is married and towards which he is contributing 2S. per day. These are two separate allowances. This is another example of the kind of cheeseparing which the Treasury seems to delight in.
  I would like to ask the First Lord plump and plain—are the Ministers who represent the Admiralty on the Front Bench satisfied that the rates of pay and allowances in the Navy, from top to bottom, are satisfactory? I make no comparison with the wages of civilians or the pay in the Dominion Services, but are they satisfied that the fighting men of the Navy are receiving adequate remuneration for the services they render? No time-saving devices such as inquiries and commissions can dodge this issue much longer. It has been raised on three or four different occasions. The Government had a tight
  2002
  Division last Thursday. I missed what I hoped to see, the familiar features of the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher). I thought he would have been with us in that little contest. However, his absence may have been unavoidable. This issue cannot be much longer delayed. The War Office gave its answer on Thursday, an answer which caused ridicule in the Army and throughout the country. I have greater hopes of the Admiralty to-day.
  Mr. Granville: I agree with most of what the hon. and gallant Gentleman has said and hope that the representatives of the Admiralty on the Front Bench will recognise that this is the voice of the Navy and that they will give sympathetic consideration to the demands for increased pay for naval ratings which he put forward in his interesting speech. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) that there is no tribute that can be too high for the work and the gallantry of the Merchant Navy in what they have done towards helping to achieve victory. I remember listening some months ago to a broadcast by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport when several members of the Merchant Navy took part. The Parliamentary Secretary made something of a pledge that the status of these men would be looked after in the post-war world. I join my hon. Friend in reminding the Government of that broadcast speech and of the other undertakings that have been made by the Government from time to time, that justice shall be done after the war to these men on whom during the war the life of the nation has depended.
  I would like to refer back to the speech of the First Lord. I have listened to all his speeches on the Naval Estimates, and I thought his speech to-day was the best he has made. I would like to join in the tributes that have been paid to him and in the high tribute which he himself paid to the work of the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy. I am glad that he devoted a considerable amount of his speech to the future operations in the Far East. I would like to ask for an assurance that sufficient attention is being given to the all important question of the development of naval air power, particularly in regard to future operations in the Far East. The First Lord said that long distances would have to be flown and

  2003
  sailed in that warfare from various bases, and suggested that even greater duties would have to be undertaken by the gallant Fleet Air Arm. If this means anything, it means that when that aspect of the war develops we shall see something in the nature of an entirely new technique requiring a new co-operation between ships and aircraft in which distances may entirely dictate strategy. I wonder if the Admiralty is sufficiently aware of the tremendous revolution that is taking place in the increased range of aircraft for naval purposes. I have not the slightest doubt that the lessons of Singapore and the present amphibious attacks in the Far East are being closely studied by the naval chiefs. We have, of course, in recent years developed the newer types of aircraft carrier. We have greatly developed the naval fighter, the Seafire, which is playing a tremendous part to-day, and will play an even greater part, in the Far East warfare. Then there is the development of the American helicopter, and I hope that this type of aircraft will be taken up by the Admiralty in a big way.
  We have had tremendous developments in the long-range naval bombers, but I would put it to the Civil Lord that the Navy may bomb Japan before they bombard it. This means that range in naval bomber aircraft will be a vital factor in the development of warfare in the Pacific. I would remind my hon. Friend that naval aircraft design takes many years to develop. Previous Debates we have had on Navy Estimates have been made the occasion of contributions from hon. Members who have served with the Fleet Air Arm and they have reminded the Government that the Fleet Air Arm has had to fly with obsolete types of machine in the past. I would ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is satisfied with the technical development that is being made under the present arrangements in the design and production of long distance naval fighters and bombers, with an eye to future operations in the Far East.
  That question brings me to the other question of co-operation. The United States of America are producing a magnificent range of bombers and fighters for their fleet. Her naval and air Departments are integrated and they work as one Department. Have we that kind of integration here now, or is it working upon some
  2004
  other basis? We have had many Debates on this matter. At the present time the Admiralty and the Air Ministry—or perhaps the Ministry of Aircraft Production—share responsibility for the production of naval types of aircraft. I would like to ask whether this arrangement, which has been going on now for several years, is proving satisfactory. Can the Minister assure us now that, irrespective of what is being done elsewhere by our Allies, after these years of development and experiment, the Fleet will have available to it the most up-to-date and efficient long-range fighters and bombers.
  I do not apologise, even at this late hour, for raising these questions, because recently we have been listening to statements by the Prime Minister about what is to happen after European war is over. I believe that the length of the war in the Far East may depend, more than anything else, upon the plans that the American naval and air Departments, and the Admiralty in this country, make about the development of the new type of naval co-operational aircraft. I hope that the Navy will not come here later on and tell us that they were too preoccupied with the European situation to begin these developments. On this all-important question of long range naval fighters and bombers, experiments ought to be made in India and the Mediterranean. In this respect it surely must 'be right that he Admiralty should now be given full charge of their sea air-power development.
  I do not wish to repeat that question again at this late stage of the Debate. All I ask is that, remembering what has happened in the past—at Singapore, in Crete and in the Mediterranean—and the occasions when representatives of the Admiralty have come down to that Box and told us that they simply had not got certain types of machine as they could not get priorities for production, the Admiralty can give us an assurance to the effect that the present arrangements with the Ministry of Aircraft Production or the Air Ministry are working satisfactorily, and that, as with the United States of America, the Navy of this country will be completely equipped with the latest aircraft types available when we have largely to extend our operations in the Far East war. Feeling, as I do, that the Admiralty should be given that control of their own sea air-power development, I hope that at least

  2005
  a special development section for the Far East will be set up, even as early or as late as this. Upon those lines I hope that the Civil Lord can tell us that though the Admiralty may be preoccupied with the European war they are making these far-reaching plans now, in conjunction with the United States of America, so that in the Pacific war we shall have these new types sufficiently developed to be able to give a good account of ourselves.
  Wing-Commander James: When my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Hertford (Sir M. Sueter) was speaking, I thought that he was going to save me the trouble—and save the time of the House—of intervening, by following through his remarks when he had expressed regret that airtime did not count as sea-time for promotion in the Navy. Rather an illuminating point was brought out in a recent answer in this House on that topic, and it carried the matter rather further. In reply to a Question on 16th February, by the hon. and gallant Member for Preston (Captain Cobb), the point emerged that not only did flying time not count as sea-time, in the promotion of naval officers—the First Lord was quite categorical in that reply—but also that officers for promotion must be qualified for naval duties and that, for this purpose, sea-time was essential. I have cut down rather a long answer in order to bring out the main point.
  In parenthesis, the First Lord went on to observe that officers were not handicapped as a result of flying duties. What he did bring out was that, quite rightly, properly and naturally, sea-time is required for the command of ships, but airtime is not required to command an aircraft. That is a very important point, and I hope that the point will be looked into. It could not possibly happen in the Royal Air Force and it could not have happened in the old R.F.C. that anybody who commands an aircraft in operation had not been qualified by experience as a pilot. Yet, in 1944, in the Navy, command of operational aircraft is exercised by naval officers who cannot fly. It is part of a tendency—naturally, and one can see the reason—to regard seniority as a virtue which is sacrosanct.
  One reason why the Royal Air Force has had the success which it has had in
  2006
  two wars is that it has not been frightened to give youth command and responsibility. It is a grievance in the Fleet Air Arm now, that aeroplanes are sent out on operations by the direct order of people who have never flown. Somebody said: "Well, after all, in the Army a general might give command to artillery who has never been a gunner," but that is not a parallel. I cannot conceive of a formation in which a general officer in command would give his orders direct to the artillery and would not do it through the C.R.A. He would not do it direct. I urge this point on the First Sea Lord. I do not expect a reply now, as I did not give notice of the question and I have given him too short a time; but I ask that the point should be looked into and if possible corrected.
  The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Captain Pilkington): The House has paid many tributes to the Navy, and it is very fitting that such messages of encouragement and good cheer should go out to all the gallant officers and men who are serving on all the seven seas. We have had many helpful suggestions and criticisms, and I should like to say what the Admiralty is doing, in regard to as many of them as is possible, or, in those cases, in which it may happen the Admiralty is doing nothing, to say why. The hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), who spoke after my right hon. Friend, urged the importance of the nation as a whole realising, and indeed making it clear to the world, that this country was 100 per cent. determined to switch over across the seas, and to carry on the war with Japan with every force at our disposal, the moment that Germany was defeated. I think that the speeches which have been made to-day and what my right hon. Friend has said have made that very clear, that we are 100 per cent. determined, after the war in the West is concluded, to switch over all our power to defeat Japan as quickly as we can. The hon. Member for Eye {Mr. Granville), who sat down a few minutes ago, particularly asked whether or not we were engaged in developing air power for that war. I can give him the assurance that experiment is going on continually to develop the best type of weapons for the war in the Far East. My hon. Friend also referred to the future of the shipbuilding industry. I can tell him that we are fully

  2007
  alive to the importance of the shipbuilding industry from the Admiralty point of view, and the position is being considered now with a view to determining what are the best methods to render the shipbuilding industry as efficient in peace time as it has shown itself in war when it has been put to the test.
  My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith) raised a number of questions, some of which were rather technical, and I do not think I can answer them all in very great detail to-day. He began by asking whether he could be told to-day what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War meant when he said that an increase in pay in the Services would cause inflation, and he asked why should that occur in the case of the Services and not so far as industrial wages are concerned. I feel that is hardly a question which the Admiralty can answer to-day, but I would suggest to him that the extent to which it was suggested in the Debate that Service wages should be raised so that they would correspond to wages in industry overlooks the fact that in the Services you do get board and keep. That I think is at any rate a partial answer to the case which he made. He also raised the question of what an officer got on promotion in order to get the necessary uniform and kit. He quoted a figure of £55 which, as he pointed out, was an increase from £40 at the beginning of the war. He said this was inadequate. It is realised that under present circumstances this allowance does not cover the whole expenditure which falls upon the shoulders of the officer concerned, and that is being looked into already.
  Then he referred at the end of his speech to what he said was the too low level of rank of some officers who are commanding ships, and I think he specifically referred to destroyers. I think I should make it clear that, although there are appointments which carry a higher rank with them, generally speaking the promotion is not higher because a man has got a job in a ship compared to another man of a similar standing who has got a job ashore. If, of course, the appointment is of a particular type which does necessitate rather higher rank, then he is given the acting rank. But we are very anxious that at the end of the war the Navy should not find itself with a
  2008
  very large number of officers of substantive rank who would then form a sort of bottleneck at the top.
  My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Paddington (Vice-Admiral Taylor) raised a number of points. He referred first of all to Coastal Command which, as he knows, is now under the operational control of the Admiralty. I think, as he would probably agree, that this is not the time to consider what will be the eventual arrangements about this Command, but his arguments will certainly be borne in mind. Turning to the Japanese war he said that Japan's heel of Achilles was 'her lines of communication. If I remember aright, the heel of Achilles was ultimately pierced by an arrow, and I can assure him that the arrows in our quiver are continually increasing in number and quality.
  His final point was the question of marriage allowance in the Service, and I must say I have great sympathy with him, because a great deal of his argument was founded upon the three questions he put down at Question Time to-day and he has perhaps not had a very long time to digest the answer which was given. I would point out again to him that it is not true to say that naval officers have had 2s. deducted from their pay in order, as it were, to pay for their marriage allowance. If he will forgive me for one moment I will complete my argument. When the pay of the three Services was put more or less in alignment just after the last war, the pay of the naval officers was slightly higher than that in the other two Services because at that time they did not get marriage allowance. When in 1938 marriage allowance was instituted for the Navy it was surely only fair that that extra sum which had been allowed in the original alignment should be deducted.
  Vice-Admiral Taylor: There is a point with regard to this marriage allowance, that is the lodging allowance, and it is of some importance. Lodging allowance was an allowance, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman knows, to make up to an officer who was not provided by the Service with service quarters, lighting and heating, and therefore when he had to provide his own lodgings he was entitled to, and did receive, lodging allowance in lieu. But when the marriage

  2009
  allowance was brought in then the lodging allowance was no longer given to a married officer living with his wife, when he was not provided with service quarters, and there is no connection whatever between lodging allowance which is given to an officer because the Service could not provide him with service quarters—
  Mr. Speaker: I must point out to the hon. and gallant Member that the Civil Lord was dealing with this point, and that the hon. and gallant Member's intervention is becoming a second speech, which is not allowed.
  Vice-Admiral Taylor: The point is that the officer not provided with official quarters, but providing his own, is entitled to receive lodging allowance, and if he is married, he is also entitled to receive marriage allowance, but he does not get both these allowances as he ought to do.
  Captain Pilkington: I did my best to answer my hon. and gallant Friend's point, and he has returned to the attack by making a slightly different point. We will look into that. I will now try to answer the point which he made in his speech, about the actual marriage allowance.
  Vice-Admiral Taylor: I would like an answer about the rise in pay. It was not brought up in the Debate on marriage allowances.
  Captain Pilkington: I have made it as clear as I can. Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will again look at the answer which has been given him, and then, if it is not clear, to his satisfaction, perhaps he will get into touch with us again, and we will look into it.
  Commander Galbraith: In the case of two officers of the same rank, one married and the other single, does the married officer, on obtaining his 4s. 6d. marriage allowance, drop 2s. below the pay of the single officer? Have I made myself clear?
  Captain Pilkington: The hon. and gallant Member has made himself clear, but I cannot answer that rather technical question offhand in Debate. But I will give him an answer. The hon. Member
  2010
  for South Poplar (Mr. Guy) raised two points. First, he referred to the necessity of having proper protection for our convoys. Everybody would be in full agreement with him there. I will recall what the First Lord said in his speech about what we were doing to attack the enemy up and down their coastline. In this respect, I think that offence is the best defence. The hon. Member also raised the question of commissions from the lower deck. My right hon. Friend gave actual figures of what had been done recently, and I think the hon. Member will probably agree that the position is a pretty healthy one. People are promoted entirely on character and ability, and in the last few years the number of people who have come up from the lower deck has been increasing.
  The right hon. Baronet the Member for South West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) complained that there was not enough publicity for the Fleet. He said that he rather agreed with that in one way, but that in war as it is to-day there should be considerably more publicity. I was rather reminded of the American saying that the English boast that they do not boast. At any rate, that matter has received a good deal of attention in the last year or so. As hon. Members know, an hon. and gallant Member of this House helps a good deal in that matter at the Admiralty. The right hon. Baronet also raised the question whether the Fleet Air Arm were now getting their fair share of planes, and that matter was also raised by the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Granville). Although, obviously, we are never satisfied, the position is far more satisfactory than it was 12 months ago, and we believe that the trend will continue that way. He also said that we ought to merge the Royal Navy and the "Wavy Navy." He said, quite properly, I thought, that we had a rather conservative attitude to this problem, but I assure him that we have no closed minds about it. I doubt though, from what knowledge I have of the subject, whether such a change would be altogether popular among the people concerned.
  One or two hon. Members, and particularly the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Gretton), raised the question of the postwar Fleet. As will be obvious, we are at present concentrating all our effort on winning the war, but we are making

  2011
  what preparations we can for the sort of post-war world which we think will emerge. A great deal of hard thought is now being given to this question of the post-war Fleet.
  My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Edinburgh (Lieut.-Commander Hutchison) said that he feared the truth of a rumour that the Naval Ordnance Inspection Department might be merged into bigger organisations of the two other Services. So far as we know, there is no such suggestion at present. Indeed, there are very weighty arguments to which he gave expression, as to why that should not be done. Those arguments would be most certainly taken into account if any such suggestion were made in future. He said that the dockyard regulations were very much out of date. He referred to the Regulations as a mysterious book, which he had not yet succeeded in seeing. I can tell him that the book is rather a voluminous one, and that, with paper as scarce as it is to-day, it is not so common as it used to be. But the need for a revision of these Regulations is realised. Amendments come out from time to time, but there will be no question of a general revision at present: that has to wait until after the war.
  Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: Will my hon. and gallant Friend look into the question, particularly, of the outlying departments and of the staffs who are moving about? That is the chief difficulty under the present Regulations.
  Captain Pilkington: Certainly we will look into that matter, and see whether the application of the rules needs revision, to secure uniformity. The hon. Member for West Willesden (Mr. Viant), whom I do not see here at the moment, raised the question of the Selection Board for commissions in the W.R.N.S., and asked whether or not certain questions were put to the W.R.N.S. at the interview. He said he had been told that the questions were: "What was your father?" "Who are your bankers?" "What was your school?" and "Who recommended you?" He said that he had received several letters rather substantiating the suggestion that these question were put. I can assure the House that at any rate the questions: "What was your father?" and "Who are your
  2012
  bankers?" are not put in that form. The first is not put at all. As my right hon. Friend has already explained, some people prefer to be paid direct, and some to be paid through a bank. If people want their pay to go into their banking accounts, you must have the name of their bankers—that is all there is to that. It is also desirable to know the schooling a person has had. I want to make quite clear—and I take the words out of the mouth of the hon. Member who made the speech—that the things which count are character, ability and personality, and any other suggestions to the contrary are completely and utterly unfounded. I read the letter which probably led to this question and, believe me, it gives a completely untrue picture of the situation.
  Mr. Guy: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman say whether there has been any change in the method of the selection of candidates since 1924?
  Captain Pilkington: I cannot speak as to 1924. All I know is that the method used to-day is to try and find people who will make good leaders, and that is quite irrespective of any other questions such as is suggested in the speech of the hon. Member. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cambridge (Lieut.-Commander Tufnell) also raised the question, to which I have already referred, as to what rank an officer should have when he is commanding a destroyer. I hope that I have made it plain that, if the position warrants a higher rank, the officer is given it in an acting capacity, but we do not want to permit too many substantive ranks in order to cause a bottleneck later on. His second point rather dealt with the future of the Navy and the role the battleship should play in the organisation of the Fleet in the future. Our aim is to have the best balanced fleet we can, and that fleet will be composed of all those different types of warship which can, in the opinion of the experts at the Admiralty, most efficiently fulfil its function.
  One or two Members raised the question of Sea Cadets, to which the Financial Secretary did not refer, because it is a matter which concerns me more, and, there again, we have given a good deal of thought to that for the future. I realise, as was pointed out in the Debate, that there probably is at present a shortage of equipment for training, and indeed

  2013
  a shortage of officers. I regret that at the present time that is probably inevitable, but it is a thing which we hope will get better as more and more equipment can be made available, and we are most keen that the organisation of the cadets shall be the best we can secure not only for war-time, but also afterwards in peace.
  My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Hertford (Sir M. Sueter) said that the air side at the Admiralty probably, in his opinion, had inadequate technical advice. I can tell him the position. Here, again, I do not pretend that we have all the people we should like or that all the people who are there have had all the experience we should like. The position is rather better perhaps than one might have gathered from what he said. The position is that the Fifth Sea Lord, who is Chief of Naval Air Equipment, is assisted by the Deputy-Chief of Naval Air Equipment, who has had a long and wide experience bath in the R.A.F. and in the Royal Navy. In addition, the Fifth Sea Lord has on his personal staff a naval officer as technical assistant and a civilian expert as statistical adviser. Expert technical advice is also available for him in the Air Material Department under his immediate supervision. Responsibility for the design, development and production of naval aircraft and air equipment rests with the Ministry of Aircraft Production. The Admiralty is represented in the Ministry by the chief naval representative, who is an ex-naval pilot and a first class commodore, and a staff of navy technical experts. I think that is a fairly satisfactory organisation.
  Sir M. Sueter: But my hon. and gallant Friend talks about pilots and commodores and so on. Of course I know they have great capabilities, but I want to ask him if it would not be right to have a real technical expert of high standing to advise the Fifth Sea Lord on these technical matters that come up from day to day. I speak from practical experience at the Admiralty in charge of the Royal Naval Air Force, where I had a very good technical man indeed at the head—he was not a commodore or a pilot, he was a technical man.
  Captain Pilkington: I would suggest that the men who are there at the moment comply with the description of what my hon. and gallant Friend called
  2014
  "an expert of high standing." I think the knowledge which is there is considerable but, as I said, I do not pretend it could not be better. We are not satisfied, but I do think that perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend does not quite give sufficient weight to the people who are there at present. I see I have not convinced him, but I would like to deal with another question he raised. He referred to the question of flying time and said that, when the change in the Regulations was made, it was not sufficiently promulgates. Well, as I think he was told in answer to a Question some time ago, the information was issued as a General Order of the Naval Service Admiralty Monthly Order Number 3105 of the 15th November, 1916—a long time ago. In spite of the fact that at the time of the officer's retirement, the officer to whom he was referring had had insufficient time in command of a ship of war at sea, which was then a necessary qualification for promotion to flag rank, there was a Committee at the Admiralty who considered his case, and others, but they did not come to the conclusion that an exception should be made.
  Sir M. Sueter: But surely—
  The Speaker: This is not the Committee stage. The hon. and gallant Member must not argue as if it were.
  Captain Pilkington: Those are the facts. Now as regards the question of flying time generally, this was also referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James) and I would like to answer these two points together. The argument was that flying time should count for promotion as much as sea time. It is surely reasonable that the officers who are general executive officers and who, at a later stage in their career, may have to command aircraft carriers and ships of war, should put in a certain minimum period of sea time. It is not a great deal, and we are anxious to have officers of high rank with large commands with both sea experience and air experience.
  My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Holderness (Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite) raised three points about which he was good enough to write to my right hon. Friend. He referred first to what he described as a time lag in drafting officers from job to jab and said it might to some extent be due to pressure of work,

  2015
  which he could understand. But he said that another reason might be too slow circulation of papers. I can assure him that there is another and deliberate reason, namely, the necessity for keeping a margin of officers for sudden appointments or for making a choice when a particular appointment comes along. My hon. and gallant Friend quoted a case which would serve no purpose to go into now, but the facts which he put forward are not entirely illustrative of the general cases which we get. His second point concerned the change of training for different bodies of men which, he said, was done too suddenly and was, in effect, a waste of time. He also said that a depot that he mentioned had not been visited by any members of the branch of the Admiralty responsible for it. He informed my right hon. Friend about this and the case was looked into. My hon. and gallant Friend made a mistake about the department which is responsible for these men. They come under another department, which has paid many visits to these people and is in almost daily telephonic communication with the depot—
  Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite: Are not the actual decisions made by the department to which I have referred and decentralised further down?
  Captain Pilkington: No, the decisions are made by another department. My hon. and gallant Friend's third point will be kept in mind. A good deal of work is being done in preparing the way for younger officers to get jobs in the postwar world.
  I have covered, cursorily, most of the points which have been raised during the Debate and as the hour is getting late I do not want to detain the House very much longer. My right hon. Friend, in his full and very vivid speech, has shown something of what the Navy has succeeded in doing so far in this war. We hope that the time is shortly coming when the final transport of our assaulting Armies will be made on to the Continent and that by that blow—the strongest which we and our Allies can possibly deliver—we shall win victory in the West. I need hardly assure the House that when that time comes the Navy will most certainly do its bit.
  Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.
  2016
  Supply accordingly considered in Committee.
  [Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS in the Chair]

  EDUCATION OF NAVAL PERSONNEL

    NUMBERS
    Resolved:
    "That such numbers of Officers, Seamen, Boys and Royal Marines and of Royal Marine Police, as His Majesty may deem necessary, be borne on the books of His Majesty's Ships and at the Royal Marine Divisions, for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1945."

    WAGES, ETC., OF OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE ROYAL NAVY AND ROYAL MARINES AND OF CERTAIN OTHER PERSONNEL SERVING WITH THE FLEET
    Resolved:
    "That a sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Wages, etc., of Officers and Men of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines and of certain other personnel serving with the Fleet, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1945."

    NAVY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1943
    Resolved:
    "That a Supplementary suns, not exceeding £10, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1944, for expenditure beyond the sum already provided in the grants for Navy Services for the year."

    SCHEDULE

    Sums not exceeding

    Supply Grants.

    Appropriations in Aid.

    Vote.

    £

    £

    1. Wages, &c., of Officers and Men of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines and of certain other personnel serving with the fleet

    10

    40,000,000

    Resolutions to be reported upon the next Sitting Day; Committee to sit again upon the next Sitting Day.

  BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION (PROGRAMMES)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. A. S. L. Young.]
  Viscount Hinchingbrooke: I regret having to detain the

  2017
  House at this late hour for what may appear to be a comparatively trivial point, but there is no alternative, since the Minister of Information has resolutely set his face against dealing at Question Time with the entertainment policy of the B.B.C. and of course it is quite right that the Minister should not be drawn, at weekly intervals, to give an opinion on the details of B.B.C. administration. On the other hand, we have to remember that £200,000 of public money goes into the coffers of the B.B.C. in that same period of seven days, and that simple fact alone imposes on Members the clear duty of raising the topic of broadcasting from time to time. My hon. Friend the Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Mr. Petherick) and others have, more than once, called attention to the desirability of regular Debates on the constitution and administrative policy of the B.B.C., and especially are such Debates desirable now when we are drawing near the time when its Charter will have to be renewed. I shall certainly join those who want to press the Government to give later in the year time for a full day's Debate on the subject. Meanwhile here is an opportunity of a more modest kind for hon. Members to put points to the Minister.
  The question I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary is whether he has taken note of the favourable public reception given to the General Forces programme, and whether he will invite the British Broadcasting Corporation to extend the period of its transmission to listeners in this country from 11 p.m. to midnight. The programme has been in operation for only a week, but, so far as I have been able to ascertain, it has had on the whole, a good reception from listeners in this country. It has certainly made a very good impression on me and those of my friends who have been able to listen to it.
  The main purpose of the General Forces programme, we are informed, is to link the thoughts of those serving overseas with those of their friends and relatives here at home. Whether it will achieve that objective, time alone will show. If I might allow myself one word of criticism of the B.B.C., it would be to say that I do not think they will gain their objective by over-publicising the reasons for their action. The Englishman, who is only too keen and enthusiastic
  2018
  to kick a football through a goal on the football field, is nevertheless very reluctant to allow the forward march of humanity of which he forms a part, to be directed through the particular pair of golden gates designated by his governors. On the contrary, if an Englishman approaches any golden gates at all, it is generally by walking backwards, blindfolded, and with his hands tied. Therefore, the B.B.C. would be wise not to make too frequent mention of their spiritual goals, lest we deliberately avoid them and go in the opposite direction.
  Furthermore, I think it is unprofitable for a private Member to air his personal views on the quality of entertainment provided on the radio, and to say there ought to be a little bit more of this and a little bit less of that. We have to remember that the General Forces programme is not a new programme. It has been gradually compiled over a period of eight months, and the B.B.C. have their own sources of information which are well established and from which they can improve, alter and amend in detail. One hopes that one of the improvements that may be made in future will be to join into the General Forces programme the new American programmes which are gradually finding their way into this country for the entertainment of the American forces. Generally speaking, our business in this House is to watch and criticise general policy and major trends. When there is a change in policy we ought to take note of it. The elimination of an old programme with some unsatisfactory features and its substitution by a young programme with healthy indications is an important change. It is, therefore, a subject for comment and endorsement in this House. I take encouragement from the fact that my hon. Friends, who would, but for the fact that the hour is advanced, be sitting on these Benches, and I, are in happy association with the B.B.C. in this matter of refreshment and invigoration. But it is to be noted with regret, that the more the Conservative Members of this House and the B.B.C. change, the more Members on that side remain the same.
  Having arrived at the conclusion that the fare provided by the B.B.C. is delectable, I naturally ask myself whether we cannot be given more of it. The General Forces programme is now going out from 6.30 in the morning to 11 at night, and if 16½ hours is no surfeit, another hour

  2019
  would not cause indigestion. My hon. Friend cannot say that the public would resent it. What evidence there is points to the opposite conclusion. He cannot say that people ought to be asleep at that hour, because it is well-known that those who do not want to sleep switch over to the Home Service programme until the hour of midnight; also because the war effort is largely sustained by night-shift workers who desire musical encouragement at those times.
  My hon. Friend also cannot say that fuel economy will be jeopardised to any very great extent, because, as we have seen, people will not switch off their wireless sets at 11 o'clock, and the fuel consumed by those sets is many times greater than the amount of fuel consumed by the General Forces Programme transmitters. Finally, the Minister of Information himself has often said that he cannot compel the B.B.C. to do anything, and least of all what they do not themselves want to do. I have no idea what the B.B.C. want to do in this matter. I am sure that they will do what is in the public interest, with such help as my right hon. Friend can give them. I hope that I have not made my hon. Friend's path more stony than he likes for an evening's constitutional, but I await with confidence what, I am sure, will be a most satisfactory reply.
  Mr. Driberg: There is one point which I should like to raise briefly, and which is strictly relevant to the issue raised by the Noble Lord. I do not expect the hon. Gentleman to give me an answer straight away, because I have not given him notice that I was going to raise it; but I should be glad if he would give us an assurance that he will look into it with the Governors and the Director-General. I am sure that many hon. Members must have listened with great pleasure to the weekly feature called "The Week in Westminster"—particularly perhaps when it is contributed by the hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George). It is an admirable feature, and very good for what the hon. and gallant Member for Ormskirk (Commander King-Hall) always describes as the public relations of Parliament. But it occurs at what is really a very bad listening time of the week. Although, generally speaking, the week-end is considered
  2020
  the peak listening time, 7.45 on Saturday evening is a time when many millions of people are enjoying their Saturday night outing, at the movies or a dance or a pub or whatever it may be.
  Now an entirely new situation has arisen, because the General Forces programme also has a weekly Parliamentary survey, admirable of its kind, but of quite a different kind from "The Week in Westminster." It is a straightforward, almost pedestrian, objective record of what has been going on in the House of Commons during the past week. It is done every week by the same speaker, Mr. Atkinson, a journalist of high repute, who does it very well indeed; but I do not think that he himself would claim for a moment that his feature had the variety, or quite the same authority perhaps, or the interestingly different personal approach, of "The Week in Westminster" as contributed by hon. Members. This General Forces survey occurs at one of the best listening times of the week, 9.30 on Sunday night, when those millions of people who have enjoyed their Saturday night outing are probably at home listening to the radio. I simply want to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he would consult with the Governors and the Director-General to see whether it would be possible to change around the times of those two features, or in some other way to remedy this slight anomaly.
  Earl Winterton: I do not want to stand between the Minister and the House, but by private arrangement with him I said that if I caught your eye, Mr. Speaker, I would speak for two minutes. I want to put a point which is often put, sometimes humorously, sometimes seriously, in connection with the Forces programme. May I say in parenthesis, without undue effusion, that my hon. Friend behind me, the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg), made most valuable suggestions, and I should like to associate myself with them. One cannot deal with this matter extensively now, but is it really necessary to continue in this new Forces programme the number of female crooners we had before? I do not wish to attempt a competition in epithets or description regarding these people. I would only say that their accent resembles no known American accent, and that the women Cockney singers who sing it remind me of the

  2021
  caterwauling of an inebriated cockatoo. I may say again, in parenthesis, that I have a little hesitation about speaking of broadcasting because, like the hon. Member, I am a fairly frequent broadcaster myself, particularly in the Overseas Service. I listen from an English broadcasting point of view to the half-hour musical programme which Germany sends out principally for its troops. I must confess it seems to me infinitely better than ours—patriotic songs, light opera, an occasional modern song, and even when the Germans attempt the form of crooning I think it is less objectionable—I have no doubt I shall get some abusive letters for this—than the Cockney attempt to imitate the worst type of American accent.
  There is a much more serious point. I cannot believe that all this wailing about lost babies can have a good effect on troops about to engage in a very serious pursuit in which their Eves will be in danger, and who are to take part in some of the biggest operations we have ever seen. I consider this matter should be studied from a scientific point of view, and that the B.B.C. and my right hon. Friend's Department should get into close touch with people in the Army responsible for dealing with the question of morale. If this is done to please the American troops, well and good, but if it is for British troops I cannot believe that the English character has altered so much in the last 24 years that it requires songs of that nature.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Information (Mr. Thurtle): My Noble Friend in introducing this matter said very truthfully that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Information had set his face resolutely against any attempt to interfere with B.B.C. programmes, and I am here to-day to say that my right hon. Friend has no intention at all of changing the direction of his face in that matter. It still is the position that he does not intend to interfere with the B.B.C. in its arrangement of programmes. This new General Forces programme was brought into operation by the B.B.C. without any consultation with us. We did not expect to be consulted and we were not, so that it has been brought in entirely on the responsibility of the B.B.C., and if it has got merits, as my Noble Friend says, we cannot claim to share the credit of its merits, and if it has defects, as the Noble Lord opposite says, we cannot be blamed for
  2022
  those defects. Regarding the particular point raised by the Noble Lord as to whether the programme could be continued from 11 o'clock until 12 o'clock, that again is entirely a matter for the B.B.C. I will make a point of seeing that all the observations made on that point are conveyed to the B.B.C., and I have no doubt that the B.B.C., which is very anxious to conform to public wishes, if it really feels there is a desire for that change to be made, will give it the most careful consideration. But it has to be looked at from a considerable number of angles; and, although my Noble Friend dismissed rather lightly the question of fuel economy, that is one aspect which will have to be taken into consideration. On the somewhat caustic comment made by the noble Lord the Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winterton), regarding the female crooners—
  Earl Winterton: The excess of crooners.
  Mr. Thurtle: He certainly commented on that crooning in somewhat caustic terms. That also is a matter for the B.B.C., and I will see that the Noble Lord's observations are brought to their attention.
  Earl Winterton: Also, those in the Army will have to judge of the effect on morale of these songs.
  Mr. Thurtle: I would not take that very seriously. I do not think that a certain amount of crooning by female—what shall I call them?—singers is likely to affect, one way or the other, the morale of the British Army. As far as the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) is concerned, I do not want to express any opinion on the merits of his suggestion, because I would be entering upon ground which my right hon. Friend wants me to avoid; but I am sure the B.B.C. will read his observations with interest, and, if they think it would be an improvement to make such a change, they will probably make it. On the question of raising in this House matters concerning the B.B.C., I think it is a little unfair to the B.B.C. to suggest that it needs publicity in this House for the Corporation to direct its attention to particular features of its programmes. It has a very well-organised system of assessing the amount of interest which the public take in particular items, and it is only fair

  2023
  to say that the Corporation is also very anxious to conform to public wishes. Therefore, I do not think it needs prodding by Parliament. However, I am a Member of Parliament myself, and it would ill become me to stand up and suggest that another Member of Parliament should not exercise the undoubted right which he has of raising a matter of this sort in the House. I think that, with that observation, I have covered the points which have, been raised in this brief discussion, and I will leave the matter there.
  Mr. Mathers: I think that this House is as important a sounding board for the opinion of people in the country as any that can be possessed by the B.B.C., and I hope that the observations
  2024
  that are made here will be given their due weight by the Governors of the B.B.C., who hear through this House what general public opinion is. Arising out of the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg), I might say that I also have listened to the new Forces broadcast of the doings in Westminster, and my opinion is that it was excellently done. It occupies only 10 minutes, and I think it is worth at least as long as the "Week in Westminster" feature, which is given normally by a Member of Parliament in 15 minutes. I hope that that particular suggestion will also be noted by the Governors of the B.B.C.
  Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.

  SPAIN (DOMESTIC FUEL SUPPLIES)
  SPAIN (DOMESTIC FUEL SUPPLIES)
  SWEDEN (A. B. FREJA IRON ORE MINE)
  SWEDEN (A. B. FREJA IRON ORE MINE)
  POPULATION (ROYAL COMMISSION)
  POPULATION (ROYAL COMMISSION)
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Alarm Clocks (Permits)
  Alarm Clocks (Permits)
  Shoes and Stockings (Nurses)
  Shoes and Stockings (Nurses)
  Pit Boots and Clogs (Repairs)
  Pit Boots and Clogs (Repairs)
  Pottery
  Pottery
  Austerity Clothing (Uniforms)
  Austerity Clothing (Uniforms)
  Art Treasures and Antiques
  Art Treasures and Antiques
  South Metropolitan Gas Company (Charges)
  South Metropolitan Gas Company (Charges)
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (REDUNDANT TEMPORARY STAFF)
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (REDUNDANT TEMPORARY STAFF)
  WAR DECORATIONS AND MEDALS
  WAR DECORATIONS AND MEDALS
BRITISH ARMY
  Explosives (Accidents to Children)
  Explosives (Accidents to Children)
  Special Leave (Agricultural Work)
  Special Leave (Agricultural Work)
  Colonial and Field Allowances (Sudan)
  Colonial and Field Allowances (Sudan)
  ARMED FORCES AND CIVILIANS (PENSIONS AND GRANTS)
  ARMED FORCES AND CIVILIANS (PENSIONS AND GRANTS)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Deaf Aid Instruments (Income Tax Allowance)
  Deaf Aid Instruments (Income Tax Allowance)
  Central and Local Government (Financial Relations)
  Central and Local Government (Financial Relations)
  RAILWAYS (RADIO SIGNALS)
  RAILWAYS (RADIO SIGNALS)
  LONDON UNIVERSITY (WOMEN MEDICAL STUDENTS)
  LONDON UNIVERSITY (WOMEN MEDICAL STUDENTS)
  OLD AGE PENSIONS (SUPPLEMENTATION)
  OLD AGE PENSIONS (SUPPLEMENTATION)
SCOTLAND
  Smallpox (Edinburgh)
  Smallpox (Edinburgh)
  Labour (Post-War Priorities)
  Labour (Post-War Priorities)
  Scottish Nurses' Salaries Committee (Report)
  Scottish Nurses' Salaries Committee (Report)
  TURKEY (BRITISH WAR MATERIALS)
  TURKEY (BRITISH WAR MATERIALS)
  REPATRIATED PRISONERS OF WAR (ARTIFICIAL LIMBS)
  REPATRIATED PRISONERS OF WAR (ARTIFICIAL LIMBS)
  ROYAL NAVY (SUBMARINE SERVICE, PAPERS)
  ROYAL NAVY (SUBMARINE SERVICE, PAPERS)
  EAST AFRICA (DOG LICENCES)
  EAST AFRICA (DOG LICENCES)
COAL INDUSTRY
  Safety Helmets and Boots
  Safety Helmets and Boots
  Supplies (Dagenham)
  Supplies (Dagenham)
  ROYAL AIR FORCE (W.A.A.F. PERSONNEL)
  ROYAL AIR FORCE (W.A.A.F. PERSONNEL)
  NORTHERN IRELAND POSTAL CENSORSHIP (ENVELOPES)
  NORTHERN IRELAND POSTAL CENSORSHIP (ENVELOPES)
  PETROL ALLOWANCES (LOCAL COUNCILLORS)
  PETROL ALLOWANCES (LOCAL COUNCILLORS)
  Motor Lawn Mowers
  Motor Lawn Mowers
  SOCIAL INSURANCE (PRISONERS)
  SOCIAL INSURANCE (PRISONERS)
  EXECUTION (C. W. KOOPMAN)
  EXECUTION (C. W. KOOPMAN)
  AIR RAIDS (UNFOUNDED RUMOURS)
  AIR RAIDS (UNFOUNDED RUMOURS)
  DEFENCE REGULATIONS (EX-18B DETAINEES)
  DEFENCE REGULATIONS (EX-18B DETAINEES)
  LICENSED HOUSES (RATIONED BEVERAGES)
  LICENSED HOUSES (RATIONED BEVERAGES)
  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Preamble
The House met, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
PUBLIC WORKS LOANS BILL.
Brought from the Commons; and read a.
NAVAL FORCES (EXTENSION OF SERVICE) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
HOUSE OF COMMONS (REBUILDING).
Message from the Commons for leave for the Lord Portal to attend to be examined as a witness before the Select Committee on House of Commons (Rebuilding). Leave given for his lordship to attend if he think fit, and a Message ordered to be sent to the Commons acquainting them therewith.
JEWISH COLONIZATION ASSOCIATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a and passed, and sent to the Commons.

PRISONERS OF WAR FROM JERSEY AND GUERNSEY.
LORD PORTSEA LORD PORTSEA had the following Notice on the Paper: To ask His Majesty's Government, whether those officers and men from Jersey and Guernsey who fought at Dunkirk and were then given leave to their homes and who were not evacuated therefrom when the islands were occupied by the Germans, and were sent to concentration camps, will be in a like condition and position and will be treated after the war, as regards rank, pay and increase thereof, as if they had not been left behind, and whether compensation of any nature will be offered; and further, to ask His Majesty's Government for their views and intentions in the matter; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the notice of Motion which stands in my name is practically explanatory. It is in a measure all that I have to say to your Lordships in the remarks I am about to make. At the same time I must, with your Lordships' permission, go back a little to the history of this matter and probably repeat what I have told your Lordships before. The House is aware that the Royal Militia of Jersey and of Guernsey were unique. The service was obligatory, universal and unpaid. On the other hand, it was a civilian force under civilian law and strong in the freedom of civilian law. Every man in the islands is a free man and his land is freehold. Your Lordships will remember that Mr. Disraeli said that "the tenure of property should be the fulfilment of duty." The title of Royal Militia—they were the only Royal Militia before 1920 in the Empire—was won by them by gallantry, by deeds of gallantry for the Crown. Monarchs' charters are not so much valued nowadays as they were then, but there were charters saying that no man of the islands should be required to serve outside his islands. "Nisi in casu ubi corpus Nostri in prisona detineatur." That sounds very grand nowadays for a little place: unless the body of the King was in the hands of his enemies; then of course the islanders took their arms, went where they were told, and fought till the King was taken out of prison.
It was a proud privilege and it was a very good system. It is a great system, an educational system, and a system teaching duty, responsibility and citizen-ship. We may come to it here yet, as we did in the old days, when every freeholder had to give forty days' service to the Crown. The whole youth of the islands volunteered in 1914; seventeen per cent. of the population went to France. Again, in 1939, about the same percentage, I think, volunteered and went to France, and fought in all those battles which culminated at Dunkirk. Your Lordships will remember that there was no garrison in Jersey or in Guernsey. There were no soldiers in Jersey and only a very few in Guernsey. It was clearly stated in the House of Commons—I am very well aware of the incident because it was in answer to a question of mine—by the Under-Secretary for War (later Lord Craigavon) that if any troops were sent to Jersey or Guernsey it would be because

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the granting of home rule to South Ireland had had the effect of closing a large number of barracks which would otherwise be at the disposal of the Government, and that there were very good barracks in the islands. Really it was a matter of convenience and in no sense were the troops sent to the islands for the purpose of defence. That was understood.
The defence of the islands was left primarily, as it had been for centuries, to the island forces. These island forces, all well trained men and good shots, had defeated many French attacks. They had withstood Cromwell himself, and it is not necessary to describe Cromwell and Admiral Blake. They had kept their island undefiled for literally more than a thousand years. It was a safeguard. For years this system of defence had displeased the War Office and the Government, and efforts had been made to do away with the "unpaid service." The unpaid civilian force was anathema to a man brought up as a "soldier" having men under military law and under severe discipline. I myself joined in the late 'seventies—unpaid. I saw the evolution, which has not benefited the islands, has not benefited the War Office and has not benefited the defence. The islanders were finally induced to give up their privilege and their security by different promises made by the Government, and to adopt a very limited obligatory ballot, to accept the Army Act (no more civil law), and to be paid—to pay themselves indeed by taking in their own washing. They were to accept Army law and do away with their final buckler and shield, a civil force under civil law. The civil court was much more gentle in many cases than a Court Martial, absolutely fair as I have found Courts Martial to be. Perhaps I am prejudiced, but I have served on them.
Thus they really became soldiers, receiving a "solde" under the Army Act. In return for their sacrifice of freedom and security they were promised arms, guns and munitions and the great rock fortress (Fort Regent), which was built by Lord Palmerston at a cost of £1,000,000, and would be even now a great fortress, a very safe and secure place, if the guns had not been all taken away. "Ultimate defence of course remained with England. We are never
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ready—I will not mention Ethelred the Unready, except to say that unreadiness seems to have permeated our history—but although we are never ready we fortunately turn up trumps in the end. The final defence was left to England This unfortunately pleased the islands' majority. Although they had read about Esau and his mess of pottage, they gave up what their fathers had held. They thought their own importance—you know, my Lords, the smaller the person the more important he thinks himself (though that does not apply to me!)—the importance of their islands, and the importance of their history permitted them "to shelter under the eagle's pinions" the sure shield of their own and their fathers' land—England.
Your Lordships know the sequel of Dunkirk. On the return from France—I read in one of the newspapers that it was not a quitting or a return but a coming home from Dunkirk—leave was given to a large number of islanders, if they wanted it and asked for it, to go home. Those who accepted the offer were taken back to Guernsey and Jersey. Almost simultaneously vast numbers of troops were retired from Cherbourg and the Cotentin peninsula and were poured—that is the word—into Jersey and Guernsey. These were carried in small boats of all sorts and descriptions. The French shore is very shallow, and once they were in the island larger ships were able to get into the island harbours and take them home. And they did take them home. All these Regular troops quitting France, as soon as they arrived in Jersey, were ordered out again immediately, taking with them—this is the terrible part—all guns, arms and ammunition, and, what was worse, hauling down the flags by Government order. The Norman flags of St. George and St. Andrew, the flag of England, all were hauled down and the troops cleared out the day before the enemy came, the day before the Germans appeared and bombed and machine-gunned the islands. They all sailed away for safety, all except those islanders who had had the courage and the patriotism to fight for Government and country in France and who had been given home leave. These brave men were promptly made prisoners of war by the Germans and sent to concentration camps in Germany.
Nearly four years ago they were sent to concentration camps in Germany and they are still there, in despair and desolate. What they must have suffered and what they must be suffering! Concentration camps, as your Lordships are aware, were invented by us and named by us in the Boer War, and the very name of them is to-day cursed by Brother Boer. These are concentration camps but they are not English concentration camps; they are German, and the standard is not quite the same. But our lads did not bargain. They offered all they had—all, life itself. Their offer was accepted, and their service was accepted and made use of. Then they were overlooked. They were left defenceless to become prisoners of war, without arms, and they went to German concentration camps. I heard some wise advice given in this House a few days ago, and I shall try to follow it—"It is no good selecting epithets about such conduct." That short phrase summarizes the whole matter. Not one single word of sympathy and comfort has been sent to these people in four years, nor has there been one generous gesture. Sympathy and praise have been lavished on many, but to our very own, as they say in Ireland, "devil a word." There was a Bishop who wrote: "Friend of the friendless, Albion, where are thou?" He did not supply the answer. Such acts on the part of any Government cannot fail to have serious and permanent repercussions. If your Lordships question that, I can refer you to 1864, a sad story. Foreigners do not understand, and very naturally, the true nature and the true spirit and courage of our race, and when such elementary and sacred obligations are broken or overlooked, foreigners are apt to draw entirely erroneous conclusions, and to express them and to act on their own interpretation of our acts.
It must be said—and I say it gladly—that the German has appreciated the strategic value of the islands. He has now heavily garrisoned them and heavily fortified them. It will require a great effort to capture them. The German recognized that the islanders were a great maritime people, with a great past history, and has treated them very well according to his own standards. That does not mean to say, however, that the islanders have not suffered and are not suffering. I will give an instance in-
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dicating why I say that. A great many people were deported from the islands and sent to concentration camps, and these people are allowed to have prisoners-of-war parcels. What did they do? They sent their parcels to Jersey and Guernsey. They knew—it was not a matter of hearsay as far as they were concerned—that the people there were starving, and they denied themselves to send parcels to their own people in the island. They are brave men; there was no quibbling with them about starvation, as there may have been with us, full-fed as we are.
The last message which I have had from Jersey came from a relative, one of the few relatives that I have left in the world, and for whom I can vouch. It is already five months old, and it says: "Trying to live on garden produce. I envy my dead son." That son, an only son, was killed in action two years ago, and his death is envied by his parent. His earthly sufferings at least are over. AH are suffering in the islands, including both the older people who wore advised to stay there by Royal Proclamation and those who went to meet: he King's enemies at the gate. All are suffering; all are forgotten! As for the treatment of both, I remember the words of wisdom which I have already quoted—"It is no good selecting epithets about such conduct." "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God."
While in these camps—in slavery, of course—their islands occupied by the enemy and their voices stifled, one of their greatest privileges, one of the greatest charters given them by their King and treasured by them, has been taken away from them. The gift of Kings has been thrown into the limbo of unappreciated sacrifice, possibly through ignorance. What a treatment for the only part of our own Motherland which still remains to us! What a treatment of people who volunteered to fight for King and Country! What an inspiration to those men of our Dominions, Dependencies and Colonies, and of our erstwhile Colony across the Atlantic to take home with them! What a picture to give the foreigner; another variation of his cliché, "Perfide Albion." What a text to enlarge upon! "Waft, waft ye winds the story, and you, ye waters, roll"—the story of those who volunteered and went

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to fight the enemy, to dig their own graves in a German camp.
I have said that the defence of these islands was left primarily to the islanders themselves, as it had been in the past for century on century. But it was one thing to leave the primary defence to the islanders, it was another thing to accept the war service in foreign lands of every young islander that could be found in the island, because none remained—they would have been ashamed. It was another thing to use them in foreign lands and then to send them home, to be immediately trapped and sent to Germany into the concentration camps. Remember they are all trained men, from thirteen to sixty-five, and all good shots—because that is where the system was successful. There was no pay, but each company had so many prizes given to it every year for the best shots, and the allocation was generous. It was another thing to leave all the older men, in a military sense, absolutely naked to the enemy.
It did not mean that the glorious Royal Navy, in which so many islanders have served and are serving on the upper deck and on the lower deck—Saumarez, Brocks, Careys, Vicks, Dumaresqs, and last and greatest of these old families, the Carterets—should be forced to bypass the islands—islands placed by nature to command the Channel. It did not mean that the R.A.F., passing nightly over the islands, should not be allowed to drop so much as a leaflet—at least we were not told that they were allowed—or to help in any way, as was done almost everywhere else. And it did not mean either that the whole people, with their defence taken from them, should be left at the mercy of the first comer—because their guns were taken away—sans flag, sans arms, saws defence. And it did not mean that the old Norman flag of St. George and St. Andrew, the flag of England, should be hauled down by Government order the day before the enemy even appeared. I wonder what we should say of any other nation that had done that. And it did not mean that these officers and men who fought in France for King and country and were given home leave were to be handed over to the foe, were to be left to spend their youth in the camps, to break their hearts, their spirits, their health and even their faith four years ago. As I say, and
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repeat, they had never a single message of comfort, a sign or a signal. And that treatment to the only remaining part of our Motherland which is still ours!
And what of those officers and men in camps, those whose lives are precious to themselves and to their islands, those whose hopes have been crushed, whose health has been ruined? Some, a very few, have been repatriated. I have not seen their chief, who is a man already of a certain age. All those poor people whose faith must be unbalanced, what can we offer them in token of appreciation of their sacrifices, the long-continued sacrifice—the drip, drip, drip of the water? What can we offer by way of reparation to those who did not surrender? Remember, they did not surrender, but they were surrendered. Shade of Kitchener of Khartoum and his opinion of those who surrendered!—not of those who were surrendered in a body, young, healthy, fighting men. We hear of the Four Freedoms. Very useful they are; there are also the four R's—Remembrance and Regret, Repentance and Remorse. What can we offer? I have tried hard to bring before your Lordships—very inadequately and imperfectly, I know, but it would take an orator to do justice to the theme—the long-drawn agony of service disdained, the anguish of sacrifice unheeded, not valued, and perhaps even unknown, the terrible days of life in those camps, and the feelings of one's fellow countrymen. I have made every effort of which I am capable, old and worn-out as I am, every effort of body and of soul, to bring it before your Lordships. There was a great Scot who was well known to every man in this House who wrote, "Who does his utmost best may whiles do mair." I have done my utmost best. I pray God that more may come of it even now. I beg to move for Papers.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD CROFT): My Lords, I am sure your Lordships will appreciate the emotion which my noble friend has displayed on this subject, which is so very near to his heart. No one can possibly say that the noble Lord has not been a worthy exponent of what he considers to be the case of the Channel Islanders, or that he has failed to put his views effectively before your Lordships' House. I must tell my noble friend, however, that I rather regret that when I heard his

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speech I found it had nothing whatever to do with the terms of the Motion which he has placed on the Order Paper. Had he been able to tell me that he was going to give your Lordships such an interesting story of the earlier history of the islands at the commencement of his remarks, and had he given me notice that he was going to raise one or two other points later, I would naturally have endeavoured to ascertain what the facts are as far as our knowledge goes. But he gave me no such information, so I hope he will not think me discourteous if I do not follow him in the observations he has made.
I can assure him, however, that there is no need to educate the British public on the subject of the gallantry and patriotism of the Channel Islanders. That has been known through all the many long years of partnership, and it is recognized everywhere. We value the service of those Channel Islanders who are fighting in the Army and in the Royal Navy to-day as our brothers in arms, and I can assure the noble Lord, if he needs such an assurance, that we do feel that it is greatly to our advantage to have that comradeship and association in arms. It was a little bit unfair of the noble Lord to suggest that there was no sympathy in your Lordships' House for these people. I suppose nothing has hurt us more in the course of this war, probably, than the awful sudden change in the strategic situation which rendered it essential for us to evacuate from the Channel Islands. Although the noble Lord is perfectly entitled to hold the view that his gallant fellow-countrymen in the Channel Islands—good marksmen as we know them to be—could have put up a fight, as we know they would have done, it would have been a very grave responsibility, once the whole of that French coastline had gone, for His Majesty's Government to take any other decision than the one they did take. I have sympathy with my noble friend, but those who have made a study of similar situations in the world will agree that, under modern conditions of warfare, no other decision than that which His Majesty's Government took could have been justified. I frankly confess that it was a deep hurt and sorrow to me when the decision was taken, but subsequent events have convinced me that the decision was a wise one. Is this a time to recriminate? Is it not a time for us to make up our minds that in this great
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act of liberation we are going to do our utmost to see that the people of the Channel Islands are set free along with all the persecuted people of Europe and given that liberty which we are all longing to restore to them?
With regard to the Motion on the Paper, my reply to the noble Lord is very brief and very simple. I am glad to say that I can, I think, give him absolute satisfaction with regard to the points he has raised. When the Germans captured the Channel Islands there were a number of officers and men in the islands spending a well-earned leave at their homes after the ordeals they had sustained in resisting the German onslaught before the evacuation from Dunkirk. A serving soldier remains a serving soldier when he is on leave. If he is captured by the enemy he becomes a prisoner of war and he continues to be regarded as a prisoner of war so long as his status in the Army is not changed by any act of his. These officers and men from the Channel Islands have been treated and will continue to be treated in every respect in the same way as any other British prisoner of war and in the same way as they themselves would have been treated had they been captured while serving on the field of battle.
In the case of an officer this means that pay continues to be credited monthly to his account subject to deductions in respect of Income Tax and of the amounts paid to him by the enemy Government. The fact that an officer is a prisoner of war does not affect his entitlement to continue to draw the appropriate allowance in respect of his family, where this is already in issue and where the normal conditions of issue continue to be satisfied. Similarly in the case of any other rank, pay, including increments in certain circumstances, continues to be credited monthly to the prisoner of war's account. Allotments of pay continue to be issued as they were before capture and family allowance or dependant's allowance already in issue is continued subject to the normal rules.
I hope I have been able to satisfy the noble Lord that the serving men whose cause he has championed are in fact being treated by us as prisoners of war under the normal rules and that any suggestion that they are being singled out for discriminative treatment is entirely without

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foundation. I should like to add just one word with regard to the point he mentioned as to islanders interned or, as he put it, in concentration camps. We are aware of some half-dozen cases where the men concerned, at their own request have been transferred by the Germans to a civilian internment camp. Such men, who clearly regard themselves as civilians, are not treated by us as prisoners of war. These cases cannot be settled until after the war and all the circumstances have been examined. I can assure my noble friend that if he has any individual case in mind, which he will refer to me, I shall take every care to see that it is examined. My noble friend can rest assured from what I have said that this matter is amply dealt with and that these men who unhappily were unable to be evacuated from the Channel Islands along with the other troops are, in fact, treated as serving soldiers in exactly the same way as other serving soldiers in the Army.
LORD PORTSEA: My Lords, I thank my noble friend very sincerely for his generous answer. It is what I should have expected from him if he had had a free hand. I notice that no distinction is drawn between those who surrendered and those who were surrendered. It seems to me there is a very great difference. A short perusal of some of Lord Kitchener's remarks on prisoners would emphasize what I say. The late Commander-in-Chief, Lord Wolseley, said that we had, as we knew, the finest troops in the world, but there were in every regiment only about 1oo men who were brave—"what I call brave." "If they are killed," Lord Wolseley said, "I do not want the regiment. The remaining few hundreds would surrender." There is a difference between a regiment surrendering and being surrendered. Those who dabble in history, as I do a little, remember a certain regiment in New Zealand. They were called the "Scarlet Runners." The officers stayed on the field and were killed to a man. The others did not stay. They did not surrender, they were not surrendered,
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they took a middle path. I draw a very strong distinction between men who surrender and men who are surrendered by higher authority—particularly by a Government.
As to the strategic strength of the islands, I can only go back to history and say that, powerful enemies as the French were—always double the number of this country—they never succeeded in taking and holding the islands. Guernsey is thirty miles away, if an inch, from the French coast, and Dover is not more than twenty. Notwithstanding their guns they never to6k Dover. It was more than a week before the little island of Wake, which is only three-quarters of a mile across, succumbed, and it has put up with five attacks since and has not yet been beaten. The same is the case in regard to the atolls and islands like Pan-tellaria and others round Sicily. Perhaps "complain" is too strong a word to use, but I do complain that no word of sympathy has reached them. I do not mean from this House, because I am quite sure if it had rested with this House words of sympathy would have reached them as such words have reached almost every other possession of the Crown. But no words from the proper quarter have reached the islands. I can only repeat that I am much obliged to my noble friend for what he has said, especially with regard to myself, which I do not in the least deserve, but if he could give us a ray of hope as to what is to happen to those men who are in camps which we named ourselves concentration camps, then I should be very grateful. My noble friend is too young to remember the times when we started concentration camps. In those days we did not call them internment camps, any more than we called certain places infirmaries instead of workhouses. We called them concentration camps and treated them accordingly, and the Boer loathes the name to this day. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned.